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Heat shot straight into his groin on cue. Heat and something far more volatile—which felt annoyingly like yearning.
Damn.
Why couldn’t his feelings be as simple and straightforward as they should be where this woman was concerned?
‘Brandon?’ she whispered. ‘Hi. We weren’t expecting you.’
He frowned, realising maybe he should have mentioned his planned visit to prepare the child for his arrival. Then he inwardly cursed himself. This was precisely why he was nervous. He had no clue what he was doing.
But, before he could figure out what to say, she swung the door wider to welcome him into the room.
‘Why don’t you join Ruby and I for breakfast?’ she said, the smile on her lips somewhat contradicted by the mottled flush on her collar bone, visible where the worn camisole drooped.
‘Okay, sure,’ he said, but then wondered how Lacey would introduce him. He didn’t want her to break the news to Ruby that he was her father yet. It was too soon—she needed to get to know him first. The last thing he wished to do was frighten her, the way his own father had so often frightened him.
Perhaps you should have mentioned all that to her last night, before kissing her senseless.
But, as he stepped into the room, Lacey solved the problem. ‘Ruby, you remember Brandon?’ she said. ‘He carried you to the car yesterday. He’s going to have breakfast with us.’
A little of his panic retreated until he spotted the child—his daughter—dressed in pyjamas decorated with multi-coloured dinosaurs, sitting at the breakfast table in the far corner of the room. And the same thought he had had yesterday when she’d clung to him so readily blindsided him again.
She’s so small. How can she be so perfect and yet so tiny?
He cleared his throat as he stood suspended in the room. ‘Hello, Ruby,’ he managed.
She looked at him inquisitively. ‘Hello, Mr Brandon,’ she said.
The ‘Mr’ made him wince, reminding him of his father, who had always insisted he call him ‘sir’. ‘You can call me Brandon,’ he said. ‘If you prefer.’
‘Okay,’ she said, looking nonplussed. He knew how she felt. Could this get any more awkward? How on earth did you talk to a four-year-old?
But then he recalled what his groundskeeper had mentioned that morning when he’d gone for his morning run. He knew nothing about children, but he remembered what it was like to be a child himself. And he wasn’t above bribing his way into his daughter’s affection if need be.
‘I thought we could go to the groundskeeper’s cottage this morning. His dog, Maisey, had some puppies two months ago and they are looking for homes for them.’ He glanced at Lacey, who was watching him with a soft light in her eyes, which would have been unsettling if he hadn’t already gone right past awkward to extremely uncomfortable. ‘If your mother agrees, I thought perhaps you might like one,’ he added.
‘A puppy!’ The little girl gasped, her whole face lighting up as if stars had exploded behind her eyes. ‘Really? Can I have a puppy, Mummy? Can I?’ she asked Lacey, her small voice rising and her whole body bouncing with so much excitement, Brandon became momentarily concerned she might actually burst.
‘Yes, of course, I think that would be a wonderful idea,’ Lacey said.
Before she finished talking, the little girl leapt off her chair and shot towards Brandon as if she had been fired from a gun.
He barely had a chance to brace before she barrelled into him and wrapped chubby arms around his knees.
She tipped her head back to beam at him. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr Brandon,’ she said, having forgotten his suggestion about dropping the Mr already. But somehow it didn’t seem to matter, as her green eyes sparkled with happiness, the dimple in her cheek winking at him in delight.
He stared down at her, with absolutely no idea what to say or do, his heart hitting his chest wall in painful thuds, the protective instinct wrapping round his heart like a lasso at the thought of how vulnerable she was, how innocent and guileless.
Could it really be this easy to win her trust?
‘Can we go now? Can we, please?’ she asked.
It occurred to him how much he had to learn as he opened his mouth to say yes—ready to give her whatever she wanted—but Lacey interrupted them gently.
‘We need to finish our breakfast first, Rubes. And then you need to get dressed. You can’t pick a puppy in your pyjamas, now, can you?’
The child giggled, still delighted. ‘No, I can’t. I don’t want my puppy to think I’m silly.’
Instead of being intimidated, or even phased by his obvious inexperience with children, she let go of his legs and held her small hand up to him. He took it instinctively. As her soft fingers tightened on his, miraculously the clawing panic began to loosen its grip on his throat.
