Ingrid Weaver - Cinderella's Secret Agent

“I’m glad I could help, although you were the one who deserves all the praise. You never let out so much as a whimper.”

“I couldn’t have. It would have driven away all of Laszlo’s customers.” Taking a steadying breath, she turned her gaze to the baby. “I was right about having a girl.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Did you say that your sister has six children?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How did she come up with six names? I can’t even settle on one.”

“She chose names from our family. Altogether we have thirteen aunts and uncles.”

“Wow. Big families must run in—” She chuckled. “I was going to say they run in the family.”

“It’s an old Missouri homesteader tradition, raising your own farmhands,” Del said dryly.

“You’re from a farm?” Maggie asked, intrigued.

“A long time ago,” he answered.

So he wasn’t a cowboy after all, she thought. He was a farmer. Well, both professions involved dealing with animals and squinting at the horizon, so it was close enough. Before she could pursue the topic, she sensed a flutter of movement against her arm. She looked at her daughter. The baby’s eyelids were flickering. “Oh, Del,” she murmured. “She’s waking up.”

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to disturb her.”

“She’s been asleep for an hour—that’s a long time for a newborn. She’s such a clever girl. I told you she’s a genius, didn’t I?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, she is.” As her baby’s eyes blinked open, Maggie felt a rush of warmth. Would she ever tire of looking at this little miracle? She shifted on the bed to sit up straighter, smiling gratefully as Del rearranged the pillows behind her back. “Hello, precious,” she cooed. “How’s my little sweetie pie?”

Del leaned closer. Just as he had earlier, he hesitated for a moment, as if debating what to do next. Then he extended his index finger and gently stroked the baby’s cheek with his fingertip.

It must be the hormones, she thought, watching Del watch her baby. But the special warmth she felt flowing between her and her daughter expanded to envelop him, as well.

Simply saying thank-you hadn’t been anywhere near enough. He had delivered her baby, for God’s sake. Even the greeting-card companies didn’t have anything that covered that situation.

Would she have felt this way about the paramedics if they’d gotten there five minutes earlier and been the ones to deliver the baby? Or about her doctor if she’d given birth in the hospital? Somehow, she doubted it.

“Del,” she said.

He glanced up. His face wore a smile that on anyone else would be called sappy, yet on his starkly masculine features it could only be called…endearing. “You’re right, Maggie,” he said. “She’s beautiful when she’s awake, too.”

“Del, I—” She stopped suddenly, struck by a thought. “Delilah! That’s it.”

“What?”

“It feels right. More than right. It’s perfect.” She grinned. “Delilah Rice.”

“Delilah?” he repeated. “You mean as a name for your daughter?”

“Yes. What do you think?”

He stared at her. “Maggie…”

“It’s sounds great, doesn’t it? She doesn’t have any real aunts or uncles for me to name her after, so I can’t think of a better choice. You’re kind of an honorary uncle. When she grows up and asks me whose name she has, I’ll have a terrific story to tell her, won’t I?”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. He looked at the baby, then at her. “Maggie, I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

“Delilah Rice,” she said, catching her daughter’s fist in her hand. “Hello, Delilah Rice. I’d like to introduce you to Del…”

Her words trailed off. It seemed absurd, but after everything that had happened, she still didn’t know Del’s last name.

“Rogers,” he said, smoothing over the moment before it could get awkward. “Del Rogers.”

“Del Rogers, meet the smartest, prettiest, sweetest, most lovable baby in the entire universe, Delilah Rice.”

His throat worked as he swallowed. Tentatively, he reached out and closed his hand over hers and Delilah’s. “Hello, Delilah.”

It was his voice, Maggie thought, so deep and utterly masculine. Or it could have been the gentleness of his touch. Or maybe it was the postpartum hormones. But for a moment she found herself wishing…

Wishing what? That things could be different? That she could have fallen in love with a nice man like Del instead of a rat like Alan? That Delilah wouldn’t have to grow up without a father?

Her emotions were scrambled from the trauma of childbirth, that’s all. She still knew next to nothing about Del. She wasn’t looking for a knight in shining armor—no matter how nice he might be—to ride in on a white horse and rescue her. Alan had taught her that much. She and her daughter would be fine, a family of two, with enough love to fill a lifetime.

Letting herself long for anything else was only asking for trouble.

The whiskey bottle clinked as Del splashed more of the liquid into his glass. He’d finished his shift forty minutes ago. The drizzle that had been falling when he’d returned to his hotel room had strengthened to pattering rain, cloaking the dawn in gloom and guaranteeing another few hours of darkness. The routine of the Monarch Hotel was the same in New York as it was in the rest of the chain SPEAR owned— Del knew this because in the course of his assignments, he had stayed in practically every one of them. It would be after nine before the building came fully awake with the muffled thumps of closing doors and the squeaking rattle of the cleaning crew’s cart. That left him plenty of time to get good and drunk.

He returned the bottle to the bedside table, then leaned back against the headboard and cradled the glass in his hand. He hadn’t gotten drunk in years. In eight years, to be exact. But the Rogers clan was big on tradition, so maybe he would start one of his own.

Yes, maybe he should make it a tradition. Get blind drunk at least once a year, whether he needed it or not. It might do him good. Maybe if he loosened up more, took some time off from his job occasionally, he wouldn’t be hit so hard when something broke through to his emotions.

No, that wasn’t right. He was as human as the next guy. There was nothing wrong with his emotions. He had a full complement of them, he just didn’t need them for his job. When he was on the hunt, his success required the proverbial nerves of steel. Nothing bothered him, nothing distracted him when his survival and everyone else’s depended on his ability to keep calm in a crisis.

Cool as ice, he thought, taking a burning swallow. That’s the reputation he had built during his time with SPEAR. Evidently it spilled over into his off-duty hours, as well. After all, he’d kept his head in the back room of Laszlo’s diner, hadn’t he? Maggie had thanked him over and over for helping her through the baby’s birth. As a matter of fact, she’d been so grateful, she’d named her baby after him.

The baby.

Delilah.

The reason Del was getting drunk.

He took another swallow, grimacing at the taste of the liquor. This glassful was going down more easily than the last. Too bad it wasn’t working any faster.

He should have left well enough alone. He shouldn’t have gone to the hospital to see Maggie yesterday. He’d been around enough hospitals lately. He’d been at a different one the day before, visiting his colleague in intensive care. Until now, he’d never visited a maternity ward—he was more accustomed to dealing with how life ended than to seeing life begin.

No matter what he felt, he wasn’t responsible for Maggie or her baby. And as far as they were concerned, he was nothing but a bystander, so he had no right to accept the honor Maggie was giving him.