Читать книгу The Maverick's Christmas Baby - Victoria Pade - Страница 8

Chapter Two

“Is anyone here for Nina Crawford?”

Dallas got to his feet the moment he heard that. He was in the waiting area for the emergency room of the hospital in Kalispell, where he’d been since arriving with Nina and having her whisked away.

“I’m Dr. Axel,” the woman introduced herself.

Dallas wasn’t sure whether or not to admit he wasn’t family but before he could say anything the woman continued.

“Nina and the baby are doing fine. The pains she was having were the result of hitting the steering wheel, not labor. There’s no indication that she’s about to deliver. We’ve done an ultrasound and the baby looks good, plus Nina is hooked up to a fetal monitor and there are no signs of any kind of distress.”

“Great!” Dallas said, relief ringing clear.

“As I’m sure you know,” the doctor went on, “Nina is at thirty-five weeks so birth at this stage—while inadvisable—would still likely not pose unusual problems for mom or baby should something change suddenly. But with the storm and the difficulties on the roads, getting her back here in a hurry might pose a problem and I’d rather err on the side of safety. So we’re keeping her overnight. That way we can continue to monitor things and watch them both, just in case.”

“Sure.”

“She’s being taken to a room now—if you check with one of the people at the desk they’ll be able to tell you the number.”

Dallas thanked the doctor, then he went to the reception desk, gave Nina’s name and learned what room she’d been taken to.

It was only after he had that information that he wondered if he should stay.

After all, he wasn’t family.

But while Gage Christensen had promised to notify the Crawfords of the accident and tell them Nina’s whereabouts, none of them had arrived yet. Despite the fact that the blizzard had stopped and only a light snow was falling, the roads still weren’t great, so there was no surprise there. And Dallas didn’t like the thought of Nina being alone, even if everything was okay.

So he opted to stay. Just the way he’d opted to stay after getting Nina here, despite the sheriff pointing out that he’d done enough, that there was nothing more he could do now that she was in the hands of the professionals, and that he might as well go home to his own family.

His family—his boys—were being well taken care of by his parents, all of whom he’d talked to while he was in the waiting room. Everything was going on as usual. But for now, without him, Nina had no one.

And he just couldn’t bring himself to leave her.

So he went to the elevator, got in and hit the button for her floor.

The maternity floor.

He knew it well. He’d been there for the birth of each of his three sons. With Laurel...

That memory wrenched his gut. The way countless other memories had during the past year.

The past year of hell...

It just wasn’t easy.

Not waking up to find his wife had left him.

Not raising three kids on his own.

Not dealing with his own anger and grief and sometimes rage and despair.

Not dealing with his sons’ emotions, which were sometimes right on the surface and other times came out so subtly he missed them until it was too late.

Not going on, living in the same town where they’d both grown up, being where almost everything in their life had happened, revisiting places like this hospital, where events had come about that were apparently not as meaningful to his ex-wife as they were to him....

Yeah, hell pretty much described it. And he was just trying to work his way through the emotional muck, in much the same way that Rust Creek Falls was still working its way through the muck left from the flood.

But he had confidence that Rust Creek Falls would get through its reconstruction and come out on the other end. He still wasn’t altogether sure about himself. Or about Ryder or Jake or Robbie.

When the elevator arrived on the maternity floor, he found Nina’s room without a problem and breathed a sigh of relief. It was a private room on a different corridor than where new mothers were located.

If he’d had to walk into one of the same rooms Laurel had been in with any of the boys he didn’t know if he could have done it. He could only push himself so far, even though he was doing his damnedest to get out of this hell he’d been in since Laurel had left.

Just pretend you’re okay even if you aren’t—that was what he’d decided he had to do. And maybe if he pretended he wasn’t buried under the blues, he’d finally start to actually see daylight again.

But one way or another, he’d already made an early New Year’s resolution—he was determined to spare his family and friends any more of what he’d been wallowing in for the past twelve months. No more telling everyone to beware of love, to avoid relationships. No more being the naysayer as he watched people couple up. He’d at least keep his mouth shut.

