children’s return. They burst into his office, bringing the chill with them. Both children sported brand-new jackets, Noah’s navy-blue, Katie’s a hot-pink bright enough to blind half the state.
“Look what Ivy buyed me, Dr. Ryan!” Noah beamed at him, apparently momentarily forgetting his apprehension. “It gots like a hunnerd pockets an’ everything!” Seated at his desk, Ryan removed his glasses to peer at the kid, who was gleefully slurping down what was left of a chocolate ice-cream cone. Dots of color stained his pale cheeks over an ice-cream stuccoed chin, while bits of yellow leaves clung to his dark curls. Then Ryan’s gaze shifted to Katie, who, clinging to Ivy’s hand, gave him a shy, chocolate-coated smile in return. She looked down at her coat, then back up at him, her smile broadening.
“I look pretty,” she said, her voice weightless as goose down.
“You sure do, sweetheart,” he said, ignoring the dull ache curled up inside his chest like a dog settling in for the night. Then he waved Noah over, grabbing a tissue to wipe off the sticky little face. When he gently took the child by the arm, however, the boy flinched, the fire going right out of his eyes.
“It’s okay, grasshopper…I just want to clean you up a bit. I won’t hurt you.”
After a moment, Noah nodded, although he still made a helluva face when Ryan tried to undo some of the damage. “Where on earth you take these kids, Ivy?”
She hadn’t bothered unfurling herself from that poncho thing she wore, so he guessed she wasn’t planning on staying. “Verna Madison’s youngest gal’s about to have her third baby, they’ve got four-week-old lab pups. You seen them yet? Five of ’em, gold as sunshine. And full of the devil.”
“C’n I go show Mama my coat?” Noah asked between licks, completely undoing Ryan’s cleanup job.
“Your mama and sister are taking a nap,” he said, wondering how Maddie was going to react to Ivy’s purchases. “Which they both need.” At the child’s crestfallen expression, he added, “You know, I’ve got about a million blocks out in the waiting room. Why don’t you go build something to show your mama later?”
When the children had gone, Ryan stretched back in the desk chair, making it squawk. Hard to believe those were the same frightened children who’d shown up on his doorstep barely twelve hours ago. A knot formed in his chest at the thought of any child’s having to feel that kind of anxiety.
He could only imagine how Maddie must feel.
He glanced up at the midwife, whose face indicated she was thinking much the same thing. She caught his stare, blushed. “I didn’t figure it would hurt them to have a treat. And the coats were half off. Last year’s stock or something.”
Shaking his head, Ryan leaned forward again to gather up the charts strewn across the blotter. “Looks to me as though somebody wants to be a grandma real bad.”
Ivy let out a sigh. Her daughter Dawn, whom Ivy had raised on her own, had left Haven before the ink was dry on her high school diploma, going off to college, then law school. Now an attorney at some high-falutin’ firm in New York City, Ivy’s only child seemed determined not only to never set foot in Haven again, but to never give her mother any grandbabies, either. “Guess I’ve just about given up on that score. Not that I’m not proud of my daughter, but I swear I’m gonna wring her skinny little neck if she tells me one more blessed time her career’s far more challenging, reliable and stimulating than raising a kid could be.”
Yeah, that sounded like Dawn, who was the same age as his brother Cal. In fact, there was a time there when Ryan had thought Cal might have been a little sweet on Ivy’s daughter, but that was a long time ago….
“Now, where on earth did you drift off to?” he heard Ivy ask, and he lifted his gaze to catch the amused curiosity in hers.
“Oh, nothing,” he said, standing to pull a chart out of the file. “Just thinking about…stuff.”
“Uh-huh. Like what to do with your houseguests?”
He slammed the file cabinet shut. “Hadn’t gotten that far yet.” He peered over at her, standing there with her arms tucked up under that poncho. “Although something tells me you have.”
“Knowing you, you’d put the kids in sleeping bags in the downstairs bedroom with Maddie and the baby.”
He frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”
Ivy huffed. She was nearly as good at huffing as she was at clucking. “You know, sometimes I wonder how on earth you were smart enough to get that scholarship to med school. How’re you gonna keep an eye on mama and her baby if she’s down here and you’re asleep upstairs? Besides, those two youngsters need their own space, and you’ve got those two connecting bedrooms upstairs that would be just perfect—”
“For crying out loud, Ivy—take a breath, wouldja?” Hands on hips, Ryan simply stared at her, frozen, as something damn close to fear knifed through him, as surprising in its sudden appearance as it was in its intensity. Especially as he had no idea what he could possibly be afraid of. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t had any company for a while. Like forever. No reason the prospect should make him feel uneasy. And yet everything inside him whispered, “Watch out, buster.”
“I’ll go on ahead and change the beds,” Ivy said, now shedding the poncho and heading out the door and, presumably, the back stairs, “if you tell me where the clean linens are.” She vanished, reappeared. “You do have clean linens, don’t you?”
“In the closet at the end of the hall. Shoot, Ivy, I’m not a throwback.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
He no sooner got out a sigh when he felt somebody looking at him. He turned, still frowning hard enough to make Katie Grace frown back.
“You mad at us?” she asked.
Well, that just turned him to mush. He scooped the little girl up onto his hip, just like he did with every other three-year-old who came to his office. Difference was, this one wasn’t going home in a few minutes. “No, sweetheart. I’m not mad at you.”
Calm, blue-gray eyes linked with his for a second before a pair of tiny arms looped around his neck.
Oh, Lord. He was in trouble now.
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