As if she could sleep after that. Brooke did close her eyes; every moment was committed to memory. The way his lips felt, his hands on her, the pure desire she’d felt. If Mikey hadn’t cried, she might have taken his hand and led him to her bedroom, and that would have been a huge mistake. Not in the immediate short-term maybe; in fact, despite everything, sleeping with a man who looked like Nick Garroway struck her as exactly what she needed, the way a double espresso or two glasses of wine or a big slice of chocolate cake could have an immediate impact.
But in the morning—the awkwardness. The weird thing they’d have to do to get back to a professional relationship. Even if—and it was a big even if—Brooke was willing to let herself fall for another man, she was under no illusions that Nick was going to fall magically in love and become a family man just because he had the moves.
Put him out of your mind, she told herself. You’re wide awake, so you might as well get some work done. She grabbed her laptop and opened up the Satler file. Soon she had pages filled of options, graphics of how they would complement one another, such as table settings and centerpieces, wedding gowns and bridal party dresses, caterers, bakers, and three individual wedding cakes that worked together yet fit each sister in a particular way. And of course, how each bride could feel it was her day, rather than their day, in a triple extravaganza. She’d give it a polish in the morning, then email the Satlers, pretty confident they’d hire her.
Her email icon lit up, and Brooke clicked it. Her New Year’s Eve–bride, Francesca, was obsessing over what to do at midnight.
Should we have the ceremony start at midnight, or should the minister time the “I now pronounce you husband and wife” at midnight? Or should just the kiss come at midnight? Thoughts?
Francesca ended the email with a stressed-face emoticon.
If Brooke knew her more-than-slightly neurotic client, Francesca, and she did, she had a very strong hunch that Francesca had picked a fight with Bryce, her salt-of-the-earth fiancé, because she was anxious about something else entirely, and that anxiety had morphed into obsessing over tiny details of her midnight wedding, six months from now. All she really had to do here was remind Francesca of what Francesca really needed at that moment.
No matter what you choose, you’re marrying the man you love, the man of your dreams, the guy who sat beside you in the emergency vet’s office at 3:00 a.m. last winter when that sweet boxer of yours had been injured. Just marry him. Everything else is icing. I love the idea of ceremony starting at the stroke of midnight—your first instinct when we sat down to plan out your wedding.
She clicked about ten different emojis, including a wedding gown, a top hat, two hearts, a man and a woman facing each other with lips pursed, and clicked send.
You are so right, Brooke! I knew I could count on you—even at 3:17 a.m.!
If only life were always this easy, Brooke thought, sending back a smiley face and then shutting off her laptop.
But she still couldn’t sleep. All she could think about was that story Francesca had told her about her beloved dog getting hurt in the middle of the night when he went through the doggie door, into the yard, and found some preying animal out there, and she’d called her then-boyfriend, now-fiancé, sobbing and scared. He’d rushed over, gotten her into his car, gently wrapped the dog in a towel and rushed him over to the emergency vet, a half hour away, then handled everything, from talking to the vet to the medications to the bill. The kicker? Her boyfriend didn’t like dogs and didn’t want a dog, and hers had been a huge argument between them since they’d met a month prior, since he didn’t want to come over to her place and hated how the dog’s schedule determined hers. They’d been on the verge of breaking up.
But when Francesca was sobbing and scared, and the dog needed help? He was there. With everything he had. That night taught them both something about how they felt. Two months later: engaged.
That was what Brooke really wanted: someone she could call at 2:00 a.m., someone who’d rush over. Someone she could count on. Through her pregnancy and since the twins were born, she’d been on her own through it all, the scary moments, the joyous moments. She’d thought she was done with love, but the truth was that she wanted her person so badly, her heart hurt. But at the same time, she wasn’t exactly in trust mode. Since her grandmother had died, Brooke had felt something of a crusty shell forming over her, inside her. Not hardened, exactly, but there.
She temporarily had Nick Garroway, who was so there for her, she almost couldn’t process it. There for me...until August. Then poof, gone. Like Will Parker.
Tears stung her eyes, and she took a breath and focused on the faces of her twins. Everything she did, she did for them. She saw their dimples and their soft brown hair, those big blue-hazel eyes that the pediatrician said would probably turn her own pale brown shade in a couple of months.
