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She made a sound of mock disgust. Connor threw back his head and laughed, and a moment later, to his astonishment, Victoria joined in.
He held out a hand to her. “Let’s go see the otters.”
To his surprise she reached for his hand, her fingers linking through his, the pushchair trailing in her other hand. Heat bolted through him and all laughter vanished as he looked at her—really looked at her—with a shaken sense of never having seen her before.
Then Dylan butted him, claiming his attention, and Connor came back to reality with a thump.
Later Victoria helped Connor lay a rug down on the freshly mown grass in front of an empty bandstand near a lake with ducks and swans. Connor rolled on his back, pulling Dylan onto his chest while Victoria knelt beside him and reached for the picnic basket they’d brought along.
It was all so domestic.
And most amazing of all, she and Connor hadn’t argued once.
He was holding Dylan above him on outstretched arms, making airplane noises. Laughter lines crinkled his cheeks. God, he was gorgeous.
An unwanted echo of that moment when their eyes had locked—of the scintillating awareness that had sizzled earlier—sent a frisson through her.
No.
She was not falling into that trap. Connor was her coguardian, not a prospective date. She daren’t start finding him attractive.
Looking away, she rummaged into the basket and pulled out a container of sandwiches that Moni had prepared.
The thud on her back took her breath away. Her eyes shot open in time to see a football rolling along the blanket and a pair of sneakers following in swift pursuit. Boyish hands scooped the ball up.
“Jordan, apologize at once!”
“Sorry.” A sheepish grin appeared from beneath a baseball cap. “Won’t do it again.” A singsong note of overuse under-lay the words.
Her breath back, Victoria suppressed the urge to call him a name—or worse, grin at him and condone the carelessness. “Perhaps kick the ball the other way.”
Connor sat up beside her, perching Dylan on his knee, and gave the boy a level stare.
“No, I’ve already told Jordan that he’s not to lose a fifty-dollar ball in the tiger’s cage.” A harried-looking woman with red hair standing up in spikes had appeared. “You have to be more careful, boy.”
But Jordan was already gone, zigzagging over the lawn, dribbling the ball ahead of him.
“Kids.” The woman rolled her eyes. Then she added, “At least yours is still harmless. Enjoy him while you can. It gets worse.”
Victoria started to correct the redhead, to tell her that Dylan wasn’t their baby. Then she stopped herself. It was just too hard to explain.
So she smiled instead. “We will.”
“Your baby’s very cute.”
Dylan gurgled and blew a raspberry on cue.
“Thanks.”
Jordan’s mother shifted her attention to Connor. “He’s going to have his mother’s goldy-brown eyes and his father’s dimples.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Connor said politely.
Victoria could’ve kissed him for silently standing by her decision to say as little as possible.
Victoria had laughed with Suzy in the past when complete strangers had told short, blonde, bubbly Suzy how much the newborn Dylan looked like her—not realizing he didn’t possess any of Suzy’s DNA. Now the memory made her ache with loneliness.
“I’d better find Jordan before he wrecks the place.” The redhead scanned the surroundings until she found her son. “Or lands in the pond with the goldfish!” She gave them a rueful smile. “I made the mistake of having only one—so when he doesn’t have a friend, guess who has to play with him?” She thrust a thumb at her chest. “Me. Don’t do what I did. Make sure you have another kid to keep yours company.”
Victoria fidgeted, uncomfortably hot at the too-tempting idea of creating a baby with Connor. Thankfully, Jordan’s mother didn’t seem to expect a reply; she simply wiggled her fingers at Dylan before vanishing in Jordan’s wake.
After what seemed an age Victoria couldn’t bear the tingling silence any longer. Unable to help herself, she turned her head. And instantly wished she’d resisted the lure.
Connor was staring at her with predatory speculation, and the normally cool eyes simmered with heat.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Victoria pulled herself together. It was up to her to defuse this sexual tension, and as rapidly as possible.
She chose to do so with humor. “Poor Jordan. What on earth is his mother going to tell his girlfriends one day?”
Connor flung his head back and laughed. And the strange, heavy ache below her heart expanded, filling her with a yearning she’d never expected.
