The Magnolia Sisters (Magnolia Sisters #1) - Michelle Major Page 0,120
there.
He punched in Noah’s number. He answered right away.
“Noah Dawson. What’s the emergency?”
“This is Harrison McCord from Cabin No. 1,” he said. “I just helped deliver your sister Daisy’s baby on the side of the service road onto Route 26. She doesn’t seem to have a phone with her. The ambulance took her to Prairie City General.”
“What?” Noah bellowed. “Is the baby okay? Is Daisy okay?”
“They both seemed fine,” he said. “It’s a boy, by the way.”
“We’re on our way. Thanks for helping Daisy.”
Harrison pocketed his phone and got back in his car, just sitting there behind the wheel for a moment, barely able to process what had just happened. A single workaholic businessman, he had no siblings to provide baby nieces and nephews, and he didn’t think he’d ever held a baby in his life—until today.
He drove the fifteen minutes to Prairie City and pulled into a spot in the hospital parking lot, then stopped in the gift shop. There were congratulations balloons, get-well balloons and an entire section devoted to stuffed animals, big and small. He eyed a soft and squishy medium-sized light brown teddy bear with a plaid bow tie and bought it, then followed the signs to Maternity.
In the elevator he stared at the bear, unable to fully comprehend how he’d ended up here, holding this stuffed toy, about to visit a new mother he hadn’t more than nodded at while seeing her at the ranch the past couple of days. A new mother who would hate his guts when she found out why he was really at the ranch.
Daisy was in room 508. He sucked in a breath and peered in the open door. Now in a hospital gown with a thin white blanket covering half of her, she was alone—well, except for the baby in her arms, her gaze so full of wonder as she stared at the infant that he felt he was intruding. He was about to turn around and flee when she said, “You! My hero!”
Harrison offered what had to be an awkward smile and walked fully into the room.
She smiled at him. “I’m sorry—as guest relations manager of the ranch, I’d normally know your name, where you’re from, if you like decaf or regular for your cabin, but I took this past week off for the wedding. I wasn’t even thinking I’d need to start my maternity leave so soon.” She smiled a dazzling smile. Wow, she was pretty. All glowy and happy. “But I do recognize you as one of our guests. Guess you didn’t expect your day to go quite like this.”
He had to laugh. “Nope. Definitely not. But I’m glad I happened to be driving down that road. You didn’t have a phone to call for help?”
She frowned and glanced down at the baby. “As you probably figured out from my outfit and the dumb sign on the back of my car, I was supposed to get married today. The groom, my newborn son’s father, didn’t show and sent me a Dear Jane text. I got pissed and chucked my phone out the window of my car. Dumb, I know.”
The father of her baby had left her at the altar? When she was nine months pregnant?
“Sorry about the wedding,” he said, unable to even imagine what that must have felt like. He’d never come close to marrying. Or proposing to anyone. But he’d been betrayed before and knew what that felt like.
“I’m sure I dodged a bullet. We weren’t right for each other, and we both knew it.”
So did he, despite not even having met her before today. Because he’d been keeping watch over the Dawson family and the only two of the six siblings who worked at the ranch, he’d made a point of taking a tailing walk whenever he noticed Daisy strolling a path with the fiancé, a surfer-cowboy type. Their body language was always so awkward. They never held hands or kissed, though they did take a lot of walks on the paths, which was how he managed to spy on them so often. He’d wondered about their relationship because they barely seemed like a couple, yet he’d overheard her tell the fiancé it was time to get to Lamaze yesterday, and off they’d gone.
She waved a hand in front of her. “Anyway. That is old news. This,” she said, smiling down at the baby, “is breaking news and all that matters.”
The love and reverence and sincerity in her voice caught him by surprise, and for a moment, he just gazed at the baby with her. Finally, he cleared his throat. “My name is Harrison McCord,” he said, stiffly sitting down in the chair by her bed. “I got you a little something. Well, I got him a little something,” he added, gesturing at the tiny human lying alongside her arm. The newborn was skinny and cute with wispy brown curls. His eyes were closed at the moment. “I’m in Cabin No. 1 at the ranch. I booked it for the week.”
“But it’s just you?” she asked. “Cabin No. 1 sleeps four.”
“Just me,” he said.
She waited a beat, as if she expected him to elaborate, but now was certainly not the time or the place. He’d wait a couple days, give her a chance to settle back at the main house at the ranch with the baby, and then he’d ask for a meeting with her and her brother. And drop a bombshell. The timing wasn’t good, but that couldn’t he helped.
“So what’s his name?” he asked.
“Tony. After my late grandpa, Anthony Dawson. I haven’t decided on a middle name,” she said. “Given what you did for me—for us—I’d like to use your middle initial.”
He gaped at her. No, no, no, no, no. Noooo. “That’s very thoughtful, but there’s no need for that.”
“You came to our rescue, Harrison. You helped bring this little guy into the world. I’d like to honor that.”
He swallowed, his T-shirt suddenly tight around his neck. “Um, I...don’t have a middle name,” he lied. He actually did—Leo. “I’d better get going,” he added, bolting up. “I did call your brother. He’s on the way.” He put the teddy bear on the table beside her bed.
She tilted her head at him. “Oh. Okay. Well, thanks again. For everything.”
As she turned her attention back to the baby, he took one last look at her, not wanting to leave—but how could he stay? Now that he’d met Daisy Dawson under these unusual circumstances—like delivering her baby and calling her brother and visiting her in the hospital and bringing baby Tony a teddy bear and hearing how she’d been left at the altar—he felt something of a connection to the new mother. The news he planned to deliver in a couple days wouldn’t be as cut-and-dried as he’d expected.
It’s just straight-up, on-paper business, he reminded himself. Nothing personal.
She wanted to give her baby his middle initial!
Things with Daisy Dawson had suddenly gotten very personal.