He walked to Talia and held out Hattie. “I’ll give her to you.”
“Of course,” she said, taking Hattie from him, their hands and arms brushing and bringing that same electric awareness of touching Talia that he felt each time they had contact. He glanced at her as he stood so close and she looked up, their gazes meeting. For another moment he was more aware of Talia than of Hattie. He couldn’t understand the physical attraction, especially at a time when they both were torn up emotionally.
Moving away, he didn’t want to pursue the feelings she stirred. His life was tangled enough already and he didn’t need one more emotional pull. He suspected she wasn’t any more enthused about the sparks flying between them than he was, but he couldn’t figure how there could be one little glimmer of appeal under their current circumstances. She had brought him a monumental problem, changing his life, demolishing the little calm and peace he was beginning to get back after losing Regina and Artie. Talia was awakening feelings he hadn’t experienced in a long time and he wasn’t ready to deal with them. He didn’t want to complicate his life with Talia as well as Hattie. Hattie was all he could deal with at present. A baby girl who needed two loving parents and siblings, but that wasn’t possible.
He stared at her and thought about Stan telling him to marry Talia. “My brothers are filled with curiosity and eventually I’ll have to tell my grandmother.”
Talia’s expression changed and she looked stricken. “You don’t think your grandmother will like Hattie?”
“Talia, relax,” he said patiently. “My brothers will be in awe because they’re uncles now. My grandmother likes babies and was devastated by the loss of Regina and Artie. The reason I said I’d tell her eventually is because my grandmother is a take-charge person and she will be all over me with ideas about what I need to do. I can handle that, but it’s tedious because I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
Talia ran her hand across her forehead. “I know your mother is deceased and your dad lives in Palm Beach. You’re the oldest son at thirty-four. Your brother Stan is thirty-three, Adam is thirty-one, and the youngest, Blake, is twenty-nine. Your dad started Duncan Energy. You took over later and then stepped down, and Adam is CEO. Blake works for him while you, as well as Stan, are on the board.”
Startled, he looked up again. “How do you know all that?”
“I hired a PI to find out about you before I contacted you. I’m sorry that I pried into your life but I wanted to know what kind of person I would be dealing with.”
He nodded. “I don’t blame you. My dad will have no interest in Hattie one way or another. He’s into his own life and we don’t see him. He was a good dad and we loved him and everything was fine until Mom died when I was sixteen. Dad never has recovered. He drinks and he’s married to his fifth wife. He doesn’t come home to Texas, and when he does come back, my grandmother ties into him. She’s my maternal grandmother and those two don’t get along.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t have family, so family seems special and important to me, something valuable to be cherished.”
He nodded. “That’s a good outlook.”
She blushed. “Well, again, I’m sorry for prying into your life. By the way, I know your age, so if you want to know mine, I’m twenty-nine. Madeline was twenty-eight when she was killed in the car wreck.”
“She was beautiful and talented. I remember that much. Talia, forget hiring a PI. You had a good reason. That’s how you found my attorney, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“I wondered.” Hattie chose that moment to let out a shrill giggle as she played with her bunny, eliciting a smile from Nick. “She is a happy little girl, isn’t she?”
Talia put the baby on the floor so she could play. “She’s a sweetheart. She’s had a big loss in her life but she’s still happy. I’ve tried to make up for the loss of her mother as best I can, which just means being there for her and showering her with love.”
“You’ve done a good job and I’m grateful.” He looked at Talia again. Her long blond curls framed her face and he realized he could spend the day looking at her. His gaze lowered to her mouth and he wondered what it would be like to kiss her. When he realized the drift of his thoughts, he tried to shift his focus. He reached down and ruffled Hattie’s brown hair, which earned another giggle.
“She’s been around a lot of kids at the day care and her mother used to take her to music tryouts and rehearsals,” Talia said, “so she’s comfortable with people. You’ll see.”
“Artie was happy, too. He was so easy.”
Hattie was busy with her new bunny, making sounds as she played with it. She was a beautiful baby but he couldn’t feel like she was his yet. Nor could he keep from wanting Artie and Regina.
Talia watched Hattie, another of those concerned looks on her face. He knew what she was thinking about—that moment when she would have to give up little Hattie, when she would have to hand her over to Nick forever. He ached for her because he knew how she felt. He missed his own little boy, the baby he had rocked, kissed, fed and held. Hattie and Talia were bringing back memories that ripped him apart.
“Aw, hell, Talia, this is tearing us both up,” he said, turning to her. “Let’s figure where we’ll go from here, what we’ll do next and get this over with. I have to take her, but not today. We’ll continue to send her to day care until we work out what we’ll do. Then I’ll take Hattie, so the state will have to back off and get the hell out of our lives.”
He glanced at the child. “Thank goodness she doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s going to miss you like hell.” Talia had become mama to her. When they loved each other, a mother and child formed the tightest possible bond. Nick rubbed his forehead as he thought about what he was doing—taking a baby from the only mother she now knew. When Hattie woke crying in the night and he came to comfort her, would she be scared?
He looked intently at Talia and she stared at him.
“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“As far as she knows now, you’re her mother,” he said.
“Yes, but you’ll be her daddy before you know it,” Talia answered solemnly. “And suddenly you’ll be a family. You’re bound to marry again and then she’ll have a mama who loves her.”
Talia looked away and he knew she was fighting tears again and he couldn’t blame her.
He barely knew her, yet he ached for her. He wanted to put his arms around her and try to comfort her and to calm his own nerves and feelings of loss, but they had a fiery chemistry between them that he didn’t want to ignite. He didn’t know why sparks flared when they touched, but he didn’t want the physical attraction to escalate. He didn’t need that to complicate his thinking. He had to avoid crossing a line where they had more emotional problems between them to deal with, but it was a strain to keep from reaching out and comforting her. He fought the urge and stood facing her as he said, “Talia, you should raise her.”
She turned her back to him and he suspected she lost the battle to try to avoid crying. “That was my biggest fantasy, that I was a stay-at-home mom and with her every day,” she said in a soft voice as if talking to herself. After a moment she wiped her eyes while her back was still turned. “This is hard, Nick. It hurts because I love her as if she was my own baby. I’ve had two miscarriages, so I’ve lost two babies and I’m going to lose another one now—one that I love with all my heart.”
This time he couldn’t keep from stepping up close to her to pat her on the shoulder, and even that touch just made him want to pull her into his arms and hold her. “Shh, Talia,” he whispered. He looked at the baby seated on the floor, still playing with her new bunny. She looked up