By the time his boots hit the ironstone drive, Jillian was unstrapping Rachel from her car seat. But she didn’t grab her and swing her into her arms. Nor did she overpower her with meaningless remember-me? prattle. Hunkered down by the open door, she smiled quietly at his daughter and fixed on the perfect opener.
“Is that Pinky Pony?” She leaned back a fraction and inspected the toy Rachel held clutched to her chest. The one Jillian had given her last Christmas. “I’m so glad you brought him back to visit with me and his friends.”
Slowly the thumb slid from Rachel’s mouth, although her big brown eyes maintained a note of suspicion. “Have you got other ponies?”
“I sure do.”
Rachel maintained her wariness for, oh, another three seconds before wriggling out of the seat and tucking her hand in Jillian’s. “Are they in your bedwoom?”
“Yup. Should we ask your daddy if it’s okay to go and see them?”
“He woan want to come. He doesn’t like ponies. He says they got bad additudes.”
“Really? I did not know that.”
As she straightened from three-year-old level to standing, Jillian’s eyes sought and found his, and while her face and voice echoed his daughter’s serious-subject tone, those green eyes danced with amusement. “Is that right, Seth? You don’t like ponies because of their attitude?”
He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know where she gets these things.”
Lips twitching as if to suppress laughter, she tilted her head and fixed him with a challenging look. “So, do you want to come and look at ponies with Rachel, then?”
“In your bedroom? I don’t think so.”
Which probably wasn’t the smart thing to say, not when he’d been enjoying standing close enough to absorb the warmth of her teasing mood. Not pinot noir today, but something as lively and vibrant as that spark in her eyes. A sparkling rosé, perhaps.
And, she didn’t shy away as he’d expected. She blinked slowly and something shifted in her expression. A hint of man-woman awareness, a knowledge that to Seth her bedroom was not a place of ponies and girlie tea parties but of feminine scents and lacy garments and every midnight fantasy he could remember.
Of course he had to be imagining things. If she detected any of that on his face, she’d run a mile. Instead she stood eye-locked with him, a touch of pink in her cheeks and a touch of mystery in her green eyes.
Until Rachel tugged at her hand. “Come on, Aunt Jellie. Pinky wantsta see your ponies.”
Jillian allowed herself to be towed off toward the house by his purportedly shy daughter, pausing only to call back over her shoulder. “Come on inside. Cole’s waiting in the library and Mercedes isn’t far away. Eli may or may not make it.”
A timely reminder, Seth decided, of his purpose and place here today. Not in her bedroom, breathing the intoxicating mix of wine and woman that clung to her skin, but in the library, talking business. He would do well to keep that in mind.
“The library is just through to your right.” Jillian’s voice drifted down from high on his left, and he looked up to find her partway up a winding staircase, still hand in hand with his daughter.
“Go on in,” she said. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Are you all right then, princess?”
“I’m going to see Aunt Jellie’s ponies,” his princess informed him in an imperious tone. Of course, she was all right. What was he thinking?
“Have fun, then. And don’t eat too much hay.”
She giggled, the sound muffled by the hand she slapped over her mouth. And as Seth started toward the library, he was smiling all the way into his heart, warmed by that spontaneous giggle at a very lame joke.
“Aunt Jellie?”
On the threshold of the library he turned to see Jillian crouched down and listening intently to whatever Rachel had to say. One small hand rested on Jillian’s shoulder as his daughter leaned forward to whisper in her ear, and that tableau with its hints of intimacy and implicit trust hit him mid-chest with paralyzing force.
For a second he felt as if he’d run full pelt into a steel girder. He simply couldn’t breathe. But then the pressure eased, leaving in its place a hollow sense that he had erred—in a way he hadn’t contemplated—taking on this job and bringing Rachel here today.
He was old enough and tough enough to deal with his infatuation with Jillian, but what about his daughter?
Jillian returned ten minutes later. Rachel did not. And while Seth went through the formalities of winning a job he didn’t need and would probably spend the next month regretting, his daughter—he knew—was falling for a second Ashton-Sheppard woman.
Caroline.
“Goodness knows how long they’ll be,” Jillian said as they walked from the library, the meeting over. “It might be best if you pick her up at the stables.”
Where, no doubt, she was falling for the Ashton-Sheppard pony. Mini Ed. Oh, yeah, Rachel would find that talking, snickering wiseass pony irresistible.
“It might be best if you come along, help me pry her off of that pony of yours,” he said.
She crinkled her nose apologetically. “I suppose that’s the least I can do, seeing as I mentioned Monty in the first place.”
“Monty?”
“My pony.”
“Ah.” Not that he would ever think of the animal as anything other than Mini Ed. The name suited him too well, as did the current easy, teasing mood that accompanied them into the foyer.
He hadn’t forgotten his earlier unease, rather he’d shoved it aside in favor of a more rational reaction. In the future, he would keep his business and personal lives apart. For now he knew Rachel was in good hands and he…well, he couldn’t resist the temptation to stall and prolong the moment or the mood.
“It all started with that pink pony,” he teased.
“By ‘it all’ do you mean the fact she’s a little keen on horses?”
“A little?” Seth shook his head with mock gravity. “You created a monster.”
“Obviously you can’t be referring to a certain three-year-old who does not have an ounce of monster in her sweet little bones.”
“Obviously you haven’t spent time with any three-year-old who is tired and crabby and not getting her own way.”
“No, I haven’t.” A trace of emotion flitted across her face, swift and ephemeral, chased away by a rueful smile. “Although I’m assured by my brothers that I was a perfect monster at that age.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“If I did indulge in any monster-like behavior—not that I’m admitting culpability, you understand—” She cut him a look from under her lashes, which his body completely misunderstood. “But if I did then Eli and Cole would have provoked it. They’ve always taken great delight in razzing Mercedes and me.”
“I noticed.” In the meeting there’d been much to notice in the family dynamics and Jillian’s responses. Especially those she tried to hide. “You don’t much like being called Jellie, do you?”
She all but shuddered. “God, no!”
“Yet you let Rachel get away with it.”
“Aunt Jellie from a three-year-old is cute. From my brothers in a business meeting? Let’s just say cute is not a desirable workplace image.”
Seth