She hesitated, obviously indecisive. But then she reached for the card, her slender fingers carefully avoiding his longer darker ones as she took it from him. “I gave you my answer yesterday.”

“Think about it,” Kyle suggested. “I’ll be in touch if I don’t hear from you.”

“A threat?”

Her sarcasm didn’t faze him. “I have no reason to threaten you, Emma. We can be on the same side. You’re completely safe from me.” He was making the promise to her as much as to himself, he realized. When she looked up at him with her wide wary eyes, he was reminded of fairy-tale heroines.

Disgusted with the direction of his thoughts, he strode to the door. He’d given up on fairy tales when he was seven. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you, Emma.” He left then, carrying the image of her studying his card with a sober expression on her lovely unadorned face.

After Millie’s brief visit, Emma fixed some lunch for herself and freshened the water for the flowers. Then Chandler awakened and she gathered her courage to give him his first bath. It was a rousing success, and as soon as she finished slipping his wriggling little arms and legs into his lightweight romper, he sighed with his whole little self and went to sleep, perfect as an angel.

Emma sat watching him for long minutes, nearly sitting on her hands to keep from touching him, from disturbing him simply because she wanted to feel his warmth. “My little man,” she whispered, then began humming under her breath. Her fingers automatically moved with the music that was vivid and brilliant in her mind, and realizing it, she clasped them in her lap.

It wasn’t as if she’d never play again, she reasoned. Every week when she worked with the children’s choir at the Benderhoff school, she’d be playing piano. But it wasn’t the same as sitting at her own instrument whenever she wanted, playing to her heart’s content.

“I’ll teach you to play,” she promised Chandler softly. Then she frowned as Kyle’s words whispered through her mind. He’d learned the notes, but he’d known the true heart of the music wasn’t there for him. “You’ll feel the music, too, pumpkin. Whether it’s piano or something else, we’ll share that joy. I know it.”

The afternoon was passing when she again heard feet on the steps outside. This time, however, she was expecting visitors, and she went to the door, smiling at the two women coming up. She’d met Taylor Fletcher and Megan Malone at the Buttonwood Baby Clinic when they’d all been taking the same childbirth classes. Except Megan was Megan Macgregor now, thoroughly adored by her new husband, Mac.

Megan had her baby, Tyler, in her arms and led the way up the stairs, while Taylor, enormously pregnant, followed more slowly.

Once they reached the top, Emma held open the door. “We should have met at the diner or something, Taylor. I just didn’t think about you having to climb the stairs.”

Taylor rolled her eyes and awkwardly settled on the couch, folding her arms across her belly. “Which is worse?” she asked breathlessly. “Me climbing stairs at this stage or you climbing stairs immediately after having a baby?” She looked over at the bassinet. “But you can bring Master Valentine over to see me, if you don’t mind, because I think I’m stuck here on the couch for the duration.”

Megan settled on the couch, too, resting Tyler on her lap. “Yup. Bring him over here, Emma. Let’s compare birthing horror stories and scare Taylor silly.”

Taylor snorted softly and Emma shook her head at the two women. She rolled the bassinet toward them, trying to jostle it as little as possible. Then she handed out glasses of lemonade and set a tray of cookies from one of the foil packages of Millie’s on the metal footlocker and sat down to catch up with her friends.

“So what’s with the floral display?” Taylor finally asked when all the gossip was expended. “It looks like you received flowers from every customer who has ever gone into Mom & Pop’s.”

“Kyle Montgomery,” Emma answered without thinking.

Megan’s eyebrows shot up. “As in Kyle Montgomery, head of ChandlerAIR? I read an article recently about him. He’s—”

“I know.” Emma folded her arms over the edge of the bassinet and gently smoothed Chandler’s hair.

“How did you meet him? I thought you were totally off men after what Jeremy St. James did.” Taylor tried to sit forward to reach the cookies, but couldn’t. Emma leaned over and handed her two.

“I am not off men,” Emma defended. “I just don’t need or want one, that’s all.”

“Famous last words,” Megan quipped.

“Besides,” Emma continued, ignoring Megan’s comment, “he’s not interested in me. Well, not that way.”

“Oh, now this is sounding really interesting,” Taylor said lightly. “Come on, Emma, tell me. Then I can live vicariously on the excitement in your life.”

“I wouldn’t call it exciting to have yet another man try to buy me off.”

Both her friends’ faces sobered.

“Oh, that’s not exactly right,” Emma admitted, feeling frustration well up all over again. “He visited me yesterday morning with the most outrageous proposition.” She told them the bare bones of Kyle’s suggestion. “I told him no, of course.”