Rescued in a Wedding Dress (8 page)

She had to get him out of the BlackBerry! She wished she had a little dirt to throw on those shoes, to coax the happiness out of him. She had to make him
see
what was important. This little daycare was just a microcosm of everything Second Chances did. If he could feel the love, even for a second, everything would change. Molly knew it.

“Houston, I saved you a seat,” she called, patting the tiny chair beside her.

He glanced over, looked aghast, looked longingly—and not for the first time—at the exit door. And then a look came over his face—not of a man joining preschoolers for snack—but of a warrior striding toward battle, a gladiator into the ring.

The children became quite quiet, watching him.

If he knew his suit was in danger, he never let on. Without any hesitation at all, he pulled up the teeny chair beside Molly, hung his jacket over the back of it—not even out of range of the fingers, despite the subtle Giorgio Armani label revealed in the back of it—and plunked himself down.

The children eyed him with wide-eyed surprise, silent and shy.

Children, Molly told herself, were not charmed by the same things as adults. They did not care about his watch or his shoes, the label in the back of that jacket.

Show me who you really are.

She passed him a red pepper, a silly thing to expect to show you a person. He looked at it, looked at her, seemed to be deciding something. She was only aware of how tense he had been when she saw his shoulders shift slightly, saw the corners of his mouth relax.

Ignoring the children who were gawking at him,
Houston picked up a slice of red pepper and studied it. “What should I do with this?”

“Put stuff on it!”

He followed the instructions he could understand, until the original red pepper was not visible any longer but coated and double coated with toppings.

Finally he could delay the moment of truth no longer. But he did not bite into his own crazy creation.

Instead, he held it out, an inch from Molly’s lips. “My lady,” he said smoothly. “You first.”

Something shivered in her. How could this be? Surrounded by squealing children, suddenly everything faded. It was a moment she’d imagined in her weaker times. Was there anything more romantic than eating from another’s hand?

Somehow that simple act of sharing food was the epitome of trust and connection.

She had wanted to bring him out of himself, and instead he was turning the tables on her!

Molly leaned forward and bit into the raisin-encrusted red pepper. She had to close her eyes against the pleasure of what she tasted.

“Ambrosia,” she declared, and opened her eyes to see him looking at her with understandable quizzicalness.

“My turn!” She loaded a piece of celery with every ingredient on the table.

“I hate celery,” he said when she held it up to him.

“You’re setting an example!” she warned him.

He cast his eyes around the table, looked momentarily rebellious, then nipped the piece of celery out of her fingers with his teeth.

Way too easy to imagine this same scenario in very different circumstances. Maybe he could, too, because
his silver-shaded eyes took on a smoky look that was unmistakably sensual.

How could this be happening? Time standing still, something in her heart going crazy, in the middle of the situation least like any romantic scenario she had ever imagined, and Molly was guilty of imagining many of them!

But then that moment was gone as the children raced each other creating concoctions for their honored guests. As when his shoulders had relaxed, now Molly noticed another layer of some finally held tension leaving him as he surrendered to the children, and to the moment.

They were calling orders to him, the commands quick and thick. “Dunk it.” “Roll it.” “Put stuff on it! Like this!”

One of the bolder older boys got up and pressed right in beside Houston. He anchored himself—one sticky little hand right on the suit jacket hanging on the back of the chair—and leaned forward. He held out the offering—a carrot dripping with dressing and seeds—to Houston. Some of it appeared to plop onto those beautiful shoes.

Molly could see a greasy print across the shoulder lining of the jacket.

A man who owned a suit like that was not going to be impressed with its destruction, not able to see
soul
through all this!

But Houston didn’t seem to care that his clothes were getting wrecked. He wasn’t backing away. After his initial horror in the children, he seemed to be easing up a little. He didn’t even make an attempt to move the jacket out of harm’s way.

In fact he looked faintly pleased as he took the carrot that had been offered and chomped on it thoughtfully.

“Excellent,” he proclaimed.

After that any remaining shyness from the children dissolved. Houston selected another carrot, globbed dressing on it and hesitated over his finishing choices.

The children yelled out suggestions, and he listened and obeyed each one until that carrot was so coated in stuff that it was no longer recognizable. He popped the whole concoction in his mouth. He closed his eyes, chewed very slowly and then sighed.

“Delicious,” he exclaimed.

Molly stared at him, aware of the shift happening in her. It was different than when they had chased each other in the garden, it was different than when they had danced and she was entranced.

Beyond the sternness of his demeanor, she saw someone capable of exquisite tenderness, an amazing ability to be sensitive. Even sweet.

Molly was sure if he knew that—that she could see tender sweetness in him—he would withdraw instantly. So she looked away, but then, was compelled to look back. She felt like someone who had been drinking brackish water their entire life, and who had suddenly tasted something clear and pure instead.

The little girl beside Houston, wide-eyed and silent, held up her celery stick to him—half-chewed, sloppy with dressing and seeds—plainly an offering. He took it with grave politeness, popped it in his moth, repeated the exaggerated sigh of enjoyment.

“Thank you, princess.”

Her eyes grew wider. “Me princess,” she said, mulling
it over gravely. And then she smiled, her smile radiant and adoring.

Children, of course, saw through veneers so much easier than adults did!

I am allowing myself to be charmed,
Molly warned herself sternly. And of course, it was even more potent because Houston was not trying to charm anyone, slipping into this role as naturally and unselfconsciously as if he’d been born to play it.

But damn it, who wouldn’t be charmed, seeing that self-assured man give himself over to those children?

I could love him.
Molly was stunned as the renegade thought blasted through her brain.

Stop it,
she ordered herself. She was here to achieve a goal.

