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Just a reminder of how she was soft and he was hard, a reason this was never going anywhere, except him standing on the stairs seeing her off as she drove away.
“Nothing personal,” he said. “It just wasn’t my idea for you to come. I don’t need you.”
Having done quite enough damage—he really should not be allowed around these sensitive types—Kiernan turned from her and flicked a switch so that the flames within the fireplace licked to life.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said proudly. “I don’t care to have it on.”
See? In very short time his abrasive self was managing to hurt her. Not making any effort to hide his impatience, Kiernan flicked the fire back off and gestured at an upholstered chaise.
Once she was settled, he came back, towered over her and studied the top of her head. “I’m just going to clean it first. We’ll see what we’ve got. Ironic, isn’t it, that I’m rescuing you?”
“In what way?” she stammered.
“You’re supposed to be rescuing me.”
* * *
Stacy studied Kiernan and realized his tone was deeply sardonic. Despite the glimpses of shadows she had detected in his eyes, she was not sure she had ever seen a man who looked less like he would appreciate rescuing than Kiernan McAllister!
He was bigger in real life than photos had prepared her for, the breadth of his shoulders blocking out the view of the fireplace!
The bathroom was huge, but with him leaning over her, his real-life stature left her feeling shocked. Even though Kiernan McAllister had graced the covers of zillions of magazines, including, eight times, the one she no longer worked for, nothing could have prepared her for him in this kind of proximity.
Pictures, of course, did not have a scent clinging to them. His filled her nostrils: it was as if he had come, not from a hot tub, but from the forest around this amazing house. McAllister smelled richly of pine, as if he had absorbed the essence of the snow-laden trees through his pores!
He was considered not only Vancouver’s most successful businessman, but also its most eligible bachelor, and here in the bathroom with him, his scent filling her senses, his hands gentle on her injured head, it was easy to see why!
In each of those photos that Stacy had seen of him, McAllister was breathtakingly handsome and sure of himself. Behind that engaging smile, he had oozed the confidence and self-assurance of the very successful and very wealthy. His grooming had always been perfect: smooth shaven, every dark hair in place, his custom-made clothing hinting at but not showing a perfect male body.
In those pictures, he looked like a man who could handle anything the world tossed at him, smile and toss it right back.
And that’s what he had a track record for doing. From daring real estate deals to providing start-up funds for fledgling companies that no one else would take a risk on, McAllister had developed a reputation as being tough, fair and savvy. In the business world, his instincts were considered brilliant.
Not to mention that, with his amazing looks, McAllister was that most eligible bachelor that every unmarried woman dreamed—secretly or openly—of landing.
And McAllister had availed himself to every perk his considerable fortune allowed him. He had squired some of the most beautiful and famous women in the world on that arm that Stacy had just touched.
But, despite having it all, he seemed driven to more, and he had as casually sought danger as some men would sample a fine wine.
And it was that penchant for the adrenaline rush that had led from that McAllister to this one.
Being able to watch him while he tended her head, she could see his silver-gray eyes were mesmerizing and yet different in some fundamental way from how he appeared in pictures.
Her mind grappled to figure out what that difference was, but the distraction of his near nakedness, the luxury of the bathroom and his hands on her head were proving formidable.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.”
She deliberately looked at the floor instead of up into his face to break the trance she was in. Instead, it felt oddly intimate and totally inappropriate that Stacy could see the naked length of his lower legs. His feet were totally bare.
And, she thought, entirely sexy.
But she didn’t find feet sexy. Did she?
Since his feet provided no more reprieve from the terrible war of sensation going on within her, Stacy dragged her gaze away from his toes and back up the length of him. Despite his disheveled appearance—his hair, always perfectly groomed for magazine shoots, was sticking up in a cowlick at the back of his head, and his cheeks and the jut of that formidable chin were shadowed in dark whiskers—when Stacy looked into his face, she had to swallow a gulp of pure intimidation.
Kiernan McAllister radiated a kind of power that could not be tarnished by arriving at the scene of an accident, dripping wet and with a towel around his waist. Even though her job at Icons of Business had entailed interviewing dozens of very successful businesspeople, Stacy was not sure she had ever encountered such a prime example of pure of presence before.
McAllister’s wet hair, the color of just-brewed coffee, was curling at the tips. The stubble on his face accentuated the hard, masculine lines of his features.
