“Dr. Hunter’s a little disorganized,” Martha said. “He’s not all settled in yet.”

Betsy petted the rabbit. “Don’t you think it looks like Dr. Hunter? They both have such big brown eyes.”

Megan nodded. “Everyone seems to know Dr. Hunter.”

“He’s taken over old Dr. Boyer’s practice. Dr. Boyer retired last month and moved to Florida,” Martha said, smoothing out the wrinkles in her apron. “My daughter took her little Larissa to Dr. Hunter last week, and she said he was wonderful.”

“Anyone know where this wonderful person lives?” Megan asked, shifting the weight of the rabbit to her hip.

“Nicholson Street,” Betsy said. “I returned his rabbit two days ago. He’s living in the little white cottage across from the cabinetmaker.”

Megan set her chin at a determined angle and marched off to do battle with Patrick Hunter. She didn’t care if he was Pediatrician of the Month; he had no business fathering a rabbit if he didn’t intend to take care of it. Rabbits weren’t exactly brilliant. This one probably had a brain the size of a walnut. What were its chances against hordes of tourists and overzealous gardeners? Remember the tragedy of Peter Rabbit’s father?

“Don’t worry,” she told the bunny, “that’s not going to happen to you. I’m going to give that Patrick Hunter a piece of my mind.”

By the time she reached the Hunter cottage Megan was sweating profusely and had resorted to bundling the enormous rabbit in her cape and slinging it over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Lord, she thought, what did he feed this thing, rocks? She stopped at Hunter’s front stoop to catch her breath and to reassemble herself and the rabbit into a more dignified appearance.

Before she had the opportunity to unwrap the animal, Patrick Hunter flung his front door open and grinned down at her. “I saw you stomp up my stairs. Is this a social call?”

She swung her cape off her shoulder and into Pat’s outstretched arms. “I’m returning your rabbit.”

He shook his head at the lumpy black bundle. “I see you’ve been feeding him again.”

Her eyes widened at the sight of a twitching nose and big bunny teeth protruding through a ragged hole in her cape. “Oh, no! Oh, darn!” She glared at Patrick Hunter. “This is all your fault. You should be ashamed of yourself for not taking better care of this rabbit. You don’t deserve to have a rabbit. If I had my way I’d have you put in the stockade. What if this sweet thing got lost, or rabbitknapped, or run over?”

Pat took a step backward. Boy, she was really steamed, he thought. He wanted to invite her in for tea, or lust, or something, but he was afraid she might start breaking things… like his nose.

She sniffed the air. “I smell something burning.”

“My applesauce!” He practically flung the rabbit at her, and ran back into his house.

Megan followed at a distance, closing the door behind her. The cottage, a white clapboard Cape Cod with a gray shake roof and black shutters, was very small. The downstairs consisted of one room, dominated by a walk – in red brick fireplace. Part of the room had been converted into a country kitchen.

She rolled her eyes at the language Pat was aiming at the pot on the stove. “Something go wrong?” she asked.

Pat slouched against the stove with a large, dripping spoon in his hand. “I suppose these things happen.”

“Hmmm,” she said, “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t gotten around to learning how to cook. I can toast bread and boil water and defrost most anything, but I can’t actually cook.” She guessed Patrick Hunter couldn’t cook either. A large stainless – steel pot of glop bubbled ominously on the stove, sporadically spewing its contents over the side and onto the floor.

A square wood table sat in the middle of the kitchen area. It was cluttered with sacks of flour and corn meal, a jar of molasses, colonial – style cones of sugar, and a wicker basket filled with sweet potatoes, baking potatoes, and turnips. Several pumpkins sat on the floor beside the table. The counters held jugs of cider, bunches of dried herbs, and loaves of bakery bread. Megan set the rabbit on the floor and motioned to the food.

“Mrs. Hunter likes to cook?”

“No Mrs. Hunter. Just me… and Tibbles.” He peered into the pot. “Do you think it’s done?”

“What is it?”

“Applesauce,” he said, sounding insulted.

“What are those big brown lumps?”

“I think that’s the part that got a little burned.”

Megan wasn’t much of a cook, but she’d never made anything that looked as bad as Patrick Hunter’s applesauce. She wondered if he misplaced babies at the hospital and melted his rubber gloves in the autoclave.

They both turned when the front door swung open and a young girl timidly entered the room. She wore blue jeans and a denim jacket, and she held a well – swaddled baby in one arm and a brown paper shopping bag in the other.

“I knocked, but nobody heard me,” she said. “I couldn’t wait any longer. I have to go.” Tears clung to her lower lashes and straggled down her cheeks. “I have to go, and I can’t take the baby, and I didn’t know what to do… and then I thought of you. I knew you’d take good care of him for me. You and Mrs. Hunter.”

