A Tempting Engagement Part 5

"You would have heard Joshua, from your office, if that's where you were. I just realized," she finished lamely as the microwave peeped.Bingo. You've got it .

He poured the hot milk before he looked up again. "Yeah, I was taking a walk."

"At2:00 a.m.?"

With a lopsided grin the one that always caused Emily's heart to loop the loop he deposited the filled

mugs on the bench. "But that's not what you're curious about." Emily blinked. "It's not?" "You want to know what's disrupting my writing." Yup, shewas curious about that comment. Turning superciliously, she tilted her head so she could watch him stroll around the bench.He's going to sit next to me . Her heart skipped a beat, restarted with a new vigor.Goodbye respite. When he slid onto the stool next to hers, their knees b.u.mped. Emily steeled herself not to jump, wriggle or fan the sudden heat that suffused her body and crept into her face.Act cool, Emily Jane. Cool, yet friendly. Because this night, this sharing, const.i.tuted a quantum leap in their ... relationship. For want of a better word.

"Is this your foreign correspondent book?"

Mug halfway to his mouth, he paused and stared.

"Chantal mentioned it," she admitted. Then, when he continued to stare- "We weren't talking about you

or anything. She was tellingQuade , and I happened to overhear. It will be a fabulous book, Mitch."

"Yeah, well, it's not looking so fabulous from this side of the pages."

"Why ever not?" She knew the work he'd done in the field, the awards he'd won, before taking a studio

job with fixed hours. Because he'd wanted to save his marriage. Right now he was frowning into his hot

chocolate. "You must have so much material." "Lack of material isn't a problem. It's getting it all together, how I want it, and making the publisher's deadline."

"What happens if you don't?"

His eyes snapped up. "That's not an option."

"Because you have a contract?"

"Yes."

Emily frowned at the vehemence of his answer, not understanding. "If you need the money so badly, why

were you threatening to throw houses and cars my way?"

"It's not the money, Em." Determination burned in his eyes. "It's about doing what I said I'd do, about honoring that commitment, about getting this one thing in my life right." Ahh. Understanding beckoned, like a glimmer of light beneath a lifting fog. Carefully she put down her drink. He believed he'd failed as a husband, as a father, as her employer. Mitch Goodwin who didn't have a clue how to handle failure because he'd always known nothing but success. Emily didn't know whether to hug him or shake him.

"Don't you think," she began carefully, "that a book you're not happy with would be a worse kind of failure? Like failing yourself and your standards?"

"Yeah, and that thought's not helping the block."

"Maybe you need to cut yourself some slack."

"Maybe I need to sort out the other stuff in my life so I can focus on the book." With a rough bark of laughter, he dragged his fingers through his hair, shook his head. "Which you've already done, with Joshua, with the whole household organization thing."

Absurdly flattered, she couldn't help smiling. "Along with night fears, sorting stuff is one of my specialties. What else needs sorting?"

Heat sparked in his eyes, sudden and startling. Emily's stomach tightened. Her pulse quickened. But then he looked away, studied his mug for a long second, and she didn't know whether to be relieved that he'd reined in that random thought or disappointed. "Annabelle's parents contacted me, about Joshua," he said finally. "Through their lawyer."

Emily gaped. "Surely they're not contesting custody?"

"They want regular visitation."

Oh. Emily traced a slow finger around the rim of her mug, and when she looked up he was eyeing her narrowly. "You don't have an opinion?"

"Well, yes," Emily said cautiously, "but it may not be the one you want to hear."

One corner of his mouth twisted, but he made a give-it-to-me gesture with one hand.

"Well, I think they have a right and so does Joshua. I know what it's like not to have family contact, and if I knew that was because someone blocked the process..." What would she do? A hypothetical she didn't bother answering because the only thing that stopped her parents from visits was their own lack of parental affection. Luckily she'd had her Gramps. "Keeping grandparents from seeing their grandchild is wrong, Mitch."

"I'm not stopping them," he said tersely. "All they need to do is pick up the phone, personally, not through a law office."

"Have you picked up the phone, Mitch?" No, she could see the answer in his expression and she shook her head. "You always used to be the first to take a step like that, to make things happen."

Grim-faced, he looked away. "Yeah, I used to do a lot of things. Past tense."

Used to, before Annabelle left. An old resentment sliced through Emily, one she hadn't allowed herself to acknowledge in a long, long time. A sharp, bitter antipathy toward the woman whose memory stopped him from doing those things. The ex-wife who had taken and taken and tossed it all back in his face.

And, worse, deeper, sharper, flared her anger at Mitch for being too stubborn or, yes, probably still hurting too much, to move forward. To do a simple little thing such as holding out a conciliatory hand to Joshua's grandparents.

"Maybe it's time you stopped blaming yourself for what happened," she said, her voice stronger, more strident than she'd intended. "TheBlaineys have been hurting are still hurting just as much as you. Make it easy on them and Joshua and yourself. Call them."

"Blaineys'Snowhawk Lodge." Mitch stared at the Yellow Pages listing on his monitor. There. He had the number, his last excuse nixed. All he had to do was dial, make the arrangements. Maybe he wouldn't even have to meet with them and see the grief in their eyes, the condemnation,the disappointment. He hadn't been able to make her happy or even keep her content, their precious only daughter, and G.o.d knows he had tried. Right up until the end.

