The baby squeaked again, more demandingly. “All right, we’ll wake Mommy up,” he promised. “You’ll help with my plan, won’t you? Between the two of us, we’ll take such good care of her that she’ll forget she was ever unhappy.”

  He woke Kathleen before the baby began to squall in earnest, and carefully propped her in a sitting position so she could nurse the child. She was still groggy, but seemed more alert than she had before. She held the baby to her breast, stroking the satiny cheek with one finger as she stared down at her daughter. “What time is it?” she asked dreamily.

  He shifted his position so he could see his wristwatch. “Almost nine.”

  “Is that all? I feel as if I’ve been asleep for hours.”

  He laughed. “You have, sweetheart. You were worn out.”

  Kathleen’s clear green eyes turned up to him. “Is she doing all right?”

  The baby chose that moment to slurp as the nipple momentarily slipped from her lips. Frantically the tiny rosebud mouth sought the beading nipple again, and when she found it she made a squeaky little grunting noise. The two adults laughed, looking down at her.

  “She’s strong for her size,” Derek said, reaching down to lift the miniscule hand that lay on Kathleen’s ivory, blue-veined breast. It was such a tiny hand, the palm no bigger than a dime, but the fingernails were perfectly formed and a nice pink color. Sweat trickled at his temple, and he could see a fine sheen on Kathleen’s chest, but at least the baby was warm enough.

  Kathleen tried to sit up away from him, her eyes sharpening as she considered his reply, but her body protested the movement, and with a quiet moan she sank back against his muscled chest. “What do you mean, she’s strong for her size? Is she doing all right or not?”

  “She needs an incubator,” he said, wrapping his arm around Kathleen and supporting her soft weight. “That’s why I’m keeping it so hot in here. She’s too small for her body to regulate its own temperature.”

  Kathleen’s face was suddenly white and tense. She had thought everything was fine, despite the baby being a month early. The sudden knowledge that the baby was still in a precarious position stunned her.

  “Don’t worry,” Derek soothed, cradling her close to him. “As long as we keep her nice and warm, she shouldn’t have any trouble. I’ll keep a close watch on her tonight, and as soon as the weather clears we’ll get her to a cozy incubator.” He studied the fragile little hand for a moment longer, then tenderly replaced it on Kathleen’s breast. “What are you going to name her?”

  “Sara Marisa,” Kathleen murmured. “Sara is—was—my mother’s name. But I’m going to call her Risa. It means ‘laughter.’”

  Derek’s face went still, and his eyes darkened with barely contained emotion as he looked at the baby. “How are you spelling it? S-a-r-a- or S-a-r-a-h?”

  “S-a-r-a.”

  It was still the same name, the name that had become synonymous, in his mind, with love. He had first seen mind-shattering, irrevocable love in Sarah Matthews’s face when he had been fifteen, and he had known then that he would never settle for anything less. That was what he wanted to feel, what he wanted to give, what he wanted in return. Sarah’s love was a powerful, immense thing, spilling over into the lives of everyone near her, because she gave it so unselfishly. It was because of her that he was a doctor now, because of her that he had been able to finish college at an accelerated pace, because of her that he had a warm, loving extended family when before there had been only himself and his mother. Now this new life was leading him into the sort of love he’d waited for, so it was only fitting that she should be named Sara. He smiled when he thought of Sara holding her namesake. She and her husband, Rome, could be the baby’s godparents, though they’d probably have to share the honor with Max and Claire Conroy, two other very special friends and part of the extended family. He knew how they would all take to Kathleen and the baby, but he wondered how Kathleen would feel, surrounded by all those loving strangers. Anxious? Threatened?

  It would take time to teach Kathleen to love him, and all the people who were close to him, but he had all the time in the world. He had the rest of his life.

  The baby was asleep now, and gently he took her from Kathleen’s arms. “Risa,” he murmured, trying her name on his tongue. Yes, the two of them together would overwhelm Kathleen with love.

