LITMIR.BIZ

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East,” he said when he came back.

      “Maybe I should take a taxi home and just let you visit with her,” Cecily said. Then Will could bear the burden of Muffy’s rage alone.

      “No, she’ll want to thank you, I’m sure.” Will’s smile was positively evil. “Let me have a few minutes alone with her. I’ll tell her about your, um, true life’s work and get her calmed down, then you come up.”

      “If you think it’s the right thing to do.”

      “Definitely. Hang around down here for ten minutes, then follow me up.”

      Right. Glumly Cecily sat down in the lobby and thought that if she had a choice between facing an angry bull or a hysterical, hormonal woman, she’d take el toro any day.

      “WILL! YOU’RE HERE! I’M SO glad to see you. Come look at your niece. Isn’t she beautiful? You’re going to be the greatest uncle. She’ll adore you.”

      The woman cradling a baby in the crook of her arm and beaming at him from the hospital bed looked like Muffy—except for the beaming and the baby—but she didn’t sound like Muffy. He was still standing in the doorway, so to make sure this was Muffy’s room, he leaned back into the hall to read the number on the door and then the name on the chart. “Margaret Murchison Tidwell.”

      Yep, it was Muffy all right, but she’d been taken over by some alien force! Where had that sweet expression come from? That affectionate voice?

      Still, those were his and Muffy’s parents coming toward him, smiling as though they knew her and him both. To get in touch with reality, he strode forward to grab them in a big hug.

      “Good to see you, son,” his father said, sounding embarrassed.

      “Does Muffy seem changed to you?” he muttered into his mother’s ear.

      “Why, no, honey, she seems like the same sweetheart she’s always been,” his mother murmured back. “I knew she’d make a wonderful mother. Just as you’ll make a wonderful father someday.”

      Will looked back at Muffy with narrowed eyes. He didn’t buy her new attitude for a minute. He did need her help, though.

      He walked over to the bed and bent down to look at his niece. He had to admit it, this was one cute baby. He could actually feel himself swelling with pride, imagining himself taking her to the zoo, teaching her to ride a bike….

      But that would come later. He had issues now. “Gator’s not here yet?”

      “No.” Muffy smiled softly. “He calls every five minutes, though. He’s on his way from Love Field right now.”

      “So he’ll be here any minute,” Will said brightly, raising his voice.

      “Well…”

      “Any minute,” Will said, and frowned at her. “Maybe Mom and Dad should go out and wait for him, bring him right up to the room. You know Gator. He’ll be so excited, he might get lost. He’d appreciate a welcoming committee.”

      She raised an eyebrow and contemplated Will for a long, scary moment. “Oh, yes, I know he would. Mom, Daddy, would you go outside and wait for Gator? He can’t be more than a couple of minutes away.”

      “Gator’s parents will be along pretty soon, too, I imagine,” Will said, knowing perfectly well they’d have to drive up from Waco, a good hour and a half from the hospital.

      “And,” Muffy added, “I really need some body lotion from the gift shop. I forgot mine.”

      The idea of body lotion seemed to pull their mother’s trigger. “Of course, darling,” Mrs. Murchison said warmly. “Nothing more important than body lotion right now. We don’t want stretch marks. I hope they have something nice. Come on, Bill, let’s look out for Gator and his parents. Back soon, angels.”

      “What are you up to?” Muffy whispered when their parents were out the door.

      “The doctor,” Will said tersely. “I know her. I’ve had the hots for her since I was at Exeter. But she got the idea you and I are married.”

      “Oh, my God,” Muffy said, sounding much more like the old Muffy.

      “I want to keep it that way for a while.”

      “Why would you want to do that?”

      Why? Because he’d just realized that as long as Cecily thought he was safely married, she’d let him advise her about sexy clothes and lingerie. He might even be able to con her into letting him come shopping with her.

      The idea really turned him on.

      He cleared his throat. “I have my reasons. You’ll go along, right?”

      Muffy gave her little daughter a lingering, loving glance. “I do have other, more important things going on in my own life right now,” she began, then looked up at Will. “But twins have a sacred trust to lie for each other.” She sighed.

      “I sure kept you out of a hell of a lot of trouble,” Will said and took another look at the baby. She was a doll. Now was the time to put Muffy through the acid test, find out how far her unprecedented loving mood stretched. “Incidentally, Muff, Cecily’s actually a—”

      But the door opened and Cecily’s head poked tentatively into the room.

      IN THE LOBBY, CECILY HAD KEPT one eye on her watch and the other on the steady stream of visitors, home-bound patients and medical personnel who flowed through the lobby. Friday must be a popular dismissal day. At last her ten minutes were up and she started for the elevator. When the doors opened, an attractive older couple stepped out. Cecily did a double take.

      The woman was slim and pretty, her hair a pale shade of blonde that suggested dark hair gone gray. The man, though, was a dead ringer for Will, or the way Will would look twenty-five or thirty years from now. Either these were Will’s parents or Muffy was one of those women who’d married her father. She thought about coming right out and asking them, but considered the complications if she introduced herself as “the doctor who delivered the baby.” So she merely smiled, went up to Twenty-Four East and shyly stuck her head through the doorway.

      “Oh, look, Will, it’s the doctor!” Muffy said. “You’re so sweet to come and check on me.”

      Cecily stumbled forward, feeling stunned. Was this the same Muffy? Everything she’d told Will at the delivery scene, those things about women not being themselves during labor, had been true. There was nothing terrible about Muffy. She’d merely been having a baby.

      Muffy grabbed Cecily’s hand. “You were great,” she said. Her voice was warm and soft. “I can’t thank you enough.”

      “She did a good job, didn’t she?” Will said, his tone nearly as warm and soft as Muffy’s, but his voice did different things to Cecily than Muffy’s did. “Wasn’t it amazing, finding a top-notch doctor in the wedding party? You know what she told me in the car, Muff? She says she’s an expert in difficult deliveries!”

      Cecily was startled. He was supposed to have told Muffy already that she was a vet.

      “No kidding,” Muffy said, looking wide-eyed. “What a coincidence! Gosh,” she said, looking positively saintly, “I must have a guardian angel.”

      Cecily saw the look Will gave Muffy—a slanty-eyed, teasing glance—before he said, “She’s an expert, all right, an expert at delivering calves, colts and piglets, not babies.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Your guardian angel sent you a vet. How about that, Muff?”

      Cecily felt the tension in the air. Something was going on between Will and Muffy that had nothing to do with her or with her being a vet. Her stomach tightened.

      Muffy stared wide-eyed at her for a moment, then at Will. Her face suddenly lit up in a gleeful smile. “That’s the funniest thing I ever heard.” She began laughing.

      Will

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