Lone Star Baby. Cathy Thacker Gillen

ago, fell in love at first sight and married a week later,” Wanda explained. She patted her husband’s hand fondly. “And I have never regretted loving this man for an instant.”

      “Nor I you. And now that we’ve commemorated that great day with yet another trip to the hospital, I just want to go home,” Carlson said stubbornly.

      “And you will. In a day or so. After we make sure everything is as it should be,” Violet said soothingly.

      Briefly, she and Gavin stepped out to consult and then she returned to the exam room. “Dr. Monroe confirms you are in no immediate danger. However, we both think you need more tests. So I’m admitting you on the oncology floor.”

      “Thank heaven.” Wanda exhaled in relief.

      Carlson scowled in mock aggravation. “Don’t be so anxious to get rid of me!”

      “Hey,” Wanda replied, her usual good cheer returning now that her husband was in good hands. “Even I deserve a Carlson-free evening every now and then.” She winked at her beloved. “So stop trying to ruin it for me!”

      The couple chuckled in unison. Their verbal one-upmanship continued, to the amusement of the staff.

      Grinning, Violet stepped out to the nurses’ station to write the orders.

      By the time she had finished, Carlson was already on his way up to a private room. Gavin had been called to stitch up a teenager who had accidentally thrown a baseball through a window, then cut his hand while cleaning up the broken glass.

      And that was when one of his sisters, Bridgette, rushed through the emergency entrance.

      She and her twin, Bess, were both nurses. But only Bridgette had returned to Laramie to live.

      A nurse in the neonatal unit, the lively twenty-four-year-old brunette was usually enviably calm.

      Not today.

      In paint-splattered clothing, her keys in one hand, cell phone in the other, she strode toward the desk. “Where’s Gavin?”

      “With a patient. What’s going on?”

      “It’s Nicholas.” Violet knew she was referring to their nineteen-year-old brother. “He was in an accident.”

      “Oh, no! Is he hurt?”

      “I’m not sure. I got a call they’re bringing him in.”

      In the distance, sirens sounded. Bridgette looked around, wild-eyed and teary.

      “I’ll get Gavin,” Violet told her.

      She grabbed a pair of sterile gloves as she walked through the exam room door. “Want me to finish up?” she said with a look that told Gavin he was needed elsewhere.

      “Sure.” He handed off the task to her.

      By the time Violet had finished with the stitches, the EMTs were wheeling Nicholas in on a gurney.

      If the way he was arguing with the EMTs was any indication, she thought, he wasn’t badly hurt.

      “—completely unnecessary.”

      “Your pickup rolled and nearly went down a ravine. You’re getting checked out.”

      Another ER doc followed the gurney into an exam room. She came out ten minutes later, announcing, “Except for a few bruises, he’s fine.”

      “Thank heaven.” Bridgette sighed, rushing in, Gavin beside her.

      Seconds later, sounds of arguing could be heard.

      Knowing if it continued, other patients would be disturbed, Violet knocked on the door and breezed in. “How’s it going here?”

      Nicholas looked at Violet and pointed at his two older siblings. “Tell them I have every right to drop out of college if that’s what I want.”

       What?

      Gavin gave Violet a look that said “Help me out here...”

      She smiled. “Is this really the time and place to have this discussion? Because there are others in the waiting room still needing to be seen. So...”

      “Violet’s right.” Bridgette looked at her younger brother. “I’ll drive you home.”

      “I’ll take care of the paperwork,” Gavin said.

      “Are you okay?” Violet asked gently after his two siblings had left.

      Gavin rubbed a hand over his face.

      For the first time she realized what it must have been like for him when his parents died.

      Gavin had been about to enter medical school but his twin sisters and younger brother had still been in their teens. It had been up to Gavin and his older sister, Erin, who had been married with kids of her own, to finish raising them. Plus, manage the family’s ranch and Western wear store in town. Erin had insisted Gavin continue with his education, rather than forgo his dreams, and after some initial arguing about whether that was too much for his older sister to handle on her own, he had. He’d returned every few months to help out. And done his best to keep in touch, in between visits, but it couldn’t have been easy for any of them.

      Yet never once had she heard Gavin complain.

      Gavin dropped his hand to his side. “Yeah. It’s just the accident talking. He’ll be okay when he calms down and comes to his senses.”

      “Is there anything else I can do?”

      Gavin shook his head. “Thanks for offering.” He inhaled. “I better call Erin, though. Before she hears about it from anyone else.”

      Violet watched him leave with newfound respect. For reasons she couldn’t really explain, she was tempted to stay around awhile anyway to make sure Gavin was really okay in the wake of the traumatic event. Offer comfort. Take him to lunch. Something. But that was ridiculous, she knew. The two of them didn’t have that kind of relationship. They were casual friends, nothing more. If Gavin needed to turn to someone for support, it wouldn’t be to her.

      Meanwhile, there were places she was needed. She had things to do at McCabe House. She also wanted to check on Ava before she left the hospital.

      To her relief, the newborn was sleeping peacefully.

      Meg Carrigan joined her at the incubator. “Funny,” the sixty-year-old nursing supervisor mused, “how easily these little ones grab our hearts and then hold on with all their might.”

      Which was considerable, Violet thought. She turned to the trim redhead, who was also a dear family friend. “It still gets to you after all these years?”

      Meg nodded. She patted Violet’s shoulder. “Luckily, as each one of these little darlings leaves, another arrives, needing just as much TLC.”

      That was true, Violet thought, for the nurses and doctors in NICU. It wouldn’t necessarily hold for her. And that was a good thing. Thus far, despite the fact that all her sisters now had families of their own—or in Poppy’s case, was actively planning one—she had yet to catch baby fever.

      Given the fact she’d already had—and lost—the love of her life, she preferred it to stay that way.

      * * *

      FIVE HOURS LATER Violet opened a window on the second floor of McCabe House. She leaned out, video camera in hand, just in time to see Gavin getting out of his pickup.

      He was wearing faded denim jeans, boots and an old button-down shirt, the shirttails hanging out. His clothes looked as comfortable and broken in as her favorite pair of flannel pajamas.

      She let her gaze rove his tousled dark hair, broad shoulders and sandpaper hint of beard lining his handsome face. “I didn’t expect to see you again today.”

      At 6:00 p.m. she’d expected him to be headed home to bed after pulling the twelve-hour ER shift