A calm came over her and as she felt herself drifting off to sleep, she thought she heard a baby crying. Nick’s got it, she thought, burrowing under the quilt as he’d told her to do. But instead of falling asleep in a warm cocoon, everything taken care of, her eyes popped open. Because she’d realized right then that letting Nick handle the 3:30 a.m. wake-up time while she went back to sleep—or tried to—meant that she did trust him.
There was basic trust, and then there was this deep sense of peace she felt in her bones about Nick Garroway. She had the crazy feeling he’d lay down his life for her and the twins.
But would he stay for her and the twins when he wasn’t needed? No way. No matter what that man represented to her between now and August, she couldn’t forget that he wasn’t ever going to be hers—or be her babies’ father.
There was no mention of the kiss the next morning. Nick wanted to bring it up in order to apologize again, but how awkward would that be? Brooke was moving around the house, avoiding whatever room he was in—and eye contact. Okay, fine, she needed some space from what had happened and so did he. He’d tried to sleep but couldn’t, so he took a long, hot shower and got dressed, then checked out the Gazette online to see what was happening in town for kids and babies. Bingo: story time at the library for babies through eighteen months.
At exactly nine o’clock on the dot, he was about to head into the kitchen when he heard Brooke telling the twins a story about Grammy Aggie, and he was so touched that, for a moment, he held back and listened.
“Grammy Aggie was a magical nana who made everyone feel special,” she was saying. “She had two kitty assistants, named Snowball and Smudge. One day Grammy Aggie’s own granddaughter, a little girl named Brooke, was sad about not having parents, because a mean girl at school was making fun of her for it, and Grammy Aggie told Brooke that she did have parents, that they were in heaven and were her special guardian angels, just like your father is now.”
Nick lowered his head at the mention of Will. He didn’t hear the note of bitterness in her voice that had been there yesterday, and he was glad for that. If he did anything in his short time with the Timber family, he was grateful he could give all three of them a little piece of Will Parker back, the best part, the part that did care and had wished he’d acted differently. There were many moments of truth, and in that final one, these three had been loved by Parker.
“Ga ba ga!” one of the babies said. Nick could easily tell the twins apart physically, but he didn’t have their babbles down yet.
“Ga ba ga!” Brooke said back and laughed, and one of the babies laughed, the sweetest sound on earth.
He figured it was safe to come in. The babies were in their swings, on the table.
She glanced up at him and then hid her face in a mug of coffee. “Morning,” she mumbled.
“About that kiss,” he said, then mentally whacked himself upside the head. Hadn’t he just told himself it would be awkward to talk about it? They’d covered it night last—the kiss had been a mistake that wouldn’t happen again. End of story.
Except things were awkward regardless right now and ignoring reality had never really worked out for Nick. It was his go-to, to just pretend certain issues didn’t bother him when they were tearing his gut apart. He didn’t want to do that with Brooke.
“Nothing to talk about,” she said brightly, shutting her laptop. “Great news—I spent a good hour last night finalizing the Satler plans and sent it off before the twins even woke up this morning. Cross your fingers for me. Dream Weddings needs their triple business.”
Well then. He’d tried. Perhaps he should just let it go.
“I’m sure they’ll hire you, Brooke. Didn’t one say you were 99 percent hired?”
She smiled. “Thanks to my manny.” Her cheeks turned red. “Are you okay with being referred to as a manny? I could call you a nanny or a sitter.”
“Manny, nanny, sitter. All good.” He smiled, then glanced at the clock. “Ah, time to get to the library. It’s baby hour. There’s a story time for crawlers. For babies up to a year and a half.”
“You want to go to that? I went once and wow, the noise. Between the shrieking and the crying and the crawler who pulled up on my knee and then spit up on me, I haven’t been back.”
Nick smiled. “Well, it sounds like my kind of event. I figured on that and then a stroll back here for tummy time, rest hour and then lunch.”
She tilted her head and stared at him. “How do you know about tummy time?”
“It’s my job to know.” Plus he’d done a lot of research in those couple of hours after the kiss, when he hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d gotten a crash course on three-month-old babies and read up on twins too.
