A Child Under His Tree. Allison Leigh

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СКАЧАТЬ been particularly surprising. She’d always given new meaning to the word ornery. But the fact that Kelly really was married? With a baby, no less?

      Even though there was nothing between them anymore, the confirmation had knocked him sideways.

      He eyed the platter of pork chops Lucy put on the table. His mouth had been watering for her cooking since that morning when she’d called to invite him for supper. But his thoughts kept straying to his encounter with Kelly.

      He’d seen Tyler Rasmussen’s name written in as a last-minute addition on the schedule but hadn’t thought twice about it. There were dozens of Rasmussens around Weaver. The family seemed to have more branches than his own.

      Then he’d opened the boy’s chart and Kelly’s signature had all but smacked him in the face.

      His only thoughts when he’d opened the examining room door after that were to keep his act together. He was a physician, for God’s sake. Not a stupid kid who hadn’t known what he had until he’d thoughtlessly tossed it aside in favor of someone else.

      She’d always been pretty, with otter-brown hair, coffee-colored eyes and delicate features. But Kelly Rasmussen all grown up? She’d held herself with a confidence that she hadn’t possessed before. She was still beautiful. More...womanly.

      He pushed the disturbing image to the back of his mind and focused on his three-year-old niece bouncing on his knee. “What do you want more, Sunny? The salad? Or the pork chops?”

      “Gravy,” she said promptly. “And ’tatoes.”

      “You have to eat some carrots first,” Lucy said firmly. She moved the toddler from Caleb’s lap to her high chair and ruffled her daughter’s dark hair. “She’d eat mashed potatoes and gravy morning, noon and night if I let her,” Lucy said with a wry smile.

      “Girl knows what she likes.” He winked at the tot, who awarded him with a beaming smile. “Kelly’s boy is cute,” he commented casually. “Tall for his age.”

      Lucy stopped in her tracks and gave him a surprised look. “You’ve seen them?”

      He knew from long experience there was no point hiding anything from his family, especially his sister. It was better to head her off at the pass than to keep things secret. Then he’d never hear the end of it.

      “She brought him to the office today.” He got up and brought the mashed potatoes and gravy to the table himself, giving Sunny another wink that earned him a giggle from her and an eye roll from her mama.

      “You’re as bad as a three-year-old.” Lucy set a few carrot sticks on Sunny’s plastic plate then went to the kitchen doorway and called, “Shelby! Come and eat.”

      Only a matter of seconds passed before Lucy’s stepdaughter raced into the kitchen. “Uncle Caleb!” The girl’s light brown eyes were bright as she launched herself at him. Caleb caught her, wrinkling his nose when she smacked a kiss on his lips.

      “Kissing boys now, are you?”

      She giggled, shaking her head violently. “Boys are gross.”

      “Sometimes,” Lucy joked. She filled Shelby’s milk glass. “Caleb sure was for a long time.”

      “Spoken like a loving older sister.”

      She just grinned at him, forked a pork chop onto her plate and began cutting it into strips for Sunny.

      “Mommy, when’s Daddy coming home?”

      “He’ll be back from Cheyenne tomorrow night, sweetie.” She transferred some of the strips to Sunny’s plate.

      “Good.” Shelby sat up on her knees and attacked her own meal.

      Caleb followed suit. “How’s Nick doing?”

      “He’s twenty-five, as handsome as his daddy and spending the year in Europe, studying.”

      Like Lucy’s stepson, Caleb had been studying when he was twenty-five, too. But medicine in Colorado versus architecture in Europe. “In other words, he’s doing pretty fine. Is he going to go into business with Beck?”

      “Beck certainly hopes so. Father and son architects and all. So, how was it?”

      Caleb doused his plate with the creamy gravy. “How was what?”

      Lucy whisked the bowl out of his reach when he went in for another helping. “Don’t pretend ignorance. Seeing Kelly again, obviously.”

      With her mother otherwise occupied, Shelby slyly palmed some dreaded carrot sticks from her and Sunny’s plates. Beneath the table, Caleb reached out and Shelby dropped them into his hand.

      Lucy’s eyes narrowed suddenly, darting from Caleb to her daughters. “What are you three grinning about?”

      “Nothing.” Caleb blithely folded his napkin over the carrots. He hated them, too.

      “Who’s Kelly?” Shelby was only nine, but she’d already developed the art of distraction.

      “Uncle Caleb’s old girlfriend,” Lucy said. She smiled devilishly at him. “One of them, anyway.”

      “I don’t rub in your old mistakes,” he argued in a mild tone.

      She blinked innocently. “Well, I wasn’t the one going around breaking girls’ hearts.”

      Not all that long ago, before an injury had sidelined her career, his sister had been a prima ballerina with a dance company in New York. Now she ran a dance school in Weaver, and despite her blessedly relaxed rules over her personal diet, she still drew admiring looks everywhere she went. “Pretty sure you broke a few hearts along the way, Luce.”

      “Then she met Daddy and I got to wear a beautiful dress.” Shelby’s expression turned dreamy. “When you get married can I be in your wedding, too, Uncle Caleb?”

      He nearly choked on his food, and Lucy laughed merrily. “Sounds like a reasonable question, Uncle Caleb.”

      He ignored his sister and answered his far more agreeable niece. “Maybe I’ll just wait until you’re grown-up and marry you.”

      That elicited peals of laughter. “You’re my uncle. I can’t marry you!”

      Far be it for him to explain the finer aspects of blood relations. “Then I’ll just have to stay single,” he drawled.

      Lucy rolled her eyes. “Sure. Blame your loneliness on an innocent child.”

      Shelby’s brow knit with sudden concern. “Are you lonely, Uncle Caleb?”

      “No,” he assured her calmly. “Your mom’s just teasing. How could I be lonely when I have all of you around?”

      To his satisfaction, everyone seemed happy to let the matter go at that.

      He was wrong to think the reprieve would last, though.

      Two hours later, after he’d told Sunny two bedtime stories СКАЧАТЬ