The out-of-the-storm look of his hair and being unshaven gave him a distinctly roguish look, and despite his state of undress, he could have been a pirate relishing his next conquest, like a highwayman about to draw his sword.
His eyes were a shade of silver that added to her sense that he could be dangerous in the most tantalizing of ways.
In the pictures she had seen of him, his eyes had intrigued, a faint light at the back of them that she had interpreted as mischievous, as if all his incredible successes in the business world were nothing more than a big game and it was a game that he was winning.
But, of course, that was before the accident where his brother-in-law had been killed.
There was the difference. Now McAllister’s eyes had something in them as shattered as glass, cool, a barrier that he did not want penetrated.
By someone looking for a story. In that moment, Stacy knew Caroline had not set up anything for her. And she also knew, without asking, he would turn her down flat if she requested an interview.
He stepped back from her, regarded his handiwork on her head. “I think we’re done here,” he said, evidently pleased with his first-aid skills.
He once again offered his hand. She took it and he pulled her from the chair. She relished the feeling of his hand, but he let her go as soon as she was standing. She faced herself in the mirror. It was much worse than she thought.
The top of her hair was almost completely covered with a tightly taped down piece of gauze.
Now she really did look and feel like the poster child for Murphy’s Law. Everything that could go wrong, had. Who wanted to look like this in the presence of such a devastatingly attractive man?
Even if he was sardonic. And didn’t believe in Christmas. Or love.
“That’s going to be murder to get off,” she said, when she saw he had caught her dismayed expression.
“Isn’t it?” he said, apparently pleased that his handiwork was going to be so hard to remove.
She sighed. It was definitely time to set him straight about who she really was and what she wanted. She took a deep breath.
The phone that he had set on the counter began to ring.
Only it was the oddest ring she had ever heard. It sounded exactly like a baby squawking! There was no way a man like McAllister picked a ringtone like that!
In a split second, Kiernan McAllister went from looking relaxed and at ease with himself to a warrior ready to do battle! Stacy watched his face grow cold, remote, underscoring that sense of a solider being ready for whatever came next.
“What on earth?” she whispered, taking in his stance and his hardened facial features. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s time,” he said, his tone terse. “He’s awake.”
“Who’s awake?”
McAllister said nothing, his gaze on the phone, his brow furrowed in consternation. If he were a general, she had the feeling he would be checking his weapons, strapping on his armor, calling out his instructions to his soldiers.
“That isn’t a cell phone, is it?” Stacy asked slowly. McAllister was staring at it as if he was a tourist in some exotic place who had discovered a snake under his bed.
The squawking sound escalated, and McAllister took a deep breath, squared his shoulders.
“A phone?” he asked, his voice impatient. “What kind of person has a phone in the hot tub?”
In her career she had met dozens of men who she did not doubt took their phones everywhere with them, including into their hot tubs! Now, she could see clearly he would not be one of them.
“Cell phones don’t work up here. The mountains block the signal. I think it’s part of what I like about the place.” He frowned as if realizing he had told her something about himself he didn’t want to.
That he needed a break from the demands of his business. He was no doubt the kind of driven individual who would see some kind of failure in that.
But before she could contemplate that too long, the phone made that squawking sound again, louder.
“What is it then, if it’s not your phone?”
“It’s the monitor,” he said.
“The monitor,” she repeated.
“The baby monitor,” he said, as if she had not already guessed it.
She stared at it with him, listened to the squawking noises emitting from it. The monitor was small and state-of-the-art, it looked almost exactly like a cell phone.
But if was definitely a monitor, and there was definitely a baby on the other end of it!
CHAPTER FOUR
BABY?
Stacy prided herself on the fact that she had arrived prepared! She knew everything there was to know about Kiernan McAllister.
And he did not have a baby!
McAllister folded his arms across the breadth of his naked chest and raised that dark slash of an eyebrow at her. “I told you, you were rescuing me, not the other way around.”
“Excuse me?” Stacy said, dazed by this turn of events.
“Your turn to ride to the rescue, though I must say, you haven’t exactly inspired confidence so far.” He reached out and turned down the volume on the monitor, inspecting her anew, like a general might inspect a newly enlisted person before sending them into battle.
His voice was hard-edged, and faintly amused as he regarded her, and she was struck again that, despite his words, he was the man least likely to need a rescue of any sort. Even if he did need one, he would never ask for it!
“I’m riding to your rescue?” Stacy asked, just to clarify.