She stared at him so hard, he would pay to know what she was thinking.
“Well, I’d love to come,” she said. “Not being the sole responsible party for them at crowded baby events makes it lot more fun. And I’m all done with work for the day, until the meeting tonight with my new client and your dad.”
Oh right. That. At least the question of whether or not he was going was taken out of the equation. He had to go for his new job. “I was trying to put that out of my head.”
“Oh. Sorry. Is it really that bad?”
He nodded. “Well, at least not where my dad is concerned, so that’s something. Maybe a happy occasion like a wedding will help my brother’s mind-set. It’s definitely helped my father.”
She seemed about to ask a question about his family, so he rushed to mention he wanted to change the twins before they left, then dashed them upstairs.
Once back down, they each put a twin in the stroller, packed up the stroller bag and off they went.
Nosy Amy waved from her porch, where she was sitting on a white rocking chair and reading the Gazette, with a yellow mug on the little table next to her. As they crossed the street, she called out, “You look just like a family!”
Every muscle in Nick’s body seized up, and he felt Brooke stiffen beside him.
He shot Amy a tight smile, noticing Brooke doing the same.
“Busybody!” Brooke whisper-muttered.
The woman continued to stare at them as they made their way toward Main Street.
“You just know she thinks we’re involved,” Brooke said. “She’s probably spreading rumors all over town.”
“We should make out in front of her,” Nick said. “Really give her something to talk about.”
Brooke grinned. “You’re right. Why do I even let her get to me?”
“You’re human. Can’t be helped.”
“It’s really nice having someone on my team,” she said. “I miss that more than anything.”
“Your grandmother?” he asked. “I heard a little of the Grammy Aggie story you were telling the twins.”
She glanced at him. “My gram and my friends who moved. I got used to being so alone and didn’t realize how much I missed having people there for me. Even just people to diss Amy on my behalf.”
“Oh, I’m happy to help there. Team Brooke, all the way.”
She looked at him again, then kept her gaze straight ahead. “That promise you made really means something to you, doesn’t it.”
“Yes. It does.”
She nodded slowly. It suddenly struck him that she thought that was what he was talking about, that that was why he was here, doing all this. It was and wasn’t. The promise had brought him to her house, but Brooke had taken over in importance; it was Brooke who had him bending over backward, not a promise he’d made to the man who’d saved his life.
But there was no need to tell her that, and it was better that she didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Still, somehow, when it came to Brooke, things were clear.
You look just like a family... Once upon a time, very briefly, he’d thought that about himself and another woman and a baby, but he’d quickly learned he’d been romanticizing, that he didn’t share Elena’s strong feelings so much as he was attracted to her and believed in the aid work she was doing at an Afghan orphanage. His heart had really only belonged to little Aisha, just a few months old. In the end he’d hurt Elena and destroyed his opportunity to keep tabs on the baby he’d found abandoned near their unit.
He’d screwed up so hard that, for a solid few weeks, he’d questioned every judgment he made and worried about the soldiers around him. Slowly he’d gotten himself back and tried not to think about Elena or Aisha, but he wasn’t about to make the same mistake with Brooke and her twins. He was attracted, yes. He felt responsible for her and her children. But his heart had long been buried under rough scar tissue.
No more kisses in the middle of the night, he told himself. He glanced at her in her tank top and denim skirt and sandals and sparkly blue toenails. No matter how much he wanted Brooke Timber in his bed, being physically involved never came without emotional shackles. And unless he could imagine walking down Main Street with Brooke and her children as more than just the nanny—manny—he had to do something about his attraction to her.
Like ignore it. He wouldn’t be part of her family or his own. That word had been blown to bits for him by the Garroways. But then Elena had envisioned exactly that—a family—of her, him and the baby girl who’d brought them together. He’d hurt Elena, and she’d been furious, and she’d shut him out of the baby’s life. That was over a year ago and he was still surprised at how much it stung. In the end it was for the best, of course, but it still burned a hole in his gut.
He shut his eyes against the memories. As a soldier, he’d been trained to ignore everything but the mission. He’d simply take over as his own commander. Brooke Timber was off-limits and that was an order.
