Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Allison Leigh

“With a hero learning how to love and heroine coming into her own, Allison Leigh has penned a top-notch, emotionally charged love story.”

—RT Book Reviews on Mother in a Moment

“It is not often that a category romance captures [the] imagination and delivers both romance and suspense in such a heightened manner.”

—The Romance Reader on A Weaver Wedding

“Allison Leigh’s honest, beautifully rendered story… [is] a joy to read.”

—RT Book Reviews on All He Ever Wanted

“With intriguing characters and a strong plot, this story engages.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Billionaire’s Baby Plan

ALLISON LEIGH

started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day.

She has been a finalist for a RITA® Award and a Holt Medallion. But her best rewards as a writer come when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night of sleep while reading one of her books.

Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She has recently begun writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighborhood church. She currently makes her home in Arizona with her family and loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.

Mother in a Moment
Millionaire’s Instant Baby
Allison Leigh

USA TODAY Bestselling Author

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my editor, Ann Leslie Tuttle,

who always manages to make me dig deeper,

and never, ever loses her patience.

CONTENTS

MOTHER IN A MOMENT

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

MILLIONAIRE’S INSTANT BABY

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

MOTHER IN A MOMENT

Chapter One

“You want me to…what?”

Darby White chewed on the inside of her lip, involuntarily taking a step back from the appalled reaction of the tall man standing in front of her. She couldn’t blame him, under the circumstances.

Circumstances. She swallowed the knot that had been in her throat for the past few hours and looked away while the social worker again explained to Garrett Cullum what they were doing on his doorstep on what should have been a lovely Minnesota summer evening.

“Accident…fatal…children…Social Services.”

Darby looked down the quiet street as the social worker spoke. Most of the houses had two stories and were on modestly sized grassy lots. A few of the yards had picket fences, a few were brightened with flowerbeds.

But no matter how hard she tried focusing on this normal, average neighborhood, attempting to block out the news they’d come to deliver, there was no blocking out the memory of the car accident. She’d heard it and had run out onto the street and seen the mangled vehicles.

Her eyes burned and she turned back to the man in the doorway, who looked shell-shocked. And his gaze, as if he sensed her eyes on him, turned toward her even though Laura Malone was still explaining the course of events that had brought them to his door.

Dark green, they were. Surrounded by smoky, smudgy lashes, which on a face less masculine would have seemed feminine. And Darby felt a twinge of guilt for noticing such a thing at a time like this—he’d just learned that his sister and brother-in-law had been killed in an automobile accident earlier that day, and she was cataloging his features.

“You were there?” His voice, husky and low-pitched, rolled from where he stood in his open doorway, down the three steps to where Darby stood with the social worker. “At the accident?”

She nodded, but it was her companion who spoke. “Ms. White was first on the scene, Mr. Cullum. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to discuss this inside?”

He shook his head, just as he’d done when they’d arrived. He still watched Darby, and her throat went even tighter. “And Elise…my sister spoke to you. Said she wanted me to take care of her kids. She said that. Before she—”

Again, Darby nodded. She felt chilled, even though the night was warm. She cleared her throat. “Her only thoughts were of her children.”

“Who were safely inside the child-care center where you work.”

“Yes. Marc and Elise were—” She hesitated, scrambling for composure. “Were on their way to pick them up. And the accident happened, um, on the corner… outside our building. I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “The children—”

“An associate from my office is with the children right now,” Laura cut in. “We thought it best until we’d had a chance to speak with you.” She had at least twenty years on Darby’s twenty-six, but even she looked a little red-eyed. “If you’re unable to take your nieces and nephews, they’ll be placed in a temporary foster home until we’re able to reach their grandfather. We understand he left on a business trip earlier today. His plane is probably just now arriving in Florida, and we’ve got someone waiting at the airport there to tell him what has happened. We have very good foster homes in Fisher Falls, but it is something that we would all like to avoid, if possible. Family members are almost always preferred.”

His square jaw tightened. “How did you know I was here? I’ve only been in Fisher Falls for two weeks.”

“Your business card was in Elise’s purse,” Darby said. “Your address here was written on the back of it.”

“I’m surprised she kept it,” he murmured. Then blinked and raked one long-fingered hand through his thick black hair, leaving it standing in rumpled spikes. His shoulders rose and fell heavily as he looked back, into the modest-size house. “I’m not exactly set up for kids here. This place is just a rental.”

Darby wasn’t sure if he was speaking to them or to himself. He turned around again and focused those mossy-green eyes on her. “The kids you want me to take in. How old are they?”

Darby blinked, and abruptly gathered herself. Just because he was their uncle didn’t mean he had to know their exact ages, she reasoned. He was new to town, as he’d admitted. Perhaps he hadn’t seen them in a while.

“Regan is four, Reid is three. The triplets are nine months.” She thought she heard him mutter an oath, but decided she’d imagined it. “They’re wonderful children, really.” Oh, why was she telling this man that? She cared for the Northrop children periodically at the Smiling Faces Child-Care Center; he was their blood. The children had been entrusted to him by their mother’s last words; surely he knew how sweet his own nieces and nephews were.

“Mr. Cullum, I know this is a difficult situation. I’m sure we can arrange for any items you may need,” Laura inserted calmly. “That is, if you do agree to your sister’s wishes. We’re not trying to force you to do so. I’m certain your father, once he returns from Florida will be anxious to—”

Darby barely heard the rest of the other woman’s words as she watched Garrett Cullum’s green eyes harden. No longer soft and mossy-green, they held all the warmth of ice chips. And Darby was glad that he wasn’t looking at her just then.

“Where do I pick them up?” he asked abruptly.

The cell phone attached to Laura Malone’s hip suddenly chirped to life, and she excused herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to take this. I’m the senior social—”

Garrett waved away Laura’s apology and looked at Darby, clearly expecting her to answer him. “They’re still at the center,” she told him. “We’ve got car seats and other things that you can use until…well, until.” Darby felt sure that Molly Myers, the center’s administrator, wouldn’t protest her lending out their precious equipment. And in a few days, when Molly returned from her conference down in Minneapolis, she’d confirm it. Darby figured this infraction of the center’s rules was understandable. Considering the circumstances.

Her throat tightened up again and her head ached deep behind her eyes. She drew in a short breath and focused hard on the pickup truck parked in the driveway. “Is that yours?” There was no way he’d be able to cart five children around in it. “We’ll use my car,” she suggested.

“Why?”

She jumped a little. He’d stepped down the porch and stood next to her. Towering over her. “Car seats.” Four of them. Regan was old enough to use a seat belt. It would be a close fit, particularly since Garrett Cullum was broad in the shoulder and long in the leg. He was easily as tall as her brother, and Dane cleared six feet by a good two inches.

There was nothing brotherly about Garrett Cullum, though.

“Mr. Cullum.” Laura Malone had finished her call and was holding out a business card. “Darby can take you back to the center. I’m sure she’ll help as much as possible in seeing the children settled with you. She’s been very helpful today, even fending off some reporters. If we weren’t shorthanded already, I’d accompany you myself. I’ll contact you when we’ve got a date to meet with the judge who will finalize the matter of the children.”

Garrett slowly took the card.

“It probably won’t be for a week or so,” Laura warned. “We’re just backed up all over the place with people going away for summer vacations. You’ll be assigned a permanent caseworker, too. But if you need anything in the meantime, my number is on the card, plus on the back you’ll note the name and numbers of the psychologists working with our department on cases such as this. You’ll probably want to talk to—”

He pocketed the card, but his expression was closed. “Thanks.”

The social worker nodded, then paused before walking toward her car parked at the curb. Her stoic expression softened for a moment. “Mr. Cullum, Garrett, I know you don’t remember me, but I knew your mother. We went to high school together. And I knew Elise and Marc. Not well, but…well, I am very sorry for your loss.”

Then Darby and Garrett Cullum were alone.

She looked down at her hands, twisted together, as the evening silence seemed to thicken. No amount of training, of schooling, of experience had equipped her for a moment like this. “Perhaps we should go,” she finally suggested. Then frowned at the desperation she heard in her own voice. That wouldn’t do. Not at all.

Her keys jangled when she pulled them from the pocket of her pleated shorts and she started toward her car. The green paint was beginning to peel and the engine occasionally backfired, but the tires were sound and it held more passengers than the cab of his pickup truck.

“Darby.”

She stopped and looked back at him. He hadn’t moved one step.

“It is Darby. Right?”

She was glad for the darkening twilight. And for the distance between them. “Yes. Darby White.” After three months now, she’d gotten to the point where she no longer stumbled over the name each time she used it. Yet the way he was watching her made her feel as if there was a giant warning light flashing on her forehead.

“The driver of the other car.” He crossed the small patch of grass that was his front yard. “Phil something, I think Ms. Malone said. He didn’t make it, either.”

Her fingers closed around the jagged edges of her keys. “No. He didn’t.”

“His family has probably been notified, too.”

Darby swallowed and turned to her car. “I have no idea,” she murmured. The lie sat heavily, for she knew that Phil Candela had no family. He’d been too devoted to his job. “I think I heard someone say he was from out of town.”

Garrett watched Darby round the aging sedan, purpose in her leggy stride. It was a lot easier to focus on her than think about the news she and the social worker had delivered.

Elise and her husband were dead.

And for reasons only Elise could have explained, she had managed to tell Darby that she wanted him to take care of her kids, before she’d slipped from life.

Him. Garrett Cullum. Caldwell Carson’s bastard son who’d been shipped out of Fisher Falls nearly twenty years earlier when he’d been only fifteen years old. The half brother Elise had always gone out of her way to avoid, unless she had some specific purpose in tormenting him.

He pulled open the car door and folded himself into the front seat beside Darby. He watched Darby fumble with her keys for a moment, then the engine rumbled reluctantly to life. Maybe her car had more room than his truck, but he had a serious doubt as to whether the engine would survive the trip into the center of town, where he remembered the child-care center was located.

She shifted into gear and set off with only a small jerk, and stared fiercely through the windshield as she drove through the neighborhood. He’d chosen it because it was on the outskirts of town and was one of the few developments around that Caldwell’s company, Castle Construction, hadn’t built.

Most importantly, though, nobody on this side of town was likely to remember him. He’d come to Fisher Falls with a definite purpose, but the idea of constantly running into people he’d once known hadn’t been particularly appealing.

Just as it hadn’t been particularly delightful running into Elise the first week he’d arrived. He’d gone into the deli near the temporary office he’d set up, and there she’d been. Sitting alone at a table looking just as pampered and spoiled as she’d been when he was fifteen and she only a year younger.

If she hadn’t popped out of her seat and stood in his way, he would have been happy to have pretended not to know her. But she had, and she’d acted as if she was delighted to see him. When he had cynically asked what she wanted, she’d laughed gaily and waved her hand, as if to dismiss his question. But when she’d asked why he was in town, he’d told her. Her smile hadn’t wavered at all at his clear statement that he was establishing a new branch of his construction company in Fisher Falls, even though she had to know that he would be in direct competition with their father.

And for reasons that still confounded him, he’d ended up giving her his address and phone number here in town when she’d handed over to him a linen business card imprinted with her name and number in gold script.

As if they were likely to call each other up for a chat or something, for Christ’s sake.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, remembering that his half sister wouldn’t be calling anyone ever again.

“Are you all right?”

He dropped his hand and looked at Darby. “No, I’m not all right.” He saw her bite her lip as she focused again on the road ahead.

But he wasn’t feeling impatient with her—only with himself. He stifled an oath and tore at his collar again, finally yanking his tie free and pulling it off. He balled it in his fist and looked at her.

The light was gradually fading, but it had been light enough to see her when he’d opened the door to find her and the social worker standing outside. Unlike Laura Malone, who’d been wearing a navy blue suit, Darby White wore tan shorts and shirt. The shorts were neither too long nor too short, and the legs they revealed were shapely and firm and way too long for someone whose head barely reached his shoulder. Her blue eyes had been moist, and she had a short mop of reddish hair that stuck out at all sorts of angles around her head.

Neither carrot-red nor auburn nor blond, but somewhere in between, the choppy, wavy feathers had captured the setting sun, causing each strand to gleam with fiery light, and she’d looked oddly appealing. Now, in the car’s interior, her hair looked like licks of flame against her pale face, and he added vulnerable to the mix.

“The kids. What have they been told?” He watched her slender hands tighten even more around the steering wheel, and felt his stomach tighten, too.

“Um, nothing,” she said huskily. “We kept them from seeing the cars through the front windows at the center. Laura thought the news might be better coming from you or Mr. Carson.”

He exhaled roughly. Great.

She pulled into a well-lit parking lot beside the cheery-looking building, and Garrett couldn’t help himself—he looked toward the corner. There was nothing remaining to indicate that a tragedy had occurred there earlier that day. The traffic signal still turned yellow, then red, even though there were no cars there to stop.

He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking of all that hadn’t been. And all that wouldn’t be.

When he opened them, Darby with her rusty hair and brimming eyes filled his vision. She touched his hand. “It’ll be all right.”

He doubted it. But still he found his hand turning over, closing around hers. For a lingering moment it helped.

Then she drew away. She ducked her head, but he still saw her swipe her fingers over her cheeks. They went inside through a door that jingled merrily, where the lights were bright and cheerful. Where five little kids waited.

Slept, actually.

The girl with blond curls streaming over her shoulders lay facedown on a blue mat and was obviously the oldest. That would be Regan. And sleeping on a mat beside her, equally blond, but with hair cut short must be Reid.

Garrett shoved his hands in his pockets and stood at a distance as he watched Darby greet the matronly woman who’d been sitting in a rocking chair with a magazine on her lap. The other woman was from Social Services, he assumed, when she shut her magazine with a snap and gathered up a bulging briefcase.

He was glad when Darby quickly and quietly went about gathering up two car seats and pushed them into his arms. Action had always been his preference to inaction.

But when they’d fastened three seats into the backseat and one into the center of the front bench seat, Darby stood back from the car and frowned. “I’m sorry. I should have had you follow in your truck. We’re going to be more crowded than I’d thought.”

“I’ll drive,” he said and smoothly plucked the keys she was worrying between her fingers away from her. “You and Regan can fit in one seat belt.”

“But—”

“It’ll have to do,” he said shortly. “The streets of Fisher Falls are all rolled up now. Traffic is nil.”

Still, she shook her head. “I think we should split up. Some in my car, some in her—” She turned her head just in time to see the Social Services woman drive away, taking with her any chance of creative carpooling. “Well, fudge.”

Garrett felt pretty much the same, though he wouldn’t have couched it in such genteel terms. Obviously the Social Services people hadn’t felt any qualms about leaving five kids with him. As if the fact that he was their mother’s half brother was enough evidence of suitability.

It angered him, suddenly. For all any of them knew, he could be a monster. A hideous parental figure. And this Darby was a child-care worker. Not even an official representative of Social Services. “This is crazy,” he muttered, staring at the keys in his hand.

“I know it’s little comfort at a time like this, but you will adjust to your loss,” Darby said. Her voice was still husky, and Garrett realized that it wasn’t just tears that put that velvety-soft rasp in it. “You and Elise must have been very close.”

“Close?” He snorted softly. “No, I wouldn’t say that.” He couldn’t begin to figure why he’d even responded to that statement. He’d never been one to speak freely. Not with the few people he considered his friends, and sure as hell not with strangers, even when they came equipped with sympathetic blue eyes and mile-long legs.

Dammit. His sister was dead, he’d actually agreed to take responsibility for five kids who didn’t know him from Adam and he was leering at Darby White.

She wasn’t even his type. He preferred tall blondes with some curve around their bones. This pint-size woman looked as if she’d poke him with the sharp angles of her shoulders if he got too close.

He realized he was still watching her. Saw the way her eyes widened a bit, the way her lips parted for breath, as if she’d caught his thoughts. She looked shocked.

And why wouldn’t she be?

He turned his back on her and went inside the building, where he picked up a padded bag patterned with little blue and yellow ducks. It was stuffed with disposable diapers and brightly colored plastic toys and God knew what else. He carried it to the car and stuck it on the floor in the backseat.

Darby was still standing in the same spot on the other side of the car from him. Now she just looked puzzled. “Then why?”

“Why what?” But he knew.

She moistened her lips and shook her head, looking away. “It’s really none of my business.”

Since he agreed with her there, he left it at that.

Only she didn’t.