  Kathleen dozed on and off the rest of the night, and every time she woke she saw Derek with her daughter in his arms. The picture of the tall, strong man holding the frail infant with such tender concern gave her a feeling she couldn’t identify, as if something expanded in her chest. He didn’t let down his guard for a minute all night, but kept vigil over the child, kept the room uncomfortably warm, and held Kathleen so she could nurse her whenever that funny, indignant little squeak told them the baby was getting hungry. Sometime during the night he removed his shirt, and when she woke the next time she was stunned by the primitive beauty of the picture he made, sitting crosslegged before the fire, the powerful muscles of his damp torso gleaming as he cuddled the sleeping baby to him.

  It struck her then that he wasn’t like other men, but she was too sleepy and too tired to pursue the thought. Her entire body ached, and she was in the grip of a powerful lassitude that kept her thoughts and movements down to a minimum. Tomorrow would be time enough to think.

  It stopped snowing around dawn, and the wild, whistling wind died away. It was the pale silence that woke her for good, and she gingerly eased herself into a sitting position, wincing at the pain in her lower body. Derek laid the baby on the mattress and reached out a strong arm to help her.

  “I have to go—” she began, stopping abruptly as she wondered how she could phrase the urgent need to a stranger.

  “It’s about time,” he said equably, carefully lifting her in his arms.

  Her face turned scarlet as he carried her down the dark, narrow hallway. “I don’t need any help!” she protested.

  He set her on her feet outside the bathroom door and held her until her legs stopped wobbling. “I put a couple of candles in here last night,” he said. “I’ll light them, then get out of your way, but I’ll be just outside the door if you need me.”

  She realized that he didn’t intend to embarrass her, but neither was he going to let her do more than he deemed wise. There was a calm implacability in his face that told her he wouldn’t hesitate to come to her aid if she became too weak to take care of herself. It was difficult to remember that he was a doctor, used to bodies of all sizes and shapes. He just didn’t seem like any doctor she’d ever met before.

  To her relief, her strength was returning, and she didn’t need his help. When she left the bathroom, she walked down the hall under her own power, though he kept a steadying hand under her arm just in case. The baby was still sleeping peacefully on the mattress, and Kathleen looked down at her daughter with a powerful surge of adoration that shook her.

  “She’s so beautiful,” she whispered. “Is she doing okay?”

  “She’s doing fine, but she needs an incubator until she gains about a pound and a half. The way she’s been nursing, that might take only a couple of weeks.”

  “A couple of weeks!” Kathleen echoed, aghast. “She needs hospital care for a couple of weeks?”

  His eyes were steady. “Yes.”

  Kathleen turned away, her fists knotting. There was no way she could pay what two weeks in a hospital would cost, yet she couldn’t see that she had a choice. Risa’s life was still a fragile thing, and she would do anything, anything at all, to keep her child alive.

  “Does the clinic that you were going to have the facilities to care for her?” he asked.

  Another problem. She swallowed. “No. I … I don’t have any medical insurance. I was going to have her there, then come home afterward.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll think of something. Now, sweetheart, lie down and let me take a look at you. I want to make sure you’re doing all right.”

  It had been bad enough the day before, when she was in labor, but it was worse now. It had been a medical emergency then; now it wasn’t. But, again, she had the feeling he would do exactly as he intended, regardless of any objections she raised, so she stared fixedly at the fire as he examined her and firmly kneaded her abdomen.

  “You have good muscle tone,” he said approvingly. “You’d have had a lot harder time if you hadn’t been as strong as you are.”

  If she was strong, it was the strength given by years of working a small grubby ranch, then long hours of waiting on tables. Spas and gyms were outside her experience.

  “What do we do now?” she asked. “Wait?”

  “Nope. You’re doing well enough to travel, and we can’t afford to sit around until the phones are fixed. I’m going to start the Jeep and get it warm, and then I’m taking both you and the baby to a hospital.”