They turned onto Main Street and headed into the library, which easily snapped him out of the past. The children’s room was crowded with parents and caregivers and lots of babies, both crawling and in strollers. Unfortunately story time meant sitting on the floor, and since he was a big guy, he chose spots in the back of the room. With the stroller parked, he and Brooke both took a twin and sat on the floor with a baby in their laps.
“Let me see those darling little Timber twins!” a middle-aged blonde woman sitting diagonally said as she scooted closer. “Aren’t they adorable. What sweet cheeks! And look at those dimples!”
Nick was waiting for the lady to take a breath, but she kept going with her comments. At least she was being nice.
“You two are being good for Mommy and Daddy, aren’t you!” the woman continued, tapping each baby on the nose.
For the second time in fifteen minutes, Nick froze. Daddy? Him? Nick thought he radiated “not a father” but then again, he was the manny.
“Actually, Natalie—” Brooke started to say, but Mikey started shrieking.
“Oh, you little cutie,” Natalie cut in. “So temperamental. Well, better get back to my spot before someone takes it. Nice to see you!” After making the baby cry, she hurried off.
Nick scowled at her back, but story time was starting, so he kept his thoughts to himself.
Like that he’d been mistaken for Brooke’s husband and the twins’ father. He hoisted Mikey high in his arms and rubbed his back, and that ended the shrieks. The little guy wasn’t exactly listening to the librarian with the melodic voice read a Curious George book or looking at the pictures she held up high, but at least he was quiet now.
As the hour ended and they left in a sea of toddlers and strollers, Brooke was quiet.
“Dollar for your thoughts,” he said as they exited the library and stepped into the brilliant July sunshine.
“Worth that much? When we were kids, it was a penny.”
“And no one ever got that penny, so I figured that was still the case.”
She smiled. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“About how much I liked Natalie Howaman mistaking us for a family.”
“Because you don’t like having a male nanny?”
“Because I like the idea of having a husband. A father for the twins. In that twenty seconds of her assumption, I did. And I really liked it. I thought I was done with men and dating and romance after Will. But I’m not. I can’t be. That’s giving up. And how can I give up when I have two very young, impressionable people to model life for?”
He stared at her, unsure what to say.
What he wanted to blurt out was, I’m just the nanny, lady. But he’d asked, hadn’t he?
He knew his discomfort came from feeling responsible for what she’d said. About wanting a husband and father for her children. But that guy couldn’t be him.
“I can understand that,” he said. “You’re a good mother, Brooke.”
“That’s the most important thing to me.”
What was the most important thing to him? Making sure Brooke was okay and then hitting the road, buying the ranch he’d been dreaming of for a long time now.
Yes—that was it. He’d get Brooke settled, her real nanny would return and then he’d leave in peace. He always felt better when he knew, solidly, what he was doing.
“I’m surprised anyone could mistake me for a family man,” he said. “Someone once told me I radiated loner.” Not that that was a good thing. Elena had been right though. He’d bonded with her, to a point, over baby Aisha’s well-being as she’d been nursed back to health, but that bond wasn’t all that strong for him, not like it had been for Elena. He wasn’t meant to be part of a family. Hadn’t that been made clear to her? No, it hadn’t.
She glanced at him. “What you radiate, in my now experienced opinion, is ‘good with babies.’ You said you took care of a baby overseas? In Afghanistan?”
He frowned. The topic was on his mind and she’d just brought it up, so maybe that was a sign he should tell her. Talking about Elena and Aisha would bring it all back to the surface and remind him of what had happened when he wasn’t forthright—even if it wasn’t intentional. He absolutely had to be with Brooke.
“Yes,” he said, that pretty, tiny face with round dark eyes and wispy black hair coming into his mind. “I helped care for a baby for several days during random time off when I was a soldier. I had to learn on the job, and for some reason, a lot of it came naturally.”
“I’ll push,” he said, putting a hand on the stroller bar. He needed something to do.
She stepped to the side, tilting her head as she looked at him. “Whose baby was it?”
Aisha would be a toddler, talking, walking. “I came across an abandoned baby while on patrol outside our unit,” he said, wheeling the stroller down the curb and then back up across the street. “She ended up being adopted by an aid worker, so she’s fine.” He shook his head. “But I wasn’t fine—not for a long time.”
