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delivering Annie Bodkin's baby, she'd revealed her secret. Unexpectedly, and before she had all her ducks in a row. She hadn't yet figured out how to manage financially—and aside from the problem of a sponsoring obstetrician, money was her biggest worry. Well, that was the way of it. Birthing babies didn't run by time schedules or financial schedules, either.
    Ahead of Xan's motorcycle, the overarching trees streaked the road with shadows. The roar of the bike had faded to a hum now that Maura was used to it, and the vibration somehow soothed her tired body. She fought the entirely human urge to rest her cheek against Xan's broad back.
    "When was the last time you ate?" he shouted. His words were all but whipped away by the wind.
    "Before Annie's baby was born," she said, her lips so close to Xan's ear that she could smell the warm natural fragrance of his skin.
    Without warning, he swerved the motorcycle into the shell-rock parking lot of a small roadside diner and cut the engine. "Will you join me for dinner?" he asked. He slid partway off the motorcycle and switched on his considerable charm as he half turned to look at her in the flash of blinking red neon lights.
    "Here?" The diner shook on its foundations with twangy country music from a blaring old-fashioned jukebox.
    "I know it's not as fancy as the Teoway Island Inn," he said persuasively, "but they fry a mean chicken. We'll have to ask them if they have alfalfa sprouts."
    She smiled back, thinking how nice he was. She honestly didn't think he realized what a sensory effect he was having on her.
    "Even if they don't have sprouts, they could grow them in a week or so. I'd be glad to describe the process." She lifted the helmet off her head and let her hair spill out over her shoulders.
    "I'd rather you describe how you came by such gorgeous hair," he said, lifting a strand of it and letting it flow through his fingers like liquid copper.
    "That's easy," she said lightly. "I was born with it." She flipped her head so that her hair was out of his reach and strode toward the door, not wanting the conversation to take a more serious turn.
    "Birthing, borning," he said, following her. "With you everything seems to revolve around such things." He sounded serious, but at the same time not.
    She glanced back over her shoulder with a smile.
    "The whole world revolves around such things. Can you think of anything that's more important?" And she was utterly serious.
    He shook his head thoughtfully as he held the door open for her. Her retort had given him pause. "I guess not," he conceded.
    Inside, people bunched around a long counter watching a game on television. Raucous laughter echoed off the dingy beige walls, but Xan steered Maura to the end booth, where, blessedly, the music and laughter were muted.
    "I apologize for the place," he said. "We could have gone to the inn, but I thought you might prefer not to have to go home and dress first. I know you're tired." He regarded her with empathy.
    "You're right," she said gratefully. "Have you ever noticed how birthing babies fills you up in one way but depletes you in another?"
    "Of course," he said, a surprised yet meditative expression flitting across his face. It was the way he often felt himself, but he hadn't before known anyone to whom he could communicate such feelings. As nothing else could have, her voicing of his own thoughts gave a more meaningful significance to his attraction to her.
    After they had ordered, Xan studied her with absorbed concentration over the chipped Formica table. "So," he said, "tell me all about being a midwife."
    "It seems to me that you saw all there was back at Annie's house," she said, smiling at him.
    He laughed. "You're right. What I can't figure out is why you're here in Shuffletown."
    "I'm visiting my sister and her husband, Scott and Kathleen O'Malley," she told him. "Scott's the resident pro at the Teoway Island tennis club. Do you know them?"
    "I run into them at parties now and