She followed him into the center and stood beside him, looking down at the children sleeping on their mats. Across the spacious room, three well-padded little bottoms stuck up in the air from three cribs where they, too, slept.

“If you weren’t close,” Darby asked in a soft voice, “why would your sister want you to raise her children?”

Chapter Two

Why, indeed?

Garrett had no idea. Elise couldn’t possibly have known what she’d been saying. Or, in the chaos of the moment, Darby had somehow misunderstood. All he knew was that he was going to take full advantage of the situation.

“Well,” she finally said, when it became clear that he wasn’t going to answer, “I’m sure that it will all work out. When your dad returns, you can—”

“I don’t have a dad.”

“Oh. But, I thought—Laura indicated that you—”

“Caldwell Carson was Elise’s dad. To me he was just the married guy who knocked up my mother. Everybody in this town knew he was responsible, but he’s the only one to pretend it never happened. And the only thing I need to work out is loading these guys into the car and getting them back to my place. So are you going to help or not?”

Her soft lips closed. Without looking at him, she knelt down beside Reid and gently gathered up the boy into her arms and carried him out into the night.

Garrett blew out a breath and crouched next to Regan. She jerked and blinked and stared at him through eyes that were as brown as her mother’s had been.

He felt a swift and unexpected knot form inside him. Grief. Where the hell did it come from? He didn’t like it. So he shoved it back into oblivion and warily eyed the little girl. As warily as she regarded him, he noticed.

“Who’re you?” Suspicion vibrated from her small person.

“I’m your uncle Garrett.”

Her face became fearful, and she pushed away from him, yelling, “Stranger!” over and over again. She ran to Darby, who’d reentered the building, and practically jumped into her arms. She twined her legs around Darby’s waist and buried her blond head against Darby’s shoulder.

“Maybe you could get the triplets,” she suggested calmly. “I’ll wait in the car with Regan and Reid.”

Sure. Get the triplets. No sweat.

Right.

There was nothing for him to do but agree, so he turned toward the cribs lining the wall. Cheerful balloons and kites had been painted above the cribs, and he focused on them as he walked closer.

If he was a drinker, he’d be thinking about now that this was all some alcohol-induced hallucination. Some nightmarish fog that he would wake up from, sooner or later. But when he stood next to the cribs and looked down at two scrunched-up butts and one wide-eyed baby, who was now chewing on the corner of a blanket, Garrett knew there was no waking from this nightmare.

He was thirty-five years old, for God’s sake. Why did looking into the round little face of a nine-month-old tot with a head nearly as bald as the cue ball on his pool table back home in Albuquerque make him want to head in the opposite direction? Fast.

The baby’s mouth parted in a grin, baring several stubby little teeth. He…she?…stood up and wrapped little starfish hands around the edge of the crib and bounced its little knees. Garrett’s unease wasn’t going anywhere, he knew, so he just reached out and picked up the kid, holding it at arm’s length as he strode outside to the car. The kid didn’t seem to mind. It grinned, drooled and wriggled its legs as if Garrett was some longtime friend.

Darby was standing by the car, and he pushed the baby at her. She had little choice but to accept, and Garrett went back inside, leaving her to fasten the child into one of the safety seats crammed into the backseat.

The other two babies were still sound asleep. Garrett scooped them both up, hoped they wouldn’t wake and start screaming at him, too, and took them outside.

By the time he pulled into his driveway next to his pickup, all of them having been packed into Darby’s car so snugly that he felt some real sympathy for sardines, his head was pounding with the force of jackhammers.

And the fun was just beginning.

“Mr. Cullum?” Darby was looking at him over Regan’s sleeping form. “I think we should get the children inside.”

He shoved open the car door and unfolded himself. “I’m gonna need a van,” he muttered, and nearly cringed at the notion.

Getting the children inside the house proved to be nearly as much work as getting them settled inside the car. But finally the job was done. The triplets were situated in the center of his wide bed—the only piece of furniture he’d acquired new when he’d moved into the rental. It was king-size, extra-long and fit him to a T. Right now his long, fat pillows were lined around the edges like some puffy corral, to keep the sleeping triplets in the center, and the likelihood of him getting a decent night’s sleep grew even dimmer.

Tad, Keely and Bridget. One boy and two girls.

“They look like three peas in a pod,” he muttered, staring at the sight from the doorway. Darby had put Regan and Reid in the second bedroom. Fortunately, it had come furnished with twin beds.

“You’ll get used to them,” Darby assured. “And you don’t have to dress them alike that way just because their—” Her voice broke off awkwardly.

“Because their mother did,” Garrett finished flatly. Trust Elise—pretty, proper, pampered—to dress her triplets alike. “You don’t have to avoid her name.”

“I wasn’t.” But her distressed expression told a different story. “You’ll be able to tell the triplets apart before long,” she reassured.

“Sure,” Garrett agreed abruptly. “When it’s time to change a diaper, I’ll know whether I’ve got Tad in hand or not.”

Her lips twitched the moment before she turned away. “If it helps, Keely is the only one with eight teeth already.”

“Great. Another clue.” Garrett followed Darby down the narrow stairs, back into the living room, where they’d already dumped the diaper bag and the assortment of other items she’d filched from the child-care center.

She glanced around. “I must go. Did you put my car keys somewhere?”

He slowly drew them out of his pocket and held them up in the air. “You’re responsible for this situation, Darby White. You don’t think I’m gonna let you go all that easily, do you?”

Responsible.

Darby felt the blood drain from her head, and her knees wobbled. She stared at Garrett. How could he know? How could anyone know?

He was swearing under his breath and pushing her into a chair, nudging her head down between her knees. She pushed at his hands, but he held her firm. She squirmed. “What are you doing?”

“You looked like you were gonna pass out.”

He bent his knees and crouched in front of her, finally allowing Darby to lift her head. But he was so close she could see the flecks of brown in his green eyes, and she wanted to lower her head once more. Her throat tightened again. “Mr. Cullum, I don’t know how you—”

“Garrett.”

“I…what?”

“Call me Garrett. Seems stupid to be so formal under the circumstances.”

Not even Dane had lashes as long as this man’s, and Dane was so handsome Darby used to tease him about being pretty. She swallowed nervously. “I’m terribly sorry about—”

“Dumping five kids on me? Don’t feel sorry for me,” he murmured. “Feel sorry for them. And if it weren’t for you speaking up about what Elise told you, they wouldn’t be saddled with an uncle who doesn’t have a clue what to do with ’em.” He straightened. “You can’t just abandon us now.”

The room swam again and Darby pressed her fingertips to her closed eyes. From blind panic to pitiful relief in the span of a heartbeat was almost more than she could take.

She moistened her lips and dropped her hands, looking up at him. He’d removed his jacket some time ago, and the sleeves of his white linen shirt were folded up his forearms. He looked grim, tired and appealing. And she was appalled at herself for even noticing that at a time like this. For all she knew, he had a wife tucked away somewhere. Or a fiancée. Or a harem.

He also looked something else, she realized with a start. Beneath his steady, green gaze he was just as panicked as she’d felt. And why not? His life had changed today.

She sat up. “Mr. Cull—Garrett, you do have a choice regarding the children. Laura did say that your brother-in-law had no family on his side, but obviously you’re not the only remaining relative of the children. Your… Mr. Carson is probably on his way back from his business trip, if he hasn’t arrived already. I’m sure between the two of you, you’ll manage to—”

“Have you met him?”

“Well, no, actually. I know of him, of course. You can’t live in Fisher Falls and not know who Caldwell Carson is. He is the mayor, after all. And if not for that, I’ve heard his company built more than half the homes in the state.”

“Yeah, he’s a busy boy, Caldwell is.” He ran his hand around the back of his neck. “And between the two of us, we’ll be working out exactly nothing. The kids are with me. They’ll stay with me.” His lips thinned. “It’s what Elise wanted, right?”

Darby nodded. It was the one thing she could confirm with complete honesty. And now that job done, it was time for her to go. To remove herself from the situation before she brought more harm to innocent people.

Harm. Such an inadequate word for what she’d caused.

“I need to go.” She stood and held out her hand for her keys, but he didn’t drop them into her palm, and unease rippled through her. “My keys?”

They jingled, sounding loud in the silence of the house, when he finally released them into her hand. She pushed them into her pocket and headed for the door. “Good luck with the children.”

“Meaning you think I’ll need it.”

“If one of the triplets wakens during the night, I suggest giving a bottle. I saw some cans of formula in the diaper bag as well as clean bottles. It’s premixed. Just pour it in the bottle. The children will probably take a while to settle into a new—” her throat clamped tight “—a new routine. Just give yourselves plenty of time to, ah, to adjust,” she finished huskily. She didn’t dare look at Garrett. If she did she would start crying.

And if she started crying, she wasn’t sure if she could stop.

The past few months had been so calm. So quiet. She’d started to breathe again. And now this. Elise and Marc had been young, in their prime, with five innocent children completing their home. They hadn’t deserved this.

And she felt guilty for even fearing that her brief period of peace might be threatened as a result.

“You know the kids pretty well.” Garrett’s voice stopped her as she pushed open the screen door. “And they know you.”

Darby nodded. It seemed ridiculous to tell him good-night. There was nothing good about this day. “The children usually spend two or three half-days a week at the center. You’ll probably want to sign them up full-time. But I should warn you that there is a waiting list. You might have better luck looking at some of the other places in town if that’s the route you want to go.”

His expression didn’t change, but she knew without a single doubt that he was cursing inside his head. Her brother, Dane, got that same look when he was inordinately frustrated.

He’d worn that look a lot around Darby before she’d finally found some backbone and left home three months ago.

Her gaze focused on Garrett, and her shoulders sagged. If she had found her backbone and stayed at home, where everyone had insisted she’d belonged—save her great-aunt Georgie, that is—then today’s events would never have occurred. The children sleeping in the bedrooms of this simple, boxy house would be tucked in under the watchful eye of their mother and father—instead of the grimly determined one of their uncle.

“I wouldn’t have to worry about waiting lists if you’d come here to watch the kids.”

She was more tired than she thought, because he made no sense whatsoever. “I already have a job. I work at Smiling Faces, Mr. Cullum.”

“Garrett. You could work here instead. I’ll match your salary.”

“I…no. No, I’m sorry. That’s simply not possible.” She stepped out onto the porch and quickly shut the screen door.

It was insane. She couldn’t even contemplate it. Working at the center was one thing. Being this man’s…nanny, was entirely another.

He followed her. Right over to her car. “Why not? Do you have kids of your own?”

Her stomach tightened. “No.”

“A husband who’d object? A lover?”

“I’m not married.”

His lids lowered. “And…?”

Her cheeks burned. She sidled around him and yanked open the car door. It squealed. “Don’t you have a wife or…someone who can watch the children for you?”

“If I had a wife, I wouldn’t need a nanny.”

“Perhaps she has a demanding career.”

“There is no career. No wife. I’m a harmless, single male. I pay my taxes on time, haven’t broken any laws lately and shower at least once a month whether I need it or not.”

She fumbled her keys from her pocket and sank into the seat, frowning harder.

“Don’t you care about the children?”

“Of course I do!” She drew in a sharp breath. “Which is not the point.” She tried to pull the door closed, but he folded one hand over the top and held it fast. She looked from his hand to his face. But that made her breathless in a way she didn’t dare examine, and she looked back at his hand. “I’d like to leave, Mr. Cullum.”

His fingers slowly straightened, though he didn’t remove his hand completely. “Double your salary.”

She yanked the door closed. The window was still lowered. “Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t about money.”

“No, it’s about five kids who don’t deserve to wake up tomorrow with no parents.”

His words hit her like a blow to her midsection. Her hand trembled so badly it took her two tries to fit the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered, died.

“Darby, you obviously cared enough about them to see that Elise’s wishes were followed. Just consider the idea, would you?”

Even if she did consider it, what good would it do? The children would become attached to her and she to them. When she had to leave—and she would—it would be just one more loss in their young lives that they neither deserved nor expected.

She’d done what she could when she’d run out onto the street that afternoon. She’d given CPR. She’d applied tourniquets that had done no good. She’d avoided one reporter, sicced a police officer on another and tried not to completely lose her wits when she’d recognized poor Phil as the driver of the other car. She’d known he must have died instantly.

She’d cradled Elise’s head in her arms as the injured woman had urgently whispered about her children. She’d told the police, then Social Services, about Elise’s last words.

There wasn’t anything more that Darby could do.

Nothing that she could undo.

So the best thing for her to do was go. This man, Elise’s brother, would rise to the task of caring for his new charges. She could see it in his face. And just because she was still shaking and distressed over the day’s events didn’t give her any excuse to sugar-coat her own involvement.

She turned the ignition again, holding her breath until the engine caught. She looked up at Garrett as she put the car into Reverse.

And felt herself waver yet again.

The children would be confused and desperately missing their mommy and daddy. Their lives had been torn to pieces through no fault of their own.

Her hands tightened around the steering wheel and she moistened her lips. If she was careful, if she remembered her…her place, maybe she could—

A movement behind them had her automatically glancing in the rearview mirror. The sight of a white van pulling up at the curb was like a dousing with icy water. The side of the van was painted with the colorful logo of the local television station.

“I can’t help you, Garrett. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t look at him as she pulled out of the driveway and drove away. In her mirror, she saw someone step from the van and approach Garrett.

Naturally. The mayor’s long-absent son had returned to town just in time to become the unexpected guardian of his nieces and nephews. In a small place like Fisher Falls, that was big news.

If she didn’t stay away from the scene, the news would grow even bigger. And Darby couldn’t face that.

Not even for those sweet kids.

Not even for a man like Garrett Cullum.

Chapter Three

“I’m going to go over and see Darby White. She won’t refuse in person.” Garrett looked across the metal desk to his assistant as he hung up the phone. He’d just been refused child care from the last center in Fisher Falls. And this one had been run by a church. “No room” seemed to be the stock answer in this town. But Garrett knew better. “We can’t help out the black-sheep son of our beloved mayor” was what they really meant.

Carmel Delgado rolled her eyes and huffed. “She’s already refused you.”

Didn’t he know it. His temporary office was housed in a trailer on the building site of what would soon be G&G Construction’s seventh office, and rather than being filled with desks and filing cabinets for his staff, one end was filled with a playpen, rocking horse and an enormous cardboard box of toys. A box that, he noted absently, the triplets were more interested in chewing on than anything. For now, thankfully, the kids seemed quiet and content enough with their lunch.

“I suppose this means I get to watch ’em for you while you’re gone.”

“Consider it practice for when you and Enrico finally get hitched and have babies.” He yanked open one drawer. Then another, looking for his keys.

Carmel snorted delicately. “Nobody’s gonna rope me into marriage. Not even hunky Enrico.” She held out one finger. The set of keys hung from her long orange-painted nail. “And back to the point—babysitting isn’t in my job description.”

He grabbed the keys. “You’re my assistant. So assist.”

“I want a raise,” she called after him as he left the office, and the fearsome five, behind.

Garrett ignored her as he headed for the new Suburban he’d luckily found at one of the car lots in town. It held the fearsome five and it wasn’t a van, so he was satisfied.

The truth was, no matter how much Carmel complained, he’d have been sunk without her the past few days. If anyone deserved a raise, it was his flamboyant assistant. But he needed her doing what she was paid to do, not playing nanny to the fearsome five, nor fending off the good town mayor.

Bringing the kids to the office was not a workable solution. They were a distraction to all of his staff, not just Carmel. They had bids to get out, a subcontractor to fire and fifty other things that had slid because he’d been too busy shoveling mashed peas into ravenous little mouths, and changing diapers.

Well, Carmel had changed most of the diapers, he acknowledged as he wheeled the Suburban over the ruts in the dirt road leading to and from the building site. Definitely not in her job description.

He had to find an alternative, and Darby White was it. He’d exhausted every other avenue.

Everyone had their price. He would just have to find out what hers was.

Ten minutes later he was walking through the front door of Smiling Faces Child-Care Center. The noise hit him first. A baby crying. A lot of childish, squealing laughter. Someone singing.

Holy God. Give him the chorus of hammer and nails over this racket.

“Can I help you?” A young woman standing behind the long counter separating the entry from the rest of the center widened her eyes and smiled hopefully. She was tall, and had thick blond hair streaming down around her shoulders.

He felt not one speck of interest. He had more important things to take care of. “I’m here to see Darby White.”

