Claimed by the Rebel: The Playboy's Plain Jane / The Loner's Guarded Heart / Moonlight and Roses. Jackie Braun

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СКАЧАТЬ such a look to be appropriate right before a man leaned forward to take his true love’s lips with his own.

      “Laugh.”

      Part of her had hoped he meant lick her lips!

      “Okay, Mr. Daredevil,” she said, “I’m waiting for the plan.”

      “You’re the one who knows how to keep plants alive!”

      A nurse came by, gray haired, very efficient looking. “If you check at the reception desk before you leave, we can lend you a car seat to take the baby home.”

      Dylan turned up the full wattage of his smile. Katie guessed he was going to put his charm to good use and get that diaper looked after for them.

      Instead he surprised her by saying to the nurse, “Uh, we have two rank amateurs here who don’t know the first thing about a messy diaper. Or maybe I should say two messy amateurs who don’t know anything about a rank diaper. Could you find somebody to give us a quick lesson, before we take him home?”

      The nurse smiled at him. Was nobody immune to this man’s charms? “I’d be happy to show you how to change a diaper.”

      A few minutes later they were in a little room, the nurse not as charmed by Dylan as Katie had thought. She made him change the diaper!

      Katie was not unaware, as she watched, that this was something she had thought she would be doing with her husband one day. She had looked forward to every little thing about that baby coming. Foolishly, the day she had found out she was pregnant, she had even begun to buy diapers, pajamas with feet in them, soothers, stuffed crib toys.

      Now, in a room with reality, she wondered if Marcus ever would have tackled a mess like that! She had not allowed herself to think much about what if. But now she did wonder. What if they had stayed together? Would she have felt as alone with parenting as she had started to feel in their marriage?

      Certainly, she could not imagine Marcus bending over such an arduous task with such a look of grim determination on his face.

      Dylan shot a look at her. “I don’t have anything on me, do I?” he whispered.

      “Such as?” she whispered back.

      He glared at her, then at the baby. “Such as brown.”

      “You look like you’re okay. So far.”

      The baby gurgled happily and wagged his legs.

      “I wish he wouldn’t do that,” Dylan said grimly.

      “Me, too,” she admitted.

      They both laughed, and the nurse joined in. The impromptu diaper changing class was a strangely intimate moment. A mommy-and-daddy kind of moment that made Katie feel that stab of longing for the life she did not have, a life that had been snatched from her by a cruel twist of fate.

      That’s what she needed to remember as she was admiring the confidence with which Dylan was taking on this task. She need to remind herself that life had cruel twists and turns that she had no hope of controlling. That she had withdrawn from the race for a reason. It could hurt too much to run.

      But standing in this little room, almost shoulder to shoulder with Dylan, the pain of not running the race could compete with the pain of running with all your heart.

      “Just hold his feet in one hand, lift him up and swab,” the nurse suggested helpfully.

      For a man who had made his living being a professional athlete, Dylan suddenly seemed hopelessly uncoordinated. But determined. “You take his feet,” he told Katie. A small thing, but it somehow solidified them as a team.

      Gingerly she did. Jake tried to kick free.

      Dylan scowled at the baby as if he were a puzzle that needed to be solved, then took a deep breath and did what needed to be done.

      That, Katie thought, was the kind of man he was. He wanted people to believe it was all fun and frolic about him, but that was not the truth at all. She felt as if she could see the truth about Dylan.

      “You don’t shirk from the hard stuff do you?” she said. That was why he was such a success at business

      Dylan cast a glance at her.

      “You just dig in and get the job done.”

      “I don’t think dig in is exactly what I want to hear right now,” he said lightly, but rather than looking pleased at her assessment, Dylan looked pensive. “That’s not what my sister would tell you,” he said. “She thinks I shirk from the hard stuff.”

      “Like what?” Katie asked, incredulous.

      But he was engrossed in his task, and didn’t answer. Several wrecked diapers later—the tabs would not stick once his hands were slippery with baby oil and powder—the job was done. Dylan, unaware he was dusted from head to toe with baby powder himself, looked very pleased as he lifted his nephew off the table.

      “Next time, your turn.”

      But it seemed to her maybe next time wasn’t such a good idea. She was looking for excuses to hang on to him, to hang on to the intimacy of this little mommy-daddy experience.

      But really, if he could change a diaper, he was good to go.

      Without her.

      “My sister says that it’s different when it’s your own baby,” he said with an easy grin. “Not so nauseating.”

      Your own baby.

      “Are you planning your own baby?” she asked him. She said it ever so casually. Just conversation. Pathetic that she was holding her breath waiting for his answer.

      “I thought that’s what I wanted once, but,” he suddenly looked uncomfortable, “lately I don’t seem to know what I want.”

      There. His answer.

      And yet, even though it was not what she wanted to hear, Katie appreciated Dylan was giving her something that he rarely gave. He presented himself to the world as an extremely confident man. A man who jumped out of airplanes, no hesitation. A daredevil.

      And so, his showing her his doubt was a gift.

      Seeing him with his nephew had brought her yearnings sharply to the surface, and sharply into focus. It had made her contemplate entering the race all over again, like a person drawn to the mystery of Everest, Mountain of Tragedy.

      He didn’t know what he wanted. And she felt shadows of doubt on what she wanted. A month ago her flower shop, her quiet life had been enough. Now it wasn’t.

      Like lightning, fear struck her. What if she lost another baby? Could she survive that kind of loss again?

      Was it completely delusional to think being with a man like him would somehow make the burden of that loss a shared one?

      She recognized the insanity of her own thoughts. She had never even had a cup of coffee with this man. Really, she СКАЧАТЬ