The Baby Bond (13 page)

“She invited me to have dinner with your family tomorrow after church.”

Nic perked up. Sunday dinner with the fam was sounding good. “Are you coming?”

Her mouth tilted at the corners. “I said yes.”

“I think I’m offended,” he said lightly, though truth lurked behind the words. “You wouldn’t go when
I
invited you.”

“Your mother has helped me a lot. She’s a wise woman.”

He turned both index fingers to point at himself. “And I, her son, am a wise guy.”

As he’d intended, Cassidy laughed. She bumped his foot with the toe of her shoe. “Are you ever serious?”

He thought of the MCAT book waiting inside.

“You would be surprised.” He chucked Alex under the chin and rose to a stand. “Mind having some company on your jog?”

“I thought you had stuff to do.”

“Stuff that can wait.” He’d been up until two that morning cramming. A break was overdue. “We don’t get many perfect days like this.”

She glanced out at the street where cars sailed by, their metallic paint reflecting the bright sun. “Well…”

There she went again, throwing up barriers.

“Never mind. I don’t want to intrude.” He backed off and turned away, disappointed but annoyed, too. If she didn’t want him around, fine. He wasn’t exactly lonely.

“Nic.” Her voice hesitated, uncertain.

He glanced over one shoulder, head tilted in question. It was her call.

She blinked twice and then smiled. “Got any running shoes?”

A grin started down in his belly, rose in his chest and landed on his face. He held up two fingers. “Two minutes.”

Without analyzing the pure rush of pleasure, Nic hurried inside, donned running shoes and a Yankees cap and was back on the sidewalk in less than the allotted pair of minutes.

“Let’s roll,” he said and then laughed, looking at the stroller. Cassidy laughed, too. “No pun intended. Are we headed to Pride Park?”

“Yes.” A block from the apartment was a park with a circular running track around the play area. They started in that direction. He crowded her out of the way and took over
the stroller. The wheels clattered against the concrete walk. The baby’s head bobbed and jostled, his eyes drooping with the rhythm.

“How are things at work? Catching up yet?”

“I wish.” She didn’t elaborate, a bad sign, he figured. Instead, she asked, “Why aren’t you out with your friends this weekend?”

He looked at Alex and then at her, the grin in his belly still in full bloom. “I am.”

Weird, but true. He was right where he wanted to be.

Cassidy got butterflies in her stomach when Nic said things like that. She knew he was teasing. He was always teasing. Notorious Nic’s idea of fun could not be a stressed-out neighbor and her sometimes cranky nephew. From the gaggle of girls, and if she was fair, an equal group of guys, who had roamed in and out of Nic’s apartment since he’d moved in, Cassidy was certain he could find better entertainment.

“My grandmother called again this morning,” she said as they waited at the corner for the light to change.

“Sorry to hear that.” A red sports car roared past, going far too fast. Nic braced an arm in front of her and scowled at the disappearing Camaro. “Dude. Slow down.” To her he said, “Grandma still pressuring you?”

Cassidy wrinkled her nose at him. “Sometimes I wonder if she’s right, if I’m cheating Alex out of a real family.”

Easily pushing Alex’s stroller with one hand, Nic took her elbow in the other and guided them across the busy street. “Don’t do that. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“I want what’s best for him.”

“That would be you.
You
are a real family. Small but mighty.”

She was starting to believe him.

After they stepped up on the curb, Nic dropped his hold.
She realized then how protected and safe she’d felt for those few seconds. Notorious Nic was working his amazing charm on her and she couldn’t seem to stop reacting to him.

She didn’t understand the reaction, either. She had friends and a busy life. She didn’t need Nic’s attention.

After the other night when she’d told him things she’d never told anyone, he had been in her thoughts constantly. On the days he didn’t bounce up to her apartment with some silly quip or tale of wild adventure or jokingly asking to borrow a cup of sugar, she missed him.

Dumb. Real dumb.

At times like this, she could forget he was a firefighter. Almost.