Her smile dimmed a fraction. She looked over her shoulder, scanning the room. But Garrett had already spotted Darby’s distinctive hair, and he rounded the waist-high gate.

“Wait. You can’t just go back— Okaaay, I guess you can.”

Garrett stepped through the chaos and stopped behind Darby. She was standing in a circle, holding hands with a half dozen kids who looked no older than Reid. They were singing as their circle revolved.

When she was opposite him, her feet stopped. Surprise widened her eyes. Stiffened her shoulders. The children giggled and let go, forming their own wobbly circle without her.

“Garrett. Did you bring the children in today, after all?”

“No. I spoke with your administrator. Molly? Yesterday. The waiting list for full-time care is six months long.” In six months, he and the kids would be back in New Mexico where child-care would be more easily solved since Caldwell’s damned influence didn’t stretch quite that far. Since Garrett had his own share of influence there. “The best I can get is the two hours a day three times a week that Elise had already set up. But you knew that.”

She didn’t deny it. “How are they?”

“Reid won’t sleep at night, and Regan hates me.” Yet they’d both screamed bloody murder when he’d tried to get them ready to bring them to Smiling Faces for their regular time. They didn’t seem to want to let him out of their sight. Call him a coward, but he’d backed down and instead carted them all to the trailer-office.

Darby pressed her lips together. “Of course Regan doesn’t hate you.”

“My assistant is about ready to quit unless I arrange something more suitable than bringing the fearsome five to work with me.”

Her chin tilted. “There’s nothing fearsome about your nieces and nephews. You’ve told them…I assume.”

“Regan is the only one old enough to have some concept of what it means.” He hadn’t realized Darby’s eyes were quite so blue. “That’s what the psychologist said. I think that all the kids really understand is that their mom and dad left and didn’t come back.”

“It’s a lot of changes for them.”

“Which you could make easier if you’d help me.”

Darby looked around. She wasn’t surprised in the least that they were the focus of numerous interested stares. Anyone who looked as good as this man did, guaranteed plenty of interest.

It didn’t bear thinking about that she was interested enough to take a good, long look at him herself. It had been two years since she’d stood next to a man and felt even the slightest flicker. This was beyond a recipe for disaster, though.

She moistened her lips and angled her back against Beth’s avid stare. It didn’t take a genius to know what the pretty blonde receptionist would be gossiping about next. The woman’s mouth was constantly running, and Darby gave her as wide a berth as humanly possible considering they worked at the same place. “Garrett, I can’t discuss this with you here. Everyone is watching us.”

“Then where? I’m not leaving you alone until I get the answer I need.”

“Find someone else!” She lowered her voice and drew him to the rear of the room where the cribs were pushed against the wall. “There are other child-care centers in Fisher Falls. Smiling Faces isn’t the only one. There are referral services. Family child-care in private homes. I’m not the only person in town capable of solving your problem. Find another nanny.” She lifted her shoulder. “Beth, the blonde over there? She’d take you up in a heartbeat if you asked her.”

“She’d be too busy figuring out how to get in my bed to watch the kids.”

Darby flushed. It was probably true. And he obviously didn’t think he needed to worry about Darby on that score. Big surprise. On her own, she’d never managed to attract much male interest.

“You’re the only one in town who didn’t think twice about carrying out Elise’s wishes,” he said.

“So?”

His slashing eyebrows pulled together. “You really don’t know, do you?”

She dashed her hair off her forehead. “Know what?”

“Caldwell owns this town and nearly everyone in it.”

“He is our mayor. People are naturally loyal to him.”

“He wants custody of the children. He filed a suit for them even before they put my sister and her husband in the ground yesterday,” Garrett said flatly.

She sighed. Custody battles were never pretty.

“I haven’t lived here since I was fifteen,” he continued, “and those people who do remember me, don’t do it with fondness. So let’s just say that I’m not exactly overrun with friends I can count on to help me out.”

“Well, maybe the best answer is for their grandfather to have them,” Darby reasoned. “I’m sure your sister had her reasons for saying what she did, but if Mayor Carson wants them and you’re not equipped for caring for them— It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Garrett. The important thing here is the children’s welfare. Right?”

“She had good reasons.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Just because he’s mayor doesn’t mean he is a decent parent. Elise probably knew he’d ruin them just like he ruined us. There’s a custody hearing scheduled for next Wednesday to rule on the temporary order put in place when Elise died. At least help me out until then. It’s not even a week away.”

A week, she thought. What would one week mean?

A lot, her saner self argued. A person’s entire life could change in an instant. Compared to that, a week—six days, actually—could be an eternity.

“You don’t even know me,” she argued. “How do you know I won’t steal the silver or something while you’re at work?”

“It’s not my silver. House is rented, remember?”

She frowned.

“Molly Myers has already vouched for you. So has Laura Malone and everyone else I’ve spoken with. You may have only been in town a short while, but you’ve managed to make an impression.”

She stilled. “You’ve been checking on me.”

He didn’t deny it. “You’re living with Georgina Vansant. If that’s not a character reference, I don’t know what is. I’ve heard that she’s having some health problems right now, but I doubt if she’s suddenly begun suffering fools.”

“I don’t live with Georgie. She lets me stay in her gatehouse.” Insisted on it, in fact. Georgie thought that Darby needed the independence after all that had happened. Darby had offered to stay with her dear old aunt in Georgie’s beautiful main house, but she knew it made Georgie happier to think that she was getting her feet under her.

“Close enough. Six days, Darby. I’ll settle for that if it’s all I can get. Don’t do it for me, even. Do it for the kids.”

She pushed her tongue against her teeth. As a child she’d understood what it felt like to be a pawn in someone else’s chess game, and as far as she could tell, it seemed that Garrett and Caldwell were gearing up for a whale of a game. And the children, as always happened, would be the ones to suffer.

But their suffering would never be an issue if the accident hadn’t happened in the first place.

She sighed and looked up at him. Trouble, she reminded herself. Nothing but trouble. This man, no matter how fascinating his mossy-green eyes were, was undoubtedly one attractive bundle of trouble. Which is something she needed to avoid.

But she’d told him to put the children’s welfare first. Could she do less after what she’d caused?

She could handle a week, couldn’t she? She wouldn’t be foolish enough to lose her heart again to children that would never be hers. She certainly wouldn’t lose her heart to this man she wasn’t sure she even liked.

“Would you need someone from say, nine to five?” she asked rather desperately. “Or earlier? Children can wake very early and perhaps you’d need someone—”

“Around the clock,” he said smoothly. “That wouldn’t be a problem, would it? You said you’re not encumbered with a relationship.”

She frowned. “That isn’t the point, Garrett. I can’t…live with you.” Not even for six days.

“Why not? My business keeps me busy enough that I’m hardly around anyway.”

“You’ve taken on responsibility for five children,” she countered warily. “Surely you plan to be around some?”

“The children will be provided for. I can afford it.”

“But will they be loved?” She closed her hand over his arm. “Garrett, if you don’t plan to love those kids, why on earth are you rearranging everyone’s lives so you can keep them, when your father is obviously willing to do so himself?”

He looked at her hand on his arm, and she followed his gaze. His arm was roped with muscle and tendon and was as warm as the sunshine. She dropped her hand, curling her fingers against the tingle that lingered.

He was silent for a moment. “Because I stood over my sister’s fresh grave yesterday and promised her that I would not fail her.”

Suddenly her heart ached. Simply ached. “She knew that. Before she—” She swallowed. “Elise said you always kept your promises.”

A shadow came and went in his eyes. “Then help me not fail her kids,” he said simply.

Her resolve swayed. Maybe she did like him. A little. “All right,” she gave in. “But only until next Wednesday.”

His smile wasn’t wide. It wasn’t gloating or triumphant or anything else she might have expected in the face of her agreement. What it was, she decided, was a crinkle beside his eyes. A look that said thanks.

A look that would disappear should he ever learn that three people had died—including his own sister—because of Darby’s presence in Fisher Falls.

Chapter Four

By the time Darby pulled her car to a stop at the curb in front of Garrett’s house later that evening, she had convinced herself that she’d made a monumental error in judgment.

She hadn’t even been able to talk it over with Georgie. When she’d gone up to the house to see her, Georgie had been sleeping, thanks to the latest round of meds she was receiving for her condition. So she’d had to content herself with leaving a note for Georgie with her homecare nurse.

For now Darby was on her own with this decision.

She looked at Garrett’s house and feared she’d decided badly.

Why on earth had she agreed to this? Six days, six hours, six minutes. It was all too much for her to contemplate. To stay in that house there, with the golden light spilling from the front picture window, for even the shortest period of time was only asking for trouble.

Her boss, Molly, hadn’t exactly been delighted, either, when Darby had requested the necessary days off from work. Smiling Faces was at its capacity, and extra staff simply wasn’t available. But Molly had softened when Darby had admitted that she was trying to help out the Northrop children. She’d even looked at Darby with a speculative look that Darby had had no trouble deciphering.

She’d seen that look often enough in Georgie’s eyes, too. Whenever she started thinking of suitable male companions for Darby, her eyes turned sparkly and sly. If Darby had been able to talk the situation over with her elderly aunt, Georgie would have probably been delighted.

Frankly, she didn’t need Molly or Georgie conjuring notions of Darby and Garrett. It would be ridiculous. Even if the situation weren’t what it was, Darby was not in the market for a man. She had enough on her plate just keeping herself focused, thank you very much. She had no desire to offer her heart up on a chopping block again. The last time she’d done so, two years earlier, had been her final graduate course in that foolishness. She’d finally learned her lesson.

She looked at Garrett’s house again. She blew out a noisy breath and pushed open her car door, reaching in the backseat for the overnight bag she’d packed. She slung the strap over her shoulder. The bag didn’t weigh a lot. She didn’t need much, after all. Six days spent taking care of children didn’t require much fanciness in the fashion arena.

She had barely started up the sidewalk leading to the house when she heard a baby’s infuriated yowl. She hurried her pace, bounding up the steps to the screen door. She lifted her hand to knock, then jumped back when the door flew open.

Darby looked down to see Regan a moment before the little girl pounced on her legs, nearly taking them both right back down the porch steps. Darby hastily grabbed the rail for balance and realized that another person had appeared in the doorway, too.

She patted Regan’s back and tried to mentally force blood to circulate through the girl’s strangling grip on her legs. “Hello. I’m—”

“Hallelujah, extra hands have arrived. You must be Darby. I’m Carmel.”

Before Darby could blink, the other woman—shorter than Darby, and that was saying something—wrapped her hand around Darby’s arm and dragged her and Regan through the door. “Garrett,” she called over her shoulder as she pulled the door shut and fastened the latch. “The savior has arrived.” Liquid brown-black eyes turned back to Darby. “Thank God you’re here. We’re drowning.”

Darby flushed. Regan finally let go of Darby’s leg and lifted her arms. She picked up the child and tried not to wonder too hard over who Carmel was.

“We don’t got a pool anymore to get drownded in,” Regan whispered worriedly in Darby’s ear. “Are we gonna go ’way like Mommy and Daddy?”

Darby hugged the girl and set her on her feet, keeping hold of her little hand. It didn’t matter who Carmel was. Darby’s purpose here was clear in her mind. “No,” she told Regan calmly. “Where’s your uncle Garrett?”

“In the kitchen,” Carmel answered. She straightened her shiny red shirt and patted down her equally flaming shoulder-length curls before turning on her spiked heel and clattering down the tiled hallway toward, Darby presumed, the kitchen.

Feeling like a faded dishrag in the wake of Carmel’s, well, color, Darby followed. She noticed the playpen in the living room, the toys littering the floor, the full laundry basket sitting on the couch. The kitchen was no better. The bottom cupboard doors were all opened, and pots and pans and plastic bowls and lids spilled out onto the linoleum.

It looked as if an earthquake had hit.

And smack in the middle of it sat the triplets, lined up in their trio of high chairs. Keely was the one caterwauling, but Garrett, who sat in front of the high chairs on a straight-back kitchen chair with green goop dripping down the front of his white shirt, appeared to be the one in true pain.

He looked over at Darby, and his face was so grim and determined that she had to fight a smile. Then he raked his hand through his hair, leaving a streak of green lumps behind, and Regan made a little gasping sound. As if she wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite get the sound out.

“Nice look for you there, boss,” Carmel said smoothly. She was gathering up an enormous neon-yellow purse, clearly planning her escape route. “Too bad the folks from GQ aren’t here with their cameras.”

“Darby, this pain in the rear is my assistant, Carmel Delgado. Carmel, Darby White.”

“Nice to meet you,” Carmel said cheerfully. “I’m outta here to my nice motel room that has a working air conditioner and room service for dinner. Unlike this place.”

“Carmel—”

“See you tomorrow!” She clattered back out of the room. In seconds they heard the slam of the screen door followed by the roar of a car engine.

Darby realized she was staring at Garrett and quickly looked down at Regan. It was well after eight o’clock. And the house was definitely warm, still retaining the heat of the day even though it was very pleasant outside now. “Have any of you eaten dinner?”

Regan shook her head.

“Where’s Reid?”

“Digging up the backyard, most likely. It seems to be something that he really excels at,” Garrett answered. He’d turned back to the babies. Keely’s yelling had, thankfully, subsided.

“Go get Reid,” Darby instructed Regan. “And wash your hands, then come and sit at the table.”

The little girl didn’t look thrilled, but she went. Darby set her overnighter on the floor by the wall and looked at Garrett.

“Don’t say it,” he said flatly. “They should have been in bed an hour ago. And I have been trying to give them dinner for two hours now. I was gonna order pizza or something, but Regan vetoed everything I suggested. Whatever she says, Reid pipes right along with her.”

“Actually, I was going to say that you might have better luck with the triplets if you gave them some finger food. They’re at the age where they want to feed themselves. Or try, anyway.”

“Which would explain why they’ve been throwing their food back at me,” he muttered. He scooted back the chair and rose, seeming to realize what a mess his shirt was. Dusky color rose in his throat, and Darby told herself she was not charmed. This was just a job.

She walked purposefully to the refrigerator and opened the door. The offerings were slim, but he did have eggs and milk. She pulled out both and set them on the counter, then began opening cupboards—the ones up top that hadn’t already been divested of their contents. “Why don’t you get cleaned up, too,” she suggested without looking his way.

He went.

And Darby breathed easier. She found a clean dishcloth and wiped up the mess the triplets had already made, then gave them each a handful of dry cereal. Regan trooped in with a disheveled Reid, and they disappeared in a room off the kitchen. She heard water running, then giggles.

Darby figured she’d go into the bathroom later and find bubbles and water flooding half the room, but she didn’t care. The children were giggling and the happy sound warmed her. Then, overhead, she heard a hideous, groaning rattle of pipes.

A shower, she realized. And a prompt vision of Garrett pulling off his food-decorated shirt popped into her mind.

She shook her head sharply and reached for the waffle iron that sat on the floor under the table. Waffles and scrambled eggs for dinner wasn’t exactly imaginative. But it would have to do for now. Until she could get to the grocery store and stock up on—

“Whoa, Nellie,” she muttered out loud. All she needed to worry about was the next few days. After that, Mr. Garrett Cullum and his crew would have to depend on other arrangements. Darby was only here as a stopgap.

Garrett paused in the doorway to the kitchen. It looked almost like the kitchen that had come with the house when he’d first rented it a few weeks ago. Except for the row of high chairs and the kids, that was.

And except for a rusty-haired sprite who’d worked wonders in a bare half hour. Then, as if he’d cleared his throat or stomped his foot to announce his presence, Darby turned around and looked at him.

His chest locked up for a second. She’d rolled up the short sleeves of her tan T-shirt, displaying the sleek, perfect curve of her shoulders. He managed to smile crookedly and drag his eyes from the T-shirt that clung damply to her chest. So she wasn’t quite as bony as he’d thought. “Looks like you were target practice for someone yourself,” he said.

Darby’s eyes flicked to Regan, and she smiled gently. “Just a little accident with our water glasses,” she said as she moved toward the table.

Garrett realized she was setting a loaded plate onto the table, and he looked away from Regan’s ducked head. Regan had probably had the same “accident” as she’d had when she’d dumped her milk on Garrett the day before.

“It’s not much,” Darby murmured, gesturing a little so he knew the plate was for him.

