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Tula laughed, delighted at the image. She was famous in the preschool crowd. Or at least, her Lonely Bunny was a star. She was simply the writer who told his stories and drew his pictures. But, oh, how she loved going to children’s bookstores to do signings. To read her books to kids clustered around her with wide eyes and innocent smiles.
Anna was right. Tula had escaped her father’s narrow world and his plans for her life. She’d made her own way. She had a home she loved and a career she adored. Glancing at the baby boy happily gabbling to himself in his stroller, she told herself silently that she was madly in love with a drooling, nearly bald, one-foot-tall dreamboat.
What she would do when she had to say goodbye to that baby she just didn’t know. But for the moment, that time was weeks, maybe months, away.
If ever she’d seen a man who wasn’t prepared to be a father, it was Simon Bradley.
Instantly, an image of him popped into her brain and she almost sighed. He really was far too handsome for her peace of mind. But gorgeous or not, he was as stuffy and stern as her own father and she’d had enough of that kind of man. Besides, this wasn’t about sexual attraction or the buzzing awareness, this was about Nathan and what was best for him.
So Tula would put aside her own worries and whatever tingly feelings she had for the baby’s father and focus instead on taking care of the tiny boy.
She could do this. And just to make herself feel better, she mentally put her adventure into the tone of one of her books. Lonely Bunny Goes to the City. She smiled to herself at the thought and realized it wasn’t a bad idea for her next book.
“You’re absolutely right,” Tula said firmly, needing to hear the confident tone in her own voice. “My father can’t dictate to me anymore. And besides, it’s not as if he’s interested in what I’m doing or where I am.”
The truth stung a bit, as it always did. Because no matter what, she wished her father were different. But wishing would never make it so.
“I’m not going to worry about running into my father,” she said. “I mean, what are the actual odds of that happening anyway?”
“Good for you!” Anna said with an approving grin. Then she added, “Now, would you mind handing me the brush shaped like a fan? I need to get the lacy look on the waves.”
“Right.” Tula stood, looked through Anna’s supplies and found the wide, white sable fan-shaped brush. She handed it over, then watched as her best friend expertly laid down white paint atop the cerulean blue ocean, creating froth on water that looked real enough Tula half expected to hear the sound of the waves.
Anna Cameron Hale was the best faux finish artist in the business. She could lay down a mural on a wall and when she was finished, it was practically alive. Just as, when this painting on the bank wall was complete, it would look like a view of the ocean on a sunny day, as seen through a columned window.
“You’re completely amazing, you know that, right?” Tula said.
“Thanks.” Anna didn’t look back, just continued her painting. “You know, once you’re settled into Simon’s place, I could come up and do a mural in the baby’s room.”
“Oooh, great idea.”
“And,” Anna said coyly, turning her head to look at Tula, “it would be good practice for the nursery Sam and I are setting up.”
A second ticked past. Then two. “You’re—”
“I am.”
“How long?”
“About three months.”
“Oh my God, that’s huge!” Tula dropped to her knees and swept Anna into a tight hug, then released her. “You’re gonna have a baby! How’d Sam take it?”
“Like he’s the first man to introduce sperm to egg!” Anna laughed again and the shine in her eyes defined just how happy she really was. “He’s really excited. He called Garret in Switzerland to tell him he’s going to be an uncle.”
“Weird, considering you actually dated Garret for like five minutes.”
“Ew.” Anna grimaced and shook her head. “I don’t like to think about that part,” she said, laughing again. “Besides, three dates with Garret or a lifetime with his brother…no contest.”
Tula had never seen her friend so happy. So content. As if everything in her world were exactly the way it was supposed to be. For one really awful moment, Tula actually felt envious of that happiness. Of the certainty in Anna’s life. Of the love Sam surrounded her with. Then she deliberately put aside her own niggling twist of jealousy and focused on the important thing here. Supporting Anna as she’d always been there for Tula.
“I’m really happy for you, Anna.”
“Thanks, sweetie. I know you are.” She glanced at the baby boy who was watching them both through interested eyes. “And believe me, I’m glad you’re getting so much hands-on experience, Aunt Tula. I don’t have a clue how to take care of a baby.”
“It’s really simple,” Tula said, following her friend’s gaze to smile at the baby that had so quickly become the center of her world. “All you have to do is love them.”
Her heart simply turned over in her chest. Two weeks she’d been a surrogate mom and she could hardly remember a time without Nathan. What on earth had she done with herself before having that little boy to snuggle and care for? How had she gotten through her day without the scent of baby shampoo and the soft warmth of a tiny body to hold?
And how would she ever live without it?
Simon knew how to get things done.