The door from the corridor was open and the curtain around the bed was only partially drawn so he could see that Nina was asleep, and he reconsidered staying once again. After the day they’d had she was probably exhausted and she could well sleep until her family got there, or even until morning.

But he really, really didn’t want to go yet. Just in case.

So he went silently to the visitor’s chair and sat down, settling in to study Nina rather than thinking more about the other times he’d been on the maternity floor or about the misery of this past year.

Nina Crawford...

Jeez, she was beautiful.

Her long, shiny hair was the color of chestnuts and it fanned out like silk on the pillow.

Her skin was pure porcelain.

Her nose was perfect, thin and sleek, and just slightly pointed at the end.

Her mouth was petal-pink, her lips just lush enough to make a man want to kiss them.

Her face was finely boned with a chin that was well-defined, cheekbones that were high and sculpted, and a brow that was straight and not too high, not too narrow.

And even though her eyes were closed and her long, thick lashes dusted her cheeks, he had a vivid recollection of just how big and brown they were—doelike and sparkling, they were the dark, rich color of coffee.

Yep, beautiful. Exquisitely, delicately beautiful.

Without the doctor telling him, he would have never guessed that she was as far along as she was. By now, with all three of the boys, Laurel had not looked the way Nina did. Not that he hadn’t thought Laurel was beautiful, because he had.

He was a man of nature, and he’d genuinely thought the entire process had that feel to it—natural and as beautiful as a sunrise evolving out of the dark of night.

But the more weight his ex-wife had gained, the more unhappy she’d become. Even more unhappy than she’d been during the rest of the marriage she’d never really been happy in....

Laurel was the last thing he wanted to think about, though, so he sealed off the memory and focused on Nina, who honestly did make true the adage about pregnant women glowing.

Or maybe that was just the way she looked all the time....

Since he’d never noticed her before, he couldn’t actually be the judge.

Although sitting there now, studying her, he wondered why he’d never noticed her before. How could anyone who looked the way she did have gone unnoticed?

She was only twenty-five—that was probably a factor because she was too young for him to have paid attention to. Plus he’d been so involved with his marriage—first in the early throes of love, and then trying to save it—that he hadn’t really paid attention to any other females. And even as an adult, Nina’s being a Crawford just automatically clumped her together with the rest of her family, who had all been cast under the shadow of contempt. Put it all together and he supposed that he’d just been blind to her.

But he wasn’t blind to her anymore.

At that moment he was sorry he wasn’t sitting as close to her as he’d been in the backseat of his truck. With the blanket over the two of them. With his arm around her—the way it had been when he’d put it there without even thinking about it.

The same way he’d kissed her without even thinking about it....

A Crawford. He’d kissed a Crawford.

A pregnant Crawford.

This had been a very strange day....

But still, thinking about it, here he was wishing he was back there. Stuck in a blizzard. At risk of having to deliver that baby.

Because it had somehow been nice there like that. With her.

It had been the best time he’d had in a very, very long while....

Okay, maybe he’d lost it. The best time he’d had in a long time, and it had been in that situation, with a Crawford?

That was crazy.

And yet, true...

Because she was something, this Nina Crawford.

Even under the worst circumstances, out there stuck in the snow, there had still been something positive and affirming about her. Strong. He’d known she was worried and scared, and even in the face of that she hadn’t bemoaned anything, she’d held her head high about making the choice she’d made to have that baby on her own, and she was just...

Something.

Something a whole lot better than he’d been for the past year since his divorce.

Something a whole lot better than the cranky naysayer he sometimes felt as though he’d turned into.

She was a positive force. He was a negative one.

Figured. The Crawfords and the Traubs—oil and water. That was how they’d always been. How they always would be. Except that he and Nina hadn’t been oil and water today.

Not that that meant anything. Or mattered.

