Pockets Full of Joy
By Judy Gill


Originally published by Bantam Loveswept, 1989
All rights reverted to author, 1999
Revised by author, 2001
Electronic Rights currently held by Awe-Struck E-Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1-58749-077-3


Chapter One
The doorbell rang. The long offensive peal of sound made Elaina McIvor jump and 
scrawl an unwanted line of red across the back of a zebra on her drawing board. 
Harrison arched his back and jumped soundlessly to the floor, then followed her 
as she slid from her stool and walked toward the door.
"Those kids,' she muttered. "As flattering as all this is, I wish they'd get 
over their fascination with having me live next door." They were nice kids, she 
supposed, as far as kids went. Not that she knew a lot about children, in spite 
of the fact that they were the focus of her work. She knew even less about 
living in suburbia. But in the week she'd been here, her next door neighbors' 
two sons had disturbed her at work about twenty times a day. She was never going 
to get her current project completed at this rate, and then she'd be in trouble 
with the publisher who'd given her the job of illustrating the darned book. Oh, 
what the heck, she thought. Whoever had ever heard of a red-and-white zebra in 
the first place?
The bell was ringing again, a loud, irritating buzz instead of the nice, 
melodious chimes she'd had in her apartment. Maybe, she mused, she'd read those 
two little boys the story and threaten them with the same fate as its 
characters. That should put some distance between their visits.
She snatched open the door, ready to address her junior-sized neighbors, but 
instead her eyes met a pair of brown, bony knees. A large, over stuffed pink- 
and-blue plastic tote bag was bumping again them, with a baby bottle sticking 
out of the top. Those knees were connected to a pair of darkly tanned, muscular 
thighs with curling dark hair covering them right up to the ragged edges of a 
pair of cutoffs -- cutoffs that clung tightly to slim hips and flat belly. An 
expanse of bare skin extended above the faded denim shorts, terminating where 
the hem of cropped T-shirt covered it. An arrow of curling hair seemed to stitch 
the two garments together. A plump, pink baby sat perched astride that narrow 
waist, wearing a yellow sunsuit and happy grin. Elaina raised her startled gaze 
up and up and up until she encountered a pair of merry green eyes under dark 
brows. "Hi," said the owner of those eyes. "You Elaina McIvor?"
"Yes." She couldn't say anything else. The size of the man took her breath away. 
She was nearly six feet tall herself, and he towered over her. On his hip the 
baby looked ridiculously tiny. He smiled and said, "Oh, good. It's taken hours 
to track you down. I'm Dr. Bradshaw."
At her blank look, he added, "From the University Hospital? Margo Lawrence is my 
patient so I volunteered to bring the baby." He thrust the baby into her arms. 
"This is Betsy. She's wet."
That was a perfectly redundant piece of information Elaina discovered as her 
arms went instinctively around the child. The man put the bag down at Elaina's 
feet and leaped off the porch, ignoring the three steps leading down to the 
walk.
"Wait!" she called out. "What is this?"
"A little girl," he said, slightly impatient. "Betsy. She's eleven months old. 
Oh! Didn't they call you yet?" He smacked his forehead with the heel of one 
hand. "And here I almost forgot. You must think I'm nuts. This will explain 
things." He reached into the back pocket of his cutoffs and hauled out a folded 
envelope. Leaning over and stretching out an enormously long arm, he stuffed the 
envelope into the tote bag. Then he loped down the walk to the disreputable 
green van parked the wrong way at the curb.
"No! Wait!" Elaine called. "Come back here!" He slammed the driver's door and 
shouted out the window as the van began to roll. "Later. I can't stop now, I'll 
be back."
Then the van was screeching away, lurching as it shot over to the right side of 
the street, leaving only a little cloud of blue smoke. When that was gone, she 
could almost believe that the van and the green-eyed man had been figments of 
her imagination -- except for one thing -- twenty pounds of warm, wet baby were 
riding astride her hip.
"Well," she said faintly, "this is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to 
me!"
What was she supposed to do now? Call the police and charge the guy with child 
abandonment? Call the loony bin and have herself committed for believing that 
any of this was really happening? Or pretend that wasn't a man in a rusty van, 
but a stork? Some stork. He was almost gangly enough to be one, she thought 
before she shook her head. No. He had been tall, that was true, but not gangly. 
In fact, he had been extremely well built. She sighed, thinking about how well 
built he was. The baby patted her face with a warm, plump band and said, "Mama?"
"No way! Not on your life!" said Elaina, alarmed. "I'm not your mama, sweetie." 
The baby had the bluest of blue eyes and a light golden fuzz on her head. Since 
she looked nothing like the dark-haired, green-eyed man who had shoved her into 
Elaina's arms, chances were he wasn't her parent either.
So who was? And who was her mama? The baby smiled at Elaina, several teeth, as 
tiny and as white as seed pearls, shining wetly in her mouth. Elaina smiled back 
"That's something we're going to have to find out very soon, isn't it? Not only 
who your parents are, but where they are."
"Hey look, Miss Mclvor's got a baby!"
Elaina removed her fascinated gaze from the baby's delicate face and pinned it 
on the pair of grubby little boys who stood at the end of her walk, staring into 
the yard through the iron gate in the hedge.
"Can we come in and play with your baby, Miss McIby?" asked the smaller one.
"Her name's Miss McIvor, Petey," the older boy said, "and you don't wanna play 
with her baby. It's a girl"
"Oh. How do you know?"
"Look at it. it's got ruffles on its bottom."
Petey looked and scowled. "Oh, yeah." The two boys vanished, obviously having 
something much better to do than play with a girl.
"What a way to achieve peace," Elaina muttered. "Import one baby girl and the 
boys disappear like smoke."
She carried baby and tote bag inside determined to read whatever kind of 
explanation the crazy doctor had stuffed into the tote. She stood the child on 
her feet in the middle of the living room. The girl's legs collapsed under her 
and she sat down on that wet ruffled bottom and began to howl. Elaina stared at 
her, bewildered. Was there something wrong with her? Were her legs crippled? She 
had taken her own weight for an instant, then simply caved in. Or had she 
crumpled from sheer temper?
Harrison came to investigate the noise. The baby stopped making it. She reached 
for Harrison's tail, saying something that sounded like, "Lemme at him." But 
maybe, Elaina decided, it was merely the expression on the baby's face that said 
it. At any rate, Harrison wasn't concerned. He rubbed his neck and shoulder 
against her fat thigh and the child dug her little starfish hands into his thick 
white fur.
Elaina lunged forward to prevent certain disaster, but to her amazement, 
Harrison was purring. She backed off, taking the moment of peace to seek out the 
note she hoped would explain things a lot more fully. Maybe it even contained 
instructions on the care and feeding of an eleven-month-old child.
She stared at the familiar symbol on the corner of the envelope. "Huh?" she said 
as she withdrew its contents. "A phone bill?"
It was made out to Dr. Brent Bradshaw. Who had a Post Office box at the 
university, and was for the standard charges plus three long distance calls to 
the same number in Buffalo, one to a number in New Mexico, and another to a 
different number in Buffalo, and it provided absolutely no explanation 
whatsoever. Elaina read it through twice and checked the reverse side, only to 
learn that three of the Buffalo calls had been made during business hours, while 
the rates were highest. That explanation, while interesting, made nothing clear 
at all, and she was starting through it again when a horrific crash sent her 
whirling around. The baby was no longer in the center of the living room floor, 
but was over by the far window, hands full of greenery, hair full of soil, eyes 
full of tears, and mouth wide open, hollering again.
"Oh, no!" Elaina ran across the room. "Oh, darling, what happened to you? Easy, 
now, there...Oh, thank goodness, you aren't too badly hurt."
She turned from the cactus to the baby. "Young lady, "Will you please stop that 
howling? And give me those. Oh, poor, poor Brahms. You tore off three of his 
fronds."
She set her wounded plant carefully back on its stand, then scooped up some of 
the loose soil from the carpet. She patted it around Brahms's roots and 
straightened the fronds as best she could. The torn ones would have to be 
rooted. Luckily, that wasn't difficult with a Christmas cactus. Brahms bloomed a 
lovely shade of crimson and, she would be happy to have several clones of him 
around. But she preferred to do the cutting herself.
The bellowing stopped and Elaina looked down, blinking, feeling suddenly like 
the lowest, most miserable excuse for a human being ever allowed to live. She 
had just given precedence to a plant over a little child! She had left it to 
Harrison to comfort the baby! What use was she?
"Betsy?" she said experimentally, trying the name out. The little girl looked 
around and smiled that rather infectious smile again. And most forgivingly, 
Elaina thought. She crouched and lifted the wet and now muddy baby into her 
arms, gently brushing Harrison aside. "Oh you poor little thing. I'm sorry, 
baby. Let's get you cleaned up, huh? We'll worry about the carpet and Brahms 
later."
Elaina put the plug in the tub and turned on the faucets, adjusting the water 
temperature. While the tub filled, she stripped the baby, enjoying the 
enthusiastic way in which Betsy accepted having her clothes removed. She 
squirmed and wriggled and kicked and giggled. "You really are a cheerful little 
thing aren't you?" Elaina said. "I mean, don't babies cry for their mothers when 
they're left with strangers?" Far from crying, Betsy crowed with glee when she 
realized she was about to be bathed. And when Elaina sat her down in the water, 
she promptly sank.
"Oh, my gosh!" Elaina cried, grabbing frantically at the baby. She missed, 
grabbed again, and hung onto an incredibly slippery little body. Betsy sputtered 
and gasped and giggled, bobbing up and down in the much too deep water. She 
seemed unharmed, to say nothing of unconcerned. Elaina dried her face with the 
corner of a towel and pulled the plug, letting water run out and not stopping it 
until only a few inches remained in the bottom of the tub.
"We live and learn," she said, gently splashing water over Betsy's back. "I only 
hope you live through my learning. At least the dirt is all washed out of your 
hair, though that wasn't the way I had intended to go about it." She looked at 
the baby splashing happily in the shallow water, sucking on the washcloth. "You 
sure didn't mind getting dunked, did you? I suppose if I had to have a baby 
dumped on me, I'm lucky it turned out to be such a good-natured one."
And Betsy was good-natured -- until the time came to take her out of the tub. 
She screamed. She kicked. She waved her arms, hands flailing, catching Elaina in 
the face and neck with her fists until she got smart and wrapped the child in a 
towel, arms, legs, wet, slick body and all, then held her close, rocking her. It 
didn't help one bit. Pacing, almost running back and forth, Elaina weighed a 
hundred different possible solutions to the problem and rejected them one by 
one, up to and including simply putting the baby onto the floor and letting 
Harrison take over.
"What do you want?' she asked. "What can I do for you?" Suddenly, she remembered 
the bottle. She pulled it from the tote bag, snapped off the lid, and shoved the 
nipple into the gaping mouth. Like magic, the noise stopped and Betsy reached up 
to pat Elaina's face, her tiny hand soft and warm from the bath, gentle and 
tender, and immensely moving. Biting her lip, Elaina sat down on the sofa, one 
leg curled under her and resting against the arm of the couch as she cradled 
Betsy close.
"Hey. little girl," she said softly. "I don't know who you are or why you're 
here, but I think I could get to like you." It was true, and the thought amazed 
her. When she had been younger, she had, of course, expected one day to have 
children. She had wanted them, but Kirk had not. At least not for a long time, 
he'd said. He didn't think they'd make good parents.
She'd gone along with his belief. It was easier, she had learned early in her 
relationship with him, not to try to force her views on him. He'd held them in 
such contempt. Elaina sighed. Maybe he'd been right. No instinct, not even 
common sense, had told her not to make the tub too full, had it?
When Betsy finally fell asleep, Elaina whispered. "Now what do I do with you?" 
The answer presented itself almost at once: Put a diaper on her. The towel and 
Elaina's lap were both soaked. The bag in the foyer contained a small selection 
of things Elaina presumed were baby necessities. She pulled out the various 
contents, and smiled at one. A cloth book -- a very familiar-looking cloth book. 
With Betsy still sleeping against her shoulder Elaina flipped open the limp, 
well-chewed book. Her smile deepened at the line that read Illustrations by 
Elaina McIvor. She had literally lost count of the number of children's books 
she had illustrated, but it still thrilled her to see those words especially in 
a book that some child was enjoying.
With the baby changed and stuffed -- not without difficulty -- into a 
terry-cloth sleeper, Elaina stood looking down at her sleeping on the bed, still 
not quite sure she believed what was happening. Now that she had time to think, 
the worries came sweeping back.
What if the phone bill man had kidnapped Betsy? What if she was an unwitting 
accessory to a crime? What if he wasn't a doctor at all but was a patient -- 
probably from the psycho ward -- and had snatched Betsy? Things like that 
happened all the time. He could even have stolen the phone bill to give his 
story credence.
She had to call the police. She picked up the phone on her bedside table then 
set it down again. It wasn't connected yet. Maybe tomorrow, the telephone 
company had said, and maybe not until next week. The man hadn't looked like a 
criminal, had he? she asked herself. That was, if kidnappers had a certain kind 
of look. If they did, his didn't qualify.
Her mind had absorbed his appearance like a photographic plate, she now 
realized. In addition to being tall, he was broad in the shoulders, narrow in 
the waist and hips, and powerful in the legs. And good-looking. Not classically 
handsome as Kirk had been, but there was something about him that appealed to 
her on a very personal level, which was odd, because since Kirk, she hadn't felt 
attracted to anyone. She hadn't wanted to. What had happened with Kirk had been 
too painful to risk repeating. But still, she couldn't get Dr. Bradshaw's face 
out of her mind. Or the memory of his hard, tanned body. He was quite different 
from Kirk. Could that be what made him so attractive to her? She hoped he'd come 
back soon.
Oh, cut it out, Elaina! Even if he was attractive to her, that didn't mean he 
was attracted by her! Why, then couldn't she stop thinking about him, about his 
laughing green eyes? Along with that laughter there had been a deep intelligence 
in his eyes, as if he were examining everything around him, sorting the input 
through a sharp mind, and assessing what he saw. He looked like a man she would 
enjoy talking to. A man who would have a lot of interesting things to say. Did 
she really want to call the police on a man who had such intelligent eyes? No, 
she didn't. Not right away, at any rate. The best thing to do was wait a while. 
He had said he'd be back. And it wasn't as though she didn't know who he was. 
After all, she had his address and his telephone number, not to mention his 
telephone bill. Also, the baby was sleeping so soundly it would be a shame to 
disturb her by having police officers and social workers come storming in here 
just because she had reported Brent Bradshaw for abandoning Betsy when she 
wasn't at all sure that was what he done.
"Haven't they phoned you?" he had asked. That meant someone should have done so, 
likely would have done so, except her phone wasn't connected. So someone had 
given Brent Bradshaw her name, but not her address. He'd said it had taken him 
hours to track her down. With her recent move the address listed in the 
telephone book was wrong.
She stretched out on the bed beside Betsy, kicking off her shoes and wiggling 
her toes. She undid her hair and let it fall loose and comfortable. She cuddled 
the baby close so she wouldn't roll over in her sleep and fall off the bed. The 
warmth of that little body curled next to her, the sweet baby scent of Betsy, 
and the sound of the child's soft breathing, combined with Harrison's purring 
were soporific. Elaina drifted into a sleep as deep as the baby's, not even 
moving until the scream of her doorbell jarred her awake. Feeling disoriented, 
she wondered why the room was so dark. Betsy stirred, sat up and beamed at 
Elaina.
"You stay put," she admonished the baby. "That's probably your doctor come to 
get you." She snatched open the door in response to the third impatient screech 
of the bell and staggered back as something made of wooden bars fell in on her. 
She grabbed it and lowered it to the floor, then gaped at the man standing in 
the doorway.
He had a folded mass of chrome and plastic under one arm, and looked as if the 
burden might pull him down any minute. "That's the crib," he said, nodding to 
the object she'd laid on the floor. He gave it a shove with one foot, moving it 
so he could step inside with his load and shut the door.
Elaina stared him. His green eyes were no longer merry. His face was gray with 
fatigue. His mouth drooped and his shoulders hung wearily. He returned her stare 
somberly. Suddenly, ridiculously, she wanted to cradle him close as she had done 
with Betsy. She wanted to rock him in her arms and tell him to go to sleep. He 
really, really needed to go to sleep, she thought. Shocked, almost frightened by 
the intensity of her feelings, she stepped back from him, lifting a hand as if 
to ward him off. He didn't try to come any closer; though, even when the words, 
"What's wrong?" were dragged from her by his look of utter desolation.
He gazed at her as if she could make thing better, as if she were some kind of 
miracle worker and he was desperately in need of a bit of magic. "I'm not sure 
she's going to make it," he whispered. shaking his head. He set down the object 
he was carrying then strode back out the door. He didn't leap off the porch this 
time, but plodded down the three steps with fine precision, as if the placement 
of his feet required great care lest they be set wrong and trip him up. He was 
wearing gray slacks now, and a long-sleeved yellow shirt with a tie loose around 
his neck and the top two buttons undone.
In the light from the street lamp Elaina watched him slide open the door of the 
van and drag out a stroller with a plastic bag and a teddy bear in it. He 
carried the stroller to the porch and gave it a shove so it rolled toward her. 
She stopped it with one foot and started to ask what was going on, but he was 
trudging away again. He leaned into the van, then backed out, dragging something 
with him. He swung it up and placed it flat on top of his head, arms supporting 
it on either side. It was a mattress, she realized. A crib mattress, and she 
knew without asking what was going on. Brent Bradshaw was moving Betsy in.
"Oh no, you're not!"
"Huh?" He kept on coming, backing her right into the house. He leaned the 
mattress on the wall, then leaned himself on it, closing his eyes. She thought 
he might fall asleep standing there and grabbed his arm to give him a shake. His 
arm was as hard as steel, and too big for her to reach around even with her 
long, slender fingers. His skin was warm over the ropy muscles. Something 
twinged inside her, a deep elemental response that jolted her.
As if he had felt the same jolt, he opened his eyes. Looking down at her, he 
lifted his free hand and covered hers. For endless moments they stood there with 
sensations pulsing between them, her fingers sandwiched between his hand and his 
arm, her gaze locked with his. Silent, indecipherable messages darted from him 
to her and back again until she was dizzy with confusion unlike any she had ever 
experienced.
She sucked in a deep, steadying breath and managed to pull her gaze and hand 
away. "Come on," she said. "Get this stuff out of my house! You can't do this to 
me! There's been some crazy mistake. I don't know anything about -- "
There was a dull thud from the direction of her bedroom, a moment's silence, 
then an outraged howl. The latter had the effect of snapping Brent Bradshaw out 
of his standing doze and stopping Elaina's flow of words. Both leaped toward the 
noise.
Elaina got there first. Betsy was sitting on the carpet near the bedside, head 
back, mouth open, bellowing, and Harrison was making circles around her, his 
tall puffed straight out, his ears down, his back arched. He gave Elaina a 
golden glare as she approached the screaming baby and spat at her when she 
lifted the child and cuddled her close.
"Harrison!" she gasped. "What's got into you? It wasn't my fault she fell off 
the bed! I told her to stay put."
She chose to ignore Dr. Bradshaw's sarcastic repetition of her words. "'Told her 
to stay put'? An eleven-month-old kid and she 'told her to stay put?'"
To the baby, she crooned, "There, there. Don't cry. Let me see if you're hurt." 
She laid the baby on the bed and began running her hands over her arms and legs.
"What are you doing?" Bradshaw asked.
"Checking for broken bones." Surely that was obvious, she thought, as well as 
being the obvious thing to do. The child had fallen, for heaven's sake. It was 
just as she'd suspected: He was an imposter. Any doctor would know about 
checking for broken bones!
"I see," he said. She wasn't sure he did. "What," he asked, "does a broken bone 
feel like?"
Some doctor! She had no idea, but was sure if she felt one, some miracle would 
occur and she'd recognize it. "Like -- like a broken bone, of course."
"And what happens if you find one?" There was a definite thread of amusement 
running through his voice. Elaina was not accustomed to being laughed at. She 
stopped checking and glared at him, thinking quickly. "I'd call an ambulance." 
Sure, Elaina. With no phone you call an ambulance. At least Bradshaw didn't know 
she didn't have a phone. She took some comfort from that.
For want of something better to do, she resumed checking Betsy's extremities. 
Betsy continued to yell. Elaina found nothing that might be a broken bone.
"All right, Betsy," she said briskly, speaking to the child as her mother would 
have spoken to her under the same circumstances. "That's enough. Get hold of 
yourself."
Behind her, she heard a distinct snicker and scowled over her shoulder at him. 
He was standing near the foot of her bed, taking up far more space than seemed 
his rightful share. This was a big room, with a big bed, but with him in the 
room the king-size bed didn't look all that big anymore. When he crowded right 
in beside her and sat down on the edge of the mattress, Betsy rolled toward him. 
So did Elaina. Swiftly, she caught herself before she swayed against his 
shoulder. He lifted Betsy high above his head and made a raspberry that shut off 
her bellows as magically as stuffing a bottle into her mouth had.
"Wait! Don't do that!" Elaina cried in alarm. "What if she has a spinal injury?"
"She doesn't," he said confidently. "And if she did, you'd have crippled her for 
life the way you scooped her up off the floor. Don't worry, babies bend easy. 
They don't, as a rule, break." He tucked Betsy in the crook of his arm, and 
swung himself to his feet, carrying her with him. "Feelin' better, Bitsy-Bet?" 
He buried his face in her neck and blew, making a weird noise that she found 
hilarious. At least while it was going on. As soon as he quit, she began to cry 
again, this time a shrill, plaintive sound that cut right into Elaina's heart.
"Oh, she is hurt! She's in terrible pain," Elaina said, not far from tears 
herself.
"She's hungry." Bradshaw said with great authority. When Elaina didn't move, 
only covered her ears to block out the increasing screams, he lifted a brow. "I 
said, she's hungry. Warm up some food, why don't you? She's starving. Look at 
her. Every time she opens her mouth, she squirts. That's her salivary glands in 
action. Means she needs food, so feed her, woman."
Chapter Two
"Oh!" Elaina glared at him. Feed her? Woman? "Do it yourself, Bradshaw! You seem 
to know so much about all this baby stuff and you brought her here, so you feed 
her."
"Okay." he said, grinning as he passed Betsy to her. "I'll do that. You change 
her." He wrinkled his nose. "She really needs it."
Elaina agreed. She also knew that she'd been suckered. Why, she wondered 
plaintively, when there's a man around, does the woman always get the dirty end 
of the stick -- or the baby? Still, she couldn't leave the child in this 
condition, so she manfully -- womanfully? -- changed her and put her back into 
her terry-cloth pajamas. They'd be warm for her to travel in, and just as soon 
as she was fed, this kid was traveling!
Still, Elaina found herself coming very close to wishing it didn't have to be so 
as she lifted the now sweet-smelling baby back into her arms, feeling the 
snuggly warmth, the trust with which Betsy nestled close. She grabbed a handful 
of Elaina's hair and tugged on it. This must be what it's like, Elaina decided, 
to have your heartstrings tugged.
Nevertheless she set Betsy on the floor where she couldn't fall and quickly 
redid her hair into its neat, secure bun. She felt more like herself as soon as 
it was done, and much more ready to face the man she could hear crashing around 
in her kitchen.
The chrome-and-plastic object had been transformed into a high chair. Bradshaw 
took Betsy from Elaina, slipped her down onto the seat, then shoved the plastic 
tray close to her. He fastened a belt around her middle, buckling it at the 
back.
From the microwave, he took a small jar with orangy brown goop in it. Elaina 
looked at the jar and shuddered. "What is that?"
"Beef and carrots."
"Uh, why don't I just make her a nice sandwich?"
Bradshaw grinned and stirred the contents with a teaspoon, then tested a small 
amount of the stuff against his upper lip.
Betsy crowed and banged her fists on the tray of the high chair, clearly excited 
that the glop was about to be stuffed down her gullet. She opened her mouth 
wide. Bradshaw did the same. He shoved the spoon in. Betsy's lips closed around 
it -- and Bradshaw closed his mouth. The spoon came out clean in went back into 
the jar. Again, two mouths opened wide. Again two mouths closed, one around the 
spoon, the other over air.
Elaina watched in utter fascination. This was something she had never seen 
before. Betsy opened her mouth. Bradshaw opened his. Betsy closed hers. He 
closed his. She swallowed, he licked his lips. Elaina broke up.
He glanced at her. "What's the joke?"
"You look so funny! Did you know that you open your mouth when you feed her?"
He turned a dull brick-red. "I do not!"
For the next several mouthfuls he didn't. Until he forgot. When Elaina laughed 
again, he glared at her. "You do it, then."
"Uh-uh. Not me, Bradshaw. She's not my baby."
"She's not mine, either," he said, apparently startled that Elaina might think 
she was. "And call me Brad."
"Not Brent?"
He lifted one dark brow. "Nobody calls me that. I didn't think anyone at the 
hospital even knew it. So they called, finally, did they? I'm sorry I had to 
leave Betsy and run the way I did, but I was late back on duty after it took me 
so long to find you."
"What do you do at the hospital?" She was still only half convinced of his 
sanity -- and his veracity.
"I work in the emergency room. I'm senior resident." He cranked open the lid of 
another jar of baby food, stuck the spoon into it, and again tested the food. 
No, Elaina amended. Not testing, devouring. And a second bite too.
"You forgot to heat that," she said.
"Nah. This doesn't need heating."
"Then why did you test it?"
"I didn't. I tasted it. I like strained peaches."
She gave him a reproachful look. "You'd swipe the baby's food?"
"She can afford to give me a bite or two. Look at her. What a chub. I think one 
of the reasons her mother's so sick now is that she's done without almost 
everything so that Betsy could have what she needed."
As long as he was talking he didn't open his mouth each time the baby did. He 
wasn't nearly as funny to watch, but Elaina began to hope that if she asked the 
right questions, she just might figure out what was going on here.
"What's wrong with her mother?"
Betsy shoved the spoon away, apparently full, and turned her head to avoid the 
next offering. It smeared across her cheek and into her ear. Bradshaw shook the 
spoonful back into the jar and used the spoon to scrape the food off the baby's 
face. He put that back into the jar too. Elaina shuddered again.
"We don't know," he finally answered. "She collapsed today on the street and was 
brought to us. They brought Betsy, too, of course." He licked the spoon. "Poor 
kid. She was more worried about her baby than about herself. She kept begging us 
to find you so you could look after Betsy."
"You really are a doctor?"
He sighed. "That's what the diploma on the wall tells me," he said glumly. "But 
I wonder."
"Why?"
He gave her a bleak look. "People die, you know." He let the spoon fall to the 
tray and Betsy picked it up. She banged industriously on the plastic for a 
moment before flinging it away. It landed with a clatter on the floor. Elaina 
picked it up and rinsed it off, then gave it back to the baby. She didn't want 
to look at the man with the pale face and the eyes full of misery. But she 
couldn't let his statement go unacknowledged forever.
Finally, she nodded and touched his hand. "That must be hard to deal with."
He turned his hand over and clasped hers. As he met her gaze, that strange, 
electric sensation again crossed from his body to hers, looped around and 
circled back, linking them by far more than tightening fingers.
"It is hard to deal with," he said. "I know I'm supposed to be strong and 
detached and hold myself aloof from my patients' pain, but I can't. Maybe I came 
into the game too late in life."
"Why's that?"
Elaina's voice was soft. Brad wanted to curl up in it and warm himself. How 
could a person put so much caring into two small words? He wondered. And when 
was the last time he had felt so...so cared about? It shook him badly to realize 
how much he liked the feeling.
