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She’d been financially cut off in Boston and had opted for the only school that had offered her a partial scholarship and a tuition she could afford.
But she’d had difficulty fitting in among the informal Midwesterners who didn’t understand the stiff-upper-lip Bostonian. One month in, and Carolyn had yet to make any friends. As she’d crossed the campus, she’d felt the stares of the other students. Her step had caught on a bump in the sidewalk, the books began to fall—
And then Nick Gilbert came along.
He’d stood out in a sea of brown and navy like a neon sign. He’d rushed over, righted the books and done the most insane thing she could have imagined to set her at ease.
He’d made a quarter disappear.
But in that simple, unexpected magic trick, Nick had won her over and made everything Carolyn had to face seem so much less daunting.
“So, what’ll it be?” Nick asked. “Tough it out on our own in the wilds of the toy department or join forces?”
Carolyn met Nick’s gaze and smiled, caught up in the old magic once again. “All right, I’ll shop with you, but only because you are so clearly hopeless at this.”
“Oh, I see, take pity on the man. Is that it?”
A bubble of laughter escaped her, filling Carolyn with a lightness she hadn’t felt in weeks, months. How she craved that feeling, yet at the same time, felt the urge to flee. “Don’t you need pity, Mr. Burp-or-Cry?”
“Oh, I need more than that, Carolyn.”
The way he said her name, with that husky, all-male tone, the kind that spoke of dark nights, tangled sheets, hot memories, sent a thrill running through Carolyn, sparked images she’d thought she’d forgotten. But, oh no, she hadn’t forgotten at all. She’d merely pushed those pictures to the side, her mind waiting—waiting for a moment like this to bring them to the forefront, like an engine that had idled all this time.
How she wished she were in a courtroom instead of a toy store. That was the world she knew, could predict. But Nick Gilbert was about as predictable as a tiger in a butcher shop.
This was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
“Playing house,” Carolyn said, popping into action. “That’s what we need.”
Nick arched a brow. “You and me? Play house? I thought we already tried that and it didn’t work so well.”
“Not us. For…” Her mind went blank. Looking at Nick, thinking of playing house…oh, why had she thought she could do this? Just being here was a mistake. But she’d already made the deal and couldn’t renegotiate. Not with a lawyer and especially not with this one. “I meant for the child you’re sponsoring. Little girls, they like to play house. Pretend to go to the grocery store, set the table, all that.”
“But not you, right, Carolyn? Or did you ever have a moment when you did play house? When you imagined being a Mrs. for longer than a few days?”
“Me?” She snorted. “You know that is so not me. I don’t think I have a domestic bone in my body.”
“We still have that in common,” Nick said. “I’ve yet to become domesticated myself, though I am housebroken.” He grinned. “What about you? How have things been for you over the last three years?”
Carolyn reached for the nearest toy on the shelf. “How about this broom set for Angela?”
“I recognize this avoidance tactic. Divert attention from the personal and get back to work, right?”
“Nick, if you’re not going to take this seriously—”
“Oh, I’m serious, Carolyn.” He straightened, his demeanor slightly chilled. “As serious as you are.”
Then he started pushing the cart, heading down the aisle toward the faux food and make-believe vacuum cleaners. Now also all business and no play. Not anymore.
Carolyn wasn’t the least bit disappointed. Not the least.
“How about this for Angela?” Nick held up a pretend cooking set, plastic frying pans, spatulas, bright yellow faux eggs and floppy bacon. Little cardboard boxes of cereal marched up the side of the package, with cheery pretend names like Cocoa Crunchies and Corn Flakies.
“Perfect,” Carolyn said, coming up beside Nick and holding the other side of the package. Only a few inches separated them. When she inhaled, she caught the scent of his cologne again. She could sense the heat from his body, read the strength in his hands. She focused instead on the bright happy packaging, on the images of children sitting around a plastic table, pretending they were dining at a five-star mock-up restaurant. “When I was a little girl, they didn’t make toys like this. I was always taking the real thing out of the kitchen and if I didn’t have any friends over, I made my poor dad sit down for pretend meals. Oh, how I made that man suffer through tea parties with me and my bears.”
