LITMIR.BIZ

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Cinda felt a little bad about her self-centered, mean-spirited thoughts, she reminded herself that she wasn’t always this testy. It was just today. She’d heard that women in labor had a different set of rules. She squeezed her eyes shut and put a hand to her forehead. “So, what made me think I could do this alone?” She opened her eyes, grimacing. “Better yet, what made Dr. Butler think I really needed to be enlightened as to what actually goes on during a Caesarean-section delivery? God, just do it. Don’t tell me about it. Ick.”

      Cinda caressed her swollen abdomen, now directing her conversation to the perfectly formed little girl whose image she’d just seen on the ultrasound screen. You know what, my little princess? You could really help out. Go ahead—turn. Don’t give your mother such a hard time. Mother? Cinda thought about that. “Oh, God, I’m the mother.”

      She pushed the down button again and suddenly caught her own reflection staring back at her from the polished-metal elevator doors. “Oh, surely not.” But, yes, that carnival fun-house reflection was indeed her own. “Are you telling me that I left the house looking like this?”

      Obviously she had, because polished metal didn’t lie. What she saw was a pale-blond head with angst-widened golden eyes above a swollen body covered by a black-wool winter coat, cream-colored slacks, and black boots. Well, great. I look like a sheep ready for shearing. Cinda pursed her lips, transferring her disgust to the elevator. “Come on, what’s the problem here? As you can plainly see, I need to get to the hospital. Preferably today.”

      She pushed the down button firmly again. And then ten more times after that before she caught herself. Get a grip, Cinda. She put her fingers to her temples and pressed lightly. “I can do this. I have to do this. The nursery’s ready. I’m ready. My baby is apparently ready.” Cinda put a hand to her swollen belly. “We can do this, baby girl.”

      Just then, an irritatingly pleasant ding alerted Cinda that the contrary elevator car had deigned to arrive. She exhaled her relief. “Oh, thank God.”

      The doors opened without incident, presenting an empty elevator car. Swallowing back a sudden and uncustomary sense of impending doom, Cinda stepped inside and forced herself to push the button for the lobby. Anticipating the closing of the doors and the pull of gravity on her ride downward, she anchored herself by hanging on to the handrail that girded three sides of the rickety car. Not the least bit reassured, she studied her boxlike surroundings. Had this elevator really been this old and wobbly when she’d used it just an hour ago?

      The doors closed. “Oh, calm down. You’re getting yourself all worked up,” she fussed, breathing in and out, in and out, as she watched the little lights blaze on and then off, indicating the incredibly slow, passage of each floor going by. Fourteen. No thirteen. Twelve. Eleven.

      “There. See? It’s working fine. You’re just being silly.” Cinda spoke to herself as if she were her own best friend who needed reassuring. “That whole ‘woman in labor stuck inside an elevator’ thing is just some silly Hollywood scenario. Or maybe a book. You’d think writers would have more of an imagination these days.”

      The elevator jerked to a stop. Cinda’s heart nearly burst, but the dinging bell alerted her that all was well. Her hands shaking, she clutched at the opening of her woolly black coat as if it could ward off disaster. This is not a bad thing. It’s just somebody on the tenth floor waiting to be picked up. No problem.

      Confirming her conclusion, the doors opened to reveal a prospective passenger…who just happened to be an outrageously and ruggedly handsome man. Cinda’s eyes widened with heart-stopping appreciation. Oh…my…God.

      The man saw her and stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened. Clearly, he was just as affected by the sight of her as she was by him. No doubt, for differing reasons. After all, here she was nine months pregnant, and there he was…well, there he was. He belonged on a billboard where he’d be engaged in something really macho that required him to show a bunch of muscles—and not wear a lot of clothes, if there was an advertising god.

      Those blue eyes and that sandy-brown hair. The broad and capable shoulders. Movie-star looks. Not the pretty-boy kind. The serious romantic-lead kind. The chiseled jaw. And the raised eyebrows, the look of, yes, dismay as he eyed her. Cinda didn’t blame him a bit. After all, her size rivaled that of a balloon float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Thinking to put the gorgeous guy at ease, she offered him a tentative smile.

      He grinned back but shook his head. “No thank you, ma’am, I’ve seen this movie, and it ends badly.” His accent dripped with knee-weakening, molasses-thick Southern charm. “I’ll just wait for the next car.” He stepped back and waved. “Y’all have a nice day.”

      She could not let him go. That was all she knew. Cinda held down the door open button. “Wait. You might as well get in. Trust me, a teenager could qualify for Medicare before it comes back to this floor again.”

      He eyed her, the elevator, and then the hallway to either side of him. Cinda waited with the proverbial bated breath. She tried to tell herself that she just didn’t want to be alone in the elevator, should it do something heinous like stick between floors. But even she wasn’t buying that. The truth was that there was something about this man that affected her, even on today of all days. And she plainly just wanted him in this elevator with her.

      And he plainly didn’t want to be in here with her. Grimacing with good-natured humor, he eyed Cinda’s girth. She would have held her stomach in, but there weren’t enough muscles in the human body to make that feat possible.

      “I’m pregnant, not contagious,” she tried helpfully.

      That embarrassed him. His color heightened, but he laughed. “Okay, you win, pretty lady. I may as well chance it.” With a confident gait that exuded masculine sensuality, he walked into the car, hitting the buttons labeled Lobby and then Door Close.

      Nothing happened. Not for several heart-stopping seconds. Cinda froze. The good-looking guy froze. Then, exhibiting a flair for drama, the doors belatedly shut. The elevator, coughing and wheezing like an asthmatic locomotive, begrudgingly set them on a slow-motion downward journey. Cinda clutched at the iron handrails and tried not to look afraid—or like she’d been flattered by the handsome man’s calling her a pretty lady. She’d needed that. For a very long time…she had needed that.

      Just then her fellow passenger turned to her. With a disarming smile that confirmed his Southern upbringing, he said, “If you don’t mind me asking, when’s your blessed event due? And don’t say yesterday.”

      “Okay. My due date is a week from today.” That was all she meant to say, but his smiling sigh of relief had her conscience railing at her to tell the man the whole truth. “However, I’m in labor right now, so I’m on my way to the hospital.”

      His expression fell. He looked so disappointed in her. “And we were getting along so well.”

      “I know. Trust me, it wasn’t my idea. Sorry.”

      “That may be, but I feel it only fair to warn you that, as a pit crew mechanic on the Jude Barrett stock car racing team, I can take an entire car apart and reassemble it in five minutes. But nowhere on my resume does it say anything about delivering babies. So unless you need an oil change and your tires rotated, you just stand over there and behave yourself, you hear?”

      Now he’d made her laugh. “You poor man. I’ll try to hold on.” Now more at ease with the stranger, Cinda heard herself asking him a personal question. “You’re Southern, aren’t you?”

      He sent her an arch expression. “What gave me away?”

      Cinda pointed to him. “That package of grits sticking out of your coat pocket.”

      He actually patted down his pocket as humor sparked in his blue eyes. “Damn. I meant to take that out.” Then he stuck a hand out for her to shake. “I’m from Atlanta. Well, actually a little town just west of there that nobody’s ever heard of called Southwood. My name is George Winston Cooper the Third, but my friends call me Trey. And you are…?”

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