small town, a couple of transplanted Yankees, a stuck elevator, a cute baby…and, well, you can read for yourself! I hope you have as much fun reading this story as I did creating it.
Enjoy!
Cheryl Anne Porter
Books by Cheryl Anne Porter
HARLEQUIN DUETS
12—PUPPY LOVE
21—DRIVE-BY DADDY
35—SITTING PRETTY
HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION
818—HER ONLY CHANCE
To my sweet baby girl, MacKenzie.
Love you, “Macaroon.”
And to all my relatives in Georgia
(about half the state at last count),
but most especially to my cousin Joyce Colbaugh
for her unflagging efforts to promote my books
in her neck of the woods!
1
IT WAS JANUARY 2. A gray and sleety New York City day, full of traffic gridlock, honking car horns, and short tempers. A day of overworked people in a hurry to get home. What a time for Cinda Cavanaugh to be waiting for the cranky elevator outside her obstetrician’s office. She’d just been given the news that she was about to become a mother—soon. Not that she didn’t know that. She was, after all, more or less nine months pregnant, the key words being “more or less.”
It turned out it was going to be “more.” Her routine appointment had suddenly become anything but. In her mind, Cinda could still hear Dr. Butler confirming that Cinda, after many false alarms, was now truly in the early stages of real labor. Only the baby was still in a breach position. So the doctor had promptly sent Cinda on her way to the hospital, promising to follow her as soon as she rearranged her other appointments.
“Ha,” Cinda muttered, standing there alone in the long hallway, “I should have taken a rolled-up magazine to those other women and chased them away myself.”
Though Cinda felt a little bad about her self-centered, mean-spirited thoughts, she reminded herself that she wasn’t always this testy. It was just today. She’d heard that women in labor had a different set of rules. She squeezed her eyes shut and put a hand to her forehead. “So, what made me think I could do this alone?” She opened her eyes, grimacing. “Better yet, what made Dr. Butler think I really needed to be enlightened as to what actually goes on during a Caesarean-section delivery? God, just do it. Don’t tell me about it. Ick.”
Cinda caressed her swollen abdomen, now directing her conversation to the perfectly formed little girl whose image she’d just seen on the ultrasound screen. You know what, my little princess? You could really help out. Go ahead—turn. Don’t give your mother such a hard time. Mother? Cinda thought about that. “Oh, God, I’m the mother.”
She pushed the down button again and suddenly caught her own reflection staring back at her from the polished-metal elevator doors. “Oh, surely not.” But, yes, that carnival fun-house reflection was indeed her own. “Are you telling me that I left the house looking like this?”
Obviously she had, because polished metal didn’t lie. What she saw was a pale-blond head with angst-widened golden eyes above a swollen body covered by a black-wool winter coat, cream-colored slacks, and black boots. Well, great. I look like a sheep ready for shearing. Cinda pursed her lips, transferring her disgust to the elevator. “Come on, what’s the problem here? As you can plainly see, I need to get to the hospital. Preferably today.”
She pushed the down button firmly again. And then ten more times after that before she caught herself. Get a grip, Cinda. She put her fingers to her temples and pressed lightly. “I can do this. I have to do this. The nursery’s ready. I’m ready. My baby is apparently ready.” Cinda put a hand to her swollen belly. “We can do this, baby girl.”
Just then, an irritatingly pleasant ding alerted Cinda that the contrary elevator car had deigned to arrive. She exhaled her relief. “Oh, thank God.”
The doors opened without incident, presenting an empty elevator car. Swallowing back a sudden and uncustomary sense of impending doom, Cinda stepped inside and forced herself to push the button for the lobby. Anticipating the closing of the doors and the pull of gravity on her ride downward, she anchored herself by hanging on to the handrail that girded three sides of the rickety car. Not the least bit reassured, she studied her boxlike surroundings. Had this elevator really been this old and wobbly when she’d used it just an hour ago?
The doors closed. “Oh, calm down. You’re getting yourself all worked up,” she fussed, breathing in and out, in and out, as she watched the little lights blaze on and then off, indicating the incredibly slow, passage of each floor going by. Fourteen. No thirteen. Twelve. Eleven.
“There. See? It’s working fine. You’re just being silly.” Cinda spoke to herself as if she were her own best friend who needed reassuring. “That whole ‘woman in labor stuck inside an elevator’ thing is just some silly Hollywood scenario. Or maybe a book. You’d think writers would have more of an imagination these days.”
The elevator jerked to a stop. Cinda’s heart nearly burst, but the dinging bell alerted her that all was well. Her hands shaking, she clutched at the opening of her woolly black coat as if it could ward off disaster. This is not a bad thing. It’s just somebody on the tenth floor waiting to be picked up. No problem.
Confirming her conclusion, the doors opened to reveal a prospective passenger…who just happened to be an outrageously and ruggedly handsome man. Cinda’s eyes widened with heart-stopping appreciation. Oh…my…God.
The man saw her and stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened. Clearly, he was just as affected by the sight of her as she was by him. No doubt, for differing reasons. After all, here she was nine months pregnant, and there he was…well, there he was. He belonged on a billboard where he’d be engaged in something really macho that required him to show a bunch of muscles—and not wear a lot of clothes, if there was an advertising god.
Those blue eyes and that sandy-brown hair. The broad and capable shoulders. Movie-star looks. Not the pretty-boy kind. The serious romantic-lead kind. The chiseled jaw. And the raised eyebrows, the look of, yes, dismay as he eyed her. Cinda didn’t blame him a bit. After all, her size rivaled that of a balloon float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Thinking to put the gorgeous guy at ease, she offered him a tentative smile.
He grinned back but shook his head. “No thank you, ma’am, I’ve seen this movie, and it ends badly.” His accent dripped with knee-weakening, molasses-thick Southern charm. “I’ll just wait for the next car.” He stepped back and waved. “Y’all have a nice day.”
She could not let him go. That was all she knew. Cinda held down the door open button. “Wait. You might as well get in. Trust me, a teenager could qualify for Medicare before it comes back to this floor again.”
He eyed her, the elevator, and then the hallway to either side of him. Cinda waited with the proverbial bated breath. She tried to tell herself that she just didn’t want to be alone in the elevator, should it do something heinous
