Alias Mommy

Polly froze. Someone else was acting as though she were helpless. But this was help she really needed.

She would pay Esther. It would be a business transaction.

“Thanks,” she said graciously. She let her body relax. It was good to know she had alternatives.

And, perhaps, friends.

STIFLING A YAWN as he walked down the corridor after doing his hospital rounds, Reeve inhaled the ubiquitous odor of disinfectant. The yellow walls of the medical center’s office annex reminded him of sunshine, but their brightness failed to perk him up this afternoon. He’d had a late night; an elderly patient had slipped in his shower, and Reeve had come in to handle his treatment.

Reeve stopped at his office door, hand poised on the knob, as a squeak from down the hall caught his attention.

Polly Black pushed a stroller toward him, one that had seen better days. In it was the baby, Laurel, propped up with blankets. She was wide awake, her large blue eyes staring merrily ahead, tiny arms waving.

They stopped in the middle of the hall, and the squeak ceased. Reeve found himself grinning. “Hi. I thought you were discharged from the center this morning.”

“I was. But I wasn’t allowed to explore as a patient, and I wanted to see where I’ll eventually be working. It’s windy out, so I cut through the office building. Didn’t want Laurel to get too blown.”

“Of course. Frannie told me you’re staying at her aunt’s place down the block. Are you okay to walk around like this? You look a little tired.”

“I’m taking it slow and easy. We won’t be out long.”

Polly’s bruises and cuts had faded, and the bump on her forehead had nearly disappeared. She looked slender in her cinched plaid top and slacks. Her cap of dark curls framed a face with perfect bone structure. Her full, pink lips, smiling in what seemed like a perfectly innocent and friendly manner, nevertheless reminded Reeve of his too-frequent urge to kiss her. The thought, as usual, caused a chain reaction—warmth that crept up his body, a tightening in his groin….

Alicia had attempted to get him interested since his wife had died. She had tried too hard. But Polly…

“Your stroller makes a lot of noise,” he said, to change the direction of his thoughts.

She looked abashed, and that made him feel ashamed of his criticism. “Sorry,” she said. “I borrowed it from Frannie’s sister and didn’t know how to make it stop squeaking.”

He stared at her in surprise. The solution seemed elementary to him.

But maybe not to everyone. Certainly not to Polly. “Oil. Or WD-40. I probably have some in my office. Come in, and we’ll find out.”

The small squeak pursued him into his office as Polly followed with baby and stroller. Sure enough, he had a can of spray. Waiting until Polly picked up the baby, he used the spray liberally on the wheels, then tested it. In moments, the squeal was gone.

“Thanks,” Polly said. “You’ve saved me again.” A flush immediately crept up her lovely face, and her hand went to her mouth. “But that doesn’t mean you have any responsibility—” She stopped, reddening even further.

She charmed him, with her sweet blushing. He wanted to take her into his arms, baby and all, and assure her that helping her had been his pleasure.

How ridiculous. What was it about this woman that caused him to forget professionalism and turn into a drooling idiot?

It was the baby, of course. And his memories.

And this woman had a husband somewhere—former or not—who had the right to see his daughter.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, keeping his tone level. “My responsibility is to the medical center. You wouldn’t want that squeak disturbing the patients, would you?”

“Of course not.” She looked even more disconcerted. Reeve silently cursed himself. He seemed to be going out of his way to make this woman feel uncomfortable. And he had no right to judge her for the way she treated her divorced husband…no matter how Annette had treated him.

But the baby—

“Is it all right for me just to wander around the hospital?” Polly sounded concerned. “Frannie said I could, but…well, I don’t want to break any rules. She was on duty this afternoon, or she would have taken me.”

“I can show you around,” Reeve blurted.

Why had he said that?

“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.” But there was relief in her gray eyes, and he knew he wouldn’t back out now, even if he wanted to.

Which, he admitted to himself, he didn’t.

You’re a thousand kinds of fool, he told himself. This woman is not Annette. Hanging around her and her baby isn’t going to bring Cindy back to you.

And if her husband—ex-husband, she’d said—was idiot enough to let Polly and her baby go, that was his problem, not Reeve’s.

“Okay, ladies, step right up,” he said, letting his voice project like an old sideshow barker’s. “Follow me to the stupendous, the unequaled, Selborn Community Medical Center.”

DAMN IT! thought Polly, following Reeve down the office corridor. She wanted to stamp her foot. Scream. Do something to ingrain the lesson deep in her soul so she wouldn’t have to learn it even one more time.