"I was a medic in the army." be said, and was amazed that it was the most 
natural thing in the world for him to be telling her this. "I saw how much more 
doctors could accomplish than I could, and got out so I could go to medical 
school. But I'm nearly thirty-five and most of the other residents are in their 
twenties. They seem to be more resilient than I. I sometimes think I should have 
stayed in the army. At least there I didn't have to deal with little kids and 
sick mothers frantic with fear over what was going to happen to their children."
"Maybe so." Elaina's tone remained quiet, soothing, her serene gaze steady on 
his face. "But at least now you're in a position to do something about it."
"Am I?" He looked down at their linked hands, wondering how they had come to be 
that way. She tightened her fingers a fraction and he smoothed his thumb over 
her knuckles. Her skin was soft, he mused, as soft as her voice.
"Tell me about her mother," she urged.
He looked up again. "She's very sick. And also very tough. She held on until she 
was sure I had got Betsy to you. And that you understood. Now she's unconscious, 
almost comatose. And we can't find out why. All we know is she has a raging 
infection that's involved her entire system. So we've got her in isolation and 
we're pumping antibiotics into her, but I still have an awful feeling that we 
aren't going to be able to do enough."
His voice cracked and he dropped her hand. He walked over to the sink, facing 
away from her. "Hell," he said in disgust. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dumped 
that on you. I'm just a bit tired."
"And hungry? she suggested, remembering how he had eaten that god-awful pink pap 
with such relish.
He shook his head. "I'm too tired to be hungry. I'll help you set up Betsy's 
crib and then I'd better go."
She stood irresolute, chewing on her lower lip, staring at his broad hack, at 
the yellow shirt stretch taut over strong shoulders. Strong, but drooping. She 
looked at the baby in the high chair. Betsy was drooping too. Obviously, her nap 
hadn't been enough. She needed a good night's sleep. She'd probably only woken 
up because a bottle of milk wasn't enough food to keep her going all night.
How could she kick out an innocent baby whose mother was sick, maybe dying? How 
could she make things harder for this tired doctor? But on the other hand, how 
could she let her own life be interfered with in this way? The fact was, she 
couldn't. She had a deadline to meet and was having enough difficulty with the 
project. She did not need something like this. She just couldn't do it.
"Listen," she said, and he turned around. She wished he hadn't. It was harder to 
say this to his face. "I really do wish I could help, but truly, I can't. I 
don't know anything about babies. I'm not competent to look after one. She was 
eating dirt five minutes after you left her here. Then I filled the tub too full 
and she sank. And I let her fall off the bed." She remembered how she had 
checked for broken bones and felt like a fool. What must he have thought of her? 
He had to have been laughing inside the whole time. A doctor, for heaven's sake! 
Why hadn't he said so? Why had be let her go on making an idiot of herself?
"Kids eat dirt and fall off things every day and survive," he said, smothering a 
yawn with the back of a hand. "And you're the one her mother nominated."
"But you don't seem to understand -- I don't know her mother. I've never heard 
of her. There must be another Elaina Mclvor in the city. You've found the wrong 
one, is all. Let's look in the phone book. I'm sure the other one, whoever she 
is, will be glad to take Betsy."
He shook his head and lowered himself to a chair. He rested his elbows on the 
table and his face in his palms, rubbing his cheeks. The raspy sound of skin 
over beard was one she hadn't heard for a long time. Her body's reaction 
startled so she only half heard his words. "You're the one. The only one. Eugene 
isn't all that big a city. And you illustrate kids' books, don't you?"
That caught her attention. "Yes, but..." She drew in an exasperated breath. 
Really, the man was going to fall asleep right there. One of his arms had just 
collapsed and his head had nearly struck the table before he caught himself.
"Darn it, you wake up, Bradshaw! And pay attention! Being an illustrator of 
children's books does not mean I'm any good with kids. Or want to be. I've never 
had anything to do with them."
"Don't frown like that. It makes you look like Miss Harris, my fourth-grade 
teacher who used to pull my ear." He wrinkled his nose. "And why do you wear 
your hair like that? You look a helluva lot more human with it down, Lainie."
"My name," she said crisply, "is Elaina." Nobody had ever called her anything 
but. Lainie? Where had he gotten that? And why? What a ridiculous name. And her 
hair was none of his business.
He yawned again. "Sorry, E-lain-a," he drawled. "Where do you want the crib?"
She followed him out into the foyer. "Back in your van," she said, but he 
ignored her and hauled it into the spare room next to her bedroom.
"Look, you can't do this!" she protested. "I told you. There's a big mistake 
being made here. I can't be the one Mrs., uh...Lawrence? chose to baby-sit 
Betsy."
He gave the sections of bars and boards a shake or two and it resolved itself 
into a loosely constructed rectangle. He inserted the bottom, which looked like 
the pegboard she hung her gardening tools on. With a few deft motions, he 
affixed the bottom and the rectangle took on greater sturdiness.
"Bradshaw! She called after him as he strode from the room. He paid her no 
attention, only came back with that stupid little mattress on top of his stupid 
head once more. That was it, she thought. He was stupid. He wasn't a doctor at 
all. He was an escapee from a mental hospital who had swiped a baby somewhere 
and was doing this because he didn't know any better. She felt almost relieved 
by the notion. That this entire event had no basis in sanity or reality was 
easier to accept than the alternative.
"There's a crib sheet in the bag in the stroller," he said, not sounding as 
stupid as she'd have liked. "And a blanket, too. if you bring them, I'll make up 
Betsy's bed. After she's had another bottle, she'll probably sleep right through 
the night. She'll want a bowl of cereal for breakfast, the rest of the peaches, 
and another bottle. if you don't have any milk in the house, I'll bring you some 
before I go back to the hospital."
"Bradshaw!" This time, it was a wail of despair. What was it going to take to 
get through to this man? Why couldn't he understand plain English?
"I know, I know," he said kindly. He continued, speaking over his shoulder as he 
went to fetch the stroller and its contents. "You don't want any part of this. 
You don't know Betsy's mother and you don't want to know Betsy." He nearly ran 
over her toes with the stroller as he shoved it past her. He pulled the crib 
sheet out of the bag, shook it out and began stretching it over the mattress. 
"But as she said in her note," he went on, "Margo feels she knows you, and -- "
"But I didn't get a note from her!" Elaina shouted. "All I got was your dumb 
phone bill, Bradshaw!"
He straightened, hands massaging the small of his back. "What do you mean, my 
phone bill?'
"I'll show you!" she snapped. Whirling, she nearly tripped over Harrison who had 
come to investigate her raised voice. "There," she said in triumph a moment 
later, waving the envelope in front of his nose. "See? And who do you know in 
Buffalo that you called three times during the most expensive hours?"
"My mother." He blinked blearily at the bill and nodded. "Yup. That's my phone 
bill, all right. I wonder where Margo's note is then."
"Me, too," Elaina said emphatically, then spun around as a clattering sound came 
from the kitchen. She beat one very tired doctor by only half a pace and came to 
a halt in the doorway to stare at a grinning baby. Betsy was sucking on the 
corner of a lace tablecloth while a sugar bowl, its lid, and a crystal vase lay 
on the parquet floor in small, glittering pieces. Sugar and pink roses and water 
had splashed everywhere.
"Oh, Betsy." Brad moaned. "How are we going to convince Lainie that you're a 
nice little kid if you keep screwing up like this? I saw the pile of dirt in the 
living room. You upset a plant, didn't you? And then you scared poor Lainie half 
to death by falling off the bed." He undid the belt that held her in the chair, 
picked her up and kissed her nearly bald pate. "You just gotta be good, 
sweetheart."
She gurgled and buried her fists in his hair. She shook his head with all her 
might, then tugged at one of his ears.
Elaina uncurled those tight little fingers. "Don't, honey-bun. He'll think 
you're Miss Harris." She was appalled that Brent Bradshaw might believe she was 
refusing Betsy house space because she was naughty. Babies her age weren't. 
Elaina didn't know how she knew that, but some instinct told her it was true. 
There could be no malice with such sweet innocence, she thought as Betsy 
launched herself from Brad's arms to hers, patted her face, and said happily, 
"Mama."
"You look cute," Bradshaw said, grinning. "I've never seen such a fatuous 
expression. Don't let it go to your head. "Mama's the only word she knows. She 
called the head nurse Mama too."
Elaina glared at him. "The note. Where do you suppose the note is, Bradshaw? Or 
is there such a thing?"
"There is, there is, I promise you. I..." He frowned. "I stuck it behind the 
visor. That's where I stick all my mail. I must have hauled out the wrong 
envelope this afternoon. I'll go look."
Betsy was making sleepy sounds and rubbing her eyes. She needed more sleep. 
Elaina thought, and remembered Bradshaw's words. She also needed another bottle. 
Elaina got milk froth the refrigerator, realizing quickly that it was too cold. 
Even she, who knew nothing about babies, knew that. She poured the milk into a 
measuring cup zapped it in the microwave on low power, jiggling Betsy who 
objected loudly to having to wait. She got an empty bottle from the bag Bradshaw 
had brought earlier. When the side of the cup began to feel warm, she stirred 
the milk, poured it into the bottle, and held it out toward the child. Betsy was 
ecstatic.
"Baby, it doesn't take a whole lot to please you, does it?" Elaina murmured. She 
curled up as before on the couch, cradling the nursing child close, tucking a 
crocheted afghan from the sofa-back over her. She heard the door open and close, 
heard heavy steps coming toward her, then Brent Bradshaw filled the doorway. She 
was struck again by his size, his looks, and that indefinable something that 
stirred her in a way she wasn't used to being stirred.
"Got it," he said, crouching in front of her and gazing at Betsy as she sucked 
on the bottle. He curled a finger and stroked the baby's face tenderly. To 
Elaina's horror a very definite shiver ran through her, a shiver of a kind she 
hadn't felt for a long time. It was almost as if that finger had caressed her.
"I'll read it when she's finished," she said breathlessly, wishing he'd move 
away from her. "I'd rather not disturb her. If she's asleep, you can just lay 
her on the seat of your van when you leave."
He looked at her bleakly and walked from the room. A moment later she heard the 
sounds of him cleaning up the broken glass and spilled sugar in the kitchen. He 
returned, strode to the corner where Brahms had fallen, and stared down at the 
pile of dark soil on the pale fawn carpet. Harrison sauntered over, rubbed 
against his ankle, and was rewarded by a scratch on the back of the head.
Brad looked at Elaina. "If you'll tell me where the vacuum is, I'll clean up 
this mess for you."
She shook her head. "No, thank you. Betsy's asleep now. Will you take her?"
Silently, he pleaded with her. Just as silently, she resisted. Green eyes meshed 
with gray. Her heart argued with her common sense and she was dismayed at how 
easily emotions could win out over mind. She sighed. "Take her to her crib."
Then, lest he think her too soft, too eager to give in, she went on. "It's late. 
I'll keep her for the night. But just for the night."
His smile didn't quite put the merry light back into his eyes, but it did ease 
some of the lines in his face. He crouched again and slid his arms under the 
sleeping baby, then stood up with her, afghan and all.
"That's good enough for now," he said softly. "Thanks, Lainie."
"Elaina," she said, just as softly, but with a steely note. She might be stuck 
with doing as he wanted for the time being, but that didn't mean he could call 
her anything be pleased. That was a silly, frivolous little-girl name, and she 
had seldom been silly and frivolous -- even as a little girl.
He nodded and said mockingly, "E-lain-a."
As he turned, the note fluttered to the floor and she bent to pick it up. 
Unfolding it, she read the feathery scrawl.
Dear Miss McIvor, you don't know me but I feel I know you. You always draw such 
happy children and your animals are so sweet. I took Betsy to the library to see 
you when you were reading to the kids there and I loved your soft, kind voice 
and your pretty eyes. Please help me. I'm sick and I don't know anybody in 
Eugene but my landlady who is mean and the people I work for who are all rich 
and busy and wouldn't care about Betsy. They said I have to give them a name of 
somebody here or Betsy would go to a foster home. I know that would be bad. I 
lied and said I know you. Please take care of Betsy till I get better. I'm so 
scared if they send her to strangers I'll never see her again.
If there was a signature, it was illegible, and Elaina thought it was simply 
that the pen had fallen away across the bottom of the paper. She had only read 
at the library on two or three Saturday mornings recently to help out, and was 
sure she didn't remember Betsy -- or her mother. But Margo remembered her. In 
spite of herself, Elaina was touched. Poor Margo. Sighing, she refolded the note 
and set it carefully on the mantel. After setting a candlestick on top of it for 
safety, she walked into the spare room to speak to Brent Bradshaw, who had 
tactfully left her alone to read the note
Tactfully? She nearly hooted the word aloud. The man wasn't being tactful at 
all. He had simply fallen asleep on the single bed.
"Bradshaw!" she said. He didn't move. She'd have yelled at him, but didn't want 
to wake the baby. She shook him. He grumbled and rolled over, putting both shoes 
on the spread. With an impatient snatch of breath, she tugged his shoes off and 
set them neatly on the floor under the edge of the bed. Then resigned, she 
pulled a warm quilt from the top shelf of the closet and covered him, turned off 
the light, checked on Betsy then tiptoed out, closing the door halfway.
What with her unexpected afternoon nap, as well as everything she had on her 
mind, it was a long time before Elaina got to sleep. She had just done so when 
the oddest noise awakened her. It was as insistent as her doorbell if not quite 
as strident, and she had no idea where it was coming from.
She got out of bed, blinking blearily, and opened the blind. It was barely dawn. 
What could be making a noise like that at this time of morning?
She staggered out as the door to the spare room opened and a huge, shaggy figure 
stumbled into the hail, mumbling incomprehensibly. He blundered toward her as 
she shoved her hair out of her eyes, trying to figure things out. Nothing became 
clearer, especially when he walked right into her. His arms swung around her as 
she lost her balance, teetering on one foot. She clung to him with both arms 
around his middle, eyes squeezed tightly closed.
Chapter Three
It was the most incredible thing, Elaina thought with the few of her scattered 
wits she could gather. For the first time in her life she fit exactly right 
against a man. As the strange noise continued, she pressed herself even closer, 
noticing that her forehead rested exactly where it should into the curve of his 
shoulder, that her arms, wrapped around his waist didn't need to reach either 
too far up or too far down. She noticed, too, that her heart was slamming 
against her ribs and that she wasn't breathing at all regularly. Dimly, she 
realized she should move away from him, but his arms held her so securely she 
wasn't sure she could. Besides, she didn't want to. What she wanted to do was 
keep on leaning against his big, hard warm body and go back to sleep. Oh, this 
felt great! Not only had her head found a comfy home on his shoulder, not only 
was she breathing in a scent that was unique and tantalizing, not only did her 
arms go around him at just the right height, but her thighs meshed with his and 
her hips nestled against a burgeoning erection that was having an even stranger 
effect on her body and --
What in heaven's name are you doing, Elaina?
"Let me go!" she gasped, tearing herself away from him.
"Hey, who was hanging onto whom?"
"I..." Lord but this man had bad manners! What a thing to ask. Even if it was 
true. He wasn't a gentleman or he wouldn't have mentioned it. But at least he 
had let her go. Had it been reluctantly? Her heart did dumb things again, 
thinking that yes, it had been reluctantly "What's that noise?" she demanded 
stepping well clear of him.
"Oh. Yeah." He looked guilty as he fumbled at his waist and the noise ceased. 
"My beeper. Where's the phone?"
She explained that it wasn't connected and unlocked the door to let him out. He 
mumbled something, headed for the steps, missed them entirely, and fell off the 
porch, full length on to the grass. Shaking his head, he got up and headed or 
his van. She wondered if he were suffering from the same weird effects as she. 
If he couldn't walk straight because of that inadvertent embrace or simply 
hadn't woken up yet.
He managed to start the engine and turn on the headlights of his van, so 
presumably he was beginning to function properly. She stood shivering in the 
dawn air for a long moment, wondering if and when she would function properly 
again.
Back in her bedroom she caught sight of herself in the mirror and stared. Her 
eyes were enormous. Her lips were parted as if waiting to be kissed. Were they? 
Probably. Dammit, what had he done to her? She blinked. He had made her look 
pretty, that was what he had done to her. And she was plain. But no, she 
reminded herself "plain" had been Kirk's assessment of her. She didn't have to 
go along with it. She had told herself a long time ago that his opinion wasn't 
necessarily valid. In the past three years, she'd had a few dates, not many, but 
enough to let her know that not all men found her unattractive. And Kirk had 
been excusing himself. If he'd taken up with a good-looking woman, his actions 
might have been less forgivable or something. She'd spent a good many hours 
trying to figure it, and him, out.
She tried to remember if Kirk had ever said in so many words that he thought she 
was plain, but decided it must only have been his attitude. "You really should 
wear darker colors, Elaina. Why draw attention to your size?" For a long time 
she had felt like an elephant. To hear Kirk talk, you'd have thought she was 
overweight, instead of five feet ten and slender. Models were built like her, 
except she was more busty than most of them.
The trouble was she'd been so shy when she met Kirk and had had so little 
experience with men, his comments about her appearance were all she had to go 
on. They were much the same as what her mother had said to her over and over. 
"Must you have that huge bush of hair flying around your head? Can't you tie it 
back or something?" She had heard that so many times that tying her hair back 
was merely habit now.
Brad liked it better down. She let the thought linger in her mind for a moment 
before she squelched it, annoyed with herself. He hadn't said that at all. He 
had only said she looked more human. She picked up her brush and worked 
vigorously for a few minutes until her hair glowed golden brown in the morning 
light.
Betsy screamed with delight when she saw Elaina. She stood in the crib and 
jumped up and down, shaking the bars in glee. When Elaina lifted her up, the 
baby hugged her tightly and said, "Mama?" For a minute Elaina allowed herself to 
pretend.
Harrison sauntered in. In a transport of joy, Betsy flung herself sideways in 
Elaina's arms, nearly tipping the two of them over. Elaina sat down on the bed 
abruptly, falling backward onto the crumpled quilt as Harrison hopped up to rub 
against his new toy, purring as Betsy squealed and giggled. Harrison rubbed and 
purred and Elaina simply breathed, her face turned sideways into the pillow. she 
drew in a scent at once familiar and unfamiliar, and strangely, deeply exciting. 
It made her feel light-headed, weak, soft inside, and she quickly rolled away 
and stood up, carrying Betsy.
***
"Breakfast," she said. "That's what's needed around here, breakfast. I didn't 
have any dinner last night." Betsy seemed to agree, because as soon as she was 
changed -- something that took priority, Elaina realized -- she opened her mouth 
to yell and began squirting from the fascinating little glands under her tongue. 
It was a good thing Brad had explained, she thought, or she'd be frantic with 
worry over it.
Brad! Dammit the man simply wouldn't stay out of her mind. Even while Betsy 
raged, hammering on the tray of her high chair as Elaina read the instructions 
on the cereal box and mixed the stuff accordingly, Brad Bradshaw's voice was 
rumbling through her ears, his scent was tingling her nose, and the memory of 
how he had felt against her was making her hand shake. Heavens, it made her 
entire body shake!
She felt her face go hot when she thought of what had happened to his body while 
they held each other. She knew, of course, about men and morning, but what if it 
had been because of her? It hadn't been there at first and then -- Oh! Suddenly, 
she was even more ashamed of herself. The man was a stranger, for heaven's sake! 
She concentrated hard on getting breakfast into Betsy. Some things, she decided, 
were best forgotten.
She left the baby playing happily on the floor with Harrison and a chunky 
plastic bracelet Betsy had seen on her dresser and wanted, while she gathered up 
the laundry. She stuffed it into the washer, then dashed back to the spare room. 
She tidied the bed and discovered one pair of large black shoes still neatly 
tucked under it. She stared at them. Had he left barefoot? She shook her head. 
The crazy man! Well, it wasn't her problem, was it? So why did she keep 
wondering about it -- and about him -- while she quickly ran the vacuum over the 
carpets.
Her morning routine was shot to pieces and she wasn't sure she liked that. 
Heavens, she always started work at no later than eight-thirty! Today, she 
hadn't even made her own bed, the morning paper was sitting out on the doorstep, 
and her breakfast eggs were still in their shells. Well, it would all have to 
wait. The washer shuddered to a stop and she hurriedly shifted the wet things to 
the dryer so she could remake Betsy's bed just in case she needed a nap before 
Brad came back to get her.
She was struck by a sudden sadness. She didn't want him to take Betsy! Not only 
that, but without the baby he'd have no reason to return, ever. Of course, that 
wasn't to say that even if she kept Betsy, he'd come back, but...You never 
knew.Don't make excuses, Elaina. If you keep Betsy, it'll be because you like 
her. But still...it would be nice to have Betsy -- and Brad -- around, if only 
for a while.
She had just put the vacuum away when she was startled by the welcome sound of 
the telephone ringing. Leaving Betsy to play in the spare bedroom she dashed to 
grab the phone in the living room. It was the telephone company informing her 
that she was all hooked up and ready to go. She thanked the operator politely, 
and hung up, glad to have her phone in operation. Not that she often called 
anyone, or that anyone might call her, but it was comforting to know it was 
there if she needed it.
"Mama-mama-mama-mama," said Betsy, and Elaina looked down to see her galloping 
across the hall on hands and knees, making amazingly good time. She crawled 
right up to Elaina, grabbed two fistfuls of navy velour housecoat, and hauled 
herself upright. "Up," she said very clearly. "Up."
Elaina stared at her and lifted her in her arms "You talked? You said a word? 
Oh, Betsy! Betsy, you can talk!" It was wonderful, stupendous! She couldn't 
believe it. Betsy could talk! She could say more than just "mama." She was a 
real little person. The idea was so exciting that Elaina wanted to call someone 
and share the news. But who? No one she knew would care.
No one? One person would, but she couldn't call him to tell him something like 
that could she? No, of course not! She thought about it. She'd say, "Brad, I 
just had to tell you Betsy can say 'up!'"
And he'd say, "Lainie! That's great news. I'm glad you called."
Oh, yeah? Hah! He'd say, "Elaina who? Oh. You. You called me out of surgery to 
tell me that?" Or did emergency room residents do surgery? Whatever. He wouldn't 
want to be interrupted. He'd hang up totally disgusted with her and her 
stupidity. Elaina sighed. She had never felt more lonely in her life.
What would he think of the fact that she had no one to call with exciting news, 
she wondered, a man who called his mother three times in one month -- during 
non-discount hours? They must be very close. She sighed again, then lifted her 
chin determinedly. It wasn't important she told herself. Some people were close 
to their families; others were not. That was just the way life was. Letters were 
what welded her family together, if 'welded' was the word to use for their 
admittedly loose connection. And those letters were rare, more an obligatory 
touching of bases than news-filled missives.
Thinking about her parents' reaction if she were to call and tell them about 
Betsy made Elaina smile. Then it made her laugh. Betsy laughed back at her and 
Elaina gave the baby a hug. It was easy to smile and laugh with Betsy around.
Maybe Kirk had been wrong after all: Maybe she would be a good mother. She put 
such thoughts out of her mind and concentrated on the baby.
"Say it again, honey-bun. Come on. Betsy, say 'up.'"
But Betsy was already up. She didn't need to say it again. Instead she said her 
other word a few more times, then wiggled to get down. "So what did you want up 
for?" Elaina asked almost complainingly. but she put Betsy on the floor.
Maybe Betsy had just felt lonely and had come looking for comfort, she mused. It 
was nice to have someone come to her for comfort. It was, in a way, comforting.
She remembered her own feeling of loneliness when she realized she had no one to 
call, and sat on the floor beside Betsy and Harrison. She rolled the bracelet 
back and forth between them, and they both batted at it. Betsy cooed and kicked 
her bare feet. Elaina smiled. She wasn't feeling the least bit lonely anymore. 
"I'm not going to get any work done today, am I?" she asked presently, thinking 
how much less eccentric it seemed to be talking to a baby instead of a cat. 
Which was strange, because the cat likely understood almost as much as the baby 
did. When she mentioned work to Harrison, he often hopped up on the top edge of 
her drawing board. This morning, though, he didn't, much preferring to stay 
where Betsy was. As Elaina did.
Suddenly, she felt amazingly full of energy. But not for work. Today, her studio 
would remain closed. Outside, the sun shone and birds sang and it was a perfect 
June morning. Babies needed fresh air, didn't they? And milk and more baby food 
than the few little jars that were left, and some disposable diapers that looked 
so cute in commercials. Not to mention easy, what with not requiring pins. Or 
laundering!
Betsy had gone through an inordinate number of her cloth ones, and Brad hadn't 
brought very many of those at all. If she really did decide to keep Betsy, she'd 
need more, and soon. So, just in case, she'd buy some.
Scooping up Betsy and the bracelet, she nearly ran to the bathroom. She set the 
baby and her new toy on the floor. "I need a shower, honey-bun, and coffee and 
food and you're going to need lunch soon. But then you and I are going shopping, 
so you just behave yourself for a few minutes, okay?'
Betsy bit the bracelet, chortled, and pounded with it on the side of the tub. 
"That's right," said Elaina. "You play and be a good girl."
Making sure the door was shut tight so Betsy couldn't crawl away and get into 
trouble somewhere, Elaina stepped into the shower. As she quickly washed, her 
mind was filled with the things she planned to do with the rest of the time she 
had Betsy. When she was through and had wrapped a towel around herself and 
opened the shower doors, though, her mind went totally blank with shock as she 
saw what trouble Betsy had managed to get into in the confines of the bathroom.
"No! No!" she cried, grabbing the baby and pulling her away from the toilet to 
safety. She snatched a sodden towel from wet hands, seeing with horror that 
Betsy had been sucking on it.
"Oh, Betsy! Betsy! What have you done? What did I let you get into?" 
Frantically, she dried Betsy's face with the end of her own towel, trying to 
wipe out the baby's mouth, even while she knew that would do no good. The damage 
was surely done. Betsy had ingested who knew what number of dreadful germs, 
horrible microbes, vicious viruses! She needed help! She needed a doctor -- and 
fast!
As if sensing the urgency of the situation, Betsy began to howl energetically, 
setting Elaina's nerves further on edge. She ran into the living room and 
grabbed for the telephone, punching the 0 while she tried to comfort the baby. 
"Betsy, baby, don't cry. It'll be all right!" She wasn't at all sure it would, 
but knew she had to comfort the screaming child. "I'll get help for you! I'll 
fix it!"
"University Hospital Emergency," she said to the operator, then, when the 
hospital switchboard replied, "Dr. Bradshaw, please. And hurry!" she cried when 
a laconic female voice answered.
"Not there? What do you mean not there? He works there! He has to be there! I 
need him. This is an emergency!" She was speaking rapidly, almost incoherently, 
raising her voice to be heard over Betsy's screams. "I need Dr. Bradshaw. 
Please, please tell me where he is!"
"I'm right here," said his voice in her ear.
Almost insane with relief she babbled into the phone, "Oh, Brad, she said you 
weren't there. It's Betsy. She drank the toilet water and I know she's going to 
die and her mother entrusted her to my care and I didn't look after her properly 
and -- "
"This is Dr. Bradshaw," he said, taking the phone from her hand and speaking 
into it. "I'll take care of things." And then he hung it up.
Elaina blinked at him, "You're here!"
"I'm here." He lifted Betsy out of Elaina's arms, ran his gaze over her, then 
draped her over his shoulder, rubbing her back. At once, her squalling stopped 
"What happened?" he asked calmly in the sudden stillness.
