Courtney's Baby Plan Read online

  “McDonohue. McDouglas.” Emily shook her head. “Name’s something like that, anyway. I saw an article on the internet about it a few days ago.”

  “Pushed the little filly right out of the way of a truck,” Squire interjected. “Saved her life, so they say. Seems to me, it’s a wonder you didn’t end up getting killed.”

  Absently jiggling Aidan on her lap, Courtney watched Mason. He was jabbing at his lasagna and clearly didn’t want to pursue the subject. “Who was she? Did you know her?”

  “Just a kid who didn’t have the sense not to walk in the street.” He shoved the last bite of lasagna in his mouth and pushed the plate at her. “Mind if I have more?”

  Perfectly aware that he’d pretty much dodged her question, she took the plate and rose, taking the baby—who’d tightly twined his little fists in her loose hair—with her. Mason could be as closemouthed as he wanted. She would just hunt around on the internet and find the article her aunt had referred to, and she would know the story, soon enough.

  Even if a part of her did wish that he’d tell her himself.

  In the kitchen, she handed Aidan off to her mother, who was talking with a few more of Courtney’s aunts, worked her hair free and added another helping from one of the multiple pans on the counter.

  “So.” Her aunt Jaimie tilted her auburn head and stepped right in Courtney’s way before she could go back to the living room. “What’s this I hear about you kissing your patient at the hospital today?”

  Courtney’s jaw loosened. “What?” She shot her mother a look. Rebecca just seemed amused as Aidan batted his palms against her hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied.

  The first chance she got, she was going to skin Wyatt Mead.

  “Lip-locking,” Jaimie enunciated, laughter crinkling the skin around her vivid green eyes. “With Mr. Hyde. And I’m pretty sure that’s a term that translates even to you young people.”

  “I can’t imagine where you get your information,” Courtney insisted. “You know what gossip is like in this town.”

  Maggie, yet another one of Courtney’s aunts, laughed outright. “Sadly, that gossip is almost always founded on some kernel of truth.”

  “Where there’s smoke, and all that,” Jaimie agreed.

  Courtney’s cheeks felt like they were on fire, and there was no chance whatsoever that the women surrounding her couldn’t see the flush. Or correctly interpret its cause. “I’m going to kill Wyatt,” she muttered through her teeth.

  Rebecca smiled faintly. “Fortunately, you weren’t on duty, so it’s not as if you were breaking any sort of hospital rule that I’d have to write up.”

  “Of course, if your grandfather hears about it,” Courtney’s grandmother, Gloria, warned humorously, “who knows what will happen. You know how protective he is of all his girls.”

  Emily had wandered into the crowded kitchen, and she rolled her eyes. “Fortunately, Squire has mellowed a little over the years since he kicked Jefferson out of his own home for having his eye on me when I was young.” Perfectly at home in her sister-in-law’s house, she found a mug and poured coffee into it.

  “Grandchildren and great-grandchildren—” Jaimie tickled Aidan under the chin “—have mellowed Squire.” She wryly corrected Emily. “The years that have passed have been purely incidental.”

  Whether Squire had mellowed any or not was moot as far as Courtney was concerned. She didn’t want people gossiping about her. Not even her own family, whether it was good-natured or not. “I’m taking this plate back in to Mason and I don’t want to hear another word about—” she waved her hand at the older women “—any of that.” As she left the kitchen, she caught the surprised looks on their faces in the half breath before they all broke into laughter.

  Her molars ground together. Wyatt was dead meat.

  She hurried over to Mason and handed him his plate, even as she nudged her feet into her shoes. “I need to get to the hospital.” She looked around the room, her gaze finally landing on her father. He was standing near the windows that overlooked the rear of their property, talking to Daniel and Matthew, who were married to Maggie and Jaimie. “You’ll get Mason—” she barely prevented herself from saying home “—back to my place later?”

  Her dad nodded.