It was a good thing he seemed to be being sarcastic, because it would be terrible to break it to him that she was the least likely person to count on for a rescue, her own life being ample evidence of that.
“Just like the cavalry,” he said, and cocked his head at her blank expression. “I’m stranded. The fort is under full attack. I have no bullets left. And in rides the cavalry.”
“Me?” she squeaked. “I’m the cavalry?”
He eyed her with doubt that appeared to mirror her own, then sighed again. “You are the nanny Adele insisted on sending, aren’t you?”
The nanny!
Stacy realized Caroline had not called and set something up for her. Far from it! A nanny. Kiernan McAllister was expecting a nanny! That’s who he would have sent a car through the snowy day for!
Fortunately, Stacy was saved from having to answer because he turned and held open the door of the bathroom for her.
“That way,” he said. “To the guest room. You can help me temporarily, until I get your car looked after.”
In a daze, she turned left and went down the hall ahead of McAllister.
His voice followed her, his tone mulling. “I thought he would sleep longer. He has barely slept since he got here. Who would have thought that one small baby could be so demanding? He doesn’t sleep. And he doesn’t want to eat. You know what he does?”
Again, he didn’t wait for an answer.
“He cries.” His voice was lowered, and she thought she detected the slightest admission he might be in over his head. “Not that I couldn’t handle it. But, if my sister thinks I need saving, who am I to argue?”
Stacy swallowed hard. What was it about the thought of saving a man like him that made her go almost weak with wanting? But, despite what his sister thought, the look on his face made it very apparent he did not agree!
That was the old her that would have liked him to need her, Stacy reminded herself sternly. The old her: naive and romantic, believing in the power of love and hoping for a family gathered in a big room around a Christmas tree.
Obviously, McAllister did not need saving. She had rarely seen a man so self-assured! What man could stand outside dripping wet and barely clothed and act as if nothing was out of the ordinary?
Still, there was that look in his eyes...defiant, daring her to see need in him! Foolishly it made her want to turn toward him, run her hand over the coarse stubble of that jaw and assure him that, yes, she was there to rescue him and that everything would be all right.
Instead, she kept moving forward until she came to an open door and peered inside. There was a playpen set up in the room, and in it was a nest of messy blankets and stuffed toys.
Holding himself up on the bumper, howling with indignation and jumping up and down, was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen. He looked like he was a little over a year, chubby, dark hair every which way, completely adorable in pale blue sleepers that had the snaps done up crooked.
Was he McAllister’s baby? While a secret baby would have been the story of the century, her thoughts drifted way too quickly from story potential to far more treacherous territory.
What on earth was Kiernan McAllister doing with a baby when that was what she had always wanted?
It caught her off guard and left her reeling even more than spinning her car into his front garden had!
We want such different things, her ex-boyfriend, Dylan, had said with a sad shake of his head, dismissing her dreams of reclaiming a traditional life like the one she had grown up in as a life sentence of dullness.
Their last night together, the extravagant dinner had made Stacey think he was going to offer her an engagement ring.
Instead, she had been devastated by his invitation to move in with him!
Really, his defection had been the last straw in a life where love had ripped her wide open once too often. To add to the sting of it all, they had worked in the same office, he her direct superior, and she had been let go after their breakup, which she—and everyone else at the office—knew was entirely unfair.
Still, in the wake of her life disasters, Stacy had made up her mind she would be wounded by love and life no more! But now the yearning inside her caused by seeing that Christmas-perfect great room, and now by thinking of this man before her with a baby, only made her realize how much work she had yet to do!
Though why, when she knew how much work she had to do, her eyes would go to McAllister’s lips, she could not be certain. McAllister’s lips were full and bold, the lower one in particular spine-tinglingly sensual.
Dangerous, she told herself. He was a dangerous kind of man. His lips should be declared the pillars of salt one should never look at for danger of being lost forever. She was stunned by both the peril and intensity of her thoughts.
She was not, after all, who he was expecting, and she was certainly not a qualified nanny.
But she felt as if she had to know the story of the baby.
And McAllister—despite the outward appearance of confidence—was obviously desperate for help in this particular situation.
And if she could give him that even temporarily, McAllister might be much more amenable to the real reason she had come!
Gratitude could go a long way, after all.
The baby was startled into silence by her appearance. He regarded her with deep suspicion.
As if he knew she was trying to pass herself off as something she was not.