With Mick’s assistant taking care of most of the details, within a week, Simon’s house had been readied for Tula and Nathan’s arrival.
He had rooms prepared, food delivered and had already lined up several interviews with a popular nanny employment agency. Tula and the baby had been in town only three days and already he had arranged for a paternity test and had pulled a few important strings so that he’d have the results a lot sooner than he normally would have.
Not that he needed legal confirmation. He had known from his first glance at the child that Nathan was his. Had felt it the moment he’d held him. Now he had to deal with the very real fact of parenthood. Though he was definitely going to go slowly in that regard until he had proof.
He’d never planned on being a father. Hell, he didn’t know the first thing about parenting. And his own parent had hardly been a sterling role model.
Simon knew he could do it, though. He always found a way.
He opened his front door and accidentally kicked a toy truck. The bright yellow Dumpster was sent zooming across the parquet floor to crash into the opposite wall. He shook his head, walked to the truck and, after picking it up, headed into the living room.
Normally, he got home at five-thirty, had a quiet drink while reading the paper. The silence of the big house was a blessing after a long day filled with clients, board meetings and ringing telephones. His house had been a sanctuary, he thought wryly. But not anymore. He glanced around the once orderly living room and blew out an exasperated breath. How could one baby have so much…stuff?
“They’ve only been here three days,” he muttered, amazed at what the two of them had done to the dignified old Victorian.
There were diapers, bottles, toys, fresh laundry that had been folded and stacked on the coffee table. There was a walker of some sort in one corner and a discarded bunny with one droopy ear sitting in Simon’s favorite chair. He stepped over a baby blanket spread across a hand-stitched throw rug and set his briefcase down beside the chair.
Picking up the bunny, he ran his fingers over the soft, slightly soggy fur. Nathan was teething, Tula had informed him only that morning. Apparently, the bunny was taking the brunt of the punishment. Shaking his head, he laughed a little, amazed anew at just how quickly a man’s routine could be completely shattered.
“Simon? Is that you?”
He turned toward the sound of her voice and looked at the hall as if he could see through the walls to the kitchen at the back of the house. Something inside him tightened in expectation at the sound of Tula’s voice. His body instantly went on alert, a feeling he was getting used to. In the three days she and the baby had been here, Simon had been in a near-constant state of aching need.
She was really getting to him, and the worst of it was, she wasn’t even trying.
Tula was only here as Nathan’s guardian. To stay until she felt Simon was ready to be his son’s father. There was nothing more between them and there couldn’t be.
So why then, he asked himself, did he spend so damn much time thinking about her? She wasn’t the kind of woman who usually caught his eye. But there was something about her. Something alive. Electric.
She smiled and that dimple teased him. She sang to the baby and her voice caressed him. She was here, in his house when he came home from work, and he didn’t even miss the normal quiet.
He was in serious trouble.
“Simon?”
Now her voice almost sounded worried because he hadn’t answered her. “Yes, it’s me.”
“That’s good. We’re in the kitchen!”
He held on to the lop-eared bunny and walked down the long hallway. The rooms were big, the wood gleaming from polish and care and the walls were painted in a warm palate of blues and greens. He knew every creak of the floor, every sigh of the wind against the windows. He’d grown up in this house and had taken it over when his father died a few years ago.
Of course, Simon had put his own stamp on the place. He’d ripped up carpeting that had hidden the tongue-and-groove flooring. He’d had wallpaper removed and had restored crown moldings and the natural wood in the built-in china cabinets and bookcases.
He’d made it his own, determined to wipe out old memories and build new ones.
Now he was sharing it with the son he still could hardly believe was his.
Stepping into the kitchen, he was surrounded by the scented steam lifting off a pot of chili on the stove. At the table, Tula sat cross-legged on a chair while spooning something green and mushy into Nathan’s mouth.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Hi! What? Oh, green beans. We went shopping today, didn’t we, Nathan?” She gave the boy another spoonful. “We bought a blender and some fresh vegetables and then we came home and cooked them up for dinner, didn’t we?”
Simon could have sworn the infant was listening to everything Tula had to say. Maybe it was her way of practically singing her words to him. Or maybe it was the warmth of her tone and the smile on her face that caught the baby’s attention.
Much as it had done for the boy’s father.
“It’s so cold outside, I made chili for us,” she said, tossing him a quick grin over her shoulder.
The impact of that smile shook him right down to the bone.
Mick had been right, he thought. Tula was nothing like the cool, controlled beauties he was used to dating.
And he had to wonder if she was as warm in bed as she was out of it.
“Smells good,” he managed to say.
“Tastes even better,” she promised. “Why don’t you come over here and finish feeding Nathan? I’ll get dinner for us.”
