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“What? I can’t…”
“He’s never stopped in town for longer than a few hours; he hasn’t seen anything. Maybe you could also go to the theater or something. Anything you can think of.”
“I’m not…”
“I really appreciate it, Erin. I’m just devastated not to be home for my brother, but I know you’ll do everything you can for him…”
After a few moments of chatter, Sally hung up and Erin was left standing with her mouth open, holding the phone in one hand.
Nathan pretended to concentrate on his paper, while trying to control the grin fighting its way to his face. The other pawn in his sister’s game obviously had no clue about the stakes. He felt Erin’s stabbing gaze on the back of his head and it wasn’t hard to picture the fury clouding her delicate features. Apart from her giggles last night, she seemed to have a permanent scowl etched on her brow. Did the woman ever smile?
“Don’t worry, Erin,” he said without looking up. “Sally never needs to know that you didn’t play tour guide for me and I certainly don’t expect you to.”
“She’ll know,” Erin muttered, throwing herself back into her chair. “Sally always finds out things like that.”
He shrugged. “Fine. I’ll tell her I preferred to be on my own. She may even take the hint and not throw us together again.”
Erin’s head snapped up, brows drawn together. “Throw us together? What do you mean?”
He looked up, allowing the grin to surface. “What else?”
Her mouth hung open. “You mean she knew you would be staying longer and she deliberately didn’t tell me?”
He shrugged. “I’m afraid my sister fancies herself as something of a matchmaker.”
“Matchmaker?” With amusement he watched the emotions play across her face. “You mean she thought you and I…?” She sputtered. “What a ridiculous idea!” Nathan nodded. “Couldn’t agree more.” Knowing his reply had been less than flattering, he watched with amusement as relief flirted with bruised dignity in her expressive features.
“And you didn’t object to being sent here to play house with a total stranger?”
He shrugged again. “Why should I? I’ve shared a bed with fleas and dogs, I can share a house with a librarian.” He smiled faintly. “To tell you the truth, I thought you might make a nice change.”
Her hands clenched into fists, Erin jumped to her feet, anger flashing from her eyes, the soft fabric of his shirt rising and falling with her deep, indignant breaths. “Oh, did you? A nice change from fleas and dogs? Or did you mean a nice change from your babes? Is this the let’s seduce-the-librarian week? I am not a toy, I’m not a babe and I’m absolutely not a ‘nice change’!”
Nathan raised his hands in supplication. “I didn’t mean it like that, Erin! I certainly had no seduction plans. And would you please stop mentioning the word babes in every other sentence?”
She waited, hands on hips. “In what way did you mean it, then?”
He shrugged. “I simply meant I’d enjoy having some female company without having to flirt or play games. I thought we might enjoy some civil, polite conversation over cereal or TV dinners. Perhaps even play Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit.” He grinned at her. “You know, librarian stuff.”
“You don’t know anything about librarians.”
“I’m beginning to realize that. No glasses perched on that nose.” His gaze lifted to her hair. “And no bun this morning either.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she muttered.
Nathan’s grin faded, leaving a lopsided smile. “Whatever else you are, Miss Librarian, you are certainly not a disappointment.”
The doorbell, combined with insistent knocking, interrupted any explanation of that cryptic remark. As Erin opened the front door after a brief glance through the peephole, two miniature redheads fought for a place in her arms. “Mom says you might take us swimming!” a piping voice yelled as Erin looked out to see a waving arm as her mother’s gray car sped away.
Inwardly she groaned, although she was careful not to let on to the twins that they were less than welcome. Her mother kept doing that. She loved her little brothers, and they stayed with her often, but Mom took blatant advantage of her protectiveness.
“Hey, guys!” She knelt down and hugged the five-year-olds. “How long do I get to keep you today?”
“Until tomorrow!” Samuel jumped up and down, trying to reach the coat-hanger. “Mom says that there’s plenty of room because Tom and Sally are away.”
Grinding her teeth, Erin forced a smile as she helped the boys hang up their jackets. She wouldn’t have minded having them staying this weekend, especially with Nathan in the house, but she would have appreciated being asked.
“Hello!” Nathan appeared in the kitchen door and smiled at the boys, then looked at Erin. “I can see the resemblance. Are they yours?”
“Noooo,” the twins said in unison. They were used to this question but it never failed to disgust them. “She’s not our mother, she’s our sister!” Daniel added.
The boys stared curiously at him.
“Are you Erin’s boyfriend?” Daniel asked. Nathan shook his head with a smile. “I’m afraid not.”
“Oh.” The child looked dejected. “Mom says we can’t have little brothers, but if Erin finds a boyfriend and gets married then we can have little nephews instead.”