  She hadn’t really doubted that he’d agree, but she was more than a little nervous about what kind of conversations might ensue in her absence.

  Fortunately, Mason was looking as if he weren’t in the mood to talk, and she was hoping that meant he wouldn’t decide to take the initiative and start talking spermsicles with her family.

  She stopped next to him, pulled his bottle of antibiotics out of her pocket and handed them to him. “Don’t forget.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His voice was arid.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, then. Try not to break anything else before then.”

  His lips twisted in a sort of smile. His scar was standing out more than usual, and she suspected he was wishing that he was anywhere else other than here.

  Refusing to feel sorry for him, since she’d done her best to talk him out of going to her folks’ in the first place, she went over to her grandfather and kissed his cheek. “Behave,” she whispered in his ear.

  He grunted. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  She gave him a pointed look. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Then, because she really did need to leave or chance being late for her shift, she quickly gave a general goodbye and hurried out to her car.

  Her mother was leaning against the hood.

  Courtney swallowed a jolt of nervousness and picked up her pace again until she reached the car. “Did I forget something?”

  “How well do you know Mason?”

  Courtney hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t that. “Not well. We met, you know, in passing. When he was here a few years ago working with Axel to protect Tara. Well, it wasn’t quite that long ago, but—”

  “You’re rambling, honey.”

  Courtney’s lips slammed shut. She swallowed again. “I know Axel trusts him, or he wouldn’t have suggested any of this,” she finally said. “He’s a job. Mason doesn’t want to be dependent on me for any longer than necessary. His arm should be out of the cast in a month or so. And hopefully, his leg not too long after that. He’ll be gone the second he can go.”

  “Mmm.” Her mother pushed away from the car. “Just…be careful, all right?”

  That was easy. “I’m always careful,” Courtney reminded. “Remember?”

  “I do.” Her mom followed her around to the driver’s side and held the door while Courtney climbed behind the wheel. “I was careful, too, when I first met your father.”

  Courtney raised her eyebrows. “Not exactly a cautionary comment, Mom. You and Dad have been married for a long time now.” Close to thirty years, in fact.

  “But it took us a long time to get to that point,” she reminded gently. “Your dad and I did a lot of things wrong—spent a lot of years on it, in fact—before we managed to get it right. I’m just saying…be careful.”

  “I know exactly what I want out of life,” Courtney assured her with more blitheness than she felt. “Mason is not going to get in the way of my plans.”

  Unfortunately, as her mother shut the door and moved back from the car, she didn’t look quite convinced. “Drive carefully,” was all she said.

  Courtney couldn’t help but grin at that, considering the hospital was less than five miles away. “Thanks for entertaining him,” she said, before she drove off.

  The first thing she did when she got to the hospital was corner Wyatt, who was just getting off his shift. “Guess you don’t want that date with Dee Crowder that badly,” she told him.

  He gave her a surprised look. “What are you talking about?”

  “About you talking!”

  “I didn’t.” He defended himself. “I didn’t say a word to anyone!”

&nb
sp; “Not anyone?”

  “Well, Greer. But she wouldn’t say anything.”

  Courtney groaned. “That’s exactly how things get out. We trust someone not to say anything to anyone, and then they do, and they trust that person not to say anything, and then they do.” She threw up her hands and walked to the nurse’s lounge to store her purse in her locker. “I’ll be lucky if this town doesn’t have us married and pregnant by morning,” she muttered.

  “Who’s pregnant?” Carrying an enormous cup of coffee, Lisa Pope walked into the lounge.

  “Nobody.”

  Her coworker’s gaze turned crafty. “Any practicing to get that way going on?”

  Courtney groaned and walked out of the lounge.

  It was going to be a long shift.

  Chapter Seven

  She was over an hour late getting off shift the next morning, but when she quietly let herself into her house, Courtney was still surprised to see Mason up.

  He was sitting at her computer desk, and at first she feared he was poking around on the cryobank site again. He wouldn’t find it difficult to locate since she had all of her favorite sites clearly saved.

