Free At Home in Stone Creek (Silhouette Special Edition) by Linda Lael Miller

through his already mussed hair. “I can tell you this much, Ashley—if he said he loved you, he meant it, whatever happened afterward. He’s never been married, doesn’t have kids, his dad is a dentist, his mother is a librarian, and he has three younger brothers, all of whom are much more conventional than Jack. He likes beer, but I’ve never seen him drunk. That’s the whole shebang, I’m afraid.”
    â€œSomeone injected him with something,” Ashley said in a low voice. “That’s why he’s sick.”
    â€œGood God,” Tanner said.
    A silence fell.
    â€œAnd he’s leaving as soon as he’s strong enough,” Ashley said. “Because some drug dealer named Chad Lombard has a grudge against him, and he’s afraid of putting all of us in danger.”
    Tanner thought long and hard. “Maybe that’s for the best,” he finally replied. Ashley knew Tanner wasn’t afraid for himself, but he had to think about Olivia and Sophie and his infant sons. “I hate it, though. Turning my back on a friend who needs my help.”
    Ashley felt the same way, though Jack wasn’t exactly a friend. In fact, she wasn’t sure how to describe their relationship—if they had one at all. “This is Stone Creek,” she heard herself say. “We have a long tradition of standing shoulder to shoulder and taking trouble as it comes.”
    Tanner’s smile was tired, but warm. “Go,” he said. “Tuckered out as she is, Olivia is dying to show off those babies. I’ll look after Jack until you get home.”
    Ashley hesitated, then got her coat and purse and car keys again, and left for the clinic in Indian Rock.

Chapter Four
    O livia was sitting up in bed, beaming, a baby tucked in the crook of each arm, when Ashley hurried into her room. There were flowers everywhere—Brad and Meg had already been there and gone, having brought Carly and Sophie to see the boys before school.
    â€œCome and say hello to John and Sam,” Olivia said gently.
    Ashley, clutching a bouquet of pink and yellow carnations, hastily purchased at a convenience store, moved closer. She felt stricken with wonder and an immediate and all-encompassing love for the tiny red-faced infants snoozing in their swaddling blankets.
    â€œOh, Livie,” she whispered, “they’re beautiful.”
    â€œI agree,” Olivia said proudly. “Do you want to hold them?”
    Ashley swallowed, then reached out for the bundleon the right. She sat down slowly in the chair closest to Olivia’s bed.
    â€œThat’s John,” Olivia explained, her voice soft with adoring exhaustion.
    â€œHow can you tell?” Ashley asked, without lifting her eyes from the baby’s face. He seemed to glow with some internal light, as though he were trailing traces of heaven, the place he’d so recently left.
    Livie chuckled. “The twins aren’t identical, Ashley,” she said. “John is a little smaller than Sam, and he has my mouth. Sam looks like Tanner.”
    Ashley didn’t respond; she was too smitten with young John Mitchell Quinn. By the time she swapped one baby for the other, she could tell the difference between them.
    A nurse came and collected the babies, put them back in their incubators. Although they were healthy, like most twins they were underweight. They’d be staying at the clinic for a few days after Olivia went home.
    Olivia napped, woke up, napped again.
    â€œI’m so glad you’re here,” she said once.
    Ashley, who had been rising from her chair to leave, sat down again. Remembered the carnations and got up to put them in a water-glass vase.
    â€œHow did you wind up in Indian Rock instead of Flagstaff?” Ashley asked, when Olivia didn’t immediately drift off.
    Olivia smiled. “I was on a call,” she said. “Sick horse. Tanner wanted me to call in another vet, but this was