Truly Daddy

But a brick had fallen out of that defensive wall when she called that scraggly line of balsams and spruces and lodgepoles Christmas trees. And then the wall had started to crack at the precise moment she bent over and picked up a handful of snow.

And it hadn’t been just because that short skirt had ridden up deliciously high on her thigh, either.

It had been because he’d glimpsed something else inside her—a heart behind the polished facade, a child within the sophisticated woman who could tie the male population in knots with a blink of her tangled lashes.

She had glanced back at him, caught with little flakes of snow around her mouth, and actually blushed.

It had made him feel vulnerable as hell.

Which was probably why she had jumped to the entirely erroneous conclusion that he believed her to be a jewel thief. Because when he felt vulnerable as hell, he hid behind a mask of icy remoteness.

He wasn’t really used to feeling vulnerable. Maybe he wasn’t really used to feeling, period. But the loss of his brother, Matthew, and his sister-in-law, Sarah, and having Angelica come into his life, made the region around his heart feel oddly tender all the time.

He was in no position to defend himself against an assault on his heart right now. As if she would, he told himself with an inner snort.

But he made the mistake of glancing at Toni’s face when Angelica had come through the door on Frey’s shoulders. Her whole face had softened, her green eyes lit from within with gentleness.

She was the kind of woman who could make a full frontal assault on a poor wounded heart without even knowing she was doing it.

What if she was everything she appeared to be? Gorgeous, inside and out? Not to mention here for four days?

“What did you say, Unkie?”

“What? Nothing!” But Frey was grinning at him like a cat that had swallowed a canary.

Angelica, with a final smile at Toni to ensure she had charmed her completely, came and settled herself on his lap.

That Angelica accepted him so absolutely, trusted her love to him so completely without question, never failed to amaze him and make him feel humble. What had he done in his life to deserve this?

“Did you bring me my cookies?”

“What cookies?” he asked, drawing down his brows in pretended puzzlement.

She didn’t buy it. “My cookies with the future in them. Where are they?”

He laughed. She knew too well her every wish was his command.

“Fortune cookies,” he told her. “By the front door.”

She came back a moment later, her eyes glittering expectantly at the huge sack of cookies. She politely offered the bag to everyone, then, taking her own chair, sat eagerly on her knees, broke open her cookie and moved her eyes back and forth as if she could really read her fortune.

“You first,” she told her uncle.

Garret read, “‘You will be richly rewarded for all your efforts.”’

He and his rescue buddies had always played a game in which they spiced up the fortune by adding the words “in bed” to the end of it He glanced at Miss California over there and couldn’t stop the thought from going through his mind. I wish.

He reminded himself sternly to be a proper daddy.

“You next,” Angelica ordered Frey, her adoring slave.

“You will catch many criminals and be a hero,” Frey deadpanned.

Angelica eyed him cynically. “Liar,” she proclaimed.

He laughed and read her the real one. “‘Leam to let go of past troubles. The future is bright.’”

“Now you,” Angelica said to Toni.

“‘You will know great happiness,’” Toni said, but the fortune did not seem to make her happy. A faint frown pulled at her lips and lowered her brows.

Garret added a silent “in bed” and his blood turned so hot he had to leave quickly to get more water for the cocoa.

“That’s almost exactly what the man in Chinatown said when he gave me the ring,” Toni mused.

Her voice was thick and rich, like whipped cream. Not that he wanted to be thinking about her and whipped cream in the same sentence.

“Read mine.” Angelica pressed hers into Toni’s hand.

He felt mildly annoyed. Replaced already? He told himself Toni was closer, that he was still over at the counter fussing with hot-chocolate things. Little old ladies fussed, he corrected himself. Men—what—managed?

An hour ago, he wouldn’t have been giving mere semantics so much thought. See? She was the kind of woman who changed things.

“‘People look to you for leadership,’” Toni read.

He chose that moment to turn from the counter with a stray laden with a kettle and more hot chocolate. He looked at his miniature niece, who was glowing prettily, and then at Toni, who had broken into the most beautiful smile. She had deep dimples when she smiled.

He bet she smiled often. He bet some men would make it a full-time job trying to coax that smile out of her.

He set everything back on the counter. Enough was enough.

“What does that mean?” Angelica asked.

“It means people follow you,” he told her. “Eat your cookie, and then we’ll all follow you to bed. It’s getting late.”

Angelica nibbled her cookie in painfully small bites while grilling Toni about where she lived.

“Is it hot in California all the time? Do you go to the beach every day? Do you wear a bikini?”

Another thought that made his mouth go dry. He’d been living like a hermit too damn long. She said she didn’t wear bikinis. He wondered why the hell not. If ever a woman was born for one, she was.

“Do you see whales? Dolphins? Kangaroos? Gophers?”

He recognized his darling niece was now using stall tactics to delay her bedtime despite the heaviness of her eyes. In a minute, her head would flop down on the table and she’d be asleep. Once, she had slipped from her chair and onto the floor so quickly, he hadn’t even realized what was happening.

“Angie, bedtime,” he said firmly. He scooped her up and went down the hall with her.