Page 51 of Second Chance Baby

I’d always been helpless against my need to tease her, just in the hopes of seeing her flush as her full lips curved and she looked down at the floor. She tucked one of her wayward blond curls behind her ear. God, Carrington looked so much like her from the eyes to the golden curls.

I was tempted to draw her into my arms right there, regardless of who could see.

Holding hands on our dog walk was one thing. Full-on making out at the almost full Halloween store quite another.

Truthfully, I’d always had a touch of the exhibitionist inside me, so if people wanted to watch us, I had no problem with that.

Clearly not, since I’d turned kissing into full-on sex mid-photoshoot. At least I’d managed not to drop trou until the room had emptied out in a hurry.

“What are you thinking about?” Bridget’s voice lowered to a whisper.

“How I want to touch you again right here. Wish I could.”

“Do your worst.”

My pulse skyrocketed. “Gotta say I like how you think.”

Her lashes fluttered. “As if I ever denied you anything anywhere.”

After ascertaining Carrington was currently fully occupied by some crazy clown display that consisted of tossing colorful balls into his mouth, I gripped Bridget’s arm and brushed my mouth over her hair. “Yeah, because I wasn’t the only one with exhibitionist tendencies.”

“No, you sure weren’t.” She shifted toward me, rubbing against me in a sensual way that had my erection going from half mast to full-on in an instant. Looking up at me, she rolled her tongue over her lower lip. “Think we’ll be able to wait for the movie?”

“Considering we don’t have nearly enough Halloween stuff yet to suit our daughter, I’d say we have no choice. But I can’t wait to see that movie. What’s it called, by the way?”

Her whiskey eyes took on an unholy gleam. “L’aventure.” She leaned up to playfully trail her fingernail down my throat before she walked toward Carrington.

“Oh, what’s that you’ve found? Looks fun.”

“You get points for whatever ball you toss into his mouth. He’s really hungry. See, the balls have different foods on them and a range of points.”

They bent their blond heads together to confer over which ones to toss, and I had to rub my fist over my chest to get my breath going once again. Just seeing them standing so closely together did things to my gut. And to my heart.

It was truly incredible how the years lost between us had seemed to dissolve in mere minutes. Probably because all I wanted to focus on was our future possibilities.

And right now? They truly seemed endless.

TWELVE

As much asI’d loved teasing and being teased by Travis as we wandered through the enormous Halloween store, my thoughts kept circling around to seeing Carrington talking to that boy at St. Agnes yesterday. They hadn’t done anything inappropriate, but it had taken a moment for me to notice since being back at the school had sucked me right into the past and my old career.

Then today, Mrs. Gunderson had reminded me about my old career all over again.

I’d loved being a teacher, and now I was getting strong urges to revisit that career choice again. God, I’d so loved creating my lesson plans and decorating my classroom for the year—my one and only year teaching before I’d run away from the life I’d always dreamed of.

Maybe someday I’d be able to accept how I’d made my worst fears come true because I’d run rather than tell the man I loved how scared I was due to all the changes. Back then, my most treasured wish had been to be married to the man I adored.

Not that Travis had never mentioned such a thing except in the abstract future, though he hadn’t hesitated to buy the house. He’d known that couldn’t wait.

But a wedding band? Eh, not so much.

“What made you say I was even younger when it came to wanting to become a teacher?” I asked him suddenly as we stopped beside an arrangement of giant blow-up creatures haunting a pretend graveyard crowded with acrylic gravestones. The occasional pasty hand even seemed to surge up through the fake dirt.

When Travis didn’t reply, I turned to watch him grab a mini hairy tarantula. He crept up to Carrington and set it on her shoulder, stepping back with a giant grin.

It took her a moment to see it, but when she finally did, she shrieked loudly enough to even startle some of the staff members dressed up to give shoppers the occasional scare. Half the people in the aisle stopped browsing to watch her fling the spider away in the direction of her father.

Who took it dead in the face, to many people’s amusement.

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