Cara Colter - At His Service - Nanny Needed - Hired - Nanny Bride / A Mother in a Million / The Nanny Solution

They were only marginally drier than before, and now beginning to stiffen as if someone had accidentally dropped a box of starch in with the laundry.

Nonetheless, she lay back down on the bed and tried valiantly to squeeze them back on.

She had just gotten to that awful hip part when he came back in the door.

“Don’t look,” she said huffily. “I’m getting dressed. I plan to maintain my dignity.” As if it wasn’t way too late for that!

He made a noise she didn’t like.

She let go of her jeans and rolled up on her elbow to look at him. “What?”

“That was Michael in the boat. The bottom of the lake is really rocky here and he can’t see because it’s too dark. He said if we’d be okay for the night, he’d come back in the morning.”

“And you told him we’d be okay for the night?” she said incredulously. It was so obvious things were not okay, that her self-discipline had unraveled like a spool of yarn beneath the claws of a determined kitten.

“That’s what I told him.”

“Without asking me?”

“Sorry, I’m used to making executive decisions.”

She picked up a pillow and hurled it at him. He ducked. She hurled every pillow on that bed, and didn’t hit him once. If there had been anything else to pick up and throw, she would have done that, too.

But there was nothing left, not within reach, and she was not going to get up with her jeans half on and half off to go searching. Instead she picked up her discarded blanket, and pulled it over herself, even over her head.

“Go away,” she said, muffled.

It occurred to her, her thirty seconds of passion had done the worst possible thing: turned her into her parents! Loss of control happened that fast.

And had such dire consequences, too. Look at her mom and dad. A perfect example of people prepared to burn in the name of love.

She peeked up from the blanket.

In the murky darkness of the cabin, she saw he had not gone away completely. He had found a stub of a candle and lit it. Now he was going through the rough cabinets, pulling out cans.

“You want something to eat?” he asked, as if she hadn’t just been a complete shrew, made a complete fool of herself.

Of course she wanted something to eat! That’s how she handled pain. That’s why the jeans didn’t fit in the first place. She yanked them back off, wrapped herself tightly in the blanket and crossed the room to him. If he could pretend nothing had happened, so could she.

“This looks good,” she said, picking up a can of tinned spaghetti. If he noticed her enthusiasm was forced, he didn’t say a word.

“Delicious,” he agreed, looking everywhere but at her, as if somehow spaghetti was forbidden food, like the apple in the garden of Eden.

“DELICIOUS,” Dannie said woodenly. “Thank you for preparing dinner.”

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned , Joshua thought, trying not to look at Dannie. He’d been right about her and spaghetti. Her mouth formed the most delectable little O as she sucked it back. No twisting the spaghetti around her fork using a spoon for her.

The ancient stove in the cabin was propane fired, and either the tanks had not been filled, because there was going to be no season this year at Moose Lake, or it had just given out in old age. He’d tried his luck with a frying pan and a pot over the fire, and the result was about as far from delicious as he could have made it. Even on purpose.

“Everything’s scorched,” he pointed out.

Something flashed in her eyes, vulnerable, and then closed up again. Truthfully it wouldn’t have mattered if it was lobster tails and truffles. Everything he put in his mouth tasted like sawdust. Burnt sawdust.

The world was tasteless because he’d hurt her. Insulted her. Rejected her.

It was for her own bloody good! And if she didn’t quit doing that to the spaghetti his resolve would melt like sugar in boiling water.

He made the mistake of looking at her, her features softened by the golden light of the fire and the tiny, guttering candles, but her expression hardened into indifference and he could see straight through to the hurt that lay underneath.

She plucked a noodle from her bowl, and he felt that surge of heat, of pure wanting. He knew himself. Part of it was because she was such a good girl, prim and prissy, a bit of a plain Jane.

It was the librarian fantasy, where a beautiful hellcat lurked just under the surface of the mask of respectability.

Except that part wasn’t a fantasy. Unleashed, Danielle Springer was a hellcat! And the beauty part just deepened and deepened and deepened.

He wanted back what he had lost. Not the heated kisses; he’d had plenty of those and would have plenty more.

No, what he wanted back was the rare trust he felt for her and had gained from her. What he wanted back was the ease that had developed between them over the past few days, the sense of companionship.

“Want to play cards?” he asked her.

The look she gave him could have wilted newly budded roses. “No, thanks.”

“Charades?”

No answer.

“Do you want dessert?”

The faintest glimmer of interest that was quickly doused.

“It’s going to be a long evening, Dannie.”

“God forbid you should ever be bored.”

“As if anybody could ever be bored around you,” he muttered. “Aggravating, annoying, doesn’t listen, doesn’t appreciate when sacrifices have been made for her own good—”

She cut him off. “What were the dessert options?”

“Chocolate cake. No oven, but chocolate cake.” Just to get away from the condemnation in her eyes, he got up, his blanket held up tightly, and went and looked at the cake mix box he had found in one of the cupboards.

He fumbled around in the poor light until he found another pot, dumped the cake mix in and added water from a container he had filled at the lake. He went and crouched in front of the fire, holding the pot over the embers, stirring, waiting, stirring.

Then he went and got a spoon, and sat on the couch. “You want some?” he asked.

“Sure. The girl who can’t even squeeze into her jeans will forgive anything for cake,” she said. “Even bad cake. Fried cake. I bet it’s gross.”

“It isn’t,” he lied. “You looked great in those jeans. Stop it.” And then, cautiously, he said, “What’s to forgive?”

“I wanted to keep kissing. You didn’t.”

“I need a friend more than I need someone to kiss. Do you know how fast things can blow up when people go there?” He almost added before they’re ready . But that implied he was going to be ready someday, and he wasn’t sure that was true. You couldn’t say things to Dannie Springer until you were sure they were true.

Silence.

“Come on,” he said softly. “Forgive me. Come eat cake.” He wasn’t aware his heart had stopped beating until it started again when she flopped down on the couch beside him.

He filled up the spoon with goo and passed it to her, tried not to look at how her lips closed around that spoon. Then he looked anyway, feeling regret and yearning in equal amounts. He’d thought watching her eat spaghetti was sexy? The girl made sharing a spoon seem like something out of the Kama Sutra .

The cake was like a horrible, soggy pudding with lumps in it, but they ate it all, passing the spoon back and forth, and it tasted to him of ambrosia.

“Tell me something about you that no one knows,” he invited her, wanting that trust back, longing for the intimacy they had shared on the lakeshore. Even if it had been dangerous. It couldn’t be any more dangerous than sharing a spoon with her. “Just one thing.”