“Are you used to spending time with children?” She seemed to know exactly what to do.
“I’ve never had any of my own, but when I was in Corpus Christi, I volunteered in a pediatric ward when I had time off.”
So that’s how she’d spent her free time. He was seeing facets of Emily he’d never had time to explore.
“Have you ever been married?” he asked as he pulled her chair out for her.
She looked surprised he’d done the gentlemanly thing. It had been a long time since he’d wanted to do the gentlemanly thing.
“Yes, I was married. I’ve been divorced about a year.”
Now it was his turn to ask a blunt question. “Is that why you moved here?”
This time she didn’t hesitate. “I needed a fresh start.”
His hands were on the chair back, close to her hair. She was looking up at him over her shoulder. He was so tempted to push her curls away from her face, to erase the little frown line on her forehead, to tell her he understood about wanting a new beginning.
Yet he’d figured out the past dogged him no matter where he went, or how badly he tried to forget. Did her past dog her, too?
The urge to ask her was strong and on the tip of his tongue when the cell phone on his belt beeped. He almost swore, and then he realized he should be glad for the interruption. This evening was becoming intense and personal.
Straightening, he unhitched the phone, checked the number and held it to his ear. It was his service. Crossing to the counter, he found a notepad and a pen and jotted down the number.
He said to Emily, “I think Lubbock is about to have a new citizen who doesn’t want to wait until its due date. I have to check with the mother-to-be. Go ahead and start eating.”
As he dialed his patient, he noticed Emily asking the girls what they wanted and then selecting their food for them and helping them with it. She was so conscious of what they needed…such a natural with them.
When he finished on the phone, she took one look at his face and asked, “Do you need me to stay with the girls?”
He didn’t want to ask her to do that. He certainly didn’t want to depend on her. If he examined his reasons, they were simple. Today he’d felt a connection with her—a connection that was getting stronger each minute he was with her.
Seeing that the girls were occupied with eating, she pushed back her chair and came over to stand by him. “It’s really all right if you need me to stay. I don’t have any other commitments.”
“I don’t know how long this will go. The contractions are three and a half minutes apart, but this is her first baby. Anything can happen.”
“Tomorrow’s my day off. If you’re not back until late, I’ll just fall asleep on the couch.”
If he was late and if she fell asleep on his couch, something could happen that would startle her awake very fast.
He lowered his voice. “Have you ever heard of night terrors?”
She studied him. “They’re a type of children’s nightmare.”
“Yes, in a way. Though the child often doesn’t remember the nightmare after he or she wakes up. Courtney has them. I can’t let you stay without warning you about them. And if you don’t want to deal with that, I’ll have to find another doctor to cover for me.”
He fully expected her to be put off by the idea, to want to pick up her purse and leave. Instead, she said, “Explain to me what to do if Courtney has one. As long as I’m prepared, I can handle the situation.”
Jared was starting to realize that he’d examined Emily’s résumé, phoned her brief reference list and hired her, but he didn’t really know her.
Tonight, that could change. He wasn’t sure whether he should get to know Emily better…or not.
Chapter Two
Opening her eyes, Emily heard her name as if from a great distance.
“Emily, it’s midnight.”
The feel of Jared’s hand on her shoulder sent tingles throughout her body that brought her awake quickly.
Crouched down beside her, he wore scrubs and smelled as if he’d freshly showered. In fact, his hair was still damp. His muscled arm lay next to hers, almost touching it. His thigh muscles were obvious against the blue cotton fabric. Most of all, she noticed his eyes. They were so green, lighter at first, then more intense, more filled with—
Desire? She hadn’t seen desire in a man’s eyes for a very long time.
As he leaned closer, her anticipation was as rich as the hunger and need in his eyes. But then he stood and ran his hand over his brow.
She sat up but she didn’t want to get her purse and say good-night. She wanted to know if she was right about the vibrations between them.
She patted the sofa next to her. “You look beat. Decompress a little. Tell me about the birth.”
When he gazed at her, his eyes were filled with something she didn’t understand. Questions. What would he be questioning?
“You really want to hear?”
“Sure! Babies are our business. What’s most important to my pregnant moms is what kind of delivery they’ll have and if their baby will be healthy. I like to hear what happens after they leave my care.”
“I never thought of it that way. You don’t usually see the finished result.”
An ache enfolded her heart. She so missed seeing the finished result. “I go to the hospital nursery and take a peek. Sometimes the moms bring babies back to the office to visit after they’re born. But for the most part, I don’t know what happens after they leave me.”
“Tonight was a breeze for a first baby. Leanne’s contractions were two and a half minutes apart when I got there. Her husband was a great coach and she had good focus. By eleven thirty, she had a baby girl, and I was ready for a shower.”
“What do you feel when it happens?”
He appeared startled for a moment and then gave her a long assessing look. “No one has ever asked me that.”
She could see that was true and she wondered why. After all, that feeling was the reason she had delivered baby after baby as a midwife. That feeling was what made it all worthwhile.
He glanced down at his hands as if he was trying to relive the birth. The fatigue left his face. “It’s an unexplainable moment. It’s a moment when something you believe can’t possibly happen, does. It’s a moment when life is precious and men understand why they live and fight and die for what they hold dear.”
“It’s a moment,” she murmured, “when heaven meets earth.”
He studied her and she realized she’d said too much. She should tell him she knew firsthand all about that moment. Yet because of the lawsuit, he might not want her practicing with him. If she told him her history, this closeness she was feeling to him right now could simply vanish.
“You sound as if you know.”
“I’ve attended births.” She didn’t add that she was the one who had caught the baby in her hands.
His shoulder brushed hers as he admitted, “In that moment when a child is born, I forget the long hours and the hassles and the schedule shuffling. I guess most of life is that way. We work for the payoff, and if the payoff keeps us satisfied, we keep doing it.”