Salivating over the nanny was not an option. So he focused on the food, instead. “Are you kidding? I didn’t have to fix it, and I didn’t have to order it at a restaurant. Looks great.” He sat down at the table and reached for the syrup. It was in a tidy little pitcher, not the entire bottle stuck in the center of the table the way his mother’s cousin would have done it. He dumped the warm syrup on his waffle and watched Darby wipe sticky hands and faces. “But you don’t need to cook for me.”

Her eyebrows rose as she glanced at him. Then she turned her pretty eyes away again. “I have to feed them and myself. You’re just one more,” she said evenly.

Which put him nicely in his place. Just one more. Nobody special. No surprise there.

Over his fork he watched Darby pluck Keely from the high chair and settle her on the floor. He thought it was Keely, anyway. She didn’t do anything but crawl speedily out of the kitchen.

“I think I should get a big old black marker and write their names on their shirts,” he said. “Easier than counting teeth or checking under the diaper.”

Darby smiled faintly as she wiped up another sticky little face.

Regan and Reid were watching him from their seats across the table. Finding him wanting, no doubt. He smiled at them and received the glorious response of Regan, immediately followed by Reid, scrambling out of their chairs and racing from the room. He gave up the smile and found Darby looking at him.

“They need time.”

“They need their parents,” he countered grimly. “Unfortunately, that isn’t gonna happen.”

Darby’s eyes looked wet. She blinked and turned away, then with the other two babies propped on both hips she followed the children who’d already escaped.

He thought about following, too. But the restored-to-order kitchen seemed to mock him. In just a short time Darby had cooked, fed and cleaned up. Even the living room had been restored to some semblance of order. She was utterly competent, just as he’d known she would be. And the kids hadn’t looked at her with anything but trust despite the spilled water across her shirt.

He might be the uncle, but just as Regan had said, he was the stranger here.

Appetite gone, he finished eating, anyway, then rinsed his dishes and added them to the dishwasher that Darby had left all ready to go. He flipped the switch, and it groaned to life.

Upstairs, thanks to walls he considered miserably thin, he could hear the children talking and the lower murmur of Darby’s husky voice. He stood at the base of the staircase and listened for a moment. He wrapped his hand around the plain wood banister. Put his foot on the first step.

But he went no farther.

Then the telephone rang and he went to answer it, using the phone in the downstairs den that also served as an office. It was one of his subcontractors calling from Dallas, wanting to go over some details of a shopping center project there. By the time he finished with the call, it was nearly ten and he’d managed to put away whatever it was that had stopped him from going up the stairs earlier.

The sight of Darby sitting on the lumpy couch in the living room reminded him, though. What had she said at Smiling Faces?

I can’t live with you.

He’d glossed over it at the time. But now, it was all he could think about. Six days or not, she was staying under his roof.

She saw him, and if anything, seemed to draw even more tightly into the corner of the couch. She’d replaced her tan T-shirt with a white one. Big and baggy and eclipsing.

“I’m not the bad guy, you know,” he said. He sat down on the fake-leather recliner with a rip in the arm.

Surprise widened her eyes. “Did I say you were?”

“It’s not exactly cold here in the house, and you’re huddling there like you expect to be devoured by the wolf.”

She immediately straightened out her legs from beneath her. “Wolves have never been interested in me,” she demurred.

Sleek thighs, curving calves, narrow ankles hidden beneath little, white folded-down socks. He was better off with her legs hidden beneath the folds of that gigantic T-shirt.

He looked at the empty fireplace, thinking she’d met some mighty stupid wolves. “The kids asleep?”

“Yes. Where did you get the cribs for the triplets?”

“From Elise’s house. Laura managed to arrange it. Yesterday after the funeral.”

She fell silent. Her fingers pleated the hem of her shirt. “The, uh, the master bedroom is pretty full, up there. What with the cribs. And the…bed.”

“Wall to wall,” he agreed absently. She really did have pretty knees. And in the light from the lamp behind the couch her skin looked like cream.

“And the other room with the twin beds. Regan and Reid seem very comfortable there.”

“Except Reid doesn’t seem to sleep through the night any better than the triplets do.”

She chewed her lip and looked away. “Well.”

Then it dawned on him, and amusement unexpectedly hit him. “You can use the master,” he said. “I’ll use the pullout in the den.”

“Oh. I don’t want to put you out of your bed.”

“You just don’t want to sleep in the same room as Bridget, Tad and Keely.”

Her cheeks colored. “No, of course I don’t mind that. I mean, I’m here to take care of them, after all.”

“But?”

“Perhaps we could put the triplets in the, uh, the den. And I’ll sleep there with them.”

“The den is smaller than the second bedroom upstairs. The simplest solution is for you to take my bed.” He watched her closely. “Unless sleeping in my bed is a problem?” He knew exactly how that sounded. And damned if he didn’t care. No, that wasn’t right. He did care. And he wanted to hear her answer.

“It’s not as if you will be there with me.”

He smiled faintly. Her cheeks were fiery-red, but her husky voice was as tart as vinegar. “Then we have no problem. You take the bed. I’ll make do. Elsewhere.”

She blinked. “You were teasing me.”

“Maybe a little,” he allowed. Better that she think that. “My intentions are honorable.” Sort of. “I’ve already moved some of my stuff out. Put on clean sheets. There’s an attached bathroom with a shower that almost works. Clean towels and all.”

Her cheeks reddened all over again. Charming him. Making him feel a hair guilty for involving her in his plan. Just because every time Darby looked at him with that energy that seemed to crackle about her, and every time she opened her mouth to speak in that husky, rich voice, making his brain short-circuit and turn from the business at hand to hot afternoons, tangled sheets and throaty moans didn’t mean he couldn’t control himself. He’d hired Darby to do a job. She would be well compensated. Double her normal pay.

Speaking of which—

“I’ll also give you a check up front for your time,” he said. He’d bet his antique tool collection that Darby’s conscience would never let her run out on a job that she’d already been paid for.

“Actually, I’d prefer cash. If that’s all right.” She stood and brushed her hands down her shirt, then moved to the fireplace, studying the framed photos that sat on the plain mantel. “I’m not trying to avoid taxes or anything,” she assured. “I just don’t have a bank account.”

“Don’t trust bankers?”

She plucked one photo off the mantel. Her shoulder lifted casually. “What can I say? I’m strictly a money-in-the-mattress kind of girl.”

Right. It was no skin off his nose how she preferred to be paid. “Cash it is, then. I’ll have Carmel take care of it in the morning. I’ll be gone all day tomorrow, so if you need anything you can call her at the office. She can track me down, though I doubt there’s anything you’ll need me for, anyway. I’ll make sure to leave the numbers for you.”

She smiled at him, but it was quick and nervous. Then she changed the subject. “This is a nice photograph of the falls.”

Apparently, she still wasn’t too anxious to take over his bed. He looked at the framed photo in her hand. “Is it? They all came with the place.” He certainly made no claim to the pictures. Not the ones on the mantel or those hanging on the walls. The house had come furnished, right down to the ugly pink vases with the faded silk flower bouquets that bracketed the mantel.

“Georgie once mentioned that there is a legend surrounding the waterfall, but she didn’t tell me what it was. Do you know?”

He knew. He just didn’t believe. “That when two people discover love while looking at the falls, they’ll have that love for a lifetime and beyond. Bull, if you ask me.”

She nibbled her lip and set down the photo. “Did you, um, get all this stuff from your sister’s house, too? Along with the cribs?” She touched her hand to a wind-up swing and set it in motion. “It’s amazing how much stuff you need for children.”

He nodded. The room was littered with enough baby equipment and toys to stock a children’s boutique. “It would have been easier to move into Elise’s place, but apparently Caldwell owns it. He’s already put it on the market. Carmel managed to get this stuff out of the house before he sold all of it, too.” Or moved it to his stone mansion on the hill in preparation for the grandchildren he was probably certain he’d be able to take away from Garrett.

Darby latched on to yet another topic. Almost desperately. “Your secretary seems very nice.”

“Assistant. And she is nice. Worth twice her pay, but don’t tell her I said that.”

“Does she have children?”

“No.”

“Mmm.” Finally Darby seemed to run out of questions to ask, inane topics to broach. “Well. I guess I’ll go to…go on up. Stairs. Now.”

He stood and pretended that he didn’t see her nearly jump out of her cute white tennis shoes. “I’ll take your bag up for you.” It was still where she’d left it in the kitchen.

“No!” She darted in front of him and snatched up the long strap, practically yanking it out of his hand. “Don’t be silly. It’s not heavy.”

He looked down at her. “You’re an intriguing mixture, Darby White,” he murmured. A natural with the children. A woman with a voluptuous voice that sent shivers down his back.

“There’s nothing intriguing about me.” She slid past him. “I’m just a…regular woman. Nothing special.” Her voice whispered down the stairs as she lightly ran up. “Good night.”

Garrett slowly reached out and turned off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. He heard the soft thump of a door closing. Even though the house was silent, he knew it wasn’t empty. It was an odd feeling.

Whether it was the presence of children he’d chosen to take responsibility for, or the presence of a woman who seemed panicked at the idea of spending the night under the same roof as a man, Garrett couldn’t say.

The longer he thought about it, the more he was certain he was better off not knowing the answer.

Finally he went into the den. But instead of pulling out the sofa bed, he sat down at the desk and the pile of work waiting for him. He’d returned to Fisher Falls for one specific purpose.

Taking in his sister’s children hadn’t changed that in the least.

Chapter Five

Intriguing. The word kept hovering in Darby’s mind. Annoying her.

She shook out a miniature-size T-shirt, folded it in two and added it to the growing stack on the kitchen table. Between three nine-month-olds and Reid and Regan, Darby had lost count of how many loads of wash she’d done in the past few days.

She didn’t mind, though. Doing laundry was something that an “ordinary” woman would take care of. Cutting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into cute triangles and strips was something an “ordinary” woman would do. An “intriguing” woman would not do those things.

Darby certainly hadn’t done any of those things. Not even the last time she’d gotten entangled with a man and his winsome children. Bryan had had a host of servants and—

She pushed away the thought as she heard the distinctive jingle of keys in the front door. She finished folding the last shirt and stowed the laundry basket in the small laundry room and came out just as Garrett walked into the kitchen.

He dropped several long, cardboard tubes on the table. “Thought you’d be in bed by now.”

She picked up the stack of laundry, catching one of the tubes as it began rolling off the table. Good evening to you, too, she thought. “I need to talk to you. You haven’t been around much.” Talk about an understatement. The man had practically vanished after the first evening Darby had arrived. He obviously worked killing hours, whether it was the weekend or not.

“I’m here now.”

Even though she’d spent hours, days, building up a nicely steaming need to resolve a few things with this man, the words she’d thought, rehearsed, planned, stuck in her throat. It was the jeans he was wearing, she decided. Jeans and a gray T-shirt that clung to his chest and shoulders in an unsettling way. Up to now she’d only seen him wearing dress shirts, loosened ties and well-cut dark suits.

“You want me to guess what’s on your mind?” Garrett asked after a moment. “Kids doing okay?”

She nodded. He hadn’t shaved, either, she noticed. And he had a dingy piece of gauze bandage wrapped around one of his fingers.

“Nobody sick?”

“No.” Her hands curled at her side. So what if he looked big and tough and tired and had a bandage that was positively raggedy? She’d never seen the appeal in whisker-bristled men, and he was certainly big enough to get himself a clean bandage for his banged finger.

“Well, actually, Tad’s been running a bit of a temp,” she admitted. “He’s cutting another tooth. They’re all asleep, now. I hope you don’t mind, but I took them with me earlier today to visit Georgie.”

“How’s she doing?”

“She has good days and bad. She definitely enjoyed seeing the children. They had fun exploring the house. She has a ballroom. It’s fairly empty, and we just let the triplets loose in there. Bridget’s crawling more. And Keely’s standing all on her own.”

Garrett looked completely uninterested.

“Well, anyway. They’ve been asleep for hours now.”

“That’s good. Isn’t it?” He looked at the kitchen window. The dark kitchen window. “It is late,” he offered.

She ignored the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. His amusement wasn’t appealing. “Exactly. It is late. Tomorrow is Sunday.”

“Okay.”

Her fingernails were poking into her palms. She unclenched her hands. “What arrangements have you made?”

Since the night of her arrival, Darby had talked more with Garrett’s assistant than she had with him. But if Carmel knew anything about Garrett’s long-range plans beyond the hearing—looming ever closer as Wednesday approached—she wasn’t admitting it.

“Getting anxious to leave?”

“I’m concerned about the children,” she said carefully.

“Aren’t we all,” he muttered. “The custody hearing will be here soon enough. If Caldwell has his way, I won’t need a nanny at all.”

“So you haven’t made other arrangements, yet.”

He looked at her. “Have you eaten? Of course you have,” he answered himself. He walked around Darby and pulled open the refrigerator door.

She knew what he saw. She’d finally made arrangements with the nearby grocer to make a delivery that morning when it was obvious that Garrett wasn’t going to do so himself. The refrigerator and cupboards were now well stocked. With the tip she’d added on, the arrangement had only gouged into half of the cash Carmel had delivered to Darby just as Garrett had promised.

Hiring someone to fix the air-conditioning had taken the other half of her pay. But her pay, or lack of it, wasn’t really an issue she cared to get into. Garrett was obviously not made of money—as evidenced by his modest living conditions—even though he’d been generous about her pay.

He pulled out a can of cola and turned to face her as he popped the top and lifted it to his mouth. She looked away as he drank, his long, strong throat working.

Then he finally lowered the can and sighed. “No. I haven’t made other arrangements.”

“But we agreed that I would help you out for only this week.”

“I didn’t say I haven’t tried to make other arrangements.” He finished off the soda and crumpled the can with one hand. “The same problems still exist that existed last week, Darby. You’re my only option. And even if you weren’t,” he added firmly, “you’re my best option. The children adore you. How can you walk away from them?”

“How can you ignore them the way you have been?” The words escaped without thought and she pressed her lips together. She was only the hired help, she reminded herself. Temporary hired help. She’d grown up with “help” all around her, and she knew that there were times when her father considered their input acceptable and times when he hadn’t. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

He pulled out a chair and sat down, legs stretching halfway across the cozy kitchen. “Don’t stand there like that,” he said. “You remind me of the nuns from my elementary school. Except you’re missing the ruler to rap over my knuckles.”

She reluctantly pulled out the chair opposite him and sat. With one hand, he rolled one of the long tubes a few inches back and forth across the table. That dirty bandage of his was going to drive her nuts. “I don’t believe you ever went to parochial school,” she finally said stiffly.

He shrugged. “You’ll hear the rumors sooner or later. I wasn’t exactly a teacher’s pet. I told you before, Darby. People aren’t jumping out of the woodwork to help me out. They’re too afraid of upsetting The Mighty Caldwell.”

“Laura isn’t afraid,” Darby countered. “If she had been, she wouldn’t have listened to anything I had to say about Elise’s wishes. I think you may be exaggerating your—” she hesitated when his eyebrow peaked, then plunged on “—your difficulties somewhat. I’ve found this town very welcoming. And if you just give people a chance, instead of assuming the worst, you’ll be surprised. Nobody here is going to want you to fail with the children.”

He watched her from beneath lazy lids. Then he sat up straighter in his chair and propped his arms on the table, cocking his head to the side. “Are you for real?”

Darby swallowed and leaned back an inch—all that the ladder-back chair allowed. “I just think—”

“You’ll see Wednesday at the hearing what kind of assumptions I’ve been making or not making,” he said blandly. “In fact, once Caldwell finds out that you’ve been helping me these last few days, you’re not going to be on his Christmas list anymore, either.”

“I’m not afraid of your father.” What she did fear was walking into that courtroom on Wednesday. She just hadn’t figured a way of getting out of it.

He lifted one hand. “Call him Mayor or Caldwell or Sir Snake,” he suggested. “But don’t call him my father.” His eyes narrowed. “He hasn’t called here, or been by, has he?”

“No.” Which, when she thought about it, surprised her a little. The children were his grandchildren.

“Good. You don’t need to be afraid of him, even if he does. I’ll protect you from him. Just continue taking care of the kids. I’ll make it worthwhile. Despite the looks of this place, I can afford whatever you ask.”

She shook her head, wondering where the conversation had gone amiss. “You’re as bad as Dane,” she murmured wonderingly.

“Who’s Dane?”

Her lips parted. “I…nobody.” How could she be so careless? She brushed back her bangs and stood. “I can heat up some supper for you,” she offered. “We had fried chicken. There’s still some left.”

