.

moved with incredible grace for a pregnant woman. The fact that she was moving at all amazed him. When his sisters had been in their last trimester, they’d hardly been able to make it from the couch to the kitchen.

      “I’m not keeping you from something, am I?” Susan asked. “Clark said you were working on some important medical textbook.”

      He didn’t really want to talk about his work. The minute he mentioned to a woman what he really did for a living, her eyes glazed over.

      “What kind of doctor are you, anyway?” she continued, oblivious to his reticence.

      “I’m a dermatologist,” he admitted. Dermatology had to be one of the least glamorous medical disciplines, right up there with urology.

      “But I don’t see patients anymore,” he said. “I work strictly in the lab doing research.”

      “On what?” she wanted to know.

      “Not a cure for cancer or anything so glamorous. I’m studying allergic skin rashes.” Which was where most people’s curiosity came to an abrupt halt—unless they happened to be the victim of a troublesome rash, in which case he got more details about it than he ever cared to know.

      Susan didn’t vary from the norm. “Someone’s got to study rashes, I suppose.” She returned her attention to her work.

      Another scintillating conversation. Why did he have such a hard time with this? Not that it really mattered. He might be attracted to Susan—and let’s face it, he was, regardless of her state of pregnancy—but she was completely out of reach.

      SUSAN ARRIVED AT Rand’s house early the next morning, eager to get to work. As she climbed out of her truck, her stomach seemed suddenly huge to her, straining against her striped overalls. Had she grown overnight? She found herself wishing she could wear one of those cute little Empire-waist maternity dresses she’d seen in the window at a shop downtown. Wearing those breezy floral fabrics, lined with delicate lace, even a woman the size of a small hippopotamus could feel feminine.

      In her overalls, Susan just felt fat and ungainly. It hadn’t really bothered her before now.

      Rand opened the front door before she could even knock. He wore a pristine white lab coat, open at the front to reveal a blue shirt and silk tie, making Susan more positive than ever that scientists weren’t as nerdy as their stereotypes suggested. And he carried a fragrant cup of coffee, making her despise him.

      She wanted coffee, damn it.

      “Good morning,” she said. “Is Clark around?”

      “Why do you need him?” Rand asked bluntly.

      “He promised to help me carry in this lumber and my tools.” She hated having to ask.

      “I’ll do it.”

      “But you’ll get your nice white coat all dirty.”

      “I wear the nice white coat so I don’t get my clothes dirty. That’s what lab coats are for.” He sat his coffee down on the porch railing and flexed his arms above his head.

      Holy cow, did he have any idea what he was doing to her already messed-up hormones? The soft blue button-down shirt he wore stretched and strained against his chest, and he seemed oblivious to the stiff northern breeze that blew today, bringing a touch of winter to the Carolinas.

      His attitude was hardly cheerful, but Susan wasn’t going to complain. He hadn’t fired her yet.

      Rand wouldn’t hear of her carrying anything, even the smaller pieces of wood. Since he was writing the checks, she let him have the last word, but she wasn’t happy about it. She’d promised herself she would never, ever lean on a man again.

      Phrases from Gary’s “Dear Jane” letter drifted into her consciousness: clinging vine…dependent…draining all my energy…parasite.

      She would be the first to admit she’d been a little crazy when she’d lived with Gary. He’d met her at the hospital just minutes after she’d witnessed her father’s life slip away. She’d been distraught, unsure what to do next, and he’d simply taken her under his wing and made all her decisions for her.

      What a relief it had been, after her father’s long illness and the money problems and business problems, to simply let go. Gary had wanted her to depend on him. Falling in love with him had been effortless—how could she not fall in love with a handsome white knight who was right there all the time to slay even her smallest dragons?

      Unfortunately, she’d continued to lean on him long after the trauma of losing her father. He’d just made it so damn easy—he’d encouraged it. She thought that was what he wanted, and she wanted more than anything to make him happy after all he’d done for her.

      Her devotion had backfired in a big way. She’d had no idea she was driving him crazy. Her first clue was when she’d come home from her doctor’s appointment and found the note.

      She’d not seen him again. He’d disappeared like a soap bubble in the wind, completely ignorant of the fact that he would shortly be a father.

      “I don’t want to make you late for work,” Susan said to Rand as she trotted after him on his third trip from the truck to the house. “I can take it from here.”

      “I think I’ll stay home today. Now might be a good time to get some writing done.”

      “While I’m working? I’ll be kicking up sawdust and making a lot of awful noise.”

      “I’ve got to at least get the books out of your way so you have enough room to work,” Rand persisted.

      Since this was true, she almost let it slide. Then something occurred to her. “You don’t trust me.”

      “Of course I trust you,” he said easily as he reclaimed his coffee cup on their final trip.

      “You don’t. You’re going to keep an eye on me and make sure I don’t mess up.”

      “Not true. I need a day off.”

      “Then take the day off! Go to the zoo or something.”

      He didn’t go away. He lurked, he hovered, he tried to help her lift pieces of wood that a butterfly could have carried off.

      “Did it ever occur to you,” she asked, “that I might enjoy the feeling of accomplishment I get from doing a job on my own?”

      “You won’t like the feeling of a strained back,” he said. “You pull something out of whack now, you might not be able to pick up your own baby.”

      All right, so he had a point. Though she was always careful—her father had suffered with numerous back problems and she didn’t want to end up like that—she should be taking extra precautions at this time. She let him pick up the blasted board and hold it in place.

      After a while, it became easier to just let him do what he wanted. She would never get this job done if she argued with him every step of the way.

      Besides, she sort of liked looking at him, especially later in the day when his sleeves were rolled up and his hair mussed, and she could detect the slight odor of hard work on a clean man.

      RAND SPENT THE ENTIRE morning trying to find an excuse to fire Susan. He watched her every move, searching for some sign of incompetence—a corner that didn’t meet cleanly, a board that had been mismeasured, or holes that weren’t drilled in the exact right places. But he could find no fault in the woman’s work. She knew what she was doing.

      He also looked for signs that this work was too hard for a pregnant woman. But Susan had endless stamina and energy to spare—and she seemed to enjoy her work. She often smiled while she worked, or whistled, or hummed. He liked that she didn’t fill the silence between them with useless prattle.

      She didn’t talk endlessly about her pregnancy the way his sisters had. She didn’t probe into his personal life, but she did show an