"She...I...I left her playing in the bathroom while I was in the shower and she 
drank toilet water."
He frowned, turned Betsy to face him, and sniffed at her mouth. "She didn't get 
much, I don't suppose. I don't smell anything."
Elaina glared at him. "Well! I mean, it wasn't exactly -- uh -- it had been 
flushed!"
For a moment he gaped at her as if he wasn't sure of what he was hearing, then 
he shook his head slowly, a grin growing on his face. "Toilet water? You mean 
water? Not cologne? Just plain water? Out of the toilet? That's all?" And he 
roared with laughter.
"All? she echoed, her voice shrill and cutting into his laughter "All? Isn't it 
enough? All those germs! She soaked a towel in it and sucked on it! We have 
to...have to disinfect her, or something."
"Sure," he said, his rich chuckle still rippling out. "You go ahead and 
disinfect her, Lainie. It'll make you feel better. Sort of like checking her for 
broken bones."
"You...are...making...fun...of...me!" she said.
To Brad's horror, her face crumpled. He realized she was white and shaking and 
genuinely frightened. Tears fell from her eyes and she turned from him, her 
shoulders convulsing. Quickly, he set the baby on the floor and gathered the 
woman close. He led her to the sofa, and sat down, trying to get her face lifted 
out of her hands.
Her voice was muffled when she spoke. "I don't know anything 
about...about...babies and you know everything and it's not...not fair to make 
fun of me when I was so scared that she was going to d-die and...and -- "
"Hey, Elaina, take it easy!" He turned her face into the hollow of his shoulder, 
remembering how it had fit there this morning, how fantastic it had felt to hold 
her, how he had wanted to walk right back to bed, still holding her, curl his 
body around hers and -- Oh, lordy! Can that, Bradshaw! He continued rubbing her 
back as he had Betsy's, feeling the incredible smoothness of her skin under his 
palm. Hell, this was nothing at all like soothing Betsy. "Don't cry, Lainie. I'm 
sorry." That's it, keep talking. Keep your mind on comforting this woman, this 
stranger, this...patient. She needs words now, words that will calm her. Words 
that will soothe. She doesn't need --
He swallowed hard and concentrated. "I didn't mean to make fun of you. But it 
did strike me as funny. All she got was a little bit of clean water. It's no 
worse than her sucking on a washcloth in the bath. There's nothing there to harm 
her. I'm sure you're the cleanest person around and I know Betsy is going to be 
just fine. Come on, now, don't cry any more."
"I never cry," she said crying harder. She wrapped her arms around his torso and 
clung to him. "I don't know what's the matter with me!"
Brad felt beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead He knew damned well what 
was the matter withhim! He was holding a nearly naked woman in his arms and 
responding to the situation the way any red-blooded male would. The sweet scent 
of her damp hair, the natural perfume of her skin, were getting to him more 
rapidly than he'd been gotten to in a long, long time. The jutting pressure of 
her nipples against his chest made him catch his breath and pray for strength.
Think of her as a patient, Bradshaw, he told himself frantically, but the 
delicious warmth of her body told him this was no patient. This was a wonderful 
armful of woman he wanted to hold closer and closer, tighter and tighter. He 
wanted to get rid of that towel she was wrapped in. He wanted...
He wanted his hand to stop rubbing her back, but it seemed to have a will of its 
own. It slowed, moving in circles, as he tested the satin of her skin. He traced 
her spine right down to where the towel was loosely wrapped. His breathing 
became labored. His chest constricted. His other hand came into play, caressing 
her shoulder, feeling the delicacy of the bones under the skin. His fingers 
massaged, sliding along the curve of flesh that led to her slender neck, 
tangling in the softness of her hair. God, she felt good! When was the last time 
a woman had stirred him like this? He couldn't remember. Maybe never. He'd 
thought he was too tired these past couple of years to be turned on to this 
extent. How wrong he had been!
This woman was turning him on as if he were a green kid who'd never held a naked 
female before. She was soft and sweet and delicately made, in spite of her 
height. Her height? She fit him perfectly.
She had gone motionless in his arms, her weeping quieted, her face still tucked 
against his shoulder. He could feel the dampness of her tears on his shirt. She 
caught her breath as he cupped a hand under her chin, then he was gazing into 
her eyes. They were the same gray as he'd remembered, but not so serene now. 
They were nearly silver, with dark rings around the irises, huge and moist and 
incredibly lovely within their wet, dark lashes. Slightly wary, these eyes gazed 
back at him, filled with the same questions that were battering at his own 
consciousness, questions he had no intention of even thinking about now, 
questions he didn't want her to have a chance to ask herself or voice aloud. Her 
cheeks were faintly flushed and her lips were parted, pink and soft and he 
didn't want to waste time on thought or discussion. Action was what he craved. 
And those lips.
He tilted her face higher, lowered his head, and took those soft pink lips 
gently, almost reverently. He felt them tremble and part under his urging to 
admit the tip of his tongue. Slowly, delicately he tasted her. He found her 
sweeter than he had imagined a woman could taste, and ran his tongue along the 
inside of her lower lip. A tremor there translated itself into a shudder that 
quaked through her whole body, and her nipples peaked against his chest. He felt 
his own body surge in a deep response of its own.
He wanted to crush her in his arms and deepen the kiss, to take it to its 
logical conclusion, but the memory of those drenched gray eyes gazing at him 
with such a world of questions in them held him back. He lifted his head 
reluctantly, watching her face.
Slowly, her long lashes fluttered up and she looked at him, bemused. She blinked 
as if she didn't know quite where she was, and levered herself away from his 
chest. With his hands on her shoulders, he helped her sit erect, suddenly 
becoming aware that her towel had slipped down to expose her perfect breasts. 
His gaze fell to those creamy orbs with their delicate, rosy tips, and one hand 
followed almost of its own volition. Gently, gently, he brushed the backs of his 
fingers up the underside of the curves. He watched her eyes widen and darken 
then fill with realization of what was happening.
She snatched up her towel, wrapping it tightly around herself as she shot to her 
feet. "Don't!" she gasped, although he was no longer doing anything at all 
except looking. And then she was gone, her long, slim legs taking great strides 
as she fled to the safety of her bedroom.
Chapter Four
For the third time, Elaina told herself that she couldn't stay in her bedroom 
forever. She drew a deep breath, put her hand on the doorknob, and briskly 
turned it. She was neatly dressed in a pair of navy slacks and a white blouse 
with long sleeves and a high collar. Her hair was pinned into its tidy bun at 
the nape of her neck, and she should have felt ready to face the world. But what 
she felt was nervous and diffident and still deeply shaken by that kiss.
Brad was in the utility room, taking Betsy's clothes from the dryer and stuffing 
them into a bag. If he even remembered that kiss and the rest of it, he showed 
no sign.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Packing up Betsy's stuff."
She stared at him. She shook her head. She weakly said, "Oh..." and leaned on 
the doorjamb. "Right now?"
"You said only one night." He scarcely looked at her. When the clothes were all 
in, he set the bag on the floor and crowded past her. Elaina followed him to the 
spare room. Betsy was there, rump high, wrapped in the afghan on the bare crib 
mattress, asleep.
"Where are you taking her?" she whispered.
"We found a foster home for her," he said just as quietly, gathering up the few 
bits of clothing Betsy hadn't worn yet. Elaina nodded, swallowed hard, and 
reached into the crib to touch Betsy's downy hair. Gliding silently away from 
the crib, she whispered, "What if I...changed my mind? What if I decided 
I...want her here?"
"Have you changed your mind?" he murmured.
"Her own mother wanted me to have her."
He gave her an all-encompassing look that told her he was likening her to Miss 
Harris again. "Her mother probably has no idea the woman she chose hides behind 
her hair."
Elaina tilted her chin proudly and said, "If I were hiding behind my hair, I'd 
hardly pull it back, would I?"
He grinned. "Wouldn't you?"
"No. And the way I wear my hair is none of your business. Nor do I think it has 
anything to do with how well I could care for Betsy." He continued to look at 
her, no longer grinning, but with a hint of laughter deep in his eyes.
She felt oddly compelled to say something more. "How is she? Margo Lawrence?"
He sat on the end of the single bed, his expression bleak and sad. "I could say 
she's holding her own. It would be true. But all I can think of is that we're 
doing everything possible for her, have been for nearly twenty-four hours, and 
there is still no appreciable change." He fiddled with the zipper of the pink 
and blue diaper bag, not looking at Elaina. For the moment, she could study him 
undetected. He had found another pair of shoes and had changed out of the 
crumpled clothing he'd slept in, although his cotton pants and short sleeved 
shirt might have been used the same way. Either that, or he had just dragged 
them on as they came out of the dryer. Really, the man needed someone to look 
after him, she thought. Obviously he didn't get enough sleep and last night he 
had said he was too tired to be hungry. He also worried about his patients. No 
one should live under that kind of stress. He was a doctor. Didn't he know that?
He glanced up and caught her staring. She turned away quickly, feeling her face 
go warm, and wished futilely that she didn't have such give-away skin.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
Before she could stop herself, she blurted out. "That you're exhausted and look 
as if you're about to fall asleep on that bed again."
He got to his feet and shook his head. "Don't worry. I won't do that to you 
twice." He stubbed his toe on something, bent, and saw his shoes.
"So there they are. I wondered where I had left them."
"Do you always go out on emergency calls without your shoes?"
He shrugged. "Sometimes, if I'm not fully awake. But since I live right in the 
hospital, it doesn't usually matter. And speaking of the hospital, I have to get 
back on duty, but someone's covering for me while I take care of things for 
Betsy. You really want to keep her?"
"Yes," she said. "For as long as necessary." There was no doubt in her mind 
anymore. She looked at the sleeping baby and forgot everything but Betsy. Betsy 
who needed her. Betsy, who cuddled up to her when she was lonely. Betsy, who 
alleviated her own loneliness in doing so.
"Okay," he said. "And thanks. I wasn't looking forward to telling Margo when she 
regains consciousness that Betsy was anywhere else."
He moved toward her, carrying his black shoes, and Elaina backed nervously out 
of the room, pulling the door shut behind her.
They walked to the front door and just before he opened it, she said, still 
whispering, "She will regain consciousness, won't she?"
He used a normal tone of voice. "I hope so, Lainie. But there are no guarantees 
in medicine. We have the best specialists available over there at the hospital, 
and they're doing everything possible. They're pretty helpless, though, without 
a history from her, and she was in no shape to give us one. We don't know much 
more than her name and address and that she's Betsy's mother. She does housework 
for people, but we don't know who those people might be. We don't know where 
she's from, or who Betsy's father is, or if Margo has parents somewhere worrying 
about her, people who might be able to help us find out what's wrong.
"When I went to her apartment to get Betsy's things, the landlady said she'd 
only lived there a couple of months. There wasn't much food in the place other 
than baby food and milk, and Margo is in a dangerously run-down condition. God, 
she's just a kid herself. I'd be surprised if she were over eighteen." He 
pounded one fist into the opposite hand. "Damn, but I hate this helplessness!"
"I'm sorry," Elaina said softly. "I know it worries you."
"Damn right it worries me! It happens too often. But Betsy's one of the lucky 
ones. Do you know that poverty and malnourishment are believed by many experts 
to be the number one killers of babies in this country? This country! Where we 
live so well. Sure, some of those deaths are attributed to other causes, but the 
root cause in so many cases is just plain poverty. And you can't blame the 
parents," he went on, as if she might have been going to do that. "When the 
paycheck, be it earnings from a job or welfare from the government, isn't 
enough, it simply isn't enough. There is no way to stretch it. The clothes I 
brought yesterday...well, that's it. That is Betsy's entire wardrobe. And poor 
little Margo has even less. The two of them share a foam pad for a bed. That may 
be all right this time of year, but what about winter when it gets cold and 
drafty and the few blankets the two of them have aren't enough?"
Elaina raised her brows. "Then where did all the baby furniture come from?"
"I...uh, there's a fund for things like that," he said, his gaze sliding away 
from hers. Quickly, he wrenched open the door. "I'll be back," he said, and 
before she could ask him when, he was gone. This time he made it off the porch 
successfully, even though he missed the steps again. He slammed the gate, and 
the sound reverberated in the warm air.
Sure there was a fund, she thought, staring at the empty street after the green 
van had gone. And that fund came right out of his own hip pocket. She wondered 
what residents earned and didn't think it was a whole lot. She closed the door 
and went back inside, remembering again that she hadn't yet had breakfast.
***
"Hello," said Terri Greenspan, Elaina's next door neighbor. She stood up from 
her weeding as Elaina pushed Betsy in the stroller past her driveway. "The boys 
told me you had a baby. I thought they were just romancing the way they do. 
They're very imaginative. Did you adopt?"
"No. No, I'm just looking after a friend's child for a few days."
"She's a real sweetheart. What's her name?" Elaina told her and Terri went on. 
"The boys are thrilled to have an artist whose name they've seen on so many of 
their books living next door. I've told them not to bother you, but I've seen 
them in your yard. I hope they aren't too much trouble. Kick them out whenever 
you want. I won't be offended. I'm sure you need peace to work."
Betsy bounced, trying to make the stroller go.
"No, they've been okay," Elaina assured Terri. "I know they're interested in 
what I do."
"Still, you don't have to put up with them when you're busy. They're curious, of 
course, and they miss the Wilson kids who used to live in your house. I think 
they expected that our next neighbors would automatically provide them with new 
buddies. This is a strange neighborhood. Some years there are too many kids, 
other years, not enough. The other day I heard someone describe it as a 
community of the newly-wed or nearly-dead."
Elaina smiled and said that she didn't think she or Terri qualified for either 
description.
"No, we don't, and for that reason we should stick together. Why don't you come 
in and have a cup of coffee with me? I could do with a break from this infernal 
weeding."
Elaina was surprised to find herself actually thinking about it. Coffee with 
neighbors was not something she'd ever done or thought she might want to. But 
Betsy made the decision for her, bouncing harder and shaking the stroller as if 
urging it to move forward. She had sat still long enough. If she could have said 
"Go!" she would have.
"Thanks," Elaina said, "but I think I'd better keep Betsy in motion. Another 
time, though, I'd like to." As she said it, she discovered it was true.
"Sure thing," Terri said cheerfully, and gave Betsy a little wave of her 
fingers, saying, "Bye-bye."
While Elaina stared in astonishment, Betsy waved her fat little hand. She didn't 
say anything, but she didn't have to. Her hand spoke for her. Feeling vastly 
proud of Betsy's accomplishment, Elaina walked on through splotches of sunshine 
into deep coves of shade from the huge, leafy trees that lined the boulevard. 
She remembered that she hadn't told Brad -- Dr. Bradshaw -- that Betsy could now 
say two words. It didn't matter, she thought. She could tell him later.Later . 
It was a long time since she'd had something like another person's arrival to 
look forward to. It was a fine and novel experience, but she cautioned herself 
sternly not to get too used to it. Because, of course, he was only coming to 
check on Betsy, and when Betsy's mother recovered, there'd be no more need for 
him to come. Unless he came to see her.
Now, why had she thought of that? There wasn't much likelihood of anything like 
that. He wasn't what might be considered a man in her life. She didn't need one, 
or want one. She was a self-sufficient adult who could look after herself quite 
well, and had done so for a long time. So why, she wondered, had it felt so good 
when he'd held her in his arms this morning? Why had she let her own arms go 
around him? And why had she cried? Because she was hungry, she admonished 
herself quickly. Low blood sugar. Didn't that make people feel weepy and weak 
and unable to cope? Of course it did. Then why had she responded to his kiss the 
way she had? What had that to do with hunger? Oh, dummy, she thought, bumping 
the stroller down over a curb. That was hunger, too, but hunger of a different 
sort altogether.
In three years, no man had affected her the way Brad Bradshaw had this morning. 
The feel of him against her body, the scent of his skin and hair and clothing, 
the sound of his voice rumbling in his chest, had touched something deep within 
her, something she thought had died, or at least faded away. But it hadn't, had 
it? It had only been waiting for someone like him to bring it back into the 
open. The thought of its being exposed again, like a raw nerve, frightened her.
Only it hadn't felt like a raw nerve. It had felt good, better than she 
remembered, and for several minutes after her tears had stopped she had simply 
lain there against his chest, absorbing the goodness, letting the pleasure 
caused by his hands on her bare skin wash through her in taller and taller waves 
until she was dizzy. When he had tilted up her face and kissed her, she had had 
no thought of trying to stop what was happening to her.
At times, with Kirk, she had experienced sensations similar to the ones she'd 
felt this morning, but she knew instinctively that those sensations were only 
the beginning of what she was capable of feeling, that there was more, much 
more, and that one day she would find it.
She hadn't found it with Kirk. Could she find it with Brad? With a shake of her 
head Elaina put a stop to such crazy thoughts. He had kissed her to offer 
comfort and that was all. When he had touched her breasts the way he had 
caressing them with his hand and his eyes, what had that been for?
She didn't know and refused to dwell on it. She had shopping to do.
In the supermarket she carefully fastened Betsy into a shopping-cart and 
proceeded down the first aisle. Shopping was fairly routine until the time came 
to buy the things she had never bought before. Baby cereal was on sale. She 
chose a few boxes, not knowing what kind Betsy might prefer. Those jars of food 
were so small that they took up hardly any room in the cart. Peaches. She knew 
Betsy liked those.So does Brad , a little voice inside her said, but she 
pretended not to hear it. Leaning forward, she kissed Betsy on the top of her 
head. If peaches were good, why not apricots, and apple-raspberry combination? 
The other glop Betsy had enjoyed had been a mixture of meat and vegetables. She 
selected a variety of those, too, and stacked them in the cart. She avoided 
liver with anything. Nothing, she thought, would make liver palatable, and 
anyone who forced it on an innocent baby should be shot. Milk. Yes. They'd need 
plenty of that, she thought, smiling at Betsy who was kicking her with short, 
fat bare toes.
In the sundries aisle, she picked up some plastic bibs with kittens and bunnies 
on them and a package of six baby bottles in case something happened to one of 
Betsy's two, and a couple of huge bundles of diapers. She had to guess at the 
size, but since they were marked by weight, and she thought Betsy weighed about 
twenty pounds, she didn't think she could go far wrong.
There was even an amazing assortment of baby clothes there, but she didn't like 
the quality. She'd check out the children's store she had seen every time she 
walked through the mall. Elaina smiled to herself. Betsy was going to have some 
new clothes today. This was turning out to be fun.
It wasn't quite as much fun when she saw the total on the cash register, but she 
asked herself what else she had to spend her money on. There was nothing she 
wanted more than to get Betsy what she needed. And among the things she needed 
was a dry diaper. Taking three out of one of the big packages, Elaina arranged 
to have the rest of her purchases delivered. Then for the first time in her life 
she learned how to fold down the baby-change table, and learned that everyone 
loves a baby, especially a gurgling, wiggling little girl with a bare backside.
In the children's store, she discovered that there were a great many things that 
Betsy didn't have that seemed absolutely essential. Among them were a clown that 
sang when she wound up its red nose like a key, and an apple that, when rolled 
across the floor made a pleasant tinkling sound. But what Betsy seemed to like 
best was a green rubber cucumber that squeaked when she bit it.
There were clothes, of course, and the selection was amazing. Who'd have thought 
that designers would come up with so many different styles for babies and small 
children? It was really a temptation to take one of everything, but Elaina 
restrained herself. After all, how many outfits could one baby wear?
She did indulge herself with a sweet little parasol that clipped onto the handle 
of Betsy's stroller and cast a circle of shade to keep the sun off that tender 
skin. And Betsy did need shoes, didn't she? Brad hadn't brought any with the 
clothing he'd found for her in Margo's apartment. To go with them, some of those 
cunning little pairs of socks with lace around the top. They were so cute she 
couldn't resist. White, pink, blue, yellow, green and red, two pairs of each to 
go with each of the new outfits she'd bought for Betsy.
Having arranged for those purchases to be delivered, too, Elaina continued on 
down the mall, gazing in windows as she went. For no good reason that she could 
think of, she soon found herself standing at the edge of a department store's 
lingerie department, gazing at the mannequins, wondering how she would look in 
that incredibly sexy soft pink teddy with all the lace. Or that peach-colored 
nightie with the skinny straps, slinky and silky and shockingly sheer. Why, at 
the age of thirty-one she was still wearing the same kind of underwear and 
nightwear that her mother had bought for her, she simply did not know. Of, 
course, when she was with Kirk, they had been saving too hard -- or she had -- 
to want to spend money on such luxuries. And he hadn't cared what she wore as 
long as it was clean and covered her decently. Besides Kirk had never really 
looked at her anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered.
She scurried past the lingerie, shivering as she remembered the very 
appreciative look in Brad's eyes when he stroked her naked breast. He had liked 
the way she looked. He had. She knew it.
Abruptly, she spun the stroller and herself in a one-eighty and strode back the 
way she had come. Moments later, she stuffed the bag containing her purchases 
down deep in the carrying pouch of the stroller and left in a rush, knowing she 
was on the verge of changing her mind.
Crazy! she told herself. You are crazy, Elaina McIvor! Take them back. You'll 
never need to wear them! But she couldn't get rid of the little voice that kept 
whisperingWhat if ? in her ear.
After one more stop in a bookstore where she stocked up on everything from Dr. 
Spock to the latest, most modern views on child care, Elaina headed home with 
the new umbrella tilted perkily to keep the sun out of the baby's eyes. Betsy 
smiled and cooed and laughed and kicked her feet so the bells on her new shoes 
jingled. Strangers smiled at the pair of them. Elaina smiled back. She felt 
happier than she'd been in more than three years. No, happier than she had been 
in her entire adult life, she thought. Today had given her more pleasure than 
she could have imagined.
The sun was warm and the scent of newly mown grass and roses and honeysuckle 
hung in the soft air. Elaina wanted to dance. She wanted to sing. Betsy did 
both, her face wreathed in smiles as Elaina bent low over the handle of the 
stroller and said, "Boo!" every few paces. The baby's gurgles of delight were 
infectious. Elaina laughed along with her, picking up her pace, going faster and 
faster, feeling wilder and wider, floating higher and higher on a cloud of 
euphoria like none she had ever ridden before, until suddenly she was snatched 
back to earth by a loud, piping voice. "Hey, Billy, look at that! Miss McIby is 
hippety- hoppin'!"
The squeaky, disbelieving voice shocked Elaina into an awareness of where she 
was and what she was doing.Miss McIby is hippety-hoppin' ? By golly, yes, she 
was hippety-hopping! Feeling her face turn bright red, she bent her head down 
and let her hair fall forward, most definitely hiding behind it this time. When 
had it come loose? While she was bouncing around like a ninny, of course! Oh, 
Lord! How long had she been doing that? The whole block? More than one block? 
All the way home? She had no idea, but was aghast that she had even hippitied 
for one single hop! Lord! What was the matter with her?
She was so intent on keeping her head down and her face hidden so that none of 
the neighbors would recognize her, she didn't see the large pair of feet in 
white canvas shoes until she ran the front wheels of her stroller right up onto 
them.
"Hey, Miss McIby, you look cute hippety-hopping," Brad said, and she covered her 
eyes with her hand. Was there to be no end to her humiliation? Did he have to be 
here? Didn't he ever work at that hospital? "I'm glad you took your hair down 
again." he went on, "it bounces real nice." He lowered his voice. "Among other 
things."
She groaned and backed the stroller off his toes, then uncovered her eyes to 
meet his dancing green gaze. She almost laughed, but choked back the impulse. 
This was just too embarrassing.
"Don't be ashamed of having fun, Lainie," he said softly. Her pushed her hair 
back on one side, tucked it behind her ear; his touch was a lingering caress 
that she continued to feel long after his hand was back at his side. "I had a 
lot of fun watching you. And Bitsy-Bet loved it. I heard you both laughing 
before you turned the corner."
That answered one question anyway. She had hippitied more than one hop. A lot 
more, probably. Suddenly, she was suppressing a giggle. She bit her lip.
"Go ahead," he urged her. "You can laugh at yourself, you know. There's no sin 
to having a sense of humor."
She did laugh. She couldn't help it. What she had done was ridiculous, and 
inappropriate for a woman of thirty-one, but he didn't seem to be judging her. 
The little boys had disappeared somewhere so she could lean on Brad and laugh 
until she nearly cried. Oh, she must have looked very funny, indeed, because now 
that she was laughing, so was he. He was leaning on her even as he propped her 
up, right out there on the public sidewalk outside her yard. When they both 
sobered and she backed away from him, he reached out and ruffled her hair. "Good 
for you." His praise was nice to hear.
She smiled at him and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. "What are you 
doing here?" she asked. "Aren't you supposed to work?"
"I'm doing a split shift today. I don't go back in until eleven tonight. I came 
to see Betsy and ask if you'd like to go out for dinner. Nothing fancy. Just 
some place where we can take the baby. I thought you might be worn out from your 
unaccustomed job." He chuckled, taking the stroller from her and pushing it 
through the gate. "I guess I was wrong."
"You don't have to worry about me," she said gruffly, trying not to feel touched 
that he had done just that. "And you don't have to take me out for dinner. I can 
cook." He looked too tired to go anywhere but to bed.
"Good," he said, picking up baby and stroller and setting them on the porch. 
"Then that means I'm invited for dinner here."
Chapter Five
Elaina stared at him and shook her head. "I didn't mean that at all," she said, 
mounting the steps and fumbling with her key.
He looked so crestfallen she had to smile. She fought an insane impulse to 
ruffle his hair as he had done to hers. "But if you're hungry, Dr. Bradshaw, I'm 
sure I can find something to fill you up."
"You called me Brad before," he said, wheeling Betsy inside.
Only in her own mind, she knew. "When?"
"On the phone." He lifted Betsy out of the stroller and stood her in the center 
of the coffee table admiring shoes while she hung onto his thumbs and danced. 
Elaina started pulling books out of the carrying pouch in the back of her 
stroller and came across her bag of lingerie, she stuffed it down behind a 
chair, knowing she was turning bright pink as she did so. "No, I didn't. I've 
never talked to you on the phone."
He looked askance at the first half-dozen books she'd set on the other end of 
the coffee table. "Sure you did. Or you thought you did. But I was here, having 
rushed in through your unlocked door when I heard you screaming and Betsy 
howling. Remember? And you should never leave your door unlocked."
She remembered. She felt her face go warmer as she remembered. His arms. His 
kiss. Her towel.
He had the bad manners to comment. "Now, what's that blush for?" he asked. When 
she ignored his question, he went on, "You have the clearest skin I have ever 
seen, Lainie, and I like the way it signals your emotions. Blushing's a neat 
trick for a woman to have."
She shot him a sharp look. "Trick? Do you think I can control it? I only wish I 
could, so I could stop it! And my name, in case you are having trouble 
remembering, is Elaina!"
He looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry. I didn't put that very well. I didn't mean 
trick as in subterfuge. I meant you look very pretty when you blush, Elaina."
"Oh." It pleased her inordinately to hear him say that yet she didn't know where 
to look. She only knew that her face was turning pink again. Dammit. The overuse 
they were getting, it was a wonder her capillaries didn't simply explode!
"Thank you." She didn't know if she was thanking him for the compliment or for 
pronouncing her name properly for once.
"What are all those books for?" he asked when they were stacked on coffee table. 
He set Betsy on the carpet and she began to cry. Picking her up, he checked her 
bottom then held her away from himself, nose wrinkled.
"I bought them to learn a few things," Elaina answered. "So I don't have to call 
for help when I'm in doubt, like I did today."
