Daddy By Accident. Paula Riggs Detmer

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СКАЧАТЬ PortGen’s breakfast special,” he said, widening his smile into a truly dazzling but all-too-brief grin bracketed by engaging creases.

      When she realized she was drinking in the sight of him like a parched desert nomad in sight of a spring, she quickly lowered her gaze to the spoon and shuddered. “I can’t believe there are actually people who order this stuff on purpose.”

      She heard him chuckle and glanced his way again. Their gazes met, and she found herself holding her breath. More alert now, she decided that his irises weren’t merely gray, but intensely so, the color of sooty topaz shot through with silver.

      It had been forever since she’d felt such an instant attraction to a man, and she’d learned since not to trust any feeling that flashed so hot and fast. Still, she couldn’t prevent her heart from skipping and her lips from curving as she feigned indignation.

      “I’m starving to death, and the man is laughing,” she groused to the ceiling.

      “Sorry,” he said, coming closer, adding the fresh tang of soap to the hospital mix. “I forgot myself for a moment.”

      Stacy felt her spirits reviving. After months of unremitting tension and fear, it felt good to smile again, even if it did hurt to move her facial muscles. “I’ll forgive you, but only because you saved my life yesterday.”

      “Nah, wearing your seat belt saved your life.”

      She didn’t waste breath arguing with a man whose jaw had taken on the texture of mountain granite. Instead, she directed an inquiring look at the fluffy blooms held in an awkward, one-handed grip against his flat belly.

      “The hydrangeas are beautiful.”

      His eyebrows drew together and she noticed a faint scar angling across the left one in a jagged line. “Is that what they are?”

      She nodded, then realized she was still holding the spoon and carefully returned it to the breakfast tray before pushing the table toward the foot of the bed. “I feel better just looking at them.”

      She smiled, drawing Boyd’s gaze for an instant to her lips. Most guys he knew were suckers for the kind of impudent dimples framing her mouth. Thank the saints he was immune, he thought a smug instant before he found himself wondering if her pale, full lips would taste sweet. Like the wild berries that soaked up sugar-producing summer sunshine along the country roads.

      When he felt heat climbing his neck, he frowned down at the sissy-looking flowers. He’d bought flowers for a patient before, but he’d always had the florist downstairs deliver them, and without a card.

      “Maybe the nurse has a vase,” she said, reaching for the call button.

      “No need. This’ll do fine,” He stuffed the flowers into her water jug before she could argue the point. Then feeling awkward and more than a little foolish, he shoved his hands into his hip pockets and took a step backward. It was time he returned to work.

      “I’m glad you came by,” she said before he had a chance to get the hell out of there. “I wanted to ask you about that little girl who was so helpful and sweet. Um, Heidi, wasn’t it?”

      He nodded. “What can I tell you? She’s a lonely little kid with too much imagination and not enough of the good stuff parents are supposed to provide.”

      “I’d like to do something to express my appreciation to her as soon as...as...” She halted and drew a breath that seemed to drain more than invigorate. “What would she like, do you think?”

      One of Stacy Patterson’s smiles for starters, he thought, and then frowned. Where the hell did that come from?

      “Hell if I know,” he hedged.

      “I was thinking of a CD, but I have no idea what kind of music she prefers.”

      “She hates country, I know that.”

      “Why?”

      “Because she’s always making remarks about my lousy taste in radio stations.”

      Her lips curved, and for an instant her eyes sparkled. He felt something loosen inside, and frowned. “I take it you listen to country,” she asked, touching one of the blossoms with a caressing fingertip,

      “When I’m working, yeah.” He’d been thinking her eyes were green, but now he saw a hint of gold mingling in the depths. Sunshine pretty, he thought, and as warming as summer’s rays.

      He wanted to gather her close and bask in the warmth of that sweet, soft smile until he couldn’t remember what it felt like to be a man on the outside of happiness, looking in, longing to feel strong and protective and loved by a woman he adored. But those days were gone. Lost.

      “Uh, maybe I could find out for you,” he said lamely. “The kind of music she likes.”

      “That would be great, thanks.”

      “No sweat.” He pulled his hands from his pocket and glanced at his watch. “I’d best be heading out,” he said, shifting. “I promised I’d have this job done in time for the owners’ tenth anniversary, and time’s getting short.”

      Was that disappointment he saw wisping across her gaze? Or relief to be rid of the blundering brute? He’d never been all that great at entertaining women. When he’d been a gawky kid working a couple of part-time jobs in order to save for college, he’d been too busy to learn the moves other guys had mastered by the time pimples gave way to whiskers.

      In college, the women he’d met seemed all too willing to entertain him--once they found out he was headed for medical school and the big-bucks future. Now that he had an ordinary job with ordinary pay—well hell, he’d been boring even when he’d been a doctor. Even Karen had said as much more than once, but she’d put up with him for reasons he never fully understood.

      After her death, he hadn’t cared much one way or another about his skill with the ladies. But now he wished he could crack jokes like his kid brother, Ben, or flirt without coming on too strong or too awkward like his friend, Luke Jarrod—anything to arouse another sparkling smile in those now-somber emerald eyes.

      “Thanks again,” she murmured. “For the flowers.” Before she shifted her gaze to the puffy bouquet he thought he saw moisture pooling in her eyes.

      “I’m sorry about your ex-husband.”

      “So am I.”

      “He was in the hospital, you said?”

      “He was hurt doing what he loved—protecting others.” Stacy drew a suddenly shaky breath. “There were two of them robbing a convenience store near our house. They’d nearly beaten the clerk to death by the time Len had walked in to buy cigarettes. He’d drawn his gun, but the boys were so young—scarcely fourteen.”

      Boyd bit off a curse that had her pale lips trembling into a rueful smile that she couldn’t sustain. “No one’s really sure exactly how it happened. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that one of the boys hit Len in the head with a baseball bat he must have found behind the counter.” She stopped to clear her throat. “By the time I got to the hospital, Len was in surgery. When he woke up, he was...changed.”

      “Brain СКАЧАТЬ