Thanksgiving

  Megan gave him a dazed look and nodded. “You won’t be gone long, will you?”

  “What a wench. We hardly know each other, and already you can’t get enough of me. Love at first sight, huh?”

  He tweaked her freckled nose and smiled as he closed the front door. She had a terrible temper, he thought, couldn’t cook, and she didn’t know squat about babies, but damned if she didn’t look good in his kitchen. All that outrageous hair and eyes the color of a stormy ocean, sort of gray-green, with curly red lashes, and there was an electricity to her. Yessir, he wouldn’t mind playing doctor with Megan Murphy.

  Megan touched the tip of her finger to the tip of her nose. He’d tweaked her. On the nose. It was the sort of thing someone would to to his child…or his rabbit!

  Patrick Hunter was a strange person. A total enigma…She couldn’t tell when he was teasing and when he was serious. He seemed altogether too casual about his responsibilities. And she didn’t like being tweaked on the nose in such an offhand manner.

  Two hours later Megan was smiling at the little boy sleeping in her arms and wondering why it had taken her so long to discover babies. They were terrific. Timmy was especially terrific—even if he had howled for ages. He had soft blond curls, big blue eyes, and blond eyelashes. His chubby cheeks were flushed in sleep, his pink bow mouth slightly pouted, and his dimpled hand was resting against her breast. She’d pulled the Boston rocker directly in front of the huge brick fireplace, built a blazing inferno, and rocked the child to sleep. The fire had burned itself down to glowing embers, and her arms were stiff from holding the little boy, but she couldn’t bring herself to disturb him.

  The moment Pat opened the door and saw Megan, he knew he was a goner. Everything about her seemed softened. The flame-red hair was now burnished copper, the ivory skin more golden. She wore a black vest that laced down the front and the scoop-necked, shirred white blouse of a colonial working girl. The costume enhanced the elegant slope of her neck and shoulders and the luscious swell of her breasts.

  He’d liked the way she looked in his kitchen, but he was overwhelmed by the sight of her in his rocking chair. She was the most provocative creature he’d ever encountered. Patrick, he warned himself, she’s not the sort to mess with. This was a woman with strong convictions, intense emotions, and morals. Dammit. She had “hands off” written all over her.

  He walked over to her and pushed a long, silky strand of hair behind her ear. He wanted to continue touching her until his hands had memorized every square inch of satiny skin.

  She looked at him drowsily. “I think my arm is dead.”

  “Your arm?” he said thickly.

  “From holding the baby. I can’t feel my fingers any more.”

  Pat dragged himself back to reality. Here he was, ready to do the caveman thing and drag her off to bed, and she was pinned to the chair by a twenty-two-pound baby. He was losing it. His elevator wasn’t going all the way to the top these days. Residency had been too long. He was suffering from social deprivation. He carefully took the baby from her and laid him down on the plump two-cushion couch that served as a room divider.

  Megan stood and stretched, rubbing life back into her arm. “Did you find Tilly?”

  “No. Her apartment was locked, and she didn’t list any relatives on her medical history. I’ve talked to her neighbors, been to the train station, the bus station, called the airport. She’s vanished.” Pat set a paper bag on the floor by the fireplace. “I brought us some burgers.”

  He stoked the embers and added an armful of logs while Megan arranged the fries and shakes and cheeseburgers on the huge brick hearth.

  “I can’t believe she did this,” he said. “She seemed like such a nice kid, and I know she loves this baby.”

  Megan sat Indian fashion on a red braid rug and took a bite of her cheeseburger. “She must have been desperate.”

  “No one should ever be that desperate,” he said angrily. “This kid is going to become a ward of the state. What the hell was she thinking?”

  Megan swallowed, but the cheeseburger felt stuck in her throat. “What do you mean, he’ll become a ward of the state? Tilly said she’d only be gone a couple of weeks.”

  “I can’t keep this child. I have to turn him over to the authorities.”

  “Why? Why?”

