Michelle Celmer - Honeymoon with the Rancher / Nanny Next Door - Honeymoon with the Rancher / Nanny Next Door

Oh yes. In the most heart-stopping, glorious way, but there was no way she was going to tell him that. Especially when he clearly didn’t feel the same. With Tomas it was always duty first. She could resent him for that if it weren’t so darned admirable.

“It’s okay, Tomas.” Sophia forced a smile when she felt none. “I know it was just a reaction. The fall scared us both. I know it wasn’t real.”

Tomas didn’t respond and the silence was more awkward than any words might have been. Was there any clearer confirmation? She needed to say something, something to dispel the tense atmosphere. Was Tomas thinking about it as she was? Clearly he regretted it. He was not interested in her. She, on the other hand, was remembering the kiss quite differently. She was feeling quite giddy about it, which wouldn’t do at all.

“I’m afraid I’m not a great host,” Tomas said, relaxing just a little. Sophia supposed clearing the air about the kiss was a relief to him. Tomas linked his fingers together over the railing. “Maria is much better at this sort of thing. She knows how to make people at home.”

What would Maria say if she knew Tomas had held Sophia in his arms? Or that Sophia had kissed him back as though she was dying of thirst and he was cool, reviving water?

“She’d flay me alive,” Tomas continued, almost as if he’d heard Sophia’s question. “For letting you take a fall like that.”

“It sounds like she cares about you. As a mother would.”

He laughed then, quietly, but it was warm and heartfelt, and Sophia loved how it changed his face.

“Maria is the heart and soul that keeps this family together,” he said easily. “I’m afraid of what she’d say if she saw you. She’d be meddling in the first five minutes.”

“Why?”

This time when Tomas met her gaze, he said nothing, but then he didn’t have to. The memory of their kiss was suddenly front and centre again, the diversion shattered. “Do you have experience with meddling mothers?” Tomas said it quietly, his magnetic gaze never leaving hers, with tacit acknowledgement that they were attempting to change the subject.

Which made the attraction they were trying to ignore simmer all the stronger.

Sophia forced a laugh. “Are you kidding? My mother is the biggest meddler of them all. She was the one that introduced me to Antoine. And she pushed me into a country club wedding.”

“Don’t all girls want a fancy wedding?” Tomas stood tall and turned to face her, resting against the bridge.

She shook her head. “Not all girls. I didn’t. Not a big production with two hundred guests, a photographer and a champagne fountain. I would have chosen something far simpler.”

“I still find it hard to believe this Antoine let you get away.”

“Oh, he didn’t. He just thought he could have everything,” she replied. And he had. Antoine had never considered that he would get caught. And even if he had, the expectation was that she’d fall in line just as she always did.

“It’s made me think about my gram a lot,” Sophia admitted. “Gram hated her life on the farm. She’d had a very different childhood in England. But I don’t think she ever got over leaving her husband. He was the right man in the wrong place, you know? She always sort of regretted leaving him, I think.” Sophia touched her finger to one of the amethyst earrings she’d always loved and sighed. “She gave me these when I was a girl. They’d been a gift from him. I think having them caused her more pain that she’d admit. Gram always said she didn’t know what was worse—a love that was impossible or one that was practical and suitable. After what happened with Antoine, I think I realized that practical and suitable really isn’t love at all. It was hard to understand at the time, but now I know that his infidelity broke my spirit, but it didn’t break my heart.”

“I’m glad he wasn’t the great love of your life. You would have been far more hurt if it had been otherwise.”

“Like you were?”

“What makes you say such a thing?” He conjured up a look so innocent Sophia couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I get it. You won’t talk about it. That’s okay.”

“I can’t, that’s all.”

What was so awful he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it? But then, Tomas wasn’t the type to do much talking anyway. What little bits she got from him were too small to let her piece them together to get a complete picture. She traced a finger over the pink stone of the bridge. “Why is it parents—and grandparents, I suppose—think they know best?”

Disappointed by his silence, she pushed away from the bridge. “Well, at least you’re not hiding a mistress somewhere.” Suddenly her gaze narrowed. “Are you?”

He laughed, and relief flooded through her though she couldn’t quite imagine why. “No,” he chuckled, “I’m not hiding a mistress of any sort.” He folded his arms. “Would it truly matter if I were?”

His soft question shattered the silence and she inhaled, held her breath. And then she turned her gaze up to him again and her chest constricted. “Yes,” she murmured. “It would. It would destroy the good opinion I have of you, Tomas.”

“Good opinion?” His mouth dropped open in surprise and then he shut it again just as quickly.

She wanted to tell him why but didn’t know how without feeling like an idiot. How did she tell him what it meant for him to pay her the smallest compliment? How it restored her confidence when he wondered how Antoine could have let her get away? And the kiss aside, she had seen the worry and fear on his face as he’d leapt off his horse and come rushing to her side after she’d fallen off Neva. Yes, good opinion.

And to elaborate would make her look like a girl with a crush—starstruck by her knight in shining armor.

Sophia noticed a small girl standing on tiptoe a few meters away, her hands on the edge of the bridge. She swung her arm and two coins dropped into the water. When they sank to the bottom, the girl ran off, pigtails bobbing, to clasp her mother’s hand and continue across the bridge.

“What’s she doing?” Sophia asked, intrigued.

“Many people stand in this very spot and throw coins in the water,” he said quietly. “They toss them in and make a wish.”

Once again Sophia went to the edge and looked down. She wondered what the little girl had wished for. Tomas came up behind her. She felt his body close to hers, felt as though every place they nearly touched was alive. “What about you?” she asked quietly, trying to still the sensations coursing through her. “Have you made wishes?”

He pulled back, putting space between them and she sighed, shaking her hair back over her neck. Why was it she always seemed to ask the very thing that would break the spell?

She wondered how often he might have stood here in the past. She wondered what he had wished for. Did he believe in wishes at all? Or did he think this was just a tourist trap and a pretty story?

It took a while for him to answer, but when he did, his voice was low and rough from behind her. “I did, a long time ago.”

“What did you wish for?”

Tomas sighed, and moved slowly to stand at the edge of the bridge, looking down into the water. “Things that could never be.”

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