When It's Love (3 page)

“That should be secure enough,” he said as he finally stepped back from the car. “I know you're anxious to pick up your daughter.”

“How quickly can I drive without worrying that it will slide off?”

“We should be just fine. Unless you're planning on doing some white-knuckle stunt driving,” he teased.

Rachel was surprised that he would even suggest that about her. Didn't he see what everyone else did? The staid and steady single mom. The woman who did the right thing—the
safe
thing—all the time.

Or was it possible that he could see the glimmer of the girl she used to be? Wild...and more than a little unruly and adventurous.

Shaking off her thoughts of the past, she got into the car and buckled up, waiting until Nicholas did the same before setting off through town.

As they made their way up along one of the winding roads, Nicholas said, “Walker Island looks like a really great place.”

“It's a fairly quiet island,” she said, already distracted enough by trying to concentrate on the road rather than on the gorgeous profile of the man sitting next to her without trying to make sparkling conversation, too. Did Nicholas
have
to go around being that good-looking? Rachel knew all too well just how many accidents were caused every year by distracted driving.

“Something tells me,” he replied in a deep voice that made her more than a little melty in all the places she hadn't so much as felt
warm
these past few years, “that things will be exciting enough for me here, even if I don't parachute out of a helicopter the way one of the TV producers was suggesting.”

“Are you really thinking of doing that?” Just thinking of what it would be like to jump out of a helicopter over the island with a parachute on her back sent a rush of adrenaline through Rachel.

“Actually, I was planning to stick to aquatic pursuits, but now that you mention it, that would probably be one heck of a way to get a great aerial view of the island.” She could feel him turn his gaze to her from the passenger seat. “I'm glad the school is close by so that you can get to your daughter soon.”

“Sometimes the island feels too small,” she found herself telling him, “but on days like today, it's definitely a good thing.” Rachel wouldn’t be able to relax until she’d made certain that Charlotte's illness was just the bug the teachers thought it was.

They pulled into the school parking lot sixty seconds later, and after Rachel let Nicholas know she'd be right back, she rushed in to find the school nurse who had Charlotte in her office. The poor little thing looked practically green as she sat there, and when Rachel reached out to touch her forehead, it felt burning hot.

“I'm sure it isn’t anything to worry about,” the nurse assured Rachel. “Lots of kids have been coming down with the flu. Charlotte will just have to stay home from school for a day or two, I'd expect.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said, lifting Charlotte up to carry her, wanting the feeling of her daughter in her arms, knowing she was safe. “I’ll get her to the doctor right now.”

Charlotte's eyes grew big as they approached the car. “Mommy, why is there a surfboard on top of the car?”

“A friend of Morgan's is in town, and I went to pick him up at the ferry. It's his surfboard.”

“Do you think he could teach me to surf?”

Rachel's chest tightened. Charlotte had always been a little adventurer, and it wasn't always easy for Rachel to walk the fine line between keeping her daughter safe and giving her wings to fly.

“I don't know, sweetheart. But right now, we've got to take you to the doctor and get you well.” When Charlotte didn’t argue about going to see the doctor, Rachel realized just how bad she must be feeling.

As Rachel got her daughter buckled into her car seat in the back of the car, Charlotte asked Nicholas, “Are you the surfer?”

Nicholas grinned at her. “That's me. My name is Nicholas, and you must be Charlotte.”

“That's me,” her daughter echoed with a smile that temporarily seemed to take away her pallor. “Is surfing fun?”

His grin grew even wider. “Some of the most fun I've ever had.”

“What happens if you fall off?”

“Then I just swim out and try again.”

“I bet
I
wouldn’t fall off.”

“Everyone falls off. That’s half the fun.”

Despite how easily Nicholas was chatting with her daughter while they drove, from the rearview mirror Rachel could see Charlotte's skin grow even more flushed. The island’s busy doctor’s office was the only one in the small community, which meant that they had to cope with everything from tourists who felt a little sick to serious maritime accidents.

