Megan opened one eye and squinted at the clock radio. Five – thirty in the morning, and some lunatic was pounding on her front door. She dragged herself out of bed and looked out her bedroom window. She was right. It was a lunatic. It was Patrick Hunter. She opened her window and yelled down at him. “If you want to live you’ll stop pounding on my front door.”

“Cranky in the morning, huh? I know how to fix that.”

She might be cranky, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly what he meant, and she was going to ignore it. “What are you doing here?”

He held up a blue plaid bundle for her inspection. “The baby.”

“It’s five – thirty in the morning!”

“I have to be at the hospital by six.”

Megan blinked, nodded, and slammed the window shut. She shuffled into a pair of big blue furry slippers and halfheartedly slid a blue velour robe over her long silk nightgown.

“Hospital by six,” she mumbled as she scuffed down the stairs. She flicked the light on in the foyer and unlatched the front door. “I’m not a morning person,” she explained to Pat.

He handed her the sleeping baby and retrieved two grocery bags from his car. “That was before motherhood, Mrs. Hunter.”

Mrs. Hunter, she thought. Very funny. She awkwardly held the baby in front of her as she headed for the kitchen. “I don’t remember how to hold him.”

Pat followed her. “You act like you’ve never seen a baby before.”

“Not up close. I was an only child. I was spoiled and pampered and never exposed to the sordid aspects of life… like drool and baby poo.”

He set a pile of baby clothes on the counter, deposited a gallon of milk in the refrigerator, stacked up a few jars of baby food, and slapped a hastily scribbled note on the kitchen table.