  Oh, boy, Pat thought. He’d seen that look before. It happened shortly after childbirth. As a pediatrician he had a healthy respect for the protective instincts accompanying motherhood, and after two hours of exposure to Timmy Coogan, Megan had obviously caught adoptive hormonal maternalitis. He suspected his chances of prying the kid away from her were zip. He chewed his French fries while he weighed his options.

  “He’s just a baby, for goodness’ sake,” she argued. “It isn’t as if we found him sleeping in a dumpster. Tilly asked us to take care of him for a little while.”

  “Us?”

  “You. You have to take care of him.”

  He lounged back on one elbow. “She thought we were married.”

  Megan felt the blush rise up her neck. The tone of his voice made her uncomfortable. It was a bedroom voice, velvet-edged and suggestive. She slurped her chocolate milk shake and wondered what she was getting into. Patrick Hunter looked like the wolf about to eat the gingerbread man.

  “Forget it,” she said. “This is one gingerbread man who’s going to make it to old age.”

  “You want to run that by me again?”

  She stuffed her empty wrappers into the bag. “No. It would be embarrassing. I’m going home.”

  He followed her to the kitchen. “Hold on. You can’t leave me alone with the baby.”

  “Sure, I can.”

  “I’ll turn him over to the state.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I have no choice. I work all day. What would I do with him?”

  “You could get a baby-sitter.”

  Gotcha, Pat thought. He’d gotten her back in his kitchen. Back in his rocking chair. And who knew where they’d go from the rocking chair?

  “Okay. I’ll let you baby-sit, but only if you agree to have supper with us every night. I think it’s important for a family to be together at the dinner table.”

  Megan smiled triumphantly and wrapped her cape around her shoulders. “Deal!”

  She whisked out the front door and headed for her car, parked by Merchants Square. She’d walked less than a block when she stopped short and gasped. Patrick Hunter had manipulated her! That no-good, irresistible skunk had wheedled her into taking care of the baby!

  Chapter 2

  Megan opened one eye and squinted at the clock radio. Five-thirty in the morning, and some lunatic was pounding on her front door. She dragged herself out of bed and looked out her bedroom window. She was right. It was a lunatic. It was Patrick Hunter. She opened her window and yelled down at him. “If you want to live you’ll stop pounding on my front door.”

  “Cranky in the morning, huh? I know how to fix that.”

  She might be cranky, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly what he meant, and she was going to ignore it. “What are you doing here?”

  He held up a blue plaid bundle for her inspection. “The baby.”

  “It’s five-thirty in the morning!”

  “I have to be at the hospital by six.”

  Megan blinked, nodded, and slammed the window shut. She shuffled into a pair of big blue furry slippers and halfheartedly slid a blue velour robe over her long silk nightgown.

  “Hospital by six,” she mumbled as she scuffed down the stairs. She flicked the light on in the foyer and unlatched the front door. “I’m not a morning person,” she explained to Pat.

  He handed her the sleeping baby and retrieved two grocery bags from his car. “That was before motherhood, Mrs. Hunter.”

  Mrs. Hunter, she thought. Very funny. She awkwardly held the baby in front of her as she headed for the kitchen. “I don’t remember how to hold him.”

  Pat followed her.
“You act like you’ve never seen a baby before.”

  “Not up close. I was an only child. I was spoiled and pampered and never exposed to the sordid aspects of life…like drool and baby poo.”

  He set a pile of baby clothes on the counter, deposited a gallon of milk in the refrigerator, stacked up a few jars of baby food, and slapped a hastily scribbled note on the kitchen table. “I’ve jotted down a few helpful hints. And just in case life gets sordid…” He took a huge box of disposable diapers from the second bag and set it on the floor.

  She closed her eyes and thought of an appropriate expletive. “I don’t know how to do this,” she wailed. “I can’t change a diaper!”

  Pat unwrapped the baby and spread the blue plaid blanket on the floor. He removed Tim’s heavy sweater and knitted hat, leaving him in yellow terry-cloth pajamas, and sat him in the middle of the blanket. Then he rummaged through the kitchen drawers, finding two wooden spoons, a plastic measuring cup, and a medium-size saucepan. “Toys,” he told Megan, placing them on the blanket with Tim. “If you have any problems, my office number is on the paper.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “My receptionist. She’s lived here all her life and knows everything about everyone.”

