pushed away the memories then returned to her desk, swallowed two aspirin with the black coffee, and went back to work. “I’ll leave early—er. I promise, Mary.”
Mary sighed. “Okay. See you tomorrow, then. You will be at the picnic, right? Not chained to this desk?”
Carolyn smiled. “I’ll be there. I promise.”
“I’m holding you to it. And if you don’t show up,” Mary said, with a warning wag of her index finger, “you know I’ll come right down here and drag you out of this office.”
Mary said goodbye, then headed out of the office, already exchanging her pumps for a pair of flip-flops in her purse. Clearly, the paralegal was ready to start her holiday weekend.
Carolyn thought of the last time she’d done something that carefree. That spontaneous. And she couldn’t remember. Somewhere along the road, it had simply become easier to spend weekends, holidays, Friday nights at her desk. Easier to ignore the invitations to dinners that were clearly fix-ups, the dates with men who didn’t interest her, the lonely evenings at home by herself.
Mary was right. Carolyn could almost feel her father looking down on her from heaven, tsktsking at all the sunshine she had missed, the sunsets that had passed behind Carolyn’s back as she’d worked.
Well, she did have shopping to do for the picnic tomorrow. What better excuse to leave early? She finished up the last few tasks on her desk, including leaving a voice mail for Liam’s attorney telling him no deal, then shut down her computer. Her gaze caught on the bright blue-and-yellow envelope for the Care-and-Connect-with-Children program. She tugged it out, stuck it in her briefcase, then headed out the door.
As she headed down in the elevator, she opened the envelope and pulled out the photo of the child inside. A paper clip held a four-by-six-inch picture of a five-year-old boy to the corner of a sheet of paper.
Her stomach clenched. Oh, he was a cute little thing—blond and blue-eyed, a little on the skinny side, and in desperate need, the sheet said, of almost everything. School supplies, clothes, sheets. His dream wish list was so simple, it nearly broke Carolyn’s heart: books to read and a single toy truck.
For a split second, she saw the future that could have been in the boy’s eyes. If she had stayed married to Nick—if either of them had made that bond into something real.
Carolyn traced the outline of the child’s face. What if…
But no. There were no what ifs, not where she and Nicholas Gilbert were concerned. Carolyn had made her choices, and made them for very good reasons—and exactly the one that made her happy.
By the time the elevator doors whooshed open, Carolyn was back in work mode. She’d deal with this sponsorship project with her typical take-charge attitude. Clutching the envelope tight, she ran down a mental list of tasks, compartmentalizing the entire process, treating it as simply one more thing to do. Distancing herself, keeping emotions out of the equation.
That, Carolyn knew, was the best way to protect her most valuable asset—the one she’d vowed never to expose again, especially not to another lawyer—
Her heart.
The last place Nick Gilbert expected to be on a Friday night was a toy store.
Yet here he was, standing in the center of a brightly lit aisle filled with pink and lace, trying to decide between a doll that cried and a doll that burped. To him, neither seemed to offer an advantage. Burping might be a cool and very funny option—but only if you were a teenage boy looking to crack up the algebra class. Nevertheless, given the way the little girls swarming around him were grabbing the toys off the shelves, both outbursts were wildly popular.
Cry…or burp?
He may have grown up in a big family, but everything Nick knew about children could fit on the back of an ant, with room left for an entire kindergarten class. Why had he agreed to sponsor a child for the Care-and-Connect-with-Children program? What was he thinking?
He’d been swayed by a picture. By the list of needs on the sheet inside the packet of information about the child. And he’d thought, with his typical can-do attitude, that he could handle this.
Ha. He’d have been better off trying to corral a herd of elephants.
And, truth be told, he’d also thought a trip to a toy store, a few gifts thrown into a cart and an afternoon at the Care-and-Connect picnic might fill the gnawing hole in his chest. It had grown more persistent lately, like a thirst he couldn’t quite quench. A crazy feeling, because he should be content. He had everything he needed. A good career. Great friends, a loving family who lived nearby. An easy lifestyle that demanded nothing.
And yet…
His grip tightened on the dolls’ try-me buttons, which made them let out a simultaneous bur-pcry. Two moms in the aisle turned to look at him, twin amused smiles on their face, coupled with looks of compassion. A man in the baby doll aisle. Apparently he was an object of pity.
“Trial run before I have a real kid,” he joked. “I think I like the burping better. It’s more entertaining.”
The moms shook their heads, then laughed and walked away.
Nick tossed both packages into his cart, then swung it around and headed down the aisle. He spun to the right, intending to get out of the store as quickly as he could. This was so not his forte. But as he rounded the corner, his cart collided with another, jostling the dolls, who complained with another burp-cry.
Nick barely noticed. Because he found himself staring at the one woman he thought he’d managed to forget.
Carolyn Duff.
She had deep-green eyes, so wide and dark, they were as inviting as placid lakes beneath a moonlit sky. A charcoal suit hugged her body, yet gave nothing away. Sensible pumps with kitten heels, not high enough to show off the real curves of her long legs, but enough to remind him of those gorgeous, long limbs. Blond hair, put back in a severe, tight bun, but Nick knew, when she let her hair down, it would be just long enough to tease around her features and whisper along her cheekbones, her jaw.
Everything about Carolyn on the outside was delicate, and yet on the inside she was strong—like a flamingo that could weather a hurricane.
She’d been the one woman who had intrigued him more than any other in law school. Her uppercrust, stiff Bostonian attitude had been a challenge to him—because when they’d met and he’d made her laugh, he’d glimpsed the Carolyn underneath, it had made him want to peel back the layers, get her to loosen up. Tease out the fun side of the severe, break-no-rules studier.
He’d done that, then done the most spontaneous thing in his life. Taken it to the next level and married her—the biggest mistake of his life.
And now that mistake was standing right in front of him.
CHAPTER TWO
“WHAT are you doing here?” Carolyn asked. Her heartbeat doubled with the shock of seeing him. She saw the same surprise reflected in the widening of his eyes, the way he seemed rooted to the spot. Nick Gilbert, the last man she expected to run into in the toy aisle.
Nick. Her…
Husband?
The
