At His Service: Nanny Needed: Hired: Nanny Bride / A Mother in a Million / The Nanny Solution

She peeked up from the blanket.

In the murky darkness of the cabin, she saw he had not gone away completely. He had found a stub of a candle and lit it. Now he was going through the rough cabinets, pulling out cans.

“You want something to eat?” he asked, as if she hadn’t just been a complete shrew, made a complete fool of herself.

Of course she wanted something to eat! That’s how she handled pain. That’s why the jeans didn’t fit in the first place. She yanked them back off, wrapped herself tightly in the blanket and crossed the room to him. If he could pretend nothing had happened, so could she.

“This looks good,” she said, picking up a can of tinned spaghetti. If he noticed her enthusiasm was forced, he didn’t say a word.

“Delicious,” he agreed, looking everywhere but at her, as if somehow spaghetti was forbidden food, like the apple in the garden of Eden.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“DELICIOUS,” Dannie said woodenly. “Thank you for preparing dinner.”

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Joshua thought, trying not to look at Dannie. He’d been right about her and spaghetti. Her mouth formed the most delectable little O as she sucked it back. No twisting the spaghetti around her fork using a spoon for her.

The ancient stove in the cabin was propane fired, and either the tanks had not been filled, because there was going to be no season this year at Moose Lake, or it had just given out in old age. He’d tried his luck with a frying pan and a pot over the fire, and the result was about as far from delicious as he could have made it. Even on purpose.

“Everything’s scorched,” he pointed out.

Something flashed in her eyes, vulnerable, and then closed up again. Truthfully it wouldn’t have mattered if it was lobster tails and truffles. Everything he put in his mouth tasted like sawdust. Burnt sawdust.

The world was tasteless because he’d hurt her. Insulted her. Rejected her.

It was for her own bloody good! And if she didn’t quit doing that to the spaghetti his resolve would melt like sugar in boiling water.

He made the mistake of looking at her, her features softened by the golden light of the fire and the tiny, guttering candles, but her expression hardened into indifference and he could see straight through to the hurt that lay underneath.

She plucked a noodle from her bowl, and he felt that surge of heat, of pure wanting. He knew himself. Part of it was because she was such a good girl, prim and prissy, a bit of a plain Jane.

It was the librarian fantasy, where a beautiful hellcat lurked just under the surface of the mask of respectability.

Except that part wasn’t a fantasy. Unleashed, Danielle Springer was a hellcat! And the beauty part just deepened and deepened and deepened.

He wanted back what he had lost. Not the heated kisses; he’d had plenty of those and would have plenty more.

No, what he wanted back was the rare trust he felt for her and had gained from her. What he wanted back was the ease that had developed between them over the past few days, the sense of companionship.

“Want to play cards?” he asked her.

The look she gave him could have wilted newly budded roses. “No, thanks.”

“Charades?”

No answer.

“Do you want dessert?”

The faintest glimmer of interest that was quickly doused.

“It’s going to be a long evening, Dannie.”

“God forbid you should ever be bored.”

“As if anybody could ever be bored around you,” he muttered. “Aggravating, annoying, doesn’t listen, doesn’t appreciate when sacrifices have been made for her own good—”

She cut him off. “What were the dessert options?”

“Chocolate cake. No oven, but chocolate cake.” Just to get away from the condemnation in her eyes, he got up, his blanket held up tightly, and went and looked at the cake mix box he had found in one of the cupboards.

He fumbled around in the poor light until he found another pot, dumped the cake mix in and added water from a container he had filled at the lake. He went and crouched in front of the fire, holding the pot over the embers, stirring, waiting, stirring.

Then he went and got a spoon, and sat on the couch. “You want some?” he asked.

“Sure. The girl who can’t even squeeze into her jeans will forgive anything for cake,” she said. “Even bad cake. Fried cake. I bet it’s gross.”

“It isn’t,” he lied. “You looked great in those jeans. Stop it.” And then, cautiously, he said, “What’s to forgive?”

“I wanted to keep kissing. You didn’t.”

“I need a friend more than I need someone to kiss. Do you know how fast things can blow up when people go there?” He almost added before they’re ready. But that implied he was going to be ready someday, and he wasn’t sure that was true. You couldn’t say things to Dannie Springer until you were sure they were true.

Silence.

“Come on,” he said softly. “Forgive me. Come eat cake.” He wasn’t aware his heart had stopped beating until it started again when she flopped down on the couch beside him.

He filled up the spoon with goo and passed it to her, tried not to look at how her lips closed around that spoon. Then he looked anyway, feeling regret and yearning in equal amounts. He’d thought watching her eat spaghetti was sexy? The girl made sharing a spoon seem like something out of the Kama Sutra.

The cake was like a horrible, soggy pudding with lumps in it, but they ate it all, passing the spoon back and forth, and it tasted to him of ambrosia.

“Tell me something about you that no one knows,” he invited her, wanting that trust back, longing for the intimacy they had shared on the lakeshore. Even if it had been dangerous. It couldn’t be any more dangerous than sharing a spoon with her. “Just one thing.”

“Is that one of your playboy lines?” she asked.

“No.” And it was true. He had never said that to a single person before.

Still, she seemed suspicious and probably rightly so. “You first.”

When I put that spoon in my mouth, all I can think is that it has been in your mouth first.

“I was a ninety-pound weakling up until the tenth grade.”

“I already knew that. Your sister has a picture of you.”

“Out where anyone can see it?” he asked, pretending to be galled.

“Probably posted on the Internet,” she said. “Try again.”