An hour later they returned to the apartment complex, drenched in sweat and laughing. Cassidy had never enjoyed a run in quite this manner. She’d raced Nic, beating him in a short sprint, though he’d cried foul, claiming the wheels on Alex’s stroller gave her an unfair advantage. She’d laughed so hard, she’d had to sit down on the track, arms over upraised knees to get her breath. No doubt, he could have smoked her if he’d wanted to. The man was in amazing physical condition.

Nic had jogged forward, backward, sideways and around her in ever narrowing circles until he’d collapsed on the blacktop surface next to her, panting, the grin on his handsome face causing her exercise-pumped pulse to skitter. No wonder he could have any girl he wanted. Besides being darkly handsome, Nic was a ton of fun. She was working harder than ever to also remember that he had about as much substance as a dandelion puff. Somewhere along the line he’d put a dent in that strongly held opinion.

Dangerous. Very dangerous to be thinking of Nic as a solid
man with deep feelings and beliefs. He was a Christian. She’d gotten that much out of him during one of their late-night talks when Alex wouldn’t sleep, she couldn’t and Nic had chosen not to. Like most things, though, he didn’t take his faith as seriously as she did.

“Come on in,” he said when they reached his apartment door. “I have bottled water in the fridge.”

“My kingdom for your water,” she joked.

Nic lifted the stroller over the threshold and led the way. Once inside, he extracted Alex and sat him on the floor. “Is he okay here?”

Cassidy reached inside a pouch on the back of the stroller, took out several toys and placed them in front of the baby. “He is now.”

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll grab that water.”

She moved around the room, taking in the changes, hearing the suction of the refrigerator door and the clatter as Nic moved around.

“Everything looks different. I’m impressed.”

A beige couch, a deep-maroon leather chair and a couple of occasional tables were set up around an interesting area rug in shades of beige, maroon and navy. All the boxes and stacks of household goods and clothes were gone.

“Did your girlfriends put everything away?”

“Friends who are girls. Let’s get that part cleared up.” He came around the recliner to hand her a bottle of cold water. “But no. I did everything myself.”

“Even the wall hangings?” A clever assortment of photographs from Nic’s various adventures had been grouped along one wall. The opposite wall held some sort of graphic design in colors that blended with the hodgepodge of furnishings. Her artistic eye found the choices intriguing.

She uncapped the bottle and took a long drink, letting the
cold chill the back of her throat. Condensation frosted the plastic and dampened her hand.

Taking his own bottle of water, Nic dropped onto the sofa. “Painted the design, too. Saw it on HGTV, but don’t tell anyone.” He patted the couch. “Sit. Cool down.”

“What’s the deal? Real men don’t watch design shows.”

“Right.”

Amused, Cassidy sat, curling one foot beneath her. “Your secret is safe with me.”

As she leaned her head back against the microfiber sofa and relaxed, a large, thick book that looked for all the world like serious study caught her attention. Curious, she leaned to pick up the text. It weighed a ton.

She read the title. “MCAT? Nic, what is this?”

Nic gulped half his bottle of water and then dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. His fingers froze in place as he realized what she was looking at.

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” he said in a silly Oz-like voice.

“Nic, be serious.” She hoisted the heavy textbook. “Is this yours?”

With a shrug, he tried to laugh it off. “Found it laying around. Thought I’d see if I could learn some big words to impress the girls.”

“You’re studying to take medical school entrance exams,” she said in stunned wonder.

The completely incongruous concept ping-ponged around inside her head. Nic Carano studying to be a doctor? Notorious Nic? This was crazy.

“Nic? You are, aren’t you?”

Nic responded by rubbing his temples and then dragging both hands over his face, which was now somber. “Promise me you’ll keep this to yourself.”

“Why? Nic, this is awesome, amazing.”

“And surprising?”

“Well, yes, that, too. You don’t exactly present yourself as the serious student type.”

“Which is why I’d like to keep this between us, if you don’t mind.”

“No one else knows?”

He shook his head. “No one.”

“Not even your family?” They were so close. Surely he’d told them.

“
Especially
my family.”

She placed her half-empty bottle onto the coffee table and wiped a moist hand over her shorts. “I don’t get it. Your family would be thrilled.”

“That’s the point. They’d be thrilled to know their baby boy, the son with mostly air in his head, was finally trying to make something of himself like the other kids have.”

