LITMIR.BIZ

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fishing for compliments. Like I said, the way you handled the support group babies the other night convinced me you already have a certain amount of expertise. But remember, those babies were a few weeks old. You’re going to be handling little ones a couple of hours old. There’s a difference.”

      “Piece of cake. It’s like riding a bike. You never forget.”

      “You wouldn’t want to share how you acquired the knowledge in the first place, would you?”

      “You already know I’m an uncle.”

      She nodded. “But that doesn’t qualify you for nanny of the year. I know a lot of men who want nothing to do with babies, let alone children.” My father included, she thought before she could stop it.

      “My sister Rosie strong-armed me into babysitting.”

      Liz glanced from the top of his head to his worn jeans below the hem of his lab coat, then to the tips of his scuffed loafers. He was tall and had a muscle or two tacked on to that rather attractive frame. He was no lightweight. She remembered Rosie Marchetti Schafer. Joe’s little sister wasn’t strong enough to force him to do anything he didn’t want to. If his acquired knowledge came from babysitting his niece, it was definitely because he wanted to.

      “How is your sister?” Liz asked, genuinely interested. She remembered the pretty, dark-haired woman and her hunky husband. They were hard to forget, let alone jettison the surprising envy Liz had felt watching a loving couple like Steve and Rosie Schafer.

      “Fine.”

      Liz put a hand on her hip and shook her head at him. “I can see you didn’t inherit the gift of gab.”

      “What?”

      “Fine?” she mocked. “No embellishment? That’s all you have to say?”

      He stared at her for a moment, then proceeded to expertly diaper the doll without blueprints, arrows, or visual aids of any kind.

      Task accomplished, he gave her his full attention. “Okay. I’ll embellish. Stephanie, my niece, is beautiful, healthy and in the process of being spoiled rotten by her doting uncles and grandparents. My sister and her husband are ecstatically happy. They love being parents. They could be the poster couple for the American family.”

      For just a moment, Liz thought she noticed a wistful look in his eyes when he mentioned family. Then it was gone and she figured she must have imagined it. Easy to do considering where she worked.

      Every day she saw moms and dads bring new babies into the world. Some of them had other children who came to visit and welcome a new brother or sister into the family. She recalled that Joe had several brothers. The Marchettis seemed to be a large and loving clan. That didn’t necessarily mean the sons were one-woman men. If nothing else, his looks made him a babe magnet. The attention he must get from women would be hard to ignore.

      Not for a minute did she believe his spin from the other night. She would give anything to be able to dump her skepticism. But her childhood had been a front row seat in watching how imperfect marriage was. His parents may have stayed together for thirty-five years, but she would bet they weren’t happy about it. He was just doing what playboys did. Charm a roomful of women with what he thought they wanted to hear.

      She wanted to accept that he had volunteered for the reasons he’d told her the other night. But the doubting Thomas in her believed that women were nurturers who derived pleasure from holding a baby. A man who was there ostensibly for that reason had to have an ulterior motive. Either he planned to milk the experience for publicity for the family restaurant chain, or he was there to meet women. Whatever his motivation, she would do what was necessary to protect the program.

      “Anything else you want to know about Rosie?” he asked.

      “No. I think you’ve embellished sufficiently,” she said sweetly.

      “Good. Have you covered everything? About my orientation?”

      She nodded. “Except which shift you want.”

      Just then, the nursery door opened. Samantha Taylor walked in. She was an obstetrics nurse, and a tall redhead.

      “Hi, Sam,” Liz said.

      “Hey, boss.” She glanced at Joe as if she were trying to place him, then back to Liz. “What are you doing here?”

      “This is Joe Marchetti,” Liz said as if that answered the question.

      “Hi.” Sam held out her hand. “You look familiar.”

      “We met about a year ago,” he said shaking her hand. “My sister had her baby here.”

      “Yes,” Sam said nodding. “Now I remember. We talked that night. I told you about the cuddlers program.”

      “That’s right,” he said, smiling that charming, orthodontia-ad smile of his.

      Liz wouldn’t be surprised if she’d just come face to face with the Marchetti motivation. But had Sam heard about how badly he’d used one of the other nurses? Liz wondered if she should warn her friend that he was the love ’em and leave ’em type. She couldn’t blame Joe for wanting to get to know Sam better. Although signing up for the cuddlers program seemed a little extreme. Because pretty much all he had to do was stand there to make an impression on a woman.

      Correction, Liz told herself, any woman but her.

      Was it possible that she was wrong about him? Joining the cuddlers seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go through to meet a woman.

      She smiled at Sam. “It seems your pitch made a profound impression on Mr. Marchetti. He’s decided to be a cuddler. I’m orienting him to the nursery.”

      “Ah, that explains what you’re doing here on your day off,” the other woman said. “I refuse to waste my breath reminding you what the word delegate means. Or explaining the downside of employee burnout. I just came to get some money out of my purse for lunch.”

      Joe looked at his watch. “Is it that time already?”

      Sam laughed. “I don’t need a clock. My growling stomach say it’s time to take a trip to the cafeteria.”

      “Now that you mention it, I’m hungry too,” he said.

      Liz had to give him credit. He’d just given himself the perfect playboy lead-in to join Sam for lunch and cast his line, work his magic, lay the groundwork for his conquest. Sam was a big girl. She could handle him. They would actually make a very attractive couple. Part of her rebelled at that thought. The other part was glad that he would show his true colors and be out of there before anyone learned to depend on him.

      “Good,” Liz said. “Sam can give you an impromptu tour of the hospital on the way.”

      “On the way where?” he asked, looking puzzled.

      “To the cafeteria.”

      “You in a hurry to get rid of me?” One dark eyebrow rose questioningly.

      Sam cleared her throat. “If she’s not, she should be.”

      Joe looked at her a moment, then chuckled. “I’m going to assume you didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

      “I didn’t.” She looked sheepish. “What I meant was that this woman spends too much time here—six days a week on average. Last I heard she wasn’t supposed to come in today.”

      “A workaholic dedicated to showing one volunteer the ropes,” Joe said, shaking his head. “This is all my fault.”

      “No. There’s always something,” Liz said. “So I’ll leave you two to the rest of the tour—” She gasped when Joe took her elbow and headed her toward the door.

      He looked over his shoulder and said to a grinning Sam, “Nice to meet you. Don’t let me keep you from your lunch. I’m sure I can find out where you hide the cafeteria another time. After ruining

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