She laughed. “Probably so.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here. Don’t tell me you happened to have another flat outside my pub because your car’s overloaded.”
“Nope. I have four brand-new tires, thanks to my brother. Matt took the car in this morning, muttering the whole time about how irresponsible I was to let the tires get into such sorry shape in the first place. It made him feel very male and very superior, so I suppose there was a blessing to be had.”
“Well—” Ryan began.
“Don’t you start. Not when I’ve coming bearing gifts.”
Ryan’s gaze narrowed. “Gifts?”
She frowned at him. “Not for you. While my sisters and I were at the sales, we saw a few things we thought Rosita might be able to use for herself and the baby. That is who you’re expecting this afternoon, right? I spoke to her briefly after you and I talked yesterday. I know she wasn’t able to bring much with her to the shelter. Wait till you see.” She poked around in the shopping bags and started pulling out baby clothes, an expression of pure delight on her face. “Aren’t these the cutest things you’ve ever seen? Look at this.” She held up a tiny little knit cap in pale yellow. “And this.” She retrieved an outfit with ducks embroidered across the front.
When she had his entire desk covered with baby clothes, she sat back. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re amazing,” Ryan blurted, then regretted it when he saw the smile that spread across her face. “I meant that Rosita is going to amazed. Why did you do it? You must have spent a fortune.”
“Everything was on sale,” she reminded him. “And we couldn’t resist.” She held up another huge bag. “There are a few maternity outfits in here for Rosita. These are new, but I have another bag in the car of Colleen’s old maternity clothes. She swears she will never need them again, but if you ask me Daniel will talk her into at least two more kids. He wants a huge family. He was an only child.”
Ryan’s head was spinning. “Colleen is the sister who was ogling me in the kitchen?”
Maggie nodded.
“And Daniel is…?”
“Her husband.”
“Was he at the shelter yesterday?”
“He was there, along with my father and both of my brothers, plus my youngest sister, Katie. My other sister lives too far away to get home for Thanksgiving, but they’ll be here for Christmas. You can’t imagine the chaos.”
Oddly enough, he could. After the twins were born, there had been five children in the Devaney house for two Christmases. Somehow his parents had always seen to it that there were gifts under the tree, even if they were secondhand toys from the thrift shop in the neighborhood. From the moment he and his brothers had crept downstairs to see if Santa had come, the house had been filled with noise and laughter.
At least that’s the way it had been for a few brief years. Then they’d all been separated, and after that, Christmas had been one more day to be endured, worse than all the other days, because he’d wondered where his brothers were and if they were happier than he was. As he’d drifted from foster home to foster home, always feeling like an outsider, he’d prayed they were.
“Ryan?” Maggie asked softly, her gaze filled with concern. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said tightly. “Everything’s fine. Why don’t you stick around and give these things to Rosita? She should be here any minute.”
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t want to embarrass her.”
“She’ll want to thank you, I’m sure.”
“Another time. I should go before she gets here,” she insisted, already heading for the door.
“Wait. Didn’t you say something about having some clothes for Rosita in the car? I’ll walk you out,” Ryan said, surprised that he wasn’t quite ready to see the last of her. She was pushy and intrusive. In fact, she promised to make a nuisance of herself. But she was also warm and generous, a real ray of sunshine. Like a cat seeking warmth on a windowsill he felt himself drawn to her, despite all of his deep-seated reservations about getting involved with anyone.
As he watched her walk to her car, he realized that one of these days he was going to have to decide which mattered more—protecting himself from her prying or accepting her into his heart.
“You weren’t in there long,” Colleen commented, after Maggie had retrieved the bag of used maternity clothes, given them to Ryan and said goodbye. She had noticed that he’d kept a careful distance between himself and the car once he’d realized that her sister was waiting for her.
“Long enough,” Maggie said, satisfied with herself. The meeting had gone precisely the way she’d hoped it would. She had stayed just long enough to remind Ryan that she intended to be a part of his life—at least for the immediate future—but had left before he’d grown weary of her. And with his reluctance so apparent, she hadn’t pressed him to say hello to Colleen. Contact with her family seemed to disturb him, either because he was fearful of getting too involved or because seeing them brought back too many painful memories of the family he’d lost.
“What did he think of all the baby things?” Colleen asked.
“I think he was dumbfounded.”
“Clever of you to find a way to plant the notion of babies in his head. Now he won’t be able to look at you without thinking about having a baby of his own.”
“Colleen, that is not what this was about,” Maggie protested. “Those baby clothes were for Rosita.”
Colleen grinned. “But isn’t it nice that they served your purposes, as well?”
“I am not scheming to plant ideas in Ryan’s head,” Maggie insisted.
“Oh, really?”
“Really!”
“Well, intended or not, I’m sure it did the trick. I imagine he’s thinking of you in a whole new way now.”
“Pregnant?” Maggie asked
