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 getting chased 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 crushed raspberries, the thought of some lucky guy chasing her around made him feel miserable.
“Oh,” she said, her voice strangled, even as she tried to act casual, “I’ve given up Cinderella dreams. Men are mostly cads in sheep’s clothing.”
Her attempt at being casual missed, and then she touched her neck, where the locket used to be.
“How right you are,” he said, but he felt very sorry about it, and he knew he was exactly the wrong guy to correct her misconceptions. Who had lured her and the kids here veiling another motive, after all?
Who looked at her lips and her toes and her hair and fought an increasingly hard battle not to steal a little taste, no matter what the consequences?
He knew he shouldn’t ask. But he did, anyway. “Did he hurt you badly?”
“Who?” she croaked, wide-eyed.
He sighed. “The professor.”
Her hand dropped away from her neck. “I’m embarrassed to be so transparent.”
“Good. I hope it makes you blush again. Did he?”
She contemplated that for a moment and then said quietly, “No, I hurt myself.”
But he doubted if that was completely true, and he felt a sudden murderous desire to meet the jerk that had hurt her. And another desire to see if he could chase the sudden sadness from her eyes. With his lips.
But something kept him from giving in to the little devil that sat on his shoulder, prodding him with the proverbial pitchfork and saying with increasing force and frequency, Kiss her. No one will get hurt.
The thought was in such contrast to the innocence of playing tag in the trees until they were breathless with laughter, in such contrast to the wholesome fun of wading and splashing along the shorelines of a lake too cold yet to swim in.
He was not looking forward to another night in the cabin with her, once the children were in bed, but the angel that sat on her shoulder must have been stronger than the devil on his.
Because after another incredible supper, fresh lake trout cooked by Sally, Dannie announced she and Susie would be sleeping in the tree fort. Ridiculously, he heard himself saying he would join them.
He had the worst sleep of his life in the tree fort, with Susie between his and Dannie’s sleeping bags, the baby in a huge wicker basket at their heads, cooing happily from his nest of warm blankets.
Dannie was so close, he could touch that incredible hair, but he didn’t. She was so close he could smell the Hawaiian flower scent of her. He lay awake looking at the incredible array of stars overhead, and listening to her breathing, and in the morning, he felt cold and cramped and more alive than he had felt in a long, long time.
He woke up looking into Dannie’s sleep-dazed turquoise eyes, and wondered how on earth he was ever going to go back to life as he had known it.
The carefree stay here at Moose Lake Lodge was about as far from his high-powered life as he could have gotten. He didn’t check his Blackberry, there was no TV to watch. No Internet.
He had a new reality and so much of it was about Dannie: her eyes and her lips and the way she tossed her hair. How she looked with her slacks rolled up and smudged with dirt, hugging the womanliness of her curves, her bare toes curling in warm sand.
He saw the way she was with those kids: patient, loving, genuine. He came to look forward to her intelligence, the playful sting of exchanged insults.
He was acutely aware Dannie was the kind of woman that men, superficial creatures that they were, overlooked. But if a man was looking for a life partner—which he thankfully was not—could he do any better than her?
That morning, after the exquisite pleasure of a hot shower after a cold night, over pancakes and syrup, Sally told them she and Michael would mind the kids for the day.
“The only one who hasn’t had any kind of a holiday, a break from responsibility, is
