Free Baby Experts 02 by The Midwife’s Glass Slipper Page A

you think?”
    Her voice was soft with gratitude when she answered, “I think you’re trying to distract me from the call. Thank you. I’d love seeing your daughters again.”
    “All right. Then maybe after you show them around the toy hospital, you can teach me the finer points of having a tea party.”
    His dry voice made her smile. He would do anything for his daughters. With sudden realization, she knew she’d do anything for him.
    Yet once before she’d placed a man’s concerns before hers. Once before she’d let Richard’s ambition and desires supersede hers. And when she’d needed him—
    When she was with Jared, she had to remember her failed marriage. Otherwise he could break her heart and she wouldn’t be able to patch it up again.
     
    Jared could have kicked himself for inviting Emily along home with him. Yet she had been good for his girls. And she’d looked so sad after her phone call.
    Still, what about what was good for him?
    For the past two years, he really hadn’t thought abouthimself. Amy and Courtney had needed him day and night. His career demanded his time day and night.
    He’d been lonely after his divorce. And after Valerie died…
    He’d been confused and in turmoil because she hadn’t confided in him. What kind of man was he that she couldn’t tell him the truth about her illness?
    Since then he’d denied physical needs and fallen into bed exhausted every night. Work and spending time with the twins was like a numbing drug. He worked more and tried to meet their every need so he didn’t have to think about a life he didn’t have.
    Yet why would he want a woman in his life again? Why would he want to complicate it? Why take the chance on a relationship that might not work out? He’d be putting Amy and Courtney at risk, too.
    Still, as he stood in the kitchen supposedly pouring milk for Courtney and Amy while surreptitiously watching them with Emily, he knew life demanded more of him than work and child care.
    Would sex be a start? Would an affair lead him to a life again?
    The wind whistled against the house as he listened in on Emily’s conversation. She was on the floor with the twins in the great room.
    Courtney asked her, “Are there people in every room?”
    “Yes, there are.”
    Jared watched Emily settle one of the dolls into the tiny bed.
    She asked Amy, “Would you like to turn on the TV for this patient?”
    Amy solemnly nodded.
    Courtney pushed the miniature wheelchair into the patient’s room. “The lady in the other bed needs this.”
    “Would you like to give her a name?”
    Courtney thought about that. “Mrs….” She looked around the room and her eyes fell on a vase with silk flowers. “Mrs. Flower.”
    “I like that name,” Emily encouraged her. Then she picked up another doll dressed in a white uniform. “The nurse is coming in to give her medicine.”
    “Here’s the doctor,” Amy said proudly, picking up the next play figure. “Just like Daddy.”
    Jared had to smile. Hopefully Amy and Courtney could visit his mom without too many fears, without being scared by what they saw. Emily was so good with his daughters. And when he kissed her, he felt arousal that he hadn’t experienced since his days at Texas Tech.
    He took the glasses to the table along with cups of pudding, but he didn’t call them yet. Rather he went over to the sofa where they were playing by the coffee table with Emily.
    “What do you think of the hospital?” he asked them.
    He could feel Emily’s gaze on him and to his surprise, he liked the idea of her looking at him. There was respect in her eyes, maybe even admiration. Something else, too. That something else that made him want to kiss her whenever their eyes met.
    “The hospital is big,” Courtney decided.
    In reality, it wasn’t that big, only four floors, but to his daughters, the building would seem immense.
    “You don’t have to worry about getting lost or anything like that. When we go see Grandma, you can