His Motherless Little Twins. Dianne Drake

      “But we brought him cookies,” one of the girls cried.

      “We’ve been baking,” the woman Dinah took to be Eric’s wife said. “And baking, and baking. They were bored, and they missed you.”

      “Well, you know how I love your cookies!” Eric exclaimed, extricating himself from the girls and standing up. Once he was fully upright, both girls immediately latched on to him again, one girl holding on to each of his legs.

      “Are you coming home now, Daddy?” one of the girls asked.

      “Sorry, but I can’t leave here yet. We’re too busy. Too many people still coming in and you know Daddy has to stay here and take care of them.”

      “Then can we stay here and help?” the girls cried in unison. “Please, Daddy, can we stay?”

      He looked at the woman, who shrugged. “I’m going to sit with Gabby, and Debbie’s coming in shortly to look after the girls. So it’s fine with me if they stay for a while,” she said. “Maybe you can take a break with them later on?”

      “How can I say no to taking a break with my two best girls?” Eric said. He took hold of the brims of both their rain hats and shoved them up. “But first I want you to say hello to Dinah Corday. She’s the nurse who helped me in surgery today. The surgery I did on Dr. Evans’s baby.”

      Totally unaware of her presence there, in this cozy family scene, until they spun to face her, they both ran immediately to Dinah and grabbed her like she was their long-lost friend. “Hello,” she said tentatively.

      “Hello,” they said in unison. “Do you want to eat some of Daddy’s cookies?” one of the girls continued.

      “That’s Pippa,” Eric said. “Without the rain gear, you’ll be able to tell her from Paige because Pippa has brown eyes like me, and Paige has hazel eyes like her mother. Other than that, they’re identical.”

      “And I’m taller,” the one Dinah believed was Paige said. “By half an inch.”

      “Only when you’re standing on your tiptoes,” Pippa argued.

      “Do not,” Paige protested.

      “Do, too,” Pippa countered.

      “And so goes the Ramsey family,” Eric said, laughing. “Oh, and, Dinah. I’d like you to meet my sister, Janice Laughlin. The girls and I live with her, and she watches them when I’m working.”

      Eric lived with his sister? Suddenly the heat of embarrassment began its creep from her neck, up her throat, to her cheeks. “Hello,” she said, almost choking over the single word.

      “But Daddy’s going to get us a great big house of our own soon, where we can have a dog and…” Paige started.

      “A cat,” Pippa finished.

      Dinah chanced a glance at Eric, whose expression was an odd one, caught between pain and amusement. He wanted to laugh, or cry. She couldn’t tell which. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Look, it’s nice to meet all of you…Janice, Paige, Pippa. But I’ve really got to go and find my sister.”

      “Can we go see the baby?” Pippa cried. “Please?”

      “Pretty please?” Paige joined in.

      “Not right now,” Eric said, trying to take a firm hand. “He’s not feeling very well. But maybe in a few days.”

      But Eric wasn’t very good at that firm hand, and it showed. Even to a casual observer such as herself, Dinah saw that he was just plain gooey when it came to his little girls. They had him wrapped around their little fingers, and he enjoyed every bit of it. He would be a very indulgent father, Dinah decided. And a very good one. Something also told her that Eric wasn’t a man cheating on his wife. He was a man getting over something painful, for which she felt very bad. So bad, in fact, that she turned away without saying another word, and practically ran into the room where Angela was sitting, waiting for Gabby to return from seeing her baby. “Tell me about Eric,” she whispered to Angela.

      “What do you want to know?”

      “Is he married?”