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“Unless you think you can do it yourself …” she said, hoping he would say he could.
“Do it myself? Oh, God, no!” he exclaimed. “I’m an idiot when it comes to babies and kids. I went to Connecticut for a while when Logan got divorced—Tia was a baby—but I never did any hands-on. Then Logan and Tia stayed with me in New York just before their move here, and Tia had to talk me through her breakfast one morning when Logan was on the phone with a client.”
“Butter on one half of the slice of toast, peanut butter on the other half, then fold it together—don’t cut it?”
“See what I mean? Who knew kids were that quirky? And at least Tia could tell me what she wanted. I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby and I’m guessing that at eleven months he won’t be able to tell me himself.”
“No, he won’t,” Hadley confirmed with a small laugh.
“So it was like being thrown a lifeline when Logan said you’d help out.” He leaned in close and said, “You do know about taking care of babies, right?”
Obviously he hadn’t been too observant during his visits to her house growing up, or he wouldn’t have had to ask that question.
Hadley motioned toward the rest of the room where everyone else was. “I have two younger half brothers and three younger half sisters, remember? My stepmother said the only thing I was good for was to help her with them and babysit so she could have a break. I was changing diapers by the time I was five.”
“I do remember your stepmother …” he said, making a gloomy, sympathetic face. “But like I said, I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know I won’t be on my own with this.”
“Neily said you could back out at any time,” Hadley reminded him. “A child is a huge responsibility. If you’ve changed your mind, Neily is out there on the dance floor—you could tell her tonight and—”
“No, I can’t do that. Not even now that I’ve thought about it. I couldn’t live with myself.”
Again Hadley saw how strongly he felt about this and wondered why. But she didn’t feel free to ask.
Then he said, “Did Logan twist your arm about helping me? Are you dreading it?”
“No,” Hadley was quick to answer because she didn’t want him to know how reluctant she was. “Logan didn’t twist my arm. I was just thinking of you …”
“You jumped in with both feet yesterday. There’s no sin in changing your mind after realizing what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“Nope, can’t do that. But don’t feel as if you have to lend a hand if you don’t want to—I’ll make do, maybe I can hire someone—”
Why did the thought of that suddenly make her feel territorial? Why was she actually chafing at the suggestion of someone else coming in to do what she’d agreed so reluctantly to do herself?
She had no explanation. And no time to dwell on it.
“No, that would be silly. I honestly don’t mind,” she lied. “It will give me something to do until you guys get business up and running again and there’s furniture for me to upholster.”
Which was true enough. The summer had passed with Hadley sewing dresses for this wedding and working with Logan on the showroom itself—cleaning and painting and decorating it in sections as if each were a separate room so the furniture could be arranged and displayed within those settings. But until Logan and Chase got back to actually making new pieces, her only job now was to organize her own workspace.
“So you aren’t dreading teaching me how to take care of an eleven-month-old?”
Well, she was. But she would have to lie.
“Not at all,” she said, watching her brother and new sister-in-law dance with Tia rather than look Chase in the eye.
“I don’t think you mean that, but I’m gonna pretend you do because I really need help,” he confided.
The music ended and someone Hadley didn’t know stepped up to the microphone to make a toast, saving her from having to go overboard to convince Chase that he was wrong when he wasn’t.
Then, after everyone had raised a glass of champagne to wish Meg and Logan well, the quartet began to play again.
And Chase was apparently ready to go on to other things because he said, “How about a dance? You look too good to be hiding behind this table.”
A dance.
With Chase Mackey.
That took Hadley by surprise.
“Really?” she said before she knew she was going to, the question coming from days long gone by when she’d been alone in her room at home, knowing a school dance was going on without her, only imagining herself there with Chase, dancing …
“Sure, why not?” he answered as if it were nothing—which, to him, she knew was the case.
Then he stood and pulled her chair out for her.
In her fantasies, he would take her by the hand and lead her onto the dance floor.
In reality he just barely touched the back of her arm to urge her in that direction.
But it was enough to give her goose bumps that she hoped he didn’t notice.
And then they reached the dance floor.
He stepped in front of her, he took her hand in his, placed his other hand on her back and there she was, dancing with Chase Mackey …
Again it wasn’t quite how she’d imagined it. If this had been her daydream, both of his arms would have been around her and hers would have been around him. Not even air could have passed between them, they’d be so close, and her head would have been on his chest.