Brooke stopped walking and put a hand on his arm. “What happened?”
“Let’s keep walking,” he said. “It helps to be doing something while I talk.” While I think about it.
As they walked, slowly he told her everything. How he’d found the baby in a rough basket lined with a tattered blanket and a note handwritten in Dari. He’d made out the few words: orphan, sick, help and needs a home. The words had punched his gut. He could remember looking down into the basket, at the sweet, innocent baby, so helpless and alone and ill. Right then he was all the baby had. He’d left a note, in the basic Dari language he’d picked up, tacked to a nearby tree, that the baby would be at a local orphanage run by aid workers, since they had access to a doctor and nurse there.
The baby had been very sick and no one was sure if she’d pull through. One of the aid workers, Elena, a kind, young American woman from Indiana, named her Aisha, which was Arabic for alive and well, and promised to give her TLC while she was being evaluated and treated. He’d been aware that Elena had a crush on him; she didn’t hide it, and he’d been so overwhelmed with emotion that he’d kissed her. And more. But he’d never really been thinking about Elena through any of it. And he regretted that more than anything.
Back then the relief he’d felt, that even if the baby didn’t pull through that she’d be loved for her remaining time, had shaken him so much, he’d been oblivious to most else going on. When had he started caring? He’d had two days off and had gone back to see Aisha both days, holding her, rocking her, talking to her, asking her to pull through so that she could find a new family. And when the doctor had reported that Aisha had turned a corner, he’d picked Elena up and swung her around, setting her down with a kiss on the cheek.
Elena hadn’t liked the cheek kiss. She could tell right away that something was different between them now that the baby was all right. She’d mistaken his deep concern for Aisha, the little one he’d found, with love for her—Elena.
What a disaster that had turned into. Elena had started talking about adopting Aisha together. She’d thrown the word marriage around. How had he gotten this so wrong? How could he not have seen any of this coming? Was he blind? Unable to see what was right in front of him? Maybe he was just selfish, self-absorbed, so used to keeping to himself that there was no room for anyone else in his head. But he’d had to come clean with her, and he had, as gently as he could. Elena had been devastated and had told him to leave.
He’d come back his next day off to be told that Elena was adopting Aisha herself and that he wasn’t welcome, that he was a liar and had misled her. He hadn’t meant to. Sometimes he’d jar awake at night, thinking about Aisha’s big dark eyes, and Elena’s anger, hating that he’d hurt her.
He didn’t like thinking about it—the baby, the betrayal in Elena’s eyes, his regret that he’d unintentionally made her think he had plans for the three of them as a family, even a makeshift one while they were overseas.
Nick knew his limitations.
“I’m glad that Aisha found a good home,” Brooke said, stopping again and turning to look at him. “Although it sounds like it was rough going for you, at least that precious baby you rescued is all right now.”
He nodded against the lump in his throat and pushed the stroller up the slight incline of the next curb. “That’s true.” He resumed walking and she did too.
“I hope you keep your thoughts on that,” she added. “Instead of where you think you went wrong. You did so much right, so much good, Nick.”
He shrugged. “I unintentionally misled someone. And then I got blindsided because of it. I hated being shut out of Aisha’s life, not knowing if she was thriving, although I assume she was.” He let out a breath and shook his head. “I thought I was pretty closed off before all that—when Elena slammed the orphanage door in my face and told me I wasn’t welcome, I felt something else shutter inside me.”
“Oh, Nick. I’m so sorry about all that.”
He nodded because he’d run out of steam; he didn’t want to talk about this anymore.
Because he was dangerously close to doing it all again. By kissing Brooke last night, he’d started down a path he had no plans to continue to go down; he was exiting on a different road in just a couple of weeks. He was buying a ranch, located hours from Wedlock Creek.
He couldn’t imagine making Brooke think he had intentions other than to help her out, to be what she needed until her nanny returned. He had to be careful with how he acted, how he presented himself. And kissing her was exactly the way to mess everything up.
He had to be careful. He couldn’t hurt Brooke. He wouldn’t.