Page 56 of Auctioned to Dr. Daddy

“I’m nervous.”

“I don’t know the man and I don’t know you, but let me tell you something,” says Mrs. Greenhorn.

“When I met Henry, I had a five-year-old on my hip, and no money to my name. I spent my days milking cows and mucking stalls. And he worked as a vet’s apprentice that would come out to the farm on occasion. I loved that man. We weren’t planning on having anything, but when I realized that there were twins on the way—” She makes a low whistle.

“He stepped up. And he never stopped stepping up. Fifty years, we’ve been married. Maybe your beau will be the same way.”

“How did you know when it was the right time to tell him?”

It’s one of many questions that I wish my mother had been around to answer. She would have known what I needed to do. She would have been able to help me figure out exactly what was going on.

“I didn’t,” Mrs. Greenhorn admits. “One day, I looked at Henry, and I just told him. It wasn’t planned and honestly, it wasn’t a good time. Man had an ornery horse’s leg between his thighs. It moved and cracked him good, right where— Well, there’s no sign where he got cracked. Lucky I already had the twins in me.”

She laughs, and I find myself laughing too, drawn into the story. This is one of the things that I miss the most about my mother. It’s pure chance that Mrs. Greenhorn is here and says the right things.

Another broad stroke of luck.

Maybe I’m a lot luckier than I like to give myself credit for.

Eventually, I thank her for the conversation and promise to put a good word in with the doctor. I’m sure that Nathan will take my advice on the matter.

With the patient issue handled and my own mood lifted, I turn to leave, only barely noticing that the door to the patient’s room is ajar. It doesn’t strike me as odd in the slightest until I step out into the hallway and find myself staring down a wide-eyed Nathan Stone.

He’s got a clipboard in one hand, but he’s just staring at me.

I swallow hard, hoping that he didn’t hear the conversation. Maybe he just walked over. Maybe he’s just surprised that I’m still here since my shift should have ended fifteen minutes ago.

It’s a long shot, and I know it. “Nathan? I thought you had gone home for the day!”

No luck.

My heart is racing in my chest, palms sweaty, tongue and mouth suddenly dry. What am I supposed to do now?

“I came back to invite you for dinner,” says Nathan and gestures at the door. “Kitten sent me this way and—” A long moment of silence. When he speaks next, his voice is softer than I’ve ever heard, but somehow the words still feel like shots straight to the heart. “You’re pregnant?”

So much for waiting for the right moment.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Nathan

Ihadn’tbeenlisteningto the conversation on purpose.

I came over to invite her out to get dinner with me and with Tabitha. I thought that it would be a nice change of pace from just going to her house.

On our first ‘date’ she’d said that she was a beef kind of girl, and there is a steakhouse nearby that I thought she would like.

I thought that it would be a fun little treat, something that showed her how much I paid attention when she spoke to me.

Something that made it clear she was on my mind, even when we weren’t together.

And considering how broken she was over the farm and the run-in with Emma, I figured that it was the perfect time to ask her out on a nice little date and give her a break from all of the things that otherwise had her stressed.

But when I realized that she was in with a patient, I stuck around just to listen.

That’s my job as her mentor.

I am supposed to be teaching her the ropes, and that means seeing what she is doing when no one else is around. I have no doubts that she is doing her job well, but there’s always room for improvement.

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