Charlotte's eyes were closed by the time Rachel pulled up outside the doctor’s office. Quickly lifting her daughter out of the car, she was surprised when Charlotte said to Nicholas, “Aren't you coming with us?”

He smiled at her. “As long as it's okay with your mommy.”

Rachel didn't know what to make of her daughter's fascination with Nicholas. Or, rather, she
wished
she didn't know what to make of it. The problem was that she was very much afraid she and Charlotte were two peas in a pod where the good-looking surfer was concerned.

“That's fine with me, unless you're worried that someone will make off with your board.”

“It seems a little quiet here for that,” Nicholas said before turning his smile to her daughter again. “Let's go in so that you can start feeling all better.”

With Charlotte in her arms, Rachel hurried into the waiting room and explained things to the receptionist. While she completed several forms, Nicholas was nice enough to keep her daughter company in the waiting room. Charlotte still looked quite ill, but she was obviously enjoying telling him about the art project they'd been working on in class before she got sick. Rachel hoped her daughter didn’t end up infecting him. She could only imagine how upset the TV network would be if Nicholas was laid up in bed when he should be filming.

Ten minutes later, she and Charlotte went through to see the doctor, who checked her temperature, throat and ears and proclaimed it to be the flu that was going around the island.

“Just like that?” Rachel asked. “Shouldn’t you do a few more in-depth tests first?”

“I could, Ms. Walker, but honestly, I’ve seen so many cases of this in the last few days that there really isn’t any need. I’m sure we wouldn’t want to distress Charlotte by doing tests she doesn’t need.”

Charlotte buried her head against Rachel’s chest at the word “tests.” She obviously didn’t like that idea. Even so, there was a part of Rachel that wanted to overrule them both and insist that the doctor make absolutely certain it wasn’t anything more serious.

Perhaps the doctor guessed what she was thinking—and how much she worried about anything ever happening to her daughter—because he said, “Why don't I give you a prescription for some children’s medicine that will help alleviate the symptoms and make it easier for Charlotte to sleep? But honestly, in this situation, what she mostly needs is rest. If she isn’t feeling better in a couple of days, or if her symptoms get worse, bring her back right away.”

Rachel nodded. She knew she should be relieved that it was as simple as that, but she couldn’t help but worry all the same. As she went out into the waiting area with Charlotte, she saw that Nicholas had yet again attracted a small crowd of people who couldn't get enough of his surfing stories.

From Rachel’s arms, Charlotte looked around at the crowd and then at Nicholas, who immediately excused himself from his group of admirers when he saw them.

“Are you famous?” Charlotte asked him.

Nicholas shrugged. “Maybe a little bit.”

“My Aunt Morgan is famous, too. She’s on TV.”

When Charlotte put her head down on Rachel's shoulder and closed her eyes again, Nicholas lowered his voice and asked, “How’s she doing?”

“The doctor says she’ll be fine in a day or two, although he did give us a prescription for some medicine to help her sleep better. Grams’ house isn’t far from ours, so if it’s okay with you, we’ll make one more stop to pick up Charlotte’s medicine at the pharmacy and then I’ll drop you off on the way home.”

“Whatever you need works for me,” Nicholas assured her.

What Rachel needed right then was to get home with her daughter. That, and figure out what she was going to do about work that afternoon. Morgan was still sick, obviously. Emily and their father were both at work. Paige would be busy teaching classes down at the studio. That left either Grams or Rachel's honorary stepbrother, Michael. She sighed, thinking that the hardest thing about being a single parent was having to come up with contingency plans for someone else to watch Charlotte. Every instinct she had made her want to be right there at home with her daughter, ready to comfort her if she needed it.

Rachel put Charlotte into her car seat and, to her surprise, Nicholas got into the back beside her. “So I can keep an eye on her while you’re driving home,” he explained.

As it turned out, it mostly gave Charlotte someone to talk to as she perked back up a little again. She told him all about how she was practicing a butterfly dance up at the dance studio this week. Then she insisted on playing
I Spy
with Nicholas, who didn’t seem to mind that half the things Charlotte guessed had gone past before he could look out for them.

