His thumb drifted over her lips and her eyes fluttered closed.
Beneath his thumb he felt her lips move. “I don’t know which is worse,” she whispered. “When you’re all cold and distant or when you’re…not.”
“I told you to shush,” he muttered. “Your voice. It’s—”
“Rough,” she finished.
“Husky,” he corrected. Like a brush of velvet over his nerve endings.
She suddenly stepped back, looking anywhere but at him. Her fingertips touched her throat for a moment before she picked up the plate and held it in front of her like a shield. “My vocal chords were, um, injured when I was a kid. I know. I sound like a habitual smoker or something.”
It was good she’d backed away. She had more sense than he did. “You sound like you,” he said. But listening to her talk was an exercise in erotic torture. She said his name, and he nearly lost the ability to reason. And the kitchen still seemed filled with tension.
Tension that he’d caused because he’d let himself forget, for just a minute, that he needed more from this woman than the taste of her lips. He needed Darby for the kids. Without her in his corner, he knew his chances in court against Caldwell were slim. It was only her word, after all, that Elise had wanted him to take her and Marc’s children. His attorney, Hayden Southerland, who had finally arrived from New Mexico, had confirmed it.
Actually what Hayden had said was that the only thing better than an unimpeachable nanny would be an unimpeachable wife. Since Garrett had no prospects on that score, he’d better remember to keep his hands off the one nanny he had in the offing here in Fisher Falls.
Once he got back home to Albuquerque, he’d see about hiring one of Carmel’s aunts; she seemed to have about twenty of ’em. They were all devoted to their grandbabies but Garrett figured once he was back home, he could convince at least one of them that it would be worth their while to watch a few more.
He gathered up the tubes of blueprints from the table. “Don’t worry about the chicken,” he told Darby. “I’ve got work to do, anyway.” Carrying the plans, he headed out of the kitchen for the den.
Just exactly like Dane, Darby thought, watching him go. Her brother would work 24/7 if he could, and it seemed that Garrett would, too.
She quietly prepared a plate, heating the chicken in the microwave before adding a gelatin salad and a buttered roll. Garrett didn’t particularly look the type to eat orange gelatin with bananas inside it, but Regan had helped Darby make it that afternoon, so that’s what he would get. She poured a glass of milk, prepared everything on a tray and carried it, along with the small first aid kit from beneath the kitchen sink, to Garrett’s den, turning off lights as she went.
He hadn’t exaggerated about the work, she realized when she stepped inside the small room. He’d unrolled some blueprints across his desk and was thoroughly focused on them. She set the tray on the small table next to the couch that he was supposedly unfolding into a bed each night. Frankly, she didn’t see how he could. The room was simply too cramped.
“Let me see that bandage.” She flipped open the first aid kit on his desk and held out her hand.
He looked at his hand, as if surprised to see the sloppy bandage still circling his finger. “It’s nothing.”
“The bandage is dirty. Whatever you’ve done, you wouldn’t want it to get infected, would you?” She wriggled her fingers, demanding.
His expression unreadable, he held up his hand and she unwrapped the tape and gauze, making a face at the cut beneath. “I thought you told people what to do at that construction company you run, not that you were out pounding nails with your own bare hands.”
“Wasn’t a nail.” He didn’t flinch as she cleansed the cut. “I was helping to install a window. It dropped. Made a helluva mess.”
“Made a pretty good cut, too,” she murmured. “You know you probably should have had a stitch or two.” She closed the edges with a butterfly bandage, then topped it with a cushy sterile pad.
“I was too busy getting on the horn to order another window. It was a custom job. It’ll take weeks to get another.”
“Figures you’d be more concerned with some window than your own health.”
“It’s just a cut, Darby.”
“Cuts can get infected,” she said smoothly. “Keep it covered.” She pressed the last bit of tape into place and gathered up the old bandage and the wrappings from the new one and left the room.
She put the first aid kit back in the kitchen, then went upstairs. In the second bedroom, she picked up Regan’s stuffed bear and tucked it back in bed with her. Reid had kicked off his blanket and Darby’s hand hovered over the edge of it, but she didn’t move it for fear that he’d wake. He slept so uneasily, poor sweetheart.
Finally Darby let him be. It wasn’t cold in the house, after all. She went into the master bedroom and checked the triplets. Tad’s face still felt a little warm to her, but he slept as soundly as Bridget and Keely.
She gathered up her nightshirt and her little bag of toiletries and went to use the bathroom downstairs. She didn’t want to wake up the children by using the en suite. As she crept down the dark stairs, she could see the light shining in Garrett’s den, could hear the low murmur of his voice. He was talking on the phone.
Good, she thought as she closed herself in the bathroom and turned on the light. That meant he’d be busy long enough for her to get ready for bed, then scoot back upstairs through the dark, with him none the wiser. This was the first evening he was home early enough for her to even feel awkward about showering downstairs. She flipped on the shower, letting it warm while she cleaned her face and brushed her teeth. Then she showered and dried off in record time, gathered up her stuff and opened the door.
“The air conditioner is working again.”
Darby gasped and jumped back, hitting the wall behind her. The bundle of clothes, towel and toiletries tumbled out of her grasp, and she glared at Garrett’s shape in the dark hallway. “I had it fixed. And you scared me to death!” She went down on her knees, hands searching in the dark for her things. She found her clothes, at least.
Light suddenly flooded the narrow hallway and she looked up to see him standing over her, his long fingers and pristine bandage still resting against the wall switch. “Need help?” he asked smoothly.
She flushed and looked back down, snatching up the bits of ivory silk that passed for bra and panties and burying them along with her shirt and shorts inside her damp bath towel. She reached forward and plucked the toiletry bag from where it rested against the toe of his scuffed work boot. “No, I don’t need help.” She stood and wished the light wasn’t quite so bright there in the hall. Her oatmeal-colored nightshirt hung to her knees, but she still felt exposed.
Definitely not a good thing after that crazy episode in the kitchen. He wasn’t her type, and she wasn’t his. And even if they were, it was still out of the question. She was only here to help with the children. She owed them that, at least.
“Why aren’t you using one of the baths upstairs?”
“I didn’t want to wake the children.” She began inching her way along the hall. “The pipes for both showers up there rattle really badly, and the water pressure is terrible. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.” The stairs were nearly behind her now.
His lips twisted. “Too late for that. Who fixed the AC?”
“The guy Georgie uses.” The toiletry bag fell off the stack in her arms again as she started up the stairs.
Before she could reach it, Garrett bent and picked it up. “Did he leave a bill?”
“I paid him when he came.” She reached out for the bag. Standing on the second riser, they were nearly eye to eye. “Could