A Tempting Engagement Part 6

Just thinking about their last encounter, not an hour ago, ignited his blood all over again. After waving

Quade and Chantal goodbye, Joshua dragged them both into the sitting room to watchBlues Clues . Somehow a tickling game got out of hand and his hands got on Emily, and the silliness turned sultry when she stopped squirming and he looked into her eyes.

Awareness arced between them, immediate and electric. His hands tightened on her waist and under her soft flannel shirt he imagined her bare skin, milk pale, satin smooth. Her mouth had softened, her lips parted, he'd caught a glimpse of her small, pink tongue. Mitch groaned, remembering. If they hadn't been on the sitting room floor in broad daylight, if Joshua hadn't bounced back into the room with the toy he'd run to fetch...

And he was expected to lock himself inside a car with her? For an hour or more?

Yes. He'd given his word; he had to do it. And he had to keep his hands to himself. She was his nanny, his employee, and his thoughts alone would send her packing.

Perhaps you should marry her.

Earlier he'd laughed dismissively at Chantal's tongue-in-cheek suggestion, but he wasn't laughing now. The perfect nanny, the perfect stepmother for Joshua. The perfect wife? Mitch's heart knocked against his ribs, the rhythm a powerful mix of hope and deep-seated terror.

He'd married Annabelle in haste, because he'd wanted her, because she thought she'd wanted him. When the haze of l.u.s.t lifted, he'd found himself married to a woman he didn't really know a pregnant woman he didn't really know let alone like. If he were to marry again, it would be for practical reasons, and six months ago Emily would have topped his list of perfect, practical candidates. Her even temperament, her empathic insights, her warm, quiet presence in his home every day.

Her lush body in his bed every night.

No. That particular part of his body wasn't motivating any marriage decision, not ever again. He huffed out a hot, wry breath.Any marriage decision . What was he thinking? It had taken three weeks and a lost child to convince Emily to come work for him to trial him as a boss, forcripe's sake! so why would she consider marrying him?

What could he offer?

Not a d.a.m.n thing he could think of, but he could at least keep his promise regarding her terms of employment. Keys in hand, he strode out to the sitting room and stuck his head through the doorway.

"Who wants to go get ice cream?"

"In town?" Joshua bounded to his feet. "Me, me,meeee !"

Predictable. Mitch's gaze shifted to Emily ... Emily shaking her head. "I think I'll pa.s.s."

"Uh-uh. You don't get to pa.s.s." Mitch tossed the keys in the air and caught them again with a decisive s.n.a.t.c.h of the hand. "It's time for your first driving lesson."

An argument wasn't the best way to start a lesson, Emily knew, but she couldn't help objecting. Forget the fact that the worddriving made her as nervous as a pigeon in a cathouse. Forget the added stress of him sitting beside her, issuing tight-lipped instructions. She simply couldn't handle the size or manual transmission of his tank of a truck.Which didn't stop Mitch insisting she could.

After kangaroo-hopping down the drive until the engine stalled for the third time she turned to him, teeth set. "I told you I couldn't do this."

"And I told you we'd keep trying until you could. Today Joshua only wants ice cream. Next week it could be medicine. Now, clutch in-"

"Look, Mitch, I can barely see over the wheel. It's dangerous." She flicked a telling glance at the rear-view mirror, at the precious cargo strapped into the car seat of the crew cab, oblivious to the tension up front. "Think about it."

He caught her point and considered it for all of, oh, two seconds. "Fine. I'll drive."

Relief washed through her, so liberating she actually slouched over the wheel. "Thank you," she whispered.

"We'll borrow Julia's car for lessons until I can buy you something suitable."

She straightened abruptly. "I told youbefore, I don't want you buying me a car."

"I wouldn't be buying it for you. I'd be buying it for Joshua, for his care and security."

Okay. She could concede that point, for now, although the uncompromising set of his jaw did not bode well for future discussions on the matter. Or for a nice, relaxed afternoon drive, she added as he curtly suggested they change seats. Perhaps after the ice cream break his mood would mellow.