The three of them made quick work getting the prescription from the pharmacy, but as soon as they were back in the car and finally on the way to Rachel’s grandmother's house, Charlotte suddenly turned away from Nicholas.

“Mommy, I don’t feel well.”

“It’s okay, sweetie, we’ll be home in a minute.”

“No, Mommy, I feel like I'm going to—”

There was no time to pull over and get her out of the car. No time to even shout a warning to Nicholas. One moment, Charlotte was sitting there chatting with Nicholas as happy as she had been all day.

The next, she was busy throwing up all over Nicholas’ shirt.

CHAPTER FOUR

Rachel was horrified. Her baby had just thrown up all over Nicholas! He was used to glamor and glitz, exotic locations and pristine beaches, not small children making a complete mess of his shirt.

She looked back to the road just in time to brake as a couple of teenagers crossed in front of her, bringing the car to a stop with a jolt that sent the surfboard skidding halfway down the windshield, even though Nicholas had tied it on so well.

Rachel pulled over to the side of the road, but instead of getting out to deal with his surfboard, Nicholas continued to try to soothe Charlotte, who was crying now.

“I've got her,” Rachel said softly as she grabbed some tissues from her purse to clean up the worst of it. “Maybe you could work on the surfboard,” she suggested to Nicholas. After another concerned glance at Charlotte, he finally nodded and got out of the car.

What else could go wrong today?
Rachel wondered as she worked to persuade her daughter to take at least a small drink from a bottle of water she'd had in the car. But when she finally stopped crying and her eyes closed, Rachel decided it would be better to let her rest for the time being.

A few seconds later, she stepped out from the backseat to see if Nicholas needed any help with the surfboard...and nearly gasped out loud when she realized that he had pulled off his soiled shirt and the planes of his chest and abs were now on full display. His physique wasn't massive like a body builder’s, rather it was well defined and perfectly balanced—and she
really
needed to stop staring at him like a teenage girl with a crush!

“I am
so
sorry about that. I should have guessed that she might get sick in the car and made sure you weren't sitting next to her just in case it did happen.”

“Don't worry about it. I've had plenty of worse things happen to me while traveling around the world.”

“You've been so nice about everything today,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

“You're the one who was nice enough to come get me from the ferry. There's nothing to thank me for.”

But there was, because Charlotte's own father had never done as much for his daughter as Nicholas already had today. In fact, Guy had never even
seen
his daughter, let alone tried to soothe her while she was sick.

It was very kind of Nicholas to brush off the accident as nothing. Not everyone would have done that. After years of motherhood, Rachel knew her clothes never stayed clean for very long with her daughter around, yet even her sister Morgan was still learning not to wear her more expensive designer clothes around her little niece. Of course, Nicholas was currently managing without his shirt completely, wearing only a single shark tooth on a leather thong around his neck.

She had to hand it to him—he was certainly taking all this better than any man could or should have. Instead of shouting at her or demanding that she replace the shirt, he was being totally calm, and kind, about the whole thing.

The few men she’d dated since Guy had always run a mile the moment they found out she had a child. That, or they’d treated her daughter like an annoyance, thinking it was odd that Rachel would want to spend so much of her time with her little girl.

But why was she thinking about how the men she'd dated had treated her daughter when it simply wasn’t relevant in this situation? Even if the heat that rose inside of Rachel every time Nicholas looked at her insisted otherwise.

She was simply giving him a ride to help out her sister, she reminded herself. That was it. She would drop him off at her grandmother’s house soon and then she probably wouldn’t see him again. Granted, he would be on the island for the next week, but he’d be busy doing his TV thing with Morgan.

“If it's okay, I'd like to get Charlotte into bed and then help get you cleaned up.” At his slightly curious look, she explained, “I can’t have you showing up at Grams’ house like this. Morgan would never forgive me. Besides, the least I owe you is a shower.”

“A shower would be great, thanks.”

Getting back into the car, with Nicholas in the backseat again as he insisted on keeping watch over Charlotte, she hurried back through the streets of Walker Island’s small community, hoping with every turn she took that the surfboard wouldn’t go flying off the top of the car.