Nick chuckled softly. “My sisters used to try to do the same thing to me and my brothers but we were too fast. We’d steal the cookies and run like hell for the yard. Linda, Marla and Elise still think Daniel and I are the spawn of the devil because we ruined their plans to recreate the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.”
Carolyn laughed. “I never did get a chance to meet your family. I wish I had. They sound so fun.”
“They would have liked you.”
The words hung between them. They’d been married too short a time for meeting families—not that there’d been anyone on Carolyn’s side to meet. Anyone who would have cared about meeting Nick, anyway.
Had Nick told his family about her? Had he told his sisters about the woman who had stolen his heart, then broken it, all in the space of a month?
Carolyn shoved the thoughts away. She’d had good reasons, reasons Nick had refused to see at the time, refused to listen. He’d fought her, tooth and nail, telling her it could wait, that they’d just gotten married—stay awhile, don’t go, not yet—and not understanding at all that she’d had to go—
Had to get on that plane. She couldn’t sit in Indiana, acting the part of the happy wife, while the man who had killed her father went on another rampage. By the time she came home, the divorce was final. Nick had done the filing, taking care of the details, cleaning up the mess.
It was all for the best, she told herself again
“Let’s get the rest of Angela’s gifts,” Carolyn said, returning to business. Nick seemed relieved to do the same, and they made quick work of filling the cart with toys for the little girl.
“My turn to help you,” Nick said a little while later. “And for your information, little boys don’t want to play house, so let’s pick a different aisle.”
Work again. Concentrate on the project. Not the man.
Carolyn led the way as they headed over to the aisle of trucks and cars. Nick directed her toward the larger, more indestructible options. “This is what Bobby wants.” Nick hoisted up a red plastic truck large enough to transport a puppy.
“How do you know for sure? There’s this one, and that one, and the one down there.” Carolyn gestured all over the aisle, as confused as she had been an hour ago.
“I know because I was once a little boy. And I had one of these, except mine sported the less-knee-and-elbow-friendly metal finish.” Nick turned the box over in his hands, lost in a memory. “I had a lot of fun with that truck. I remember the Christmas I got it. I was five. Daniel was three. He came charging at me, wanting to play with the truck. Cut his chin open on the coffee table and he ended up in the emergency room on Christmas day, getting stitches.”
“Oh, my goodness. That must have been awful.”
Nick shook his head. “My mother is a saint. She could raise all five of us and run a household blindfolded. She shot off directions to my dad and the rest of us for how to put together Christmas dinner, loaded Daniel in the car and drove to the hospital, calm as a summer breeze. We, of course, butchered dinner without her there.” Nick laughed. “But when she came back, with Daniel all stitched up, she somehow made it all right and saved Christmas.”
Carolyn spun the loose plastic covering on the shopping handle. She thought of how her aunt Greta would have reacted to such an event. For one, it wouldn’t have happened because there’d been no big happy family around the Christmas tree. No turkey to stuff. No hectic gathering. But if there had been, Greta simply wouldn’t have allowed chaos to disrupt her house. In Aunt Greta’s house, chaos never, ever visited. It didn’t even walk down the sidewalk. And secondly, children didn’t take chances. They didn’t run. They didn’t ride their bikes down the sidewalk. They didn’t do anything death defying. “Your family sounds like something out of a novel.”
Nick smiled, then put the toy truck into the shopping cart. “Sometimes I think it was.” Nick paused midstep, then met her gaze, and for a fleeting second she wondered if he was reading her mind. “Carolyn—”
“Let’s get this shopping done. I need to get home. I have a ton of work waiting for me.” Carolyn started down the aisle, cutting off Nick and the attraction she read in his gaze.
Then the look disappeared, gone in a simple blink.