He grinned. "I don't think you'd have taken the time to look something like that 
up in a book. You were in such a panic you wouldn't have been able to read."
She glowered at him. "You still think it's funny, don't you?"
"I don't think your fear was funny. I laughed this morning because I didn't 
realize at first how badly scared you were, but yes, I do think the incident was 
funny. And when you think about it, I believe you'll agree. Meantime this little 
girl needs clean pants."
He picked up one of the remaining diapers that Elaina had taken out of the pouch 
and marched away, still holding Betsy at arm's length.
In spite of herself, Elaina did smile. He was right. She'd been in too much of a 
panic to be reasonable. All she had been able to do was react. Okay, so she had 
overreacted. She had behaved like a fool. Again.
She stacked the books neatly by size and picked up the top one. She stared at 
the first page as she listened to Brad making silly noises and spouting nonsense 
words to Betsy. He never seemed to mind making a fool of himself, she thought. 
It must be nice to be so self-confident. Maybe by the time she had read all 
those books she'd be a little more that way, at least with Betsy. Diligently, 
she began to scan the first book. She skipped over the chapters on pregnancy and 
infancy and went right to the part about development from ten to twelve months. 
Waving bye-bye and saying single words weren't considered uncommon at that age, 
and were by no means indicative of genius.
She stared at the book's cover in disbelief. It was all hogwash! What did P.T. 
Nelson, M.D. know anyway? He probably never got nearer to a baby than he did to 
the moon. He sat there in an isolated little lab somewhere and did experiments 
with monkeys or something!
"Hey, Lainie, Lainie!" Brad came tearing out of Betsy's room carrying her 
astride his hip, his face split by a huge smile. "She said 'up!' She reached out 
her arms to me and said 'up.' Isn't she a smart kid?"
There! she thought, mentally thumbing her nose at Dr. Nelson. A real baby- 
expert thinks our baby is pretty smart. Which, of course, she was.
"I know," Elaina said, beaming. "She came crawling out of her bedroom this 
morning and climbed up my bathrobe and asked me to pick her up. Come on, 
honey-bun, say it again."
She took Betsy, who was reaching for her, and set her down on the floor. "Up, 
Betsy? Up?" But Betsy wasn't interested in getting up. Harrison had come to pay 
homage. They let the cat and the baby play together for a few minutes until 
Betsy began to rub her eyes. "Nap-time," Elaina said, carrying her off to bed.
While she was settling Betsy, the doorbell rang and she heard Brad admit the boy 
from the supermarket. Load after load came in, and in the kitchen Elaina found 
Brad surrounded by brown paper bags, plastic sacks, and jars and jars of baby 
food.
He was aghast. "Nobody buys baby food in these quantities," he said. "You buy a 
few jars at a time. It's going to take her three years to go through all this, 
and long before that she'll have molars and be eating ordinary food. You have to 
send it back, Elaina."
"Don't exaggerate. It won't take her anything like three years." There wasn't 
that much, she thought. More than she had remembered, now that she saw it all 
spread out, but still, Betsy would eat it. If not here, then when she went home. 
The thought left Elaina feeling hollow.
"You may as well open a day-care center." Brad said, trying to find room in the 
cupboards for all the packages of cereal. "This is crazy. Did you get anything 
for you to eat? Ah, yes, I see you did. Eggs and cheese and canned shrimp. Fine. 
You can pack your arteries full of cholesterol and have a heart attack by the 
time you're fifty. You'll be too weak to chew and we can feed you all the 
left-over baby food."
Elaina laughed and handed him a big plastic bag. "Grown-up food."
"Good." He delved into the bag and pulled out a small roast of beef, a package 
of chicken breasts, and some cod fillets.
"Which one for dinner?" he asked. "Remember I invited myself."
She remembered. She also remembered that she had seconded the invitation. More 
or less. She wished she could recant it when he put the beef and fish into the 
freezer and held the chicken out for her to see. "How about this?" he asked, his 
eyes twinkling with an unholy light. "I like breasts." She compressed her lips 
and turned away quickly, but not before he laughed at her flushed face. She knew 
full well that he knew she was remembering what had happened this morning. She 
bit her lip. Thinking about it sent little flames through her body. She didn't 
want to think at all but the memory persisted, growing more and more intrusive 
each time she found him looking at her. Because he was nearly always looking at 
her lips -- or her breasts.
She unpacked the fresh vegetables and loaded them into the drawers of the 
refrigerator, crowding past him as he folded bags. Each time she had to brush 
close to him in the small kitchen she became more aware of him. Was he 
deliberately getting in her way? When she was trying to slip the folded bags 
onto a high shelf, he reached over her head and took them from her, cornering 
her. Maybe it was only an accident that the length of his body rested against 
hers for a second, warming her with its heat, setting her heart to racing as she 
caught the same tangy scent as had been on the pillow he'd used in the night. 
His hand on her shoulder as he steadied himself was as evocative as the touch of 
his palm on her bare skin this morning, and she felt his fingers move as if he 
too, were remembering. She held very still as wave after wave of heat rushed 
through her, but then he was gone, stepping back from her while she clung to the 
side of the stove and hoped be hadn't noticed her trembling knees.
When she was able to turn around, she expected to see him watching her, 
laughing. Instead, he had gone back to folding bags as if nothing at all had 
happened. Probably nothing had. To him.
He shook out the long, curling cash register tape from one bag and unrolled it 
over his hand. His eyes grew wider and wider as he scanned it. "Holy cow!" he 
exclaimed when he reached the bottom line. He looked at her. "That little 
shopping spree set you a bundle, didn't it?"
She shrugged. "Groceries don't come cheap. I don't suppose you buy many, living 
in the hospital the way you do. What's it like, living there? Can you do any 
cooking for yourself or do you have to eat hospital food all the time?"
He was not to be distracted. "You can't possibly afford all this," he said, 
reaching for his wallet. "I'd like to share Betsy's expenses with you."
She pushed his wallet away and snatched the tape from his hand. "No," she said 
sharply. She tore the tape into small pieces then dropped them into the garbage 
can. "There's a fund for thing like this, Doctor," she added mockingly, 
"something like the fund for cribs and strollers and car-seats." It amused her 
to see him turn that interesting shade of brick once more. And he teased her 
about blushing. Didn't he know he did it too? She kept her speculations to 
herself, changing the subject.
"How's Margo?" She had hesitated to ask in case the news was bad, not wanting to 
depress him again if he had managed to leave his worries behind for once. She 
liked it better when his eyes smiled as they had been doing ever since he'd seen 
her hippety-hopping down the sidewalk. To her relief his smile didn't fade. It 
grew and he looked less weary.
"A little better. Her temperature's dropped half a point and held like that 
since early this afternoon."
She smiled. "I'm glad."
"Me too, but now can we go back to what we were talking about? I don't want to 
think about patients for the next -- " he glanced at his watch, a utilitarian, 
stainless steel job with a sweep second hand " -- next six hours and fifty-three 
minutes."
And she didn't want to talk about what they had been discussing. She was about 
to tell him so when the doorbell shrilled its nasty sound again and she ran to 
answer it, not wanting it to wake Betsy. Really, she was going to have to get a 
set of nice, melodious chimes installed.
It was the deliveryman from the children's store.
Brad sat down on the sofa and sighed, looking at the clothes this nutty woman 
had bought for Betsy. Like the baby food, there was more here than was strictly 
necessary. All was of the finest quality, as were the toys. He wound the clown's 
nose and listened to the remarkably clear voice singing "Rock-a-bye, Baby," and 
set it down again, watching Elaina's bright face.
She was in her glory, unfolding and checking each garment for at least the third 
time, admiring it, adoring it. Holding up a little red jumpsuit, she turned it 
around for him to see the back of it. "Look at the pockets," she said, her face 
aglow. "Isn't that just the cutest thing you've ever seen? I mean, pockets! 
What's she going to put in them?"
"Joy," he said.
"Pardon me?" She tilted her head to one side. "Did you say 'joy'?"
He smiled. "Something my mom says to kids who put their hands in their pockets. 
'Pockets are for keeping your joy in. If you plug them up with hands, there's no 
room for joy.' I still find myself snatching my hands out of my pockets whenever 
I catch them in there."
Elaina smiled. "I like that. And I'm glad I bought Betsy something with pockets 
for her to keep her joy in. She has a lot of it. And, suddenly, so do I. Oh, I 
had so much fun doing this!"
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, big gray eyes shining, a smile on her 
wide pink mouth. He reached out to grab a handful of hair at the back of her 
head and tugged gently until she came up onto her knees before him.
"Lainie..." He groaned softly, his breath feathering across her face. 
"Lainie..."
Elaina felt mesmerized by his eyes. "What?" she asked, forgetting to remind him 
not to use that diminutive.
"This," he murmured. He gently covered her mouth with his, his tongue just 
barely stroking the tiny gap between her lips. It widened enough for him to 
penetrate and slide slickly along the sensitive inner skin of her bottom lip. 
She made a slight sound and her lips parted farther. Swiftly, he dipped inside 
her mouth, his tongue tangling with hers, coaxing it to respond. Then he 
withdrew to kiss the corners of her mouth, to stroke along the outline of her 
lips, setting loose a deep pulsing throb of longing within her.
Brad exulted in her willing giving, her sharing. With his free hand he touched 
the small of her back, bringing her closer, between his knees. He massaged her 
spine with the tips of his fingers, feeling the tremors that ran through her 
body, feeling her softening as she began to respond more fully. Her tongue 
darted against his and her breathing deepened, quickened, keeping pace with his. 
Again he felt that rushing surge of need that had nearly overcome him this 
morning. Again, he wanted to sweep her into a full embrace, crush her to him, 
feel her under him, surrounding him, surrendering to him...
He tore his mouth from hers and dropped his hand from her hair, letting her go. 
"I had to do that," he said. His voice came out all ragged and husky.
A sigh shuddered from her as she sat back on her heels and gazed up at him. Her 
chest heaved under the thin fabric of her blouse. "What for?" she whispered.
"Because." He shifted on the sofa, uncomfortably aware of how much kissing her 
had aroused him. "Because you are a very nice person and I like you. And 
because..."
He couldn't move his gaze from her face, from those huge, shining eyes that held 
a light unlike any he had ever seen. He didn't believe she had to ask why he had 
kissed her. She knew how she could get to a man with her long, sleek body in 
those damned virginal clothes. Her navy slacks were loose, only hinting at the 
shape under them, and that high-necked, nun-like blouse made her softly rounded 
breasts all the more tantalizing. Or did she only get to him because he knew 
just how long and slim those legs were when displayed by a skimpy towel, how 
those breasts looked with their jutting rose-colored nipples waiting for his 
touch? He tore his gaze from her, studying the nap of the carpet, his shoes, the 
holes where the laces went through. As long as he didn't look at her, maybe he'd 
be all right.
"Because what?" she asked.
"Just because," he said, beginning to recover some of his equilibrium. He dared 
to met her eyes again. "Just because you tasted so good this morning and I 
needed to know if you still did."
"Oh." Elaina wouldn't ask him. She couldn't bring herself to ask him. She could 
only look at him. Wondering.
"You do," he said finally.
"I didn't ask!" She laughed self-consciously.
He smiled. "You didn't have to."
He stood and reached down a hand to help her up. She pulled away quickly, moving 
to the far side of the room to check Brahms, to see if he had fully recovered 
from yesterday's trauma.
"Why did you take your hair down?" he asked from close behind her. He feathered 
his fingers through it. "Angel hair," he murmured, surprising her. Kirk had 
always complained that it was too fine, too flyaway, that it irritated his face 
when it touched him.
She moved again, this time sitting on a high-backed chair with an ottoman in 
front of it. She hitched up her knees and put her toes on the ottoman.
"I didn't." She frowned. "It fell when I was being silly out there with Betsy." 
Hippety-hopping, like a nine-year-old. But she wasn't sorry he'd found her with 
it down, especially now she knew he truly liked it. Angel hair? Had anyone ever 
said anything as nice to her?
She was sure he saw through her, certain he knew she hadn't rushed to confine it 
again because of what he had about it before. He didn't comment further on that 
subject. He sat on the ottoman and smoothed the frown from between her brows 
with a broad thumb, then combed his fingers through the hair at her temple.
"Don't frown so much. Smile," he ordered, and she jerked away from his hand.
"Please, don't keep touching me."
"Why not?"
"I...I'm not used to being touched."
"But you don't hate it."
Damn him, he knew she didn't. She moved restlessly, hooking her heels up against 
the front of the chair cushion. Her mother would have heartily disapproved. "I 
told you. I'm just not used to it. You...you're a very physical person, aren't 
you? You seem to need to be touching all the time."
"Not all the time," he said. "And not all people. But yes, I guess you could say 
that I am a very physical man. And I like to touch you. So get used to it."
"Why should I?" she challenged, getting to her feet and sidling away from him. 
"The liking would have to be mutual for me to want to get used to it."
"Are you telling me the liking'snot mutual?"
She met his gaze for a moment, then shook her head. "I didn't say I didn't like 
you. Only that I'm not used to being touched. And now, if you'll excuse me I 
have to get some work done while Betsy's asleep. I have deadline that I'll miss 
if I don't try to keep up."
"Are you kicking me out?"
She hesitated. "No. You...could sit with me if it wouldn't bore you. I don't 
talk much when I'm working," she added by way of warning.
Brad was very certain. "I won't be bored."
The room he followed her into was a large, glass-walled conservatory. It jutted 
out behind the rest of the house and had sliding doors leading to a patio. 
Skylights in the sloped roof let light pour down over Elaina's work area.
It was furnished mostly with wicker, but was dominated by a tilted drawing board 
and a high stool. Two angled lamps clamped to the top of the drawing board 
suggested she must also work in the evening. The lamps must help provide 
shadow-free light. An array of pens and inks and pencils stood atop a pedestal 
desk against the back wall, which it shared with built-in bookcases.
"This room is what prompted me to buy a house that was much too large for one 
woman and a cat," she said. "I couldn't resist all the lovely natural light that 
floods in here from morning to evening."
"I can understand that." He walked to the glass doors and locked out at the 
patio. Tubs of red geraniums surrounded its perimeter, and a broad assortment of 
hanging plants were suspended from the open beam structure overhead, forming a 
jungle of color and texture with patterns of sun and shade for contrast. Beyond 
the patio was a large, secluded lawn, surrounded by a high laurel hedge. The 
grass needed cutting, he noticed, but the flowerbeds were lush and neatly 
weeded.
He turned from the garden to watch while Elaina set up paper and pens and small 
pots of different colored inks. She worked quickly, efficiently, her long 
fingered hands never awkward, never hesitant, and then she was drawing, her 
concentration so deep that he knew she had forgotten him.
He didn't mind, and took the opportunity to study her. But looking at her made 
him think and thinking made him...He slipped outside and found an old- push 
mower and cut the grass.
Elaina found that she worked jerkily at first, so aware was she of Brad's 
presence. She had never had that problem with Kirk. Indeed she had all too often 
used her work to block him out, or at least to block out her concerns about the 
paucity of feeling in their marriage. Eventually, though, Brad's quiet, 
unobtrusive presence ceased to impinge on her consciousness, and she slipped 
into the semi-trance of drawing. The outside world was only dimly noticed. She 
was hardly disturbed when she heard Brad mowing the lawn, then later, getting 
Betsy up.
She did stop working, though, leaning back and stretching as she listened to 
Brad show Betsy her new toys. "Why don't you bring her in here to play?" she 
called out.
Over her shoulder, through the half-open door, she watched as Brad gathered up 
baby and toys. "You sure we won't be a bother?" he asked.
"I wouldn't have invited you if I thought you would be," she said, and was 
pleased when he brought Betsy in, then set her on the floor in a wide swath of 
sunlight with some of her toys.
She wasn't quite so pleased when he leaned over her shoulder to peer at what she 
was drawing. "What is that?"
She quivered inwardly at the scent of him as he bent close, but managed to 
answer evenly enough. "That," she said with grimace, "is a turtle with sails."
He grinned. "Interesting concept. "Why does the turtle require sails? What kind 
of a story is this, anyway? A fantasy for kids?"
She shrugged. "I guess you could call it that. It starts out: 'Most pets are so 
boring. There are dogs, there are cats. And goldfish and hamsters. Why can't we 
have bats?'"
He chuckled. "I like it. And it's a darned good question. What comes next?" She 
opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a stack of pages already bearing neat 
drawings and lettering. He took then and read aloud as he leafed through them: 
"'Or red and white zebras, or midget sized whales. Or worms that can sing..." He 
glanced at the drawing on her board and nodded. "Of course. 'Or turtles with 
sails.'" Flipping back through, he said, "I like your whale spouting in the 
bathtub, squirting the child's fat belly. You're very, very good, aren't you?" 
he asked, and it wasn't a rhetorical question at all. He waited for an answer.
"Let's say I'm successful and enjoy what I'm doing. As to being good, I can only 
consider myself that as long as I remain successful."
"Fair enough," he said. "How many books have you illustrated?"
She inked in a bright blue triangle on the geometrically patterned spinnaker 
swooping out from the mast strapped to the turtle's front. The indolent creature 
floated on his shell, feet crossed, arms behind his head. He wore a jaunty 
sailor hat and a pair of huge sunglasses. His pursed lips suggested he was 
blowing into the sail.
"I can't remember how many," she said "They're all there on those shelves. Maybe 
someday I'll count them."
Brad smiled at her cavalier attitude toward her own accomplishments. Clearly, 
she wasn't as impressed by her talent as he was. He ran his hand and his gaze 
along the rows of skinny books, fat books, tall ones and tiny ones. There was a 
stack lying flat of the same kind of fabric books as the one Betsy had, but none 
of these was chewed.
He watched Elaina as she became deeply absorbed in her work again, wondering why 
she was dedicating her life to drawing pictures for other people's babies, 
instead of having her own. Not that she should give up her career if she had a 
family. He didn't think that should be required of a woman any more than it 
should be required of a man, and something told him Elaina McIvor was one of 
those people who could do and excel at both raising children and maintaining a 
career. If he were the one to father her children, he'd make sure that she had 
the time and the opportunity to continue with what she did so well.
He pulled himself up short. He had no intention of fathering any children, at 
any time, ever, so he'd just better keep his mind on what was important to him. 
And Elaina McIvor was not going to be allowed to become important.
Still, he couldn't help remembering that bag of lingerie Betsy had discovered 
behind a chair in the living room. He'd opened it, thinking it was more baby 
clothes that had somehow got missed, and had pulled out a rainbow of softness. 
It had created such evocative images in his mind he had hardly dared stand up 
when Elaina had invited him and Betsy into her studio.
That nightgown! Lord, what a nightgown that was! He couldn't keep his mind off 
it. Sheer, it would let those rosy -- red nipples of hers show through, let a 
man see what was happening to them long before he slowly stretched the elastic 
at its top and slid it down over her body. And the teddies...There were two of 
them, one black, one a slightly deeper shade of pink than the nightgown. The 
black one would hide everything but her shape. He swallowed hard. The pink one, 
like the nightie, would reveal. How much?Whew ! Enough! There had been panties 
in that bag, tiny colorful bikini panties -- and bras. Two white satin ones, a 
pale blue one, and a lacy black one, the latter two fastening in front. He 
pictured himself sliding one hand up the satin smoothness of her stomach, 
fingers splayed, finding that neat little fastener and releasing it. Her breasts 
would leap out of confinement into his hands, his mouth, and...
"Brad? Is something wrong?"
Her voice startled him and he blinked her into focus. "What?" he croaked.
"What's the matter? You groaned. Don't you feel well?" He swallowed a time or 
two, half in his fantasy, half out of it, not knowing which way to go. He 
crossed his legs and leaned forward in the big basket chair where he was seated. 
"I'm fine," he said. "I was just...thinking. Sorry I disturbed you. Go back to 
work."
Elaina stared at him for another second or two. He didn't look sick. Actually, 
he looked pretty good. His green eyes had an interesting sheen and there was a 
healthy glow on his high cheekbones. He looked so sexy it took her several 
minutes again to forget his presence and let her work take her out of herself.
When he called her for dinner, she was amazed, not only that she hadn't noticed 
him and Betsy leaving her studio, but that he was capable of what he had done. 
He had fed Betsy, she learned. Then he had somehow transformed those plebian 
chicken breasts into a gourmet feast with crisp, colorful stir-fried vegetables 
aromatic with sesame oil and crunchy with peanuts, and served with 
fluffy-steamed rice.
"You can cook!"
He lifted one brow. "Of course I can." He dug into the food and ate with great 
concentration and little conversation, as if suddenly wondering why he was there 
and wanting only to finish and get out.
After they had both cleaned the kitchen and tucked the baby into her crib, he 
said, "I'll be back," and left.
Elaina stood and watched him drive away, feeling forsaken. The evening hadn't 
turned out the way she had thought it might. She had pictured the two of them 
sitting comfortably and long over coffee once Betsy was in bed, talking, 
exchanging confidences, getting to know each other. Of course, she had been 
given no reason to anticipate such an evening. His saying that he didn't want to 
think about the hospital for six hours and fifty-three minutes didn't mean that 
he had intended to spend those hours and minutes in her company. Once Betsy was 
in bed, there was no further reason for him to stay.
And his kisses had simply been experiments. It seemed, she thought, that the 
experiment had failed. She sighed and returned to her drawing board. There, she 
didn't have to think about a sexy green-eyed man who left her with her nerve 
endings all alert and calling out and her insides in a terrible turmoil.
She didn't have to think about him. But she did.
Chapter Six
Brad rang the bell and waited, scarcely aware of the sleepy sound of birds just 
waking up in the trees that lined Elaina's street. He wasn't even sure of how he 
had gotten there in the first place, but there he was. Sleep had been impossible 
after his horrendous night. So he had started to walk. Somehow, his feet had 
found their way here, and for reasons he didn't want to think about right now, 
he had rung her bell. He heard her coming, heard her muttering something, then 
she swung open the door and he could only stare at her, wordless.
Her hair was a toast-colored tangle around her flushed face and her eyes were 
full of sleep, soft and luminous and slightly alarmed. She lifted a hand and 
brushed a leaf off his shoulder, a fleeting touch he might have imagined, but 
the warmth of it lingered.
"Brad?" Her voice was husky with sleep. "What's wrong?"
To his horror, he felt his eyes burn and his throat ache, and he reached out to 
draw her against him, burying his face against her perfumed hair. Her arms came 
around him and she rocked him back and forth saying nothing, but giving comfort. 
He yearned to tell her all that had gone wrong, but knew if he tried to speak 
his voice would break.
The scent of her, the warmth, the pliancy of her body were like finding heaven 
in the most unexpected place at the most unexpected time and he wanted to stay 
like this forever. Suddenly, inexplicably, the ache was gone from his throat and 
the world lifted off his back. He sighed heavily as his mouth curved into a big, 
stupid smile, and he realized why his feet had brought him here. He had needed 
to see Elaina McIvor's luminous gray eyes, her pink mouth and her tumbled hair. 
He had needed to hold her, needed to breathe in her sweet scent.
His arms tightened around her. He was surprised at the intensity of his need to 
kiss her. He wanted to. He longed to. His heart pounded heavily in his chest. 
His loins tightened. What would she think of a man she hardly knew coming into 
her house and kissing her before she even had a chance to wake up and brush her 
teeth? She'd hate it! And him. And what did she think of a man she hardly knew 
coming into her house and grabbing her like this? He pulled himself up short and 
pushed her out of his arms while his gaze did the traveling his hands and mouth 
yearned to do.
Elaina stood rigidly, hoping her knees would hold her up. What was he doing 
here? Why was he looking at her like that? Hungrily, as if he were about to take 
her into his arms again. Not to be comforted, but to kiss her as he had 
yesterday...and as he hadn't. She was captured by the gleam in the depths of his 
eyes. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? What was he here for?
It wasn't to kiss her. That was for sure! His gaze swept over her navy 
housecoat, contemptuously, she decided. And why not? She must look awful! He 
probably saw her as ugly, frumpish! Was she crazy, thinking even for a minute 
that he might want to kiss her and hold her and...
"Hi," he said, proffering a bag with grease spots decorating its outside. "I 
brought breakfast."
Breakfast? Bright heat suffused her face. She felt the burning of it and 
stumbled away in a haze of embarrassment. Breakfast? That was why he'd come? She 
didn't want breakfast. She wanted...She was out of her mind! She should tell him 
to get lost.Breakfast !
She shut the bathroom door firmly, turned on the shower, and stripped off her 
bathrobe. She looked down at herself in her sexy, sheer nightie, the one he 
hadn't even noticed, because she had covered it up in her good, decent way with 
her good, decent housecoat that was meant to hide things like sexy nighties and 
puckered nipples and shaking legs. She pulled that sexy nightie off and stuffed 
it deep into the hamper, feeling foolish for having worn it, foolish for having 
bought it and foolish for having thought about him when she'd put it on for the 
first time last night.
She hadn't felt foolish then. She had felt deliciously sinful and slightly 
defiant and incredibly sexy and had gone to sleep with the memory of Brad 
Bradshaw's lips on hers the very last thing on her mind. That must be why she 
had thought he wanted to kiss her just now. She was still caught up in the 
dreams that had filled her night, but he could know nothing of her dreams, just 
as he knew nothing of her nightgown.
She was wrong. Brad had noticed the hem of peachy lace hanging below the bottom 
at her tailored navy bathrobe and had grinned at the contrast as she walked 
away. That awful robe went more with the plain white cotton pajamas and the 
utilitarian underwear he had found in the dryer yesterday along with Betsy's 
stuff. Those garments looked as if they belonged in a nunnery, but that 
nightgown peeking out from beneath her housecoat had come out of that hidden bag 
in the living room. He remembered the color. Yet somehow he knew that what he 
had found in the dryer was more in keeping with the facade she presented to the 
world.
What kind of secret fantasies did she have, he wondered, that she'd bought those 
delicate, lacy things, so different from her plain white cottons, built for 
comfort and durability, not for seduction? Were there two Elaina McIvors? The 
Monday Elaina who was all white cotton and practicality, and the Tuesday one, 
all pink lace and warm skin and sultry eyes?
What a creature of contrasts she was, he thought as he made himself at home in 
her kitchen, brewing coffee and setting out the doughnuts on a plate. He spent 
several minutes delving into those contrasts, contemplating possible reasons for 
them, wondering what motivated her, and why she blushed so charmingly for what 
seemed to him to be no good reason at all. Was she a virgin? He didn't think so. 
For one thing, she was too old. It simply wasn't possible that a woman could 
live for twenty-odd years, maybe even thirty, and remain a virgin. Not today. 
Her swift and potent response to his kisses told him otherwise as well.
He tried not to dwell on the surge of desire that had almost overwhelmed him 
this morning, to say nothing of yesterday. He wasn't interested in her on a 
personal level, he told himself. It was purely clinical. He might intend to 
specialize in emergency medicine, but he had always had a deep interest in the 
workings of the human psyche. That was why Elaina fascinated him.
"Bull!" he snorted softly. Who was he trying to kid? The woman got to him on the 
most basic level possible. But he was simply going to have to ignore that side 
of things. He didn't have the time for a personal relationship, no matter how 
much Elaina appealed to his body. Hell, there were hundreds of women who could 
take care of those needs. His trouble was that he hadn't had one for far too 
long. He had been too busy, too tired. When the thought crossed his mind that he 
was still busy, still tired, and still having fantasies like that about Elaina 
McIvor, he pushed it away. Some things didn't bear thinking about too deeply.
