Page 22 of Baby Bodyguard

This man wasn’t for her, she struggled to remind herself. She longed for a child, not a lover. She could even picture her son, aboy with dark wavy hair and silver-gray eyes, asharp logical brain and a delightful sense of the absurd.

For a split second, she saw into the future, afuture bright with possibilities. It held a husband who loved her and a forever-after marriage. Children abounded, growing straight through to maturity. And happiness and security were hers for the taking. All she had to do was reach out and grab it. All she had to do was—

“Are you telling me you’re holding more interviews tomorrow?” Noah demanded.

Her dream shattered, harsh reality rising up to replace sweet fantasy. “Of course.” Her brow wrinkled in bewilderment. “Did you think I was going to quit because the first day went badly?”

“Hell, yes.”

“Not a chance. Iwant a baby, Mr. Hawke. That hasn’t changed just because your wolf scared off today’s respondents. Not that any of this is your business,” she added pointedly.

He expelled his breath in a long sigh. “Right.” He released her arm. “Which bedroom is mine?”

“Here.” She opened the first door off the staircase and gestured for him to enter. “I picked this one because it was my favorite as a child. Ithought you’d like it, too.”

The room was large and airy, with enormous windows overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. She swept aside the drapes so he could admire the seascape. As the afternoon faded, fog had wrapped the bridge in a ghostly embrace before tumbling into San FranciscoBay.

He joined her at the window enclosure. “That’s one hell of a view.” His eyes narrowed and his gaze pinned her with a disconcerting sharpness. “But this room seems more appropriate for a guest than an employee.”

She darted him a quick, mischievous smile. “I can put you in the dungeons, if you prefer.”

He ran a hand across the nape of his neck and tossed his duffel bag onto a nearby chair. “It might be safer,” he muttered. “How far is your room from here?”

The question caught her flat-footed. “Excuse me?”

“In case there’s a problem. Where’s your room?”

“Three doors down. It faces the bridge, too.”

“Got it. In that case, this room should be fine.”

She didn’t dare ask why the proximity of her room had prompted the abrupt acceptance of his accommodations. It might lead places they were safer avoiding. She seized on the first topic that occurred toher.

“You know, when I was little, I’d sneak in here any time I wanted to be alone, even though it wasn’t my bedroom.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It had a window seat, which mine didn’t and these drapes that I could hide behind.” She fingered the filmy curtain, swamped by long-buried memories. “I’d stare out to sea and imagine all sorts of mythical sea creatures lived in the mist. Some days I’d swear I’d caught a glimpse of a giant fin or a mermaid’s tail. Other times a great beastly head would lift out of the fog and blow smoke at me.” She turned and smiled, praying it didn’t look as shaky as it felt. “And I’d make wishes.”

“What sort of wishes?”

His words were a gentle wash across a painful bruise and she made a point of turning back toward the view, struggling to keep the conversation casual. “Oh, you know. The usual sort of wishes children tend to make. Wishes that would fix whatever had broken in one’s world.”

His hands cupped her shoulders and his breath stirred the curls at her temple. “Wishes about fathers who’d left?”

“Yes.” The word escaped in a painful whisper and she tilted her head so her cheek rested against the back of his hand. Strong hands. Capable hands. Careful hands. “Those sort of wishes.”

“I gather they didn’t work?”

“I eventually discovered that you can’t change the past. It was a hard lesson to learn.”

“No, you can’t. But you can choose to move away from it and build a future.”

She shut her eyes, compelled to confess the truth. “I told you my father left, but that’s not quite accurate.”

“No?” So soft. So gentle.

“Dad died in a car wreck.”

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