It didn't. In fact, after ice cream things got worse. First, Julia decided Joshua should stay with her, to help withBridie . At nine months,Bridie was a bundle of chortling mischief even Joshua could not ignore. He agreed she needed some guy company ... as long as he didn't have to change diapers. Emily felt a sense of doom enfold her in a blanket of gray, as heavy and ominous as the winter sky above. Then Julia handed over the keys to her compact sedan, and she started to sweat.

Fifteen point four-five fraught minutes after clearing the town'sderestriction signs, the rain started. Not driving torrents that defied the efforts of windshield wipers and forced drivers to pull over and wait it out, but a gentle misting drizzle.

"Wipers," Mitch directed.

Until this moment she'd been so intensely focused on performing the mechanics of foot and hand and eye coordination never her strong point that she'd paid little attention to the conditions. The prospect of rain. She wet her dry lips and attempted toprise her fingers from the steering wheel. Failed. "I can't," she croaked.

"What do you mean, you can't?"

When she didn't answer what could she say, that her fingers seemed stuck to the wheel? he reached across and flicked the switch himself.

"There's a lay-by a few hundred yards ahead," he said tersely. "Pull in there."

Absolutely. I can manage that.

Amazingly she also managed to unpeel her hands from their death grip. An inordinate sense of satisfaction started to well up inside her, and she closed her eyes, overcome, overwhelmed. She drew a long, sustaining breath and found it filled with the clean scent of rain ... and man.

Her nerves fluttered back to life. They were alone. Coc.o.o.ned in a car that suddenly felt way smaller than it looked. Isolated by the blanket of softly falling rain. Alone ... until panic crept out of the darkness. It closed in around her, her dark, unwelcome friend, stealing her breath and her reason.

As if from an immense distance she heard movement, the click of a seat belt, the creak of upholstery, and she saw a hand reaching toward her, just like the other time. Without thought, without logic or purpose, she reached for her door handle and bolted.

Chapter 6.

From inside the car, the rain had appeared deceptively gentle. Outside, Emily hadn't taken a dozen steps before feeling its cold, soaking impact. A half dozen more and it dampened her crazy, panicked flight impulse. Where was she going, anyway? They'd pulled up beside a quiet rural road with nothing in sight save a rickety three-wire fence and, beyond it, a stand of straggly eucalypts with several drenched sheep camped under their questionable shelter ... until the slam of a car door sent them scuttling.

Looking back, she saw a darkly glowering Mitch across the rain-slicked roof of the little sedan. No wonder the sheep had run away. "Get back in the car," he barked.

"No." She tossed her head, for emphasis and to remove a hank of wet hair from her face. Even to herself, her refusal seemed as childish and pointless as leaving the car in the first place, yet the prospect of facing Mitch's inevitable inquisition ... no way.

"I remember you telling me once how much trouble you have saying that word. No." Eyes never leaving hers, he started around the car. "How you were afraid of earning your parents' displeasure so you always agreed. Miss Compliance, you called yourself."

Emily fought the urge to back up, to turn and flee.

"You want to tell me what's changed?" he asked. Apparently nothing, because despite the stridency of herno , despite her desire to act stronger, to stop giving in to moments of weakness, she'd jumped out of that car. And now she watched his steady, purposeful approach and a frisson of deja vu that night he tracked her acrossGramps's verandah sent her spinning around and setting off down the roadside. She heard his muttered reproach, then the heavy squelch of his boots on the wet ground as he strode after her. Felt the steel of his grip as he grabbed her arm and whirled her around.

"What's going on, Emily?"

"I had to get out," she began, "out of the car."

"Claustrophobia?"

She shook her head.

"What, then? You suddenly felt like taking a walk?"

To escape the chill in that narrow, dark glare she closed her eyes, but he pulled her close and a tiny shiver rippled through her skin. Not the cold, she knew, but awareness of his hard heat, his scent, the resonance of his voice as he explained in a low, taut voice that even Joshua knew to keep out of the rain.

The subtext of that message arrested her responsemidshiver . He thought her a child, a particularly inept child in need of his protective care. That cruel truth should have stopped hurting months ago, yet the barb still stung deep. "I'm not a child, Mitch. And I can tell you right now that a walk in a cyclone holds more appeal than getting back in that car."