“Okay.” He approached her and the baby cautiously and wanted to kick himself for it. Simon Bradley had a reputation for storming into a situation and taking charge. He could feed a baby for God’s sake. How difficult could it be?
He took Tula’s chair, picked up the bowl of green bean mush and filled a spoon. Behind him, he could sense Tula’s gaze on him, watching. Well, he’d prove not only to himself, but to her, that he was perfectly capable of feeding a baby.
Spooning the green slop into Nathan’s mouth, he was completely unprepared when the baby spat it back at him. “What?”
Tula’s delighted laughter spilled out around him as Simon wiped green beans from his face. Then she leaned in, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Welcome to fatherhood.”
An instant later, her smile died as he looked at her through dark eyes blazing with heat. Her mouth went dry and a sizzle of something dark and dangerous went off inside her.
They stared at each other for what felt like forever until finally Simon said, “That wasn’t much of a kiss. We’ll have to do better next time.”
Next time?
Five (#u160c6387-0456-5bec-b899-43cfb3328bb3)
Tula remembered sitting in her own kitchen thinking that this was not a good idea. Now she was convinced.
Yet here she was, living in a Victorian mansion in the city with a man she wasn’t sure she liked—but she really did want.
Last night at dinner, Simon had looked so darn cute with green beans on his face that she hadn’t been able to stop herself from giving in to the impulse to kiss him. Sure, it was just a quick peck on his cheek. But when he’d turned those dark brown eyes on her and she’d read the barely banked passion there, it had shaken her.
Not like she was some shy, retiring virgin or anything. She wasn’t. She’d had a boyfriend in college and another one just a year or so ago. But Simon was nothing like them. In retrospect, they had been boys and Simon was all man.
“Oh God, stop it,” she told herself. It wouldn’t do any good of course. She’d been indulging in not so idle daydreams centered on Simon Bradley for days now. When she was sleeping, her brain picked up on the subconscious thread and really went to town.
But a woman couldn’t be blamed for what she dreamed of when she slept, right?
“It’s ridiculous,” she said, tugging at her desk to move it into position beneath one of the many mullioned windows. A stray beam of rare January sunlight speared through the clouds and lay across her desktop. She didn’t take the time to admire it though, instead, she went back to getting the rest of her temporary office the way she wanted it.
She didn’t need much, really. Just her laptop, a drawing table where she could work on the illustrations for her books and a comfy chair where she could sit and think.
“Hmm. If you don’t need much stuff, Tula, why is there so much junk in here?” A question for the ages, she thought. She didn’t try to collect things. It just sort of…happened. And being here in the Victorian where everything had a tidy spot to belong to made her feel like a pack rat.
There were boxes and books and empty shelves waiting to be filled. There were loose manuscript pages and pens and paints and, oh, way too many things to try to organize.
“Settling in?”
She jumped about a foot and spun around, holding one hand to her chest as if trying to keep her heart where it belonged. He stood in the open doorway, a half smile on his handsome face as if he knew darn well that he’d scared about ten years off her life.
Giving Simon a pained glare, she snapped, “Wear a bell or something, okay? I about had a heart attack.”
“I do live here,” Simon reminded her.
“Yeah, I know.” As if she could forget. She’d lain awake in her bed half the night, imagining Simon in his bed just down the hall from her. She never should have kissed him. Never should have breached the tense, polite wall they’d erected between them at their first meeting.
Only that morning, they’d had breakfast together. The three of them sitting cozily in a kitchen three times the size of her own. She had watched Simon feeding a squirming baby oatmeal while dodging the occasional splat of rejected offerings and darned if he hadn’t looked…cute doing it.
She groaned inwardly and warned herself again to get a grip. This wasn’t about playing house with Simon.
He strolled into her office with a look of stunned amazement on his face. “How do you work in this confusion?”
She’d just been thinking basically the same thing, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. “An organized mind is a boring mind.”
One dark eyebrow lifted and she noticed he did that a lot when they were talking. Sardonic? Or just irritated?
“You paint, too?” he asked, nodding at the drawing table set up beneath one of the tall windows.
“Draw, really. Just sketches,” she said. “I do the illustrations for my books.”
“Impressive,” he said, moving closer for a better look.
Tula steeled herself against what he might say once he’d had a chance to really study her drawings. Her father had never given her a compliment, she thought. But in the end that hadn’t mattered, since she drew her pictures for the children who loved her books. Tula knew she had talent, but she had never fooled herself into believing that she was a great artist.
He thumbed through the sketch papers on the table and she knew what he was seeing. The sketches of Lonely Bunny and the animals who shared his world.