She had done it again, acted helpless. Allowed someone else to fix something for her.

And that someone had been Reeve Snyder. The very handsome man, she reminded herself constantly, who had saved her life, then helped her find a job.

If she weren’t careful, she could come to rely on him. And that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Never mind that her latest folly had been as trivial as a squeaky wheel. She stared with dislike at the stroller she pushed, then shook her head. It wasn’t the stroller’s fault. It was hers.

“Thanks,” she said as Reeve held the door open for her, then she exclaimed, “Oh, this is lovely!” The path between the office building and the hospital was a concrete walkway, surrounded on both sides by a large, attractive garden. Fall flowers not only emitted a wonderful fragrance, their gold and orange shades were a bright relief from the sterile sameness of the surrounding buildings. Wooden benches lined the walk.

And towering above them, just like over the rest of the small, quaint town, were the giant, craggy Rockies.

“It is a nice oasis, isn’t it?” Reeve brushed a leaf off a bench with a proprietary gesture. “I sometimes come here to eat lunch and get away from the chaos of the center and my office.”

“Maybe Laurel and I can, too.” She glanced at Reeve and found him staring at her. Was it her imagination, or was there a look of longing in his golden-brown eyes? Surely he didn’t want her to invite him to join them.

She wanted to.

She didn’t want to.

She stayed silent.

They continued walking, and in moments, they were inside the medical center. It was a much smaller facility than Polly was used to. She always equated hospitals with the big-city facilities in Boston where her mother and stepfather had gone for their minor surgeries. And the one where her father had been taken….

Laurel began to cry. Polly stopped the stroller and unstrapped the baby, taking her into her arms. “It’s all right,” she crooned, not having the foggiest idea what had upset the sweet, squirming infant. She had fed Laurel not more than half an hour earlier, had changed her diaper. Still…She pulled up the tiny pink dress she had borrowed, like everything else, from Frannie’s sister, and stuck her finger inside the diaper. Sure enough, it was wet.

“Oops, you’re a quick one, baby,” she told her daughter. Placing Laurel carefully on a bench, she managed to change the diaper swiftly. She was getting to be a pro at this.

The idea of her being a pro at anything made her smile.

“What’s so funny?” Reeve asked. He didn’t snap at her to hurry, hadn’t said anything at all when she delayed his progress.

He was so different from—

“Nothing,” she said hurriedly. “Now, little one, let Mama know if you get uncomfortable again.” She gave Laurel a kiss on her soft, smooth cheek, strapped her in the stroller again and stood. “Not that I’ve any doubt that she’ll tell me next time she’s wet. She’s not one to keep things to herself.” Polly knew she sounded proud, but why not? She would encourage this little one to speak up for herself forever.

“Sounds like you’ll be a good mother.” Reeve’s voice sounded wistful, and Polly glanced at him. He gazed down the hallway with a blank expression on his face, as though he had just commented on the weather.

Polly recalled what Frannie had told her: that Reeve had lost his wife and child. Maybe just being around babies made him uncomfortable.

“Look,” she said, “if you have work to do, I’m sure we can find our way ourselves.”

Was that an expression of pain that crossed his face? Darn it! She didn’t seem to handle anything right with this man. “I’ll show you to the patient accounts office, at least,” Reeve said. “And maybe the child care center, too, for when Laurel gets older.” He took Polly’s elbow as they began walking again. She remained utterly conscious of the small contact, as though every nerve in her body had suddenly marched through her to congregate in that one small spot.

She sought a topic of conversation to take her mind off the warmth of Reeve’s fingers through her light maternity blouse. “Having a child care facility right in the medical center is a wonderful idea.”

“Thanks,” he said.

She looked at him in puzzlement.

He chuckled. “It was my idea.”

“Really? It sounds like something a woman would dream up.”

“I dreamed it up to attract women. And men. The best medical personnel that we could lure to such a small, out-of-the-way town to create a community medical center. And it’s worked remarkably well.”

“Then this medical center was your idea?” Polly was impressed.

They passed a busy cafeteria filled with people in white and green uniforms. The pleasant aroma of spicy tomato sauce wafted out the doorway. “You can always come here for a good bite to eat.” Reeve pointed inside. “We also attracted some pretty darned good food service people.” He started walking again, and Polly joined him, the stroller rolling before her. “Yes, the center was my brainchild. I grew up around here, saw too many injuries that would not have been life threatening get that way because it took too long to get adequate help. I didn’t intend to get into emergency medicine myself, but I wind up helping a lot in crisis situations.”

