Hannah's Baby. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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СКАЧАТЬ considered him thoughtfully. “Which means you go back to the countries you’ve already detailed?”

      Wishing the two of them were like-minded enough to date, Joe nodded. “Right. I add new places, take out others that have either declined or closed their doors.” Desire welled inside him. He shunted it aside deliberately.

      Compassion lit Hannah’s dark-brown eyes. “It must be exciting.”

      And lonely, he thought. Especially on nights like this, when he was in an incredible city and had no one special to share it with. He turned the attention back to her once again. “You traveled a lot in your previous job, didn’t you?”

      Hannah shifted the baby to her shoulder. “Every week I went somewhere to meet with a customer and help them revise or completely retool the marketing plan for their business.”

      “Did you like it?”

      Hannah patted Isabella gently on the back. “I liked the challenge of figuring out how to make something better.” She scowled, admitting, “I hated living out of a suitcase in so-so hotel rooms, always getting in late—or having to leave very early—driving rental cars in unfamiliar cities….”

      Joe grinned. “I’m getting the sense you didn’t enjoy the traveling part,” he teased.

      “You sense right. Although,” she added pensively, “maybe it would have been different if five-star accommodations and chauffeured limos had been part of my expense account.” She sneaked a peek at the infant curled up on her shoulder. “I think she’s finally asleep.”

      “Want to try and put her down?”

      Hannah nodded.

      Joe took the empty baby bottle from her hand, being careful not to touch her in the process. She rose slowly, Isabella still in her arms, glided ever so carefully over to the port-a-crib in the corner, and gingerly eased Isabella down on her back.

      To their mutual relief, Isabella slept on.

      The picture of maternal tenderness, Hannah took the pink cotton baby quilt with the satin trim and tucked it around her new daughter. Next to her child, she secured the rubber ducky and an infant-size teddy bear, so both would be within reach when Isabella did wake up.

      Hannah stepped back, still looking down at her daughter. Joe was so busy admiring her skill as a mother, he didn’t get out of her way fast enough. Their bodies brushed. She tilted her face up to his. Their glances met, and it was all Joe could do to keep from taking her into his arms, lowering his mouth to hers. The rational side of him knew, however, that kissing her now would be out of line. The last thing he wanted to do was take advantage of her, or the situation.

      Pushing his own desire aside once again, Joe cleared his throat, stepped back. He wished the situation were different, he were different. Because if he were a stay-in-one-place kind of guy he wouldn’t hesitate to make a move on Hannah, to see if this simmering attraction he’d been feeling led anywhere. But he wasn’t in the market for a wife and kid. And she wasn’t the kind of woman looking to have a fleeting affair. It was best, then, that they stayed friends. And only friends. “Guess we better hit the sack while we can,” he stated affably.

      Hannah’s dreamy expression faded. In complete control of her emotions once again, she nodded. “No telling how long she’ll sleep.”

      Joe walked over to the bureau where he had stowed his things. On top was his BlackBerry. Before he attached it to the charger, he checked the screen, saw the text message. He exhaled, resigned, and turned back to her. “I have to make a call. I’ll go downstairs.”

      “You can do that here,” she offered.

      Joe dreaded the upcoming conversation. This was not a part of his life he wished to share, even inadvertently. “I don’t want to chance waking Isabella up.” He pocketed his hotel room key card and warned without inflection, “I may be a while. So don’t feel you have to wait up.”

      Chapter Three

      Hannah got ready for bed and climbed beneath the covers. She should have been exhausted since it had been such an eventful day. What kept her awake was the look on Joe’s face when he checked his BlackBerry…the way he’d had to leave the room to make a phone call.

      She understood he might want his privacy.

      Furthermore, she knew she had no right to be curious about what was going on in his life tonight.

      And yet…she was.

      Did he have a woman in his life?

      He hadn’t mentioned one.

      No one had seen him with a female friend in the four months he had been renting a cabin outside of Summit. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t romantically involved.

      She had just assumed, by the quick way he had accepted her invitation to accompany her to Taiwan, that he was single and as unencumbered emotionally as she was.

      Although she did not know why this should suddenly matter to her. The two of them were not hooking up. He was moving on shortly after they returned to Texas.

      And yet the way he had stopped dead in his tracks when he had read the message, not to mention the byplay of emotion across his face, made her sure he was dealing with something very personal.

      As she drifted off to sleep, Hannah was still wondering what could have caused him to react like that.

      The next thing she knew, she was waking to the hysterical shriek of the baby in the crib beside her bed. She bolted upright, as Isabella screamed in terror. Hannah flung back the covers. In the opposite bed, Joe did the same. Hannah picked up Isabella, soothing her with words and touch. To no avail. Isabella looked at Hannah as if she had never seen her before in her life. Tears streaming from her dark eyes, she screamed and kicked and flailed. Joe turned on a light.

      He came toward them, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What is it?”

      “I don’t know.” Hannah walked Isabella back and forth. She gently rubbed her daughter’s back, soothing her all the while. “I think it might be a night terror.” She had read about the sleep disturbance in infants. “She looks like she’s awake…”

      “But she’s really still in the midst of a nightmare.” Joe spoke to be heard above the crying.

      Hannah nodded.

      He began speaking Mandarin Chinese. Hannah had no idea what he was saying, but the sound of his low, masculine voice soothed Isabella—and Hannah—in a way her English words could not.

      As Hannah continued to sway the baby back and forth, Joe kept murmuring to her child. Slowly, the wailing diminished, and the tears stopped flowing. Before long, Isabella’s eyes slowly shut again.

      Her own body relaxing in relief, Hannah held her baby close, rocking her gently back and forth, letting the rise and fall of her own chest synch with Isabella’s. Until finally, her little girl was limp in her arms once again. Hannah carefully eased Isabella back into the port-a-crib and covered her with a blanket.

      Trembling with delayed reaction to the tumultuous event, Hannah sat down on the side of the bed.

      Her СКАЧАТЬ