  She felt instant panic. “You want to take the baby out?”

  “We have to. We’ll keep her warm.”

  “We can keep her warm here.”

  “She needs a hospital. She’s doing all right now, but things can change in the blink of an eye with a preemie. I’m not going to take that chance with her life.”

  Kathleen couldn’t control a mother’s natural fear of exposing her fragile child to the elements. There was no telling which roads were closed, or how long it would take them to reach a hospital. What if they ran off the road again and got in a wreck?

  Seeing her panic build, Derek reached out and firmly took her hand. “I won’t let anything happen,” he said calmly, as if he had read her thoughts. “Get dressed while I start the Jeep and fix something for breakfast. Aren’t you hungry? You haven’t eaten a bite since I found you yesterday.”

  Only then did she realize how empty she was; it was odd, how even the thought of hunger had been pushed from her mind by all that happened. She changed in her icy bedroom, hurriedly pulling on first one pair of pants after another, and growing more and more frustrated as she found that they were too small. Finally she settled on one of the first pairs of maternity pants she had bought, when she had been outgrowing her jeans. Her own body was unfamiliar to her. It felt strange not to have a swollen, cumbersome stomach, strange to actually look down and see her toes. She had to move carefully, but she could put on socks and shoes without twisting into awkward contortions. Still, she didn’t have her former slenderness, and it was disconcerting.

  After pulling on a white cotton shirt and layering a flannel shirt over it, she pulled a brush through her tangled hair and left the bedroom, too cold to linger and worry about her looks. Wryly, she admitted that he had successfully distracted her from her arguments; she had done exactly as he’d ordered.

  When she entered the kitchen, he looked up from his capable preparations of soup and sandwiches to smile at her. “Feel strange not wearing maternity clothes?”

  “I am wearing maternity clothes,” she said, a faint, very feminine despair in her eyes and voice. “What feels strange is being able to see my feet.” Changing the subject, she asked, “Is it terribly cold outside?”

  “It’s about twenty degrees, but the sky is clearing.”

  “What hospital are you taking us to?”

  “I’ve thought about that. I want Risa in my hospital in Dallas.”

  “Dallas! But that’s—”

  “I can oversee her care there,” Derek interrupted calmly.

  “It’s too far away,” Kathleen said, standing straight. Her green eyes were full of bitter acknowledgement. “And I won’t be able to pay. Just take us to a charity hospital.”

  “Don’t worry about paying. I told you I’d take care of you.”

  “It’s still charity, but I’d rather owe a hospital than you.”

  “You won’t owe me.” He turned from the old wood stove, and suddenly she felt the full force of his golden brown gaze, fierce and compelling, bending her to his will. “Not if you marry me.”

  Chapter Four

  The words resounded in her head like the ringing of a bell. “Marry you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But … why?”

  “You’ll marry me so Risa can have the care she needs. I’ll marry you so I can have Risa. You’re not in love with someone, are you?” Numbly she shook her head. “I didn’t think so. I guess I fell in love with your daughter the minute she came out of you, into my hands. I want to be her father.”

  “I don’t want to get married again, ever!”

  “Not even for Risa? If you marry me, you won’t have to worry about money again. I’ll sign a prenuptial agreement, if you’d like; I’ll provide for her, put her through college.”

  “You can’t marry me just because you want my baby. Get married to someone else and have your own children.”

  “I want Risa,” he said with that calm, frightening implacability. Alarm began to fill her as she realized that he never swerved from the course he had set for himself.

  “Think, Kathleen. She needs help now, and children need a lot of support through the years. Am I such a monster that you can’t stand the thought of being married to me?”

  “But you’re a stranger! I don’t know you and you don’t know me. How can you even think of marrying me?”

  “I know that you loved your child enough to risk your own life trying to get to the clinic. I know you’ve had some bad luck in your life, but that you’re strong, and you don’t give up. We delivered a baby together; how can we be strangers now?”

