getting under his skin.
Why?
She wasn’t the sort of woman who usually interested him. He liked his women gorgeous and beautifully groomed and sort of cool…
Like Donna?
Yeah. Like Donna. He thought of her now, her svelte figure, her long manicured fingers, her oh, so carefully applied make-up.
Gemma didn’t look as if she knew what make-up was. He’d seen her while she’d sat with Cady this evening, her face troubled and her blunted fingernails going to her mouth in a gesture of pure worry.
Why was she so worried? Cady would be fine-and he was only her nephew after all.
No. He was much more than that, Nate corrected himself. When Gemma gave her heart she gave it absolutely-and she’d given her heart to Cady. A mother couldn’t have loved a child any more than Gemma loved her nephew.
Gemma…
He could still feel her in his hands. He could still taste her.
He still wanted her-damn, for some stupid reason he wanted her more than he’d wanted any woman in his life before.
Why?
There was a murmur in the crib beside him and he almost welcomed the interruption to his thoughts. Mia. He had worries of his own besides Gemma. Responsibilities.
He headed for the kitchen and made up a bottle, then returned to the bedroom to change and feed his baby. This was nappy number six and he was getting more proficient by the minute.
‘We’re doing OK,’ he told his daughter, taking her back to the warmth of his bed for her feed.
But as he lay back in the darkened room with Mia in his arms he thought back to the expression he’d seen on Gemma’s face when she’d cuddled Cady. She was a proper mother. She knew how to love her kid.
He’d love Mia, he thought.
But, damn, he wasn’t as good at loving as Gemma was. What had she said?
No, he decided. There lay the problem. It wasn’t. Loving was hard. In fact, loving was something he didn’t do. Sure, he’d had a multitude of girlfriends and a couple of them he’d come perilously close to marrying, but now…
Maybe he’d marry Donna.
Well, why not? This baby needed a mother.
But then he let himself think it through and it didn’t seem such a good idea. In fact, it seemed like it would be a disaster. Marry Donna? He needed his head read. She’d run a mile rather than commit herself to a baby.
But if he promised marriage…
She just might do it, he thought. They’d been going out together for six months, she was in her early thirties and eager for the full bridal bit so maybe…
What was he thinking? Nate hauled himself back to reality with a jerk. Donna would make a perfectly appalling mother-and he didn’t love her. And she’d be a wife for appearances. There was no depth…
He looked down at the baby in his arms and his own eyes stared reflectively back at him. He felt his stomach contract into a knot of something he hardly recognised.
Was he learning to love? Maybe he was. At the very least, he cared.
‘You need a mother,’ he told his little one, and let his thoughts drift back to Gemma. But he wasn’t thinking of what he felt about her. He wasn’t thinking of how she’d felt under his hands…under his mouth…
Somehow he blacked that out. Sort of. What she felt for Cady was what he wanted for his daughter, he decided. This wasn’t about him. It was about Mia and he wanted that commitment.
‘So maybe I’d better marry Gemma.’
Now, there was a thought. He grimaced-and then thought suddenly, Why not?
Because she’d laugh at the suggestion, he realised.
But if she didn’t…
The taste of her lips came back to him-the sweetness of her. The moulding of her body.
‘Cut it out. It’s a practical idea only. It has nothing to do with my feelings.’
Marriage to Gemma…
‘It’s worth thinking about,’ he told his daughter, and she smiled a windy half-smile-and burped her satisfaction with life in general.
And in the next room? Gemma lay awake staring at the ceiling and thought about what Nate had said. And thought about how Nate had felt.
Which was just plain wonderful.
‘I know why you chose him as the father of your baby,’ she said to the dark-to the shadows of her sister. ‘If I was going down your road-suicide by childbirth-then maybe Nate would be the man I’d choose to be the father of my child.’
Which was crazy. The whole thing was crazy. Suicide by childbirth…
‘If I’d had Nate then I’d want to live.’
She didn’t have Nate. She didn’t have anyone. She hadn’t been near a man since Alan, and what a disaster that had turned out to be. And now? One kiss did not a relationship make, and letting things go further than one stupid kiss wasn’t an option.
I’d be a fool.
‘So Cady’s all the family you ever intend to have?’ she asked herself, and the answer was right there, written in stone in the darkness above her head.
That’s right. How can I do more?
But the thought was indescribably bleak. Indescribably lonely.
Why had she let herself be kissed? Why had she let herself fall-as Fiona had fallen?
Damn Fiona, she thought. Damn her, damn her, damn her. She’d done so much damage.
‘She’s dead now. She can’t hurt you any more.’
Ha. Would she ever escape from the hurt Fiona had inflicted?
The thought of Nate’s laughing eyes and his wonderful kiss came into her dreams and stayed there, infinitely sweet, infinitely tempting.
‘Yeah. And dreams are all it is. There’s no way someone like that would ever look at the likes of me. As for kissing…he’d kiss a broomstick if he thought it was female and wouldn’t object.’
But in the next room, Nate was thinking of weddings.
‘I think we might take Cady’s drip out today.’
It was breakfast time. Gemma had hardly slept and there were dark shadows under her eyes. Nate noticed but didn’t comment. They were alone in the kitchen. Graham was relishing the fact that he wasn’t needed medically so after an evening of playing the Major-General he’d decided to have a good sleep-in.
Which was what Gemma needed, Nate thought, wondering how he could bully her into it. He couldn’t. He couldn’t bully this woman into anything.
What lay between them-the memory of a kiss-was like a barrier, erected and in place until further notice.
‘That’s…that’s great.’
What was great? He was distracted. What…?
Cady. Concentrate on Cady. Right.
‘His sugars are down to eight this morning and still dropping. I think we can move to four insulin shots a day and start adjusting his dosage from there.’
‘He’ll hate the injections.’
‘Kids adjust,’ Nate said gently. ‘The needles are tiny, and he’s a smart enough kid to explain things to.’
‘No four-year-old likes being hurt.’