Half the doughnuts and two cups of coffee were gone before she came out of the 
bathroom, her hair damp and in little ringlets around her face. He stood as she 
entered, mouth open to speak, but no words emerged. She wore the same pants as 
yesterday, but this time they were teamed with a bright blue knit top that 
outlined her shapely breasts and narrow waist and tinted her gray eyes with 
lighter shades. And oh, lordy, those long, long legs...
He felt his body react to the sight at her and sat again quickly, hiding himself 
behind the table.
"Do you know that it's only half-past five?" she asked, pouring herself a cup of 
coffee and slumping onto a chair across from him.
"I know," he said. "But I have to sleep today and I'm on duty at six tonight, so 
I wouldn't be able to see Betsy if I didn't come now."
"Uh-huh. And what makes you think you're going to get to see her now? If you 
think I want her awake at this hour of the day, think again."
"I could just look in on her, couldn't I?" he asked. "I mean, so I can tell 
Margo. If she regains consciousness, that I saw Betsy and she's okay?"
"You could do that, I suppose."
She picked up one of the doughnuts and bit into it. It was so fresh and soft and 
yeasty that she chewed hard and swallowed quickly to make room in her mouth for 
more. It was delicious.
"I've never in my life had a doughnut for breakfast," she said when she was able 
to speak. Her fingers were sticky and she licked them like a child.
"How come?" He smiled at her enthusiasm and pushed the plate closer to her.
She took another one, bit, chewed, and swallowed before she shrugged one 
shoulder and said, "My parents are cooked-cereal-and-fresh-fruit people, with 
bacon-and-eggs-on-Sunday."
"No pancakes? No waffles?"
"No. I didn't have those until after I got m -- moved away from home." Elaina 
bit her lip in chagrin at her slip of the tongue. She didn't talk about Kirk and 
that part of her life. She had come to Eugene to forget it, had come here where 
no one could possibly know about Kirk and ask questions for which she had no 
answers. She hated for people to think she'd been stupid and naive, even though 
that was what she had been. For all she knew, it was what she might still be.
Brad looked hard at Elaina. She had been going to say "married." He knew that as 
though the word had been outlined in neon between them. Funny, but he hadn't 
pegged her as having been married and divorced. Widowed? He wanted to ask, but 
her closed expression told him she had no intention of talking about that 
marriage. Was it over? On hold? What? And why was it so important for him to 
know?
"Were you allowed to eat junk food for breakfast?" She tossed the words quickly 
into the silence as if to forestall the questions she must know he had.
"Doughnuts are not junk food," he protested, reluctantly respecting her privacy. 
There'd be other times. Later, another day, he would question her. But for now, 
it was easier to go with the flow and let this desultory conversation take its 
natural course.
Elaina watched as he took another doughnut and bit into it, his teeth large and 
square and very white in his tanned face. His lips were glazed with sugar. He 
licked them, his gaze on her face.
She licked her own lips, suddenly very much aware of him again as a man. That 
made her greatly aware of herself as a woman, aware of a deep pulsing sensation 
she wished would go away, but there didn't seem to be a lot she could do about 
it.
He was watching her, staring at her lips, and something lurched inside her. She 
looked down at the table, then up again, and found his gaze still on her.
If this conversation was supposed to be taking its natural course, Brad thought 
desperately, then its natural course must be right into the ground. Or it had 
come upon a dam and was blocked, while words he could not speak and feelings he 
could not fathom built higher and higher behind it.
He cleared his throat and drank some coffee, then looked at her over the rim of 
his mug. "So how was she? Betsy. Last night."
"Okay. She slept well. I haven't heard a sound out of her since we put her to 
bed. She was uncovered when I checked on her. I covered her up."
"Good." He didn't seem to have anything else to say. He only looked at her. The 
throbbing silence went on and on until all Elaina could bear was a soft, rushing 
roar in her ears, like a river that was about to burst its banks.
"Lainie..."
"Brad..."
He swallowed. She saw his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in his throat. He 
pushed his chair back and stood. Elaina let her gaze drop from his and knew, 
without a shadow of doubt, that she was not the only one affected by this 
strange, early morning encounter.
"I've got to get out of here!" he said.
She nodded, picked up their coffee mugs and took them to the sink. He followed 
her with the doughnut plate, standing behind her until she turned. Her hands 
were unsteady and she wanted to clasp them together, or hide them behind her 
back, but could only stand rigid before him.
She tilted her head back to look up at him. It was a novel experience, she 
thought. She could look most men straight in the eye and many she had to look 
down on. "Yes, you do have to go." She said, hearing the regret in her voice. 
"You have to sleep."
He lifted one hand and ran the back of it over her check. "I know." He didn't 
move.
"Is it quiet? Where you sleep in the hospital?" Her voice was hushed, as if she 
were afraid to wake someone -- or something.
"Pretty quiet. I hear traffic sometimes. Ambulances. Cop cars."
"Oh."
"Is it quiet...here?"
"Most of the time."
They looked at each other. They both knew that what they were thinking was 
impossible. Impractical. Betsy could cry. The little boys next door could -- and 
would -- ring the bell. And he had a perfectly good bed waiting for him in his 
own quarters. There was no need. Still...
He stroked her cheek one more time and stepped away. She walked with him to the 
door.
Again, she thought he might kiss her, but he turned after a moment and loped out 
to the gate. He looked over his shoulder at her, opened the gate, and stepped 
out. She closed the door and leaned on it, feeling more empty and alone than 
she'd ever felt before.
When the door was thrust forcefully open, it carried her with it. He caught her 
as she stumbled, trying to regain her balance.
"I forgot something," he said, and pulled her tightly against him, letting her 
feel his hard arousal. He bent to take her lips in a brief, potent kiss that 
left her lungs gasping, her head spinning, and her body humming, clamoring for 
more. But he didn't give her more even when her arms twined around his neck and 
her lips clung to his. He set her away from him and said, "Smile, Lainie. I want 
to go to sleep thinking of your smile."
She smiled and he added softly, "I'll be back."
It wasn't until her heart had finally settled down, her head had stopped 
spinning, and her smile had faded that she realized he had forgotten to look in 
on Betsy before he left.
***
A couple of days later, they were cleaning the kitchen after a shared lunch. 
Betsy was tucked into bed for a nap and Brad had half-an-hour before he needed 
to be back at the hospital. She loaded the dishwasher; he wiped down the 
counters. That was just one of the things Elaina was learning to like about him. 
He didn't sit around, as Kirk had, and expect to be waited on. He also took over 
most of Betsy's care when he was here giving Elaina the much-needed time to 
complete her assignment. Of course, that was why he came, she reminded herself 
-- to see Betsy. There had been no kisses today, none yesterday or the day 
before, and no long looks or gentle caresses that suggested he might have 
kissing on his mind -- or anything more...
"What brought you to Oregon?" she asked. She had wondered a lot about that, 
among other things. He had told her about his big closely-knit family -- his 
parents and several of his four brothers and sisters were in Buffalo, yet he 
lived here, thousands of miles away.
"I live here because this is where my wife was from," he answered. "When I got 
out of the army, she wanted to come back here." He shrugged and rinsed the 
dishcloth, then wrung it out and hung it neatly over the small rail inside the 
cupboard door under the sink, "But when she realized it wasn't military life she 
had disliked but marriage to me, I was already partway through medical school 
here and didn't care to leave. We divorced and she moved to San Francisco where 
there was more action. That's what she said she wanted."
"I'm sorry." She'd had no idea he'd been married. "Do you have children?"
"No. We planned to wait until after I finished the tour I was on when we got 
married. I'd just re-upped for five years and that seemed like a pretty nice 
honeymoon period. Only when the tour was over, so was the honeymoon and the 
marriage."
"Do you miss her?"
He smiled and shook his head. "It's been nearly four years, Lainie." He moved 
closer, grasped her chin, and tilted her face up before she could react he 
placed a firm, warm kiss on her lips, but not the kiss she had longed for, "You 
look so worried," he said as if he needed to provide a excuse for having kissed 
her. "You care more about people than you like to pretend, Elaina."
"I've never pretended I don't care about people," she protested. She wondered 
bleakly if be suspected just how deeply she was beginning to care about him. 
Maybe that was why he had avoided kissing her until just now, and why the kiss 
had been too close to brotherly for her liking.
"You don't care much -- or say you don't -- about your own family." he reminded 
her.
She had no argument for that. It was true. He'd been shocked to learn of the 
infrequency of her family's letters.
"Everybody needs to feel loved." Brad told her, "to feel part of a greater unit. 
I'm the oldest of five children and feel close to my brothers and sisters and to 
my mom, too. My baby sister is in school in New Mexico and I'm sort of in charge 
of her, though she doesn't know that." He paused. "Have you ever been in love?"
She knew he was hinting for her to tell him about Kirk, but she still resisted 
that with all her might. She wondered now if it had been her need to feel loved 
that had made her so vulnerable to Kirk, if that was why she had responded to 
her belief -- erroneous, she knew now -- that he loved her. She had fallen for 
him like the very young fool she had been.
And wasn't she in danger of doing the same with Brad? Did she have to respond to 
any kind of affection, no matter how casual, so wholeheartedly? She sighed and 
stepped away from him, edging to the far side of the kitchen, putting space 
between them. He followed her. She opened the door and fled into the backyard. 
He caught her shoulders and turned her to face him before letting her go. He 
wasn't touching her, not quite. But still he kept her from escaping the 
intensity of his gaze.
"Are you running away from me, Elaina?"
"Of course not. I just want to be outside. It's a nice day."
He smiled a tender smile that made her toes curl up. "Fibber. Don't play games 
with me, Lainie. Okay?"
Held by the magnetism of his green eyes, she whispered, "I'm not." Then, needing 
to remind him as well as herself of his reason for being there, she asked, "How 
do you know so much about taking care of babies?"
"Nieces and nephews," he said and grinned. "I love taking care of them whenever 
they visit me or I get back home to visit them."
She shifted uneasily. "How's Margo?"
His smile faded. "There's no real change in her condition."
"Poor Margo." she said, meaning "poor Brad." She was nearly overcome by the urge 
to take him in her arms, to hold him and comfort him as she had the other 
morning. Why had she done so? That was another thing she had wondered about. It 
had been an impulse, and she wasn't normally a person to give in to impulses. 
But he cared so much! That made her care all the more about him, and she must 
not. Again she sidled away from him. She snapped a dead rose from a stem and 
dropped it to the rich soil beneath the bush.
He plucked a bud and tucked it behind her ear. For a moment he looked at her, 
then he strode away along the paved path at the side of the house.
She heard the rough sound of his van starting up and realized that this time he 
hadn't said he'd be back. Maybe now he knew it went without saying.
But he hadn't kissed her, either and she felt deprived.
***
"Stroke! Stroke! Dammit, Bradshaw, get your mind on what you're doing! Are you 
rowing or chopping wood?"
"Sorry, cox," Brad muttered. The coxswain was right. He wasn't concentrating as 
should be. He wasn't forgetting the agony he had dealt with all night and 
letting the steady, rhythmic motion, the dip and pull and lean and stretch of 
muscles soothe him as it was supposed to. He forced himself to focus on the 
rhythm of rowing, to work with the rest of the crew, to send the scull skimming 
over the calm, early-morning surface of the lake, to zero in on the inner self 
that drove the boat along, to concentrate on rowing with the same intensity as 
Lainie did on drawing.
He pictured her perched on her high stool at her board, eyes dark and deep as 
she worked. He got so much pleasure out of watching her work, he could have 
turned it into a hobby. It was strange, the delight she gave him during those 
hours when he sat there, simply watching her. Lainie...He wished he could 
control what was happening to him where she was concerned. Ever since he had 
gone there that morning a few days ago -- at five-thirty, for Pete's sake -- 
woken her up, had breakfast with her and tried to pretend that he'd come to see 
Betsy, he'd known there was something afoot that he couldn't get a handle on. Of 
course he hadn't expected the baby to be awake. Nor had he wanted her to be. He 
had wanted exactly what he had gotten -- an hour of Elaina's company. Even 
though he hadn't told her any of the horrible things he had seen, it was as if 
he had unburdened himself to her. When he left her, he felt renewed and 
strengthened and ready to sleep, so that he was able to go back on duty that 
next night and do it all-over again.
That was where he wanted to be now, he thought, talking to her, looking at her, 
absorbing the calm of her gray eyes, calmer even than this fog-silvered lake, 
instilling peace in his soul. She had such inner serenity. She was very much 
all- together. If he were ever to marry again, it would have to be to someone 
like Elaina. Not that he was going to marry again. But if...
"Bradshaw? Are you with us, or agin us?"
"Oh, hell, sorry, cox."
***
He should have turned up on duty fully refreshed after his morning workout on 
the lake, but he didn't; and the day was long, tiresome, and tiring. He didn't 
begin to feel good until he found himself where he wanted to be -- sitting in 
Elaina's studio in the evening, telling her about his day. In the telling, the 
horror of it washed away and he felt as clean and complete as if it had never 
happened.
"Lord, forgive me Lainie," he said. He reached over to the wicker couch where 
she was sitting and took her hand, stroking her long, supple fingers. "Why do 
you let me dump on you that way?"
She smiled. "I don't mind. Your day is more interesting than mine." She squeezed 
his hand before pulling loose from him. He frowned. The past few days she had 
been doing that a lot, pulling away from him. He'd thought they were past her 
nervousness over being touched. He wished he knew what was going on in her head. 
She listened whenever he wanted to talk -- patient, interested and sympathetic, 
but what was she getting out of the relationship? It seemed to him that all he 
did was waste her time.
"But we came in here so you could work," he said contritely. "Don't you want to? 
I wish you would. I like watching you draw."
"I not only want to, I have to. Deadline is approaching closer and closer." She 
hitched herself onto the high stool at her drawing board. "When do you go into 
practice on your own?" she asked, uncapping inks and putting nibs on pens. She 
glanced over at him as he sat slumped in what had become his favorite chair, 
legs extended far out in front, ankles crossed on the padded wicker stool.
"I could have done that a few months ago," he said. "But I took another year's 
residency in the E.R. I plan to specialize in emergency medicine."
"I didn't know there was such a specialty."
"There is and there's something about it that appeals to me, though I see 
patients for a short time, and don't get to do any follow-through. That's a 
downside, I guess, but there's always something new."
"Yet it bothers you so much," she said, frowning at him over the top of her 
table. "I've been wondering why you stay with it. Isn't there something else you 
could do that wouldn't be so -- so stressful?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. It's a high. I love it and I hate it. It's like 
living on the edge all the time. The alarm goes and you know an ambulance is on 
its way in. You don't know what it will bring, but the adrenaline starts pumping 
and the mind goes into high gear. It...well, I can't possibly explain it, but it 
gets to me. It fulfills me, gives me something that I've only experienced there, 
or in a rowing match getting close to the finish line."
She nodded encouragingly and he went on. "It's a constant competition and the 
opponent is death. And even while I hate it, I feed on it. Other doctors in 
emergency medicine feel the same. And the nurses. But the burnout rate is high, 
really high. And it makes for lousy family life. Two of my colleagues had to get 
out of it because of what it was doing to their families and to their own 
health. It's wild, knowing that if we don't work fast and accurately and 
expertly lives can be lost. There's an ego trip in having to be right all the 
time. There are no moments to pause and reflect and decide at your leisure what 
course of treatment to take. It's anow kind of medicine. And it takes all of a 
doctor's emotions and attention and strength."
It hurt to know he was right. He was probably right, too, in his assessment of 
what that kind of work must do to a marriage. The thought left her feeling low 
and melancholy, and she escaped those forbidden thoughts by immersing herself 
totally in her drawing.
She didn't know how much time had passed when she became aware of Brad standing 
behind her. Lifting her head, she rubbed her stiff neck.
He brushed her hand aside, taking over the job. She sighed in pleasure as his 
strong fingers worked over her aching neck and shoulders. "Umm...that feels 
good," she murmured. She let him lean her head back against his chest as he 
began to massage her upper arms and the front muscles of her shoulders. The heat 
of his body burned into her back, and she shifted her head, a soft moan rising 
in her throat as his fingers slid down over the upper curves of her breasts, She 
drew in a shaky breath and turned her face toward his neck.
He slipped one hand under her chin, tilting her face up, looking into her eyes. 
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She knew he was going to kiss her, could 
feel it in the possessive curve of his hand around her chin. His other hand 
caught her shoulder as he stepped back and turned her so that she faced him. He 
parted her knees and stood between them, holding her loosely with one arm.
The other hand moved, one finger outlining her ear before he slid it into her 
hair.
"Sweet Lainie," he said. "Sweet, sweet Lainie. I should run like hell, shouldn't 
I? But all I want to do is kiss you."
"Yes," she said. She didn't want to run anymore either.
"Yes, what?" His smile hovered just above her lips. "Yes, I should run, or yes, 
I should kiss you?"
She laid her hand flat on his chest, feeling the warmth of him through his 
shirt, feeling the crisp, curling hairs beneath the cloth. She ached to run her 
fingers through that hair. Instead, she slipped her arms around him.
His lips brushed over hers, not kissing, just asking again. "Well?"
He had never asked permission before. He was asking about more than a kiss. She 
drew in a deep breath. It was filled with his scent and made her dizzy. "I 
understand that running, if you're not used to it, can cause heart attacks." She 
didn't think this man ever ran from a woman. He might have to fight them off 
with a baseball bat at times, but he never turned and ran.
"That's true," he said solemnly. "A proven medical fact." He brushed his lips 
across hers again and she felt herself melting, felt her fingers flex as they 
clung to his back, then slid down and caught on his belt, holding on so she 
wouldn't fall. Her stool was a frail, precarious perch in the storm that was 
beginning to blow around and within her.
"Better not take any unnecessary risks," she murmured, and he nodded just before 
he covered her lips with his own.
Chapter Seven
From the very beginning it wasn't an ordinary kiss. The moment his lips touched 
hers, they burned and something zingingly electric stung her nerves. He eased 
her closer to him and when the probing tip of his tongue touched her lower lip 
she shivered with a delicious sensation and opened her mouth to welcome it. 
Moaning softly, he tilted her head and plunged deeply inside her, drinking from 
her as if he were parched. His arms locked around her and she pressed closer to 
him, reveling in the hardness of his thighs as he crowded in closer between 
them, loving the way her body yielded to his until they seemed molded together. 
Her breasts flattened against him, hard peaks jutting forth to press into the 
wall of his chest.
He lifted his head long enough to look into he eyes and say, "Elaina..." in a 
tone of wonder and delight. "I've wanted to kiss you like that since the first 
time I held you." And then he was kissing her again, moving his hands over her 
body, down her back, cupping her buttocks. He pulled her off the stool and 
stepped away from it with her still wrapped around him, moving her sensuously 
against him until she moaned and buried her hands in his thick crisp hair. It 
tingled on her palms, made her fingers curl, and she traced the shape of his 
skull with her hands. Pressing herself ever more tightly to him, she pulled his 
head down until his mouth was fused with hers, their tongues dueling, meshing, 
parting, then coming back to stroke and caress.
He rocked her body slowly against his hardness as he moved his lips over her 
cheek, down her throat, pausing to press his tongue against the wild pulse that 
beat there, and then down to the high neck of her blouse. He stopped and 
returned his lips to hers, setting her back onto her stool while he attacked the 
barrier he had found. His fingers shook as he undid the narrow strings that tied 
in a bow around her neck. He fumbled with the buttons and undid two of them, his 
breath hot and moist as it met hers. She arched up, a soft, throaty sound of 
pleasure emanating from her as he kissed her, parting more buttons, finally 
finding her breasts.
Elaina felt a moment's regret that she wasn't wearing one of her lovely new 
bras, or a sheer teddy, but when his thumb rubbed over her nipple, squeezing it, 
pulling it with a gentle, seductive tugging that sent messages of urgency 
throughout her body, she forgot everything but his touch and the hunger it 
aroused in her.
"Please," she whispered. "Please..."
He slipped her breast free and took the nipple into his mouth, drawing it in 
deep. The hot wetness of his tongue scalded her, making her clutch at his head. 
How she had yearned for this, heart and soul -- and body. She felt like a woman 
for the first time in years. She wanted him. Needed him to make her complete. 
Her blood sang, her muscles quivered, and she felt herself growing lighter and 
lighter, floating away. But she wasn't. He was lifting her and carrying her to 
the wicker couch. She felt the heat of him as his weight pressed against her, 
the only thing preventing her from sailing away and she held him tighter and 
tighter.
He tangled his hands in her hair, holding her head still while he plundered her 
mouth, then his lips left hers and his fingers traced her face, her throat, her 
upper chest and shoulders. He slid away from her, took off her blouse and her 
bra, then laid her back, kneeling beside the couch and gazing at her as if he 
found her beautiful. Slowly, he reached out and cupped one breast, brushing his 
thumb back and forth under the nipple until it strained upward in anticipation.
She gasped and clasped her hands behind his head, pulling it down, placing his 
mouth over her.
"Mmm, Lainie...you taste so sweet," he said, and sucked hard on her. Her back 
arched as she curled her fingers in his hair, responding to the deep pulling 
sensation his mouth on her evoked. She managed to insert a hand in between them 
and fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. At last her hand could rest on his 
bare chest, and her palm circled across it, finding one of his nipples.
She squeezed it to the same rhythm of his sucking and heard him moan. He moved 
his hand down over her flat belly and curved it between her thighs. He pressed 
against her, making soft insinuating circles, his fingers squeezing gently into 
her softness, and she lifted one knee to make it easier for him to caress her.
Brad undid the snap at her waist, slid down the zipper and reached inside to 
discover the softness of Elaina's skin, as he'd known it would be, the lushness 
of the golden-brown hair barely covered by her bikini panties.
"Brad!" He didn't know if her soft gasp was in protest or delight, and lifted 
his head. Her eyes were tightly closed, her lips parted and moist, and her 
breasts, one shiny and wet from his mouth, heaving from the force of her 
breathing.
"Lainie..." he murmured, his hand still making gentle circles on her body. "Look 
at me."
She opened her eyes, and her gaze was all hot smoke and desire. Once more, he 
cupped her chin and jaw, rubbing a thumb over her lips.
"I want to make love to you."
He knew that if he didn't make love to her, he would go mad with need. Oh, Lord, 
how he wanted her!
"Brad..." His name seemed to be all she was capable of saying. "Brad..."
The piping skirl of his beeper cut into whatever she might have been going to 
say. He cursed as he dropped his head to her bare abdomen, his breathing ragged 
and pained.
"No!" he raged. "Oh, God, no! Not now!"
But the beeper went on and on. He lifted his head and stared at the box on his 
belt as if it were an alien spacecraft.
"Don't answer it," Elaina begged, then was immediately appalled at herself for 
saying such a thing. He transferred his alien spacecraft stare to her and she 
groaned. "I'm sorry. That was stupid. You have to, don't you?"
"I have to," he said raggedly. He shut off the insistent sound of the beeper and 
stroked her hair back from her forehead. "Do you know how badly I want to ignore 
it?"
She nodded, then turned her face and kissed his palm.
He jerked away from her. "Don't!" he said, then laughed roughly. "God! You make 
me crazy, Elaina McIvor. Do you know that? When I'm near you, everything that 
matters goes skittering away and all I want to do is hold you and kiss you and 
make love to you forever and ever. Do you always have that effect on men?"
But even as he was saying it, he was buttoning his shirt, tucking it in, 
striding across the room. She sat up and pulled her blouse back on, watching as 
he dialed the number of the emergency room. He spoke briefly, gave a couple of 
terse instructions, then said, "On my way."
She walked him to the door, her hand linked in his, but instead of kissing her 
as she had expected he only squeezed her fingers before drawing them to his 
cheek. He held them against his face for a moment, his eyes dark and unreadable, 
then said, "Yup. That's it. Crazy. Totally, completely out of my mind. It's got 
to stop, Elaina. It's got to stop now."
And then he left.
***
After four days she concluded that once back in the familiar environment of 
broken bodies, gushing blood, and screaming sirens, he had rediscovered sanity 
and found he preferred it.
Finally, he phoned on Sunday afternoon to say that Margo had regained 
consciousness and was asking about Betsy. Could Elaina, he asked, write Margo a 
short note telling her about the baby? He thought it would be beneficial. His 
voice was brisk and cool and impersonal, and Elaina scolded herself for caring. 
She should have known all along that what had happened between them wasn't 
something he wanted. Not really. Oh, he had wanted to make love to her then, at 
that moment, but once away from her, he knew what he wanted more: The excitement 
of emergency medicine. How could she compete?
"Of course I'll write her a note," she said, her tone as cool as his. "What's 
the address of the hospital, and her room number?"
He didn't offer to come and get the note. He just gave her the necessary 
information. Elaina wrote the note, and more. She made sketches. Every day, new 
sketches and another note. She got no replies, but that didn't matter. She 
filmed Betsy with her video camera in the bath, in her high chair covered with 
chocolate pudding, playing with the two little boys next door who had forgiven 
her for being a girl-baby. Someday she could show Margo the videos. In the 
meantime, they were there for her files, all those moods and poses and 
expressions, ready to use when she needed inspiration for illustrations -- once 
Betsy was gone.
She kept herself busy. She worked whenever she could, played with Betsy, had 
coffee several times with Terri next door, and tried not to think about Brad. 
But she missed him. Lord, how she missed him! A hundred times a day she thought 
of excuses to call him, but none of them was valid. He would see through them. 
He would see through her. He would laugh at her. She couldn't bear that. So 
strongly did she resist the idea of calling him that when Betsy got sick and she 
had a real, legitimate excuse to call, she still hesitated. But Betsy cried and 
cried. Her skin was hot and dry and flushed, and not one of those many books 
Elaina had bought offered a concrete explanation. As far as she could make out, 
it could be anything from temper to meningitis.
She had to call.
"Not there?" she asked the woman who answered. Once before, she remembered, she 
had called and he hadn't been there. But then, he hadn't been there because he 
had been here. "Where is he? The baby's sick! She needs him. I need him," she 
admitted, fighting tears. "He has a beeper. Can't you page him?"
"I'm sorry, no. He's off duty. He's out of the hospital." That never seemed to 
matter when he was with her, did it? They beeped him whenever they chose, 
interrupting whatever might be going on. But now, tonight, when she needed to 
have him paged, would they beep him? Of course not!
"You'll have to call your own doctor or bring the baby in here," said the 
disembodied, uncaring voice. "How high is her temperature?" Elaina didn't know 
the answer to that and hung up, feeling desperate and abandoned. She paced with 
Betsy, debating wrapping her up and doing as the voice had suggested, taking her 
to the hospital. She was on the verge of doing so when the doorbell rang.
She flew to the door, flung it open, then burst into tears when she saw it was 
only Terri Greenspan standing there. "Hi," Terri said. "Do you need help? That 
baby's been crying for nearly half an hour. You must need a break. Teething's a 
terrible time, isn't it?"
Teething? How easy it all seemed after that. Terri rubbed some numbing gel on 
Betsy's swollen gums, dripped liquid acetaminophen onto her tongue and within 
minutes the baby was sleeping quietly. Exhausted, Elaina curled up on the spare 
bed in case she was needed, and fell into a deep sleep.
When the doorbell screeched at a few minutes past daybreak, Elaina jerked awake, 
but the baby slept on. Muttering, grumbling, cussing under her breath about 
weird doctors who worked strange hours and came calling at even stranger ones, 
she stuffed her arms into the sleeves of her bathrobe and tied it as she ran. 