“Laurel and I are glad you do.” Polly knew her voice sounded warm. Embarrassed, she glanced at Reeve, to find him looking at her intensely, his golden-brown eyes dark with an emotion she couldn’t interpret. A tingling began in her toes and rocketed through her. What if he really was someone she could trust? What if—

Forget that. She couldn’t trust anyone, especially not herself. She had been so wrong before. So very wrong.

Pulling her gaze away, she stooped to straighten Laurel in the stroller. When she stood again, she attempted to get the conversation back on a neutral topic. “So, you were the center’s founder. Are you involved in its administration?”

“Everyone here is. It’s a sort of co-op, where the doctors all have a stake in its success. Right now, I’m in charge of a committee to raise funds for a new rescue helicopter that’ll pick up injured people on the slopes and take emergencies to big Denver hospitals. Sometimes I wish my role was more low-key, though. People seem to equate me with organizing, which is why they also elected me to city council.”

Polly halted so fast her head spun. She pretended to study a painting of snow-covered mountains, but she felt suddenly as icy inside as though she were standing on one of the depicted slopes in her underwear. “You’re on city council?” She heard the choked tone in her voice and cleared her throat.

“That’s how I came to be out the night of your accident.” Reeve must have caught her tone, as he sounded defensive.

There was no reason he should, of course. Just because she had a deep, terrifying aversion to politicians…

She had almost forgotten everything. Why she had fled. Why she was here.

But now she remembered. Only too well. And she needed to get away from Reeve Snyder. To compose herself. Collect her thoughts.

If he had been kind to her, it had been for a reason. He was not just a doctor. He was a politician. Politicians were controlling. Manipulative. Deceptive.

She swallowed a sob.

She recalled only then Ernie Pride’s reference to city council when he’d visited her hospital room. If only she had realized—

But it would have made no difference. Except she wouldn’t have believed that she might come to trust Reeve.

Just beyond them was a patients’ lounge filled with comfortable-looking upholstered chairs interspersed with tables covered with magazines. The few people in the room watched a television in a corner.

“Excuse me,” Polly managed to murmur. “I’m going to sit down for a little while.”

“Are you all right?” Reeve’s voice sounded as though he were in a cave. No. She was in the cave, and the ceiling and floor, covered with stalactites and stalagmites, were closing in on her.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. She sat on one of the chairs, then plucked Laurel from the stroller. The baby began crying as Polly held her too tightly.

Cut it out, damn it! she told herself. She was overreacting. It didn’t matter to her whether Reeve Snyder was a politician or a polecat. They both smelled equally bad.

It wasn’t as though she were involved with him. As though she cared who or what he was.

No, what had gotten to her was her memories. Of other politicians.

Of her family.

Reeve sat down beside her. His shining brown eyes were narrowed in question, and she made herself smile weakly at him. She couldn’t let on what she thought. She needed the flexible job. Needed to be here.

And if his concern seemed genuine—well, she didn’t dare let herself believe it. She knew better.

She had let herself believe before.

“I guess I’m still a little tired after the accident, the baby and all,” she said, trying to sound perky. “I’ll just sit here for a few minutes, if that’s all right.”

“Of course.” There was a warmth in his voice that made tears rush to her eyes. What an actor he was! He really sounded as though he cared. “Would you like a drink of water?”

“No. Thank you.” She tried to keep her voice even, though she wanted to shriek at him to leave her alone.

At the same time, she wanted him to take her into his strong arms—arms that had rescued Laurel and her—to let her cry on his broad shoulder. She was so alone….

But that would be weakness. Dependency. On the very person who caused her distress.

Just like before.

She would not let that happen again. Ever.

“I…I’m a little dizzy,” she said without looking at Reeve. “Do you mind if I just stay here for a few minutes?”

“Of course not.”

She expected him to take her words as a dismissal, but he didn’t. He was a busy man. A doctor. A politician. Surely he had something to do besides hang around her.

But there he remained. Sitting beside her, he reached over and took Laurel from her.

The sudden emptiness of her arms nearly shattered Polly, and she almost cried out. But she didn’t, since she somehow felt relieved, too.

Reeve hadn’t abandoned her, even though she had been less than kind to him.

Just because he was a politician did not mean he was as cruel and hypocritical as most she had known. He didn’t criticize her, and he didn’t tell her he would take care of everything.

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