The Boss's Special Delivery. Raye Morgan

my life. I can handle it.”

      Giving him a reassuring look, she slipped out of the car and walked quickly toward the entrance to her building.

      He sat where he was, staring after her. He didn’t like it. This was no kind of neighborhood to bring a newborn baby back to. He shrugged away the fact that she was considering putting her baby up for adoption.

      Assuming, for the sake of this argument, she would be bringing a baby home from the hospital, how was she going to cope in a place like this?

      Well, maybe she had some friends.

      No. She’d only been in town a month, so she couldn’t possibly have built up the sort of friendships that went with providing for a baby’s needs.

      He thought of her, of her pretty face and those dark, beautiful eyes. She didn’t belong here. He wanted to throw caution to the wind and stomp in after her, grab her and—

      Yeah, then what? He didn’t know anything about housing here in Chivaree. For all he knew, she was right and this was all that was available. On the other hand, once he got her installed at his office in the Allman building, once he started paying her a decent wage, maybe she would be able to afford a better place. He knew that was a better course. If he tried to go in and force her into doing things the way he thought they should be done, he was going to put her back up permanently.

      He almost grinned, thinking of how fierce her pretty face would get, how her perfect little chin would jut out as she defied him. She was a charmer in her own way. Funny how hard she tried to resist that.

      Still, the more he thought about it, the more he knew this was just an unacceptable place for her to live. No employee of his should live like this.

      He grimaced. Who was he trying to kid? Annie wasn’t going to be just any employee. That baby she was carrying was taking on larger than life proportions in his mind—and it was no mystery to him why that was.

      It had only been a few weeks since he’d found out he had a child himself. Out there in the world somewhere was a baby he’d never known about. That was a completely mind-blowing concept and he still wasn’t used to it. So many questions remained unanswered.

      It made him sick to think that Penny, the ex-girlfriend who’d had his child and never told him, might have had to live in places like this dump where Annie was staying. But from what he’d learned so far, she’d been on her own when she was getting ready to go through delivery…and preparing to put the baby up for adoption, just as Annie was thinking of doing. So chances were, she’d had to take what she could get at the time.

      It was hard thinking that while he was casually going on with his life, laughing, dating, getting a residency in family practice in Dallas, Penny had been taking on all the responsibilities he should have been sharing with her. And that she had made the solo decision to give up her baby—his baby—to someone else.

      He should have been there.

      Maybe he thought helping Annie would make amends to a certain degree. Could that be part of his interest in Annie and what was to become of her? Sure, he knew it was nuts to get involved. And maybe he was crazy. But babies had to be protected. Absolutely. A no-brainer. And if he had to take on the mantle of guardian angel, he would.

      He switched the engine on and started slowly down the street, but his mind was still back at the grungy apartment building with Annie.