fit the carrier straps to your size and you’re comfortable in it, it will give you a certain amount of independence with her. You’ll be able to duck in and pick her up during the day if you want, and you’ll have your hands free. The easier that becomes, the more time you’ll be able to spend with her.”
“And the more time I spend with her, the stronger our bond. Got it. Hear that, Bonnie?” The baby was lying back in her cradle, her little arms flailing as she watched them. “This is the first step to our new bond.”
Jenna gave the cotton and mesh a shake. “If you’re ready, the first thing we need to adjust the carrier straps to fit you.”
He looked dubiously at the contraption in her hand. “Is it the right size?”
“They come in one size and we adjust it.” She lengthened the strap, then reached up to loop it over his head but hesitated. She’d done this countless times on herself, but pulling it over Liam’s thick mahogany hair seemed an act of intimacy that was beyond the boundaries of their relationship.
“Er, you might be a bit tall for me to reach....” It was an obvious lie. He was taller, yes, but if he ducked his head there was no reason she couldn’t manage the task. She held the carrier out to him, and Liam seemed to take her assessment at face value.
He took the carrier and slipped it over his head and threaded his arms through, then held the pouch section out in front of him. “This will hold her?”
“She’ll be well supported.” The carrier needed to be a little tighter so that Liam could hold Bonnie more firmly against his chest, but the threaded buckle was at the back, so it would be awkward for him to do it himself. Perhaps Jenna should have asked Katherine to help with this part. “If you turn around, I’ll adjust it.”
Suddenly she was presented with the expanse of pale blue shirt fabric pulled firmly across his broad shoulders. A prickle of heat raced across her skin. She wanted to allow her hands to roam, to trace the shape of him under the material, to luxuriate in the warm solidness of him.
He didn’t move—patiently waiting for her to help him with something for his daughter. Which was enough to snap Jenna out of the mood that had descended. Quickly, she tightened the straps to fit firmly around him, ignoring the exquisite torture of her fingers brushing against him.
“Okay, I think that’s about right,” she said brightly. “I’ll pop Bonnie in, and check the fitting again then.”
As he turned back around, Jenna picked Bonnie up, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and slid her into the pouch strapped to her father’s chest. Bonnie’s neck arched against the head support and she locked her gaze on her father’s face.
“I think she likes it already,” Jenna said.
Liam put a hand up behind Bonnie’s head, as he examined as much of the carrier as he could see, as if making an assessment about its construction and the safety of his daughter. “I thought I’d seen babies facing the other way.”
“As she gets a bit older, we can adjust it and have her facing forward. Older babies like to see the world, but right now she’d rather be snug against you.”
Liam whispered something to Bonnie, and Jenna saw his Adam’s apple move slowly up and down. Tears of tender emotion pressed at the back of her eyes, but she blinked them away and busied herself reading the instruction leaflet that came with the carrier, despite having read it several times already, and allowed father and daughter to have their moment.
“Did you wear one of these much with Meg?” he finally asked, glancing up.
Jenna smiled as she circled him, testing the straps and the fit. “She practically lived in one. After work, I was busy trying to get our washing and cooking done. But I hadn’t seen her all day, so I didn’t want to be apart from her either.”
He nodded in understanding. “And with the carrier, you could do both things at once.”
“In theory,” she said wryly. “Often I’d get distracted by Meg and end up with no washing or cooking done and I’d eat a banana for dinner.”
She felt the low rumble of his laugh as it vibrated through his chest and quickly dropped her hands. “I think she’s safe and snug in there,” she said, stepping back. “How does it feel?”
He leaned a fraction to one side, then the other and swiveled at the waist, as if testing the carrier’s scope. “It’s surprisingly comfortable. I mean, I know she’s there and my center of gravity is different, but I’d expected it to feel more cumbersome.”
“That’s great. Why don’t you take a walk through the house? See if it feels secure while you move around.”
He wandered off, ambling from room to room, leaving her watching him. But she felt more like a voyeur than someone supervising the process. His body moved with such masculine grace, and the carrier straps emphasized the set of his shoulders.
Her heart clenched tight. Why was she having such inappropriate thoughts about her boss? And, maybe more important, why was she so ineffective at controlling them?
She sank into the dining chair and covered her face with her hands, forced to acknowledge that she was quite possibly in over her head.
* * *
Two days later, Liam met Jenna and the babies at the door to his research facility. On a whim—one he was still struggling to understand—he’d sent a note to the house inviting them down to see where he worked.
“Hi, Liam,” Jenna said brightly. “Thanks for the invitation.” She’d worn a summer dress and an orange wide-brimmed hat, and for a moment he felt a pang at not being able to see her silky blond hair.
“Hi,” he said, looking at the double stroller. “It might be better if we carry them. And you won’t need your hat in here either.” He slipped off his white lab coat, threw it over one arm and scooped Meg up in the other. Meg was the heavier of the babies, so he’d instinctively reached for her to save Jenna’s arms, but he’d surprised himself lately by liking Meg in his arms almost as much as Bonnie. She had such a sweet personality even at this young age.
Jenna picked Bonnie up and followed him through the doors.
“I’m glad you could make it,” he said as they walked down a corridor.
“We wouldn’t have missed a personal tour for anything, would we, girls?” Meg gurgled in his arms at her mother’s voice.
Beyond family and his research staff, he’d never allowed anyone into his rooms. Corporate espionage was always a concern—if there was a flower he’d developed and was about to patent, a competitor would love the opportunity to see it and try to trump him.
But there was a personal element too.
Since the day his father had given him a plot of land and free rein to breed his own flowers when he was fifteen, he’d always grown his plants with a fair amount of privacy. He had staff to help now, to carry out tasks such as replicating his experiments to ensure the plants would throw the same flower every time and that the cultivars were healthy. But, in his own lab on a day-to-day basis, he still worked alone. It was a more personal space to him than his home.
So why he’d invited Jenna Peters into his inner sanctum was anyone’s guess. He inwardly winced. He could rationalize it and say he was letting his daughter visit him at work—something he hoped she would continue to do as she got older—and she needed her nanny to bring her, but he knew that wasn’t the truth.
There was something about Jenna that he trusted. Sure she’d been reluctant to talk about her childhood when asked, but he’d decided it must be painful for her. She simply wasn’t the type of person to hide anything from him.
As they walked down the sterile white corridor past rooms filled with activity, a few of his staff rushed over to coo over the two babies, but even those who didn’t watched his progress. Having non-research or admin staff in the building was enough of a surprise