“You already have a little niece,” Erin reminded her brothers. “Soon she’ll be old enough to play with you.”
“She’s a girl!” Samuel pointed out indignantly. “Do you have any boys?” he asked Nathan.
He shook his head. “No little boys and no little girls.”
“How come?”
“Well…I don’t have a wife, for one.”
“You should get one,” Samuel advised, looking very serious. “When girls become wives, then they are OK. You get to cuddle up to them in bed and everything.”
A corner of Nathan’s mouth twitched. “That is a bonus,” he agreed solemnly. “It can get lonely in bed.”
“Yes,” Daniel chimed in. “But if you don’t have a wife, you can snuggle up to a teddy instead. Do you have a teddy bear?”
“Well…no.”
Daniel nodded, his little face serious. “You should get a wife. They’re better. Sometimes they also make brownies.”
“You little chauvinist…” Erin muttered under her breath, grinning as Nathan fought to hold back his laughter. Losing interest in marriage counseling, the boys scampered off, heading for the small office, to Thomas’s computer.
“I didn’t know Tom had little brothers.”
“There is a lot you don’t know about this family,” Erin said, then bit her tongue. She would have to live with this man for a whole month. It wouldn’t do to keep attacking him the whole time. Softening her voice, she continued, “We also have a little sister on our father’s side. Her name is Alexandra and she is only three.”
“I see. And you have a twin sister, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Erika. She’s a lawyer.”
“Your parents must have been very young when they had the three of you.”
She nodded, then followed the boys into the office. Nathan followed her in, and the two little chauvinists pounced directly on him as a fellow computer patriot.
“Would you sit with them just five minutes while I get dressed?” she asked Nathan, reluctant to ask him for a favour, but not wanting to leave the boys alone with all the expensive equipment. Thomas had spent a great deal of time teaching his brothers how to play with his computer without damaging anything, and they were fast learners, but she didn’t quite trust them yet.
“Of course.” He smiled at the boys. “I bet there is a game or two you can show me, isn’t there?”
“Yeah!” the boys chorused with enthusiasm. “There is this one with demons and dragons where you have a sledgehammer…” One twin shushed the other and both glanced at Erin.
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Nathan, just use your best judgment. Nothing too bloody.”
Smiling, Nathan lifted one boy up and sat down at the computer, holding him in his lap. “We’ll be fine. Don’t hurry on our account.”
Erin ran upstairs to her room. She replaced Nathan’s shirt with jeans and a white sweater, and brushed her hair. Her brothers had interrupted just in time, or she would probably have attacked Nathan again. And she shouldn’t: after all, what he did or did not do was none of her business. Somehow that man managed to push all her buttons. She wasn’t a confrontational type; in fact she had the opposite problem of avoiding conflict rather than facing it. Her temper had never matched the color of her hair, and she had always done her best to get along with people.
Nathan Chase was not going to change that. She was going to be polite and nice to him. He was family after all. He was right—it was none of her business how he spent his time. And it was not his fault that Sally had decided to make them live together. She could even forgive him for that conceited teasing last night. After all, the circumstances were bizarre and the man half-asleep.
She grabbed the shirt and headed for the washing machine, stuffing it inside before she succumbed to the temptation of holding it to her face and inhaling his scent. That shirt had already got her in enough trouble in dreamland. She paused, a bottle of detergent in her hand, reflecting on her feelings and not liking them one bit. She responded strongly to his presence, there was no denying that. Perhaps her anger worked to mask her attraction to him.
No.
She shook her head firmly and finished her chore. She did not want a man in her life at all, especially now. Even if she did, she reminded herself, he had made it clear he considered Sally’s matchmaking idea ridiculous. She ignored the small sting this thought cost. It was for the best. She would be friendly to Nathan, because he meant so much to Sally, she would stay out of his way, and soon all this would be over.
Soon she would have her baby.
The three males were engrossed in a flying simulator when she came back downstairs. Nathan looked briefly up and acknowledged her with a small smile, but did not seem to be in a hurry to get away. Quietly she sat down in the easy chair in the corner, watching them. The picture of Nathan playing with her two little brothers clashed with her mental image of the cold and aloof man who didn’t care enough to see his own niece.
“Tom is our big brother. He is a programmer,” Samuel boasted to Nathan while his brother had control of the joystick. “He tells the computers what to do. Can you do that?”
“Not as well as Tom, no. I’m a photographer. I take pictures.”
“You take pictures?” Daniel flew his plane over enemy territory, bombarding a fleet of ships below. He did not sound too impressed. “Just ordinary pictures?”