  “Did she tell you I have a job? What about my job? How am I supposed to work?”

  “You only work on weekends. Today is Monday.”

  “Wrong. Being a visitors’ aide is a weekend job. I’m just doing that temporarily to make money. My real job is—”

  “You should have thought of all this before you begged me to let you baby-sit.” Pat bent down and kissed Tim on the top of his head. “Good-bye, Tim. Be a good guy for Mommy Hunter.” He turned to Megan and kissed her on the top of the head too. “Good-bye, Mrs. Hunter.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I hate when you do that!”

  “Do what?”

  “Tweak my nose or kiss the top of the head…or wherever.”

  Pat looked down at her. In all honesty he wasn’t that happy about tweaking her on the nose or kissing her on top of the head, either, but he was just about foaming at the mouth to kiss her on her wherever. She’d been too sleepy and too distracted to belt her robe, and in the course of her travels about the house it had parted, exposing a tantalizing corridor of smooth skin and slinky nightgown. He had been making a supreme effort not to stare. He was afraid if he got a really good look, he might start drooling, and he knew she hated drool.

  “Megan…” He studied her face, unsure of the emotions he found there. She was lovely. Already she was tying him in knots, yet he didn’t have a clue about her feelings for him. He suspected they might not be flattering. His gaze strayed to the low neckline of her pale yellow nightgown. Oh, hell, he thought, sliding his hands along her neck. It would be worth a broken nose to get a good-morning kiss.

  Megan stood absolutely still at the touch of his hands, barely breathing, wondering at the sensations flooding through her, a paralyzing mixture of desire, guilt, and anger. There was something else, too, a ridiculous delusion that she actually was Mrs. Hunter.

  It felt perfectly natural to be standing in her nightgown and robe, waiting for Pat to kiss her. She tipped her head toward him and instinctively parted her lips, thinking that he was really very nice in the morning. Warm and cuddly, with that endearing, teasing grin. She watched him slowly move closer and felt his lips barely skim across hers. Much better than getting tweaked on the nose, she thought dreamily. This wasn’t a boring, taken-for-granted kiss. This was a friendly kiss.

  His hands slid down her arms and she was suddenly crushed to him. His hands moved across her back. He whispered her name and kissed her ear, then her neck just below the earlobe. She gasped at her body’s fiery reaction. She hadn’t expected this. Not so fast. Not so intense.

  “Whoa,” she said, pushing against him. “Time out. Just a darn minute.”

  He stared at her in a haze of desire. “Whoa?”

  “You have some nerve, having an innocent little nose like that and then kissing like Conan the Barbarian.” She swallowed and put her hand to her chest to help keep her heart from breaking through the skin. “And in front of the baby! What will he think?”

  Shoot, Pat thought. Now he’d done it. He’d attacked her like some kind of animal. Hunter, he silently shouted, you’re such a weenie! He wrapped the blue robe tightly around her and tied the belt in a double knot, then looked at his watch.

  “Damn, I’m late. I’ll pick up the kid at six.”

  He bolted through the doorway, then paused. “About that kiss. I don’t want you to think I’m easy.”

  “I don’t think you’re easy. I think you’re nuts. I think you’re a sex maniac.”

  He grinned and waved. “Good. I was worried.”

  She listened to his car pull out of the driveway and turned to the sleeping Tim. “You know what I really think? I think he’s magic. No one’s ever kissed me like that. No one! Not that it matters. I’m done with men, forever.”

  She put the water on for coffee and sat down to read the helpful hints, but her thoughts kept returning to Pat. She wondered if she was just licking her wounds from her relationship with Dave. Was this just a reaction from her bruised ego? No, she thought. When Pat had touched her, it had been magical. No other explanation. She’d gone gooney-brained.

