The Cowboy's Family Plan. Judy Duarte

      Alex straightened and blessed her with a boyish grin. “I meant to aim for your cheek.”

      “You missed.”

      “Yeah.” His grin deepened to a full-on smile. “Sorry about that.”

      Was he? Because she darn sure wasn’t.

      And shouldn’t she be?

      “Drive carefully,” he said.

      Yeah. Right. Her cue to leave and to segue from the awkward to the familiar. She needed to get into her car and drive away. Yet something held her here. Lack of sleep, she suspected. And maybe the easy camaraderie they’d shared on the trip back from Oakville. Yet there was something else going on, too.

      Selena hadn’t been that unbalanced by a kiss in a long, long time—if ever. But she did her best to steady herself, to get back on track and pretend that they’d reached that level of friendship where an affectionate parting was the norm.

      Eager to escape the confusion, she reached for the door handle, using the keyless entry, and slid behind the wheel. “Thanks for riding with me and helping with the kids.”

      “My pleasure.”

      “Have a good day,” she said as she reached to pull her door shut.

      “You, too.”

      She didn’t know about that. Her day was already off to a surreal start. How was she going to keep her mind on her work and on her patients when she’d be reliving that kiss for the rest of her waking hours?

      Then there’d be those bedtime hours, when it was sure to come back and haunt her dreams.

      After shutting the car door, she pressed the button to start the engine. Then she slowly backed out of the parking space, trying to put a little distance between her and the man who’d set her off course.

      Once she reached the exit and prepared to pull out on to the street, she glanced in the rearview mirror and spotted Alex still standing by his truck.

      But she feared that neither of them was in the same place they’d been before they’d started out last night.

      That unexpected kiss had linked them in a way she hadn’t anticipated and set off a slew of romantic thoughts and yearnings, which was too bad.

      The last thing in the world she needed to do was to imagine herself playing house with a handsome cowboy who was still in love with his late wife.

      Chapter Four

      After leaving the wellness center, Selena arrived at her new two-bedroom digs on Hawthorne Lane, one of the older neighborhoods in Brighton Valley. She checked her voice mail, took a quick shower and dressed for the day. While tempted to grab something she could eat on the run, she took time for a good breakfast—a veggie omelet, a fruit cup and a blueberry muffin—to fuel her body and keep her going until noon.

      It was almost seven-thirty when she made the fifteen-minute drive to the medical center, which was just a few blocks down the street from her office.

      Because she still had an hour before her first patient would arrive, she decided to swing by the hospital so she could check on Shannon and her baby.

      Her first stop was at the neonatal intensive care unit, where little Michael slept in a heated isolette. He wasn’t the tiniest baby in the NICU, but at just over four pounds, he was still smaller than a full-term newborn.

      Last night, while Shannon had been in labor, his heart rate had dropped, indicating he was in distress, so Dr. Chin had decided upon an immediate C-section. His initial Apgar score had been a little low, but Roger Parnell, the neonatologist at the delivery, hadn’t been too concerned. And thank goodness Michael’s subsequent scores had improved.

      His color looked good today, Selena decided, as she studied the sleeping newborn. Her medical assessment soon took a maternal shift, and she found herself taking note of his little fingers and toes. He was a beautiful baby, with dark tufts of hair.... And look at that sweet little grimace on his face.

      “Good morning, Dr. Ramirez.”

      Tearing her gaze from the newborn, Selena turned to Margie Kaufman, the charge nurse, and offered her a smile. “Good morning, Margie. I stopped by to check on Baby Bedford before visiting his mother. How’s he doing?”

      “So far, so good. He doesn’t seem to have any major issues, although we’re watching him closely. We’ll probably bring his mom in to visit later this morning.”

      “I’ll let her know. I’m sure she’s eager to see him.” Still, Selena made no immediate move to leave. Instead, she continued to watch little Michael and to imagine having a baby like him someday. But longing for something that wasn’t meant to be wasn’t doing her any good, so she forced herself to leave the NICU and head for the maternity floor. When she reached the nurses’ station, she learned that Shannon Bedford was in room 407.