Garrett caught her hand as she moved past him, nervous energy seeming to pour from her pores. He ran his thumb over the back of her smooth hand. It was slender and long-fingered. Elegant, he thought. “Nobody?”

“Garrett, please.” She tugged at her hand, but he didn’t let go.

“I know why I’m edgy,” he said. “And I can understand why you might be annoyed with me about not making other arrangements for the fearsome five, but you’re about ready to jump out of your skin. Who is Dane?”

He didn’t know why he was making a big deal about it. If she had a secret or two, who was he to begrudge her of them? He had a whopper of one, himself. And because he did, his conscience needed to know that he was at least giving the kids a caretaker whom they actually liked. One who would stick around awhile. Not be lured off by some guy named Dane.

Darby’s face was pale. “My brother,” she finally said stiffly.

Surprised, Garrett let her go. She wrapped the hand he’d held in her other, rubbing it. He frowned. He hadn’t held her that tightly. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

“I…we don’t get along,” Darby said, turning away. “Do you want that chicken or not?” She took a plate out of the cupboard, and Garrett saw that her hand was trembling.

Hell.

He rose and put his hands around her shoulders, gently turning her to face him. The sight of her glistening eyes grabbed his gut and twisted hard. He took the plate from her and set it aside. “Hey. I’m sorry. Don’t do that.”

She blinked and averted her face.

He caught her chin and gently lifted. “I know all about family feuds,” he murmured. She looked up at him with those sky-blue eyes, and he clamped down on the heat that suddenly churned inside him. That was the last damned thing they needed.

Then she moistened her lips. Just a nervous, barely noticeable movement, and her soft lower lip glistened.

Ah, hell.

He drew his thumb over her chin. The hint of stubbornness in it saved her face from being perfectly oval. He could feel her pulse beating in her throat; rippling little beats that teased the heavy chug of his own pulse.

“Garrett.” She pressed her palms flat against his shirt, and he could have sworn that he felt the distinct shape of each one of those long, elegant fingers.

“Shh.” His thumb drifted over her lips and her eyes fluttered closed.

Beneath his thumb he felt her lips move. “I don’t know which is worse,” she whispered. “When you’re all cold and distant or when you’re…not.”

“I told you to shush,” he muttered. “Your voice. It’s—”

“Rough,” she finished.

“Husky,” he corrected. Like a brush of velvet over his nerve endings.

She suddenly stepped back, looking anywhere but at him. Her fingertips touched her throat for a moment before she picked up the plate and held it in front of her like a shield. “My vocal chords were, um, injured when I was a kid. I know. I sound like a habitual smoker or something.”

It was good she’d backed away. She had more sense than he did. “You sound like you,” he said. But listening to her talk was an exercise in erotic torture. She said his name, and he nearly lost the ability to reason. And the kitchen still seemed filled with tension.

Tension that he’d caused because he’d let himself forget, for just a minute, that he needed more from this woman than the taste of her lips. He needed Darby for the kids. Without her in his corner, he knew his chances in court against Caldwell were slim. It was only her word, after all, that Elise had wanted him to take her and Marc’s children. His attorney, Hayden Southerland, who had finally arrived from New Mexico, had confirmed it.

Actually what Hayden had said was that the only thing better than an unimpeachable nanny would be an unimpeachable wife. Since Garrett had no prospects on that score, he’d better remember to keep his hands off the one nanny he had in the offing here in Fisher Falls.

Once he got back home to Albuquerque, he’d see about hiring one of Carmel’s aunts; she seemed to have about twenty of ’em. They were all devoted to their grandbabies but Garrett figured once he was back home, he could convince at least one of them that it would be worth their while to watch a few more.

He gathered up the tubes of blueprints from the table. “Don’t worry about the chicken,” he told Darby. “I’ve got work to do, anyway.” Carrying the plans, he headed out of the kitchen for the den.

Just exactly like Dane, Darby thought, watching him go. Her brother would work 24/7 if he could, and it seemed that Garrett would, too.

She quietly prepared a plate, heating the chicken in the microwave before adding a gelatin salad and a buttered roll. Garrett didn’t particularly look the type to eat orange gelatin with bananas inside it, but Regan had helped Darby make it that afternoon, so that’s what he would get. She poured a glass of milk, prepared everything on a tray and carried it, along with the small first aid kit from beneath the kitchen sink, to Garrett’s den, turning off lights as she went.

He hadn’t exaggerated about the work, she realized when she stepped inside the small room. He’d unrolled some blueprints across his desk and was thoroughly focused on them. She set the tray on the small table next to the couch that he was supposedly unfolding into a bed each night. Frankly, she didn’t see how he could. The room was simply too cramped.

“Let me see that bandage.” She flipped open the first aid kit on his desk and held out her hand.

He looked at his hand, as if surprised to see the sloppy bandage still circling his finger. “It’s nothing.”

“The bandage is dirty. Whatever you’ve done, you wouldn’t want it to get infected, would you?” She wriggled her fingers, demanding.

His expression unreadable, he held up his hand and she unwrapped the tape and gauze, making a face at the cut beneath. “I thought you told people what to do at that construction company you run, not that you were out pounding nails with your own bare hands.”

“Wasn’t a nail.” He didn’t flinch as she cleansed the cut. “I was helping to install a window. It dropped. Made a helluva mess.”

“Made a pretty good cut, too,” she murmured. “You know you probably should have had a stitch or two.” She closed the edges with a butterfly bandage, then topped it with a cushy sterile pad.

“I was too busy getting on the horn to order another window. It was a custom job. It’ll take weeks to get another.”

“Figures you’d be more concerned with some window than your own health.”

“It’s just a cut, Darby.”

“Cuts can get infected,” she said smoothly. “Keep it covered.” She pressed the last bit of tape into place and gathered up the old bandage and the wrappings from the new one and left the room.

She put the first aid kit back in the kitchen, then went upstairs. In the second bedroom, she picked up Regan’s stuffed bear and tucked it back in bed with her. Reid had kicked off his blanket and Darby’s hand hovered over the edge of it, but she didn’t move it for fear that he’d wake. He slept so uneasily, poor sweetheart.

Finally Darby let him be. It wasn’t cold in the house, after all. She went into the master bedroom and checked the triplets. Tad’s face still felt a little warm to her, but he slept as soundly as Bridget and Keely.

She gathered up her nightshirt and her little bag of toiletries and went to use the bathroom downstairs. She didn’t want to wake up the children by using the en suite. As she crept down the dark stairs, she could see the light shining in Garrett’s den, could hear the low murmur of his voice. He was talking on the phone.

Good, she thought as she closed herself in the bathroom and turned on the light. That meant he’d be busy long enough for her to get ready for bed, then scoot back upstairs through the dark, with him none the wiser. This was the first evening he was home early enough for her to even feel awkward about showering downstairs. She flipped on the shower, letting it warm while she cleaned her face and brushed her teeth. Then she showered and dried off in record time, gathered up her stuff and opened the door.

“The air conditioner is working again.”

Darby gasped and jumped back, hitting the wall behind her. The bundle of clothes, towel and toiletries tumbled out of her grasp, and she glared at Garrett’s shape in the dark hallway. “I had it fixed. And you scared me to death!” She went down on her knees, hands searching in the dark for her things. She found her clothes, at least.

Light suddenly flooded the narrow hallway and she looked up to see him standing over her, his long fingers and pristine bandage still resting against the wall switch. “Need help?” he asked smoothly.

She flushed and looked back down, snatching up the bits of ivory silk that passed for bra and panties and burying them along with her shirt and shorts inside her damp bath towel. She reached forward and plucked the toiletry bag from where it rested against the toe of his scuffed work boot. “No, I don’t need help.” She stood and wished the light wasn’t quite so bright there in the hall. Her oatmeal-colored nightshirt hung to her knees, but she still felt exposed.

Definitely not a good thing after that crazy episode in the kitchen. He wasn’t her type, and she wasn’t his. And even if they were, it was still out of the question. She was only here to help with the children. She owed them that, at least.

“Why aren’t you using one of the baths upstairs?”

“I didn’t want to wake the children.” She began inching her way along the hall. “The pipes for both showers up there rattle really badly, and the water pressure is terrible. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.” The stairs were nearly behind her now.

His lips twisted. “Too late for that. Who fixed the AC?”

“The guy Georgie uses.” The toiletry bag fell off the stack in her arms again as she started up the stairs.

Before she could reach it, Garrett bent and picked it up. “Did he leave a bill?”

“I paid him when he came.” She reached out for the bag. Standing on the second riser, they were nearly eye to eye. “Could I have that back, please?”

“I was planning to fix it myself.”

“Well, now you don’t have to. My bag?”

“How much was it?”

“Five ninety-five.”

His eyebrows rose. “To fix the thermostat? Darby, he’s a crook. Give me his name and I’ll straighten him out.”

“For the bag,” Darby said sweetly. “Five dollars and ninety-five cents. On sale at the discount store as I recall. And I’d like it back. Unless you’re wanting to borrow my razor because your own is dull?”

That stubble-shadowed jaw cocked. “How much was the repair bill, Darby?” She told him and still he didn’t hand back her little bag. “I’ll reimburse you,” he said.

She wasn’t going to argue about it. Despite her suspicion that he really wasn’t as flush financially as he assured her, it wasn’t as if she, herself, still had unlimited resources at her fingertips. “Fine.”

He looked over her head. “I’m sorry the pipes are so bad. When it was just me here, it was no big deal. I’ll see what I can do about fixing it.”

She lifted her shoulder, feeling uncomfortable. “After Wednesday, it won’t make any difference to me,” she reminded and promptly felt like a shrew for doing so. “I’m sorry. That sounded harsh.”

“It sounded honest,” he said evenly. “Good night, Darby.”

She watched him walk back into the den where he closed the door. She blew out a breath and trudged up the stairs to the room she shared with the triplets. Brilliantly handled, Darby.

She hung the towel in the bathroom and checked Tad’s forehead once more before sitting on the far side of the enormous bed. She pulled a clean outfit from the small chest situated beside the bed and the wall and set it out for the morning, but didn’t close the drawer. Under the neatly rolled socks and undies, she could see the edge of the magazine she’d brought.

It was stupid to carry it with her, of course. There was no need. Every word was etched in her memory.

Yet she took it with her wherever she went. A talisman? A warning reminder?

Still, Darby pulled the slick, colorful periodical from beneath her clothing. It was two years old and easily fell open to the article. On one page was a collage of photographs. Some were old black-and-whites. Most were more recent. Fuzzy distance shots, painfully clear close-ups.

Sighing a little, Darby sat back against the pillows. There was Dane when he’d finally been promoted to president of the company. She ran her fingertip along the image of his face. Seven years her senior, he was impossible and overbearing. And she didn’t like admitting that she missed him even the slightest little bit.

But she did.

For a long time they’d been a team. Until he took his place alongside their father, and Darby had once again been alone.

She turned the page to another set of photos. Her graduation. The front of the Schute Clinic in Kentucky where she’d had her first nursing job. The formal engagement photograph. The caption—Intriguing Debra White Rutherford To Wed Media Mogul Heir Bryan Augustine. Only there had been no marriage. No happily ever after. Only a yearlong engagement that ended in humiliation.

One of the triplets snuffled, and Darby looked over at the cribs. She knew why she was looking at the magazine. Looking at the chronicle of her family’s life; each memory a stabbing little wound.

In the kitchen with Garrett, breathing in his warm scent, feeling his heartbeat beneath his gray shirt, she’d forgotten. For a moment. And she couldn’t afford to ever forget. Now, since the accident with Garrett’s sister, she didn’t deserve to forget.

She climbed off the bed, shoving the magazine back in its hiding place beneath her socks and went over to the cribs. She looked down at the sweetly scented babies. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “If I could undo it all, I would.”

They slept on.

And Darby snapped off the small table lamp and forced herself to climb into the bed that belonged to the man downstairs. She only wished she could close off thoughts of that man as easily as she’d closed the drawer on the magazine.

Instead, she lay there, wakeful for a long while. Staring into the dark, trying to convince herself that the pillow beneath her head didn’t smell wonderfully of Garrett.

Chapter Six

“I’m hungry.”

Garrett lowered the newspaper he was reading to the kitchen table and looked at his niece. Her hair stuck out in tangles and the pink-striped sundress she wore looked as if it was on backward. It was only seven in the morning. “Do you want a bagel?” He held up his own.

She shook her head and he set the bagel half back on his plate. “What do you want, Regan?” He wasn’t going to play guessing games when it came to food with her. He’d done that too many times before Darby had come to stay, and he wasn’t falling for it again.

“Waffles.”

“Then you’ll have to wait for Darby to get up so she can fix them for you,” he told her. “I don’t do waffles.”

She sniffed, and she was so much like Elise had been—all snooty and regal—that he felt irritation rise. He jabbed his fingers through his hair and focused on his niece, reminding himself to be patient. She was only four, and her world had violently changed only a week ago. “I can heat up a frozen waffle,” he offered.

“Frozen waffles aren’t real waffles,” she said.

He shrugged. He wasn’t going to take offense at a comment from a four-year-old waffle connoisseur. “Then you’ll have to wait for Darby. Where is Reid?” He leaned over to the counter and snagged the coffeepot to refill his mug.

Regan scooted out a chair and climbed up on it, sitting high on her knees and leaning over the edge of the table, anchoring his newspaper with her elbows. “I dunno. I don’t like you.”

“Why?”

Her eyebrows drew together. She poked at the edge of the newspaper with her fingertip, deliberately tearing it. “’Cause you’re mean.”

Garrett looked at her over his coffee. “And you’re rude,” he returned smoothly.

“No, I’m not. I’m a princess. My mommy told me so.”

“I’m sure she did. But even princesses have good manners.”

“They certainly do,” Darby commented from the doorway. She held out her hand for Regan. “Apologize to your uncle Garrett for what you said.”

“She doesn’t have to apologize for telling me what she thinks,” Garrett said. He held up the page of the newspaper that was ripped crookedly through the article he’d been reading. “You can apologize for doing this,” he told Regan.

She pouted. “It was a accident.”

“You can still be sorry for an accident,” Darby said. “Excuse us.” She didn’t look at Garrett as she led the girl out of the room.

He could hear them talking, then the temper-filled stomp of small feet going upstairs. Darby returned and headed for the coffee. She poured a cup and held it to her face, inhaling deeply. “Nectar of the gods,” she murmured.

He dragged his attention from her legs. But it wasn’t easy. Not with the thigh-length white sundress she wore. “Is Regan upstairs making a voodoo doll of me to stick pins into?”

“No. She’s just testing you, Garrett. To see where the boundaries are.”

“I’m not a complete idiot.”

Her lips parted. “I…know that.” She set aside her coffee cup and pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge. “I expected you to be at work by now.”

“Disappointed?”

She whirled around, and he smiled faintly. Rolling her eyes, she turned back to what she was doing.

“I thought I’d take a crack at the plumbing,” he admitted. “The office won’t fall apart without me for a few hours.”

She was cracking eggs into a pan. “Why don’t you just hire someone? The owner should take care of it, anyway, just like all the other things wrong around here.”

“They should, but they haven’t. And I’m a hands-on guy, what can I say? Do you always wear white or tan-colored clothes?”

Her movements slowed for only a moment. “Yes. I’m a bland kind of girl. What can I say?”

“Hardly bland. More like a refreshing vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day.”

Her eyes were amused. “My, my. Poetry. What are you angling for now? Another ‘barely a week’ of child care?”

He shook out his paper and started reading again. There was another article about the accident. This time, instead of the usual focus about Elise’s family connections, the subject of the article was the other driver, who’d apparently had some pretty serious connections himself. To the kind of wealth and power that Caldwell could only dream.

“Just saying what I think. Like Regan does. Did you see this article? That Phil Candela guy was apparently some mucky-muck with Rutherford Transportation outta Kentucky. Wonder what he was doing in Fisher Falls.”

“Maybe he was on his way through to somewhere else,” she said abruptly. “What are you really doing here? Why aren’t you out conquering the world of construction?”

“Fixing the plumbing,” he assured. His coffee mug was empty again and he stood, reaching for the pot. What he was really doing was trying to follow Hayden’s suggestion that, if he wanted to win in court against Caldwell, he needed to show at least some makings of a family man.