  Tim awoke, saw the strange woman looking down at him, and began to howl.

  Almost twelve hours later Megan glared at Tim and wiped a splot of smushed green beans off her nose. The baby seemed to have become adjusted to her during this long day.

  “So, how old are you, kid? Nine, ten months? You think you’re a match for a twenty-seven-year-old college graduate? Hah! Gotcha.”

  She successfully spooned a load of green beans into the little mouth.

  “Brrrph,” Tim said, spewing green beans across the table and into Megan’s hair.

  Pat chugged into the driveway in his old tan Dodge van and made a quick assessment of Megan’s house in the fading light. He’d found out she was house-sitting for a member of the William and Mary faculty who was on sabbatical. On the outskirts of town, the house was surrounded by several acres of land. A barn and a large fenced-in pasture stood behind it. It was a neat two-story colonial, painted a traditional Williamsburg butternut yellow, with trim in two shades of green. A battered car was parked by the garage. The car was a faded maroon color, and was missing a back bumper and a front left fender. Possibly the only car in Williamsburg uglier than his, he thought.

  He let himself into the unlocked house. “Hello,” he called from the front door. “Anybody home?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “Having fun?”

  She scowled at him as he walked into the kitchen, and pointed at her green-speckled hair. “You think this is fun?”

  Pat made an effort not to laugh. Being a new mother could be a trying experience.

  Megan leaned back in her chair. “Well, I suppose it has been fun. You know what he did today? He said cookie. This kid is so smart.” She wiped Timmy’s face clean with a wet cloth.

  “The problem is, I’m not getting anything done! This is a busy time of the year for me.” She lifted a teapot from the counter and handed it to Pat. “I’m a potter. I make these tea sets, and a little boutique in Old Town Alexandria sells them for me. They have a big order in for the Christmas season.”

  “You made this? It’s beautiful.”

  She took it from him and ran her finger over the white-and-blue glaze. “Thanks. My really pretty pieces I save for a gallery in Washington. I’m going to have my first one-woman show in January.”

  Pat looked at the little boy tied to a kitchen chair with an apron and felt guilty. He hadn’t known about Megan’s pottery. Somehow he had to make things easier for her. “Maybe I should hire a different baby-sitter. I didn’t realize you had these commitments.”

  Megan noticed he was wearing the sneakers with the sutures again. He didn’t have any money, she guessed. He
was just starting out, like her, and he was probably getting by day to day. Where would he find the money to pay a baby-sitter? Besides, she liked Timmy. She wouldn’t trust just anyone to take care of him. She shook her head and opened a jar of beige gook.

  “No way. We made a deal. This kid doesn’t get to spit beans on anybody but me…or you. Here.” She handed the gook to Pat. “You get to feed him dessert. Rice pudding.”

  “Looks pretty good. Do we have an extra jar? I didn’t have time for lunch.”

  “Sorry. We have junior beef stew and smashed beets.” She looked in her freezer. “Turkey dinner, ham and sweet potato, veal parmigiana.”

  “Veal parmigiana. You weren’t kidding when you said you couldn’t cook? Do you always eat frozen dinners?”

  “No. Mostly I eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Why is this kid eating his food for you? Why isn’t he decorating your face with it?”

  “Would you spit out dessert?”

  Pat certainly had chosen the right profession, Megan thought as she sat down across from him. He was great with babies.

  “Are you a pediatrician because you know a lot about kids? Or do you know a lot about kids because you’re a pediatrician?”

  “A little bit of both. I have an older brother and three younger sisters. I guess I did my share of baby-sitting.”

  “Do they live around here?”

  “My parents live in San Diego. My brother and his wife and kids live in Connecticut. My oldest sister is a graduate student at Berkeley. My two younger sisters go to UCLA.” He grimaced. “Everyone’s coming here for Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  “It seemed like a good idea two weeks ago. A real, old-fashioned Thanksgiving in Williamsburg.” He thunked the spoon into the empty pudding jar and stared at the steaming frozen dinner she slid in front of him. “You sure you don’t know how to cook?”