by Lori Foster
Gil nodded. “I’m very good now.” He swallowed. “Thank you.”
She rubbed his cheeks experimentally then gave Anabel a wide grin. “He tickles.”
Anabel put her palm to Gil’s cheek, smoothing with her thumb. He had a five o’clock shadow and his jaw was rough, warm, and oh so masculine. “Yep, he’s whiskery.”
“Whiskery.” Nicole nodded, and with an abrupt about-face, said, “I want my juice.”
Gil drew a calming breath and stood. “Take a look around, make yourself at home. I’ll go unload everything.”
Because he still appeared to be in shock, Anabel worried. “Thanks.”
“Hold onto her.”
“I will.”
He hesitated a second more, then turned and went outside again, carefully closing the door behind him. If he was this shook up in the first five minutes, how would he feel after a week? Anabel said a quick prayer that the joys of little Miss Nicole Lane Tyree outweighed the inconvenience, otherwise they were both in for a lot of trouble.
Chapter Three
By suppertime, Gil’s house looked very different. Bumpers covered all the sharpest corners of his furniture and gates cluttered every entryway. What used to be an open, airy space was now carefully sectioned off to contain a toddler’s energy. Clean lines had disappeared, replaced with toys strewn into every conceivable corner. His once immaculate, state-of-the-art chrome kitchen now sported a variety of knee-high fingerprints.
Nicki touched everything. A lot.
Next to his ebony enamel dinette table was a colorful red and yellow highchair, looking much like a spring flower blooming on blacktop. Among his trendy black dishes, set behind clear glass cabinet doors, were several sipper cups of crayon-bright red, blue, and green. There was also a stack of equally bright bowls with hideous cartoon faces on them.
Nicole had recited her colors and counted her bites while eating. Judging by Anabel’s praise, that was quite an accomplishment. She put a lemon yellow potty chair in the guest bathroom, explaining that Nicki no longer used regular diapers, but pull-ups that worked like diapers, but looked a lot like little girl panties. In a few more months, Nicki would be in regular underwear, but Anabel said she didn’t want to push the issue right now with everything else going on.
Gil decided he needed to get a book or two to figure out some of this stuff. He had no idea what kids did, or when.
His daughter talked a lot about everything. Her sentences were endlessly long and he caught…oh, maybe every third or fourth word. The rest sounded like gibberish to him, though Anabel seemed to understand her just fine.
Nicole also hugged a lot. And kissed a lot. She was such a sweet little girl. Anabel was right about that. Nicole thrived on the love she gave and received.
There hadn’t been much time to talk or discuss the issues while Anabel and Nicole settled in, but Gil enjoyed just watching her. Her expressions were priceless, the way her small face scrunched up in annoyance or anger, how she always squinted her eyes shut and lifted her chin when she smiled real big.
When she was sleepy, she sucked her thumb and tugged on a curl of hair. When she was sad or mad, her bottom lip stuck out and she crossed her arms tight over her chest. And she was a master at manipulation. She’d ask for something by punctuating the request with a hug or kiss and an innocent smile.
She delighted him, more so every minute.
Gil was busy setting up Anabel’s computer in the bedroom he’d given her when Nicole came streaking through, shouting, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
His little angel was naked.
Grinning, Gil sat back on the floor and caught her as she hurled herself into his arms.
Anabel, carrying a disposable pull-up diaper and a T-shirt, rounded the corner hot on her heels. When she saw Nicki tucked close to Gil’s chest, she pulled up in relief.
“Sorry. Sometimes she’s like greased lightning.” She flopped down next to Gil, propping her back against the wall.
“I don’t mind.” Just the opposite. He loved hugging her, and he especially loved being called Daddy.
“Nicki’s a true nature child,” Anabel told him while reaching out to pat the baby’s butt. “Give her half a chance and she loses the clothes. She learned how to strip a few months ago, and she’s been doing it ever since.”
Gil rubbed Nicki’s soft back and kissed her downy head. “Let’s hope she outgrows that.”