He seemed to make up his mind about her and began to whimper again.
“Ivan, stop it!” McAllister ordered.
The baby, surprisingly, complied.
“Ivan,” she said, and walked over to the baby. “Hello, Ivan.”
The baby appeared to reconsider his initial assessment of her. He smiled tentatively and made a little gargling noise in his throat. Her heart was lost instantly and completely.
“You don’t know my nephew’s name?” McAllister asked, startled. “It’s Max.”
She glanced back at McAllister. His arms were folded over his chest, and he was regarding her with suspicion identical to the baby’s seconds earlier.
His nephew. The blanks were filling in, but all the same it was unraveling already. Stacy was going to find herself tossed unceremoniously out into a snowbank beside her car and, really, wasn’t that what she deserved?
“Aren’t you his nanny?” McAllister demanded. “That’s who I was expecting.”
“I’m Stacy,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “Stacy Murphy Walker.” Now would be the perfect time to say who she really was and why she was here.
Tell him the rest of it. But her courage was failing her. So much easier to focus on the baby!
“Uppie? Pwweee?”
And it did feel as if this baby—and maybe Kiernan, too—really needed her. And it felt as if she needed to be in this house that cried for a Christmas tree and a family to encircle it.
She reached into the playpen. The baby wound his chubby arms around her neck, and she hoisted his surprisingly heavy weight. He nestled into her and put his thumb in his mouth, slurping contentedly.
“I’m not exactly your nephew’s regular nanny,” she heard herself saying, “but I’m sure I can help you out. I’m very good with children.”
She told herself it wasn’t precisely a lie, and it must have been a measure of McAllister’s desperation that he seemed willing to accept her words.
He regarded her and apparently decided she was a temp or a substitute for the regular nanny, which would also, conveniently, added to the bad roads, explain the delay in her arrival. After scrutinizing her for a moment, he rolled his broad shoulders, unfolded his arms from across his chest and looked at her with undisguised relief.
“I’m Kiernan McAllister.”
“Yes, I know. Of course! Very nice to meet you.” She managed to get one arm out from under the baby’s rump and extended it, not certain what the protocol would be for the house staff. Did you shake the master’s hand?
He crossed the room to her and took her extended hand without a second’s hesitation, but she still knew extending hers had been a mistake. She had felt his hand already as he helped her from the chaise in his bathroom.
Despite the fact that his hand was not the soft hand of an office worker or of her comrades in writing, but hard and powerful, taking it felt like a homecoming.
And if she thought the mere sight of his lips had posed a danger to her, she could see his touch was even more potent. A homecoming to some secret part of herself, because something about his hand in hers sizzled and made her aware of herself as smaller than him.
And feminine. Physically weaker. Vulnerable in some way that was not at all distressing, though it should have been to a woman newly declared to total independence and a hard-nosed career as a freelancer.
She yanked her hand out of his and felt desperate not to give him the smallest hint of her reaction to him. “And just to clarify, is your nephew Ivan or Max?”
“Max. I just like to call him Ivan.”
Stacy looked askance at him.
“As in Ivan the Terrible,” he muttered.
She could feel disapproval scrunch her forehead—a defense against the electric attraction she felt toward him—and something like amusement crossed McAllister’s features as he regarded her, as if he was not even a little fooled.
Annoyingly, the light of amusement in his eyes made him look, impossibly, even more attractive than before!
“But his name is really Max.” He cocked his head. “I guess that works, too, if you think about it. He’s Max everything. Max noisy. Max sleepless. Max filthy, at the moment. He’s just over a year. A horrible age, if there ever was one.”
“He’s adorable,” she declared.
“No. He’s not in the least.”
“Well, he is right now. Except, he might need changing—
“Never mind! If he needs that, you have arrived in the nick of time. And while you look after it I will do the manly thing, and go look after your car. You can change his nappy and then be on your way.”
Well, there was no need to tell him the truth if she was leaving that quickly!
He made the declaration of assigning them duties with such abject relief that Stacy tried to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
It didn’t work. It was probably, at least in part, a delayed reaction to her accident, but a little snort of laughter escaped past her clamped lips. And then another one.
McAllister glared, and more laughter slipped out of her. It seemed to her it was the first time since the disintegration of her relationship that she had had anything to laugh about.
The baby chortled, too, and it made her laugh harder.
“Sorry,” she said, trying to bite it back. “Really. Sorry.”
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