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She nodded. “That would be great.” She began to pace again, and he went inside and found a trench coat that his sister-in-law Alicia had left up here during the winter. Claudia would appreciate Alicia’s expensive fashion tastes. The coat was by some designer. Alicia’s clothes were always by someone, Andy had noted. He wasn’t convinced that this was making model-gorgeous Alicia or his very driven orthopedic surgeon brother MJ happy, seven years into their marriage.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you like this,” Claudia began, when he came back out, as if she’d appeared at his front door to borrow a cup of sugar.
“No problem,” he answered, as if he had bags full of the sweet stuff.
She let him help her into the coat and he caught a tiny waft of her scent, like a tendril of flower-scented mist as she hugged it around herself. It reminded him far too vividly of the other night on her couch, his dream, the way he’d awoken and the way those moments lingered in his head.
She snuggled into the soft lining of the coat and instinctively adjusted the collar and pulled at the sides so that it sat the way it was meant to. Her hair bunched up, and the clip was caught somewhere beneath the coat fabric. She didn’t even notice. If he’d been the father of her baby instead of her landlord who didn’t want to get involved, he would have reached out and tucked the loose strands behind her ears, searched for the slipping clip.
“No problem,” he repeated half under his breath, while he fought and swiftly beat the resurging moment of male awareness.
What the hell was such a thing doing showing up now? Bad enough the other night. She was in labor, for crying out loud, so this was worse. They’d been right to keep their distance from each other, keep to the businesslike footing of tenant and landlord. But how could you do that when the landlord was a doctor and the tenant was ready to give birth?
“You must be about to go to bed and I’m sure you need your sleep,” Claudia went on. The note of apology would have been more suited to an announcement that, most unfortunately, she was going to be a day or two late with the rent. “But if you could just give me some indication …” But then the politeness and frail pretense of efficiency fell away. “Help me! Could you? Dr. McKinley?”
“Call me Andy, for heck’s sake,” he growled, almost as helpless as she was.
She needed someone’s touch. Warm loving arms, kisses of reassurance and murmured words about how great she was doing, but he had no right. And he didn’t have rocks in his head. He’d got a grip about those.
“I don’t know what to do. I just don’t. This isn’t supposed to be happening.”
Okay, Andy, you’re a doctor, you’ve been here hundreds of times before, and if this is a little different, just ignore it and go with what you know …
“Not very much to do at this stage.” He kept his voice neutral and professional. “Everything’s fine and under control, I promise. Keep walking around if it helps. We can go up and down the sidewalk, if you want.” He took her arm and kept her pacing slowly, back and forth on the deck, while she took in his words.
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