by Tessa Radley
The hesitation stretched into a pulsing pause, became overlong, and the moment passed.
Finally, he took the conversational olive branch she’d offered. “A bit of lint on my trousers hardly matters.”
Everything that mattered in his life sat right in front of him. Jennie, snuggled into Candace’s lap, holding on to his thumb like there was no tomorrow. Candace, her cheeks flushed with exertion, her eyes sparkling.
“Candace—”
Her eyes were bright, inquiring. “Mmm?”
“That was my doctor.”
The brightness faded a little.
“And?”
“The tests are back. You were right. Jennie is my daughter.”
Ominously, she didn’t say that she’d told him so. She tightened her arms around the baby until Jennie objected. Her stillness was starting to concern him.
He needed them…both of them.
Jennie perched on Candace’s lap looking comfortable and at ease. Both had been so utterly absorbed in each other until he’d come along and ruined it. They didn’t need him at all.
That realization made his heart miss a beat.
For the first time he had some inkling of how Jilly must’ve felt in those long years she was married to him.
He’d behaved like a bastard, resenting the fact that Jilly had trapped him into a marriage he hadn’t wanted…yet couldn’t refuse. It had been a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, and he’d been determined not to drown. So Jilly, the agent of his downfall, had borne the brunt of his anger.
Nick was starting to like himself less and less…
As if she sensed his thoughts, Jennie dropped his thumb and turned her attention to tugging at strands of blond hair that had escaped Candace’s hair tie. Instead of pulling away, Candace simply laughed.
Nick cleared his throat. “Look, every year there’s a carnival at the Super Center on the Sunday closest to Valentine’s Day. That’s this weekend. It’s very festive.” God, he was starting to sound desperate. With studied casualness he asked, “Would you like to come with me this year?”
“You’re asking me on a date? To be your Valentine?”
Damn.
He couldn’t read her expression. What the hell was he supposed to say now?
Nick forced a laugh. “No, no. Nothing like that.”
“Oh…”
God, he was screwing this up badly.
“Candace—” He broke off and reached out the hand Jennie had held and covered Candace’s with it. She flinched.
He withdrew swiftly and brushed a nonexistent piece of fluff from his jacket, trying to face up to the fact that he wasn’t behaving with very much subtlety or grace.
“I just thought you might want to join us—spend the day with Jennie.”
The joy that lit up her eyes was blinding. “Thank you. I’d love that.”
So spending the day with him held no appeal, but spending it with Jennie was something else. He should’ve expected that. He might be driven by lust, but clearly Candace didn’t reciprocate.
Ah, well. “Valentine’s…growing happy families. A loving home begins at Valentine’s.”
“What?” Confusion clouded her eyes.
“Those slogans are part of our latest advertising campaign,” he explained.
“Oh, yes.” Her face had cleared. “I’ve seen the television ads.”
She didn’t think he’d lost it.
Yet.
Just as well she couldn’t read his mind—she’d have run screaming from the room.
“It’s a day for families,” he said awkwardly. “For Jennie’s sake, you should be there.”
This time Candace didn’t say a word.
Nick wondered if that had been overkill. Too late to wish he hadn’t been quite so heavy-handed on the whole family angle. There was nothing for him to do but rise to his feet and say, “Well, I’d better get moving or I’ll be late for work.”
“You’re the boss, what would it matter?”
“It matters,” he said. “I’ve always believed a boss should lead by example. And lately I’ve been sneaking out quite a bit.”
Though what worried him most was how much he’d enjoyed playing hooky.
The temperature rose swiftly, turning into one of those glorious summer days that lingered.
With Nick at work, Candace decided to take advantage of the weather and take Jennie swimming. The water in the pool was silken and cool—and Jennie was in her element, hanging over Candace’s arm, smacking the surface of the water with fat palms while Candace laughed.
All through the day she’d been kicking herself. Why hadn’t she told Nick that Jennie should live with her, not him? She’d had the perfect opportunity this morning…
Instead, she’d chickened out.
Perhaps it had been the look on his face. There’d been something—a vulnerability—that had tugged at her heart. He’d looked…lonely.
Candace told herself that she was being ridiculous. Men like Nick Valentine weren’t lonely. They married wealthy trophy wives, lived in glossy architect-designed mansions, owned multimillion-dollar businesses.
Except Nick’s wife was dead…
He couldn’t possibly be missing Jilly, Candace told herself. Hadn’t Nick told her he’d suspected Jilly of having an affair? The extent of Jilly’s deception over the baby signaled to Candace that theirs had not been a healthy marriage.
A footfall scraped the deck and Candace turned her head. The sight of Nick coming toward her, threading his way between the lounging chairs, caused a flutter in her belly.
This made it two days in a row that he was home early…maybe being the boss had its perks after all.
“You’re early,” she commented, squinting up at him as his highly polished Italian shoes halted at the pool’s edge.
“I secured a contract to do the landscaping and supply the plants and garden furnishings for two coastal resorts. It’s a coup. I called it a day.” Nick glanced at his watch, then met her gaze and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Half past six is not much earlier than normal.”
