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bill,” he guessed, based on Lizzy’s warning. “Don’t get all worked up over it. I was just trying to keep the nurse from having apoplexy. You know how hospitals are about their forms these days.”
    “Oh, I’ll admit that threw me, but I figured out what had probably happened. It’s settled now. I’ve already explained to the billing office that the bill is my responsibility,” she said. “No, what I wanted to talk to you about is more important.”
    Hardy regarded her warily. He didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s that?”
    “The baby needs a name. I was hoping you could help me choose one. Something that would be special to you.” Her gaze met his. “Your mother’s name maybe.”
    Hardy froze at the mention of his mother, a woman who’d run out on him so long ago he could barely recall what she looked like. It wasn’t a betrayal he was ever likely to forget, much less honor.
    “Never,” he said fiercely.
    The fervent response clearly startled Trish, but unlike a lot of women who’d have taken that as a sign to start poking and prodding, she didn’t pursue it.
    “Another name, then. Maybe a sister or a girl you’ve never forgotten.”
    Hardy thought of the older sister who’d left home with his mother. Neither of them had ever looked back. He’d go to his grave resenting the fact that his mother had loved his sister enough to take her but had left him behind.
    Then he considered the long string of woman whose memories lingered. None were important enough that he wanted to offer their names.
    Finally he shook his head. “Sorry.”
    “Surely there’s a girl’s name you like,” she persisted. “Or even a boy’s name that we could change a little to make it sound more feminine.”
    He squirmed under the intensity of her gaze and her determination to pull him into a process that was by no means his to share. Naming a baby should be between a mother and a father. A stranger should have no part in it. But he recalled that she’d told him the night before that there was no father. Well, obviously, there was one, but he wasn’t in the picture. That still didn’t mean that Hardy had any business involved in this.
    “Can’t think of a single name,” he insisted, hoping that would be the end of it.
    “Well, then, I guess it will just have to be Hardy, after all.”
    He thought at first she was teasing, but he could see from her expression that she was flat-out serious.
    “Oh, no,” he said adamantly. “That’s no name for a pretty little girl. Not much of one for a man, if you think about it. Comes from Hardwick, an old family name on my daddy’s side. At least one boy in every generation had to be a Hardwick. Just myluck that I came along first in my generation. You would think after all those years of saddling poor little kids with that name, some mother would put her foot down and insist on something ordinary like Jake or Josh or John.”
    “What were the girls in your family named?”
    He chuckled as he thought of his cousins, every one of whom had been named after flowers. They’d viewed that as being every bit as humiliating as Hardwick. “Rose, Lily, Iris,” he recited, ticking them off on his fingers. He watched her increasingly horrified expression and kept going for the sheer fun of watching the sparks in her eyes, “I believe there might even have been a Periwinkle a few generations back.”
    Testing her, he said, “How about that for your baby? I really loved hearing about old Peri. To hear my father tell it, she was ahead of her time, quite the feminist.”
    Trish laughed. “You’re kidding.”
    “About Peri?”
    “About all of it.”
    He held up a hand. “God’s truth. I swear it. Somebody, way back when, had a garden thing. Nobody who came after had the imagination to stray from the theme.” He finally dared to look straight into Trish’s eyes, which were sparkling with little glints of silver that made the blue shine like sapphires. “Okay, forget Peri.