But even while none of that was the case, she still felt slightly dazed to find herself there.
Dazed and struggling to remind herself that she shouldn’t be letting it affect her in any way.
Think of something to say! she commanded herself.
But all she could think about was how nice it felt to have her hand nestled in his much bigger one, to feel his other hand on her back through the satin of her bridesmaid’s dress, to feel the solid muscle of his bicep, to be able to look directly up at that handsome face only inches away …
Then Chase broke the silence she hadn’t been able to fill and said, “Logan said you designed and made Meg’s wedding dress and all the bridesmaids’ dresses.”
“Design is an overstatement,” Hadley demurred. “Meg wanted everyone to be in a style that made us happy, as long as all the bridesmaids’ dresses were the same color. So I had everyone show me pictures of their favorite dresses. Which is also what I did for Meg. Then I just compiled styles that seemed to suit us each individually, drew them up and made them—Meg’s in white satin, ours in bronze because that was the color Meg chose.”
“You just did all that? That’s a lot.”
“It isn’t really designing, though. It was more in the realm of the seamstress than the designer.”
“Well, they’re all great.”
And that was something he’d likely noticed when he’d checked out every female there, Hadley told herself. She had to keep in mind that regardless of how much attention he might be paying her for the time being—and paying to her knee-length, curve-skimming strapless cocktail-style dress—this was still a guy whose only commitment was to playing the field.
Remembering that actually helped calm her reaction to dancing with him and, for that, she was grateful.
When the music ended again, Logan and Meg were ready to cut the cake. The guests and the wedding party all gathered around them and the five-layer concoction. In the process Hadley’s services were required to keep Tia contained so the toddler didn’t swipe her fingers through the frosting.
Once that initial slice was made and pictures of it were taken, the caterer took over the cutting and serving, and while Hadley tempted the excited Tia back to the table to eat cake, Chase answered Logan’s call to say hello to an old friend.
Hadley was sure that would put an end to tonight’s contact with Chase. She fought her odd sense of disappointment by stealing a bite of her niece’s dessert. Then she looked up just in time to see a woman approach Chase where he was talking to Logan and two other men.
Hadley recognized the woman’s face but couldn’t recall her name. The important thing, however, was Chase’s response to her. It looked as if he didn’t immediately know who the woman was, either. But when recognition dawned, his grin was blinding.
While Hadley watched, he touched the other woman’s arm, leaned in and kissed her cheek and Hadley could tell even from the distance that he was just oozing charm.
And that’s why you don’t have to worry, Logan, she thought as she observed the exchange that was so similar to too many she’d witnessed in the past with her former husband. The opening gambit—that’s what she’d come to consider it.
And she knew too well where it ended.
So no, her brother didn’t have to worry that she would get involved with Chase Mackey. Even if dancing with him had given her goose bumps.
And since she’d seen enough, she turned her full attention to her niece.
Tia had finished her cake—she had more of it on her face and hands than she’d probably eaten. Hadley laughed at the sight and pulled the little girl onto her lap. “Come here and let me clean you up,” she said, dipping a napkin into a water glass to wash Tia’s face.
Tia squirmed and complained but a yawn in the process also told Hadley how tired the child was. Tired enough not to fight when the cleanup was complete and Hadley said, “Let’s sit here for a minute and close our eyes.”
That was all it took for Tia to do exactly that, to rest her head against Hadley’s chest and almost instantly drop off to sleep.
The reception was coming to an end anyway, so Hadley didn’t mind spending the rest of it sitting there with her sleeping niece until enough of the party had dwindled that she could duck out herself.
In order for Meg and Logan to be guaranteed an uninterrupted wedding night, Tia was sleeping over with Hadley in her apartment above the garage. When Hadley could catch the attention of her brother, she flagged him down to tell him she was taking Tia there.
Logan kissed his daughter’s forehead, then said he’d see them both in the morning and returned to his bride.
Hadley gathered her niece into her arms and stood. And from out of nowhere, Chase was there again, this time reaching for Tia.
“Let me have her,” he suggested.
“I’m taking her to the apartment for the night,” Hadley informed him.
“I know, I heard,” he responded, scooping Tia out of her arms without waking the child.
Hadley considered arguing with him, but she didn’t want to risk disturbing Tia, either, so she merely conceded and she and Chase left the reception.
The showroom and the detached garage were side-by-side behind the main house. It was a short walk through the quiet of the night and neither of them said anything along the way.