Anabel laughed. “At least before she hits her teens, huh?”
“Oh God.” Gil squeezed her closer. “I can’t think that far ahead. I’m still getting used to the idea of her being a baby. A teenager—no, it’s too much to take in.”
Anabel leaned into his shoulder in a show of camaraderie that felt far too intimate—and far too comfortable. She wasn’t the type of woman he could ever treat like a pal, not when every cell in his body stayed on alert status whenever she was near.
But Anabel seemed unaware of his dilemma. She kept touching him, leaning into him, getting too close. She hugged his right biceps now and said, “One of the first things I bought when Nicki was born was a video camera.”
Balancing Nicki against his free arm, Gil looked down at Anabel. “You have tapes of her?”
“Hours’ and hours’ worth. Her birthdays, Christmas, even some everyday stuff. There’s a really funny one of her in a bubblebath—”
“Bath!” Nicki echoed, jumping up and down within the secure hold of Gil’s arm. “Bath, bath!”
The shrill squeals of excitement almost pierced Gil’s eardrums. “I take it she’s fond of bath time?”
“Are you kidding? I think she was a fish in another life.” Anabel released Gil to push to her feet. “And speaking of that, I better get her ready for bed before she gets her second wind. Bath, book, and bed—that’s the routine, and a smart woman doesn’t mess with success.”
A new complication occurred to Gil. “Damn. The connecting bath in the room I gave you only has a shower.”
Nicki gave him a beatific smile and said, “Damn.”
“Nicole Lane, that is a bad word.”
She stuck her finger in her mouth and glared at Gil, making it difficult for him to contain his smile. “I’ll learn,” he promised Anabel before handing Nicole up to her. “Give me just a second to finish connecting things here and I’ll take you to my bathroom.”
“Your bathroom?”
“It’s the only tub.” He had two and a half bathrooms, but only one tub—in the private bath off his bedroom. And he wasn’t altogether sure it’d work for Nicole, being that the tub was so huge.
He quickly connected the rest of the cords on Anabel’s computer system and plugged everything into a surge protector. “That should do it.”
Anabel switched on the computer, watched her monitor light up, and nodded. “Looks like everything’s working. Thanks. I don’t have anything pressing, but if I want to meet the deadlines on my new website designs, I can’t take too much time off.”
The second Gil stood beside her, Nicole reached for him again. “Daddy.”
“So I’m to be your mule, am I?” He felt her skinny arms go around his neck, her bare butt settle on his forearm, and thought to ask, “She can…ah, control herself, can’t she?”
“Most of the time.”
When his eyes widened, Anabel burst out laughing. She was as exuberant and carefree as his daughter. He liked that about her. “You’re teasing me?” he asked, watching the way her green eyes twinkled.
“Yeah, I’m teasing.” In a too familiar way, all things considered, she hooked her arm in his and started him toward the hall. “Without her pull-ups, she’ll tell you if she needs to go.”
They went down the hall and into his room. It struck Gil just how close Anabel would be to him during the night. The spare bedroom was at the far end of the hall on the right, with Gil on the opposite side and down a bit. His room was twice as big, but then, he hadn’t been selfish when choosing it because there’d been no one else to consider. The t
hird bedroom was mostly used for storage and to house his many bookcases filled with books. He’d already considered how he could rearrange things, fitting the bookcases into his den and changing the room into a playroom for Nicole. But in the meantime…
“I wonder if we should switch bedrooms. It might be better for you to have my room since it has a bathtub—for Nicole, I mean.”
She looked flabbergasted by the offer. “Our room is fine.”
He scowled. “But you might be more comfortable in the bigger room.”
“No, I’d feel lost in a room that size.” She grinned, but added, “Sometimes Nicki showers with me, but I try to keep that to a minimum. There are times when I want my privacy, too. So as long as you don’t mind us trooping through here every now and then, we’ll keep what we’ve got.”
The idea of Anabel naked and wet flitted through Gil’s mind before he could squelch the image. Maybe during her trial run, he’d get the opportunity to shower with her.