  “I don’t know anything about your life.”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I have a fairly uncomplicated life. I’m a doctor, I live in an apartment, and I’m not a social lion. I’m great with kids, and I won’t mistreat you.”

  “I never thought you would,” she said quietly. She had been mistreated, and she knew that Derek was as different from her ex-husband as day was from night. But she simply didn’t want another man in her life at all, ever. “What if you fall in love with someone else? Wouldn’t that tear Risa’s life apart? I’d never give up custody of her!”

  “I won’t fall in love with anybody else.” His voice rang with utter certainty. He just stood there, watching her, but his eyes were working their power on her. Incredibly, she could feel herself weakening inside. As his wife, she wouldn’t have the bitter, day after day after day struggle simply to survive. Risa would have the hospital care she needed, and afterward she would have all the advantages Kathleen couldn’t give her.

  “I couldn’t … I couldn’t have sex with you,” she finally said in desperation, because it was her last defense.

  “I wouldn’t want you to.” Before she could decide if she should feel relieved or insulted, he continued, “When we sleep together, I want you to think of it as making love, not having sex. Sex is cheap and easy. Making love means caring and commitment.”

  “And you think we’ll have that?”

  “In time.” He gave her a completely peaceful smile, as if he sensed her weakening and knew he would have things his way.

  Her throat grew tight as she thought about having sex. She didn’t know what making love was, and she didn’t know if she would ever want to know. “Things … have happened to me,” she said hoarsely. “I may not ever—”

  “In time, sweetheart. You will, in time.”

  His very certainty frightened her, because there was something about him that abruptly made her just as certain that, at some point in the future, she would indeed want him to make love to her. The idea was alien to her, making her feel as if her entire life had suddenly been rerouted onto another track. She had had everything planned in her mind: she would raise Risa, totally devoted to her only child, and take pleasure in watching her grow. But there was no room for a man in her plans. Larry Fields had done her a tremendous favor by leaving her, even if he had left her broke and pregnant. But now, here was this man who looked like a warrior angel, taking over her life and shaping it along other lines.

  Desperately she tried again. “We’re too different! You’re a doctor, and I barely finished high school. I’ve lived on this scrubby little ranch my entire life. I’ve never been anywhere or done anything; you’d be bored to death by me within a month!”

  Amusement sparkled in his amber eyes as he walked over to her. “You’re talking rubbish,” he said gently, his hand sliding under her heavy hair to clasp her nape. Before she could react he had bent and firmly pressed his mouth to hers in a warm, strangely intimate kiss; then he released her and moved away before she could become alarmed. She stood there staring at him, her vivid green eyes huge and confused.

  “Say yes, then let’s eat,” he commanded, his eyes still sparkling.

  “Yes.” Her voice sounded dazed, even to herself.

  “That’s a good girl.” He put his warm hand on her elbow and led her to the table, then carefully got her seated. She was uncomfortable, but was not in such pain that it killed her appetite. Hungrily they ate chicken noodle soup and toasted cheese sandwiches, washed down with good strong coffee. It wasn’t normal breakfast fare, but after not eating for so long, she was delighted with it. Then he insisted that she sit still while he cleaned up the kitchen, something that had never happened to her before. She felt pampered, and dazed by all that had happened and she had agreed to.

  “I’ll pack a few of your clothes and nightgowns, but you won’t need much,” he said. “Where are the baby’s things?”

  “In the bottom drawer of my dresser, but some of her clothes are in the truck. I didn’t think to get them yesterday when you stopped.”

  “We’ll pick them up on the way. Come into the living room with the baby while I get everything loaded.”

  She held the sleeping child while he swiftly packed and carried the things out. When he had finished, he brought a tiny, crocheted baby cap that he’d found in the drawer, and put it on Risa’s downy head to help keep her warm. Then he wrapped her snugly in several blankets, helped Kathleen into her heavy coat, put the baby in Kathleen’s arms, and lifted both of them into his.

 

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