CHAPTER FOUR
DANIEL RIVERTON REGARDED Trixie Marsh with annoyance. He probably should have kept his observations about her to himself. Now, her back was up. She had something to prove.
He sighed. She had really picked the wrong time to make a point. And the wrong guy to make it with.
“No?” Daniel lifted his eyebrow at her. “No to my pulling the car around? Or the shirt?”
She blushed scarlet, which he had known she would.
Despite the bruise on her forehead, the total lack of makeup and the housecoat from a cartoon series, with that crackling halo of rich whiskey hair and those perfect delicate features, including sinfully full, almost pouty lips, there was no missing that Trixie Marsh was a very pretty girl.
There was also no missing that she was that wholesome girl-next-door type, with wholesome girl-next-door type dreams that made him exceedingly wary.
Her eyes, even wide with pain, were clear and astounding, a blue that made him think, again, of dark purple pansies, and those blue birds that people insisted on associating with happiness. Her eyes also whispered at a hint of something that made him as uncomfortable as wholesomeness.
Depth.
But she was not his type. Despite the claim—he had barely contained a snort of disbelief—that she, too, believed people should look at endings rather than beginnings—she was blushing at her close proximity to a man with no shirt on.
He could see she was natural and unpretentious and probably subscribed wholeheartedly to happily ever after, even if she didn’t want to!
She was the type of woman who pampered her cat. She probably knew how to bake cookies and bread.
He had never—deliberately—gone out with a woman who showed any kind of domestic inclination.
Despite Trixie’s claim that her bedroom was going to undergo a transformation, it suited her perfectly now with its delicate shade of lilac, and impractical whites and laces.
She was the naïve type, easily fooled by the lies that children told her.
She didn’t look like she used much makeup, unlike his type, who used it expertly. And his type would never be caught dead in a housecoat with teddy bears on it.
Of course, his type wouldn’t take on child care, either, particularly not child care for a handful like the two little hoodlums sitting over there on the couch spreading jam to kingdom come.
“No to the offer of you escorting me to the hospital, not to you putting a shirt on,” she said, and her blush deepened—either because she had used the word escort—or because her gaze fell briefly to his chest. She seemed to remember she was drawing a line in the sand, and her expression became almost comically stern.
“Though of course you won’t have to. Put a shirt on. Because, you may be right that I can’t drive. But I can just call a cab. To get medical attention.”
“Okay,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, trying to hide his relief that those jam-covered little monkeys wouldn’t be getting in his car, which was new, and had hand-stitched white leather seats that had never had so much as a drop of coffee on them. “Call one. I’ll wait until it comes.”
She frowned. “Though the twins have to have car seats. My sister would kill me if they didn’t. Do cabs have car seats?”
“Do I look like the kind of man who would know if a cab provided car seats?” he asked. The women he dated also did not have children. Ever.
“No, you don’t.”
She managed to make that sound like an indictment.
“It seems to me, when your sister chose escape from her marauding children, she lost the right to dictate how emergencies would be handled.”
“Mr. Riverton—”
“You can call me Daniel,” he said, a way of letting her know that since they were going to be stuck with each other for a while, there was no sense being formal.
She hesitated for a moment, and then the resolve firmed in her eyes. “Well, then, Daniel, you can just leave. I can handle this.”
Something about the way his name sounded on her lips made the back of his neck tickle just enough that he regretted taking down the slight barrier of formality that had existed between them.
Formality? He didn’t even have a shirt on! Which was probably all the more reason to be formal! He realized he, who was known for his nearly ruthless ability to maintain focus under stress, was becoming distracted.
He also realized he was negotiating with a woman who had suffered a bump to the head, who was in pain, who was exhausted, and who had no hope of “handling” this! His own resolve firmed.
“Well, then, Trixie—” he ignored the shiver at the back of his neck when he said her name, “Enough is enough.”
“Excuse me?” She looked mutinous, but he didn’t care.
“Negotiations are over,” he told her, inserting steel into a voice that had made men who had built empires quake. “Since we—” we, his mind noted, as in for better or worse “—we are in this together.”
How had that most guarded against of phrases, for better or worse, slipped by his guard? His boyhood had been peppered with that awful phrase, his mother pursuing a dream that he had realized was unattainable. How is it possible she never had?
The last time he had actually spoken to her, she was at it again.
It’s different with Phil. We’re going to get married in June. I had this wonderful idea. Instead of a maid of honor, what if I had a man of honor? What if it was you?
What if it wasn’t? He’d gone into hiding. And text-only mode. She didn’t know, but the new cell phone number he’d given her? Just for her, so he could get through his day without having to sift through her bombardments to get to business items.
“Are you okay?” The mutinous expression on Trixie’s face was replaced with one of genuine concern.
He glared at her. The injured party was asking him if he was okay?
“Since we don’t know what to do with the demons if I call an ambulance, hand over your keys. Presumably your car has the junior demon seats in it?”
She scowled at him, the concern evaporated, thank God. He needed to just get the job done. Trixie Marsh was dead on her feet and her face was white with pain. He turned to the twins.
“You two—”
“Their names are Molly and Pauline.”
“You two, Molly and Polly—”
“Their mother hates that,” she offered.
He cast her a glance that clearly said he didn’t care what their mother hated, and turned his attention back to the girls.
“Go and get that jam cleaned off of you.”
They looked up from their feeding frenzy, paused.
“Right now.” He made his voice deep and stern and no-nonsense.
To his relief, the twins scurried off, and moments later he heard water turn on. He turned his attention back to Trixie. Her mouth was hanging open with surprise. She snapped it shut when she saw him watching her.
“Beginner’s luck,” she said. “They don’t generally listen that well.”
“I’m used to being listened to. So, give me your keys. Your car is?”
He could tell she was considering proving he was not always listened to, but she knew her options were limited. With ill grace, she struggled to get off the chair. He put his hand on her uninjured elbow to help, but she shook him off with irritation.