Daddy By Accident. Paula Riggs Detmer

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СКАЧАТЬ be calling,” she said after he’d identified himself.

      “The hell you did.” Boyd glowered at his reflection in the window over the sink. He was already regretting the impulse to call.

      “In answer to your question—”

      “What question? All I did was say hello.”

      “She’s resting comfortably.”

      Boyd heard the teasing note in Prudy’s tired voice and felt his patience thinning. “Are you going to tell me what I want to know or am I going to be banging on your door at five a.m. for the next week?”

      Prudy groaned. “You sure know how to bargain from strength, you rat.”

      “A man’s got to do—”

      “Okay, okay.” He heard laughter in her tone and felt the tension clawing his spine ease off a notch. “She’s concussed, which you already know, has a severe sprain of the left ankle and an impressive collection of bruises.”

      Boyd cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “And the baby?”

      “So far so good, although Mrs. Patterson’s been spotting. Jarrod has her on a fetal monitor and an IV drip, mag sulfate. The fetal heartbeat is strong and steady.”

      Boyd acknowledged that with a grunt. It was exactly what he would have done. “What’s Jarrod’s prognosis?”

      “Guardedly optimistic.”

      He lifted a hand to the back of his neck and methodically kneaded the tension-twisted museles. “Do me a favor and read me Jarrod’s notes, okay?”

      “You know I can’t do that,” Prudy exclaimed softly through the wire.

      “Why the hell not?”

      “Come on, Boyd. You know the rules about a patient’s right to privacy as well as I do. You’re not a relative and you’re not on staff, so therefore—”

      “Screw the rules. Tell me.”

      “No.”

      He felt his face growing hot. “Since when did you become so righteous, Ms. Holier-Than-Thou?” As soon as the words left his mouth he wanted to call them back.

      The silence at the other end was more damning than a curse, and he drew a long breath in an attempt to level the sudden spike of anger that had had him speaking before he thought. Prudy was the last person he wanted to hurt. As friends go, she was the best. After the accident, she’d taken care of him like a persistent little mother hen, there for him when he’d needed someone. He’d been close to losing it then, closer than he wanted to recall. He’d battled back to a semblance of normality by burying his memories along with his ability to care too deeply for anything or anyone.

      “I’m sorry, that was out of line,” he said when the silence grew longer than he could handle.

      “She really got to you, didn’t she?” Prudy questioned quietly.

      “Yeah, I guess she did.” More than he wanted to accept.

      “Boyd—”

      He heard the sympathy in Prudy’s voice and ruthlessly cut her off. He could handle the past as long as it remained buried. “Give her my best, okay?” He hung up before Prudy could say more.

      

      Stacy woke to the echo of a scream. Her own, she realized with a pounding heart and drenched skin. She felt queasy and heavy, and her ankle throbbed. Disoriented, she turned toward a glimmer of light to her left, then wished she hadn’t as the dull pain in her head took on star-burst edges.

      The room’s bare white walls were shadowed. The narrow bed came equipped with side rails and was slab hard The pillow beneath her aching head was only marginally softer. Still, she was thankful that she and the baby were alive and in good hands.

      In the hospital, she recalled with relief. And for the moment, safe. The image of Len sprawled on the hood flashed into her mind again, and she shuddered. The baby was what mattered, all that mattered.

      Babies are surprisingly resilient, especially in utero.

      She drew a breath, thinking about the man who’d spoken those words earlier. Sweet, calming, positive words from a man with sawdust in his hair and calluses on his hands. A man accustomed to taking charge, she realized now. A quiet sort of guy with smoky eyes and a raspy voice. A powerful male with raw edges, a hard, arrogant mouth with surprisingly sensitive corners, and a don’t-tread-on-me air riding those burly carpenter’s shoulders. There wasn’t a reason in the world why she should feel as though she’d known him—and trusted him—for a very long time, but she did.

      Sleepy now, she let her mind linger on the image of an off-center smile and kind eyes in a deeply tanned face. Fathomless, intelligent eyes with whispers of pain still lingering m devil-dark pupils, framed by laugh lines suggesting a sense of humor.

      His mouth, too, had given a hint of that same humor, a faint upward tilt at the corners of those aggressively masculine lips. More pronounced was the threat of an intensely male sensuality, the kind that had her fantasizing about lazy rain-washed afternoons spent in a man’s arms in front of a warming, pine-scented fire And when he’d smiled—once—she’d felt oddly cherished, as though he’d brushed those hard lips over hers.

      Drowsy now, she brought her fingers to her lips and felt them curve into a languid smile. Ships in the night, she thought. Destined for different ports. She doubted she would see him again, but for the rest of her life she would always have a special place in her heart for a very special, rough, tough-as-nails Good Samaritan. She was still thinking about him when she drifted off.

      

      “Oatmeal is wonderful I truly, absolutely love oatmeal. Oatmeal is my friend.”

      Stacy sighed and looped another circle in the lumpy stuff beneath her spoon. She was hungry, the baby was awake and hammering on her insides with tiny fists as though she, too, were eager for breakfast, and yet, Stacy couldn’t seem to work up the courage to swallow that first mouthful.

      “It’s just that it tastes like used wallpaper paste,” she muttered to the empty glass that had held eight ounces of milk only a few minutes earlier. That, at least, she’d learned to stomach during the first few weeks after she’d found out about the baby. But oatmeal?

      “Definitely a challenge.”

      Using her free hand, she raised the head of the bed a few inches more by pressing the button on the railing, then ran her tongue over her lips. Okay, this is for the baby, she thought as she grimly scooped up a tiny spoonful. She had it halfway to her mouth before she realized she had an audience.

      Her Good Samaritan was standing just inside the door, a ragged bouquet of pink blossoms in his hands and a crooked smile on his deeply tanned face. Gone was the day’s growth of beard that had given his face an outlaw appeal. His hair, now shiny clean and neatly brushed, was an intriguing mix of gold and platinum and silver blended into a unique color she could only call dusty blond.

      Unlike yesterday, he was fully clothed in a chest-hugging T-shirt of faded blue, sporting the logo СКАЧАТЬ