Third Time's the Bride!

by Merline Lovelace

  When that didn’t work, an insidious possibility wormed its way into his thoughts. The security system guarding the house and grounds was ultra high-tech. When Brain went to bed each evening, he entered a five-digit code that would sound an alert if someone or something tripped the sensors on the exterior doors and windows.

  The system also included interior sensors. When set, these pressure detectors and infrared beams would detect movement in the downstairs rooms and on the stairs leading to the second floor. But Brian hadn’t activated the interior sensors in years. He’d turned them off for the first time during the long, sleepless nights following Caroline’s diagnosis, when he’d slipped out of bed and come downstairs to vent his anger and despair in solitude.

  Then, when Tommy started sleepwalking a few years ago, Brian shut down the interior system again. The doctors assured him that somnambulism was a common childhood occurrence, typically manifesting itself between the ages of four and eight and often resulting from separation anxiety. Whatever had caused it, Brian wasn’t about to risk jerking his son awake with a shrieking alarm.

  Except...maybe...in certain life-and-death circumstances...

  His gaze lingered on Dawn’s face, taking in the blue-veined eyelids, the kiss-me-if-you-dare mouth, the wayward copper tendrils tickling her ears. All he had to do was slip his arm out from under her head and make for the master alarm panel in the kitchen. He could activate the pressure sensors on the staircase in ten seconds max, then bring Dawn awake slowly, sensually and...

  Dammit!

  What was he thinking?

  True, nothing in his personal code of conduct demanded that he dedicate himself to Caroline’s memory and remain celibate for the rest of his life. Also true, he’d reluctantly reentered the dating pool in recent years. His two brief liaisons had satisfied a physical need. If they’d also left him empty emotionally, he figured that was his problem.

  Yet here he was, ready to toss every parenting principle out the window and set an alarm that would scare the crap out of his son if he tripped it. All so Tommy’s horny dad could get naked with this auburn-haired siren. On the den sofa, for God’s sake!

  Thoroughly disgusted, Brian battled his raging testosterone into submission and eased off the sofa. Dawn sniffled, muttered and tipped sideways onto the cushions. Without so much as a flicker of an eyelash, she curled onto the cushions like a contented cat.

  Resigned to another uncomfortable night, Brian dug a fuzzy Pirates of the Caribbean throw out of a hassock and draped it over her. He was still swinging between rampant need and wry regret when he turned down the lights and went up the unsensored, unalarmed stairs.

  * * *

  He came back down the next morning, showered, shaved and dressed for work. A ridiculous disappointment knifed through him when he found the den empty of all occupants and the fuzzy throw neatly folded on the suede cushions. He gave the sofa a nasty glance and followed the scent of fresh-brewed coffee to the kitchen.

  Dawn sat perched on a stool at the counter. She was fresh faced and bright-eyed and swinging a foot idly as she checked emails on her iPhone. In jeans and chunky-knit sweater, with her hair caught up in a loose ponytail, she looked closer to Addy Caruthers’s age than Brian’s. The thought didn’t particularly sit well.

  Glancing up, she greeted him with a rueful grin. “Mornin’. Sorry I passed out on you last night. I guess the backyard acrobatics pooped me as much they did Tommy.”

  “No problem.”

  Now, Brian added with a mental grunt. It’d presented a helluva problem last night, when he’d contemplated a wide range of lascivious inducements designed to bring her back to full consciousness.

  “Did you spend the entire night on the sofa?” he asked gruffly.

  “Pretty much. Thanks for tucking me in, by the way.”

  The wicked glint in her eyes told him she had a good idea how much that misplaced act of gallantry had cost him.

  “Good thing you don’t activate the interior alarms,” she commented. “I would’ve set them all off when I rolled off the couch at oh-dark-thirty and stumbled back to the gatehouse half asleep.”

  Brian poured himself some coffee, not about to admit how close he’d come to penning his son in his upstairs bedroom with an electronic fence. When he turned back, the mug steaming in his hand, he found Dawn studying him with her head cocked a little to one side.

  “Why don’t you activate them?” she wanted to know. “Don’t you trust me with the codes?”

  That cut too close to the bone. “Don’t be stupid,” he replied more curtly than he’d intended. “I trust you with my son. Why wouldn’t I trust you with the alarm codes?”

  “Whoa!” Her foot stilled its lazy swing, and those green cat’s eyes narrowed. “Someone obviously got up on the wrong side of his temper this morning.”

  Make that the wrong side of the sofa, Brian thought sourly. He couldn’t decide whether he was more irritated by the fact he’d spent most of the night kicking himself for not making wild, animal love to this woman or the fact that she looked so damned perky and unfazed by the near miss.

  “Tommy’s still asleep,” he informed her with only a shade less than hostility. “You need to haul his butt out of bed by seven so you can get him to school by eight thirty.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Popping to attention on her high-backed stool, she snapped a salute. With the wrong hand, the marine in Brian noted acidly. Somehow that only added to his disgruntled mood. That and the realization that he was scheduled to interview four more candidates for a permanent nanny today.

