Verdict: Daddy. Charlotte Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ it’s all mine.”

      “I thought you wanted to be an astronaut. You were crazy about outer space. Remember how you used to draw me star charts?” Memories of summer nights spent stargazing with the breeze heavy with the smell of jasmine inundated her, making her wish she was twelve again.

      “Being an astronaut wasn’t in the cards.” He laughed. “Literally.”

      “What cards?”

      “When I was a freshman, my roommates and I went to the state fair. They insisted on having their futures told by a tarot reader.”

      Marissa made a face. “I don’t believe in the occult.”

      Blake grinned. “Me, either. But in this case the gypsy lady was right.”

      “You had your fortune told?”

      “Not exactly. I was just along for the ride. But as my buddies were leaving, the tarot reader smiled at me, flipped a card, and said there would be a lot of green in my future.”

      “Green?” Marissa laughed. “And you thought she meant money?”

      “I didn’t think about it at all until the next semester when I took my first botany course. I was hooked immediately, changed my major to landscape design, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

      The shine in his eyes melted her cynicism and sent the years tumbling away. Suddenly she felt like a teenager again, a time when life had been good and wondrous and filled with endless possibilities.

      “And you don’t regret not being an astronaut?”

      “Hey, I’ve got the greatest job in the world. I can take a boxy house or ugly commercial building, design and install an appropriate landscape, and make it a showpiece. And my work isn’t hidden in some dark corner of an art gallery. Thousands of people view it every day.”

      Blake’s happiness wasn’t fake. It seemed to originate deep inside. She envied him. Marissa hadn’t felt that kind of happiness since…since she’d been a kid hanging out with Blake Adams.

      She pictured him bent over his drawing table. “I never thought of you as the artistic type.”

      “My work’s much more than sketches on paper. I like the physical aspects, too. When I plant with my crews, they work harder, smarter and faster. And I don’t need to spend time in a gym to stay fit. Plus, I get plenty of fresh air and sunshine.”

      Blake had always loved the outdoors, had hated being cooped up inside for any length of time. And he definitely had no need now for a gym or personal trainer. With his fitted shirt and shorts, she could easily see that the skinny kid she’d known had developed very appealing muscles in all the right places.

      Why hadn’t some lucky woman scooped up such a great catch and married him long ago? She wondered how many women had tried and failed, and, if they’d failed, why? Was it Blake’s satisfaction with his single status that had gotten in their way?

      Blake rounded the corner, turned into the driveway of his house and pulled around to the back of the residence before cutting the engine.

      Marissa had only a fleeting glimpse of the structure, but she could tell his renovations had been extensive. He’d preserved the charm of the old arts-and-crafts-style bungalow and updated it in the process. And the landscaping, complete with yellow climbing roses around the front porch, set off the soft gray siding of the house like a frame complements a work of art.

      She had barely a minute to contemplate his home before the back door of the adjoining house flew open. A short, rotund little woman scampered down the steps and raced across the yard toward them. High color stained her apple cheeks, her gray hair stood in disarrayed wisps, and her blue eyes held a wild look behind gold-rimmed granny glasses.

      “Uh-oh.” Blake released his seat belt, jumped from the truck and called to the older woman. “Everything okay, Agnes?”

      Marissa didn’t need her father’s people skills to tell by a glance at the baby-sitter’s face that something was terribly wrong. She’d never seen Agnes so agitated. Marissa hurried from the car to join Blake.

      “Thank God you’re back!” Agnes blurted to Blake, ignoring Marissa in her distress. “I’ve been calling your cell number but couldn’t reach you.”

      Blake pulled his phone from the pocket of his shorts. “I must have turned it off when I made a call earlier. What’s wrong? Is Annie all right?”

      “It’s awful,” Agnes cried. “Just awful!”

      With that, the little woman, whom generations of Dolphin Bay children had been unable to upset, burst into sobs.

      Chapter Three

      Touched by Agnes’s distress, Blake placed a consoling arm around her shoulders. His neighbor was the closest thing to a mother he’d ever had. From the day he’d first moved in beside her, she’d plied him with home-cooked meals, freshly baked cookies, friendly introductions to the neighbors and unconditional acceptance. And she was his staunchest ally and coconspirator against the tyranny of their mutual enemy, Vienna Pitts. To see Agnes so visibly disturbed wrung his heart.

      “Is Annie all right?” he repeated, afraid that by leaving the baby with his neighbor, he’d created a situation that had caused both Annie and Agnes grief.

      “The little darling’s sleeping like a rock.” Agnes wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “It’s my older sister, Patricia, in Sarasota. She’s had a stroke. I have to go to her as soon as possible.”

      “Of course you do.” Marissa’s calm, no-nonsense tone reassured Blake, who, in his concern for Agnes and Annie, was glad the attorney was there. “What can we do to help?” Marissa added.

      Agnes flashed Marissa a teary smile of recognition mixed with gratitude. “Good to see you again, Marissa, dear. If you can help take care of the baby, I’ll leave immediately. I’ve already packed.”

      Blake noted the tremor in Agnes’s hands and her distraught tone. “No way I’m letting you drive to Sarasota in your state of mind. You’d have an accident before you reached the Sunshine Skyway.”

      “But I’ll need my car to get back and forth to the hospital.”

      “I’ll drive you in your car,” Blake said, “and catch a bus back.”

      Marissa shook her head. “I’ll drive Agnes in her car. You can follow in your truck and bring me home.”

      Agnes hugged Marissa. “You’re a sweetheart.”

      “But what about Annie?” Blake felt a sudden panic. He’d counted on Agnes to help with the infant. How could he take care of the baby without Agnes’s guidance and assistance?

      “I have a carrier in my car,” Agnes said. “We’ll take her with us, then switch the carrier to your truck for the ride home.”

      “That’ll work,” Marissa said. “Blake, you get the luggage. I’ll take care of the baby.”

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