  “You’re up early,” she greeted as she walked across the living room, kicking off her shoes as she went. When she was closer, her nerves relaxed a little.

  He was on some network news site.

  “And you’re off work late,” he returned. He gave her a narrow-eyed look. “You look like hell.”

  “Well—” she smiled tiredly “—don’t feel like you need to sugarcoat it or anything.”

  He swiveled—more or less, considering his cumbersome casts—to face her. “What happened?”

  She shook her head as she walked past him into the kitchen. “Just a long night. What’s your stand on eggs and toast?” She glanced outside the back door and saw Plato sleeping contentedly in a sunbeam. “You let the dog out. Thanks.”

  “No prob. And you don’t have to cook for me.”

  “Part of the deal,” she reminded. Her eyes felt glazed as she turned her attention to the maple cupboards in front of her. “But it’s Saturday morning. How about pancakes?”

  She heard the scrape-thump of his crutches and cast and knew he was coming into the kitchen. She realized she was just standing there, staring at nothing, and quickly opened the cupboard door to pull out a loaf of bread. “Or maybe French toast.”

  His hand closed over her shoulder, and she jumped an inch. He tugged the bread out of her lax fingers and set it on the counter. “Maybe some sleep.”

  “I told you, I need to decompress a little after a shift.” She picked up the bread again. “And you need to eat.”

  “I already did.” He took the bread and reached past her head to slide it on top of the refrigerator. “I had leftover lasagna that your mother sent back with me last night.”

  Courtney looked around the kitchen. There wasn’t a sign that he’d been in here at all.

  “What’d you do? Eat it cold?” She grabbed his day-old cast and ran her fingers along the bottom edge. It was dry. If he’d washed the dishes he’d used, he hadn’t gotten the cast wet.

  He deliberately moved his arm away. “Yes. And off the paper plate that it was sitting on. And before you ask, I took the damn antibiotics. Go get some sleep before you fall over.”

  Somehow, she found herself being turned out of the kitchen, which was a trick since she was much more agile than he was in his present condition. “I looked you up on the internet,” she said, thinking that would stop him.

  It didn’t. “Figured you would.”

  “Why? Because you think I’m nosy?” Better that he think that than believe she was insatiably curious where he was concerned.

  “I’d go for…inquisitive.”

  “That’s another word for nosy.” They passed the dining room table and the computer. The screen was a swirling dervish of colors now. “You didn’t say that the girl you saved was Donovan McDougal’s daughter. He’s famous, for heaven’s sake.” The European businessman who seemed to dabble in everything from real estate to entertainment was often in the news.

  “He’s also got a big mouth.” Mason’s voice was low behind her. Intimate.

  Despite herself, her footsteps hesitated. She had to physically draw a breath and ride herd on her imagination.

  Intimate?

  Hardly. The guy was practically frog-marching her down the hallway.

  Mason’s chest was a warm wall behind her. His crutches were on either side of her, and the cast on his leg was nudging against her backside. He was wearing the same jeans he’d been wearing the night before. She wondered if he’d slept in them, because she seriously doubted that he’d have been able to pull them back on, even though he could get them off.

  She planted her bare feet as much as they could be planted on the wood floor. “Well, according to what the big mouth said, that accident was not an accident at all. You were in Barcelona protecting him because someone was threatening his life. But instead, the person went after his daughter. You were the only one who realized what was happening before it was too late.” According to the reports she’d read, Mason had knowingly risked his life for the little girl, tossing her to safety before the vehicle had struck him and plowed uncontrollably into a ravine. Mason had survived with a host of injuries. The deadly driver had not.

  “Since you seem to have all the details now, there’s nothing else to be inquisitive about. So it’s my turn. How do you plan to take care of a baby when you work a night shift like this? Or are you going to be one of those parents who stick their kid in day care all day?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with proper day care,” she said irritably. “And I’ll switch to a day shift when the time comes.”