Even if she wasn’t a Crawford, he thought, she was still only twenty-five and pregnant, while he was thirty-four and had three kids. Nothing about any of that put them on the same page. And people who weren’t on the same page couldn’t—or at least shouldn’t—come together. He’d learned that the hard way with Laurel.

Not that what had gone on today was anything like he and Nina Crawford coming together, he told himself when his own thoughts alarmed him a little.

He just felt responsible for her for the moment. Because he was the other party involved in the near-collision that had put her in the hospital.

There wasn’t any more to it than that.

If he could just stop recalling every minute of being alone with her in his backseat.

“Dallas Traub? What are you doing here?”

Now that was a Crawford that Dallas recognized.

“Nate,” Dallas answered in a whisper, glancing up to find Nina’s brother Nathan Crawford in the doorway with their parents—Todd and Laura, who had also been front and center through the recent mayoral election in support of their son—who had lost the race to Dallas’s brother, Collin.

Dallas stood instantly to face them. “Didn’t Gage tell you what happened?” he whispered, both in response and as a signal to keep voices low.

“He said Nina went off the road and had to be brought here. He didn’t say anything about you,” the matriarch of the Crawford family whispered back harshly, obviously having taken the cue.

But the attempt to keep things quiet was already too late because from the bed Nina said, “Stop. Dallas isn’t to blame. It was all my fault. I couldn’t see him coming until it was too late and I’d pulled out in front of him. We both swerved to keep from crashing.”

“Still bad enough. What are you doing here now?” Todd Crawford demanded.

“Daddy, Dallas has been great!” Nina informed her father. “He took care of me until the sheriff got there and even then he didn’t let Gage move me, and he had Gage follow us to make sure we got here all right. And here he is, even now!”

Dr. Axel joined the group then and Nina seemed to seize the sudden presence of the obstetrician as help in mediating, because she said, “Hi, Dr. Axel. Could you maybe take my family out in the hallway and let them know what’s going on with the baby?”

The doctor did as requested, herding the other Crawfords from the room.

“Thought I needed to be rescued, did you?” Dallas said with a laugh, moving to stand directly at the foot of the bed.

“Three against one—bad odds,” she answered, sounding groggy and worn-out.

“I didn’t want to leave you by yourself,” Dallas explained his continuing presence.

“That was thoughtful.” She gestured in the direction her family had gone. “I’m sorry that was your reward for being so nice.”

“No big deal,” he assured her, finding that what was feeling like a big deal to him was the idea that he was going to have to leave her now....

“Everything with you and the baby is fine, you know that, right?” he said then.

“I do. I’m giving you credit for that.”

“Nah. I didn’t do anything.”

“You did—”

“I’m just glad you and the baby are okay.”

“And that you didn’t have to deliver it,” Nina said with a smile that let him know she was teasing him.

“That, too,” he agreed, laughing in return and basking in the warmth of that smile that he liked more than seemed possible.

“Is it still snowing?” she asked then.

“It is, but the wind stopped so it isn’t as bad out there.”

“You should get home, then. To your boys.”

Dallas nodded. He did need to get home. He just couldn’t figure out why he was so reluctant to leave Nina. Nina Crawford, he reminded himself, as if that would help. “I suppose your family can take over from here.”

“They will. And everything is okay anyway, so there isn’t really anything to take over. I’ll lie in this bed and get waited on tonight, then go home tomorrow.”

Again Dallas nodded, lingering. “I’m sorry for all of this. That it happened,” he said, although that wasn’t strictly the case. He was sorry for what had happened. Just not for the time he’d had with her after it had happened.

“I’m sorry, too,” Nina said. “I’m sure you had better plans today than to end up stuck on the side of a road in a blizzard thinking you might have to turn your backseat into a delivery room, and then sitting at this hospital for the past four hours.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve had worse days,” he declared with a laugh.

The reappearance of her family and the doctor at the door made it clear that he had to go whether he liked it or not. “Anyway, since you’re in good hands, I’ll head for home.”