She wanted him to acknowledge there was the potential for joy anywhere, in any circumstance at all. Bringing that shining moment to people who had had too few of them was the soul of Second Chances. It was what they did so well.

But all of that, all her motives, were fading so quickly as she continued to
see
something about Houston Whitford that made her feel weak with longing.

He couldn’t keep up with children hand-making him tidbits. In minutes he had every child in the room demanding his attention. He solemnly accepted the offerings, treated each as if it was a culinary adventure from the five-star restaurant he was dressed for.

He began to really let loose—something Molly sensed was very rare in this extremely controlled man. He began to narrate his culinary adventure, causing spasms of laughter from the children, and from her.

He did Bugs Bunny impressions. He asked for
recipes. He used words she would have to look up in the dictionary.

And then he laughed.

Just like he had laughed in the garden. It was possibly the richest sound she had ever heard, deep, genuine, true.

She thought of all the times she had convinced Chuck to do “fun” things with her, the thing she deemed an in-love couple should do that week. Roller-skating, bike riding, days on the beaches of Long Island, a skiing holiday in Vermont. Usually paid for by her of course, and falling desperately short of her expectations.

Always, she had so carefully set up the picture, trying to make herself feel some kind of magic that had been promised to her in songs, and in movies and in storybooks.

Molly had tried so hard to manufacture the exact feeling she was experiencing in this moment. She had thought if she managed this outing correctly she would show Houston Whitford the real Second Chances.

What she had not expected was to see Houston Whitford so clearly, to see how a human being could shine.

What if this was what was most real about him? What if this was him, this man who was so unexpectedly full of laughter and light around these children?

What if he was one of those rare men who were made to be daddies? Funny, playful, able to fully engage with children?

“I told you, you don’t laugh enough,” she whispered to him.

“Ah, Miss Molly, it’s hard for me to admit you might be right.” And then he smiled at her, and it seemed as if the whole world faded and it was just the two of them in this room, sharing something deep and splendid.

Molly found herself wanting to capture these
moments, to hold them, to keep them. She remembered the camera he had given her, took it out and clicked as he took a very mashed celery stick from a child.

“The best yet,” she heard him say. “To die for. But I can’t eat another bite. Not one.”

But he took one more anyway, and then he closed his eyes, and patted his flat belly, pretending to push it out against his hand. The children howled with laughter. She took another picture, and Molly laughed, too, at his antics, but underneath her laughter was a growing awareness.

She had thought bringing Houston to her projects would show her the real Houston Whitford. And that was true.

Unfortunately, if this laughing carefree man was the real Houston, it made her new boss even more attractive, not less! It made her way too aware of the Molly that had never been put behind her after all—the Molly who yearned and longed, and ultimately
believed.

“Will you stay for story time?”

No. Nothing that ended happily-ever-after! Please! She suddenly wanted to get him out of here. Felt as if something about her plot to win his heart was backfiring badly. She had wanted to win him over for Second Chances! Not for herself.

He was winning her heart instead of her winning his, and it had not a single thing to do with Second Chances.

“Not possible,” Molly said, quickly, urgently. “Sorry.”

It wasn’t on the schedule to stay, thank goodness, but even before the children started begging him, it seemed every one of them tugging on some part of him to get him up off the floor, his eyes met Molly’s and she knew they weren’t going anywhere.

With handprints and food stains all over the pristine
white of that shirt, Houston allowed himself to be dragged to the sinks, where he obediently washed his own hands, and then one by one helped each of the children wash theirs.

After he washed “Princess’s” face, the same child who had sat beside him at snack, she crooked her finger at him. He bent down, obviously thinking, as Molly did, that the tiny tot had some important secret to tell him.

Instead she kissed him noisily on his cheek.

Molly held out the camera, framed the exquisite moment.
Click.

He straightened slowly, blushing wildly.

Click.
She found herself hoping that she was an accomplished enough photographer to capture that look on his face.

“Did you turn me into a prince, little princess?” Houston asked.

The girl regarded him solemnly. “No.”

But that’s not how Molly felt, at all. A man she had been determined to see as a toad had turned into a prince before her eyes.

Again she realized that this excursion was not telling her as much about Houston Whitford as it was telling her about herself.

She wanted the things she had always wanted, more desperately than ever.

And that sense of desperation only grew as Molly watched as Houston, captive now, like Gulliver in the land of little people, was led over to the story area. He chose to sit on the floor, all the children crowding around him. By the time they were settled each of those children seemed to have claimed some small part of him, to touch, even if it was just the exquisitely crafted
soft leather of his shoe. His “little princess” crawled into his lap, plopped her thumb in her mouth and promptly went to sleep.

Molly could not have said what one of those stories was about by the time they left a half hour later, Houston handing over the still sleeping child.

As she watched him, she was in the grip of a tenderness so acute it felt as if her throat was closing.

Molly was stunned. The thing she had been trying to avoid because she knew how badly it would weaken her—was exactly what she had been brought.

She was seeing Houston Whitford in the context of family. Watching him, she
felt
his strength, his protectiveness, his
heart.

She had waited her whole life to feel this exquisite tenderness for another person.

It was all wrong. There was no candlelight. It smelled suspiciously like the little girl might have had an accident in her sleep.

Love was supposed to come first. And then these moments of glory.

What did it mean? That she had experienced such a moment for Houston? Did it mean love would come next? That she could fall in love with this complicated man who was her boss?

No, that was exactly what she was not doing! No more wishing, dreaming! Being held prisoner by fantasies.

No more.

But as she looked at him handing over that sleeping little girl, it felt like she was being blinded by the light in him, drawn to the power and warmth of it.

Moth to flame,
Molly chastised herself ineffectively.