She tried to smooth her hair, wishing she had time to brush her teeth, and 
wondered if she looked all sleep-wrinkled and puffy-eyed. Then she berated 
herself for caring. He was coming to see Betsy, not her, but at last he was here 
again and she couldn't control the hammering of her heart. As it sounded once 
more, she unlocked the door, wrenched it open, and stared up at a stretch of 
pale blue sky with no dark head or laughing green eyes anywhere up there at all. 
She looked down, and down, and met the tear-filled brown eyes of a half-naked 
five-year-old who was standing there with a handful of wilted dandelions.
"I got lock-ed out," he said. "Can I come in? My feet are cold,"
"Petey!" she said, recognizing the younger of Terri's two boys. "Oh, my 
goodness. Yes. Come in. Did you ring the bell at home? Didn't your parents hear 
you?" She could see he was cold all over, and shivering. He was wearing only a 
T-shirt with a picture of a bulldog on it and a pair of the most ridiculously 
tiny Jockey shorts.
"Petey," she asked, shutting the door behind him, "why didn't you ask your mom 
and dad to let you in? Or your brother?" He ambled into her studio and curled up 
in the big basket chair. Quickly, she covered him with an afghan robe, tucking 
it in around him. "Billy's sleeping' over at Kevin's house and Daddy's gone to 
work and Mommy's sleepin' in."
"Well, we better call her and tell her where you are."
"No!" Petey's eyes widened. "Daddy said he'd skin me if I woke her up. He told 
me to be real quiet and watch telubision until the clock on the stove said 
eight-oh-oh. It's her birfday and I wanted to pick her some flowers to go with 
the ones Daddy got her and I went outside to pick some and the door got 
lock-ed." He made two syllables out of the last word again.
Elaina glanced at her watch. It still lacked an hour and a half before "eight- 
oh-oh" and she didn't know what to do. Of course she should call Terri and let 
her know her youngest son had escaped but was safe. But it was her birthday. And 
after all the help she'd given Elaina last night, she certainly deserved a break 
today.
"Would you like to stay for breakfast?" she asked Petey. "I could call your mom 
and tell her you're here, then your dad wouldn't be mad at you for waking her 
up. We'll just tell her to go back to sleep and have a good rest while you and I 
look after each other. What do you think?"
He beamed. "Yes, please, Miss McIby."
Elaina had to grin at him. He really was cute. "Hey," she said. "We're friends. 
Why don't you call me...Lainie?"
She blinked. Lainie? Had she really said that? Yup. She really had. Shaking her 
head, she quickly made the call. Terri argued about her keeping Petey, but not 
for long. Elaina suggested she come for breakfast, too, when she woke up again.
"Now, I'm sure you won't want to wait and have breakfast with your mom and me," 
she said to Petey. "So tell me what you like."
"Eggs and bacon and toast and hotcakes and syrup and sausages and cereal and 
johnnycake," he said. "Can I have a picnic outside?"
Elaina stared at him. Eggs, toast, and cereal she could manage, but the rest of 
it? She studied him carefully. Nope. He didn't eat all of those things for 
breakfast. He was simply too small to hold that much food. "Eggs." she said. 
"And toast."
"Okay. Eggs to dunk and fingers. And a picnic?" he asked again hopefully.
"A picnic, sure, but its still cold out. The sun won't be on the patio for 
another hour. You'll need a sweater." He giggled to see himself dressed in one 
of her pullovers. It came down almost to his ankles, and the long socks she 
pulled onto him were nearly hidden. She rolled up the sleeves of the sweater and 
left him sitting happily at the patio table waiting for his breakfast. She put 
on the coffee, washed her face and tied her hair back before rushing into the 
kitchen to get Petey's breakfast ready before Betsy woke up and demanded hers.
This was rather fun, she thought, rushing around to get one child settled with 
what he needed before the other one woke up, just like a real mother. It gave 
her a feeling of efficiency, of competence, to know how well she was coping. She 
wished, just for a second or two, that Kirk could see her now, cooking scrambled 
eggs for the one child sitting on the patio waiting for her, while the baby was 
still sleeping peacefully after a bad night. Sleeping because Elaina had looked 
after her, made her better, given her medicine when she was in pain. That Terri 
had been the one to do all that was beside the point. Now that Elaina knew how, 
she would be able to do the same. Kirk had been so wrong! She would make a good 
mother.
Well, maybe she had a long way to go, she thought a few minutes later. But no 
one learned everything overnight.
Petey glowered at her mutinously, eyes filling with tears, lower lip jutting. He 
wanted "eggs to dunk and fingers" and she had given him "mucky eggs". He was 
going home!
He hesitated when she reminded him that his mother was sleeping because it was 
her birthday. He stopped when she mentioned that his daddy might skin him.
While she was trying to be patient and reason with him, Betsy woke up, 
screaming. She had to leave Petey with the breakfast he hated to take care of 
Betsy. She changed the baby, dressed her as quickly as possible, and got bitten 
by a couple of sharp little teeth when she tried to rub more gel on Betsy's 
gums. Then, rushing into the kitchen with her, she stepped on Harrison's tall. 
He dug two paws worth of claws into her leg, raked them through her flesh, and 
flew to the top of the counter. He knocked over the bottle of cooking oil whose 
lid she had forgotten to replace, and Petey, coming to see if she had decided to 
relent and provide him with eggs to dunk, slipped in the resulting slick and 
bumped his head. He howled. Trying to get a bottle for Betsy, whose wails were 
undiminished, and comfort Petey, who was leaning on the table sobbing, and get 
Harrison off the counter where he was uncharacteristically eating the butter, 
and stop her own blood from smearing all over the floor, Elaina feared for her 
sanity. In the living room, the telephone began to ring, and ring, and ring. All 
she needed now was the doorbell, she thought, and in response it blared its ugly 
sound not once, but twice. Petey, feeling neglected, lay down on the floor and 
drummed his heels.
Into all this walked a big-footed man who stood in the doorway and said loudly, 
"Hey! You left the door unlocked again, you -- Wow! Who the hell are you? Mother 
Goose? Where'd you get the other kid? At a rummage sale?"
The baby bottle was plastic. It bounced off his forehead without 
breaking...anything.
"What did you do that for?" he asked, completely flabbergasted. He picked up the 
bottle. Betsy saw it and screamed louder.
"Answer the phone!" Elaina shouted.
He returned to the kitchen a minute later and yelled, "Do you want to buy a set 
of encyclopedias?" She stared at him, mute with disbelief. "I didn't think so," 
he said. "So I told them no." He rinsed the bottle and took Betsy from Elaina, 
then sat down at the table. He was near Petey who still lay on the floor, but 
was no longer bellowing, his tantrum having been ignored. He still sniffled and 
rubbed his head, staring curiously at the strange man. When Brad stuffed the 
nipple into Betsy's mouth and silence permitted Elaina's brain to function 
again, all she could think of was how glad she was to see Brad.
She removed Harrison from the counter, set the empty butter dish in the sink, 
and glanced at Brad again. If he was as happy to see her, there was no way of 
telling. He didn't even look at her.
He looked at Petey. Stared at him, really. His mouth twitched but he didn't 
laugh at the child's strange garb. Instead, he asked, "What's your name, pal?"
"Petermalcolzngreenspan." Petey got to his feet, his lower lip again jutting 
resentfully. He gave Elaina a dirty look.
Elaina didn't know how Brad managed to decipher three separate words from that 
muttered sound, but supposed he must have trained himself to listen closely. 
"Well, then, Peter Malcolm Greenspan, what seems to be the trouble?"
"I don't like mucky eggs. I want eggs to dunk and she won't make them. And 
fingers." So now it was all her fault, was it? she thought. Petey seemed to have 
forgotten that he'd bumped his head. He looked hopefully at Brad. "Can you cook 
breffus?"
"Breffus," said Brad, looking at Elaina for the first time since he'd sat down. 
He grinned. "He probably eats pus-ketty for dinner too."
"That," she said dryly, "I could have handled. I used to eat pus-ketty myself. 
But eggs to dunk? What In the world would he dunk them in? And fingers? Is the 
kid cannibalistic?"
Brad laughed softly and the sound curled itself around her, warming her. "Try 
frying the eggs with the yolks soft and cutting the toast into little strips. 
It's the toast that gets dunked. In the egg yolks."
He turned out to be absolutely right, and Elaina set Petey back up at the table 
on the patio for his picnic. Brad carried Betsy, now all smiles and bubbles, and 
her high chair out to join him. He spooned Pabulum baby cereal and then 
apple-raspberry goop into her. Elaina sat down and finally sipped at her first 
cup of coffee while the sun rose over the treetops and flooded into the yard 
like a benediction.
Birds sang. The scent of roses filled the fresh morning air. It was a good 
morning to be alive, she thought. She glanced over at Brad. I love him, she 
thought. I absolutely, utterly, and completely love the man.
As if sensing her gaze on him, he looked up and smiled. "What's been going on 
here this morning?" he asked softly.
"You don't want to know. Tell me, baby expert, how in the world did you know 
about eggs to dunk and fingers?"
"I used to eat toast fingers myself," he said, and grinned at Petey, who was 
industriously dunking and munching, happily oblivious of anything but his food.
Picking up Elaina's hand, Brad drew one of her fingers into his mouth and 
nibbled on it. "Now I like fingers of a different kind." A tremor ran through 
her-and she tugged her hand out of his grasp, but not before he placed a kiss on 
her- palm and curled her fingers in over it. "What happened to your ankle?" he 
asked.
"Harrison scratched me when I stepped on him. He didn't mean to hurt me. It was 
just an instinctive reaction on his part."
"You better let me have a look at it." He lifted her foot to his lap, his long, 
strong fingers firm on her skin, He pushed back the leg of her cotton pajamas 
and she could feel the heat of his gaze on her. If this went on much longer, she 
would melt into a puddle on her chair. "It needs to be cleaned and bandaged," he 
said, his voice thick. His fingers were still caressing, sliding up her calf 
now, inside the leg of her pajamas.
Her pajamas! She had long since given up wearing the pink nightie. He was never 
going to see it. He didn't want to see it. Or did he? He wasn't looking at her 
ankle but her face. As she met his gaze and drowned in it, she knew that her 
scratches were far, far from his mind.
"Hi, there," said a bright voice. Terri came in through the gate in the high 
hedge, grinning at her son in his eccentric garb. Though her glance flickered 
over Elaina's face questioningly, she said nothing about how quickly Elaina 
snatched her bare foot off Brad's lap.
"Oh. Hi." Elaina stood up, heat flooding her face. "This is Brad, Dr. Bradshaw. 
He was...um, looking at my ankle. The cat scratched me."
She poured Terri's coffee with a hand that shook, waved her to a chair, and slid 
a plate of cantaloupe wedges close to her. "Help yourself."
"I will, I will, don't worry about me," Terri said, and turned to Brad. "How do 
you do?" she asked.
Brad was barely able to drag his gaze off Elaina's face long enough to return 
her greeting. Terri sat down beside her son and gave Betsy back the toys she had 
thrown from the high chair. "Don't let me keep medical science from working its 
wonders," she said. "That ankle does look like it needs attention."
"Yes," Brad said. He grabbed Elaina's hand and nearly dragged her inside. He 
thrust her into the bathroom as if he really meant to treat her ankle, but as 
soon as the door as shut he leaned on it and stared into her eyes. "If I don't 
get to kiss you in less than ten seconds I am going to explode." he said 
rapidly. "Come here."
She went.
"What...have ...you ...done...to me?" he asked between kisses, his eyes closed, 
his cheek rubbing against hers. He needed a shave. He prickled. He felt 
wonderful. "I have thought of you, dreamed of you, wished I was with you every 
waking minute and most of my sleeping ones for the past eternity since I saw 
you."
"Me too," she breathed, tasting the salty flavor of his neck with her lips and 
tongue. "You said you'd be back but you didn't come."
"I know." He didn't give her any explanation, just those two words. "I'm sorry. 
Did you miss me?
"I missed you."
He untied her belt, parted her navy robe, and looked at her for a long moment. 
"I missed you, too." He kissed her again, deeply, searchingly, demanding a 
response and getting it. Straining her closer, he held her head with one hand 
and her buttocks with the other, moving her back and forth across the hardness 
of his body until she sobbed in need and dug her nails into his back. "I thought 
about you all the time, and I wanted to be with you, but...Oh. hell, Lainie, 
I've never been more confused in my life!"
His kiss was filled with hunger and anger, though she didn't know what she had 
done to deserve that anger.
She took her hands from behind his head and stared into his eyes. "I don't 
understand, Brad. What could be confusing about me?"
He kissed her eyes shut, cradled her face in his hands, and touched her lips 
with his again. "You give me the most erotic dreams, and there's no rational 
reason for it. God, you wear pajamas!"
His laugh was soft and incredulous and he kissed her throat down to the collar 
of her top. "Until I met you, I didn't even know they made pajamas for women! 
Why do you wear them when I know perfectly well you have at least one sexy, 
slinky gown? And why do I have fantasies about you, not in that nightgown but 
just like this, in your long-legged, long-sleeved, buttoned-up-to-the-neck 
pajamas! And this ugly tailored robe." The robe was pushed off her and fell to 
the floor. "You dress like a prude, Elaina McIvor! You wear your hair like an 
old-maid librarian."
He gently removed the elastic band from her hair, then massaged her scalp and 
spread the hair over her shoulders. He drew a strand of it under her nose like a 
mustache, nearly making her sneeze. She reached up to move it, but he caught her 
wrist in his free hand. He nudged aside her sleeve as his lips slid up her arm 
to her elbow, his tongue pressing against the sensitive skin there before moving 
back down to her fingers. She curled her hand around his face and drew his mouth 
back up to hers. She kissed him softly. Running her tongue around his lips, 
slipping it inside to find his, to caress it, to tempt it to follow back into 
the warm moistness of her mouth.
"The first time I saw you I doubted the pose," he said thickly, "because of your 
eyes. And your mouth. It's beautiful and warm and sensuous and it begs to be 
kissed even when you're holding it in a tight, firm line while you look like a 
proper lady. And then when I touch it with mine, all the secret promises that 
mouth makes are fulfilled and you come alive in my arms." His breath burned her 
shoulder through the cotton of her pajamas.
"You tease me and excite me even when you're dressed like a nun, because I know 
you'll melt and turn into a wanton, a siren, a houri, when I kiss y -- "
"A what?" she squawked, pulling back from him. "That's an insult!"
"Houri," he said, stressing both syllables. He dragged her back against the full 
length of his body, parting his thighs to pull her into him. "You know. One of 
the pasha's most beautiful nymphs. Only nymphs don't wear crisp cotton pajamas 
that shouldn't be able to turn a man on at all. And still you seduce me. Oh, 
Elaina, lovely Lainie, seduce me some more."
He kissed her again and she saw what he meant about her coming alive in his 
arms. She knew they should stop, but what was happening felt too good to stop. 
She slipped her arms around his neck again, pulling his mouth down to her as she 
gave herself over to the magic they created together.
It was he who called a halt. "Enough," he said, panting. He dragged her arms 
from around him, holding her off and resting his forehead against hers. "No. I 
don't meant that. It's not enough. I don't think I'll ever get enough of you, 
but we can't keep doing this or I'll never be able to walk out of here."
His eyes were incredibly green, laughing into hers, and she trembled as she 
moved closer, telling him with her body, her eyes, what she couldn't yet say out 
loud. She didn't want him to walk out. Ever.
"How do you know about my sexy nightie?" she asked, then hid her blush behind 
her hair. For a moment, his arms came around her again and he pressed his cheek 
on top of her head. She heard the small sound he made as he swallowed, then he 
set her back from him again, tipping her face up so he could see her eyes. His 
were no longer laughing.
"I saw it in the bag the day you bought it," he said huskily, "and then I saw it 
again the next day, peeking out from under your bathrobe." He drew in a deep 
breath. "Why did you buy it, Lainie? And the other stuff? Was it for me?"
She stared into his eyes for a long moment, then nodded. He touched her cheek. 
"Oh, Elaina. I wish..."
"Wish what?"
"Wish it were night, not morning. Wish we were alone. Wish I could see you with 
that nightie on. And off. Oh, hell, I wish things were different all around," he 
added, sad and disheartened.
She could only look at him, bewildered.
"Sit down." he said. "Let's see your ankle."
His eyes were serious, his mouth a straight line, and he didn't look at her as 
he opened the medicine cabinet. He treated her minor wounds, and the difference 
between his touch now and his touch earlier was vast. His hand was still warm on 
her flesh, still firm, but now it was completely impersonal, totally sexless. 
She might have been a wax dummy, she thought. Or a patient.
When he was finished, he stood and opened the door. He gazed at her somberly for 
a moment but said nothing. Then he left, closing the door behind him as if 
placing a barrier between them.
But he hadn't had to do that, she thought bleakly. His eyes had done it first.
Chapter Eight
The sound of Brad's laughter drew Elaina to the patio and she stood in the 
doorway watching him playing cat's cradle with Petey, while Terri looked on. 
Betsy was standing holding onto Brad's knee, occasionally reaching out to touch 
the intricately woven strings.
Terri said something and Brad laughed again. Clearly, his morose mood hadn't 
lasted long. With a sigh, Elaina remembered she had invited her neighbor for 
breakfast, and turned to prepare it.
Petey had given her the idea: Johnnycake. She quickly assembled the ingredients 
and mixed up the corn bread recipe she hadn't used for a long time. She put the 
pan in the oven, set the timer and returned to her studio. At the door leading 
out to the patio, she paused, taking in the warmth of the picture her guests 
made.
Terri looked up, saw her, and smiled. With a gesture that said, "Stay there, and 
keep quiet," Elaina turned to grab a sketch pad. She drew them as a group first, 
capturing the scene that she knew her mind would hold forever. She was nearly 
sick with a sudden tearing of longing, with the desire for a family of her own. 
She had told herself for so long it was a futile dream, but was it? Why 
shouldn't she want -- and have -- the most natural thing in the world for a 
woman to want? She tried to block out the reality of these children, to replace 
them with others who might be in her future, hidden just around the bend of 
events that had not yet happened. The children she could eradicate. The man, 
however, remained.
Shaking her head, Elaina told herself to stop being a fool. With effort, she 
concentrated on drawing Petey alone, a gift for Terri's birthday. She drew his 
round little-boy face, the baggy sweater hanging down over his knees, the rolled 
sleeves that kept threatening to fall over his hands, and the drooping socks, 
one of which was dangling half off him, draping onto the flagstones of the 
patio.
Flipping the page over, she started in on Betsy, working quickly because she 
knew the baby rarely stood still for long. Any second now, her legs would 
collapse and she'd be off on her hands and knees, galloping after a butterfly or 
simply playing with the bells on her new shoes. As it was, her expressions were 
as ephemeral as mist in the wind and as difficult to capture. Her plump body was 
a joy to draw, though, all curves and begging for sweeps of the pencil, 
voluptuous turns of the wrist -- simplified technique that made the work go 
fast. Her bibbed overalls with straps crossed in back demanded the only straight 
lines and angles, and Elaina swiftly sketched them in before turning the page.
And then she drew Brad. Like a child savoring dessert, she had saved the best 
for last. The moment she began to sketch in the elegant outline of his head, 
though, she knew she could draw him over and over and never satisfy herself 
completely, never capture whatever it was she wanted to have of him. It was too 
elusive, too illusory, and her skill was much to puny.
The strength of his profile demanded all she could give. The square chin, the 
column of his throat with the slight protrusion of his Adam's apple, the slope 
of his shoulder and upper arm as he held his hands out toward Petey, tilting 
them to provide the little boy with a better angle for picking up the strings, 
all came under her careful scrutiny. But it was his lips that gave her the most 
trouble. There was no way she could depict the power she knew was there, and the 
tenderness, and the sweetness. Page after page flipped over as she tried to get 
it just night. His eyes. She couldn't see them, only his profile, but she knew 
them by heart. She sketched until her fingers cramped and then sketched some 
more, trying to collect as many of his expressions as she could against the day 
that she would see him no more. She was still working when the oven timer went 
off, a monotonous ping, ping, ping that was as much of an intrusion on intimacy 
as Brad's beeper had ever been.
Scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, and corn bread with warm syrup got rave reviews, 
and Petey enjoyed a second breakfast along with the adults. He passed on the 
"mucky" eggs.
Brad ate hungrily, too, but Elaina found her appetite strangely absent. Her 
stomach fluttered each time she looked up and found him looking at her. Always, 
his gaze lingered on her face and always he responded to her voice, giving her 
his total attention when she spoke, as if her words were important to him. 
Still, though, she detected the same confusion in him that had been present when 
he left her in the bathroom. Mixed with that confusion was a warmth and a 
yearning that so closely complemented her own emotions, she found herself 
wishing Terri and Petey would go, that Betsy would fall asleep, and that she and 
Brad could gravitate to each other's arms again.
While the adults sipped their third cups of coffee and watched the children 
playing on the warm flagstones of the patio, Brad took Elaina's hand under the 
table, holding it on his lap while he talked charmingly to Terri. Elaina barely 
heard his words, was scarcely aware of Petey lifting off Betsy's sun hat and 
saying "Boo!" while Betsy squealed with delight.
When Petey grew tired of the game, Betsy lifted her hat up herself and shouted, 
"Boo!" to her admiring audience. Elaina dragged herself out of her dream state 
to reach down and lift the baby up, hugging her tightly.
"That makes three words," she said, immensely proud. "Brad, don't forget to tell 
Margo when you go back today."
He laced his hands behind his head and stuck his long legs out in front of him, 
ankles crossed. "I'm not going back today. Nor tomorrow, either. I am free for 
two full, glorious days." Slowly, his gaze raked over her, a smile lurking in 
the depths of his eyes. She realized that he wanted to spend those two glorious 
days with her, and knew just as well that those days would each be twenty-four 
hours long. As she met his gaze over Betsy's head, her heart hammered hard in 
her chest. If they were to spend the time together, she knew the days -- and the 
nights -- would be just as glorious for her.
Terri got to her feet and began noisily gathering dishes together.
"So what do you plan to do with your time off?" she asked, stacking plates one 
on top of another.
"I was thinking of taking these two lovely ladies out for a long drive today," 
he said, lifting Betsy and bouncing her on his knee. "Maybe up to Crater Lake." 
His gaze slid sideways to Elaina's face. "Ever been there?" She shook her head, 
and he smiled at her before turning again to Terri. "Would you like to join us?"
She laughed. "Not on your life! Mountain roads don't appeal to me. Thanks 
anyway. And I have a better idea. Why don't you leave Betsy with me? That way 
the two of you won't have to worry about her and you'll have a much nicer time."
"Oh, no, we couldn't! This is your birthday." Elaina said, but she was swiftly 
overruled.
"I could and I will. What better birthday gift can you think of for the mother 
of two little boys than to get to play with a baby girl for a while?"
"Thanks," Brad said, standing up. "You've just earned yourself a free 
appendectomy, lady."
Terri laughed again. "Now, aren't you lucky. I had one when I was twelve, so I 
can't hold you to it." She gathered up the sweater and socks that Petey had 
peeled off as the sun grew warm, and said briskly, "Let's collect what Betsy 
will need, love. We get to take her home with us for the day." She smiled slyly 
and added, "And the night, if it comes to that."
Brad laughed. "No, no. We'll be home by midnight, if that's not too late for 
you. I'm a working stiff and I've been up for a long time already. By midnight 
I'll be ready for bed. I would like a chance to take Lainie out for a leisurely 
dinner though, if you're game to baby-sit that late."
"No problem," Terri assured him.
"But it's your birthday!" Elaina protested again.
"Oh, pooh, what does that mean? We have no plans for tonight. My husband and his 
parents are taking me out on the weekend." One by one Elaina's arguments were 
shot down until Betsy and Terri and Petey had disappeared through the gate in 
the hedge and Brad was grinning at the success of his plan. Meeting his eyes, 
Elaina had to grin, too, a smile that just grew bigger and bigger and bigger 
until she thought she might burst with the happiness of the day.
***
"It's so blue!" Elaina stood on the edge of an overlook and surveyed the 
intensely sapphire blue lake that had been formed millennia before when Mount 
Masama blew its top. "How can it be such a color?" she asked, turning to Brad. 
"It's as if it has gathered up the sky and magnified it a thousand times."
"I'm told that its depth, nearly two thousand feet, has a lot to do with the 
color. And the shape of the crater helps, too." Brad turned her back around 
again and wrapped his arms around her from behind, protecting her from the chill 
of the high, thin air. "And look, see the mini-crater in Wizard Island? That 
fascinates me. A volcano within a volcano."
"How long since it's blown?" Elaina asked, feeling for the first time a hint of 
apprehension. She remembered when Mount St. Helens had blown its top, and the 
devastation that had followed.
"You just read it in the book," he reminded her. "Nearly seven thousand years 
ago." He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, erasing the goose bumps. "It's 
considered safely extinct. Of course," he added slyly, "there is that hot spring 
at Klamath Falls. That shows there's some part of the earth's core not far from 
here that's still cooking away."
"Thanks a lot," she said, shoving her hands into the pockets of her dress. He 
wrapped his fingers around her wrists and pulled her hands free.
"Hey," he said softly, "leave room for joy, remember?"
Tilting her head back, she smiled at him. "I remember."
He gazed into her eyes for a moment, then kissed her hard on the mouth, filling 
her with joy but taking her by surprise. The intensity of her own swift and 
heated response also took her by surprise. At the first touch of his tongue she 
flowered for him, a small sound in the back of her throat telling him of her 
pleasure. His hands cupped and massaged her breasts, and she felt her nipples 
stiffen, as he found them through the fabrics that covered them, tugging at them 
with thumbs and forefingers. One hand moved down her body and she arched toward 
it, accepting his caress as he drew her tightly back against him, curving his 
fingers over the roundness below her belly. She gasped and surged against him, 
all her senses awake to his touch, her entire body yearning for more and more.
"Lainie...Lainie..." He turned her to face him. The green of his eyes had 
softened to a deep glow, and his mouth was curved into a tender smile that 
warmed her insides. Cradling her head in his hands, he kissed her again, angling 
his mouth across hers. His tongue plundered deep as he moved his body in a slow, 
sensuous rhythm against her. She slid her arms around his waist, feeling the 
hard muscles of his back ripple as he held her firmly against the cradle of his 
hips.
There was no time, no earth, no reality but that of touching each other, tasting 
each other. The reality was soft whispers, sighs, and gentle moans as the 
sensations became unbearably poignant and they were forced to take a time out. 
They clung to each other and smiled, and took tiny, replenishing sips from each 
other's lips.
The sound of voices coming down the trail brought them back to the world. Brad 
turned her from him again, holding her as before, her back pressed to his front, 
his chin near her ear, her head on his shoulder, She wrapped her arms over his, 
holding them close under her breasts, her hands curled around his hard elbows.
"Speaking of volcanic eruptions," he murmured as the voices came nearer. "You 
have the most potent kisses in the world, Elaina McIvor!"
"Ido?" she whispered. "What about you?"
"It's not me," he said. "It's all your doing. When you kiss me I forget where I 
am, what I'm supposed to be doing. Hell, who I am, even!"
The sound of several pairs of hiking boots crunching on the gravel made her move 
restlessly in his arms. She, too, had forgotten where they were and what they 
were supposed to be doing for however long they had had the overlook to 
themselves. But now they no longer had it to themselves and should act like 
responsible adults, not randy teenagers. She knew her face was turning redder 
and redder, and she said in a low, urgent voice, "Brad, let me go."
