Free Saving Dr. Ryan by Karen Templeton

the file. “Just thinking about…stuff.”
    â€œUh-huh. Like what to do with your houseguests?”
    He slammed the file cabinet shut. “Hadn’t gotten that far yet.” He peered over at her, standing there with her arms tucked up under that poncho. “Although something tells me you have.”
    â€œKnowing you, you’d put the kids in sleeping bags in the downstairs bedroom with Maddie and the baby.”
    He frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”
    Ivy huffed. She was nearly as good at huffing as she was at clucking. “You know, sometimes I wonder how on earth you were smart enough to get that scholarship to med school. How’re you gonna keep an eye on mama and her baby ifshe’s down here and you’re asleep upstairs? Besides, those two youngsters need their own space, and you’ve got those two connecting bedrooms upstairs that would be just perfect—”
    â€œFor crying out loud, Ivy—take a breath, wouldja?” Hands on hips, Ryan simply stared at her, frozen, as something damn close to fear knifed through him, as surprising in its sudden appearance as it was in its intensity. Especially as he had no idea what he could possibly be afraid of. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t had any company for a while. Like forever. No reason the prospect should make him feel uneasy. And yet everything inside him whispered, “Watch out, buster.”
    â€œI’ll go on ahead and change the beds,” Ivy said, now shedding the poncho and heading out the door and, presumably, the back stairs, “if you tell me where the clean linens are.” She vanished, reappeared. “You do have clean linens, don’t you?”
    â€œIn the closet at the end of the hall. Shoot, Ivy, I’m not a throwback.”
    â€œCould’ve fooled me.”
    He no sooner got out a sigh when he felt somebody looking at him. He turned, still frowning hard enough to make Katie Grace frown back.
    â€œYou mad at us?” she asked.
    Well, that just turned him to mush. He scooped the little girl up onto his hip, just like he did with every other three-year-old who came to his office. Difference was, this one wasn’t going home in a few minutes. “No, sweetheart. I’m not mad at you.”
    Calm, blue-gray eyes linked with his for a second before a pair of tiny arms looped around his neck.
    Oh, Lord. He was in trouble now.

Chapter 4
    T his bedroom didn’t look much different from the one downstairs, Maddie thought, but it had two windows and was a little bigger. And a bit more inviting looking, but that might have been due to the warm light given off by a pair of rose-decorated lamps on either side of the bed. Before she’d left for the evening, Ivy had fed them all, then made up the double bed in fresh white linens, turning down the covers like this was some fancy hotel.
    For what seemed like the thousandth time that day, tears pooled in Maddie’s eyes, that strangers should be showing such concern for her and her children. But right now, her babies came first: instead of resenting how helpless she felt, she should be grateful that there were such good people in the world.
    Since she wasn’t an invalid, for heaven’s sake, she’d put on a pair of jeans with the doctor’s shirt, and was now settled with Amy Rose in an old but comfortable padded chair in the corner of the room. Noah and Katie Grace were in the adjoining room, bouncing from one twin bed to the other. Maddie had already told them three times to stop, even resortingto the time-honored threat of “Okay, but if you fall and crack your head open, don’t come cryin’ to me,” which the kids clearly took as permission to keep jumping. So she told the doctor, who’d been in and out carrying up her cases and what-not, that if they did crack their heads, to just add his fixing them up to her bill. He’d laughed a little at that. But in the intervening