What was he saying?
Annoyed with his wandering thoughts, Gil shook his head and realized that Anabel had stopped in the middle of his bedroom to look around. She stared pointedly at his king-size bed. Candace had made it earlier so that the plump down quilt was smooth, the matching gray pillows placed just so. Anabel cocked a brow, but refrained from comment.
When they stepped into his black and gold bathroom, though, her mouth fell open. “It’s as big as your bedroom.”
He shrugged. “I like my luxuries.” Like the immense tiled shower with five separate showerheads that could reach every aching muscle. And the heated towel bars, the double sink, the high ceilings.
“You call that a tub?”
Gil went straight to the partially sunken square bath and turned on the water. “You don’t like it?” He knew that wasn’t her problem, but decided he could tease, too.
“It’s…decadent. And it could easily pass for a swimming pool.” She, too, sat on the edge of the marble ledge surrounding the tub. “Wow. This is amazing.”
With the temperature adjusted, Gil turned a knob that tightened the plug and the tub began to fill. Nicki tried to squirm loose, but Gil held onto her. “Will she be okay in there? I’ve never bathed a baby before.”
Still a little bemused, Anabel shook her head. “I don’t know. Let’s don’t fill it up too much.”
He turned the water off when it was still very shallow. Keeping his eyes on Nicki as he lifted her inside, he said to Anabel, “If you’d like to take a soak sometime, feel free. With the whirlpool jets on, it’s really relaxing.”
“Hmm.” She trailed her fingers through the water. “There’s plenty of room for two.” Her eyes slanted his way. “But then, I bet you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Her not so subtle digging amused him. If she only knew how long it’d been since he’d had a woman, she wouldn’t worry. “Actually, this is the first time a female has been in my tub.” Nicki, who remained oblivious to the undercurrents between the adults, managed to splash and thrash and soak them both. “And I’m not sure the little rat here counts.” The second the words left his mouth, Gil wanted to choke himself. Damn it, now she had him calling Nicki a rat.
Anabel laughed while lathering Nicki’s hair. “Oh, I dunno. I think it tells a lot about you.”
Gil didn’t like the speculative way she said that. “It tells you only that I’m a private man who tries to keep my relationships with women as simple as possible.”
“Well, this relationship won’t be simple.”
He didn’t know if she meant with Nicki or with her, and he decided not to ask. Anabel was so good with his daughter, so natural about the whole mother thing that he almost felt the need to reassess. If he hadn’t already known her, if she looked different, he’d think she was born to be a mother.
“Get in,” Nicole demanded of Anabel.
Gil raised a brow.
With a crooked smile, Anabel said, “Not this time, Toots.”
Nicole aimed a calculating eye at Gil. “Get in.”
Gil sputtered. “Uh, no. Thank you.”
Stubborn determination brought a comical scowl to Nicki’s face. “Get in, get in, get in.” She emphasized each demand by kicking her legs and slapping the water with her hands. Gil noticed that when she wanted something, his little angel spoke very clearly indeed.
Anabel had to scurry to support her so Nicole didn’t slip in the tub. She got drenched in the bargain. The front of her T-shirt clung to her breasts and water dripped from her nose. “Bath time is over, rat.” Laughing, she caught Nicole beneath the arms and lifted her out onto a thick, soft towel. “Look at what you did. You got me and your daddy both soaked.”
Gil hadn’t realized he was wet until Anabel said that. He’d been too busy studying the way her nipples puckered from the drenching and how clearly he could see them beneath her soaked tee.
He straightened abruptly. “If you can manage on your own, I have a few things to take care of.”
Anabel looked hurt by his abrupt withdrawal. “I’ve been managing just fine all along. Go ahead. I don’t want to interrupt your routine.” She did a double take at that, and shrugged self-consciously. “Any more than we already have, I mean.”
He started to tell her that she wasn’t interrupting at all, but Nicole was already busy trying to play and Anabel was laughing at her—and stupidly, Gil felt left out. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked from the bathroom, unsure what to do with himself. On a normal night, he’d have gone through some paperwork, maybe watched ESPN for a bit or worked out, then retired. But tonight wasn’t normal.