“Thank you,” Nina said in a tone that had some intimacy to it.

“Anytime,” he answered with humor.

“Be careful going back.”

“I will be,” he promised.

And that was that.

But for another moment Dallas stayed there, still finding it oddly difficult to leave. To walk out and put this day behind him. To sever the connection that somehow seemed to have formed between them through the adversity they’d shared. To return to the way things had been before—to barely being aware that Nina Crawford existed.

He had to go, though. What else was he going to do? Especially when her family and doctor all came to stand around her bed, the Crawfords’ scorn for him thick in the air as they pretended he was invisible.

He stole one last glance at Nina, whose big brown eyes met his, who gave him a smile that spoke of the connection they’d made, if only for a little while today. Then he raised a palm to her in a goodbye wave and finally did manage to leave.

Wishing—for no reason he understood—that a lot of things might be different.

And realizing only as he got back on the elevator to go down to the lobby that for just a little while with her he hadn’t felt so bad....

* * *

By Friday, Nina was home in her small apartment above the General Store and feeling good again. Better than ever, in fact. But she was still following doctor’s orders not to return to work until Saturday.

Her mother had been hovering. Laura Crawford had even spent Thursday night with Nina. But over lunch Friday afternoon, when Laura was still there and giving no indication of leaving, Nina had convinced her that everything was back to normal, and that Laura should go home.

Once she had and Nina was alone, her thoughts turned to Dallas Traub.

Since Wednesday’s near-collision she’d been finding it nearly impossible not to think about him and had used the presence of family to distract herself. But, finally left to her own devices, she couldn’t seem to think about anything but the swaggeringly sexy, blue-eyed Traub with the great head of hair who had taken such kind and tender care of her.

She wanted to thank him again for everything he’d done on Wednesday.

That was all there was to her constant thoughts of him, she told herself. And it was reasonable to want to express her gratitude.

After all, not only had he put aside whatever petty differences their families had, but he’d gone out of his way for her at every juncture.

Until her family had arrived and been rude to him.

And even then he’d been calm and courteous. He’d absorbed their scorn and contempt with aplomb and without dishing out any of his own before he’d gone on his way.

She owed him more than gratitude, she decided.

But thanking him again was a start, in order to let him know just how much she appreciated everything.

And if she also felt the need to hear his voice again and make some kind—any kind—of contact with him?

Maybe it was an odd phenomenon where a person developed a sense of kinship with their rescuer.

That seemed possible.

It seemed more possible than any kind of alternative. Like wanting contact with him because she was attracted to him....

How crazy would that be? she asked herself.

Attracted to someone when she was eight months pregnant?

Attracted to a Traub?

Completely crazy, that’s how crazy it would be.

And even more crazy still when she factored in his age.

That was the frosting on the cake.

Dallas was nine years older than she was, so even if she wasn’t pregnant, and even if he wasn’t a Traub, his age alone was enough for her to steer completely clear of him.

Leo had been ten years older than she was, and Nina had had enough of the disadvantages that came with a relationship with a wide gap in ages. Enough of accommodating and adapting and making all the adjustments because that age seemed to bring with it the privilege of some kind of seniority.

And Leo hadn’t had kids.

Dallas Traub did. Three of them.

Kids only increased the need for any woman who got involved with him to be accommodating.

Involved?

She didn’t know why Dallas Traub and involvement had even come in the same thought. Of course she wasn’t and would never get involved with him!

She just wanted to talk to him, for crying out loud. And then maybe find a way to show her appreciation. Like with a fruit basket or something.

To reiterate her thanks. To apologize for the way her family had treated him.

It was all just the right thing, given what he’d done for her. Nothing more to it. Dallas had done her a huge kindness and service, and she owed him her gratitude.

And, hey, maybe if the two of them could treat each other courteously it could be the beginning of some kind of bridge between the two families, so that her child and his sons might not have to hate each other for no reason anyone could actually explain.

