Saving Dr. Ryan. Karen Templeton

lab pups. You seen them yet? Five of ’em, gold as sunshine. And full of the devil.”

      “C’n I go show Mama my coat?” Noah asked between licks, completely undoing Ryan’s cleanup job.

      “Your mama and sister are taking a nap,” he said, wondering how Maddie was going to react to Ivy’s purchases. “Which they both need.” At the child’s crestfallen expression, he added, “You know, I’ve got about a million blocks out in the waiting room. Why don’t you go build something to show your mama later?”

      When the children had gone, Ryan stretched back in the desk chair, making it squawk. Hard to believe those were the same frightened children who’d shown up on his doorstep barely twelve hours ago. A knot formed in his chest at the thought of any child’s having to feel that kind of anxiety.

      He could only imagine how Maddie must feel.

      He glanced up at the midwife, whose face indicated she was thinking much the same thing. She caught his stare, blushed. “I didn’t figure it would hurt them to have a treat. And the coats were half off. Last year’s stock or something.”

      Shaking his head, Ryan leaned forward again to gather up the charts strewn across the blotter. “Looks to me as though somebody wants to be a grandma real bad.”

      Ivy let out a sigh. Her daughter Dawn, whom Ivy had raised on her own, had left Haven before the ink was dry on her high school diploma, going off to college, then law school. Now an attorney at some high-falutin’ firm in New York City, Ivy’s only child seemed determined not only to never set foot in Haven again, but to never give her mother any grandbabies, either. “Guess I’ve just about given up on that score. Not that I’m not proud of my daughter, but I swear I’m gonna wring her skinny little neck if she tells me one more blessed time her career’s far more challenging, reliable and stimulating than raising a kid could be.”

      Yeah, that sounded like Dawn, who was the same age as his brother Cal. In fact, there was a time there when Ryan had thought Cal might have been a little sweet on Ivy’s daughter, but that was a long time ago….

      “Now, where on earth did you drift off to?” he heard Ivy ask, and he lifted his gaze to catch the amused curiosity in hers.

      “Oh, nothing,” he said, standing to pull a chart out of the file. “Just thinking about…stuff.”

      “Uh-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.”

      “Knowing 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 if she’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—”

      “For 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.”

      “I’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?”

      “In the closet at the end of the hall. Shoot, Ivy, I’m not a throwback.”

      “Could’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.

      “You 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.