Free Seeing Stars: A Loveswept Classic Romance by Fran Baker Page A

gave her a twinge of guilt, but, after telling herself he was in the best possible hands and promising him that she’d check on Linda and the baby, she left the Intensive Care Unit without a backward glance.
    “Dr. Rodgers.” A disembodied voice paged him through the hospital corridors. “Dr. Rodgers, please report to Surgery.”
    “A doctor’s work is never done.” He smiled at Dovie and shook hands with Nick. “I’ll see you two on Saturday night.”
    Then he turned and headed down the hall.
    “What did he mean, he’ll see us on Saturday night?” she asked as they waited for the elevator that would take them up to the maternity ward.
    “Joe and his wife, Elaine, are giving a Christmas party for the hospital staff, and”—a surprising vulnerability entered his voice—“he asked me to bring you.”
    Once inside the elevator, she broke the bad news. “I’d love to go, Nick, I really would, but Ialways baby-sit for my brother Jack and his wife, Jayrene, on Saturday night.”
    He cornered her—literally and figuratively. “Well, you’ll just have to tell Jack and Jayrene that the man who saved your life wants to collect his reward.”
    Caught between his powerful body and the wall, Dovie felt totally defenseless. “But they’re counting on me.”
    “So am I.”
    She looked up sharply. “They need me.”
    Nick leaned down and let his tongue do the talking. The silken tip of it skimmed her bottom lip, bathing it with his own nectar. Then it traced her top lip, all sleek, wet satin … and oh, so tempting. When she opened her mouth to welcome him home he murmured, “So do I.”
    “Please …” Reeling, she reached out and sought the support of the waist-high railing that branched out on both sides of her.
    “Twenty years you’ve given your brothers and sisters.” Moist lips moved over hers with gentle sipping motions, and her slumbering senses awakened with an intense craving to experience everything she had missed. “Your high-school prom and your graduation party. College and the career of your choice.” Gifted hands conformed her supple hips to his hard heat. “Marriage and a family of your own.”
    “Please …” Dovie felt her nipples budding and her body flowering open, preparing for love. Howmany Saturday nights had she tucked someone else’s children into bed and wished to be doing something else? Something like this. Flustered, she wrenched her mouth away. “Please don’t ask me to choose. Not again. Not so soon.”
    “Twenty years,” Nick repeated thoughtfully as his long, blessed fingers lovingly feathered the back of her neck. “It’s not everyone who’d do that, Dovie, especially in today’s world. Do you regret it now?”
    “I …” Stricken, she realized she didn’t know how to reply. When the elevator doors whooshed open, she pushed past him and dashed out.
    But there was no escaping the truth. It followed her into Linda’s room, where her sister-in-law radiated a serenity that Dovie envied to the core of her soul. It stalked her to the nursery window, where she stood with her fingertips against the glass and tears glistening in her eyes. The fact that she hadn’t denied her regret was the closest she’d ever come to admitting it.
    “Does it help to know that I think you did a hell of a good job raising your brothers and sisters?” Nick stood behind her, not touching her, just there in case she needed a shoulder to cry on.
    “Yes.” A sob escaped her throat when her new little nephew opened his rosebud of a mouth and set up a great big howl. “But what I regret more than anything is the way I used them to excuse my own inadequacies.”
    “How so?” he prompted softly.
    “Do you want to know
why
I missed my high-school prom?”
    “Only if you want to tell me.”
    “It wasn’t because I couldn’t afford a baby-sitter, which is what I told people and which was easier to deal with than the truth.” She dropped all pretense of dignity and began to cry