He remembered the diary and fetched it from Nicole’s diaper bag, then headed to the den. His desk here was smaller, but his chair was identical in size and color to the one in his downtown office. He settled in and began skimming the pages.
It didn’t take him long to realize just how unhappy Shelly had been. She chronicled all the ways she’d disappointed her parents; it seemed that from an early age their expectations for Shelly had been so high that she’d never been able to please them.
Time and again, Shelly’s parents let her know that she hadn’t quite measured up. They even criticized her business skills, which was absurd. She ran a chain of novelty stores and was quite successful with it. Gil had met Shelly through business, and she was as professional and able as anyone. She was one of his best buyers, and she could negotiate prices like a shark.
They also berated her on her friends, namely Anabel. That made Gil wince. Anabel had read the diary, so she knew how disparaging Shelly’s parents had been. Unfortunately, many of their remarks were on a level with his own personal thoughts. Only now, he knew he was wrong. Anabel might appear free-spirited with her earrings and tattoos and laid-back manner, but she’d still managed to take care of his daughter all on her own.
Worst of all, Shelly’s parents hated it that she’d “shamed them” by having Nicole without benefit of marriage.
Guilt got a stranglehold on him when he read her next scrawled words: They’ll definitely approve of Gil for a son-in-law. She’d obviously been counting on him to come back to her and profess his love.
But Gil hadn’t asked Shelly to marry him. Instead, he’d broken off any romantic ties, and so, just as Anabel claimed, Shelly’s parents had pressured her to give Nicole away. Given what he’d just read in her diary, they’d continued to press her right up until the day she’d died.
They were Nicole’s grandparents, but they hadn’t wanted her, had never warmed to her. Not once.
Why the hell did they want her now?
Gil closed the journal, unable to read any more. He already knew how his family would react to Nicole—they’d love her as much as he did. She’d be welcomed with open arms and assured of unwavering support. She’d be doted on, cherished, and protected.
It enraged Gil to think of what Shelly had gone through, and at the same time, he was awed at the steps Anabel had taken to make things right for Nicole. Shelly hadn
’t known how to be a mother, but Anabel had never let Nicole feel slighted in any way. His daughter had been well loved and cared for—by Anabel.
Gil stood to pace for a few minutes, chewing over complications and procedures, deciding on a course of action. The grandparents would have to be dealt with, and that meant he’d need to cancel all his appointments tomorrow. He wouldn’t take the chance of leaving Anabel in case they arrived unannounced. She’d handled enough on her own already.
Once he’d made up his mind, Gil felt urgent need to put his plans in action. He called Alice’s answering machine at work and left her instructions to clear the next couple of days for him. She’d rearrange his schedule the moment she arrived in the office.
Next, Gil called his lawyer, Ted Thorton, at home. He wanted all the legalities out of the way. He gave Ted Shelly’s name and last address so he could look up her parents and inform them that Gil was claiming permanent custody of his daughter. He then requested that changes be made to all of his investments, as well as his will. He wanted Nicole noted as his beneficiary in every regard. Ted promised to get right on it, and once he had the papers in order, he’d meet with Gil to get the necessary signatures.
One decision led to another, until he could no longer put Anabel from his mind. She had a stake in everything, whether he wanted her to or not. Throughout the day, he’d watched her with Nicole and now he accepted the truth—he couldn’t separate them.
Anabel would accompany him to meet the lawyer, Gil decided, so that she knew his plans. He would put her mind to rest on that score, at least. She, as well as his daughter, would be taken care of.
At that moment, Anabel stepped into the room. Her wet shirt still clung to her breasts, her light brown hair was still mussed, and she looked beyond wary. She put her hand on top of Nicole’s head. “You busy?”
“Not at all.” Gil slipped the diary into a drawer and slid it shut. “I was just contemplating fate.” He gave her a smile he hoped would ease her.