A Very Special Delivery. Myrna Mackenzie

pulled back, her eyes opening wide. “You’re married? You? That’s…that’s wonderful. I can’t wait to meet the woman who finally tamed you. I guess you know I have someone for you to meet, too.” She picked up her baby, who was beginning to stir. “Meet your uncle Rafe, Meggie. He’s a big guy, but he’s pretty sweet most of the time.”

      Rafe grinned. “Don’t tell anyone she said that part about being sweet, little one,” he told his niece, hesitantly touching just the baby’s blanket. “My friends might not understand. She’s so tiny,” he said with awe, and Laura couldn’t forget a black-haired man with fierce blue eyes saying just the same thing. She hurriedly pushed the thought away.

      “She’ll grow, I think,” Laura promised.

      “Meggie?” he asked.

      Laura smiled then and shrugged. “Megan Maitland didn’t have to let me stay here, but she did. What’s more, a nurse told me that the reason Megan is so sympathetic to single mothers is because her first baby’s father deserted her. Just like me. She made her way alone just as I want to.”

      “She’s a good woman.”

      “I know. Janelle shouldn’t have tried to hurt her.”

      Rafe’s eyes darkened. “Our sister did lots of damage. You need to know that. Things have been happening at the clinic. Sabotaged water pipes. A small fire. Janelle’s on the loose, and suddenly both her sister and brother show up in Austin.”

      Laura sucked in a deep breath. “Do you think that Janelle is behind all these attempts to sabotage the clinic?”

      He shrugged. “Janelle’s capable of some pretty sleazy stuff. She convinced Megan that the baby she’d thought had died at birth was Janelle’s husband, when Janelle knew all along that Clarise O’Hara and her husband had illegally adopted Connor right after he was born. She knew exactly where the real Connor was and didn’t tell Megan. What’s worse, Janelle kidnapped Megan’s baby grandson. I think she’d do almost anything for money or revenge.”

      “And you and I could be suspects if we left, couldn’t we?” she asked. “It would look like we just came here at Janelle’s behest to cause more trouble for the Maitlands.”

      “Does that mean you’re staying?”

      “I can’t leave without trying to repay Megan, anyway.”

      Rafe opened his mouth.

      Laura shook her head. “On my own, Rafe, but thank you for almost offering. I have to do this on my own. No help.”

      He frowned at her. “If you’d let me help yesterday, you wouldn’t have needed a rogue construction worker helping you. He didn’t see you naked, did he, hon?”

      Laura put on her best indignant older-sister look, even though she felt a blush creeping up. “It wasn’t like that, Rafe. Believe me, the man wasn’t thinking about anything improper at the time.”

      At that, he looked like he was going to argue. She shook her head and smiled, trying to distract him by making plans to meet his wife and maybe their half siblings, R.J. and Anna, her father’s other family that she hadn’t even known of until now.

      After Rafe had gone, Laura cuddled Meggie close. “Just you and me, sweetie,” she crooned.

      And the scent of her baby made her recall a man with fierce, lake-blue eyes. A man who had, as Rafe implied, seen parts of her body and her soul that no one usually ever saw.

      For half a second she allowed herself to wonder what Mick Hannon was doing right now.