User - NRoberts - G1 Blue Dahlia

She started toward the steps when Logan strolled into the foyer. "Big day."

"The biggest," she agreed. She hadn't considered he'd be there, and was suddenly and acutely aware

that her duties as labor coach had sweated off all of her makeup. In addition, she couldn't imagine she was smelling, her freshest.

"I can't thank you enough for taking on the boys."

"No problem. I got a couple of good holes out of them. You may need to burn their clothes."

"They've got more. Is Roz up with them?"

"No. She's in the kitchen. David's back there whipping something together, and I heard a rumor about champagne."

"More champagne? We practically swam in it at the hospital. I'd better go up and settle down the troops."

"They're out for the count. Have been since just before nine. Digging holes wears a man out."

"Oh. I know you said you'd bring them back when I called to tell you about the baby, but I didn't expect you to put them to bed."

"They were tuckered. We had ourselves a manly shower, then they crawled into bed and were out in under five seconds."

"Well. I owe you big."

"Pay up."

He crossed to her, slid his arms around her and kissed her until her already spinning head lifted off her shoulders.

"Tired?" he asked.

"Yeah. But in the best possible way."

He danced his fingers over her hair, and kept his other arm around her. "How's the new kid on the

block and her mama?"

"They're great. Hayley's a wonder. Steady as a rock through seven hours of labor. And the baby might

be a couple weeks early, but she came through like a champ. Only a few ounces shy of Gavin's birth weight, though it took me twice as long to convince him to come out."

"Make you want to have another?"

She went a few shades more pale. "Oh. Well."

"Now I've scared you." Amused, he slung an arm around her shoulder. "Let's go see what's on the

menu with that champagne."

* * *

He hadn't scared her, exactly. But he had made her vaguely uneasy. She was just getting used to having

a relationship, and the man was making subtle hints about babies.

Of course, it could have been just a natural, offhand remark under the circumstances. Or a kind of joke.

Whatever the intent, it got her thinking. Did she want more children? She'd crossed that possibility off

her list when Kevin died and had ruthlessly shut down her biological clock. Certainly she was capable, physically, of having another child. But it took more than physical capability, or should, to bring a child into the world.

She had two healthy, active children. And was solely and wholly responsible for them—emotionally, financially, morally. To consider having another meant considering a permanent relationship with a man. Marriage, a future, sharing not only what she had but building more, and in a different direction.

She'd come to Tennessee to visit her own roots, and to plant her family in the soil of her own origins.

To be near her father, and to allow her children the pleasure of being close to grandparents who wanted to know them.

Her mother had never been particularly interested, hadn't enjoyed seeing herself as a grandmother. It spoiled the youthful image, Stella thought.

If a man like Logan had blipped onto her mother's radar, he'd have been snapped right up.

And if that's why Stella was hesitating, it was a sad state of affairs. Undoubtedly part of it, though, she decided. Otherwise she wouldn't be thinking it.

She hadn't disliked any of her stepfathers. But she hadn't bonded with them either, or they with her.

How old had she been the first time her mother had remarried? Gavin's age, she remembered. Yes,

right around eight.

She'd been plucked out of her school and plunked down in a new one, a new house, new neighborhood, and dazed by it all while her mother had been in the adrenaline rush of having a new husband.

That one had lasted, what? Three years, four? Somewhere between, she decided, with another year

or so of upheaval while her mother dealt with the battle and debris of divorce, another new place, a

new job, a new start.

And another new school for Stella.

After that, her mother had stuck with boyfriends for a long stretch. But that itself had been another kind of upheaval, having to survive her mother's mad dashes into love, her eventual bitter exit from it.

And they were always bitter, Stella remembered.

At least she'd been in college, living on her own, when her mother had married yet again. And maybe

that was part of the reason that marriage had lasted nearly a decade. There hadn't been a child to crowd things. Yet eventually there'd been another acrimonious divorce, with the split nearly coinciding with her own widowhood.

It had been a horrible year, in every possible way, which her mother had ended with yet one more brief, tumultuous marriage.

Strange that even as an adult, Stella found she couldn't quite forgive being so consistently put into second or even third place behind her mother's needs.

She wasn't doing that with her own children, she assured herself. She wasn't being selfish and careless in her relationship with Logan, or shuffling her kids to the back of her heart because she was falling in love with him.

Still, the fact was it was all moving awfully fast. It would make more sense to slow things down a bit

until she had a better picture.

Besides, she was going to be too busy to think about marriage. And she shouldn't forget he hadn't asked her to marry him and have his children, for God's sake. She was blowing an offhand comment way out

of proportion.

Time to get back on track. She rose from her desk and started for the door. It opened before she

reached it.

"I was just going to find you," she said to Roz. "I'm on my way to pick up the new family and take them home."

"I wish I could go with you. I nearly postponed this meeting so I could." She glanced at her watch as if considering it again.

"By the time you get back from your meeting with Dr. Carnegie, they'll be all settled in and ready for some quality time with Aunt Roz."

"I have to admit I want my hands on that baby. So, now, what've you been fretting about?"

"Fretting?" Stella opened a desk drawer to retrieve her purse. "Why do you think I've been fretting

about anything?"

"Your watch is turned around, which means you've been twisting at it. Which means you've been

fretting. Something going on around here I don't know about?"

"No." Annoyed with herself, Stella turned her watch around. "No, it's nothing to do with work. I was thinking about Logan, and I was thinking about my mother."

"What does Logan have to do with your mother?" As she asked, Roz picked up Stella's thermos. After opening it and taking a sniff, she poured a few swallows of iced coffee in the lid.

"Nothing. I don't know. Do you want a mug for that?"

"No, this is fine. Just want a taste."

"I think—I sense—I'm wondering ... and I already sound like an ass." Stella took a lipstick from the cosmetic bag in her purse, and walking to the mirror she'd hung on the wall, she began to freshen her makeup. "Roz, things are getting serious between me and Logan."

"As I've got eyes, I've seen that for myself. Do you want me to say and, or do you want me to mind

my own business?"

"And. I don't know if I'm ready for serious. I don't know that he is, either. It's surprising enough it turned out we like each other, much less ..." She turned back. "I've never felt like this about anyone. Not this churned up and edgy, and, well, fretful."

She replaced the lipstick and zipped the bag shut. "With Kevin, everything was so clear. We were young and in love, and there wasn't a single barrier to get over, not really. It wasn't that we never fought or had problems, but it was all relatively simple for us."