Free A Very Special Delivery by Linda Goodnight Page A

Molly’s voice was frantic.
    “Hey, calm down. She’s fine.” Laney cradled against his
shoulder, he crouched down beside the chair. “You’re the one with the
injury.”
    “Oh, Ethan.” She dropped her face into her hands. “Anything
could have had happened. I can’t believe I fell asleep.”
    “Nothing happened, Molly. She’s okay.” He patted her back as he
would have Laney, offering comfort for some terror he didn’t understand. “I’m
sorry she’s so much trouble.”
    “She’s not. She’s wonderful. It’s just that…” She bit down hard
on her bottom lip.
    “It’s what? Talk to me, Molly. Tell me what’s wrong.”
    “I’m not…good with babies.”
    He frowned, baffled. She was great with Laney. “What makes you
think that?”
    “I just do. That’s all.”
    In other words, she didn’t want to tell him. And the notion
bugged him. How could he fix what he didn’t understand?
    With a sigh, he levered up and went to pack Laney’s diaper bag.
    Someday he hoped Molly would trust him enough to tell the
truth—whatever that might be.
    * * *
    “Ethan, relax. They’ll be in here as soon as they
can.”
    Molly, who sat on the end of an exam table in Winding Stair
Hospital’s emergency room, didn’t know whether to be embarrassed, amused or
touched. Ethan paced back and forth between the doorway of the ER and her side.
At regular intervals, he disappeared down the hall to the reception desk to make
a general nuisance of himself. Meanwhile, Laney slept like a rock in her
carrier.
    “I don’t know what’s keeping the doc.” Ethan paused before a
diagram of the ear, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket. “Maybe I
should go check.”
    Before Molly could argue that he’d already done that a dozen
times, he wheeled on his heel and stalked out the door. She stifled a laugh. No
one ever fussed over her.
    He’d no more than left when a nurse entered. Molly knew most
people in Winding Stair, but this woman was unfamiliar. “That husband of yours
is sure worried about you.”
    Husband? Is that what they thought? “He’s not my husband.”
    “Well, if he’s your boyfriend, you better grab on to him.
Fellas with those looks and that sweet, concerned nature don’t come along every
day.”
    “We’re just friends.” She hoped they were that, given the time
they’d spent together.
    The nurse rolled her eyes and reached for a blood pressure cuff
to wrap around Molly’s upper arm. “Believe that if you will, but I don’t think
your guy feels that way.” She pumped the machine and while waiting for the
reading asked, “Running any temp with this?”
    “It only happened this morning.”
    The nurse made a notation on a clipboard and poked a digital
thermometer in Molly’s ear. “What did you do? Fall on the ice?”
    “Something like that.” She told the story.
    “We’ve seen tons of ice-related injuries since this storm hit.
Broken wrists, hips, you name it. When was your last tetanus shot?”
    “Forever. I never get hurt.”
    “We’ll have to take care of that.”
    Ethan came strolling back in, looking pleased. “Doc’s on his
way.”
    “Good. Now, maybe you’ll sit down and relax.”
    He offered an unrepentant grin, wheeled the doctor’s exam stool
away from the wall and perched on it. “Believe I will.”
    After her ridiculous reaction to falling asleep with Laney in
her lap, she had expected Ethan to dump her at the hospital door and run.
Instead, he had hovered as if her well-being was the most important thing in the
world. He’d even badgered the nurses into bringing her a cup of coffee because
he thought she was cold.
    “You sure you don’t want me to call your family?” He tilted
forward, his strong fingers curled over the edge of the brown vinyl seat.
    She shook her head, careful not to splash the warm coffee.
“Aunt Patsy is too old to get out on this ice. A fall would be disastrous.”
    “Isn’t there anyone else?”
    “Uncle Robert lives in Oklahoma