"Yeah. But in the best possible way."
He danced his fingers over her hair, and kept his other arm around her. "How's the new kid on the
block and her mama?"
"They're great. Hayley's a wonder. Steady as a rock through seven hours of labor. And the baby might
be a couple weeks early, but she came through like a champ. Only a few ounces shy of Gavin's birth weight, though it took me twice as long to convince him to come out."
"Make you want to have another?"
She went a few shades more pale. "Oh. Well."
"Now I've scared you." Amused, he slung an arm around her shoulder. "Let's go see what's on the
menu with that champagne."
* * *
He hadn't scared her, exactly. But he had made her vaguely uneasy. She was just getting used to having
a relationship, and the man was making subtle hints about babies.
Of course, it could have been just a natural, offhand remark under the circumstances. Or a kind of joke.
Whatever the intent, it got her thinking. Did she want more children? She'd crossed that possibility off
her list when Kevin died and had ruthlessly shut down her biological clock. Certainly she was capable, physically, of having another child. But it took more than physical capability, or should, to bring a child into the world.
She had two healthy, active children. And was solely and wholly responsible for them—emotionally, financially, morally. To consider having another meant considering a permanent relationship with a man. Marriage, a future, sharing not only what she had but building more, and in a different direction.
She'd come to Tennessee to visit her own roots, and to plant her family in the soil of her own origins.
To be near her father, and to allow her children the pleasure of being close to grandparents who wanted to know them.
Her mother had never been particularly interested, hadn't enjoyed seeing herself as a grandmother. It spoiled the youthful image, Stella thought.
If a man like Logan had blipped onto her mother's radar, he'd have been snapped right up.
And if that's why Stella was hesitating, it was a sad state of affairs. Undoubtedly part of it, though, she decided. Otherwise she wouldn't be thinking it.
She hadn't disliked any of her stepfathers. But she hadn't bonded with them either, or they with her.
How old had she been the first time her mother had remarried? Gavin's age, she remembered. Yes,
right around eight.
She'd been plucked out of her school and plunked down in a new one, a new house, new neighborhood, and dazed by it all while her mother had been in the adrenaline rush of having a new husband.
That one had lasted, what? Three years, four? Somewhere between, she decided, with another year
or so of upheaval while her mother dealt with the battle and debris of divorce, another new place, a
new job, a new start.
And another new school for Stella.
After that, her mother had stuck with boyfriends for a long stretch. But that itself had been another kind of upheaval, having to survive her mother's mad dashes into love, her eventual bitter exit from it.
And they were always bitter, Stella remembered.
At least she'd been in college, living on her own, when her mother had married yet again. And maybe
that was part of the reason that marriage had lasted nearly a decade. There hadn't been a child to crowd things. Yet eventually there'd been another acrimonious divorce, with the split nearly coinciding with her own widowhood.
It had been a horrible year, in every possible way, which her mother had ended with yet one more brief, tumultuous marriage.
Strange that even as an adult, Stella found she couldn't quite forgive being so consistently put into second or even third place behind her mother's needs.
She wasn't doing that with her own children, she assured herself. She wasn't being selfish and careless in her relationship with Logan, or shuffling her kids to the back of her heart because she was falling in love with him.
Still, the fact was it was all moving awfully fast. It would make more sense to slow things down a bit
until she had a better picture.
Besides, she was going to be too busy to think about marriage. And she shouldn't forget he hadn't asked her to marry him and have his children, for God's sake. She was blowing an offhand comment way out
of proportion.
Time to get back on track. She rose from her desk and started for the door. It opened before she
reached it.
"I was just going to find you," she said to Roz. "I'm on my way to pick up the new family and take them home."
"I wish I could go with you. I nearly postponed this meeting so I could." She glanced at her watch as if considering it again.
"By the time you get back from your meeting with Dr. Carnegie, they'll be all settled in and ready for some quality time with Aunt Roz."
"I have to admit I want my hands on that baby. So, now, what've you been fretting about?"
"Fretting?" Stella opened a desk drawer to retrieve her purse. "Why do you think I've been fretting
about anything?"
"Your watch is turned around, which means you've been twisting at it. Which means you've been