A Very Special Delivery

pleaded with her to try.
    Molly longed to please the dear, wonderful woman who had been her mainstay. More than that, she yearned to cradle a baby in her arms again without fear.
    The room seemed to hold its breath. She was aware that Ethan hovered in the kitchen doorway, watching. Laying aside her paintbrush, she said, “Let me wash my hands.”
    Moments later, heart thundering in her ears, she stretched out her arms. Aunt Patsy smiled and handed over the squirming child.
    Relishing the feel of the soft, plump little body, Molly carried Laney to the couch and sat down. Her throat was dry and her insides trembled the slightest bit, but she wasn’t short of breath. She could do this.
    “Hey, princess,” she said. “You sure are beautiful.”
    Laney’s chubby arms and legs paddled in response. Expression animated, she stuck her tiny pink tongue between her lips and blew a wet raspberry.
    Molly giggled, a sense of freedom and hope swelling inside her like a cleansing wave.
    For the first time in two years, she entertained the hope that the panic attacks were behind her, and that she was no longer a danger to children.
    * * *
    “It’s getting late,” Ethan said, but he made no move to get up. Laney slept face down across his knees. The peanut brittle plate on the coffee table held only crumbs. And Aunt Patsy had long since retired.
    He and Molly both had to work tomorrow but Ethan was reluctant to leave. Tonight had been fun. It had also been progress for Molly.
    At the sight of her chattering baby talk to his daughter, something had turned over in Ethan’s chest. Some nameless emotion that felt so right and good that he wanted to laugh out loud. She hadn’t held Laney long, but the fact that she’d held her at all was important, both to her and to him. She needed to know that he trusted her with his child. And he needed to know she cared.
    The admission hit him square in the chest.
    “I’m glad you came over.”
    Molly sat with her feet curled beneath her as he’d seen her do so many times at the farm.
    “Me, too.” The TV flickered, moving from one commercial to another. He had no idea what programs had come and gone in the past two hours. And he didn’t care. Talking to Molly, listening to her laugh, sharing his day with her, was far more pleasurable than any television show.
    He wasn’t lonely. Didn’t have time to be, but whenever Molly wasn’t around, something seemed to be missing.
    Uncomfortable with the notion, he gently lifted his sleeping child from his lap and placed her in the carrier. She stirred, making sucking motions with her mouth. Ethan smiled.
    Molly came to stand beside him, smiling, too. “It’s cute the way babies do that.”
    “She must dream about that bottle.”
    As if she’d heard and understood, Laney’s bow mouth curved into a smile.
    They stood there for a heartbeat, gazing down at the sleeping infant. “Aunt Patsy says when babies smile in their sleep, they’re playing with angels.”
    Ethan turned his attention to Molly. The top of her head barely reached his shoulders. “Think that’s true?”
    The corners of her mouth tipped in a smile. “I don’t know, but I like the sound of it.”
    “Me, too.” He also liked the curve of her lips and the faint flush of color over her cheekbones. “What do you dream of, Molly?”
    He didn’t know where the question had come from, but there it was.
    She looked surprised, then thoughtful for a millisecond. With a small laugh, she shook her head. “I don’t know. Silliness mostly. Things that make no sense. What do you dream about?”
    “You.” There. He’d said it. And if she wanted to throw it back in his face, fine. He’d been rejected before and lived.
    “Oh, Ethan.” She laid a small hand on his shirtfront. “What a sweet thing to say, but—”
    He stopped the inevitable with fingertips pressed to her soft mouth. “No buts, Molly. No buts.” And then before he could think better of the action, he leaned down, replaced his hand with his mouth and kissed her.
    In the next instant she was in his arms, and Ethan’s world centered for the first time in a long time. When Molly’s arms circled his neck and pulled him closer, something exploded in his chest. This was the moment they had been working toward since that first stormy night when he’d seen the terror and the goodness in her eyes.
    After the bad time with Twila he’d set his mind not to take any more chances with women, to concentrate on being a