by Lucy Kevin
Rachel put Charlotte into her car seat and, to her surprise, Nicholas got into the back beside her. “So I can keep an eye on her while you’re driving home,” he explained.
As it turned out, it mostly gave Charlotte someone to talk to as she perked back up a little again. She told him all about how she was practicing a butterfly dance up at the dance studio this week. Then she insisted on playing I Spy with Nicholas, who didn’t seem to mind that half the things Charlotte guessed had gone past before he could look out for them.
The three of them made quick work getting the prescription from the pharmacy, but as soon as they were back in the car and finally on the way to Rachel’s grandmother's house, Charlotte suddenly turned away from Nicholas.
“Mommy, I don’t feel well.”
“It’s okay, sweetie, we’ll be home in a minute.”
“No, Mommy, I feel like I'm going to—”
There was no time to pull over and get her out of the car. No time to even shout a warning to Nicholas. One moment, Charlotte was sitting there chatting with Nicholas as happy as she had been all day.
The next, she was busy throwing up all over Nicholas’ shirt.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rachel was horrified. Her baby had just thrown up all over Nicholas! He was used to glamor and glitz, exotic locations and pristine beaches, not small children making a complete mess of his shirt.
She looked back to the road just in time to brake as a couple of teenagers crossed in front of her, bringing the car to a stop with a jolt that sent the surfboard skidding halfway down the windshield, even though Nicholas had tied it on so well.
Rachel pulled over to the side of the road, but instead of getting out to deal with his surfboard, Nicholas continued to try to soothe Charlotte, who was crying now.
“I've got her,” Rachel said softly as she grabbed some tissues from her purse to clean up the worst of it. “Maybe you could work on the surfboard,” she suggested to Nicholas. After another concerned glance at Charlotte, he finally nodded and got out of the car.
What else could go wrong today? Rachel wondered as she worked to persuade her daughter to take at least a small drink from a bottle of water she'd had in the car. But when she finally stopped crying and her eyes closed, Rachel decided it would be better to let her rest for the time being.
A few seconds later, she stepped out from the backseat to see if Nicholas needed any help with the surfboard...and nearly gasped out loud when she realized that he had pulled off his soiled shirt and the planes of his chest and abs were now on full display. His physique wasn't massive like a body builder’s, rather it was well defined and perfectly balanced—and she really needed to stop staring at him like a teenage girl with a crush!
“I am so sorry about that. I should have guessed that she might get sick in the car and made sure you weren't sitting next to her just in case it did happen.”
“Don't worry about it. I've had plenty of worse things happen to me while traveling around the world.”
“You've been so nice about everything today,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
“You're the one who was nice enough to come get me from the ferry. There's nothing to thank me for.”
But there was, because Charlotte's own father had never done as much for his daughter as Nicholas already had today. In fact, Guy had never even seen his daughter, let alone tried to soothe her while she was sick.
It was very kind of Nicholas to brush off the accident as nothing. Not everyone would have done that. After years of motherhood, Rachel knew her clothes never stayed clean for very long with her daughter around, yet even her sister Morgan was still learning not to wear her more expensive designer clothes around her little niece. Of course, Nicholas was currently managing without his shirt completely, wearing only a single shark tooth on a leather thong around his neck.
She had to hand it to him—he was certainly taking all this better than any man could or should have. Instead of shouting at her or demanding that she replace the shirt, he was being totally calm, and kind, about the whole thing.
The few men she’d dated since Guy had always run a mile the moment they found out she had a child. That, or they’d treated her daughter like an annoyance, thinking it was odd that Rachel would want to spend so much of her time with her little girl.
But why was she thinking about how the men she'd dated had treated her daughter when it simply wasn’t relevant in this situation? Even if the heat that rose inside of Rachel every time Nicholas looked at her insisted otherwise.
She was simply giving him a ride to help out her sister, she reminded herself. That was it. She would drop him off at her grandmother’s house soon and then she probably wouldn’t see him again. Granted, he would be on the island for the next week, but he’d be busy doing his TV thing with Morgan.