"You stay still," he hissed in her ear. "You got me into this state, so you're 
not going to go away and leave me...um, exposed to the mocking eyes of the 
world." He moved against her again, making her tinglingly aware that his "state" 
was still very much in evidence. An uncharacteristic giggle rose inside her as 
she was struck by the humor of the situation -- his situation. She slithered out 
of his arms and darted away, leaving him hugging nothing but the guardrail that 
kept the unwary from slipping off the crumbly, volcanic rock trail and sliding 
down the sheer side of the crater to the water two thousand feet below.
"Oh, look, Brad," she said from several yards away. "That must be the Phantom 
Ship we read about in the booklet you bought. Come over here. There's a much 
better view without that tree in the way."
"I'm fine right here," he said, but even as he lowered his brows in a scowl, she 
could see the laughing light in his eyes.
Long past the time when he must surely have been able to move without 
embarrassment he stood leaning on the railing, watching her. She could feel his 
gaze on her, but refused to turn, keeping her attention instead on the beautiful 
scene below. She watched the changing light and shadows create mosaics on crater 
walls, on lake, and on islands, and breathed in the clean, sharp air, delighting 
in the silence as the view point was left to them again.
About to go back to where Brad stood, Elaina turned and was startled to see 
another man close by, tall and athletic, in hiking shorts and boots. He had a 
bushy mustache and a gleam of interest in his eye. "Well, hi, there," he said. 
"Nice view." His manner suggested that she was part of what made it nice.
Elaina agreed that it was, and made to step past him. The trail was narrow here, 
though, and short of giving him a shove, there was no way to do it. She wasn't 
certain that he was deliberately keeping her there, but she suspected he might 
be. His eyes glittered as he continued to gaze at her.
"You look like a lady who could use some company on the trail," he said, 
shifting the straps of his backpack to a more comfortable position. "And I'm 
just the guy to provide it. Walk with me?" He held out a hand.
"Thanks," she said, "but I already have the company I want." She cast a glance 
over at Brad where he still stood, half obscured by a pine tree, watching 
quietly, making no move to interfere. But she knew without having to think about 
it that if he felt she was unable to handle things, he'd be at her side in one 
second.
The man's gaze followed hers and his mouth twisted into a rueful grimace. "Oops, 
sorry," he said. "I thought you were alone. My mistake. No offense, buddy. 
Forgive me, miss."
"Nothing to forgive," she told him as he backed off and left her room to regain 
a solid footing on the main trail. "Enjoy your hike."
"Yeah, you too." As he walked away, he paused for one backward glance and a 
small wave.
Brad took her hand in his, swinging them between them as they walked back the 
way they'd come.
"It was nice of you not to interfere," she said. "Kirk would have...uh, It was 
nice of you. Thanks. I like to think I can take care of myself."
He squeezed her fingers. "I don't just think you can. I know It. Besides, I knew 
there was no chance you'd go off hiking with him."
"Confident, aren't you?"
He was silent for a moment, then said, "Yeah. With you, I do feel confident that 
you won't do anything to make me feel small. It's a nice feeling." Startled by 
his serious treatment of her light words, she made no reply, and he went on. "It 
wasn't like that during my marriage. LeeAnn liked to keep me on edge. If a guy 
had made her an offer like that, she might have taken him up on it. If he 
noticed me, she could just as easily as not pretend that she didn't know me, or 
that I was her brother, or even that I'd been following her and she was glad of 
his protection. She was the confident one. She knew I'd never let her out of my 
sight in a situation like that. So she was safe doing what she did. Later she 
would have said it was all a joke and that I was too stuffy and staid and had no 
sense of humor. She was happiest when she had more than one man following her, 
vying for her attention."
They were back at the car as he finished and he let her hand go while he 
unlocked the door and saw her seated. They were using her car today, as it was 
more reliable and comfortable than his rattletrap van. To her surprise, when 
they had left her house he had walked to the passenger side, not making any 
suggestion that he should drive. When she'd asked if he would, since he knew 
where they were going and she didn't, he'd walked around to the other side and 
taken the keys from her. His smile told her that she had pleased him with the 
offer.
Now, he got behind the wheel as if that were where he belonged. "We can drive 
all the way around the lake," he said. "The Rim Drive is worth seeing. Okay with 
you?"
Anything he wanted to do was okay with her, and she smiled her agreement and 
snuggled up under his arm. As they slowly drove clockwise along the paved road 
that kept traffic moving one way around the rim, they came to many different 
vantage points. At each one Brad stopped so they could fill their senses with 
the beauty of the lake, and with the temptation of each other's lips. The sun 
had gone down and as dusk approached, the shadows deepened, turning the scene 
into one of magic and mystery. The color of the lake turned to indigo, and 
Wizard Island and the Phantom Ship were inky black outlines in the darkening 
depths of the crater.
At Rim Villages they stopped for dinner in the rustic Inn, Crater Lake Lodge, 
enjoying roast beef and crusty roast potatoes served with a rich, thick gravy 
and a variety of vegetables, including tender-crisp carrots. The charming 
waitress grinned when Elaina commented on how nicely the carrots were cooked. 
She confessed that that was about the greatest degree of doneness the chef could 
get on them at that altitude, where water boiled at considerably less than two 
hundred twelve degrees.
They lingered long over their wine, Brad filling her glass twice for every time 
he filled his, "I'm driving," he said firmly when she pointed out that she was 
getting more than her share. She liked that about him. He was not a man to take 
unnecessary risks with his own life or hers, or the lives of the unsuspecting 
motorists who might be coming around the next corner. She supposed he had seen 
the dire results of drinking and driving too often during his tenure in the 
emergency room to drink and drive himself. Still, it was nice to feel so safe 
with a man. Come to think of it, there was nothing, so far, that she didn't like 
about him.
The dining room was nearly empty when they were served their coffee. Brad sipped 
his, smiling at her over his cup.
Then, with a suddenness that shocked her, he asked, "Was Kirk your husband, 
Elaina?"
"What -- what gives you the idea I was ever married?" she asked in a strangled 
voice, playing for time. She'd thought he'd missed her inadvertent reference to 
Kirk when he'd failed to say anything earlier.
"I don't know," he said, taking her hand and rubbing his thumb over her fingers 
as if feeling for the depression left by a wedding band. It had once existed, 
but she was glad now that it was gone. His gaze held hers over the flickering 
light of the candle. "But you were, weren't you?"
"Brad...it's not a time of my life I like to talk about. It was over three years 
ago and I prefer to leave it that way."
"I know you do," he said softly, still rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, "But 
I want to know you, Lainie. I want to know all about you. So tell me. Please?"
"I was married," she said in a strained voice, "and yet I wasn't. I met Kirk 
shortly after I moved to Indianapolis. I was twenty-three, fresh out of college 
and working in the Civic Library. He used to come in to check back issues in our 
periodical files. He sold advertising space for a company that published a large 
number of magazines. We talked, he discovered that I was a newcomer and offered 
to show me around. I was a very young, very naive twenty-three and was flattered 
that an older man was interested in me."
"How long were you with him, Lainie?"
"Five years." Her voice was little more than a whisper, and Brad knew it hurt 
her to reveal this part of her life. He wanted to tell her it didn't matter, 
that he didn't need to know, but something within him insisted that he did need 
to.
"Do you still love him?"
She shook her head. "No." Now, she smiled. "No, not even a little bit. But I did 
then and I feel very, very foolish about what happened. As I said, Kirk sold 
advertising space. Mostly for trade journals, and that meant he had to do a lot 
of traveling. He was away for half of each week. Sometimes more."
"That can be hard on a relationship," Brad said.
She nodded in agreement. "It was, but I had my job in the library and I was 
doing quite a bit of illustrating even then, so I kept busy. I wanted a family, 
but he didn't. Of course, I understand now why he didn't, but then he had me 
convinced it was because I'd be a poor mother." She pulled a wry face and 
slipped her hand free. She tucked it onto her lap with her other one and looked 
down, not meeting his eyes.
"We were saving for our dream house, and then one day when he was in Cincinnati, 
I learned that we wouldn't have to save any more. By mail I had played the 
lottery run in another state. I'd been doing that for some time. A silly habit 
really. But that day it paid off. I won a hundred thousand dollars in the 
lottery and was too excited to wait until he got home the next day to tell him. 
I called his hotel, even though he had always made it a very firm rule that I 
was never to call him there unless it was a life-and-death emergency." She 
looked at him again. "Can you believe that for five years I was a good, obedient 
little ...woman and had never once called him there? Five years!
"Anyway, it was a good thing I hadn't ever needed him during those years, 
because it turned out that they had never heard of him at that hotel or any of 
the other hotels I called that day. Do you have any idea how many hotels and 
motels there are in Cincinnati?"
Brad knew the question didn't require a response, so he just smiled at her 
encouragingly, wishing again that he had never asked her to tell him this story. 
The strain of it was clear on her face, in the taut line of her mouth, the set 
of her shoulders.
"I called every one of them," she said, shaking her head at the memory. "And 
then I called his office to see if maybe he had gone to a different city. But 
no, his boss's secretary confirmed that he was in Cincinnati. When I explained 
that he wasn't staying in the hotel he normally used, but with friends and I'd 
lost the number he'd given me, she checked the records and gave me a number to 
try.
"A little child answered and when I asked for Kirk, she called out, 'Mommy, it's 
for Daddy. Will he be home tonight?'"
For the first time, Brad detected a quaver in her voice. He wanted desperately 
to hold her, to comfort her and ease her pain, but he sat very still, afraid to 
break the flow of her words.
"A woman came on and said she was Kirk's wife, and could she take a message. I 
don't know why I didn't hang up right then, but stupidly I said that she 
couldn't be his wife because I was. She thought I was some kind of sicko and 
laughed at me. She said that since she was the mother of his three children aged 
five through ten, she figured her wifehood took precedence over mine, and 
suggested I find some other marriage to try to break up, because hers was as 
solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, thank you very much, and hung up."
Elaina looked at Brad with eyes that seemed bruised and bewildered as if she was 
feeling again the shock and disbelief and terrible betrayal she had suffered 
then. She drew in a shuddering breath. "That was the kind of trust she had in 
him. And the kind of trust I had in him, too. I was sure there was some kind of 
weird mistake, and that it would all get sorted out. I didn't believe it until 
he came home the next day and berated me for having phoned him at that number. 
He demanded to know how I had gotten it, accused me of having known all along 
and of wanting to 'ruin' things for him. He couldn't seem to accept that he had 
more than just ruined things for me. To this day, I'm sure he doesn't know what 
he did to me."
"Ah, Lainie. That was so lousy for you. He hurt you a lot."
She nodded.
"So what did you do? I hope you took your hundred grand and sued the pants off 
him!"
Elaina laughed, surprised to discover that she could, that what had happened 
three years ago no longer seemed like such a tragedy. "I didn't want his pants. 
I didn't want him anymore. I didn't even turn him in to the law. If his wife 
wanted to do that, then I felt it was up to her. I just took my hundred grand 
and headed west. Isn't that what a person's supposed to do when life in the East 
becomes unbearable?"
He stood and helped her up, then put some money on the tray with the check. He 
said nothing until they were outside in the parking lot. "And how bearable has 
your life become in the last three years?" he asked, sliding a hand up under her 
hair.
She looked at him. She was aware of the warmth of him close to her, the 
magnetism of his eyes, the almost palpable tension and electricity flowing 
between her body and his.
"Why don't you ask me how bearable it's become in the past few weeks?" she said, 
feeling frightened and excited and weak, but wanting him to know, if he didn't 
already.
He drew in his breath and met her gaze. His fingers tightened on the nape of her 
neck as he pulled her so near she could feel his breath on her face. He smiled 
crookedly and his hand trembled against her. "I don't think I dare to ask right 
now," he said. "How 'bout I do it when we're down off this mountain again? I 
think the altitude's getting to me."
But the look in his eyes told her that he was on as much of a high as she was, 
and that it had nothing to do with altitude at all.
Chapter Nine
They drove down the mountain in silence. On the long road home their only 
contact was their linked hands and the excitement that ebbed and flowed and 
swirled around them. Desire rippled through Elaina, heating her inner self. She 
sighed quietly now and then, wanting to curl up in his arms and burrow her face 
against the fragrance of his skin. That they were destined to make love that 
night was in no doubt in her mind. That he wanted her as much as she wanted him 
was something she took as a given. She loved him. The knowledge filled her with 
euphoria. Even if his feelings were different, and not as strong as hers, it 
couldn't lessen what she felt for him, couldn't detract from her deep need to 
share herself fully with him.
They picked up Betsy at Terri's and hurried to her house. There was a certain 
constraint about Brad as he unlocked the door and carried in all of Betsy's bits 
and pieces. Elaina gently laid the sleeping baby in the crib and tucked her 
blankets close around her. She turned to find Brad's gaze on her, and smiled 
tenderly at him. The smile faded though. As she realized that somewhere on the 
trip home, he had lost the joy they had found together. Maybe, she thought, it 
had only been the altitude after all. For him.
Yet as soon as they were in the living room, he wrapped his hands around her 
arms and drew her close. "Elaina," he said, then fell silent, his face grave, 
his eyes somber. She could feel the tension in his hands as they trembled on her 
upper arms.
She didn't know what was wrong, only that something was. Nor did she know how to 
fix it, only that she had to try. "What is it?" she asked, moving in closer. She 
put her arms around him, holding him gently as she tried to ease whatever 
distress he was feeling.
He resisted her at first, tried to push her away but it was a weak push. His 
body was already rising in response to her closeness. Helplessly, he pulled her 
tight against him, closing his eyes as if in pain. "We have to stop this," he 
murmured. "Lainie, move away from me."
His obvious desire triggered her own, which had never been far below the surface 
since she had met him. She was as unable as he to withstand its power. "Later," 
she said, moving her mouth over his.
With a groan of surrender, he took her lips in a deep and stirring kiss. His 
hands were strong on her back, slowly moving downward until he cupped her 
buttocks, drawing her high and hard against him. His lips were firm as he 
pressed them over hers and his tongue caressed the roof of her mouth with little 
darting motions, eliciting soft moans from deep within her.
Clutching at his shirt, she felt the heavy pounding of his heart. She slid his 
buttons out of their holes, one by one, touching the soft pelt of hair. He was 
so hot! His skin was burning. She cooled it with her tongue and he shuddered. He 
tilted his head back to give her access to his throat, then swooped over her 
again to kiss her mouth and run his hands into her hair, holding her head still 
while he plundered deeply, making her arch up against him.
He held the kiss while he unzipped her dress and slid it down over her 
shoulders, revealing her rounded softness in the sheer, lacy teddy she wore.
He met her shy gaze, the flicker of something like merged apprehension and 
desire in her eyes stopping his breath in his throat. He touched her taut 
nipples with the tips of his fingers, then bent and drew one, along with its 
covering of silk, into his mouth. He kissed the other one, too, and then looked 
at her flushed face and limpid eyes. Her chest was heaving, her lips parted and 
tremulous, as he slowly eased down the straps of the teddy and bared her to the 
waist.
She took his hands and placed them over her breasts, holding them to her. "I 
love you, Brad," she said softly.
He made a harsh, broken sound and pulled her against him again, rocking her in 
his arms, his cheek on her soft hair. "Oh, Lainie, Lainie," he whispered 
finally. "I want so badly to stay."
"I want you to stay," she said, sliding her hands up to his shoulders. She 
tilted back, to look into his eyes, and the tips of her breast rubbed sensuously 
against his chest. But he stepped back, holding her away from him, and she 
didn't know what to do. If there was anything more to be said at a time like 
this, she didn't know what it might be. She only continued to gaze into his 
eyes, seeing the longing there, the storm of indecision, the confusion he was 
battling.
"But I can't," he said, his voice strained.
Elaina stared at him. What was happening? Why was he doing this? He wanted her. 
She knew that. And he knew she wanted him. She had just told him she loved him, 
baring her soul to him as well as her body.
She let her hands fall from him. "Why?" she managed to ask.
Still holding her by the shoulders, his eyes locked with hers, he said, "Because 
I'm falling in love with you, Elaina. And because it has to stop right here 
before it goes any further. Oh, hell, what am I saying? I'm not just falling in 
love with you, I have fallen. But you've had one bad experience with a rat. I 
don't want to be responsible for giving you another one."
She reeled back from him, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, trying to 
erase the memory of his touch. "Are you a rat?" Numbly, she pulled her clothing 
back up.
"If I took what you're offering, I would be." He drew in a deep breath, then 
blurted out. "I don't want to get married again, Elaina."
She recoiled with shock. "I don't recall asking you to marry me," she said 
through the agony slicing her apart. She saw the brick-colored flush rise on his 
face again.
"No. Of course you didn't. But isn't it what you'd expect of a man who loved 
you? Isn't it what you expected before?"
"Yes, it's what I expected before, but I was twenty-three then, and naive. I 
thought love and marriage were inseparable. But what kind of a marriage did that 
belief get me? You know the answer to that. Kirk married me because he liked 
having a wife to take care of him. He was spending as much time in Indianapolis 
as he was in Cincinnati and he didn't like living in hotels. He went through 
that phony ceremony so that he'd have a place to stay, someone to cook and clean 
and fill his bed at night. A girlfriend has to be treated better than a wife. A 
lover expects to be taken out and wined and dined and danced until dawn. But not 
a wife. I was a convenience to him. Someone to take care of him and his 
clothing. I'm delighted to know that you don't want that same convenience, Brad. 
It warms my heart!"
"Lainie -- " He paused, swallowed hard, then said softly, "Don't. Please don't." 
He lifted one hand as if to touch her, then dropped it to his side.
"Don't what?"
"Put yourself down. You think I'm putting you down, don't you? You think that 
after all we shared today, after the unspoken promises we made to each other, 
that I'm rejecting you. I'm not, love. It isn't like that."
She had nothing to say. He was right. That was what she thought. She had 
believed he wanted her, had made it as plain as she knew how that she wanted 
him, and still he was leaving. And if that wasn't rejection, she didn't know 
what was. She shrugged and stepped past him.
"Then you'd better go," she said, opening the door for him. "You said this 
morning that your day started early. You must be tired."
"Oh, Lainie. Dammit, how can I make you understand?" He shoved the door shut, 
his chest rising and falling rapidly as he stared down at her. His mouth was 
taut and deep lines ran from his nose to the corners of his lips.
"You don't have to make me understand anything," she said. "I understand 
perfectly well. I'm not stupid. You're afraid of commitment and you think that's 
what I'd demand of you. You're wrong, but I know you won't believe that, so 
there's nothing more to say."
"Lainie, that's the trouble. I do believe it. But don't you see? You'd have 
every right to expect me to marry you, and when I didn't, it wouldn't be what 
you deserve. It wouldn't be fair. I -- I love you too much to want to do that to 
you. I...oh, damn, Lainie, I'm sorry."
He opened the door and stepped out, then closed it firmly behind him.
For a long time Elaina stood there, staring blankly at the white wood panels, at 
the dull gleam of the brass doorknob, at the Yale lock that had clicked into 
place. Then, numb and half blind, she walked to the bathroom, turned on the 
shower and, leaving her clothes in a heap on the floor, stepped into the 
pounding, hot spray. She didn't wash herself, but simply let the water run over 
her as if it could dilute her pain. But nothing could dilute it, not the tears 
she eventually shed, not the great, wrenching sobs that tore from her nor the 
pounding of her fists against the shower wall.
When the water ran cold she turned it off and wrapped herself in a big towel. 
She rubbed her hair with another, blew her nose hard, and stopped her tears. She 
padded barefoot into her studio and found under the chair cushion the sketches 
she had made that morning. Switching on one of the angle lamps over her table, 
she perched on her high stool and spread them out. After flinging the small 
towel off her head, she simply sat and gazed at the drawings.
The one of Petey she set aside for Terri, having forgotten to give it to her as 
a birthday gift. The one of Betsy she mounted carefully on a mat and slipped it 
into a cardboard frame, ready to send it to Margo in the morning. The others she 
simply looked at helplessly, wanting to crumple them one by one and consign them 
to the trash basket, but knowing she never could. They were too important to 
her. Brad was too important to her. But how could she make him see that?
She studied each drawing as if within it there might be the secret she needed. 
But even after half-an-hour of scrutinizing the expressions of his she had 
captured, each plane and angle of his face, she was no closer to knowing than 
she had been when she started. All she knew was that she loved him and wanted 
him, and that there was no way to make her dreams come true without him. 
Finally, she gathered up the dozen or so different images she had made of him 
and laid them carefully in a drawer, setting a fresh pad of drawing paper over 
them to hide them from her own sight.
Harrison prowled the room restlessly, then sat beside the door to the patio, 
hidden behind the drawn drapes. He gave her his let-me-out-right-this-minute 
meow, and yowled plaintively when she was slow to respond.
"All right, all right," she said, unlocking the door and pushing it aside for 
him. "Go on out then, but don't take all night about it."
It was a warm night, she realized as she followed the cat onto the patio, 
letting the drapes fall shut behind her. She tucked her towel in tighter over 
her breasts and watched the cat meander idly through the roses.
"Lainie?" Brad's soft voice came from the darkness near the umbrella table.
"What are you doing back here?" She was surprised that she sounded so calm. 
Inside she was, shaking and in pain from the ice grinding through her blood.
He stood, a dim shape looming as he took one step toward her. "I never left. I 
sat in the van for a while, then came to the door. But I couldn't ring the bell. 
So I walked around here. I heard your shower running."
She wondered if he had also heard her weeping. "I never wanted to hurt you like 
that, Lainie," he said, moving closer, and she knew he had. She backed up, then 
stopped. Why should she pretend that he hadn't hurt her? Did she lack even the 
courage for that?
"Could I come in now?" he asked.
"Are you sure you want to?"
"Ah, Lainie. I'm sure I want to. What I have to know is -- is that still what 
you want?"
Through the pain in her throat, she said. "I think I made myself clear an hour 
or more ago. But I refuse to beg. I'm going in. You suit yourself." With that, 
she strode back through the door, sweeping the drapes aside and not looking to 
see if he followed her. But when she crashed into the side of her drawing table, 
flying blind, he was there to catch and steady her.
Still, she refused to turn and face him. "Oh, hell, Lainie, you aren't going to 
make this easy for me, are you? No, of course you aren't. So there's only one 
way."
He snatched her towel from her and dragged her back against him, running his 
warm bands down over her naked flesh, kissing her neck, her ear, her cheek, his 
mouth finding the wet streaks of her tears. Then she was turned and he was 
rocking her close in his arms.
"I love you," he said. He wiped her face dry with his thumbs, placing tiny 
kisses on her eyelids and cheeks and nose. "I don't know if that's going to be 
enough for you, Lainie, but if you're willing to give us a try on that basis, 
then I want you and I need you and I'll do everything in my power not to hurt 
you again."
She couldn't speak, could only nod. He lifted her into his arms and carried her 
toward her bedroom. "Put me down. I'm too big for you to carry." He laughed, a 
soft, sexy, purring sound that filled her heart to overflowing. "You're not big, 
my love. You're tall. And I'm a whole lot taller." He laid her in the center of 
the bed and turned on the lamp on bedside table. He stood erect, his gaze 
sweeping over her slim yet rounded form. Her whole body was suffused by a pink 
flush and her eyes were shy as she tried to be brave under his scrutiny. She 
thrilled him and delighted him and pleased him in every way.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," he said with such simple 
sincerity that she had to believe him.
"Brad..." Her breathing was stifled as she forced herself to lie still under his 
avid gaze. She had never felt beautiful before in her life, yet now she did. She 
loved it, but it still embarrassed her to have him looking at her that way while 
he stood over her fully clothed. Kirk had never stared at her, and she hadn't 
wanted him to.
Nor had she stared at him as she did at Brad as he carelessly ripped off his 
clothing. She watched, running her tongue over her lips as he slid his zipper 
down, the sound of it rippling through her on a new wave of desire. He lifted 
one foot and tugged at the laces of his shoe, pulled it and the sock off, then 
did the other one. Then, hooking his thumbs into his waistband, he pulled his 
pants off, leaving himself clad only in a pair of pale blue bikini shorts that 
did little to hide the burgeoning shape within. Slowly, his gaze on her face as 
if he were afraid she might suddenly show distaste or fear, or bolt from the 
room, he approached the bed. He knelt on it beside her and waited for her to 
make the next move.
She knew her eyes were wide. Her lips were parted and dry with the breath that 
rasped in and out over them. She moistened them with the tip of her tongue and 
trembled, filled with a burning need for him, aching with a yearning that knew 
no depth, bursting with love for this man.
Rising up on one elbow, she lifted her hand and touched that pulsing flesh under 
the pale blue cloth. It jumped under her fingers and he closed his eyes, drawing 
in a sharp breath. He opened them again when she moved. As she knelt before him 
he caught her face in his hands. He kissed her over and over until he parted her 
lips with his own. His tongue plunged deep inside, dipping and withdrawing in an 
ancient rhythm that was only a prelude for what was to come.
She raked her nails lightly down his back, was rewarded by his shudder of 
pleasure, and hooked her fingers under the elastic of his shorts. Slowly, 
carefully she eased them down over his slim hips his rocklike thighs, then, as 
he lowered himself to the bed, over his legs and off his feet. Swallowing the 
huge lump in her throat, she moved back from him and took her time examining 
him.
"Lainie," he gasped, when she eluded his reaching hands. "Lainie, please!"
His eyes were half shut, green glints shining between thick, short lashes. His 
cheeks were flushed and the tendons in his neck stood out, pulse hammering 
wildly beside one of them. The curling hairs on his chest tapered to an arrow 
that flared out once more as it went lower, darkened, grew thicker. His proud 
manhood stood out in that nest, moving as she gazed at it, as if beckoning her. 
His legs were strong and tanned and well sprinkled with the same dark curls that 
covered his chest. His feet were long and narrow, the toes straight with square, 
short nails.
Running her gaze back up, she lingered again at that most fascinating portion of 
his anatomy, that place where he most differed from her. His breathing grew more 
agitated, and his fists were clenched by his sides. His eyes, fully open now, 
were pleading with her to stop this teasing and come to him. But he didn't move, 
leaving it all up to her now.
"You are beautiful, too," she whispered, touching him at last. She laid her hand 
over his pounding heart, feeling one small, pebble-hard nipple press into her 
palm. "I want to draw you like this."
As if she might leave, he clapped his hand over hers and pinned it to her chest. 
"Not now!"
With a breathless laugh, she agreed. "No. Not now. But someday?"
"God, yes, anything." He slid his hand up over her hip, drawing her closer. She 
fell from her knees, her body draping across his, and was captured as he covered 
her mouth with his.
Her breasts, flattened against his chest, ached, and she cried out with the 
sweet pain of it. His hands stroked up her sides and curved around her breasts, 
and she arched to press them into his palms. "I love that," she gasped. He 
squeezed and massaged and tugged on her nipples.
"And that?" he murmured. "Tell me everything you like, love. I want to give you 
so much pleasure."
"I love everything you do to me," she said. He rolled her onto her back, burying 
his face between her breasts, his thumbs and fingers still plucking and 
stroking. Then his mouth was covering one hard rosy tip and she sobbed with the 
pleasure of it. Fiery sensations zinged through her to her core, where they 
pulsed and swelled and heated her almost to the boiling point. One of his large, 
hard hands caressed her body, cupping, claiming, smoothing over silken skin, 
parting her thighs to stroke the softness there before moving on. His mouth 
followed the track his hand had made, and like his fingers, paused to caress the 
sensitive skin behind her knee and the arch of her foot, then began the long, 
slow journey upward again.