“Half past six?” Candace squawked. “Already?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
Candace ignored his quip. “Gosh, Jennie will turn into a prune.”
“She looks fine to me.” Nick squatted down on his haunches and wiggled his fingers at the baby. She gave him a delicious smile and chuckled. “I might go change into swim trunks and join you.”
The notion of being trapped with a good-humored, nearly naked Nick in a pool on such a balmy summer’s evening was more than Candace could handle.
“I should get Jennie out. She must be starving.”
His face went wooden, and she felt suddenly small and mean. “You know, a little while longer won’t kill her. You go change…we’ll wait for you.”
It took Nick only five minutes to change into swim trunks, grab a towel and hurry back to the pool.
Candace and Jennie were still in the water, the baby squealing with pleasure as Candace swung her back and forth, skimming the pool’s surface.
After dropping his towel on the lounger, Nick launched himself into the water. Jennie’s eyes popped out as he surfaced beside them. Her face puckered in distress and for a moment it looked like she might cry.
“Hey, hey,” he murmured, mentally kicking himself. “It’s only me…not some sea monster.”
When he looked up, Candace was watching him, but she was smiling.
“She wants you.”
Jennie had her arms out, and she rewarded him with a gurgle as he swam closer.
Nick’s insides melted. “Come here, you.”
Taking her from Candace, he scooped her to him and made little growls against her neck.
Jennie giggled, and bounced excitedly in his arms. Her fingers hooked around his hand as she bumped up and down.
“Hey, take it easy. I’ll be in trouble if I drop you,” he whispered. The memory of the day she’d been pecked
by the goose and he’d nearly fallen in the lake still made him shudder.
That wasn’t happening again…
Jennie stuck out her fingers and closed them around his. Gold glinted on his left hand in the slanting rays.
“You wear a wedding ring.”
He glanced at the wedding band, then across to the woman who’d asked. Her gaze was still trained on his hand. “Yes.”
“A lot of men don’t wear a ring.”
“Jilly bought it for me.” She’d bought her own rings, too, Nick remembered with a touch of discomfort. But wearing a ring had saved him plenty of explanations at inopportune moments—not that some of Jilly’s acquaintances had paid much attention to the band of gold that had marked him as her property.
“You’re still wearing it.”
“I hadn’t thought about taking it off.” There hadn’t been another woman in his life so it hadn’t entered his mind. Except now there was Candace…
Their eyes meshed—and held. Her pupils, so black against the misty gray eyes, expanded. Trapping him.
“Ouch!”
He gazed down at Jennie’s fist clutching at the dusting of hair on his arm. “That hurt.”
The baby dimpled up at him, showing a gleam of pearly white.
“She’s got a tooth.” He stared at Candace.
“One. Lower incisor. The next one should cut any day now…”
“Wow.” Nick transferred his attention back to the wriggling bundle in his arms. “You’re growing up fast. I hadn’t even thought about braces yet.”
“Soon she’ll be dating.”
But Nick didn’t laugh. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut. “Jeez, that idea really hurts. I don’t want to think about it.” When he cracked open one eye, he found Jennie watching him. She cooed.
It made Nick feel like the most important man in the world. Hell, he was the most important man in his daughter’s world—at least until she turned sixteen and started dating—and he wasn’t about to screw up again.
“I’ll have to lock you up,” he told her. “Vet all the boys who come visiting.”
He peeked across at Candace, but she wasn’t laughing. Instead, he was surprised by the strange expression on her face. Then she turned away and made for the pool end nearest the house and gracefully exited the water.
As he watched her pick up a white towel and dry her face, it struck Nick that Candace must be thinking about the coming years without Jennie. He would be there for their daughter. Candace would be gone. His daughter would have no mother to guide her through the minefield of teen-girl years.
Hell.
Of course he’d lean on his sister for help and, in time, Candace would have a family of her own. A husband. Babies…
Emotion flared inside him. He couldn’t imagine her with some other, faceless man. It hurt to think of her with a child other than Jennie.
The intensity of his response took him by surprise. What the hell was going on?
The answer came at once.
Nick didn’t need to watch Candace towel off those tantalizing legs to know he wanted to stroke her skin, kiss her lips, make love to her. He didn’t want some other man sharing the moments he dared not even admit to fantasizing about.
Jennie chose that moment to protest and look around, an expression of bewildered panic on her face.
“You want Mommy?” Bending his head, Nick whispered against her ear, “Me, too. But that’s our secret, ’kay? Because it’s an impossible fantasy.”
Jennie grumbled.
Nick knew exactly how the baby felt. For now he could be generous. “It’s all right, I’ll take you to her.”
With the baby in his arms, Nick waded over to the steps. When he reached the top step, Candace was waiting. Jennie almost leaped out of Nick’s arms and Candace swaddled her in the thick towel.
The bond wasn’t all on Candace’s side—Jennie was equally drawn to her biological mother.
The gold rays of the sun caught her face as she gazed at the baby in her arms, her expression content and happy. “I’d better get her some supper. She’ll be hungry after that swim.”