“If it's okay, I'd like to get Charlotte into bed and then help get you cleaned up.” At his slightly curious look, she explained, “I can’t have you showing up at Grams’ house like this. Morgan would never forgive me. Besides, the least I owe you is a shower.”
“A shower would be great, thanks.”
Getting back into the car, with Nicholas in the backseat again as he insisted on keeping watch over Charlotte, she hurried back through the streets of Walker Island’s small community, hoping with every turn she took that the surfboard wouldn’t go flying off the top of the car.
Finally, she pulled up in front of her house, plucking Charlotte from the backseat and carrying her inside with Nicholas following behind. “If you'll wait a few minutes for me to get Charlotte into bed, I can show you where everything is.”
“I’m sure I can find the shower just fine if you'll point me in the general direction. And I have plenty of spare clothes in my bag.”
Pity, she thought before she could stop her brain from going in that direction. “Great!” Her smile was brighter than it needed to be on account of the heated thoughts she was working to corral—and conceal. The problem was, she was fairly certain he knew exactly what she had been thinking. “The shower’s just down the hall, and there are towels under the sink.”
Rachel carried Charlotte through their small house to her bedroom. Their place was compact, furnished in things they’d managed to buy secondhand or that had been handed down from her grandmother and sisters. Rachel had taken a lot of care when it came to decorating her daughter’s room and the whole family had helped paint it, which was lovely of them.
While she set about cleaning up Charlotte and getting her ready for bed, she could hear her shower running. It was hard not to imagine Nicholas in the bathroom, steam rising around him…
Rachel cut the thought off, the same way that she usually made herself dismiss thoughts about exotic locales and long-distance trips, knowing she needed to focus on the practical realities of her life instead. She dressed Charlotte in her pajamas, settled her under the covers, then gently woke her up to give her a capful of the medicine she’d picked up from the pharmacy. Even drowsy, Charlotte made a face as she drank it.
“I wish it tasted nicer, too,” Rachel said gently, “but I promise it will make you feel better.”
As she reached down to wipe Charlotte’s brow, her daughter shut her eyes again. Hopefully, she would be fine soon, just the way the doctor said. Still, Rachel couldn't bear to leave her—not even with Grams—today. Which meant she had a couple of phone calls to make.
She decided to try her boss first. Frank’s secretary put her through after a few seconds.
“Hi, Rachel, are you going to be in soon?”
“Actually, that's what I need to talk to you about.”
“Oh no. Rachel, don’t do this to me. We have the salvage people coming in—”
“Charlotte’s ill. I’ve had to bring her home from school because she’s been throwing up and has a fever.” Before Frank could protest, she quickly suggested, “Why don't you send me over everything you have and I’ll come up with the figures from home? In fact, we could do a co
nference call or share screens online later if you'd like.”
“You’re not sick, too, are you?” Frank asked, obviously concerned about how long that would keep her off work.
“No, but my sister Morgan has come down with the same thing, so it’s obviously pretty contagious.”
“You're right,” he quickly agreed upon hearing the word 'contagious'. “You should stay home today. I'll send over their details as soon as I can.”
“And I’ll get to work on the risk calculations immediately. I'm sure they'll be quite complicated, but hopefully I'll be able to give you a draft inside of two days.” Which was at least a full day faster than she normally would take on a project of this size. But even if it meant working through the night, she'd make it happen. Rachel had learned early on after having Charlotte that she could juggle just about anything in her life, so long as she didn’t mind going without sleep.
She hung up and checked on her daughter. Charlotte seemed a little restless, murmuring in her sleep, but at least her skin felt cooler to the touch. Rachel tiptoed out of the room to make her next phone call—to Michael.
