Free An Accidental Mom by Loree Lough

pass quickly.”
    “Will he be able to feel it?” Max winced. “I mean, when he moves around, will it—”
    “Not one of my patients has indicated they’re aware of its presence at all.”
    “So he’ll be a normal, active kid again afterward?”
    The doctor laughed. “I didn’t have a chance to spend much time with Nate, but it didn’t take long to figure out he’s the kind of kid who isn’t gonna let anything slow him down much.” He stood, patted Max’s shoulder, then headed back to the O.R. “He’ll be fishing and swimming and chasing down pop-flies in no time. Don’t worry,” he said over his shoulder.
    “Easy for you to say,” Max muttered as the doctor left. “Nate’s not your son.”
    Lily stood beside him, leaned her head on his shoulder. “Easy, now. He’ll take good care of Nate. The nurses say he’s the best in Texas, and I say he’s a good man.”
    He brought her into the circle of his arms. “I understand how his reputation as a surgeon precedes him, but you just met him. How could you possibly know what kind of man he is?”
    “I looked into his eyes,” she said, blinking up at him. “And you know the old saying…”
    One side of Max’s mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Well, if he slips up, even a little—” he shook his fist “—I’m gonna shatter both of those windows to his soul.”
    Lily giggled and wrapped her hands around his fist. “C’mon, tough guy. Let’s go see your kid.”
     
    The next days passed in a flurry, with Lily staying at Georgia’s apartment with Nate while Max waitedoutside the O.R. during Georgia’s leg surgery. Lily fully expected that once his son and mother were home again, Max would relax.
    But he didn’t.
    After interviewing a dozen nurses, he hired a pleasant, middle-aged woman to look after Georgia and Nate while he worked in the diner. And he worked from dawn ’til dark, filling in wherever he saw the need—bussing tables, washing dishes, mopping floors. When he wasn’t busy with patrons and staff, he pored over the ledger books in the cramped, cluttered office space behind the kitchen.
    If she didn’t know better, Lily would have said he was intentionally avoiding any contact with people—herself in particular. Because every time she’d called to ask how his mom and little boy were progressing, he’d answered with one-word replies. The first few times, she blamed his tone on stress, but by the sixth or seventh call, Lily felt she had no choice but to assume Max didn’t want to talk to her.
    His attitude answered her unasked questions, too, things she’d been asking herself ever since that wonderful moment when Max had tenderly held her close: What had his breathtaking kiss meant? Was it proof he cared for her, too? Dare she hope their relationship could begin to shift, gradually, from friendship to…more? Or had it been simply the result of Max’s mounting worries about his little boy’s condition. Had she mistaken his reaching out to her for comfort and reassurance for blossoming love?
    Lily decided she wouldn’t make a fool of herself,not even for Max Sheridan, not even if she’d loved him since junior high. She’d always been close to Georgia, and almost from the instant he burst into the diner, Lily had adored little Nate. Max’s chilly conduct couldn’t change that. So she’d call when he was working in the diner, ask the nurse to put Georgia on the phone, find out what she needed to know about Georgia and Nate without the grumpy, distant middleman!
    She’d done well with her new “be cool” attitude, balancing the ranch checkbook and caring for her winged and furred charges with visits to Georgia and Nate, real well. Until the church social.
    How Georgia managed to get Max to attend was anybody’s guess. But there he stood in the food line, filling a plate for Georgia, another for Nate. She knew neither plate was his; Max had never liked chicken wings, and a healthy portion of the golden-fried stuff lay on the