She deposited the baby in Megan’s arms.

“I’m real sorry I’m in such a rush, but if I don’t go now I’ll miss my ride. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Promise. It won’t be any more than two weeks.” She kissed the baby, scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks, and ran out the door.

The baby looked up at Megan and started howling.

Megan jiggled the baby. “This kid’s loud. How do I get it to stop?”

Pat stood motionless, the spoon still in his hand. “Did she say she was leaving the baby with us? Oh, hell!”

He ran out to the sidewalk, looked up and down, jogged half a block down the street, but he couldn’t find the girl. He returned to the house and stared in astonishment at Megan, crying with the baby. “Good Lord, what’s the matter?”

“I can’t get it to stop crying. Just look at the poor little thing. It’s all red.”

He took the child from her and unwrapped it, slung the baby under his arm, and went back to stirring his applesauce.

“That was Tilly Coogan,” he said. “And this is Tim. One of my very first patients.”

“Are you related?”’

“Nope.”

“Are you… um, friends?”

“Nope.”

“Why did she give you her baby?”

Pat put a lid on the pot of applesauce and whistled “Taps.”

“I guess she thought I’d take good care of him.”

“You?The man who burns his applesauce and neglects his rabbit?”

“Yup. I’m a little disorganized, but I’m lovable.”

It was true, Megan had to admit, he was lovable. She could hardly keep from squeezing him. She guessed he must stand about six feet, but he didn’t look that tall. He had the wide shoulders, slim hips, and hard – muscled arms of an athlete, yet he didn’t look like a jock. He looked average. The casually sexy, slightly sloppy version of the boy next door, wearing battered sneakers and threadbare jeans and a gray sweat shirt with the sleeves cut short. And he looked great. He could probably wear his cannibalized sweat shirt to a black – tie dinner and pull it off. Still, pediatrician or not, she wouldn’t trust him with a baby.

“What about Tim’s father?” she asked.

“No father. Tilly Coogan hasn’t had an easy time of it. She’s an eighteen – year – old unemployed waitress living in an efficiency apartment over a garage, and I suspect she’s been evicted.”

He rummaged through the paper bag the girl had left and extracted a small pile of freshly laundered, carefully folded baby clothes, two clean baby bottles, and several disposable diapers.

“Looks like we have all the essentials here. I’m going to the office to get Timmy’s file, and see if I can track down Tilly. You two guys stay here in case she has a change of heart and comes back.”

“You’re leaving me here? With the baby?” Megan knew less about babies than she did about cooking. Babies were scary. They cried and drooled and did embarrassing things in their diapers. How had this happened to her?

Pat gently set the baby on the kitchen floor, shrugged into his leather jacket, and grinned at her.

“It isn’t as if I’m locking you in the house with Godzilla. You and Tim will get along fine. If he cries just change his diaper or give him a slug of milk. He can’t walk yet, but he can crawl. Maybe you should put Tibbles in the outdoor hutch before the Bruiser, here, grabs a hunk of bunny fur.”

Megan gave him a dazed look and nodded. “You won’t be gone long, will you?”

“What a wench. We hardly know each other, and already you can’t get enough of me. Love at first sight, huh?”

He tweaked her freckled nose and smiled as he closed the front door. She had a terrible temper, he thought, couldn’t cook, and she didn’t know squat about babies, but damned if she didn’t look good in his kitchen. All that outrageous hair and eyes the color of a stormy ocean, sort of gray – green, with curly red lashes, and there was an electricity to her. Yessir, he wouldn’t mind playing doctor with Megan Murphy.

Megan touched the tip of her finger to the tip of her nose. He’d tweaked her. On the nose. It was the sort of thing someone would to to his child… or his rabbit!

Patrick Hunter was a strange person. A total enigma… She couldn’t tell when he was teasing and when he was serious. He seemed altogether too casual about his responsibilities. And she didn’t like being tweaked on the nose in such an offhand manner.

Two hours later Megan was smiling at the little boy sleeping in her arms and wondering why it had taken her so long to discover babies. They were terrific. Timmy was especially terrific- even if he had howled for ages. He had soft blond curls, big blue eyes, and blond eyelashes. His chubby cheeks were flushed in sleep, his pink bow mouth slightly pouted, and his dimpled hand was resting against her breast. She’d pulled the Boston rocker directly in front of the huge brick fireplace, built a blazing inferno, and rocked the child to sleep. The fire had burned itself down to glowing embers, and her arms were stiff from holding the little boy, but she couldn’t bring herself to disturb him.