Newborn Needs a Dad / His Motherless Little Twins by Dianne Drake Page B

have dinner together, OK? I’d like that.”
    Their goodbye was brief, cordial. And Gabby didn’t fall asleep for a good two hours after it. She’d made the commitment to herself, made the promise to Neil, and now the real worry was setting in, because she did want to raise Bryce here, did want Neil to be part of his life. A week and a few days here and she loved White Elk, felt at home, felt like she could spend the rest of her life here. But all thatwas up to Neil, and he didn’t even know it yet. And it scared her that when she was finally making plans, they could all blow away. Yet it scared her even more that they wouldn’t.
    “Your mother’s not thinking too clearly right now,” she said to Bryce, as her eyelids began to flutter shut. “But I promise you, that’s only a temporary situation.”
    All the same, she hoped White Elk was not.

CHAPTER FIVE
    T HE next few days passed in a blur of patients and shopping, so that before she knew it the evening of her date with Neil had arrived. Truth was, as hesitant as she’d been to accept his invitation, she’d been looking forward to the evening ever since. Dreading it, of course. But hopeful. “They’re going to be OK without us?” she asked Neil, trying to fasten the seat belt so it wouldn’t be so tight. It was like her belly had doubled in size this past week. Maybe not so much in outward appearance as in the actual way it felt to her. Naturally, Bryce had picked this evening to be more rambunctious than ever, kicking, turning somersaults, tap dancing.
    Neil chuckled. “The hospital will do fine without us for a few hours.” He jiggled his cell phone at her. “And there’s this. They have one too, and they know how to use it.”
    “OK, so maybe I worry too much. But if there were an emergency…”
    “Calm down. There won’t be.”
    “You’re sure of that?”
    “I’ve been on call five nights straight. All I can say is, I’ve been looking forward to this, so there’d better not be.”
    “Like we can control that part of our lives,” she said on a wistful sigh as they turned onto the road leading out ofthe town, and headed for the winding road that would take them to the top of the older Sister.
    Neil glanced over at Gabby, not sure if she was napping or simply relaxing. She’d been quiet for several minutes now, and he missed the sound of her voice. He’d caught himself thinking of this as a date off and on, then reminded himself this evening had a purpose. He was going to ask her to stay. He and Eric had crunched numbers, and decided they could afford her part-time for a while. Fulltime when she was ready. He wasn’t sure this was what she wanted, but he hoped it was because so many of the women were happy with her. Of course, he’d never really heard her talk about her future plans with any certainty, so he had no idea what she intended for herself. But maybe, over a nice dinner, pleasant music and a wonderful view of everything she could have here in White Elk, it wouldn’t be so easy for her to turn him down.
    On a personal note, he hoped she would stay, too. But that wasn’t going to come into play, because she avoided the personal almost as much as he did. “We’re winding through an area now where a lot of the celebrities have built their mountain homes,” he finally said, more because he simply wanted her companionship than his pressing need to tell her which movie star lived where during ski season.
    “I’ll bet it would be nice, if I could see it,” she murmured, sounding awfully contented.
    “Did I wake you?”
    “Did you want to?”
    “Maybe.”
    She laughed. “Well, you didn’t. I was just…relaxing. Enjoying the night sky. In Chicago, you don’t get many stars like you do out here—the kind in the sky, not movie stars. I was remembering the song my mother used to sing to me…“Twinkle, twinkle little star…’”
    “‘Like a diamond in the sky.’”
    “Funny, but I don’t think about her too often.