Pick up the phone, make the call.If not for Joshua, or his ex-in-laws, he needed to do it for himself, anything to erase the memory of Emily's expression as she told him basically to get over himself. He had always valued her opinion, had hated her recent circ.u.mspection around him, but last night he'd discovered something that struck much deeper. Emily Warner's disappointment. Something else to keep him awake nights.

With a disgusted snort, he rocked forward in his chair and reached for the phone ...just as his screen-saver activated, obliterating the number. Before he could do more than curse, once, succinctly, he heard activity outside. Voices, indistinct, indiscernible. A door opening and closing. He didn't hear footsteps in the carpeted hallway but sensed them, and he counted the seconds until his office door swung open. First guess: his little sister.

"Ah, the writer hermit in his cave."

Yup, Chantal, wearing a maternity tent and a worried scowl.

"Why don't you come in,sis. " He scowled right back at her as she plopped down in the office's second chair. "And make yourself at home."

"I would if you had some decent furniture in here. This chair is the pits."

Exactly. Visitor discouragement. He gestured at this visitor's heavily pregnant belly. "Did you waddle down here or drive?"

"I wish! Waddling from one room to the next is my limit, and I don't fit behind the wheel anymore.Quade droveme.He's somewhere out there."A casual wave indicated the garden beyond his window. "Practicing his daddy skills on Joshua."

Banished so his wife could practice her nagging skills on him. Wonderful. Mitch set his expression to implacable and rocked back in his own very comfortable chair.

"We've been toCliffton for my checkup and decided to drop in on our way past. Seeing as you never bother returning my calls. And, yes, I am well, thanks for asking."

"Emily keeps me informed."

"So, you do come out of the cave occasionally?"

He bared his teeth. "Only to feed."

Chantal didn't even roll her eyes let alone laugh. Obviously she was more p.i.s.sed off than he'd thought.

"That would be the food Emily prepares, I presume?"

"Your point?"

"My point?" Swift fury flared in her eyes. "When did Emily last have a meal cooked forher. Or a night off?"

Mitch bridled. "She has Sundays off. I offered more-"

"So she could sit in her room? Or maybe walk the twelve miles to town?"

The driving lessons.That's what this was about.

"You haven't even started yet, have you? Dammit, Mitch, you said you would teach her!"

Jaw clenched, he rose to his feet and stared out the window. Yes, he'd said he would teach her, and he intended to keep his word, except he'd been busy. Preoccupied with the book's lack of progress, with theBlaineys , with last-minute changes to his scripts for a doc.u.mentary series going into production next month.

"Do you remember the summer you tried to teach me to play golf?" his little sister asked.

"How could I forget? You sucked."

"No,you sucked. Big-time." He heard her getting to her feet it took a while then he felt her hand on his shoulder. "LetQuade teach her, Mitch. He has the time, he's patient. And he's a good communicator."

"I said I'd do it and I will."

"Stubborn a.s.s."

But the insult came coated in a smile, a smile that wiped the scorn from her eyes and softened her expression. Probably because, through his office window, she watched her patient husband playing ball with his son and communicating with his nanny. Making her laugh. Something in his gut wound tight. Something that had nothing to do with stubborn.

"I'll teach Emily to drive," he said. "You needQuade at home."

"Because of jelly bean?" She touched a hand to her belly. "My doctor says I have another month to go. Unfortunately."

"Julia's doctor said she had another month to go." And their sister had scared the stuffing out of them all with her early, emergency dash to the maternity ward. Beside him Chantal shifted restlessly, maybe remembering, maybe worrying, and he looped an arm around her shoulders, reminding her that family would be there for her, too. "You'll do fine, sis."

"I know."

In silence they observed the game unfolding outside.Quade had turned football coach, kicking to Joshua who caught the high ball, evaded a feeble attempt at a tackle from Emily and steamed toward the try line.

Mitch nudged his sister. "Did you see that take? Like father, like son." Chantal snorted, distracted as he'd intended. She slanted him a look. "How is he doing?" "You have to ask? Look at him." And they did, saw his serious little face as he tried to teach Emily how to kick the football. She tried, she failed,she shrugged and pa.s.sed the ball back to the four-year-old expert whose chest puffed with self-importance.

"That's the magic of Emily," he said quietly.

"The perfect nanny." Her pause seemed measured. Or careful. "Has she said anything more about leaving?"

Leaving. The word was a sick, scary feeling in his gut, a fist clenching his throat. Still he managed to ask,

"To you?"

"No. But I did promise to keep my ear out for jobs, and yesterday I heard about a lawyer who's looking for-"

"Don't even think about telling Emily," he ground out. Then, "I need her to stay, sis."

"For how long? Indefinitely?"

"Preferably, yes."

Chantal eyed him narrowly, as if trying to decide if he was joking or for real. Then she gave a short,

strangled laugh. "Then perhaps you should marry her." * * * Chantal's visit completely shot his working day. After she left after she deliberately sought out Emily for a none-too-brief and private consultation he couldn't even stare at the walls in peace. Now he walked the office, wall to wall and back again, his temper sparking.

She wasn't leaving; he wouldn't allow it.

And how will you stop her? Bolt the doors, padlock the gates, impound the car keys?The irony of the

last option brought his pacing up short. He rubbed at the tension knot in the back of his neck. So, okay, honesty time. He hadn't avoided driving lessons for lack of time or opportunity. He'd been avoiding the closeted closeness of a vehicle, one-on-one, until his libido settled down.

Some time next century.