The Baby Season

He smiled, perhaps for the first time. It was genuine and dazzling, and Roxanne felt her throat constrict at the pure beauty of it. “They don’t have babies up in Seattle?” he said, his lips still curved and so appealing.

“No. We have bypassed the whole pregnancy thing up in the great Northwest. You Southerners keep moving up, we don’t need to replenish the population from our own stock.”

“I’ve heard about you people and your regional biases,” he said.

She laughed.

“Nancy is our local celebrity,” he added. “She runs the radio station in Tangent.”

“I interned at a radio station back in my late, great college days. I can’t believe that Tangent actually has one.”

“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? We have to drive almost twenty miles to a hospital, but we have a radio station. A very small one, mind you, but nevertheless…well, go figure. Anyway, I told her about you, and she said she’d like to meet a big-time television producer.”

“So would I,” Roxanne said.

With a lazy gaze, he added, “You look very, very nice.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, unsure how to return the compliment without drooling all over him. Gone was the sexy, hot cowboy with the surly brow and the impatient manner. This was the refined doctor, his brown hair glistening with health in the late-day sun, his face cleanly shaved, a soft gray shirt tucked into darker gray slacks. He smelled divine—masculine and clean, a combination of soap and desert heat. This man was just as desirable, she decided, perhaps more so.

He looked as though he had something on his mind but wasn’t sure how to go about saying it.

“Ginny is an adorable little girl,” Roxanne said as Sal and Grace tied a blindfold around the child’s head. They twirled her around before arming her with a tail to pin on a paper donkey. Ginny was wearing a fluttery yellow dress, little golden curls kissing the back of her fragile neck. She looked sweet enough to eat with a spoon.

What a thought!

“She’s a great kid,” Jack said, his voice softening as it always seemed to do when he spoke about his daughter. “She can hardly wait until it’s time to open the presents. Do you remember being that young?”

“I didn’t have birthday parties,” Roxanne said softly.

“None?”

“Well, when I got older, two girlfriends came over and we slept in my grandmother’s attic. Does that count?”

“Did they bring gifts?”

“I think so.”

“Then it counts.”

She would have happily spent the rest of the afternoon gazing up into his eyes, but she was suddenly aware they were attracting more than a few pointed glances. She said, “Jack, I don’t mean to alarm you, but everyone is staring at us.”