that, despite his words, he was the man least likely to need a rescue of any sort. Even if he did need one, he would never ask for it!
“I’m riding to your rescue?” Stacy asked, just to clarify.
It was a good thing he seemed to be being sarcastic, because it would be terrible to break it to him that she was the least likely person to count on for a rescue, her own life being ample evidence of that.
“Just like the cavalry,” he said, and cocked his head at her blank expression. “I’m stranded. The fort is under full attack. I have no bullets left. And in rides the cavalry.”
“Me?” she squeaked. “I’m the cavalry?”
He eyed her with doubt that appeared to mirror her own, then sighed again. “You are the nanny Adele insisted on sending, aren’t you?”
The nanny!
Stacy realized Caroline had not called and set something up for her. Far from it! A nanny. Kiernan McAllister was expecting a nanny! That’s who he would have sent a car through the snowy day for!
Fortunately, Stacy was saved from having to answer because he turned and held open the door of the bathroom for her.
“That way,” he said. “To the guest room. You can help me temporarily, until I get your car looked after.”
In a daze, she turned left and went down the hall ahead of McAllister.
His voice followed her, his tone mulling. “I thought he would sleep longer. He has barely slept since he got here. Who would have thought that one small baby could be so demanding? He doesn’t sleep. And he doesn’t want to eat. You know what he does?”
Again, he didn’t wait for an answer.
“He cries.” His voice was lowered, and she thought she detected the slightest admission he might be in over his head. “Not that I couldn’t handle it. But, if my sister thinks I need saving, who am I to argue?”
Stacy swallowed hard. What was it about the thought of saving a man like him that made her go almost weak with wanting? But, despite what his sister thought, the look on his face made it very apparent he did not agree!
That was the old her that would have liked him to need her, Stacy reminded herself sternly. The old her: naive and romantic, believing in the power of love and hoping for a family gathered in a big room around a Christmas tree.
Obviously, McAllister did not need saving. She had rarely seen a man so self-assured! What man could stand outside dripping wet and barely clothed and act as if nothing was out of the ordinary?
Still, there was that look in his eyes...defiant, daring her to see need in him! Foolishly it made her want to turn toward him, run her hand over the coarse stubble of that jaw and assure him that, yes, she was there to rescue him and that everything would be all right.
Instead, she kept moving forward until she came to an open door and peered inside. There was a playpen set up in the room, and in it was a nest of messy blankets and stuffed toys.
Holding himself up on the bumper, howling with indignation and jumping up and down, was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen. He looked like he was a little over a year, chubby, dark hair every which way, completely adorable in pale blue sleepers that had the snaps done up crooked.
Was he McAllister’s baby? While a secret baby would have been the story of the century, her thoughts drifted way too quickly from story potential to far more treacherous territory.
What on earth was Kiernan McAllister doing with a baby when that was what she had always wanted?
It caught her off guard and left her reeling even more than spinning her car into his front garden had!
We want such different things, her ex-boyfriend, Dylan, had said with a sad shake of his head, dismissing her dreams of reclaiming a traditional life like the one she had grown up in as a life sentence of dullness.
Their last night together, the extravagant dinner had made Stacey think he was going to offer her an engagement ring.
Instead, she had been devastated by his invitation to move in with him!
Really, his defection had been the last straw in a life where love had ripped her wide open once too often. To add to the sting of it all, they had worked in the same office, he her direct superior, and she had been let go after their breakup, which she—and everyone else at the office—knew was entirely unfair.
Still, in the wake of her life disasters, Stacy had made up her mind she would be wounded by love and life no more! But now the yearning inside her caused by seeing that Christmas-perfect great room, and now by thinking of this man before her with a baby, only made her realize how much work she had yet to do!
Though why, when she knew how much work she had to do, her eyes would go to McAllister’s lips, she could not be certain. McAllister’s lips were full and bold, the lower one in particular spine-tinglingly sensual.
Dangerous, she told herself. He was a dangerous kind of man. His lips should be declared the pillars of salt one should never look at for danger of being lost forever. She was stunned by both the peril and intensity of her thoughts.
She was not, after all, who he was expecting, and she was certainly not a qualified nanny.
But she felt as if she had to know the story of the baby.
And McAllister—despite the outward appearance of confidence—was obviously desperate for help in this particular situation.
And if she could give him that even temporarily, McAllister might be much more amenable to the real reason she had come!
Gratitude could go a long way, after all.
The baby was startled into silence by her appearance. He regarded her with deep suspicion.
As if he knew she was trying to pass herself off as something she was not.
He seemed to make up his mind about her and began to whimper again.
“Ivan, stop it!” McAllister ordered.
The baby, surprisingly, complied.
“Ivan,” she said, and walked over to the baby. “Hello, Ivan.”
The baby appeared to reconsider his initial assessment of her. He smiled tentatively and made a little gargling noise in his throat. Her heart was lost instantly and completely.
“You don’t know my nephew’s name?” McAllister asked, startled. “It’s Max.”
She glanced back at McAllister. His arms were folded over his chest, and he was regarding her with suspicion identical to the baby’s seconds earlier.
His nephew. The blanks were filling in, but all the same it was unraveling already. Stacy was going to find herself tossed unceremoniously out into a snowbank beside her car and, really, wasn’t that what she deserved?
“Aren’t you his nanny?” McAllister demanded. “That’s who I was expecting.”
“I’m Stacy,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “Stacy Murphy Walker.” Now would be the perfect time to say who she really was and why she was here.
Tell him the rest of it. But her courage was failing her. So much easier to focus on the baby!
“Uppie? Pwweee?”
And it did feel as if this baby—and maybe Kiernan, too—really needed her. And it felt as if she needed to be in this house that cried for a Christmas tree and a family to encircle it.
She reached into the playpen. The baby wound his chubby arms around her neck, and she hoisted his surprisingly heavy weight. He nestled into her and put his thumb in his mouth, slurping contentedly.
“I’m not exactly your nephew’s regular nanny,” she heard herself saying, “but I’m sure I can help you out. I’m very good with children.”
She