  “I should be home by six,” he told her. “Let’s plan on discussing future arrangements this evening.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The salute was mocking now, the green eyes stormy. Brian carried both with him out the door.

  * * *

  A traffic snarl a mile short of the beltway exit for EAS headquarters didn’t improve his mood. Nor did the back-to-back appointments crammed into his schedule for the day.

  He got through a meeting with the sub providing transistors for a proposed new satellite-based guidance system without losing his cool over the litany of excuses for the company’s delays.

  He also conducted a midmorning interview with the next candidate on the list. Brian should have been impressed by the bearded, muscled-up grad student’s BA from Princeton. Also the fact that he was two years into the dissertation for his PhD in medieval French history. Instead he made the same promise to get back to him by the end of the week that he’d made to the first two candidates.

  After that he sat through an excruciating session with his VP of Finance and Accounting. Brian’s background was operations. Gut-twisting, hands-on, shoot-that-mother-out-of-the-sky operations. First as a USMC helo pilot, then as a major contributor to the Department of Defense’s war-fighting arsenal. As Brian listened to his brilliant but long-winded Finance VP drone on, he battled an uncharacteristic urge to send the man back to his cave to rework every damned chart so they were intelligible to mere mortals.

  He controlled the impulse, but couldn’t hide his unsettled mood from LauraBeth. She’d worked with him for too long and knew his moods too well to miss his edginess. Head cocked, she studied him for several moments after depositing a neat stack of contracts in his inbox.

  “You seem distracted today,” she commented in her magnolia-soft Virginia drawl. “I noticed it when you first came in this morning. Everything okay at home?”

  “Yes. No.”

  Her delicately penciled brows arced. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Wrong answer. Speak to me.”

  Shoving away from his desk, Brian rose and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at Bethesda’s high-rise jungle for several seconds before turning to face the woman who’d been as
much a friend as a coworker to both him and Caroline.

  “What would you say if I canceled the rest of the interviews and told you I’m thinking of asking Dawn to stay on permanently?”

  “I’d say that was a smart move. Depending, of course, on what you mean by ‘permanently.’”

  “I haven’t exactly worked that out yet.”

  “Oh, for...!”

  She muttered something under her breath that made Brian’s jaw drop. He couldn’t believe the woman had just tossed out an expletive he might’ve heard from a marine on a three-day drunk in the stews of Okinawa.

  “I’ve liked Dawn McGill more with every conversation we’ve had,” LauraBeth announced. “She’s not bad for a Yankee. Not bad at all.”

  Brian was still reeling from that unbridled endorsement when she came out with another.

  “And if she’s anywhere near as foxy as Dominic says she is, you’ll start thinking of her as more than a caretaker for Tommy. Oh, don’t look so shocked,” she added impatiently. “I’ve seen the women you’ve hooked up with the past few years. I had to reserve the suite at the Ritz for you and that ditzy Realtor, remember?”

  “LauraBeth...”

  “I also sent two dozen long-stemmed roses when you decided to call it off with that bassoonist with the National Symphony. I told you there was a reason she was only third chair.”

  Brian had to fight to keep his face straight. The slender, frighteningly intense bassoonist did, in fact, play third chair. But after forcing notes through a double reed for so many years she’d developed a helluva embouchure. The woman could do things with her tongue and lips that...

  His assistant’s impatient voice drowned out memories of the musician’s unexpected talents. “If Dawn is half the woman I think she is, you’ll sign her to a binding contract.”

  On that stern note, the diminutive LauraBeth spun on her heel and marched out. Brian almost stopped her at the door to tell her he’d thought about doing exactly what she’d just suggested. Thought long and hard, as a matter of fact. Particularly these past few nights, when Dawn’s taste and feel and scent had kept him awake and hurting.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned back to the windows and stared unseeing through the tinted glass. Was he too close to the situation? Thrown off his stride by the hunger Dawn stirred in him. Maybe he should step back, reconsider this matter of offering her a long-term contract, apply the same cool logic he usually brought to any problem.

  The cons were obvious. Despite the background check he’d run on the woman, he’d known her for what? Three weeks now? She could’ve buried something so deep in her past that a cursory check wouldn’t turn it up.

  And what about those two broken engagements? Travis hadn’t gone into gory detail, but he had let it drop that she’d bolted at the very last moment. What said she wouldn’t bolt again? Brian didn’t want Tommy hurt by a woman who might suddenly decide she wasn’t cut out for motherhood.

  The same went for Brian himself. Everything in him cringed at the idea of leaving himself open to even a shadow of the agony he’d gone through when Caroline died.

  But... Jaw set, he added up the pluses. First and foremost, Tommy adored her. She seemed to feel the same about him. And her sparkling eyes and infectious good humor had gone a long way in chasing the shadows from a house that hadn’t heard a woman’s laugh in too long.

  Even the desire she roused in Brian belonged on the plus side of the balance sheet, he decided.

  Oh, for... Who was he kidding?

  Desire was far too tame a description for the hunger she’d stirred in him from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. Sure, he’d played it cool in Venice. As if he’d had any other choice with the playboy prince going all out to impress her. But he’d wanted her then, and he wanted her even more now that he’d had come to know the woman encased in that seductive body.