“Want more?” He held up the pot. She shook her head, and he realized her cup was still brimming full. “Still too hot to drink?”

“Oh, I don’t drink the stuff. Tastes horrid. I just like the smell.”

“Sacrilege,” he grumbled, pouring the rest of the pot into his cup. “Heresy.”

“Good taste.” She slid two fried eggs onto a plate and handed them to him, shutting off the stove in the same motion. “Eat your eggs. I’m going to get the kids now, so if you don’t want to get in the way of flying food, you’ll eat them quickly and escape.”

He took the plate. “Darby.” She paused in the doorway, looking back at him. “About last night. In here.”

Her skin turned pink. “It was late,” she dismissed.

He hadn’t quite known what he’d been going to say. But he knew it wasn’t that. “Yeah, right,” he said blandly. “Late.”

Four hours later he was cursing the idiot who’d installed the pipes, the idiot inspector who’d approved them and the idiot corporation that owned the house and probably a dozen others just like it. He’d hunched into crawlspaces, climbed through the sloppily insulated attic, torn out a good piece of wall and dug a ditch near the foundation deep enough to swim in.

“Having fun?”

He looked up at Darby from hosing off his muddy hands. She’d brought the kids out to the backyard and they’d all been chasing a bright beach ball around the grass. In fact, Darby had several grass stains on her sundress, which wasn’t a dress at all, he’d realized. The skirt of her dress was actually shorts, as he’d seen when she’d been trying to teach Regan how to turn cartwheels.

She seemed almost driven to show the kids a fun time.

“There’s a leak that could sink a ship,” he muttered.

“No ship could sink in this much mud.” She gestured toward his jeans. Mud caked them up to the knees. “The children have been begging to play in it like their uncle Garrett has been.”

“Hell, yeah. It’ll be one big game to replace the entire section of pipe from the main to the house.”

The ball bounced their way, and Darby caught it, laughing when her bare foot slipped in the mud. She barely caught herself from falling on her rear. “You said you were a hands-on guy. If you don’t want to fix it yourself, hire someone. You run a construction company, for heaven’s sake!” She tossed the ball at him and it bounced off his chin before he dropped the hose and caught it in his muddy hands.

Actually, he owned the construction company, but he didn’t correct her. He tossed the ball back at her, and it left a muddy mark against her white outfit, right over the enticing thrust of her breasts. She stared down at herself, her expression surprised. Then her lashes lowered.

His eyes narrowed at the sly look she cast him. Suddenly she struck, reaching the hose just before he did, and turning it full on in his face.

Ignoring the streaming water, he hooked his arm around her waist and tipped her off her feet, holding her easily over the mud bath below them.

“No, no, wait,” she gasped, giggling so hard her face was red. “I’m sorry. Really. That was…was completely inappropriate of me.”

He squinted through the water she was still squirting in his face. “Inappropriate?” He finally managed to redirect the hose. Right at her. “I’ll show you inappropriate.”

She shrieked and wriggled, her hands pushing at him.

Garrett laughed. And it struck him then that it had been a long time since he’d done so. Water soaked his shirt, soaked her clothes. The children were watching them, agog. He laughed so hard his chest hurt.

He laughed so hard, his hold on Darby loosened. She twisted free, her feet tangling with his legs, and down they went.

Mud splattered.

Water gushed.

“I can’t believe you did this!” Darby tried to sit up and ended up only spreading more mud. She planted her hands on Garrett’s chest for traction.

“Me? I didn’t trip us,” he pointed out. He was sprawled on his back, half in the muddy trench, half on the grass. There were streaks of mud on his cheek. “Besides, you started it all with the bouncing ball.”

He lifted his head to look at her. “You know, I don’t think I’ve laughed in this town since I was five years old.”

Darby’s throat tightened. She realized her hands were still pressed against his chest. It might as well have been bare for all the protection his soaking-wet T-shirt provided. “I didn’t laugh a whole lot in my childhood, either,” she admitted.

“You need a bath.” Regan stood beside them, her nose wrinkled.

Darby chuckled. “You’ve certainly got that right, peaches.”

“I’m not a peach. I’m a princess.”

Garrett reached out and dashed his fingertip across her nose, leaving a streak of mud. “A princess with mud on her nose.”

Reid ran up beside his sister, sticking out his face. “Do me. Do me.”

Darby watched Regan’s expression. The little girl didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted. But when Reid giggled wildly at the dollop of mud Garrett deposited on his button nose, she finally grinned. She crouched down and gathered up a handful of the slick stuff and turned on her heel, running toward the triplets who were corralled in the playpen.

Darby groaned. “Too much of a good thing,” she decided quickly and scrambled to her feet. She caught up to Regan and redirected the girl. In minutes Regan and Reid were making mud pies, and the toddlers had escaped their own “anointing.”

She had muddy handprints all over her dress, and her legs and feet were coated. Garrett was hosing himself off again. She started across the yard toward him, stopping short when he suddenly yanked off his shirt and dropped it on the ground beside him before turning the hose over his head like a shower.

Regan tugged on her shorts, and Darby dragged her gaze from the sight of water streaming off Garrett’s broad shoulders.

“Uncle Garrett’s getting naked.”

“No, sweetheart.” Her voice felt strangled. “He just took off his shirt because he’s all muddy from working on the plumbing. See? He’s just cleaning up a little.” She couldn’t keep from looking back at him and felt her stomach jolt at the sight.

She brushed her wet hair back from her face and focused on the much safer sight of her miniature charges. “While you guys are making mud desserts there, I’m going to make our main course. We’ll eat out here. Have a picnic. Sound good?”

Enthusiastic cheers followed her as she walked toward Garrett. He’d turned the hose on an assortment of tools. “Mind if I use the hose there for a little rinsing myself?”

He pointed the hose at her legs, and she shivered a little as the cold water washed away the mud. But it was a good shiver because the day was almost unbearably hot. “So, are you going to be able to fix the leak you found?”

He didn’t look at her as he nodded, and Darby stifled a sigh. For a while there he’d laughed. The sound had delighted her just as much as when she’d heard Regan and Reid giggling in the bathroom that first night.

Now, however, he’d apparently put his sense of humor back on ice.

“I’m going to fix some lunch. Would you like some?”

“No. I’m gonna pick up some materials to get this mess taken care of.” He bent over, hooking his fingers through the handle of his red toolbox.

Darby folded her arms, looking anywhere but at the play of muscles across his smooth, hard back. You’d think she’d never seen a male torso before.

You haven’t. Not one like this.

She ignored the voice. “You’ve got to eat,” she said to him.

“I’ll grab something while I’m gone.” He straightened, hefting the heavy box with ease.

“But—”

“Darby.” His jaw looked tight. “Let me take care of the plumbing and my stomach, and you take care of the five minis. Deal?”

She frowned, glancing at the children. They were perfectly occupied in the yard. Safely fenced in. The only dangers were squishy, messy mud and grass stains. She followed Garrett around the side of the house, latching the gate behind her. “Have I upset you? I know I’m just the nanny and you’re the boss, but it was just so funny. I couldn’t resist.”

“Some things I can’t resist, either,” he said roughly. “And dammit, Darby, you’re soaking wet.”

She ran her hands through her wet hair. “So are you.”

“I’m not wearing white.” He ran his finger along the narrow strap over her shoulder. “You are.”

She flushed, hastily crossing her arms over her chest. “I didn’t realize.”

“I did.”

“I’m sorry.”

Garrett exhaled in a thin stream and stepped in her path when she turned to go. “I’m not. But that’s a problem I’m just gonna have to deal with.”

Her chin angled. “There’s no problem. I wasn’t throwing myself at you.”

“No, you were throwing mud and—”

“I said I was sorry.”

“You were throwing smiles and laughter, too. And the kids loved it. So stop apologizing.”

Her mouth closed. But only for a moment. “Is the water turned back on inside the house, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Well. Okay, then. Be sure you put a fresh bandage on your finger.”

He’d told himself he wouldn’t. “I loved it, too,” he admitted. And sliding his hand around her neck, he pulled her to him and pressed his mouth to hers.

He heard her squeak. Felt her gasp. Tasted her shock. Her surprise.

Her hands touched his arms. Rose to his shoulders. Destroyed his intentions. His toolbox hit the ground with a heavy thud.

He slid one arm around her narrow waist. It was like holding a fluttering wild thing against him. Like tasting an exotic, heady spice. He kissed her jaw. The pulse thundering frantically beneath her ear. “Open your mouth,” he muttered.

She inhaled and he felt the thrust of her breasts against him. The heat that had been simmering inside him bubbled. He covered her mouth again, tasting. Going deeper, needing— “Well, this is about what I expected of you.”

The intrusive voice barely penetrated Garrett’s brain. But Darby sprang back from him as if she’d been shot.

He shifted, shielding her behind him, and stared at the one man he could truly say he hated.

Caldwell Carson.

“I’ve never much been interested in what you expect,” Garrett said evenly.

“Carrying on in plain sight of my grandchildren with one of your—”

“Don’t say it,” Garrett warned. “And they’re my nieces and nephews. In case you’ve forgotten.”

“I’ve forgotten nothing,” Caldwell snapped. “Particularly the fact that Elise never had anything to do with you. This story you’ve managed to concoct may have convinced a few people for now, but it won’t last.”

Darby slid past Garrett’s restraining arm, dismay darkening her bright eyes. “Mayor Carson, I know your loss has been terrible. But Elise did say—”

“Who are you?”

Garrett silenced her with a look. “Take the kids inside,” he ordered flatly. “And keep them there until he’s gone.”

She bit her lip, clearly reluctant. But finally she went, leaving Garrett alone with his father. “What are you doing here, Caldwell? Slumming?”

“I came to see my grandchildren. That secretary of yours has put me off long enough. You wouldn’t take my calls, so here I am. I want to see them.”

“Not today, Gramps.”

“You can’t keep them from me.”

“I can as long as I’m their guardian.”

“That’ll end on Wednesday.”

“So you keep threatening. Frankly, I’m pretty bored with it all.”

“Do you have no respect for your sister at all?”

Cold anger settled inside him. “Have you? You slapped a For Sale sign on her house before anyone could blink. You were huddling with your lawyers before my sister was even buried.” His lips twisted. “You never did have any respect for the dead.”

“Your mother would be ashamed of you.”

Garrett’s hand curled. It took everything he possessed not to raise it. “The only shame in my mother’s life was her involvement with you.”

“I loved Bonnie.”

“I’m sure your wife found that as comforting as the rest of us. You loved women,” Garrett corrected flatly. “My mother was just one more to you.” He stared at Caldwell, seeing the physical resemblance between himself and the older man and hating it. “No comment?”

“You can’t keep those children from me,” Caldwell finally said. His voice was harsh. “For God’s sake, son. They’re all I have left.”

Garrett knew that. How well he knew that, and how well he knew just how much like this cold old man he really was. “Don’t call me son.”

Then he picked up his tool chest and walked away.

He stopped short at the sight of Darby standing inside the fence. The children were nowhere in sight.

“Garrett, I—” she hesitated “—are you all right?”

His jaw tightened until it ached. He wanted, needed, her on his side to win his case against Caldwell. But right now, the soft look in her eyes was more than he could take.

“I told you to go inside,” he said flatly. But instead of having the desired effect, the look in her eyes softened even more before she turned and headed into the house.

Leaving him. Alone.

Chapter Seven

Thunder crashed overhead, sounding as if mountains were caving in on the house. Darby pressed her hands to her ears, wishing she could blot out the violent sounds of the electrical storm raging outside.

Another rumble. Starting far off in the distance, rolling closer and closer, building strength, plowing over Garrett’s two-story rented house. Windows rattled. Glasses inside the cupboard rattled. The entire house seemed to rattle.

Darby shuddered and decided that sitting in the kitchen wasn’t the place to be, after all.

She gathered up the newspapers that had been piling up on the counter and carried them, along with her iced tea, into the living room. It was odd, she thought, listening to the storm brewing while it was swelteringly hot outside. There just seemed to be something wrong with that picture.

Georgie had told her about the storms that seemed to shake the world with fury. All noise and no show, she’d said.

Frankly, Darby figured the noise was bad enough to give the unwary a heart attack.

She set the newspapers on the couch, peered into the playpen where Keely and Bridget were sleeping, sound as could be. She didn’t know how it was possible to sleep while thunder shook the house, but she wasn’t going to argue with it. Tad was gnawing halfheartedly on his frozen teething ring. Hopefully, he’d fall asleep, too.

Regan and Reid weren’t seemingly bothered by the racket, either. The two blond heads barely looked up from the video they were watching over the coloring books Georgie had given them.

She sat down on the couch and flipped through the newspapers, hoping that she wouldn’t see another article about Phil Candela’s connection to Rutherford Transportation. So far, the newspaper had run several little blurbs about the man, including details of his funeral in Kentucky. Darby had sent flowers, but she’d been too cowardly to sign her name to them.

She bypassed articles about the increase of housing starts in Fisher Falls and the appointment of a new police chief, skimmed one about an upcoming carnival and lingered over a half-page advertisement of G&G Construction and Development, which was currently hiring in the area.

She flipped to the comic-strip section, which was more her usual focus and had been for years and years.

It was an old habit learned when she’d been only fifteen and the front pages were always containing some piece of news about her family. Her father was squiring around another starlet or heiress even as he inked the deal to acquire another small, struggling company. Her brother had won another race, received another award.

Every time there had been an article, Darby had found herself being approached by yet another person claiming to be her friend. A friend who wanted an introduction to her sexy older brother. A friend who wanted an invitation to their estate, just coincidentally when the governor and his wife were visiting for the weekend.

It had taken Darby a while to understand that she wasn’t the appeal for these people, but when she’d finally learned, she’d learned it well.

Too bad she hadn’t learned it before it was time to walk down the aisle with a groom who’d decided she wasn’t worth her father’s bribe after all.

Disgusted with the depressing thoughts, Darby pushed aside the papers and leaned into the playpen to pick up Tad. “You don’t need a bribe to like me, do you, Tad?”

But instead of spitting out his teething ring and grinning at her the way he always did, he just looked at her with his brown eyes fever bright.

Darby’s adrenaline kicked in. She propped him on her hip and carried him upstairs to take his temp. Something that he did not like at all.

And she didn’t like at all the fact that it was so high. He was teething, but that didn’t account for a temp this high.

She didn’t even know any of the pediatricians in town. The only doctor with whom she’d had any dealings had been Georgie’s physician.

Smiling into Tad’s unhappy face, she maneuvered him into shorts and a clean shirt and carried him back downstairs. He rested his hot face against her neck, his fingers tangling in her shirt.

“Regan, sweetie.” She sat down on the coffee table where Regan and Reid were drawing. “Do you remember ever going to the doctor?”

Regan nodded. “For a shot.” Her eyes slid to Reid. “He cried. But I didn’t.”

Reid pushed her arm. “Uh-huh,” he argued. “You did too cry.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Who?”

“The doctor, Regan. What did you call the doctor when he gave you the shot?”

Her lips pursed. Then she shrugged and picked up another crayon. “I dunno.”

Darby gave up on that tack. Another boom of thunder rocketed the windows, and Tad started to cry. She hugged him gently and searched out a phone book. There were three pediatricians in town, but when she called them, none had any of the Northrop children listed in their records.

She called Garrett, but reached only Carmel, who said she was on her way out the door to a meeting and Garrett was at one of their building sites. Growing more frustrated by the minute, Darby called Smiling Faces. The only medical information in the children’s files was their parents’ insurance policy number and a notarized form that said Smiling Faces could obtain medical care for the children in an emergency—two things that didn’t help Darby in the least. Molly finally offered to send Beth over to watch the children while Darby took Tad to the hospital for a quick check.

It was about the least appealing solution Darby could have imagined, but at least she wouldn’t have to cart all five of them around in the brewing storm. When Beth finally arrived, Darby wanted to drag the young woman into the house and throttle her for taking so long. Instead, she gathered up Tad and hurried out to her car, fastening him into the car seat as she kept one eye on the angry-looking sky overhead. So far, Georgie’s words had proved true. All noise.

Tad started crying again when her car backfired, and she tried singing to distract him. It didn’t work and by the time she carried him into the emergency room at the hospital, she felt like crying herself.

Particularly when the admitting nurse refused to admit him without the guardian’s approval. Darby leaned over the desk and stared the prune-faced woman in the face. Calmly explaining the situation had gotten her nowhere. “I want this child examined. Right now.” There wasn’t one other single person in the waiting room.

