Countdown to Baby. GINA WILKINS

      She locked her slender, capable hands on the table in front of her as she spoke, her gleaming white knuckles giving further evidence of the tension she was trying not to show.

      Geoff shook his head. Wasn’t this his luck? He had been telling himself that last night had been a rare gift—unplanned, uncalculated, uncomplicated. A brief foray into the wild side for wild Billy Bingham’s straitlaced and compulsively responsible nephew. And now it turned out that the woman he thought he’d charmed into bed had her own reasons for ending up there.

      “You’re looking at me as though I’ve grown another head,” Cecilia said ruefully. “I know this has taken you by surprise.”

      “You could say that again.”

      Her fingers twisted even more tightly. “The thing is, this subject has been on my mind a lot lately. Every day I deliver other women’s babies, and every day I wonder whether I’ll ever have one of my own. I would be a good mother. I’m mature and responsible and patient. I practically raised Eric, since my mother worked all the time, so I know what I would be getting into. The preschool day-care center at the clinic would give me a chance to see my child often during the day. I’m ready physically, emotionally and financially—as much as I can be, anyway. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

      “So have you, um, thought about adoption?” he asked, still trying to assimilate what she wanted of him.

      “I’ve considered adoption, but it’s still rather difficult for a single working woman to be approved, and private adoptions can be terribly expensive. Besides, I would really love to have a child of my own. The artificial insemination process is, again, so expensive that it would be hard for me to afford it. The best option for me seems to be the old-fashioned method.”