Nathan chuckled. “Yes. Just ordinary pictures.” Erin thought back to Sally’s scrapbooks, holding hundreds of clippings, all Nathan’s pictures from every corner of the globe. None of them could be called ordinary. Even in her own biased judgment, the quality of his work was indisputable. His photos were stark and unflinching, pulling the viewer in and not letting go until a point had been made.
“Can you do magic?”
She watched Nathan frown as he tried to follow the child’s train of thought. “Magic?”
“Mom took us to a photographer once. He did magic tricks. Mom said he did that to make us laugh.”
“I’m not that kind of a photographer.”
“What kind, then?”
“I take pictures for the newspapers,” Nathan explained. “Do you guys have a camera?”
The twins shook their heads.
He stood up and deposited one little boy back on the chair. “I’ll show you mine,” he said, returning a few minutes later with his camera bag. The boys abandoned the computer game and crowded around him as he opened it and showed them the different lenses and tools, even allowing them to handle the delicate equipment.
“Be careful!” she reminded the boys. “Nathan, they’re only kids. Don’t let them damage anything.”
To her amazement, the two hyperactive youngsters sat quietly and listened as Nathan explained in simple terms how the camera worked and how to take good pictures. Then he got two disposable cameras from his pack and gave one to each boy. “They’re even waterproof,” he told them with a smile. “If you’re going swimming with your sister, you can take pictures underwater.”
“Wow!” the boys echoed in unison. Erin grinned. Both boys loved the swimming pool, and she often took them there, but both balked at putting their heads underwater. She had a feeling that was about to change.
“I’m going to take one of Your Boyfriend,” Daniel yelled, running out of the room, followed by his brother. Their noisy footsteps echoed around the house as they trampled up the stairs.
“Your boyfriend? Your boyfriend is upstairs?” Nathan looked confused.
Erin chuckled. “Follow them and you’ll see.” Looking quizzically at her, Nathan strode upstairs, following the sound of the twins’ voices to her bedroom. She followed the crowd, finding the two boys up to their elbows in her fish tank, both pointing a camera at one of the two multicolored fishes swimming amidst swaying strands of greenery.
“Meet Your Boyfriend,” Erin said, pointing at the male fish with the huge, colorful tail. “And next to him, Your Girlfriend.”
“Interesting names.”
“It’s a long story. Originally they were called Romeo and Juliet. Then my sister began using Boyfriend and Girlfriend. That stuck, and the boys added the ‘Your’ to it. Don’t ask me why.”
“Are they Sally’s?”
The room had never seemed small to her, but it seemed to have shrunk with his presence. No matter where she was standing, he was too close for comfort. She moved back, attempting to put some distance between them, and finally opted for sitting on the bed.
“No, they’re mine. I couldn’t very well leave them at my flat. They’re my pets. But believe me, moving them was quite a challenge.”
Nathan leaned back, his elbows on the high window sill. He looked at her speculatively. “I’d have taken you as more of a cat person.”
“I am,” she confessed, “but I’m allergic to most animals, especially cats and dogs. If I indulge myself and scratch a feline for a second my face puffs up and I cry non-stop for the next hour.” She made a face. “I’d have thought conditioning kicked in and relieved you of the longing to cuddle a kitten when you have to suffer as a consequence.”
Nathan chuckled. “Allergies can be a pest.”
“Yes,” she agreed in a heartfelt tone. “Fortunately dust doesn’t bother me, for some reason. If it did I’d have a hard time working in a library.” She grinned sheepishly. “And I would have sneezed under your bed and given you the fright of your life.”
Nathan’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “That would have been terrible. We’d have missed all the fun!”
Erin looked away and opened her arms as one little boy maneuvered himself into her lap. “What were you doing under Uncle Nathan’s bed?” he demanded.
He was Uncle Nathan now? Some serious male bonding must have occurred while she had been getting dressed. Before she could come up with an explanation that would not reach her mother’s ears, Nathan came to her rescue.
“We were playing hide and seek,” he explained smoothly. Erin sent him a grateful look, but it went unnoticed as Nathan picked up a picture from the dresser.
“Is this Natalie?” he asked.
He didn’t even recognize the child.
Her softening attitude towards him hardened again and her voice was icy when she confirmed that the picture was of their niece. The changed tone of voice did not go unnoticed. He looked back at her, holding her gaze for several seconds. Then he shrugged and replaced the picture, smiling again.
“Well, I need to be going.” He glanced at his watch, then pushed himself from the window and ruffled each boy’s hair. “It was nice meeting you guys. Perhaps I’ll see you tonight. You too, Librarian,” he added with a grin, reaching out to tousle her hair too. She yanked her head back, and justice was served as he snatched his hand away at the sting of static electricity.
“Why don’t you make him your boyfriend?” Samuel asked, thankfully after Nathan had left the room.