“Yeah, good idea. We should concentrate on the shopping,” Nick said, joining her by the race cars. “I have work waiting for me, too.”
Carolyn gave him a sidelong glance but couldn’t read anything in Nick’s face. Maybe she had read Nick wrong. Or maybe he had changed, maybe he wasn’t the man she remembered.
They finished the shopping trip, agreeing on their purchases easily. Before long, they’d found several hundred dollars worth of toys, much more than they’d expected to find or spend. The shopping spree had been fun, almost like—
Like when they’d gotten married. Never before had Carolyn gone without a plan, running by the seat of her pants, working purely on desire.
She hadn’t been thinking that week, simply doing. And for a moment she’d thought she could do it all. Be a wife, and maybe…down the road…a mother.
What if today’s toy buying hadn’t been a charity mission? What if they’d been shopping for their own child?
Where would they be now? Living in a three-bedroom house in some subdivision in Lawford, kissing each other goodbye over a cup of coffee every morning? Or would they have ended up exactly where they were—divorced, scarcely cordial colleagues? Nick still acting a lot like a college frat boy, Carolyn still the stiff Bostonian?
“Those kids are going to need a truck to haul all this home,” Nick said, interrupting her thoughts.
Carolyn smiled. “I think I saw some of those in aisle three.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Nick said, and in his eyes, she read more than just the desire to buy a ride-on toy.
There was a lingering desire for her. Still burning in his gaze. Emanating from his skin, his nearness. And who was she kidding? She still felt it, too.
But the past was over. And for a good reason.
They’d made a big mistake once. Only an idiot did that twice.
“Well, I guess that’s it. I, ah, can run over to the department store and pick up some clothes and sheets, if you want to take care of this stuff,” Carolyn said, digging into her purse for money and then handing him half the cost of their purchases. Nick had agreed, since he had the bigger vehicle, to transport the toys to the picnic while she brought the other items. “See you tomorrow?” She tried to keep her tone as professional as it would be with a client.
As she turned to go, Nick took a step toward her, bringing them within inches of each other. Heat tingled down her spine, igniting a fire that had been dormant for a long, long time. For a second, she wondered if he were about to kiss her. Some crazy part of her wanted him to do just that. The same crazy side that had acted without thinking back in college.
Okay, probably not the best part of her brain to listen to.
“Carolyn,” Nick said quietly.
“What?” The word escaped her in a breath.
“Don’t go. Not yet. Grab a drink with me. Catch up on old times.”
Oh, how easy it would be to let herself get caught up in him again. But no, she was older. Smarter now.
“Why, Nick? What’s changed, really? You never really got serious about us. And I was always going to put my career first. Never the twain shall meet, isn’t that what Shakespeare said?”
“There was more to our breakup than just that, Carolyn. Much more,” he said, his eyes still on hers, his mouth inches away.
Despite her words, for a second she wanted very much for the twain to meet. For this pounding need to be quieted.
The rational half of her said this was desire, nothing more. At the same time, the feeling unnerved her, toppled her off her carefully planned and organized pedestal. She had no room in her days for a man like him—a man who would distract her, turn her from the very work that fulfilled her sense of self.
She hadn’t the time then, she still didn’t have it now. Sharing a drink with him wouldn’t solve that dilemma.
“You’re right,” Carolyn said. “And all those reasons are still there, Nick.”
The temperature in the aisle dropped a few degrees. “As always, you make a compelling case, Counselor. Well, tomorrow then.” He turned to go, heading for the cash register.
As she watched him disappear, Carolyn told herself she was glad she’d turned down Nick’s invitation. Because Nick Gilbert was a much-too-appetizing bowl of chocolate and cherry ice cream, and Carolyn was definitely feeling lactose intolerant.
CHAPTER THREE
NICK stood in the kitchen of his three-bedroom house and wrestled with the iron, cursing whoever had invented the damned thing. “Remind me again why I’m going to this shindig.”