That was probably a stretch. The bad blood between the Traubs and the Crawfords had been going on for generations, and the mere act of reiterating her thanks to him wasn’t likely to cure that.

But still, she felt compelled to make the phone call.

It required a few other calls to friends to get Dallas’s cell phone number, but she finally did. When she dialed it he answered right away.

The sound of that deep, deep voice filled her with something she couldn’t explain. Something warm and satisfying.

But she ignored the response and said, “Dallas? This is Nina Crawford.”

He laughed. “You’re the only Nina I know. Hi!” he added, sounding happy to hear from her. Which was somewhat of a relief because it had crossed her mind that, now that they weren’t in dire straits, things between them might return to the normal state of affairs. At least, normal for their families.

“I’ve been thinking and thinking about you—how are you?” he asked immediately and in a tone that held only friendliness.

“I’m really good,” she said. “I got home yesterday and can’t work until tomorrow. But I feel fine and I would be downstairs doing everything I usually do right now if not for doctor’s orders.”

“Downstairs? In your store?”

“That’s where I work,” she answered with a laugh.

“I’m there now.”

He was just downstairs?

Knowing he was that nearby sent a sense of elation through her. Strange as it seemed...

“I live in the apartment above the store,” she informed him. “Want to come and see for yourself that—thanks to you—I’m faring very well?”

Nina had no idea where that had come from. It was nothing but impulse.

But Dallas didn’t hesitate before he said, “I’d like that! How do I get there?”

“Go to the back of the store. There’s a staircase behind Women’s Sleepwear and Intimates—”

“The boys will love that,” he said facetiously. Then he added, “Oh, I didn’t think about that. My boys are with me. Maybe we shouldn’t come up—”

“I’m kid-friendly,” she assured. Then she laughed again. “I’d better be.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind? And that you’re well enough?”

“I’m sure. Come on up.”

That was all the convincing it took for him to say eagerly, “Be right there.”

Hanging up, Nina knew that it was absurd to be as excited as she was by the fact that she was about to get to see Dallas again right now.

But that’s the way it was.

She was excited enough to make a quick detour to the nearest mirror to make sure her hair didn’t need brushing and to hurriedly apply a little mascara and blush.

She was wearing jeans and a red turtleneck sweater that was long enough and just loose enough to accommodate her not-too-large belly. And while she was shoeless, her socks were red-and-green argyle for the holiday so she stayed in her stocking feet to open the door.

Dallas was there when she did, his fisted hand ready to knock.

“Whoa,” he said, stopping short so she didn’t get the knock in the face.

Nina couldn’t help grinning at that first glimpse of him. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing boots, jeans and that same suede coat over a plaid flannel shirt with the collar button open to expose a white T-shirt underneath it.

Rugged, masculine, rock-solid and drop-dead gorgeous—so her mind hadn’t built him up to be more than he actually was, she thought. She’d been wondering if that might be the case.

“Come in! Take off your coats,” she invited, stepping aside.

Dallas crossed the threshold, trailed by three boys of varying heights, all of them younger versions of him, with the same blue eyes hazed with gray, the same heads of thick brown hair, the same bone structure.

“This is Ryder.” He began the introductions with a hand on the head of the tallest as they all removed their coats. “And Jake.” Clearly the middle child. “And Robbie—”

“I just got to be six and I go to kinnergarten,” Robbie announced.

“Then I’ll bet your teacher is Willa Christensen,” Nina said.

“No. It’s my aunt Willa but in school I need to call her Mrs. Traub. Like me, Robbie Traub. But she’s not my mom, she’s my aunt since she married my Uncle Collin.”

“Ah, that’s right. I guess I sort of forgot that Willa married your brother,” Nina said to Dallas.

“Lookit all this Christmas stuff! Lookit that tree!” Robbie said then, wasting no time moving into Nina’s apartment to survey her many Christmas decorations.

“It is pretty festive in here,” Dallas agreed.