When he answered on the second ring, she immediately said, “I'm so sorry to call you in the middle of your workday like this, but Morgan sent me down to the docks to collect Nicholas Quinn, a surfer who's going to be shadowing her for the week for a TV show he's filming, and then Charlotte got sick so I had to pick her up at school, and now that she's napping I have to stay here with her, which means that I can’t bring him over to Grams’ house the way I promised Morgan that I would.”
Fortunately, Michael had lived with Rachel and her sisters for several years as a teenager, so he could follow her long and winding sentence fairly easily. “Do you need me to go down to the ferry terminal?”
“No, to my house. Charlotte got sick after I picked him up, so Nicholas is here.”
“Don't worry about a thing. I’ll be right over,” Michael said.
Feeling immensely grateful to the man who had always been there for her and her sisters—even now that they were all grown up—Rachel took another quick glance at Charlotte before heading through the house in search of Nicholas since the shower was no longer running. She should let him know that Michael was coming to collect him, maybe give him a hand getting his surfboard off the roof of her car, too. Maybe he was down in the kitchen, getting a glass of water or…
“Oh!” Rachel exclaimed as she almost collided with Nicholas, who was coming out of the bathroom.
He wasn’t wearing anything except for the towel wrapped around his waist. It shouldn’t have been that different from seeing him without his shirt as they’d checked on the surfboard earlier. But somehow it was.
Very different.
Barely able to form a coherent thought, all she could manage was, “Where are your clothes?”
“I forgot to bring them in here with me, and I knew you were putting Charlotte to bed, so I figured I had a pretty clear run to my bags and my clothes. It was this or put my old ones back on, which would kind of defeat the purpose of the shower, right?”
“Right,” Rachel agreed reluctantly.
She knew better, knew she shouldn't be staring, but she was only human...and she knew with utter certainty that there wasn't a female alive who wouldn't have looked right then. The muscles of Nicholas’ torso were strongly defined from swimming through strong waves all day. He was still wearing the shark tooth around his neck, and this close, Rachel could make out the details of the swirling, almost tribal-style tattoos on his skin, along with a few scars that she guessed were mementos of moments when a surfing experience had gone sideways. They should have marred the smooth planes of his chest and abs, particularly since they were obviously signs of what a risk-taker the man in front of her could be. But, somehow, they only seemed to make him sexier.
When Rachel finally looked up again, he was grinning. A ridiculously gorgeous grin this time, one that made her fingers itch to touch him and her lips tingle with the desire to kiss him. They were staring into each other's eyes, all of the heady possibilities swirling between them, when the doorbell rang and immediately yanked Rachel right out of the spell Nicholas had put over her.
Michael was here to take the surfer off her hands…just in time to save her from doing something she would regret.
CHAPTER FIVE
As Rachel went to answer the doorbell, Nicholas quickly dug a pair of jeans and a shirt out of his bag. After he finished dressing and walked back toward the kitchen, he could hear her saying, “Thanks so much for dropping everything to come take Morgan's guest to Grams, Michael. Between getting a flat tire on the way to the ferry, the call from Charlotte's school, and then her throwing up all over him in the backseat of the car, somehow it turned into this epic odyssey.”
Nicholas heard Michael laugh, then say, “She threw up on him?”
“Don't laugh,” she replied, although he could hear humor seep into her voice. “It was so nice of him to offer to hang out in the backseat with her to try to keep her spirits up. And then splat! Poor guy, it was really gross. I'm sure he's dying to get out of here and into Grams’ house by now.”
But she was wrong about that—and he'd be shocked if she didn't know by now that he wasn't at all in a hurry to get away from her or her daughter, even if it meant risking getting splashed by Charlotte again.
In any case, Nicholas felt a little weird listening in on their conversation. It felt as if he was intruding on a private family affair. He knew how families worked, although he didn’t really have much of one to call his own anymore and was starting to realize just how much he missed it. Quite a bit, actually.
How close were Rachel and this Michael guy, he wondered. Close enough that she could call on him at a moment’s notice, obviously. And Nicholas knew that he couldn’t be the only one who saw what a beautiful, interesting woman she was.