"Did the rain spook you? Because you were doing fine before you needed the wipers." Dark brows drawn together, he flipped to journalist mode, piecing his story together. "Was it raining when you had your accident?"

Her gaze shifted, uneasy. A dead giveaway.

"What happened, Em?"

Both hands clasped her upper arms, firm and resolute and warm despite the rain, and Emily inhaled a quick breath. Then she looked into his eyes and released that air on a slow sigh. He wasn't letting her go until she answered. To his satisfaction. "I was carjacked, okay? It was night and, yes, it was raining and in the city and sometimes those triggersfreak me out so much I can barely breathe let alone think straight."

The explanation tumbled out, one word on top of the next, and, when her voice hitched at the end, Mitch's hold on her arms gentled. The slightest of movements up and down managed to infiltrate her layers of clothing managed to feel almost like a caress. The rain and the cold and the atmosphere all seemed to ease, as well. Like a hitch in time.

"When did this happen?" he asked.

"After I left you ... your apartment ... I got a jobnannying for some doctors inSydney, and this night, my night off, I was going to the movies. In the city." A tremor shivered through her body. "Anyway, after that happened, I couldn't keep the job. They had three kids and a lot of sports and stuff to get to. I came back toPlenty .Gramps's things had to be packed up."

And she didn't have anywhere else to go. For a long moment Mitch couldn't respond, couldn't think under the pounding weight of a dozen conflicting emotions. He focused on the fiercest the one demanding he find this creep and tear him limb from limb. Jaw clenched, he forced out one question. "Did he hurt you?"

"No. He threatened me and he scared me half to death, but he pushed me out and-"

When she winced, he realized that his redoubled hold on her arms was hurting, but d.a.m.n it- "He pushed you out of the car?And you let us believe you'd had some standard traffic accident? h.e.l.l, Emily."

Under his hands he felt her tense and forced himself to ease off, to soothe any damage by rubbing his hands over her arms, her shoulders, her arms again, while fury and protectiveness and frustration and anger played war games in his gut.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'd lost my grandfather and then my share of his will. My home. My pride. Don't you think I felt enough of a victim without sharing this low point, as well?"

"We could have helped-"

"How?" she almost spat back, her forcefulness so unlike Emily that it set him back on his heels. She took the opportunity to twist free, to stand there rubbing her arms as if to rid them of his touch.

Bad move, Emily, he thought, temper crackling. "For a start, I wouldn't have been in the pa.s.senger seat for your first driving lesson." Barking out orders. Chantal or Julia any woman should have been doing the teaching. "And I sure and certain wouldn't have made you drive in the rain."

Same as he shouldn't be letting her stand in the rain. On the road a farm truck slowed as if preparing to stop, and Mitch waved it on,then shook his head at the absurdity of their situation. Why were they having this discussion on the side of the road in the rain? He made a decision, didn't ask permission. Moving swiftly, he picked her up and started for the car before she could do more than drop her jaw in outrage.

Halfway there, she started to struggle. He ignored her as best he could, given the way her wriggling meant holding her more firmly. Given the fact they were both wet, clothes clinging, her soft curves molded against his hard torso. One part instantly grew harder, but he didn't give a d.a.m.n. He had other things to contend with ... such as opening the car door.

"Put.Me.Down."

He obliged, sliding her to the ground and trapping her still-wriggling body against the car. But when he dipped down and reached around in a blind search for the door handle, she drew an audible breath and went very still. Because he was touching her? Because that contact sizzled and steamed? Because her jacket had come undone and her shirt was very, very wet? He sucked in a breath.

LittleEmily Warner wasn't so little.

Light-headed, he straightened and leaned back and deliberately fastened his gaze on her face. No lower. Jeweled raindrops clung to her skin and her eyelashes, and he felt an insane compulsion to lean forward and lick them away. Tenderness and fierce, throbbing desire blurred into one slow roll of want. He touched a hand to her face, thumbed away the wetness along one cheekbone. "You look like a half-drowned kitten," he said thickly.

