Miracle For The Neurosurgeon. Lynne Marshall

and the grin on her face when she’d opened the package had managed to wrap around Mary’s heart and change her life forever.

      They hung up, and Mary remembered the day she’d first held Rose when she was less than a week old. The tiny bundle, completely helpless, had still managed to get her needs across with grunts and stretches, cries and flailing pink spindly arms. And the newborn had felt more amazing than anything Mary had ever held in her life.

      Her education and traveling had kept her away from the births of Alexandra’s first two children, Oliver and Bailey. But she’d been given the honor of becoming Rose’s godmother so she couldn’t very well miss out on meeting her right off. That meet and greet had changed her life.

      A loving warmth fanned over her skin as she remembered how deeply she’d been moved by holding her goddaughter. How the tiny baby had reached into her heart and planted a need she’d never dared to dream of before.

      As she stared out of the two decent-sized windows of her tiny home, looking out toward the beach, she thought of her own situation. She was at a crossroads in life and, at nearly thirty-four, she finally admitted what she really wanted. More than anything. A child.

      It was little Rosebud’s fault. And Matthew’s, the sturdy little six-month-old she’d held just last week. Her patient, his mother, had been instructed to do some exercises and the baby had needed to be held. Mary had thought nothing of helping out until the sturdy boy with those chubby dimpled hands, two chins and a Buddha belly had looked into her eyes and squealed with joy. She’d never wanted to cuddle, squeeze and kiss a baby more in her life. Oh, yeah, she wanted one.

      Now she dreamed of having a child. Illogical, yes, with no man in her life. Living completely without roots. An inconsistent job that took her all over the country. Yet she’d finally heeded the whisperings of her body that had been building for years, and with the recent help of two little ones, that whisper had turned into a scream. She wanted to be a mother more than anything. To have a baby all her own...before it was too late.

      Finishing off her tea, she stood and walked the few short feet to her kitchen sink. How exactly did a woman go about such a task on her own?

      She glanced at the mansion up the walk, which may as well be a prison for its current purpose of shutting out the world for Wesley Van Allen, M.D. Then she put her yearning for a baby aside. Wes needed to be her first priority for now.

      She was adamant about setting a time limit with him, though. Two months. Tops. She’d allowed for the lapse in a paying job into her annual budget for exactly that amount of time. If she intended to pursue her dream of having a child on her own, she’d need to change jobs to one where she could settle down in one place in order to be a stable parent. It was her chance to provide for her baby what she’d never had herself. Permanence, unconditional love, protection and opportunity. And, father or no father, she wanted it with all of her might.

      She washed her teacup, deciding to take a walk on the gloriously beautiful beach. Maybe when she got back she’d crack open that bottle of wine she’d been saving, sit on her cozy front porch, have a toast to her latest post, and lift a glass to her future plans. Truth was, she could spend the entire evening daydreaming about becoming a mother, but...

      Right now, her long-ago—but never forgotten—first crush had to come first.