“I love Christmas,” Nina said before focusing on the other two boys, who were staying near to their father. “So Robbie is six. You’re eight, Jake? And Ryder, you’re ten, right?”

“Yeah,” Jake confirmed while Ryder said nothing at all.

“Well, come on in. You can have a look around, too, if you want. There’s a dish of candy canes and taffy—if it’s all right with your dad you can help yourselves. And how would you all like some hot chocolate and Christmas cookies?”

“I would!” Robbie answered first.

“Me, too,” Jake seconded.

Ryder merely shrugged his concession just before Dallas said, “What do you say?”

“I would, please,” Robbie amended.

“Me, too, please.” Jake added some attitude while a simple “Please” was muttered by Ryder as the older boys joined the younger in looking around and ultimately being drawn to the train that circled the tree skirt.

“Does this work?” Jake asked.

“It does. The switch is on the side of the station house,” Nina answered, closing the door behind them all.

“Watch what you’re doing,” Dallas warned his sons.

“It’s okay,” Nina told him. “They can’t hurt anything. Like I said, kid-friendly.”

She led the way into the kitchen portion of the big open room that included a fair-sized kitchen and dining area separated from the large living room by an island counter.

“This is a nice place. I didn’t even know it was up here,” Dallas said as Nina set about heating milk and adding cocoa and broken chocolate bars.

“It’s where the first Crawfords in Rust Creek Falls lived when they started the store. A lot of us have taken advantage of it over the years. You can’t beat the commute to work,” she joked.

“You’ll bring your baby home here?”

“I will. There are two bedrooms—the nursery is almost ready, I just have a few finishing touches to put on it. And living up here after the baby is born—even before I’ve actually gone back to work—will let me still oversee some things. Then when I can get back to business as usual, I’ll have a nanny or a sitter here with the baby, but I’ll be able to carry a baby monitor with me to listen in and I’ll also be able to come up as many times a day as I want or need to.”

“Handy,” he agreed.

“I think it will be.”

“And is this still going to be a house of sugar when you have your own kid?” he asked as she set iced cookies out on a plate and then brought the pan of hot chocolate from the stove.

He was teasing her again and it struck her that there was already some familiarity in it. Familiarity she liked...

“It’s Christmas,” she defended. “And the middle of the afternoon—I’m sure they had lunch and dinner is far enough away that this won’t spoil their appetites.”

“And they’ll be so wired they won’t have to ride home in the truck, they’ll be able to run behind it,” he joked before advising, “Give them all half cups of hot chocolate.”

“Killjoy,” Nina accused playfully. And slightly flirtatiously, though she didn’t know where that had come from....

“Oh, so you’ve heard about how glum I’ve been the past year,” he joked back, smiling that crooked smile that lifted one side of his agile-looking mouth higher than the other.

His eyes were intent on her, and the humor allowed them to share a moment that told Nina she wasn’t alone in whatever it was she’d been feeling about him as her rescuer. That, regardless of the old feud between their families, things between the two of them were different now even if they were no longer in dire straits.

It pleased her. A lot.

Dallas took two mugs of hot chocolate in each of his big, capable hands, leaving Nina to carry the fifth and the plate of cookies into the living room. They set everything on her oval oak coffee table and the boys gathered around it, sitting on the floor while Nina and Dallas sat on her overstuffed black-and-gray buffalo-checked sofa.

After the boys tasted their hot chocolate and each took a cookie, Robbie looked to his father and said, “When are we gonna put up our tree?”

“You don’t have a tree yet?” Nina asked, surprised.

“Dad’s been too busy,” Jake answered, disappointment and complaint ringing in his tone as the three boys carried their cookies and hot chocolate with them and went back to playing with the train.

“Busy and not much in the mood,” Dallas confessed, quietly enough for the boys not to be able to hear.

“Scrooge,” she teased him the same way.

“I’m not usually,” he admitted, his voice still low and echoing with sorrow. “But this year...I don’t know. It’s felt all year like this family has been left sort of in shreds and I’m not quite sure how to sew it back together again. Or if I’m even up to it.”

