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“Then why were you talking about dog biscuits?”
“Well…” He laughed again, thinking about Harper’s sister. She was a real piece of work. Funny. And beautiful. He liked the sharp edge on her, the bite in her voice, her determined energy. And when she pouted with those full lips, yeah, he got so hard he had to shift in his seat. Probably a good thing she turned down the nanny job. Having her in his house might be rough. He needed to find an older lady like Mrs. Doran who’d been great with Ciara the last few years.
“If you are going keep laughing it is rude to not tell me what is so funny,” his daughter informed him in her adult-speak voice.
“Sorry, sweetheart. You remember meeting that nice man named Harper when we went for lunch at the place called The Blue Albatross?”
“Uh-huh. And Uncle Phil. He was funny.”
“Well, Harper thought his sister might be a good nanny for you and decided she and I should come to his house today to meet each other. His sister doesn’t like where she is living now and had been talking about getting a dog to make her feel safe at night. When her brother said he wanted her to come over and meet Morgan, she thought her brother had gotten her a dog named Morgan and that was who she was going to meet. So she brought me a bag of dog biscuits.”
Ciara burst out laughing and so did Morgan. He handed her the colorful gift bag that was still on the front passenger seat. Why he took it, he was not sure, but Harper had teased him about it and told him not to forget his gift when he left.
“Ooh, that is pretty! What is her name, Daddy?”
“Who?”
“Harper’s sister,” Ciara said. “I like her already if she would bring such a special gift for her new doggie.”
“Her name is Blake.”
“What a cool name. Is she pretty and smart and nice?”
Despite their ill-fated meeting, he could see Blake was all of those things. “Yes.”
“Yay! I bet she’ll be a lot of fun and fit right in with us.”
Morgan’s heart sank. How could he not see where Ciara was headed with her questions? Or what his story about meeting Blake implied. He glanced back at his precious daughter, so hopeful and elated, and he could not bear to tell her that Blake had turned him down. He would wait until he found someone else and then think of a way to say he preferred that person for some reason.
The saddest part—Ciara was probably right. Everything Harper had told him about his sister fit Ciara perfectly. And even in her pissed off state, Blake was bright and amusing and still made the effort to wish him well on finding someone else.
The only problem he could see was his attraction to her. But after his years in the Army and his bodyguard work and his martial arts training, Morgan had developed the discipline to school his thoughts and actions.
“Will she come meet me tomorrow, Daddy? When is she moving in with us?”
“No, not tomorrow,” he said, trying to keep his tone positive. “I took the rest of the week off to give the two of us time to settle into our house. So, you won’t need her yet because I’ll be at home with you. We have a lot to do and decisions to make about things like hanging pictures and figuring out where we want stuff to go in our kitchen. That will be fun with just the two of us, right?”
“I guess. But I can’t wait to meet Blake!”
Something that was not going to happen.
Or maybe he should give it one more try.
3
After making a fool of herself at her brother’s house in front of the hottest male she’d seen in years, Blake decided to go get a dog at the shelter. She had passed the North Cove Animal Hospital and Shelter several times on her way to and from Harper and Marni’s place. Today, on her way back to the cottage, she pulled into the lot of the animal hospital and went in.
A young woman greeted her and went through a long explanation of their policies before leading her around a corner to the shelter area where she saw a row of cages. Based on the shelter worker’s lengthy speech, Blake assumed these animals got the best of care. Still, at the sight of these abandoned and needy creatures, something burst inside Blake and suddenly she was bawling her eyes out. So much so, that she could tell the shelter worker was in a slight panic as to how to handle her.
“I’m sorry,” Blake mumbled through her tears. “I can’t do this today.” Then she hurried for the front door and out to her car.
Needing to get a grip on herself, she drove to Bailie’s Beach, parked, and got out to walk along the water. She tried to calm her thoughts about what a hapless creature she was, a failure on so many levels, as she gazed out at the horizon, taking in the early autumn sun and listening to the sounds of birds and the crunch of her sneakers on the sand.
What had set her off was the painful reminder of her secret—the secret Kendall, her ex, had dubbed her “inadequacy as a woman” and discarded her for it. The bastard. What hurt the most about his cruel summation of her failure to get pregnant was that she had grown up with two sisters and a brother and had always imagined herself mothering the same kind of boisterous brood of her own. And these days she found herself longing for it.
Blake had planned on seeing a specialist when she relocated to New York after her divorce, but not wanting to revisit that painful period in her life or have to face up to a doctor giving her a more conclusive verdict as to why she could not conceive after months and months of trying, she kept avoiding it.
Yeah, a coward.