“Okaaay, forgive me, but I’m still not getting it.” She leaned toward him. “Why wouldn’t you want to share that with them?”

“I do. I want that more than I can tell you. When the time is right.” He sucked in a lungful of air and blew it out slowly through pursed lips. “This won’t be the first time I’ve taken the test.” His eyebrows rose and fell in a wry facial shrug. “Or the second.”

Understanding dawned. “Now I get it. You’re afraid of failing again. Of letting them down.”

“Bingo.”

Nic looked so shaken by his admission that Cassidy couldn’t help herself. She scooted closer and placed a hand atop his.

“How close were you to passing?”

Nic gazed down at where their hands touched, turned his palm up and laced his fingers with hers. The motion felt right.

Now Cassidy was the shaken one.

“Real close. I’m taking an online review class this time, plus the book study. Unless I’m a complete idiot I should do okay. But I can’t just pass. I need good scores to get into the state programs.”

This was a new side of Nic. Anyway, it was a side of him she’d tried not to see before. Now she realized the serious Nic had been there all along. This was the man, after all, who’d pulled Alex from a burning building, the man who’d sat by a strange baby’s bed until a relative had arrived. A man who’d cheerfully rounded up baby furniture and clothes for a complete stranger.

“Your T-shirt lies,” she said gently, still stunned by the wrenching paradigm shift. Her carefully held opinions of Notorious Nic, fueled by his self-deprecations were tumbling like stacked dominoes.

Puzzled, Nic’s eyebrows came together before he dipped his chin and read the slogan on his shirt. “I took an IQ test. The results were negative.”

With his usual humor, his lips twitched. “That remains to be seen.”

Cassidy squeezed his fingers, felt him squeeze back. Funny how something as simple as holding hands could suddenly take on new meaning. She’d taken his hand to comfort him, as he’d comforted her that awful morning at the hospital and again the other night. Now that he’d let her past his facade of fun and games for a look into the complete Nic Carano, Cassidy had to face an unwanted truth.

She swallowed hard, her heart thudding in her throat at the stunning revelations going on inside her. Nic Carano was not only a lot of fun to be with, he was a much deeper guy than anyone suspected.

Trouble was, she didn’t want him to be deep and complex.
Even though he might aspire to medical school, there was no guarantee he would make it. No guarantee he would trade a life-threatening job for a life-saving one. Worse yet, his entourage of girls called or texted him constantly.

She didn’t need any of this in her already tumultuous life.

He squeezed her fingers again and smiled. Cassidy suffered a sinking sensation strong enough to leave a hole the size of the Grand Canyon.

She liked Nic Carano…far more than was prudent.

T
he man was full of surprises.

On Sunday morning when Nic had shown up at her door dressed in a pale-yellow shirt and crisp navy slacks offering to drive her to church, Cassidy had nearly choked on her breakfast bar. All through the service, she was aware of him sitting too close, aware of the fresh scent of shower, shampoo and masculine warmth, aware of the timbre of his voice lifted in song.

Lord, forgive her. As hard as she fought it, he was definitely a distraction.

Now, here they were in the ample backyard of his family’s home where she had received the most shocking surprise yet.

On arrival, Nic had introduced her to his family, some of whom she’d met. Altogether Nic had two sisters, Anna Marie and Mia, plus two brothers, Gabe and Adam. All except Adam were married with families, so an abundance of children ran around the backyard. She hadn’t yet matched the children with their parents because every adult seemed equally interested in every child. A toddler boy with curly dark hair clung to Nic’s leg. A little girl with the face of an angel sat atop Adam’s broad shoulders, thrashing his back with a long weed and yelling, “Giddyap, horsie.”

Several small ones ran in, out and between lawn chairs in a squealing game of freeze tag, while a couple of teenagers worked on a dilapidated go-cart turned upside down in the far corner of the yard. Occasionally, one of them called for help and one of the brothers or their father, Leo, jogged over for consultation.

Mia’s husband, Collin, along with Leo and a slim young man named Mitch, manned the grill where the scent of hamburgers sizzled in the air. The Carano brothers drifted past a few times to add friendly advice and insults before drifting off to other pursuits.