“Kids need their holidays kept, no matter what,” Nina insisted.

But she couldn’t be too hard on him, considering that this was the anniversary of the end of his marriage and it couldn’t be an easy time for him.

So rather than criticizing any more, she decided to fall back on the reason she’d contacted him in the first place.

“I called because I wanted to thank you again for helping me on Wednesday,” she said, setting her own cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table and breaking off a section of a bell-shaped cookie. “I also wanted to apologize for the way my family treated you at the hospital.”

“I’m sure they were worried and upset about you and the baby—”

Robbie overheard that and perked up to look at them over his shoulder. “You’re gonna have a baby? I thought you just liked beer.”

Confused, Nina looked from the youngest Traub to Dallas and found Dallas grimacing. “We met an old friend of mine earlier today. He was a lot heavier than the last time I saw him and I razzed him about his beer belly.”

“Ah...” Nina said.

“But you,” Dallas went on in a hurry, obviously doing damage control. “It doesn’t seem like you’ve gained an ounce anywhere but baby—you really look...well, beautiful...”

It sounded as if he genuinely meant that—not like the gratuitous things that often came with people talking about her pregnancy. And that, too, pleased Nina. And when their eyes met once again, when she really could see that he didn’t find anything about her condition off-putting at all, and when Nina had the feeling that there was suddenly no one else in the world but the two of them, it made her all warm inside.

But there were other people in the world, in the room, in fact. His kids.

And just then Ryder said, “I need to get to Tyler’s.”

Dallas seemed to draw up short, as if he, too, had been lost in that moment between them and was jolted out of it by his eldest son’s reminder.

“His friend Tyler is having a sleepover,” Dallas explained. “And I still need to pick up a few things downstairs—our houses and the main barns were spared by the flood but some of the outbuildings and lean-tos had some damage. I thought we’d fixed everything but the blizzard showed us more weak spots, and I came for some lumber and some nails.” He paused, smiled slyly, then said, “And I figured if I came here rather than going to Kalispell I’d get the chance to ask how you’re doing...”

“I’m doing fabulously,” she answered as if he’d asked her.

The sly smile widened to a grin that lit up his handsome face.

“I told Tyler I’d be at his house by now,” Ryder persisted.

Dallas rolled his eyes but allowed his attention to be dragged away. “Okay, cups to the kitchen,” he ordered in a tone that sounded reluctant.

“I’ll take care of it,” Nina said.

“Not a chance.” Dallas overruled her, even cleaning up after her by taking her hot chocolate mug, too, and leaving her to merely follow behind them all with the cookie plate.

Once the cups were rinsed and in the sink, and coats were replaced, Nina went with them to the apartment door, opening it for them.

The boys immediately went out and headed for the stairs.

“Wait for me right there,” Dallas warned as he lingered with Nina.

Then he glanced at her again with the same look in his blue eyes that had been there when he’d told her she was beautiful. “I’m really glad to see that you’re okay. Better than okay.”

“It’s all thanks to you,” she told him.

He flashed that one-sided smile again. “All me, huh? Doctors, the hospital—none of that had anything to do with it?”

“They just did the checkup. It was you who got me through the worst. And then took heat from my family for it.”

“Just happy to help,” he said as if he meant that, too.

“I owe you....”

“Nah. You don’t owe me anything.”

Nina merely smiled. “I’m glad you came up today.”

“Me, too.”

“Dad!” Ryder chastised from the top of the stairs.

“In a minute,” Dallas said without taking his eyes off Nina. He was clearly reluctant to leave. “Guess I better go. Take care of yourself. And that baby,” he advised.

“I will,” she agreed.

Then he had no choice but to go, and Nina leaned out of her apartment door so she could watch him join his sons, so she could watch the four of them descend the steps.

And all the while she was still smiling to herself.

Because she’d thought of a much, much better thank-you gift than a fruit basket.

A gift that would put her in the company of Dallas Traub one more time.