Hired: Nanny Bride by Cara Colter Page A

turrets.
    She had the cutest way of catching her tongue between her teeth as she concentrated. Her hair kept falling forward, and she kept shoving it impatiently back. It made him wonder what his fingers would feel like in her hair, a thought he quickly dismissed in favor of helping Susie build the moat and defending the castle from Jake’s happy efforts to smash it with his shovel.
    Before he knew it, his discomfort had disappeared, and happiness, that sneakiest of human emotions, hadslipped around them, obscuring all else. It was as if fog, turned golden by morning sun, had wrapped them in a world of their own. Before he knew it, he was laughing.
    And Dannie was laughing with him, and then Susie was in his arms with her thumb in her mouth, all wet and dirty and sandy, and the baby smelled bad, and reality was strangely and wonderfully better than any fantasy he had ever harbored.
    Something in him let go, he put business on the back burner. For some reason, though he was undeserving of it, he had been given this gift. A few days to spend with his niece and nephew in one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen or been.
    A few days to spend with a woman who intrigued him.
    By the next day, he and Dannie settled into a routine that felt decidedly domestic. It should have felt awkward playing that role with her, but it didn’t. It felt just like walking into the cottage Angel’s Rest had felt, like coming home.
    Sally prepared the most wonderful food he had ever eaten: old-fashioned food, stew and buns for supper the evening before, biscuits and jam for breakfast, thick sandwiches on homemade bread for lunch.
    The lodge, magnificently constructed, always smelled of bread rising and baking and of fresh-brewed coffee. In the chill of the evening last night, there had been a fire going, children’s board games and toys spread out on the floor in front of it.
    The second day unfolded in endless spring sunshine. They played in the sand, they went on a nature walk, he rowed the kids around in the rowboat. When the kids settled in for their afternoon naps, he and Dannie sat on the front porch of Angel’s Rest.
    “Kids are exhausting,” he told her, settling back in his chair, glad to be still, looking at the view of the little cabin on the island. “I need a nap more than them.”
    “You are doing a great job of being an uncle. World’s Best Builder of Sand Castles.”
    Somehow that meant more to him than being bestowed with the title of World’s Sexiest Bachelor.
    “Thanks. You’re doing a great job of…being yourself.” That made her blush. He liked it. He decided to make her blush more. “World’s Best Set of Toes.”
    “You’re being silly,” she said, and tried to hide her naked toes behind her shapely calves.
    Today she was wearing sawed-off pants he thought were called capris. They hugged her delicious curves in the most delightful way.
    “I know. Imagine that. Come on. Be a sport. Give me a peek of those toes.”
    She hesitated, took her foot out from behind her leg, and wiggled her toes at him.
    He laughed at her daring, and then so did she. He thought it would be easy to make it a mission to make her laugh…and blush.
    “I love the view from here,” Dannie told him, hugging herself, tucking her toes back under her chair. “Especially that cabin. If I ever had a honeymoon, that’s where.” She broke off, blushing wildly.
    If there was one thing a guy as devoted to being single as he was did not ever discuss it was weddings. Or honeymoons. But his love of seeing her blush got the better of him.
    “What do you mean if? ” he teased her. “If ever toes were made to fit a glass slipper, it’s those ones. Some guy is going to fall for your feet, and at your feet, and marry you. You’ll spend your whole honeymoon gettingchased around with him trying to get a nibble of them. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.”
    Even though the teasing worked, her cheeks staining to the color of