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To Candace’s horror, Nick started to slide along the grassy bank down to the water, Jennie still clasped in his arms. He landed with a dull splash, feetfirst in knee-deep water.
The baby didn’t even squeak. Instead, Jennie was hanging over his arm, reaching for the surface of the lake.
Nick was laughing. “None of that,” he said as Jennie flapped her arms furiously, frantically trying to free herself from his grasp. “No swimming today.”
Candace didn’t think it was the least bit funny.
Yet looking down at Nick, water rippling around his suit pants, his Italian shoes totally submerged beneath the lake’s reflective surface, she felt a stab of totally inappropriate desire. Jennie had almost landed in the lake, and she was lusting after Nick Valentine?
What was wrong with her?
“That was close!” she said, as her breathing slowed.
Nick chucked the little imp under her chin and Jennie gave him a toothless smile.
“She’s fine.”
She forgot that he’d swept the baby to safety. Anxiety and lust coalesced into anger. “It’s not funny—she could’ve fallen in.”
His smile faded. In a blink he was back to the distant, narrow-eyed businessman. “I wouldn’t have you drop her.”
She suppressed the flare of resentment at his suggestion that she’d almost dropped Jennie, when he’d been the one to take the baby out of the stroller in the first place. “You might not have been able to stop it.”
“I would’ve done everything in my power.”
Nick placed one foot on the bank, Jennie still squirming in his hold. “Hey, stop it, miss. You will end up going swimming if you carry on like that!”
“Nick!”
At her warning shriek, Nick glanced up.
“Look out!” Candace was almost incoherent with apprehension. “The geese.”
He jerked his head around as Jennie’s fingers jabbed in the direction of a goose who’d silently paddled up behind them. He swung the baby away, but it was too late. Jennie’s wail rent the air.
Rushing to the water’s edge, Candace blocked his way as Nick clambered back onto the bank.
Jennie was screaming, her face cherry-red with protest, her hand limp.
Candace reached for the pecked fingers. “Let me see!” Her head bent over Jennie’s reddened finger. “Ouch.”
“The skin’s not broken.”
His words set a torch to her already frayed emotions. “Don’t be so callous!” Nick started to object, but she overrode him. “It’s going to need cleaning. Heaven knows what might’ve been in that bird’s beak.”
“The café has a bathroom where you can clean it up, and I’ve got a first-aid kit with some antiseptic in the trunk of my car.”
Candace glared at him. “I’ve got a rudimentary first-aid kit in the stroller—enough to deal with this.” She drew a shuddering breath, stunned at how quickly everything had happened—and at the extent of her fear. “Jennie should not have been taken out of the stroller.”
Nick stared at Candace in disbelief. “Now it’s my fault? She wanted to get out.”
“She could see perfectly well from where she was.”
“You’re overreacting,” he said tersely.
A fresh wave of anger flooded her. “She got hurt because of you.”
“Oh, please. That kind of thing is a normal part of growing up. It happens.” He was studying her in a way that made her grow tense. “You’re shaken up. I’ll take Jennie and clean her up.”
What was he getting at? Was he implying she was too emotional to do her job, to look after Jennie? “I’ll do it! You can bring the stroller and the first-aid kit.”
To Candace’s distress, Jennie’s wails grew louder as they stormed along the winding pathway up the rise to the café. The little body huddled against her was rigid with outrage.
As he waited for Candace to return from tending to Jennie’s pecked finger, Nick couldn’t stop thinking about Jennie’s puckered-up little face glaring at him accusingly over Candace’s shoulder as she’d been borne away.
Candace was right.
Jennie had been hurt.
And he could’ve—should’ve—avoided it.
Sometime in the past twenty-four hours he’d connected with Jennie. Nick silently promised himself that in the future he was going to make sure he spent more time with the baby so innocent of the treachery surrounding her conception. And, as little as he wanted to admit it right now, he had Candace to thank for opening his eyes to the fact that his life—what was important in it—was getting away from him.
