A Very Special Delivery Read Free Page A

slowly, and laid a hand on the flannel-clad chest.
    A shudder of relief rippled through her at the gentle rise and fall of the sleeping baby’s ribcage. Some nameless emotion stirred in Molly’s chest at the soft feel of an infant. Even the smell of her, that wonderful baby mixture of milk and lotion, made Molly’s chest ache with longing.
    Until Zack’s death she’d always dreamed of getting married and having a big family. Lots of kids. That’s what she’d told everyone. But now that would never happen. Her sister Chloe’s healthy, perfect six-month-old son had died while in her care. She must have done something wrong. Or maybe she hadn’t watched him closely enough. That’s what her sister had said the last time Molly had tried to ask forgiveness.
    As much as she’d wanted children, she could never take such a chance again. Chloe was right. Babies just weren’t safe with her.
    Rubbing gentle circles on the chest of the one now in her care, Molly felt an undeniable sense of loss.
    “You sure are a pretty thing,” she whispered.
    Dark eyelashes curled against rose-over-ivory cheeks, and her round face was topped by a cap of fine, dark hair. Molly couldn’t help but wonder about the mother. What had happened to her? And why had Ethan’s face gone all tense when Molly had asked about her?
    Healthy and well cared for, the baby looked to be about three or four months old, younger than Zack, but not by much. Her pink sleepers, emblazoned with the words Daddy’s Girl were clean and neat. Whatever Ethan Hunter’s situation with Laney’s mother, he loved his little girl.
    Samson rose from his spot near the fireplace, stretched his long gray feline body then padded across the room. Before Molly saw what he was about, the cat leaped onto the couch and tiptoed quietly toward the sleeping child.
    “Samson, no. Get down.”
    The cat, as usual, ignored her. He sniffed curiously at Laney’s mouth, an act that must have tickled, for the baby’s face scrunched up and she turned her head. Suddenly Laney remembered the old wives’ tale that a cat could steal a baby’s breath.
    With more force than she intended, she grabbed Samson and sailed him onto the floor. The shocked animal stared at her in resentment, flicked his tail and stalked to his rug by the crackling fireplace.
    Feeling worse than ever, Molly returned to her post beside the sleeping child. Cautiously, she placed her hand on the little chest once again and felt the movements that assured her the baby was breathing. If she had to sit this way all night long, she would. But oh, how she prayed that Ethan Hunter would soon return and take this responsibility off her shoulders.
    * * *
    Nearing midnight, eyes burning from staring into the frozen night, Ethan started back down the mountain. He hadn’t reached the Stubbs’s remote cabin until nearly nine o’clock, and the grateful couple had fortified him with coffee and brownies while the gamma infused into Chester’s blood system.
    During those hours with his patient the storm outside had worsened. The world around him was white and crystallized, a fairy tale turned into a nightmare. Chester and Mamie Stubbs had invited him to spend the night, but he’d refused. Laney was waiting. And from Molly’s reaction to his child, she was waiting, too—waiting for him to return and take the baby off her hands.
    A mighty gust whipped across an open pasture and the van rocked precariously.
    Ethan couldn’t remember ever driving—or flying—in an ice storm of this caliber. Since leaving the Stubbs’s farm he’d stopped over and over again to break ice off his windshield wipers. The delivery van wasn’t made to handle these conditions, and even chains on the tires wouldn’t have helped on what was now a solid sheet of ice.
    Shoulders hunched over the wheel, he stared hard into the night. His headlights reached only a few feet out into the blinding shower of white pellets. He could hardly tell where the road ended