Harlequin - Jennifer Greene by Hot Touch (read full novel txt) 📕

who was born into a world so hostile that he had no concept of emotional connection.”

She showed the next series of slides, illustrating the changes over the last month since she’d started working with the baby. Finally she ended the presentation—which ended her consulting job for this group, as well. “My recommendation is that you not place George in a regular foster care situation for a while yet. We think of bonding as a natural human need, but George’s situation is more complex than that. If you want this little angel to make it, we need him connected 24/7 to a warm, human body—and I mean that literally. We have to force him to trust, because even at this young age, he has learned to survive by tuning out. He simply won’t take the chance of trusting anyone—unless we put him in a situation where he’s forced to.”

Halfway through the meeting, the social worker tiptoed in late. Phoebe saw skepticism in the neurologist’s face, dubiousness in the social worker’s. She didn’t mind. The docs wanted to be able to prescribe medicine that would promptly fix the baby. The social worker wanted to foster the baby out and get him off her hands.

Everybody wanted easy answers. Phoebe could only seem to come up with time-consuming, expensive and inconvenient answers, which not only regularly annoyed everyone, but also tended to go down harder because they came from an upstart, redheaded, five-foot, three-inch baby masseuse.

No one ever heard of a baby masseuse when she came to Gold River. No one ever heard of it in Asheville, either, where she’d started out. Heaven knew, she’d never wanted to create a job that didn’t exist. But darn it, she’d kept running across throwaway babies that the system had only lazy, lousy, inadequate answers for. It wasn’t her fault that her unorthodox ideas worked. It wasn’t her fault she fought like a shrew for the little ones, either.

When it came down to it, maybe she’d just found her calling. Yelling and arguing seemed to come to her naturally.

When the meeting broke up around four, the powers that be tore out as if released from prison. Phoebe started humming under her breath—she’d won the program for Baby George—further proof that it paid to be a shrew. And now, because the meeting ended early, she could get home and give the dogs a run before dinner.

She pushed on her shoes, grabbed her black-sashed jacket, but she couldn’t take off until she put on Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

some lip gloss. Talking always made her lips dry. She found at least a half-dozen glosses and lipsticks in the dark depths of her bag, but she wanted the raspberry gloss that went with her sweater. And then…

“Ms. Schneider? Phoebe Schneider?”

She spun around, the tube of raspberry gloss still open in her hand. Two men stood in the double doorway—in fact, the two of them blocked the entrance with the effectiveness of a Mack truck.

Positively they weren’t hospital staff. For sure Gold River Memorial Hospital had some adorable doctors, but she knew none with barn-beam shoulders and lumberjack muscles.

“Yeah, I’m Phoebe.”

When they immediately charged toward her, she had to control the impulse to bolt. Obviously they couldn’t help being giants, any more than she could help being undersize. It wasn’t their fault they were sexy lugs, either, from their sandy hair to their sharp, clean-cut looks to their broody dark eyes…any more than she could help having the personality of a bulldog. Or so some said. Personally, Phoebe thought she was pretty darn nice. Under certain circumstances. When she had time. “I take it you’re looking for me.”

The tallest one—the one in the serious gray suit—answered first. “Yeah. We want to hire you for our brother.”

“Your brother,” she echoed. She got the lip gloss capped, just in time to drop it. The one in the sweatshirt and jeans hunkered down to retrieve it for her.

“Yes. I’m Ben Lockwood, and this is my brother Harry.”

“Lockwood? As in Lockwood Restaurant?” The town of Gold River had lots of restaurants, but none as posh as Lockwood’s. For that matter, the Lockwood name had an automatic association to old money and old gold, which was probably why Phoebe had never run into them before.

Ben, the one in the suit, answered first. “Yeah. That’s Harry’s place. He’s the chef in the family. I’m the builder. And our youngest brother is Fergus. He’s the one we want to hire you for.”

Phoebe felt a familiar wearisome thud in her stomach. Guys. Looking to hire a masseuse. For another guy. One plus one invariably added up to someone thinking she hired out for services above and beyond massaging.

Still, she didn’t waste time getting defensive, just gathered her gear and headed out. The men trailed after her down the hall toward the east entrance. Harry grabbed her box of slides—which tried to tip when she pushed open the door. “I don’t know why you two didn’t just call. I’m listed. And then I could have told you right off that I only work with babies.”

Ben had a ready answer. “We didn’t call because we were afraid you’d brush us off. And we know you work with little kids and babies now, but the hospital said you were a licensed physical therapist, the best they’d ever seen. Fox is in a special situation. So we hoped you might consider making an exception for him.”

There was no way she was taking on an adult male. None. Phoebe wasn’t short on courage, but her heart had been smashed too hard from a close encounter with the wrong kind. She would take another chance. Sometime in the next decade. But for now, the only risks she willingly took were for babies.

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None of that was any of their business, of course. She just told them she was booked up the wazoo for months—which had the effect of swatting a fly. Ignoring her protest completely, they trailed her