One

Respect was a touchy issue for Phoebe Schneider. She'd been a skilled physical therapist for several years, and since no one had twisted her arm and forced her to become a masseuse, it was pretty crazy to complain. Maybe a lot of guys assumed that being a masseuse meant she was loose as a goose, but guys, by their hormonal nature, always indulged in wishful thinking.

At twenty-eight, Phoebe knew perfectly well how the world worked. She just had a little hot spot about the respect thing…say, the size of a mountain.

Today, though, was one of those rare, fabulous days when Phoebe felt so great about her job that any price she had to pay was worth it.

From the windows of the Gold River Hospital conference room, the Smokies loomed in the distance. The mountains were still shawled in snow, the wind still February sharp, but inside, the temperature was toasty. The pediatrics neurologist, pediatrics head and ICU nurse rubbed elbows at the table. Phoebe wasn't just the youngest of the group, but distinctly the only masseuse.

What tickled her pride bone most, though, was that they were all listening to her. Of course, they'd better—because when the subject was babies, Phoebe was known to fight down and dirty.

"We've been through this before. The problem," she said firmly, "is that you're all looking for an illness. A pathology. Some kind of disease you can fix. But when you've ruled out all those possibilities, you have to look at other choices." She clicked her mouse, which changed the screen image on the far wall to that of a three-month-old baby. "George isn't sick. George is cold."

"Cold—" Dr. Reynolds started to interrupt.

"I meant emotionally cold." She clicked the mouse again, showing a picture from the day the baby had been brought into the hospital. A nurse was lifting George from a crib. The baby was indistinguishable from an inanimate doll, because his little arms and legs were as rigid as stone. "You already know his history. Found in a closet, half-starved. A birth mother incapable of mothering or even basic care. This was simply a baby 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 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."

Copyright © 2005 by Alison Hart