  “You can just decide to do that? Doesn’t a shift have to be available first, or do you figure that you can have your mom arrange things to suit you?”

  She slapped her hands out, catching the door frame of her bedroom to halt their momentum, then spun around to look at him.

  Her nose was practically buried in the T-shirt covering his chest. The shirt that yesterday he’d insisted he could put on with no assistance.

  She carefully stepped back a few inches, pulling her eyes away from the dark swirl of chest hair that was visible in the stretched out V-neck. Her fingertips were suddenly tingling as if they remembered the soft-crisp feel of it, and she pressed them together. “First of all, my mom would never play favorites like that. And you obviously don’t know me at all if you think I would even ask! Fortunately for me, there are plenty of nursing jobs in the area. If I can’t find a schedule that is more suitable at the hospital, then I’ll find one somewhere else.” Her spurt of energy dissipated, and she turned away from him again. “Maybe I’ll become a school nurse, where the biggest emergencies I’ll have to deal with are bloody noses and the occasional case of head lice.” At least it wouldn’t be likely that she’d have the kind of case they’d had at the hospital that morning.

  She pulled off the top of her scrubs, leaving behind the long-sleeved T-shirt she wore underneath.

  Somehow, the giant on crutches managed to beat her to the bed. He pulled back her quilt with one tug.

  “You’re not supposed to do that,” she grumbled.

  He silently raised an eyebrow.

  “Move faster than me.”

  The corner of his lips curved. “Honey, you’re not moving real fast,” he pointed out. “Did you become a nurse so you could deal with bloody noses and the occasional bug?”

  Now that she was within a foot of her bed, she felt a little like a horse that scented its barn, and she aimed straight for it. “Of course not.” Her knee hit the mattress and she went facedown, tugging her pillow against her cheek. “I wanted to help people,” she murmured. “My grandmother—Gloria. She was a nurse.”

  “Yeah. Last night, I heard all about how she and Squire met when she was taking care of him after he had a heart attack.”

  “Sort of like us.
” The words drizzled out of her lips without thinking, and as soon as she heard what she’d said, her eyes flew open. “I didn’t mean… I was just saying that she was—”

  “I know what you were saying.” He reached down and nudged her head onto the pillow. “Close your eyes, Courtney. You’re making me feel exhausted.”

  The pillow did feel wonderful. But no less wonderful, she figured, than the sound of her name on his lips.

  She closed her eyes, reminding herself that she’d been running on only a few hours of sleep for two days. If she was at the top of her form, she wouldn’t be thinking such silly things. “You’re not supposed to be taking care of me,” she returned.

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  She felt his hand plucking at the back of her head, and then her ponytail slid free. His fingertips rubbed against her scalp and she couldn’t help but sigh. “Mason?”

  His rubbing stopped.

  She peeled open her heavy lids and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Do you see a lot of violence working for Hollins-Winword?”

  He watched her, unblinking, for a long moment. “Yes.”

  Her chest went tight. Maybe because he’d given her a straight-out answer. Maybe because she was feeling wrung out from her shift. Maybe because just then, there wasn’t a cell in her body that didn’t want her to ask him to lie down, casts and all, right beside her. “How do you sleep at night?”

  His fingers threaded through her hair once more. “Sometimes I don’t.”

  Now, her throat ached, too. “We had a woman brought in around two this morning. Her husband had been beating her. She had a toddler with her.” She felt his sudden stillness.

  “What happened?”

  “She had massive internal injuries. The husband followed her, evidently intent on finishing the job. It took two deputy sheriffs to contain him.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “No.” She rolled onto her back, and his hand fell away from her hair, returning to the grip of his crutch tucked under his arm. “They lived on the other side of Braden. She was trying to get away with the child, but she ran off the road, and the officer on the scene had her brought in. We’d barely gotten her into surgery, when the husband got there.”