“Because you’re a guy who cares about kids,” said his brother, Daniel, who was making his regular visit to Nick’s house. He’d already raided the fridge, complained about the dearth of acceptable meal choices, flipped through Nick’s DVD collection twice and taken two of the newer flicks, as if Nick’s house was Blockbuster. Nick didn’t complain. He liked the company, and tolerated his brother’s intrusions. Most of the time.
A writer, Daniel had the same dark brown hair and blue eyes as most of the Gilberts, but preferred a more relaxed approach to clothing, meaning anything fancier than jeans didn’t exist in his closet. “And you better,” Daniel added. “You grew up with four brothers and sisters.”
“I didn’t mean about the kids, I meant, why am I attending an event where Carolyn’s going to be?” Earlier, he’d told his brother about running into Carolyn at the toy store.
A coincidence? Or a second chance with the woman he had never really forgotten?
Nick cursed the iron again as the steam sent globs of water over his shirt. “What is it with these things?”
“Didn’t Mom teach you how to take care of yourself before she released you into the wild?” Daniel slid into place beside his brother. “Here, let me do it. For Pete’s sake, you’re making a mess of it.”
Nick stepped back, amazed that his younger brother could wrangle the machine into doing his will. In five minutes Daniel had the golf shirt pressed and ready to go. “How do you do that?”
“It’s called being a bachelor and being too poor to afford dry cleaning.” Daniel grinned and held out the shirt, then waited while Nick slipped it on. Then he unplugged the iron and set it on the ironing board to cool. “And I’m not distracted by thoughts of a woman right now.”
“I’m not distracted.”
Daniel arched a brow.
“Okay, maybe I am. A little.” Nick picked up his keys, slid them into his pocket, then faced his brother. “I thought I was over her. Over the whole damned thing. Then I see her last night at the toy store and—”
“It was Love Story all over again?” Daniel hummed a snippet of the movie’s famous theme song.
“Not at all. More a remake of our worst moments together.” But there had been one moment when he’d remembered why he’d been attracted to her. Why he’d married her. They’d had fun—for a few minutes—and then Carolyn had gone back to being the stuffy city prosecutor, the woman who was about as much fun as a bag of rocks, and Nick was reminded all over again why they’d broken up.
Yet guilt pinged at him still. She hadn’t been the only one at fault, and he knew it. He hadn’t exactly been Joe Sensitive, nor had he been Husband of the Year.
“I’m just glad I got out of that marriage after a few days instead of a few years,” Nick said. “Carolyn was always too damned straight-laced for me. I want a woman who can have a good time, make me laugh, live a little. Not drive me absolutely insane. And when I think of Carolyn Duff, driving me crazy is the term that comes to mind.”
Daniel bent down to pat Bandit, Nick’s German short-haired pointer. The spotted dog wagged his tail with furious joy, nearly knocking over the scraggly ficus tree beside him. A shower of dry leaves littered the floor. “There were some good times, too, from what you’ve told me. Some very good times.”
An image of one particularly good memory—with the neon lights of Vegas shining on Carolyn’s peach skin while they made use of every surface in their suite at the Mirage—flashed in Nick’s mind. He saw her smile, heard her laughter, could almost smell the scent of her raspberry bubble bath.
“Okay, maybe one good memory. Or two.” Another one popped into his mind, followed quickly by a third, slamming with a sting like pellets into his chest. Nick shook his head. As good as those times had been, the end had been fast and unforeseen, like a sneak guerrilla attack that came and ripped him apart in the middle of the night.
Carolyn had been stubborn about leaving him in that diner, adamant about ending the marriage as fast as it began, claiming he hadn’t cared, he hadn’t been listening.
And back then he probably hadn’t. But she hadn’t given him much of a chance, either.
Just as well. They’d been totally unsuited for each other.
Since the day of the divorce, Nick and Caroline had become nothing more than strangers, albeit strangers who had once shared a bed. And yet last night he’d sensed a vulnerability in her, a chink in the Carolyn armor, that made the lawyer in him see a flicker of doubt in the witness’s case.