Against him, beneath him, her whole body stiffened. Her eyes narrowed and for a second he expected her to hiss like a cornered cat. But she spoke in clear, strong, defiant syllables. "Let me go, Mitch."

He might have listened, obeyed, if he hadn't seen the fine flutter of her pulse. If his own fierce ache hadn't howled in response. Instead he kissed her. The second his mouth closed over hers, as he felt the warm expulsion of her surprised breath and the coolness of her rain-slick lips, a tinyWhatam I doing?alarm went off in his brain.

But the first shy stroke of her tongue against his bottom lip flipped that alarm switch off. His brain shut down and his body took over, sinking into her heat, tongue against tongue, savoring her sweet taste as the cold turned to fire. Everywhere they touched burned, and Mitch battled a raging need to fill his hands with every one of her hot curves. To rip away clothes and taste her rain-wet skin in a dozen different places. Right now. Against his sister's car, on the side of a public road. In timely punctuation, a pa.s.sing vehicle honked its horn.

Hard.

Breathing heavily, he tore his mouth from hers. "That wasn't supposed to happen," he said stupidly, unnecessarily, splaying both hands against the car roof and letting the shock of cold metal seep into his heated skin. Steel hard, like him. With a grimace he pushed himself upright, and, when he saw her face, his gut twisted, too.

She avoided eye contact, but then she seemed at a loss as to where she could look. Her gaze skittered down his body, and heat bloomed in her cheeks. Hard not to notice what was going on down there, especially since they'd been standing hip to hip, and he silently cursed the wet jeans that made his situation even more uncomfortable. And whilst he was in the cursing mood, he flayed whatever impulse let him kiss her, let him threaten the fragile tenure of her employment.

Way to go with the business relationship, Mitch. Very professional.

This was exactly what he'd feared would happen, and he didn't have a clue what to say in explanation. To ensure she didn't leave, again. He exhaled a hot breath and set his jaw. Two things he did know he needed physical distance to think it through, and he needed to get them both out of this weather.

"Now," he asked, "will you please get in the car?"

Sitting huddled beneath the picnic rug Mitch had found in the trunk, dying a little more with each awkward, pa.s.sing mile, Emily wished she'd refused that last plea. She could have walked back to town ... except walking involved thighs and knees and muscles that no longer worked. Reduced to mush by a kiss he didn't seem in any rush todiscuss, debate or dissect.

So far he'd asked if she was comfortable; she said she was fine, thank you. He asked if she wanted the heater turned up; she said no, but could she have the radio? Afternoon talkback droned from the speakers, white noise, along with the rhythmicshwoosh of wiper blades and the sluice of tires through the water sheeting the bitumen. None of which did a blessed thing to silence the questions screaming in her head.

He said she looked like a half-drowned kitten, so why the heck had he kissed her? She didn't think he had a cat fetish. The last time grief and alcohol had provided the kindling, but this time- "I'm thinking of going toSydneythis week," he said suddenly. "To talk to TVTWO about this doc.u.mentary series. Is that a problem?"

"You goingaway?" Emily almost laughed out loud. If being with him was going to be this awkward, strained, unbearable, then... "No. Absolutely not."

"It might be a good idea if we book you some lessons with a professional driving school. A female teacher." He cast a guarded sideways glance. "Chantal said I'd make a lousy teacher."

What could she say to that? I'm not the best judge? Or the ideal pupil? That being in the same s.p.a.ce as you creates this incredible awareness that slakes my strength and my good sense?

"I'll look into it when I get back." This time his eyes held hers a moment, until he saw her nod of acquiescence, before returning to the road. "I want you and Joshua to stay with Chantal-"

"Why ever for?" Instantly defensive, she sat up straight.

"I don't think you should be alone in the house."

"I'm quite used to looking after myself. I don't need a sitter." When his jaw clenched of course he'd disagree! she tried another angle. "Joshua is settling in really well. It would be stupid to upset his routine. Besides, if we need anything, Chantal andQuade are close by. How long will you be gone?"

"Four or five days." His gaze flicked across at her, direct, serious. "You will be here when I get back?"

"I'm not going to leave because you kissed me, if that's what you're asking."