“Speaking of getting out of the house, once Charlotte's all better, if you'd like me to take her out to see a movie one night so that you can—”
“Look, here's Nicholas,” Rachel said, cutting Michael off before he could say exactly what Rachel would be doing on a night without her daughter—although it wasn't a stretch at all for Nicholas to assume it was likely a hot date with some guy who would spend all night drooling over how gorgeous she was.
Michael looked to be a couple of years older than Rachel, with the muscular physique of someone who worked with his hands. Nicholas could see the other man giving him the same appraisal.
“Hi, I’m Nicholas.”
“Michael.” The other man’s grip was firm and a bit rough. “Rachel asked me to come give you a ride over to Grams’.”
“Thanks.” Nicholas turned to Rachel. “And thank you for bringing me this far. I hope I’ll see more of you when Charlotte’s feeling better.”
She looked a little flustered at that and sounded just as flustered as she said, “I...you...” She shook her head as if to clear it. “I'm sure I’ll see you up at Grams’ house.”
Nicholas went and untied his surfboard from the roof of Rachel’s car then attached it to the roof rack on Michael's SUV. Michael seemed like a nice enough guy, and even better, Nicholas hadn't noticed any sparks jumping between him and Rachel. Still, he needed to know for sure.
“So, you and Rachel, are you…” Nicholas said as Michael pulled out onto the road.
Michael looked more than a little shocked at the idea, which immediately put Nicholas' mind at ease. “The Walkers took me in when I was a teenager,” he explained. “Rachel and I are like brother and sister.” That came with a slightly pointed look. One that clearly said Michael considered them his family and that Nicholas should be respectful and not cause them any problems.
“Rachel is one of five, isn't she?” Morgan had given him the rundown on her sisters, but after he'd met—and been so stunned by—Rachel, the details on the other Walker women had gone a bit fuzzy in his head.
“I’ll give you a quick rundown of everyone before we get
to the house,” Michael said. “You’re staying with Ava, their grandmother. She’s a lot of fun. Used to be a dancer over in Seattle. Tres, that’s William Walker III, is their father. You probably won’t see that much of him, because he doesn’t come up to the house much. Then there are the Walker sisters. Hanna is the youngest. She’s a filmmaker. Next is Morgan, who you know. After Morgan, there’s Paige. You’ll probably meet her up at the house if she isn’t at the dance studio teaching classes or getting students ready for their next performance. Rachel’s the second-oldest, and then there’s Emily. She’s a guidance counselor at the school and also runs things around the house.” His voice softened when he talked about Emily, especially as he said, “She’s pretty special.”
“Are they all going to be okay with me staying up at the family house?” Nicholas asked. He’d been surprised when Morgan had insisted that he stay with her grandmother. Surprised and maybe a little worried about ruining a collection of lace doilies, or that Ava might turn out to own a dozen cats. Now, though, it sounded more like he had to worry about not upsetting a whole bevy of sisters.
“It’s just Emily, Paige and Grams up at the house. Morgan, Hanna and Rachel all have their own places. Besides, Ava’s the one who insisted that you come and stay. Depending on how busy things are with the dance studio, Paige might not even notice you’re there.”
“So, if Emily runs the place, is there any way of making sure I stay on her good side while I'm here?”
“I’ve yet to find a way of doing that—a way that works, anyway,” Michael said, although there was something almost possessive about the way he said it. Almost as if he was trying to suss out whether Nicholas was planning to make a move on Emily. “Although that could just be me. She and I have always had a different relationship from the others. We both like to be handy and in charge—so it means we butt heads quite a bit.”
Nicholas had never been very good at going along with other’s plans either. He’d always been more about doing what felt right, regardless of who was telling him to do otherwise. It was one of the reasons he was looking forward to doing this TV work. He'd been surfing competitively for so long that he was interested in trying new things just for the joy of them, rather than because of a need to win a prize.