  Well, hell! Damned if he hadn’t just come full circle. So much for cool, detached logic. What Brian needed to do now was what he always did after days or weeks of studying designs, meeting with experts and listening to his most trusted advisors. Go with his gut.

  Grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair, he hooked it over his arm and strode out of his office. “I’m heading home.”

  “Now?” Concern leaped into LauraBeth’s face. “Did the school call your cell phone? Is Tommy okay?”

  “He’s fine. As far as I know,” he temporized. “No reports of the school burning down or trips to the emergency room.”

  “Then what? Oh, dear! Is it Dawn?”

  “Yes, it is. I decided to take your advice and talk to our temporary nanny about a long-term contract.”

  A smile traced fine, spidery lines at the corners of his assistant’s mouth. “Good for you.”

  “You’d better cancel my appointments for the rest of the day.”

  “Including your meeting with the Assistant Secretary of Defense?”

  “Reschedule it for next week, if you can.”

  “What about the Saudi ambassador’s cocktail party this evening? We RSVP’d weeks ago.”

  “They won’t miss me,” he said cynically. “Not with so many other defense contractors eager to sell His Highness their latest systems.”

  Swinging by his assistant’s desk, he dropped a kiss on her fragrant cheek. “Wish me luck, LauraBeth. I have a feeling these might be the toughest negotiations I’ve entered into in a long while.”

  * * *

  He called Dawn’s cell phone from the car. She answered on the third ring, sounding distracted. “Hey, Brian. What’s up?”

  “I’m heading home. I need to talk to you.”

  “About?” she asked, instantly wary.

  “I’ll explain when I get there. I just wanted to make sure you’ll be there for the next hour or so.”

  Which, of course, he could’ve ascertained before charging out of the office. Not particularly pleased with what that impatience said about his state of mind, he waited for her answer.

  She gave it slowly, almost reluctantly. “I’ve been catching up on work. I wasn’t planning to go anywhere until I picked Tommy up from school.”

  “Good. Be there shortly.”

  Traffic was light this early in the day. So light, he didn’t have time to fine-tune his negotiating strategy before he pulled into the curved drive fronting his home. He killed the engine and shot a quick glance at the dashboard display. It was just past one. Tommy wouldn’t come charging out of school for another two hours. Plenty of time for Brian to close the deal.

  He left the SUV and his suit coat in the drive and took the side walkway to the gatehouse. Dawn answered his knock and let him into the cozy breakfast nook. Her laptop sat open on the white-painted table, and the bay windows stood open to the autumn air that rustled the leaves in the backyard. The bank of showy dahlias so lovingly tended by his yard crew were fading fast, but the grass was still green and lush.

  With some effort, Brian blanked the image of Dawn and Tommy doing joyous cartwheels across that carpet of green and turned to face a much less exuberant version of the woman. She was wearing the jeans and the slouchy knit sweater she’d had on at breakfast. A scrunchie still confined her hair in a loose ponytail, and her expression, Brian noted, wasn’t much friendlier than when he’d left her hours earlier.

  Claiming one of the low stools at the counter, she crossed her arms and swung one foot. “All right,” she said coolly. “I appreciate you driving home in the middle of your busy day to let me know you’ve hired a new caregiver. Who is it and, more importantly, when does he or she start?”

  “I didn’t hire anyone. And I canceled the rest of the interviews.”

  Her foot stopped in midswing. “Why?”

  Tugging at his tie, he loosened the knot and popped the top button of his shirt. He
couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so choked during negotiations. When he could breathe a little easier, he laid his cards on the table.

  “Here’s the thing. Tommy thinks you’re totally awesome. He wants you to stay. So do I.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “Since when?”

  “Since I had time to think about it this morning.”

  “But...” She raised an arm, gestured to the laptop and let her hand drop. “Stay for how long?”

  “Permanently. Or,” he amended, falling back on the escape clause his lawyers had hammered into his head before every high-powered negotiating session, “until such time as all parties involved mutually agree to terminate the contract.”

  He knew he’d stepped on it when she blinked and reared back a little.

  “Let me make sure I understand the terms of this contract,” she said slowly. “You’re asking me to give up my condo, my job, my life and take up permanent residency in your gatehouse until such time as we mutually decide to terminate the arrangement.”

  Christ! He was blowing it. Big-time. Forcing a smile, he tried again. “Actually, I’m asking you to move into the main house. With Tommy and me.”

  Neither the smile nor the offer produced the desired effect. If anything, they added fuel to the temper darkening her eyes. Pushing off the stool, she planted both hands on her hips and delivered a scorching broadside.

  “You pompous, conceited ass. You think all you have to do is waltz in, invite me to be your live-in lover and expect me to—”

  “Whoa! Back up a minute! I’m asking you to marry me!”

  “What?”

  Tossing every hard-learned negotiating strategy to the winds, Brian cut right to the bottom line. “We’re not kids, Dawn. Or horny teenagers like Addy. Although God knows,” he muttered, “you make me feel like one.”

  “Ex-cuse me?”