“I’m afraid that’s how it looks.”
“And it’s a coincidence that it happened now?”
“A lousy coincidence that I’m trying to make the best of.”
Maybe she was letting down her guard, but she believed him. It was all just too crazy to be invented, and in the light of day, looking at Aiden’s expression, she honestly didn’t think anyone could be that adept an actor.
“Okay, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt,” she finally said. “But if this is all something you and Howard devised—”
“Why would I risk all of Boonesbury’s medical future?” Aiden cut her off to ask. “I know your recommendation makes or breaks that grant. Even with Howard’s endorsement there are still six other votes that have to go Boonesbury’s way in order to get the money. If you go back and tell them not to give it to us, Howard’s one vote in our favor isn’t going to amount to a hill of beans.”
That was all true and swayed Emmy more in the direction of letting go of her assumption that Howard had arranged a trial by fire for her. Apparently Evelyn’s complaints that these trips rarely went smoothly had some merit.
But that was all right, Emmy consoled herself. She was good at multitasking and she’d put that into play here.
“Then I guess we’ll just deal with this along the way,” she finally said.
Mickey, who had lost interest in his applesauce and instead had turned his attention to Emmy, cooed at her as if he were giving his approval.
And Emmy, who had been trying not to notice how cute he was, finally gave in and laughed at him. “You like that idea, do you?” she asked the baby.
Mickey giggled as a reward.
“Does this mean you’ll do diaper duty?” Aiden asked, sounding relieved and relaxed again.
“Oh, no. There has to be a line drawn,” Emmy joked in response to the note of teasing in his tone. “The only diapers I’m signing on for are for kids of my own if I ever have any.”
“Guess I’ll have to take care of it, then, so we can get going. Will you keep an eye on him while I clear away his lunch?”
“That I’ll do,” Emmy agreed.
She was finished with her sandwich, so when Aiden got up from the chair in front of Mickey she replaced him.
The seat was still warm from his body, and of all the things to find sexy she didn’t think that should be one of them.
But that’s how it was just the same and it left her fighting images of his body wrapped all around her.
Luckily Mickey seemed to have made it his goal to entertain and charm her because he helped get her mind off the image by drawing her attention back to him with enthusiastic waves of his arms and kicks of his legs.
Only too willing to comply, Emmy grasped his feet in her hands and made a bicycle motion that delighted him as she studied him.
He was an absolutely adorable baby with those big brown eyes and those chubby cheeks. He had pale-brown hair that cupped his round head like feathers and two tiny teeth just beginning to poke through the center of his bottom gums.
“How could anybody leave you on a stranger’s doorstep?” she asked in a cooing sort of way that belied the words.
Mickey apparently responded to the tone rather than the content because he grinned at her and made a grab for her hair.
“That’ll hurt if you let him do it,” Aiden advised as he rejoined them.
“Oh, I think I could stand it,” Emmy said in a singsong as she rubbed Mickey’s knees with her nose to make him laugh.
“Don’t be too sure.”
Aiden had laid a towel on the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the cabin, and he took Mickey out of the car seat then to lay him on the towel to change him and get him into his snowsuit.
As he did, Emmy finished her coffee and washed her cup to replace it in the cupboard. Then, after Aiden had bundled the baby back into the carrier the way Mickey had been the previous night when they’d found him, Aiden put on that same jean jacket he’d worn the day before, tossed a few diapers, the pacifier and a bottle in a plastic bag to take with them, and carried the car seat outside to the SUV. With Emmy following behind.
“Why don’t you start the engine so it’ll warm up while I figure out how to strap this thing in the back seat?”
Again, no standing on ceremony.
But Emmy was getting used to the fact that things between them were so casual and she didn’t mind it. She was even beginning to like it a little.
“Okay,” she agreed, catching the keys Aiden tossed to her with an ease that seemed to impress him.
Emmy was waiting in the passenger seat and the engine was warm enough to produce heat before Aiden finally judged the carrier secure and slipped behind the wheel.
“I talked to Joan—the woman who owns the local store,” he said as he put the SUV into gear and pulled away from the cabin. “She’s meeting us at one-thirty so we can get the shopping over with before I show you around town. I didn’t think you should be doing a lot of walking until we got you a coat.”
“Okay.”
Something about that made him smile a smile that might have been a smirk on a less handsome face. “What? No more of the ‘I’m not susceptible to the cold’ stuff?”
“I’m conceding to your greater experience in the tundra,” she said as if she were merely humoring him.
“This is nothing compared to the tundra,” he said with a laugh. “But if you want to sneak a peek at that—”
“No, thanks. Boonesbury and the complete tour of the medical needs it serves will be fine.”
“In a warm coat,” he goaded. But his grin was every bit as infectious and charming as Mickey’s, only with a whole lot more grown-up appeal.
He went on looking at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment longer. Then he said, “I like your hair down better than in that librarian bun, by the way. The bun doesn’t suit you.”
“It has its purpose.”
“Probably to make sure Howard and the rest of the Old Boys take you seriously.”
Emmy’s expression must have shown her surprise—both at his correct assumption of the reason she wore the bun and at the term Old Boys.
As if Aiden knew what she was thinking even now, he said, “Yeah, they know you call them the Old Boys, so don’t ever say it without affection.”
“Howard told you that?”
“It came up. But since he’s the youngest of the trustees he figures you’re referring to everyone but him.”
“Great,” Emmy muttered to herself facetiously.
“There’s no offense taken, so don’t worry about it.”
The two-lane road they were on went over a ridge just then and began a steep decline that brought Boonesbury into view. It changed the subject as Aiden nodded with his chin in that direction.
“There she is—the town of Boonesbury.”
To call what Emmy was looking at a town seemed like an exaggeration.
It reminded her of the old frontier in Western movies. There was a single main street not more than four blocks long and so wide it was as if the buildings on one side were trying to keep their distance from the buildings on the other. What few cars and trucks were parked in front of the peeling-paint one-and two-story structures were aimed nosefirst to the curb and even