“Then find the child’s guardian,” the other woman retorted.

“I’ve told you. He’s not available right now. For heaven’s sake! This is the mayor’s grandson,” Darby gritted.

“I don’t care if he’s the president’s grandson.”

Darby hissed with annoyance. Carrying Tad on her hip, she walked right past the admitting desk, through the double doors, to the first exam room, ignoring the voluble protests following her. “You can’t just go back there!”

“Watch me,” Darby muttered. She pressed her lips to Tad’s hot forehead, looking around until she found an otoscope. He’d been tugging at his ears, and she wasn’t surprised to find them both red. Inflamed. She carried him back out to the admitting desk where a security officer had been summoned. “He needs an antibiotic,” Darby said.

“Miss White, I don’t know who you think you are, but—”

“What’s going on here?”

Darby whirled on her heel, gaping at Garrett who was standing behind her. When he’d left the house, he’d been wearing a black suit. But now he was in worn-white jeans and a black T-shirt that hugged his chest and arms. She swallowed, determined not to think about how it had felt to be held against that wide, warm chest, and cuddled Tad. “You look as if you’ve been installing windows yourself again. When did you get here?”

“Just now. Carmel told me you were looking for me and when I called the house, someone named Beth told me you’d brought Tad here.” His gaze flicked over the infuriated admitting nurse and the bored security guard. “So what’s the deal?”

“Otitis—” she broke off at the sharpened look he gave her. “Ear infection,” she finished. “I suspect. But they won’t examine him without your permission.”

“So I’m giving my permission now.” Garrett raised his eyebrow at the nurse. “Well? Some reason why you’re still sitting on your thumbs?”

The nurse rose, shoving a blank form toward them. “Give him to me.”

Darby shook her head. Tad was clinging to her with a grip that was nearly painful, but even if he hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have surrendered the precious boy to this cranky woman. “I’ll come with you.”

They went into the same examining room. Two minutes later, the doctor arrived and confirmed what Darby already knew. He wrote out a prescription and disappeared with a flap of his lab coat. Darby and Tad rejoined Garrett before he’d even finished completing the lengthy medical form.

“Ear infection,” she said, handing the square of white paper to Garrett. “We need that filled right away.” She carried Tad over to a molded plastic chair in the waiting room and sat down, holding him in her lap.

After several minutes Garrett walked their way, folding a pink sheet of paper and tucking it in the pocket of his jeans. “That nurse isn’t real happy with you,” he murmured as they left.

Darby sniffed. “That woman shouldn’t even call herself a nurse. She didn’t have one iota of compassion for Tad here. I’d be ashamed if I were her.”

Thunder banged overhead, seeming to agree with her. Tad cringed. Darby shuddered. And Garrett grinned. “Don’t like the percussion?”

“Not much.” She tried to reach her purse, but couldn’t. Not with the way Tad had his arms and legs wrapped around her. She gently detached him and handed him toward Garrett.

His grin faltered, then he took the tot, holding him awkwardly.

Tad howled.

Darby frowned at them both. “For heaven’s sake, Garrett. Hold him next to you. He’s probably afraid you’re going to drop him like that.” She rooted through her purse, found her keys, then dropped them again when another clap of thunder exploded around them.

“I think I’ll drive to the pharmacy,” Garrett suggested. He pushed Tad back into her arms and tugged her over to his truck. “We’ll get your rust bucket later.”

She knew she should be insulted, but she was too glad to climb into the safety of his big truck where the thunder overhead didn’t seem to be quite so near. She fastened Tad into one of the built-in car seats the shiny new vehicle possessed, then Garrett drove out of the hospital’s parking lot, heading to the drugstore that was just down the block.

He went inside and came out a short time later with a small white sack that he tossed into her lap. Darby didn’t waste any time. She climbed into the backseat and gave Tad a dose of the sticky pink liquid right then and there.

Garrett watched her in the rearview mirror. Saw the way she tenderly smoothed Tad’s wispy blond hair and tucked his soft little blanket against his cheek, murmuring sweet nothings under her breath as she tended to him.

Then she climbed back into the front seat and sighed deeply. Her fingertips drummed against her thigh, just below the hem of her toast-colored shorts. “I should’ve known he was getting sick. Garrett, I didn’t even know who their pediatrician is. It wasn’t even on record at Smiling Faces. You’ve got to get that information so this doesn’t happen again.”

He nodded. “I’ll get whatever you need.”

Her blue gaze settled on him. “It’s not what I need. It’s stuff that you need. As their guardian.”

“Fine. I’ll make sure I get it.” He glanced in the mirror again at his nephew. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Sure. He’ll be fine, as long as the antibiotic does its work. He’ll probably be feeling better within a few hours, actually.”

“That fast?”

“Children are pretty resilient.” She looked out the window.

“Good. I wouldn’t want Caldwell to go around saying tomorrow at the hearing that they were receiving inadequate care. He doesn’t need any additional ammunition against me.”

“Not even the mayor could prevent ear infections,” she murmured. “Children just get them. Some more often than others.”

“You’re good with them.” He forced his attention away from the vulnerable curve of her neck, exposed by the scoop-necked shirt she wore and her feathery hair, and concentrated on negotiating the surprisingly busy rush-hour traffic. “It’s a wonder you don’t have a passel of kids yourself already. You’ll be a good mother.”

“No husband,” she reminded him.

“Lack of a husband didn’t stop my mother.” He wished he’d kept his mouth shut as soon as the words were out.

“Yes, well, having parents who are married isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, either.”

She looked as enthusiastic about her statement as he felt about his. Then another explosion of thunder rocked through the air and she leaned forward, looking up through the windshield at the sky. “I can’t believe it’s not raining. Does it do this a lot?”

“Every year. You haven’t been here that long?”

“Just a few months,” she admitted.

“Where from?”

Her shoulder lifted. “Everywhere. Nowhere.”

“And Georgina Vansant took you in.”

“She’s my…friend. I’ve known her a long time.”

Garrett was certain that wasn’t what Darby had been going to say. “She’s a good woman. Fair. She offered me a job once. Way back when.”

Her lips curved. “Really. Doing what?”

“Yard work.” He smiled faintly, remembering. “She probably thought if I was busy enough trimming the hedges around her property I couldn’t get into trouble elsewhere.”

“Did you work for her, then?”

He shook his head, his smile dying. “Nope. Never even saw her house up close. My mother sent me to New Mexico to live with her cousin, instead.”

“How did you like it there?”

He pulled into the driveway and parked. “I lived. Obviously. He was an ex-cop turned finish carpenter. He put me to work with him, mostly because he didn’t trust me out of his sight at first.”

“So that’s how you got into construction?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it seems that has worked out fairly well for you.”

He nodded and watched as she climbed into the back to release Tad’s restraints, then carry him into the house. Garrett pocketed his keys and followed.

As soon as he entered the living room, Regan popped up and ran headlong into him, wrapping her arms around his leg as if he were her absolute favorite treat. He was so surprised he nearly jerked back. She smiled up at him, her brown eyes twinkling and her blond curls bouncing. “I drew you a picture,” she announced.

Garrett gingerly unlatched her hands. “Uh, that’s nice.”

She skipped back to the coffee table and waved a piece of paper in the air. “See?”

Darby came down the steps just then. “That’s beautiful, Regan. Why don’t we put it on the refrigerator door so we can look at it every day.”

Regan nodded and disappeared into the kitchen with Reid right on her heels.

Beth—Garrett remembered her now from the day he’d gone to Smiling Faces—was smiling at him. Her teeth were white and even and her white-blond hair flowed over shapely shoulders, curling just beneath a pair of breasts that gave new meaning to the short-sleeved pink sweater she wore.

She swayed over to Garrett, her long lashes fluttering. “You poor man,” she pouted. “You must be just overwhelmed with everything that has happened.”

“No.”

His short answer didn’t deter her. “I can’t imagine how you’re getting by.” Flutter-flutter. “I was so glad that I could help you out today when you needed me.”

“Darby needed you.”

“That’s right,” Darby said from the kitchen doorway. “So thanks a lot, Beth.” She crossed the carpet, holding out a folded bill. “That ought to cover your time, I think.”

Beth’s expression tightened a hair. “Don’t be silly, Darby. I wouldn’t dream of taking money for helping you out.”

Darby’s eyebrows rose. “Oh. I guess I misunderstood you then when you said it’d be ten dollars an hour.”

Garrett swallowed a chuckle at the consternation on Beth’s face. “I’ll be in the den,” he said, and escaped while the escaping was good.

Darby continued holding out the cash. Beth snatched it out of her hand, her lips tight. “You didn’t have to do this in front of him,” she hissed.

Darby shrugged. “Thanks for coming over. I do appreciate it.” That was sincere, at least.

“When are you coming back to Smiling Faces?” Beth’s eyes were fastened hungrily on the closed door to Garrett’s den.

“If Garrett has his way, no time soon.” She ought to feel ashamed for baiting Beth, but then Beth should be ashamed for the way she was practically throwing herself at Garrett.

And she didn’t exactly appreciate the disbelieving look the other woman cast her way.

“Molly’s not going to like that,” Beth predicted. “You know, the only reason she hired you in the first place is because she’s friends with Mrs. Vansant.”

Since it was true, Darby couldn’t very well argue the point. She started herding Beth to the door. “Whatever I end up doing, I’ll work it out with Molly.” She smiled. “Unless you’ve been promoted and are handling more than the check-in desk?”

Beth’s lips tightened. She gathered up her purse and flounced out of the house.

“Thank you and goodbye,” Darby murmured after the door slammed shut.

Thunder pounded overhead, making the windows shake again.

“Now there goes a woman who is not the least bit intriguing.”

Darby turned to see Garrett standing in the doorway of his den. “Who? Beth?” The windows rattled again, and Darby quickly moved deeper into the living room. Away from the windows. “She’s all right. She’s just—”

“On the prowl for a man.”

She picked up several crayons that had rolled from the coffee table to the floor. “I bet you say that about all women.”

“I wouldn’t say that about you.”

She pushed the crayons into the box. “Am I supposed to be flattered by that or insulted?”

He crouched down beside her, reaching for the red crayon that she’d missed under the table. “Neither. It’s just another intriguing thing about you.”

Darby snatched the crayon out of his hand and jammed it into the box with the others. “Stop calling me intriguing. I’m nothing of the sort.”

“Did you ever go to college?”

She stood up so fast that she felt light-headed. “What? Yes.”

“What did you study?”

“Is this your version of Twenty Questions?” He kept watching her, and her lips tightened. “Nursing,” she said shortly. “Now, I’ve got to get dinner started.”

He followed her into the kitchen. “That explains this, then.” He held up his hand. His cut had healed enough that it was covered only with an adhesive bandage. “So why are you playing nursery worker instead of nurse?”

“I didn’t say I was one.” Darby grabbed a deep pot and filled it with water. She wasn’t one anymore, that’s for sure. Nurses were licensed and licenses could be traced. “We’re having spaghetti. But we don’t have any garlic bread. Would you mind running to the store to get some?” Anything, anything to get him to move away. To get him out of her personal space so she could think of something more than the way he smelled so warm and male and— “In other words you don’t want to discuss your nursing aspirations.”

She turned the water up higher.

“Garlic bread,” he murmured. “I’ll see what I can do.” He smiled faintly and left.

Darby drew in a deep breath and let it out in a rush.

What a mess she’d gotten herself into.

She turned off the water and set the pot on the stove, glancing out the window at Regan and Reid who were chasing each other around in the backyard, perfectly oblivious to the crackling thunder.

A mess she was beginning to feel awfully comfortable in.

Chapter Eight

“Relax, would you?” Hayden spoke softly as he leaned a few inches toward Garrett. “I’ve heard Judge March is a pretty straight shooter, but if he sees you looking as if the top of your head is going to explode, he might think you’re a risky choice for guardian.”

Garrett forced his hands to relax. Hayden was right, he knew. “Courtrooms,” he said grimly. “Haven’t ever liked ’em much.”

“Probably because you were on the receiving end of justice,” Hayden murmured. “It was a long time ago. Forget it. You are a nationwide developer. You can hold your own against anyone now, including the mayor.”

Garrett sure as hell hoped so.

The judge, beanpole tall and white-haired, entered the courtroom and everyone present rose, sitting again only after the judge impatiently waved at them.

Garrett glanced back over the small crowd that had been gathering. Darby sat in the back row. A wide-brimmed straw hat sat on her head, preventing him from seeing her expression. He doubted that it had changed much, though, since earlier that morning when Carmel had arrived at the house. His assistant had agreed to watch the children during the hearing, and Garrett suspected that it was only Carmel’s presence that had kept Darby from backing out entirely.

Since he’d brought up that nursing thing the evening before, she’d barely spoken to him.

Judge March was eyeing the courtroom. “Seems we’ve got a lot of spectators,” he commented. “This isn’t a hockey match so I’m gonna ask the sheriff here to clear the courtroom.”

Voices murmured, and feet shuffled reluctantly from the courtroom. Garrett looked back again. Darby had left, too. Without her, his case was toast.

“Morning, Mayor,” the judge was saying. “I’m real sorry about your daughter. I’m real sorry about us being here today at all. Seems like situations like this always get worse before they get better.” He shook his head and slid a pair of eyeglasses on his beaked nose. “Let’s try to keep this as uncomplicated as we can. I’d like to get out of here before lunch. Any arguments?” He eyed the occupants of both tables and with none forthcoming, nodded with satisfaction. “All right, then.”

Darby felt as if a dozen curious eyes were watching her and, wanting only to escape, she walked down the wide marble-floored hallway toward the drinking fountain. She slipped her hat off long enough to bend over the bubbler and take a quick drink.

But the cool, refreshing water did little to alleviate the tension that clawed at her. Until the accident had occurred on the corner outside of Smiling Faces, she’d almost managed to forget the fear of being recognized.

Going to the market had become something to enjoy rather than something to dread. Walking in the park was no longer an exercise in furtiveness, but something to cherish. Now it was all back. In spades.

From beneath the brim of her summer hat, she eyed the crowd that was still hovering outside of the courtroom doors. At least four of them were reporters. She would have recognized the look of them even without the steno pads or the microcassette recorders.

The exit was right behind her. So close she could feel it reaching out to her. Beckoning. Inviting her to slip out the doors. To start running. To keep going, not stopping until she’d found a new place…another haven where she could start anew. Where she was still just a normal woman.

Just thinking it made her breathless. She actually pressed her hand against the heavy wooden panel. One push and she’d be through. She’d go and keep going.

She stared at her splayed fingers. Garrett had to regret what had happened between them when his father had come by the house the day he’d been working on the plumbing. Other than his unexpected appearance at the hospital, he’d been back to his usual self. He hadn’t even eaten dinner with her and the children after he’d returned with the garlic bread. He’d just left the foil-covered loaf on the counter, asked her to leave out her car keys so he could arrange to have her car returned from the hospital, reminded her about the hearing and shut himself in the den.

No more spontaneous laughter. No more projects around the house. No more kisses…

Not that she wanted any, of course.

It was just as well that he’d gone back to being Mr. Business.

The only thing Garrett wanted from her was help with the children and to give her account of the accident at this hearing. He didn’t understand her reluctance, and she couldn’t give him the reason for it. She’d seen custody hearings up close and personal. She’d have to lift her hand and swear truthfulness. Could she do that, without telling her true name?

Could she protect herself at the expense of Elise’s dying words?

She inhaled shakily and dropped her hand, turning once more to face the closed courtroom doors. Her legs felt like wet noodles, and she sat down on one of the cold stone benches bracketing the double doors leading into the courtroom. She folded her hands in her lap.

And waited.

Ballet lessons. Riding lessons. Lessons of every kind and size and shape. Followed by an Ivy League education.

Garrett returned Hayden’s look. Caldwell had been waxing eloquent for so long about the childhood he’d given his precious Elise that it was enough to make Garrett gag.

Instead, he watched the judge’s expression as Caldwell went on and on. Almost rambling. But if the judge had feelings one way or another about what he was hearing, there was no hint of it in his expression. Any more than there’d been an indication of what he’d thought of Garrett’s qualifications to care for the children when he’d been on the stand himself.