Hadley led Chase up the staircase that traced the side of the garage, lit by a row of lantern-style lights that followed the same incline that the railing and steps did. When she arrived at the top she opened her door and held it for Chase to go ahead of her. She’d left a single lamp on in the roomy studio apartment so she didn’t have to come home in the dark.
“You can put her on the bed,” Hadley whispered when she’d followed Chase inside, waiting at the open door to let him back out again so he would know in advance that that was all that was going to come of this.
Whether he took the hint or had never intended to do anything else, he gently laid Tia on the bed that stood on a platform two steps higher than the rest of the apartment and then returned to the door where he went out onto the landing again.
He didn’t leave yet, though. On the landing, he turned to face Hadley and said, “Neily said she’ll be here with the baby tomorrow afternoon, probably after Logan and Meg have left.”
“There’ll be a cleaning crew to put the showroom in order but I promised Meg that I would pick up all the residual wedding mess at the house tomorrow, so I’ll be there all day. I’m sure you have unpacking to do at your place. I can just call you when Neily gets here and you can come over then.”
“That works,” he agreed. His too-handsome face slid into a grin just before he said, “So, do you want to name your price now or later? “
“My price?” Hadley repeated.
“For this baby gig—I’ll owe you for it.”
“Actually, I’m looking at it as paying you back,” she admitted.
The grin disappeared and a confused frown replaced it. “Paying me back? For what?”
Hadley looked into those blue eyes, seeing that he genuinely didn’t know what she meant, and it made her smile a little as she said, “You always treated me like you didn’t even see the weight. You never made fun of me. I heard you more than once tell kids who were making fun of me to stop it. And there was that time with Trinity Hatcher when he had me cornered because he wanted to feel the fat …”
It had been so long ago and yet that awful, frightening, mortifying incident still had the power to make her voice crack.
Hadley paused, feeling her smile turn sad. She didn’t want Chase to see that, so she glanced downward, looking at the boards that made up the landing he was standing on rather than at him.
“You pulled him away,” she went on. “You backed him up against the wall and got in his face and told him if he ever came near me again he’d have you to answer to …”
And her eyes were filling with tears? She’d thought she was so far past that. Where had tears come from?
She blinked them away and took a breath so she could finish, still unable to look up.
“I owe you for all that,” she said in a voice that was softer than it had been.
“It was nothing,” Chase said almost as softly and with a note in his voice that made her think he understood how hard things had been for her. Some, anyway.
She swallowed back the old emotions and finally managed to pull her head up, to meet his eyes again. “Well, this will be nothing, too,” she claimed. “And then we’ll be even—nothing for nothing.”
He smiled at that, a tender smile as those blue eyes searched her face. He continued to study her for a moment, shaking his head at her.
Her hair had fallen forward and when she’d raised her head again, one strand hadn’t gone back into place. Chase used a single index finger to smooth that strand away from the corner of her eye and the bare brush of his finger against her skin renewed those goose bumps from earlier.
But more than that, as she stood there, looking up into the face she’d filled so many lonely hours picturing in her mind, she flashed to another of her frequent fantasies from when she was a girl—the fantasy of Chase standing with her in a doorway like this, saying good-night. The fantasy of him kissing her …
Which was not going to happen.
Which she didn’t want to happen.
And yet when it ran through her mind her gaze fastened on his mouth and she couldn’t help wondering what it might actually be like if he did …
But in the same way that to Hadley the very idea of dancing with him had been momentous while to him it had been commonplace—Hadley knew it wasn’t kissing that was on Chase’s mind. And that was confirmed when he said, “I’ll still beat the hell out of Hatcher if he comes anywhere near you.”
Hadley knew he was joking to ease the tension and she appreciated it.
She dragged her focus from his lips to his eyes once more.
“Thanks,” she said blithely to help in that attempt to lighten things.
“And on that note, I’ll let you go and get some practice taking care of Tia so you’ll be warmed up for the real test tomorrow,” Chase said, turning to face the steps rather than her.
But before he went any farther, he glanced over his shoulder at her once more and said, “It’s good to see you again, Had. I’m glad to have you onboard all the way around.”
“Thanks,” she whispered as he went down the stairs.
And that was when she had to admit to herself that no matter what she told Logan, no matter what she told herself, she did have a soft spot for Chase Mackey. That she probably always had. That she probably always would.
She just wasn’t going to do anything about it.
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