"Brad, please," she whispered. "I want you."
"Soon, darling, soon." He knew his own swiftly rising excitement, made greater 
by her eager response to his caresses, must make it very soon. But he wanted to 
worship her longer, to pleasure her more. He pressed her legs apart and knelt 
between them. His hands slipped up her thighs, over her abdomen to her breasts, 
massaging their softness and squeezing her hard nipples, reveling in the 
different textures she offered him.
As his mouth skimmed down over her belly, she writhed and tossed under his 
hands, sobbing with desire. The moment his tongue parted the damp flesh between 
her thighs, though, she stiffened, going rigid with shock and lifting herself up 
on her elbows.
"Brad?" Her voice was high and wild, her eyes stared with disbelief as he raised 
his head. He soothed her with gentle hands, smiling at her, murmuring to her, 
his voice soft and persuasive. Could it be that no man had ever...?No! Yet her 
shocked expression told him it was so.
"It's okay, Lainie," he crooned, resting his cheek against her abdomen, stroking 
her with his fingers.
"But..."
"I love you. I'm going to kiss you, sweetheart. I won't hurt you. And I promise 
it will be good for you. You'll like it, Lainie. Please." Gently, he slipped his 
arms around her again and lowered her back to the mattress. Stroking, caressing, 
he patiently rebuilt the waves of delight within her until she was soft and 
pliant in his arms, gasping for breath again, arching up to his touch.
This time, when Brad gave her that most intimate of kisses, she did not flinch 
away, but cried out, her fist stuffed against her mouth, her head rolling from 
side to side on the pillow. And then she was flying far, far away from 
everything familiar, but the place she flew to was so wondrous and beautiful she 
never wanted to leave it again.
She only realized she was weeping when she became aware of Brad speaking her 
name over and over again, and begging her not to cry. She wiped her eyes on the 
corner of the pillowcase, then looked at him and drew in a tremulous breath.
"Are you all right?" he asked, his face pale as he hovered over her 
protectively.
Her voice was still thick with sobs and tears as she said, "I don't know. What 
-- what happened to me, Brad?" She was shaking as if in shock. He gave her a 
strange look, then tugged the comforter up from the foot of the bed and tucked 
it around them. "What do you mean, what happened to you?"
"Well ...it was strange. You were..." She paused, her eyes widening as she 
remembered what he had been doing. She knew she was blushing, and forced herself 
to go on. "You were...kissing me...there...like that and then I seemed to get 
lost. I don't know where I was, but it was all full of beautiful colors and 
maybe music and I couldn't breathe but then I didn't have to and it was the most 
incredible thing that's ever happened to me. I thought my body was going to fly 
apart. I don't know why cried. I've never felt happier in my life."
"Dammit, Lainie," he said, gulping hard. "You make me want to cry! You honestly 
don't know, do you? Sweetheart, you had a climax. And if it was the first one 
you've ever had you were well and truly cheated by, that filthy, lying, 
bigamist-and I -- Oh, hell, Elaina, what am I going to do with you?"
She touched his face, rubbing her fingers over the slight beard on his chin, 
smoothing out the lines at the corners of his eyes, and smiled. "I don't know," 
she whispered. "But since you did it once, why don't you see if you can do it 
again?"
Chapter Ten
He laughed and pulled the comforter off her, his hands creating little currents 
and swirls of sensation. His gaze lingered on her glowing skin like a caress 
then, with warm and gentle lips, he touched each place he had gazed upon.
Slowly, as before, he brought her to the edge of ecstasy until she cried out his 
name and arched against him. When she lost her natural inhibitions and began to 
return his caresses, he encouraged her with soft words and praise. Yet when her 
hair swept across the tops of his thighs and her kisses grew bolder and bolder, 
he stiffened. Tangling his hands in her hair, he drew her head back up to his 
chest.
"Another time, love," he whispered hoarsely, "and I won't say no, but not this 
time. Lie back, Lainie. I need to get ready for you now."
She was just beginning to feel chilled when he wrapped her in his warmth again, 
his arms and his legs and his mouth generating a heat that filled her as his 
body filled her. And then they were soaring together to a higher delight than 
had ever existed, until the world went black and they fell together into a 
silver cloud.
This time, her tears didn't worry him, and when she began to laugh several 
minutes later, he lifted himself up on his elbows and traced her mouth with one 
finger.
"I'd rather have you laughing after loving me than crying," he said. "But I'd 
kind of like to share the joke." He smiled at her as she opened her eyes. 
Roiling off her, he nestled her close to his side. "Well? Share?"
"I was just thinking that I'm not entitled to all this joy."
His smile faded. "Why not?"
"No pockets."
He grinned and ran a hand down over her body. "You think not, huh? What about 
this pocket of joy?"
Her chuckle was sleepy and sated and music to him. Long after she slept, he 
looked at her face, loving her, aching with the knowledge of what had to come.
He should leave now, he told himself. He should get out of this bed, put on his 
clothes, and never come back, because there was no solution to the problems 
they'd have if he stayed.  But I can't leave yet! I want her too much .
Oh hell, Bradshaw, he argued with himself.What did you think you were doing? You 
know she needs a husband, kids. Put an end to it. It has to end, so make it now. 
Don't prolong the agony . He stroked her hair back from her cheek and lashes and 
saw her smile at his touch.
"Not now," he whispered. "Not yet."
Then when, if not now? Give it a timetable. It wasn't going to get any easier, 
he knew. This wasn't an itch that once scratched would go away. This was real 
and powerful and not something to meddle with.She wasn't something to meddle 
with. So when?
When Margo was better? When Betsy went back to her mother? Yes. Then he'd break 
it off. He had to help Elaina with the baby, didn't he? Of course he did! Right.
When Betsy goes home, Then you break it off -- deal? Deal!He switched off the 
lamp and lay back down, holding Elaina close. His heart was full of love and the 
ache he knew he would live with the rest of his lonely life.
***
"Hi, there," Brad said, when a small, warm body bounced on his back and a pair 
of tiny hands clasped his ears. He'd heard Elaina get up when Betsy had first 
stirred and called out. He had wanted her to stay with him, had resented the 
fact that she had to leave him and go to someone else's baby. Then he'd 
remembered that if it hadn't been for that baby, he wouldn't be in this warm bed 
in the first place and last night never would have happened. Instead of 
resenting Betsy he should be setting up an education fund for her or something 
as a reward.
Then recalled his promise to himself last night. When Betsy went home, he would 
be out of here. He groaned at the thought.
Reaching back with one hand, he captured the baby around her middle and tumbled 
her onto the mattress beside him. He rolled over and set her astride his chest. 
Looking up at Elaina, he said, "I suppose I should count myself lucky. My mom 
used to get Dad out of bed in the morning by dumping a wet baby in with him. 
You, at least, came up with a dry one.
"That's the only kind I had," she said lightly. "But I'll remember what your 
mother did for anoth -- " She bit the word off and turned to go.
He caught her hand and swung her back, pulling her down onto the bed.
"Elaina."
She met his eyes reluctantly.
"You were going to say, another time?"
She remained silent, and her gaze slid away from his again. He lifted her hand 
to his mouth and kissed her palm, her wrist, the inside of her elbow, dragging 
her closer until she was forced to meet his eyes. "Hey, lady. I told you last 
night that I love you. Nothing that happened has made me change my mind. I love 
you just as much today. No, more, probably. So unless you tell me there can't 
be, I'm hoping there will be many more times that I'll wake up in your bed."
He shifted Betsy to one side so he could sit higher and place a hard, hot kiss 
on Elaina's mouth. She sighed as she softened to him. "We have a joint 
responsibility," he said, "and as long as we have her I'm afraid you're stuck 
with me."
After a moment of looking searchingly into his eyes, she nodded. "I can live 
with that." She said it, but she knew she lied. Because how could she go on 
living when she was no longer stuck with him?
Reprieve? The word rang through Elaina's mind a week and a half later as she 
drove to the hospital to pick up Margo. The infection had cleared, but she was 
still weak and depressed. She refused to allow the hospital to contact her 
parents, although they lived nearby. Brad had told Elaina that Margo hadn't 
spoken to her parents since before Betsy was born. And, he'd added, Margo 
couldn't possibly go back to her small apartment and her job of cleaning houses.
Although housework could be fun, Elaina reminded herself, thinking of yesterday 
when Brad had come in and found her vacuuming while Betsy slept. He had put his 
arms around her, helping her push the machine around. But when he had shut it 
off and walked her backward to the wicker couch, easing her down onto it, she 
had known housework was over for the evening.
"Don't you want to move to a bigger bed?" she asked.
"I don't want to move anywhere except deep inside you," he said, as he took off 
her T-shirt and unhooked her bra. Her nipples, responding as always to his words 
and his touch and his voice, were rigid, waiting for his kisses. He suckled one, 
wetting it thoroughly, then blew on it, making the skin around it pucker, 
jutting it higher, turning it rosier. He took it deep into his mouth, sucking 
hard while she tugged his shirt out of the waist of his pants and raked her 
nails along his back.
The couch wasn't made for two, which necessitated their staying very close 
together even as they slowly undressed each other. When she was completely naked 
in his arms, she wrapped herself around him, feeling the coarse hairs of his 
thighs tickle and tease the soft, sensitive skin of her own legs. She scraped 
her nails down his back and over his buttocks, familiar now with the shape and 
texture of his body, but no less fascinated by it, no less appreciative.
"Come into me," she whispered urgently. "I need you so much!"
"Ah, lover," he sighed. He penetrated her deeply, swiftly, his gaze on her face. 
"Oh, Lainie, how I love you!"
"Brad, Brad!" she cried out as she rushed toward her climax, dizzy and light- 
headed. It filled her with frothy bubbles of delight. "I don't want this ever to 
end! I want... I wish..."
"Don't!" he gasped, and stopped her words with his mouth. Their heated bodies 
sped them to completion, but they both knew that this time her tears were not 
tears of joy. Their time together was fast running out.
And minutes later he had asked her to take Margo into her home for a while.
***
When she picked up Margo at the hospital, she knew she was seeing Betsy as she 
would be like in seventeen years -- the same wispy blond hair, the same huge 
blue eyes, and the same piquant beauty as Betsy would someday have. Elaina 
wanted to cuddle Margo just as much as she had cuddled Betsy.
When she got Margo home, the girl burst into tears at the sight of her baby 
daughter toddling unsteadily across the room toward her. And then Elaina did 
cuddle Margo.
"She's learned to walk," Margo said, still weeping. "When? I hate that I've 
missed so much." She clutched Betsy to her, rocking and crying.
"She took her first steps yesterday, and you didn't miss it," Elaina assured 
Margo after she'd thanked Terri for baby-sitting, and her friend had left them 
alone.
Margo looked bewildered, but swiftly, Elaina got the videotape and pushed it 
into the VCR. Thrilled, Margo watched scenes of Betsy doing everything from 
playing with Petey to splashing Brad as he bathed her, then finally, letting go 
of the security of the coffee table to stagger toward the camera, drawn by 
curiosity and Elaina's outstretched hand.
Later in the evening when Elaina tucked both Betsy and Betsy's mother into bed, 
she felt for the second time in her life like the mother of two. The very next 
morning, though, she realized she was the mother of none. She had to hide her 
tears, then, because it was to Margo that Betsy took her every need, her every 
little joy.
***
Margo stayed for a week, recovering, regaining strength, and if her presence in 
the house meant no privacy for Brad and Elaina, it meant, it least to Elaina, 
that Brad would continue to come daily. Although she knew that to lose Betsy and 
Margo would also mean losing Brad, she forced herself to do the right thing and 
encouraged the teenager to contact her family.
As the second week began, on Tuesday morning at breakfast Margo finally agreed 
that the time was right. She would call her parents. When she did, things 
happened far too fast for Elaina. Within hours, a kind and loving couple arrived 
with hugs and kisses and forgiveness, and delight in their unknown grandchild. 
Then with a sickening abruptness, Elaina was alone.
The crib, high chair, stroller and car-seat belonged to Brad and Margo's parents 
had refused to take them. Betsy was theirs: They would provide. Elaina was sure 
they would, and was glad that they and Margo agreed at least to take the 
clothing, toys, and food she had bought for Betsy.
Careful not to look around the room where there were no more baby clothes, no 
more toys, no more mobile hanging from the ceiling, Elaina took down the crib 
and carried it out to the front porch. She folded the high chair, added it to 
the stack outside, put the car-seat in the stroller and wheeled both of them 
through onto the porch, too, then closed the door firmly.
She strode resolutely across the living room and into studio, hearing the 
echoing emptiness of her house and the hollow roar in her mind. She was filled 
with the vast loneliness in her soul. Never had she felt so alone. The pain was 
almost physical.
To block it, she unpacked the new work her publisher had assigned her and 
scanned the texts of the picture books, the first three of a series. They were 
well written, aimed at three-to six-year-olds. After reading the first one 
several times, Elaina was inspired to take out her pencils and begin some 
preliminary sketches. it was calledJulie's Baby Sister , and it cried out for a 
plump, wispy haired one-year-old who, no matter how Elaina tried to change it, 
always came out looking like Betsy. And Julie, contrary to what Elaina wanted, 
resembled a certain five-year-old boy -- or the way he'd look if he had long 
hair.
Julie's baby sister -- who had no name in the story -- was a pest. She got into 
Julie's bottom drawer and pulled out all her sweaters.
Elaina sketched Betsy with a sweater pulled half over her head, one eye and one 
ear sticking out, her downy hair on end, her belled boots planted heel to heel 
the floor and her fat knees bent.
Julie's baby sister chewed on the cat's tail, and Elaina drew Betsy gnawing on 
Harrison's tall. Harrison looked pained but patient. She drew Betsy gleefully 
squeezing ketchup out the bottle that Julie had carelessly left on a kitchen 
chair, and drew Betsy tearing up Julie's best picture from kindergarten, the one 
she'd been going to give to her grandma. She drew Betsy in a dozen different 
poses, then a dozen more, her pencil flying. At last she realized it was dark 
beyond the circle of light cast by her two drawing lamps and that her back hurt 
and she was hungry.
But still she worked. There was one sketch left do. She didn't want to do it, 
but if she didn't do now, she wondered if she ever would.
She drew Julie first. That was easiest. Then she drew the crib. Her pencil only 
hinted at the lumped shape under the blankets, rump high, one hand clutching the 
corner of a cloth book. It was the daddy that stopped her. The daddy that the 
author said was sitting on the rocking chair beside crib with Julie and a 
storybook on his lap.
She sketched in a shape. An elegant profile. A strong neck. A pair of firm lips 
and eyes that laughed. She drew powerful shoulders, neat fingered hands, cut- 
off jeans with ragged ends, bare brown legs, and big feet with straight toes.
Would a father dress like that when he was reading bedtime stories? She didn't 
know. Her father had never read her one. Dissatisfied, she crumpled it and threw 
it onto the floor. She started again.
When she looked up finally, it was daylight and the floor was covered with 
crumpled papers. Her fingers ached, but she had done it. She had gotten it 
right. She didn't know if the publisher would accept it. She didn't know if the 
author would like it; but it was done, and she knew that nothing could make her 
undo it. It was right. She stretched and yawned, and the doorbell rang. With her 
heart in her throat, her palms wet, and her mouth dry, she went to answer it. 
She hadn't heard his van. She hadn't heard the gate slam. He read the question 
in her eyes. "I was sitting on the patio," he said. "I fell asleep on the 
lounge. You worked all night? You look awful."
"You don't look so great yourself."
"Can I come in?"
She shook her head. "We were Betsy's joint guardians. Betsy's not here anymore. 
There's nothing here for you."
"Lainie..." Something in his tone forced her back a step. Brad took one forward 
and then he was inside with her. He shut the door. "Why did you leave Betsy's 
crib and other gear outside like that? As if you couldn't wait to get rid of her 
stuff -- and me?"
"It seemed...better. Easier. Not to have to force you to say..."
"Good-bye?"
She nodded.
He leaned back on the door and closed his eyes. "It wasn't easier! God, Lainie, 
it was so hard, finding it sitting there, and for you not to answer the door 
when I rang." He looked down at her, bleakly, wearily. If he had truly slept on 
the lounge chair, it hadn't been for long. "Don't you see? There has to be a 
definite ending to things like this. They can't be left hanging."
"Okay," she whispered. "Then do it. Say it. End it."
"Lainie...Could I hold you, please? Just for a minute?"
"Brad, don't do this to me! Just go. Please, go!"
"I -- I need to be with you for a little while. I need to hold you." His face 
was gray with more than fatigue. His eyes were sunken and his mouth was drawn 
taut. Someone he had worked over long and hard had died.
She took the one step necessary and held him tightly, feeling him tremble in her 
arms. Caressing the back of his head, she murmured soothing phrases that had no 
real meaning, yet gave solace. Finally, he lifted his head and looked at her, 
trying to smile. She slipped out of his arms and took his hand. "Want to tell me 
about it?" she asked, leading him into the kitchen. He sat silent while she made 
coffee and toast, then pulled her down onto his lap. She felt his beeper 
pressing into her side. She hated it for what symbolized.
He talked about a mother, a father, two of the three children, and the drunk who 
had run them off the road. "And a little girl, four years old, has no parents, 
no brothers. She's alone. I can't stand it, Lainie. I can't go back there."
But when he began to wind down, when his sorrow ebbed and his muscles relaxed, 
when he said as, he always had, "Lainie, I'm sorry. Why do I repeatedly do this 
to you?" she knew he would be fine. She knew he'd go back.
"I don't mind," she said, as she had become accustomed to saying. And it was 
true. While she hated the things that happened, because they were usually so 
unjust, she didn't get as emotionally tied up as he did. Somehow, she could 
detach herself from it, as he, who saw it firsthand, could not. If sharing the 
load with her eased it for him, then she was glad to do it.
He slipped one hand under her chin and tilted her face up to his. He kissed her 
softly, tenderly with a gentle persuasion that melted her against him, and she 
responded with all the love and longing in her soul. He lifted her in his arms, 
carried her to her bedroom, and laid her on the bed. She made no protest.
Silently, urgently, desperately, they loved each other and when it was over she 
didn't know whose tears were wetting their faces. Still holding him tightly, she 
slept. When she woke, he was gone. He didn't come again for nearly a week. 
Again, she let him in and held him while he suffered and recovered from trauma, 
then loved him until they both collapsed from exhaustion.
A pattern had been set. When he wasn't there, she worked to fill her hours and 
her emptiness any way she could. She waited for him and made herself available 
to him when he needed her. She knew it was all she could have of him, and she 
told herself over and over that it had to be enough. She would make it be 
enough.
Work was good, too, and she worked very hard. In fact, she worked more than she 
ever had before to keep from thinking and remembering. The memories of her 
little Betsy were fading only a little, and she missed the baby more than she 
realized was possible. At least Brad came to see her once in a while. She really 
didn't know when or if she'd see Betsy again. Some days her arms ached to hold a 
small child, any child. She thought she was going crazy. So on she worked.
She completed the commission for the series long before the due date and 
consequently was assigned four more. The publisher asked if she wouldn't 
consider moving to New York City and coming on staff. The salary and benefit 
package was attractive, but she looked at her patio, her cat sunning himself on 
the garden wall, listened to Billy and Petey, home from school and arguing next 
door, and wrote a letter of regret.
She was quite certain that her decision had nothing to do with the fact that she 
spent far more time than was good for her listening for her doorbell and rushing 
to answer it each time it rang. One morning it rang early and she went flying 
out of bed, sure it was Brad, only to find that it was a short circuit in her 
wiring.
"Short circuit," she murmured thoughtfully several hours later after the 
electrician had finally gone. He had not only repaired the wiring, but had also 
installed melodious chimes far more to her liking than the irritating old bell 
had been. "That's what my life has become. A short circuit. A bell inside me is 
ringing even when there is no one there to push it."
When the chimes bing-bonged two days later and she saw Brad's van through the 
window, she went to admit him with a new resolve in her heart.
As usual, he reached for her, but this time she evaded him. "Brad, sit down," 
she said quietly.
He didn't. Looking at her warily, he asked, "What's wrong?"
She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You once said that I'd have 
every right to expect marriage from you. That I deserve better than this and 
that you were sure I wouldn't make demands. And you were right. I didn't. I 
haven't, and I won't. But I can't go on this way, either, having you come to me 
only when your need is so great that you can't stay away. You were right, Brad, 
I do deserve more than you're giving me. And I want it. I want a lot more. I 
have needs, too, and they're not being met.
"I'm not asking you to meet them. I know you can't. You made that clear a long 
time ago. So I'm telling you to leave, now, and don't come back. Because I have 
to be free to find someone who is capable of being what I need and giving me 
what I deserve."
"Elaina..." he whispered. "Oh, Lainie. Please..." He swallowed and shook his 
head. "No. You're right. He turned and walked away from her, out the door, and 
she didn't look to see if he used the steps off the porch. A long while later, 
she closed the door and went back to work. But this time, she wasn't sure if 
work was going to be enough.
***
Joining a fitness club helped. So did the course she took at the Community 
College. She didn't know if she'd ever actually want to use a computer, but it 
certainly opened up a whole new line of interest for her and allowed her to meet 
several people. Male people. She even dated a couple of them a couple of times 
and told herself that she had enjoyed it. That was all it took, she decided, 
Friends. Keeping busy. Smiling even when her insides were filled with cracked 
ice, laughing in spite of the ache in her throat. And not thinking too much.
A month passed, and then most of another. The weather was as rainy and bleak as 
Elaina felt. She wondered over and over how Brad was coping. What did he do when 
bad things happened and hurt him? Did he have someone to go to? Did someone hold 
him? Did someone listen? Did he have a doorbell to ring at midnight, certain 
that it would be answered? But then she reminded herself that she, too, was 
alone.Take care of yourself for a change, Lainie -- Elaina -- she reminded 
herself firmly, and shut him out of her mind.
There were days when she hated herself for what she had done to him, nights when 
she yearned to call the hospital and ask to talk to him, just to reassure 
herself that he was all right. Surely, though, he was. He must be. If he weren't 
all right he would have found a way to come to her. Or would he? Hadn't she shut 
every last door in his face? She had turned him away when he needed her. Oh, 
God, why had she done that? She asked herself one night, lying sleepless in her 
bed. What kind of a friend was she? And surely, before they became lovers, they 
had been friends. Did she have the right to deny him that part of their 
relationship? No! No one had the right to turn her back on a friend who needed 
her. What if she needed him, just as a friend? Wouldn't he be there for her? He 
would. She knew he would.
She listened to the rain beat against the window, waiting for morning when she 
could call and ask him if he wanted to come for dinner something. Or just to 
talk. Or not talk, if that what he needed. Just to sit. She had been so cruel to 
send him away, she was thinking, when the bonging of her new door chimes echoed 
politely through the house.
Why did she smile so hugely as she leaped out of bed? Why did she neglect to put 
on her warm robe as she ran to the door? Why did she forget to ask who was 
there? She didn't know. She didn't care. It had to be him, and for him to be 
there had to be right.
Without hesitation, she drew him inside, and they wrapped their arms around each 
other, rocking back and forth, his soaked clothing dampening her sheer 
nightgown. Finally, she was able to speak.
"What is it?" she asked, stroking his face as she stepped out of his embrace. 
"Tell me, Brad." She ached with wanting him, hurt with love for him. She wanted 
to crawl back into his arms and stay there forever, but he wasn't prepared to 
offer her forever. And she had just told herself that she would learn to accept 
less.
"I need you," he said simply.
"Yes." Her voice was soft, contrite. "I know you do, Brad. Funny, isn't it? I 
was just lying there in bed thinking about you, thinking how wrong I was in what 
I did to you, sending you away like that. In the time I knew you, you became my 
best friend, and what I did to you was a terrible thing to do to a friend. I'm 
sorry, Brad. I won't send you away again. Any time you need someone to talk to. 
I'll try to be here for you."
"That's good," he said. "That's one of the things I'll expect in my wife."
She went very still, her hands clenched tightly in front of her. She shook her 
head. "You don't have to marry me. I've already said that whenever you need 
someone to talk to, a friend, I'll be here for you. Whenever I can, that is. I 
will date other men -- "
She swept right on past his muttered, "Like hell you will!"
"I'll continue to take classes. I won't sit and wait for you like I did before, 
but I won't send you away if you need me and I'm free and -- "
"Elaina?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
"Oh."
After he had finished kissing her -- for the moment -- he said, "I love you. And 
I only want to ask you one more thing: Will you marry me? The answer, in case 
you might have trouble coming up with it, is yes."
She stared at him, feeling the heavy pounding of his heart against her breast.
"That's the only answer possible?"
He nodded solemnly.
With a slow, sweet smile, she nodded back. "Yes," she said.
He swooped her up and carried her to bed. Much later, sitting up in bed and 
sipping hot tea, they talked.
"I should have realized it right away," he said, sliding a strand of her fine, 
soft hair across his lips. He breathed in the sweet scent of it, loving its 
texture. Then he took her cup from her and set it down by the teapot, and drew 
her close. "The job was getting to me badly before I met you. You made it 
possible for me to handle it. You helped me, somehow, to absorb the bad parts. 
Then, later, when you told me I couldn't come back, the stress started to build 
up so bad that I was about to quit. I started doing some heavy thinking and I 
knew that it wasn't only on the bad days that I wanted you, needed to be with 
you. I needed -- need -- you on the good days too, to tell you about the 
triumphs. But I was still afraid to think it could be forever."
"And now?"
"Lainie, do you think you can stand a lifetime of listening to me grouse about 
the lousy deal so many innocent people get in life? Is it fair of me to dump it 
on you when I can't carry it all by myself?"
She cradled his face against her hand. "I don't know. Is it fair that I ask you 
to be my strength? Is it all right for me to want you to prop me up when I can't 
stand alone? And sometimes I can't, Brad. These last couple of months have 
proven that to me. I'm not the loner I thought I was. I need you at least as 
much as you need me."
He kissed her palm and turned his face to look down into her eyes. "When you 
told me to get lost, you said that you had needs that weren't being met. I know 
you have a hard time talking about what you need and want, Lainie, but can you 
trust me enough to tell me when I'm failing you? I want to give you everything 
you yearn for."
She smiled. "You're right. It isn't easy for me to talk about some things, but I 
can tell you a secret about me: When I want something, I fantasize it. And when 
I fantasize it, I draw it. When I draw it, I'll show you. Like this."
She leaned over him, opened the drawer in her bedside table, and pulled out a 
portfolio of finished drawings, all soft pastels, copies of the ones for Julie's 
Baby Sister.
Sitting up against the headboard, he leafed through them, swallowing the lump in 
his throat as he recognized Betsy in every one of them -- except the last. In 
that one, the rump-high baby had its face hidden. The older child had her face 
buried against her father, asleep. But it was the parents, smiling at each 
other, he in the rocking chair with a storybook in his hand, she in the doorway 
with her finger on the light switch, that made Brad's eyes glitter as he smiled 
at Elaina.
"Oh, sweetheart. That's us!"
"My wildest fantasy. My dearest dream," she said.
He set the pages carefully on the floor and gathered her into his arms. "Let's 
see what we can do about fulfilling that fantasy, love, because Lainie, oh my 
Lainie, I want it, too."
"Forever?" she asked.
"Forever," he told her fervently. "And then some."
"I never knew," she said, "that my world was going to need such huge pockets."
"Our home will be one great big pocket," he told her.
"Yes," she agreed, snuggling close. "And we'll fill it with joy."
The End



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