“Why don’t you feed her out here?” suggested Nick. “It’s such a beautiful summer evening—no point wasting it by being closeted inside.”
Candace hesitated only for a second. “Okay. I’ll take her upstairs to whip her swimsuit off and put a dry diaper on, then bring her dinner out.”
Nick watched her saunter to the glass doors, her hips swaying, the content, gurgling baby in her arms. Everything worked so well now. Yet Nick knew Candace’s time with Jennie was limited. And, for him, becoming involved with Candace was an impossible fantasy.
Because of their daughter.
Nor could Candace continue to live with them. It would only cause heartache for Jennie in the long term. The longer it lingered, the greater the hurt would be. Nick knew the situation could only end in tears.
Candace was going to have to leave. Sooner would be better for Jennie; and the woman who had him tied up in sexual knots was going to hate him even more when he suggested it.
Candace had been right, Nick realized twenty minutes later. Jennie was hungry, and it didn’t take long for the baby to devour her dinner.
Sitting across the table from Candace, with Jennie in a high chair between them as the sun’s sloping rays reflected off the mirrored surface of the water, the mood felt almost domestic.
Nick watched Jennie’s eyelids droop. He’d opened a bottle of crisp Sauvignon Blanc and poured both himself and Candace a glass, but hers was still full.
Candace followed his gaze. “She’s almost asleep.”
“Why don’t you put little madam to bed and come back and finish your wine? I’ll see what Mrs. Busby has planned for dinner.”
Nick suspected that he was playing with fire and Candace looked as though she might object. But she surprised him by saying, “A sandwich would suit me fine. I shouldn’t be long.”
Adrenaline rushed through Nick’s veins as he smiled at her. “Don’t be.”
He told himself nothing was going to happen.
He and Candace were going to share a glass of wine together, have a light meal…and that would be the end of it. He was capable of controlling his emotions…his desires. After all, he’d been doing it for years.
True to her word, Candace was back within fifteen minutes. To Nick’s everlasting regret, she’d donned a pair of navy sweats and a white T-shirt. No sign of the aqua one-piece swimsuit remained. Pity…
But very much safer.
“Good timing,” said Nick. Mrs. Busby had just left after placing a tray of sandwiches on the table.
“Jennie is exhausted.” Candace set the baby monitor on the table and sank into the chair opposite, then pulled a plate toward her.
“It’s the water. She should sleep well.”
“Until two o’clock.” Candace grimaced. “That’s the drill.”
“She wakes up every night?” He hadn’t known.
“Like clockwork.” Peeling back the protective food wrap that covered the platter of sandwiches, she said, “These look delicious.”
“Smoked chicken and avocado on this side. The others are Swiss cheese and salad.”
“Yum.” Candace helped herself. It didn’t take long for them to demolish the contents of the tray, eating in companionable silence. When the platter was empty, Candace raised her wineglass. “To Mrs. Busby. She’s a wonder.”
Leaning forward, Nick clinked his glass against hers. “I’ll drink to that.”
Tilting her head to one side, Candace studied him. “She tells me she’s worked for you for ten years.”
Had it already been a decade? Nick thought about it. He’d been married to Jilly for seven years, and Mrs. Busby had been with him for several years before Jilly had had this house designed, built and decorated. “It’s possible. I first employed her when I lived over on the North Shore. I owned a drafty old Victorian house with an enormous garden.”
Ji
lly had hated the house as much as he’d loved it. It had been the first casualty of their marriage.
“Mrs. Busby told me about it—she said it had been built by one of the pioneers of the city. She misses it.”
“I never knew that.”
“She told me about the gardens—about the ferns you planted behind the house. She said it was like a secret world—she thought that Jennie would’ve loved playing in there, that it was the kind of place where a child could imagine fairies and elves.”
“Goblins, too.” Nick couldn’t suppress the tide of nostalgia that the memory of the house brought.
“Don’t you miss it?”
Candace’s question brought him back to the present. He dismissed the momentary sense of loss, and his customary mantle of control dropped into place. He lived in the present, not the past. What happened now he could control. The past had already happened; nothing could change it.
“No.” To soften the brusque reply, he shrugged and said, “It was time to move on.”
Candace glanced up at the white structure behind them. “You moved on to something a lot more modern. This house is a completely different proposition.”
“It’s a good investment—it’s everything the market wants. Great architectural style. Location.” He gestured to the sea shimmering in the setting sun. “The value has more than doubled.”
There was no point saying it had been Jilly’s house, not his. It had never felt like home.
Candace brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “You want me to believe that you sold the Victorian house to upgrade to something that needed less restoration and was a better monetary investment?”
He met her gaze levelly. “What other reason could there be?”
She made an impatient sound in her throat. “Mrs. Busby thought you lived here because Jilly loved it.”
After a pause, Nick said, “Sounds like Mrs. Busby and you had a real heart-to-heart chat.”
Leaning forward, Candace touched his arm. Lightning forked along his skin. “She wasn’t gossiping,” she said earnestly. “She’s very fond of you.”
“That surprised you?”