“This claim of Garrett’s that Elise wanted her children to live with him can be nothing but a fabrication, and for him to drag us through this farce of—”

Hayden objected and the judge wearily rubbed his eyes. “That’s enough, Mayor. We all know your feelings on this. You’ve made them plain enough. Why don’t you return to your seat. Mr. Southerland, if you’d call in your witness, I’d like to hear what she has to say.”

Garrett didn’t bat an eye when Caldwell stepped down from the witness box, his brows pulled fiercely together as he looked Garrett’s way. Caldwell’s animosity didn’t faze him any more than it ever did.

But he waited, still, when Hayden stepped out of the courtroom for a moment. The second he was gone stretched Garrett’s nerves to screaming. But there she was. Walking back into the courtroom with Hayden. Looking cool and delicate in her filmy white ankle-length dress and straw hat.

Her eyes looked his way as she passed between the two tables where the opponents sat. Her husky voice trembled as she was sworn in, and when she stepped up into the witness box and sat down, he could see she was pale.

A pulse visibly beat in her throat. She rested her arms over the wooden chair arms casually enough, but Garrett could see the white knuckles from fingers curled too tightly over the ends.

“Now, Ms. White, why don’t you tell us how you came to be involved in this set-to.”

“Your Honor.” Hayden rose. “If you’d permit me to—”

The judge waved his hand impatiently. “Sit down, Counselor. I’m getting a headache from the lot of you. I’ve a good mind to ban attorneys from my courtroom. Ms. White?”

Darby turned her blue gaze toward Garrett. She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret, then slowly unfastened her fingers from the chair and folded them in her lap. She cleared her throat. Then, with spare words that Garrett could only admire after Caldwell’s verbosity, described her actions when the terrible collision had occurred outside of her workplace. She concluded with Elise’s last words.

Caldwell immediately pushed to his feet, making his chair screech against the floor. “Obviously, Elise was not in a stable frame of mind. And this woman’s word can’t be trusted, anyway! She’s involved with Garrett, for God’s sake.”

Caldwell’s attorney practically dragged his client back down onto his chair, his words fast and low. Finally Caldwell subsided and the judge turned to Darby, waiting.

“Mrs. Northrop was quite lucid, considering,” Darby answered Caldwell’s first point. “She knew her husband was…gone. She knew she wasn’t going to make it to the hospital. She’d been carrying Mr. Cullum’s business card in her purse. It was right where she said it would be.”

“Did she speak of anyone else other than Mr. Cullum?”

Garrett saw the telltale glisten in her eyes as she looked at Caldwell. “No,” she admitted quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“Any other people around who heard what she said?”

Darby shook her head. “The EMTs hadn’t yet arrived.” She swallowed, staring at her hands. “I kept administering CPR until they took over, but it was too late.”

“Then it’s just her word that Garrett didn’t make this up,” Caldwell burst out again. “They’re in this together! All to keep me from my own flesh and blood—”

“Enough, Mayor.” The judge’s command rang out. “I said we were keeping this informal, because I happen to like things that way. But one more outburst and I’ll hold you in contempt. Understand?”

“I…hadn’t met Mr. Cullum before the accident,” Darby said shakily. “But I know the children because of Smiling Faces. Garrett…Mr. Cullum, needed someone to help care for them, and I agreed.”

“Which is just what the report from Laura Malone said,” the judge commented. “How do you think the children are doing?”

Her lips parted, her surprise at the question evident to Garrett even if it wasn’t obvious to everyone else. “Quite well,” she said after a moment. “Considering. Their appetites are healthy, their sleep habits seem relatively normal. They’re active, curious children. Tad does have an ear infection right now, but he’s on medication for it and is improving.”

“Ear infections. My grandson is plagued with them.” The judge smiled slightly. “Thank you, Ms. White. You’re excused.”

Relief that the ordeal was over flooded through Darby. It was all she could do not to leap from the witness box. She rose and walked to the rear of the courtroom.

She didn’t know if she was expected to leave or not. But she didn’t want to go out into the corridor and face the curiosity of the reporters, if they were still hanging around. And her experience of reporters led her to believe that they would be.

So she quietly slipped into a seat in the back row.

“This is a difficult situation,” Judge March was saying. “Elise and Marc left no will, no provisions financial or otherwise for their children. The Northrops were, in fact, experiencing some financial difficulty as I understand it. But, as I said when we sat down here this morning, the welfare of the children is the only concern of this court.”

Ten minutes later it was over. Just like that. Garrett got to keep the children.

For a while, at least.

Caldwell stormed out of the courtroom, his attorney trotting unhappily after him. When the doors swished open, she heard the rapid-fire questions begin. In a smooth motion, the door whooshed closed, blotting out the voices.

She stood and waited while Garrett spoke with his attorney. Then the other man turned to Darby and shook her hand. “You did very well on the stand.”

She shifted nervously, feeling like a complete fraud, even though she had been strictly truthful about her account of the accident.

He smiled. “Not everyone does,” he assured her. Then his eyes narrowed for a moment. “I keep thinking we’ve met.”

Darby’s face felt stiff. She raised her eyebrows, lifting her shoulder casually. “Don’t think so.” It was all she could do to push out the words.

“Well. Anyway. Thanks. Garrett, I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ve got that meeting with Zoning tomorrow.”

“Make sure Carmel’s got it on my schedule.”

Hayden nodded, then he left. Leaving Darby alone with Garrett.

She looked anywhere but at him. “Mr. Carson is pretty upset.”

“So it seems.” He paused for a moment. “I wasn’t sure you’d hang around after the judge kicked everyone out of the place,” he finally said. “I’m glad I was wrong.”

“Courtrooms,” she excused weakly. “Not my favorite place.”

“Nor mine. Spent too much time in ’em when I was the reigning delinquent of Fisher Falls.”

“You?” Her gaze drifted over him. In a charcoal-colored suit fitted across his wide shoulders, his lean face once again clean shaven, his springy black hair brushed back from his face, he looked the very picture of uprightness and responsibility.

“I had a liking for hotwiring cars,” he admitted.

Her jaw loosened. “You stole cars?”

“I…liberated them from a certain owner with frequent regularity.”

“Mr. Carson’s cars?”

His grin was slow and utterly wicked. “Pretty and smart,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get outta here.”

She kept her smile in place with an effort. Please, let the reporters be gone. “Carmel is probably tearing her hair out by now.”

“She’d be saying that no matter how well things went. Figures it’ll keep me feeling guilty. But I’m not ready to go home. I thought we’d go somewhere for lunch. You know. Somewhere that doesn’t involve finger foods and sipper cups. You game?”

She moistened her lips. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“We need to talk about the kids.”

“We don’t have to go to a restaurant to do that.”

“Humor me.”

It was a mistake. She knew it. But looking at him, all she could think about at that moment was the way he’d tipped back his head into the mud the other day and laughed. “Garrett—”

He nudged back the brim of her hat. “The Overlook,” he murmured. “They have a dessert menu there that’ll make you cry. And if not that, at least lick your lips.”

She felt her ears heat, realizing she had pretty well done just that as she’d watched his mouth form his words. “I don’t know. I hear it’s a pricey place.”

“I think I can swing it,” he said dryly.

She pressed her lips together, looking away. “I…all right. But we really shouldn’t be out long. It wouldn’t be fair to Carmel.”

He nodded once, satisfied, and pushed open the door for her to pass through. She was so distracted by the hand he tucked against the small of her back that she barely remembered to adjust her hat as she walked out into the corridor.

But she needn’t have worried, because the wide hallway was empty. The spectators, reporters included, had gone and for a moment she felt weak with relief.

Garrett jabbed the elevator button and looked at her. “You all right? You look a little shaky.”

She managed a smile. “I must be hungrier than I thought. Didn’t smell my coffee this morning.”

He didn’t look convinced, but the elevator doors slid open and Darby stepped into the nearly full car before he could comment. Lunch hour was obviously calling to the government workers who populated the top floors of the pillared building.

The occupants shifted, making room for Garrett’s tall body, and Darby found herself wedged into the corner. She swallowed and looked up at the lit display above the door.

They had only three floors to descend, but it might as well have been twelve for the way the elevator seemed to grind along. She could feel her chest tightening, her lungs struggling for breath. Knowing what was happening didn’t help her to prevent it. A screaming knot rose in her throat, welling, swelling upward—

The doors slid open, passengers erupting around her into the lobby.

“Come on.” Garrett’s arm closed around her shoulders. “Outside.”

Suddenly she was outside. Fresh air filled her lungs. She felt sunlight on her arms, heard laughter from a passing group of office workers heading down the steps to the street.

She was pressed against Garrett’s side, her nose buried in his shoulder. “Oh, God.” She pushed away, as far as his arms allowed. Embarrassment burned inside her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Let’s just get to the truck.” He guided her down the shallow steps. “Or maybe you’d rather walk. The Overlook isn’t that far from here.”

“Really? You wouldn’t mind walking?”

In answer, he shrugged off his suit jacket and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ve been known to put one foot in front of the other now and then.” He smiled faintly and took her arm, walking leisurely along the tree-lined sidewalk. “But don’t tell Carmel, or she’ll start refusing to fetch and carry for me.”

“I can’t imagine there is anything that Carmel would refuse you.”

“You haven’t seen our Monday-morning battles over who’s supposed to make the coffee.”

Darby managed a smile. He was deliberately trying to put her at ease. It was so utterly backward, and he didn’t even know it.

They walked on in silence. In and out of the shadows of the lacy leaves overhead. They crossed streets, left behind the business of the courthouse district, walking along a winding street that led gently upward. Past the park at the base of the waterfalls, past long, private drives that led to gracious older estates.

Estates like her aunt’s.

Like Caldwell Carson’s.

The road narrowed and Garrett moved to Darby’s left side, between her and the sporadic traffic. On the other side of her, a waist-high stone wall guarded the edge of the increasingly deep drop-off. Below, Fisher Falls lay like a sparkling jewel. Several yards ahead, she could see the discreet sign of The Overlook.

She ran her hand along the aging stone. “It is so beautiful here.”

“You make that sound like a bad thing.”

“Not bad,” she demurred. “Just hard to leave.”

“You’re planning on going somewhere?”

“Not if I can avoid it,” she admitted truthfully. “Didn’t you miss it when you left?” She lifted her hand, gesturing to the lush green beauty that surrounded them. “You must have. You came back.”

“I came back because Fisher Falls is on the verge of a construction boom. Business, Darby. That’s all it was.”

“Now you sound like my brother again.”

“What does he do?”

She shook her head slightly. “How do you know we’re on the verge of anything, much less a construction boom?”

“Trade secret.”

“In other words, you’re not going to tell me.”

“You tell me something about your brother, instead of avoiding it, and I’ll tell you about G&G.”

Darby stopped, pointing at the restaurant sign. “Well look at that. We’re here.”

Garrett wrapped his palm around her slender finger, feeling the little jerk she couldn’t hide. Darby no longer looked like she was going to pass out, but she was far from relaxed, despite the effort she’d been making to convince him otherwise. “You’re shivering.”

She looked up, above their heads. “We’re standing in the shade.”

“Don’t do that, Darby.”

She slid her hand out from his, her fingertips fluttering nervously to her throat. “I was just a little unnerved in the elevator. That’s all.” She tried to step around him toward the rustic-looking restaurant, but Garrett shifted, blocking the path.

“Unnerved. Seems a puny word to me. You got claustrophobic. You don’t have to hide it.”

“I’m not. I just…just— There were so many people inside the elevator. I…I was fine when we arrived, you know.”

He wouldn’t go quite that far, but it was true enough. She hadn’t been ready to climb out of her skin. “There were only a few people on the elevator when we took it up to the courtroom,” he allowed. “So it’s just overcrowded small places that get to you?”

Her cheeks were red, her eyes embarrassed. Evasive. “Something like that.”

Embarrassment he could understand, even though it wasn’t necessary. The evasiveness was another matter.

“Does it have anything to do with this?” He rubbed his thumb gently over her throat, and he felt her nervous swallow. “The injury to your vocal chords?”

“Why does it matter?”

“It still affects you.”

“So?”

He kept his patience with an effort. “So I’m interested in—”

Her eyes widened.

“—in your…welfare,” he finished, taking his hand from her smooth neck and pushing it into his pocket. Everyone was entitled to their privacy, he reminded himself. Wondering when the hell he’d forgotten it. “You’ve helped me out. I owe you.”

“No.” She shook her head, her expression growing even more pained. “You don’t owe me anything, Garrett. You really don’t.”

She might as well have posted Keep Away banners around herself. Unfortunately, Garrett couldn’t remember why he should be glad of that.

He looked at her mouth. What he did remember was the way she’d tasted. Of sunshine and cold water from the hose. Of smiles and laughter from kids who were hardly even old enough to know they had little reason to laugh.

“Well, I hope that doesn’t mean you’ve decided against lunch.” He lifted his chin toward the restaurant. “Now that you’ve made me hoof it all this way.”

“Made you—” Her mouth snapped shut. “You’re teasing me again,” she finally said.

“Maybe.”

She sighed noisily. But he could still see the twitch at the corner of her soft lips. “Why?” she asked tartly. “Why do you do that?”

He shrugged and nudged her toward the restaurant. “Because I’m beginning to think you have had as few smiles in your life as I’ve had in mine.”

Chapter Nine

Darby shook her head when the waiter offered her coffee and watched him fill Garrett’s ivory cup. “I don’t know how you can just sit there so relaxed when Mayor Carson is right across this very dining room glaring at us.”

“His presence is bugging you a hell of a lot more ’n it’s bugging me.”

“Obviously.”

The corner of Garrett’s mobile mouth twitched. “But it does show that this town ain’t big enough for the two of us,” he added.

She twisted the linen napkin in her lap another knot or two. The small table she and Garrett shared was next to the window, and she shifted the last available inch to look outside. The mayor had come into the restaurant after Darby and Garrett had already been served. “I’ve always hated being watched.” She shifted again, uncomfortable.

“Then you should walk around with a bag over your head,” he suggested.

Pleasure darted guiltily through her. Three months ago she’d hacked off her waist-length hair with sewing shears and begun dressing in the most bland clothing imaginable. She’d wanted nothing to connect her to the woman she’d been. The woman who wore only vibrant, couturier clothing because her father expected it was no more.

“You said you wanted to talk about the kids,” she reminded them both. “That was the whole point of this lunch. Wasn’t it?”

“Which you ate very little of,” Garrett pointed out.

“It was enormous.” She’d dutifully poked and prodded at the elaborate mound of chicken and lettuce and fifty other ingredients because Garrett expected her to, not because she’d had any real appetite. The day’s activities had taken care of that. “The children…?”

Garrett’s large hand eclipsed the delicate china coffee cup as he lowered it to the saucer. “You heard the judge,” he said as he signed the credit slip and pocketed his gold credit card. “He’s not happy at all that I’m single. That I show none of the makings of a ‘family’ man.

“My only edge over Caldwell is that I’m not old enough to be their grandfather. I’ve only been awarded temporary custody. Six weeks to prove—or disprove, as Caldwell over there obviously hopes—my suitability as a guardian.”

“I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.”

His lips twisted. “So you think I’m a bad bet, too.”

“I didn’t say that. Garrett, honestly, I don’t think that at all.” Stunned, she sat forward, pressing her hand over his. “Do you?”

He was looking at her hand on his. Which made her look at her hand on his. Swallowing, she sat back in her chair, pressing both her hands against the twisted cloth in her lap. “Do you?” she asked again.

“I didn’t plan to be in Fisher Falls that long,” he said instead of answering.

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure where the flood of disappointment came from, but she knew she didn’t like it. “I didn’t realize. I, um, I thought you’d moved here. You know, permanently. To run that construction company.”

“I own that construction company. And I’m only here to get things up and running. Once that’s underway, I’m gone, leaving one extremely competent team behind.”

“Own?” She blinked. “Well. Don’t I feel the fool.”

“Why?”

“Ah…because. I didn’t know.”

“We could feast on all the information we don’t know about each other.” He stood. “I asked the hostess to call us a taxi. I imagine it’s here by now. You ready?”

Her stomach clutched a little. She dropped her napkin on the table and rose. He took her elbow, and she started.

“I thought you’d relaxed over the lunch you didn’t eat.” He guided her through the dining room toward the entrance.

It was only because she was no longer accustomed to a man escorting her around, she told herself. Not because it was Garrett’s hand on her arm. “I did relax. And I did eat. I just didn’t eat as much as you.”

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