When It's Love (4 page)

Finally, she pulled up in front of her house, plucking Charlotte from the backseat and carrying her inside with Nicholas following behind. “If you'll wait a few minutes for me to get Charlotte into bed, I can show you where everything is.”

“I’m sure I can find the shower just fine if you'll point me in the general direction. And I have plenty of spare clothes in my bag.”

Pity
,
she thought before she could stop her brain from going in that direction. “Great!” Her smile was brighter than it needed to be on account of the heated thoughts she was working to corral—and conceal. The problem was, she was fairly certain he knew
exactly
what she had been thinking. “The shower’s just down the hall, and there are towels under the sink.”

Rachel carried Charlotte through their small house to her bedroom. Their place was compact, furnished in things they’d managed to buy secondhand or that had been handed down from her grandmother and sisters. Rachel had taken a lot of care when it came to decorating her daughter’s room and the whole family had helped paint it, which was lovely of them.

While she set about cleaning up Charlotte and getting her ready for bed, she could hear her shower running. It was hard not to imagine Nicholas in the bathroom, steam rising around him…

Rachel cut the thought off, the same way that she usually made herself dismiss thoughts about exotic locales and long-distance trips, knowing she needed to focus on the practical realities of her life instead. She dressed Charlotte in her pajamas, settled her under the covers, then gently woke her up to give her a capful of the medicine she’d picked up from the pharmacy. Even drowsy, Charlotte made a face as she drank it.

“I wish it tasted nicer, too,” Rachel said gently, “but I promise it will make you feel better.”

As she reached down to wipe Charlotte’s brow, her daughter shut her eyes again. Hopefully, she would be fine soon, just the way the doctor said. Still, Rachel couldn't bear to leave her—not even with Grams—today. Which meant she had a couple of phone calls to make.

She decided to try her boss first. Frank’s secretary put her through after a few seconds.

“Hi, Rachel, are you going to be in soon?”

“Actually, that's what I need to talk to you about.”

“Oh no. Rachel, don’t do this to me. We have the salvage people coming in—”

“Charlotte’s ill. I’ve had to bring her home from school because she’s been throwing up and has a fever.” Before Frank could protest, she quickly suggested, “Why don't you send me over everything you have and I’ll come up with the figures from home? In fact, we could do a conference call or share screens online later if you'd like.”

“You’re not sick, too, are you?” Frank asked, obviously concerned about how long that would keep her off work.

“No, but my sister Morgan has come down with the same thing, so it’s obviously pretty contagious.”

“You're right,” he quickly agreed upon hearing the word 'contagious'. “You should stay home today. I'll send over their details as soon as I can.”

“And I’ll get to work on the risk calculations immediately. I'm sure they'll be quite complicated, but hopefully I'll be able to give you a draft inside of two days.” Which was at least a full day faster than she normally would take on a project of this size. But even if it meant working through the night, she'd make it happen. Rachel had learned early on after having Charlotte that she could juggle just about anything in her life, so long as she didn’t mind going without sleep.

She hung up and checked on her daughter. Charlotte seemed a little restless, murmuring in her sleep, but at least her skin felt cooler to the touch. Rachel tiptoed out of the room to make her next phone call—to Michael.

When he answered on the second ring, she immediately said, “I'm so sorry to call you in the middle of your workday like this, but Morgan sent me down to the docks to collect Nicholas Quinn, a surfer who's going to be shadowing her for the week for a TV show he's filming, and then Charlotte got sick so I had to pick her up at school, and now that she's napping I have to stay here with her, which means that I can’t bring him over to Grams’ house the way I promised Morgan that I would.”

Fortunately, Michael had lived with Rachel and her sisters for several years as a teenager, so he could follow her long and winding sentence fairly easily. “Do you need me to go down to the ferry terminal?”

“No, to my house. Charlotte got sick
after
I picked him up, so Nicholas is here.”

“Don't worry about a thing. I’ll be right over,” Michael said.

Feeling immensely grateful to the man who had always been there for her and her sisters—even now that they were all grown up—Rachel took another quick glance at Charlotte before heading through the house in search of Nicholas since the shower was no longer running. She should let him know that Michael was coming to collect him, maybe give him a hand getting his surfboard off the roof of her car, too. Maybe he was down in the kitchen, getting a glass of water or…

“Oh!” Rachel exclaimed as she almost collided with Nicholas, who was coming out of the bathroom.

He wasn’t wearing anything except for the towel wrapped around his waist. It shouldn’t have been that different from seeing him without his shirt as they’d checked on the surfboard earlier. But somehow it was.

Very
different.

Barely able to form a coherent thought, all she could manage was, “Where are your clothes?”

“I forgot to bring them in here with me, and I knew you were putting Charlotte to bed, so I figured I had a pretty clear run to my bags and my clothes. It was this or put my old ones back on, which would kind of defeat the purpose of the shower, right?”

“Right,” Rachel agreed reluctantly.

She knew better, knew she shouldn't be staring, but she was only human...and she knew with utter certainty that there wasn't a female alive who wouldn't have looked right then. The muscles of Nicholas’ torso were strongly defined from swimming through strong waves all day. He was still wearing the shark tooth around his neck, and this close, Rachel could make out the details of the swirling, almost tribal-style tattoos on his skin, along with a few scars that she guessed were mementos of moments when a surfing experience had gone sideways. They should have marred the smooth planes of his chest and abs, particularly since they were obviously signs of what a risk-taker the man in front of her could be. But, somehow, they only seemed to make him sexier.

When Rachel finally looked up again, he was grinning. A ridiculously gorgeous grin this time, one that made her fingers itch to touch him and her lips tingle with the desire to kiss him. They were staring into each other's eyes, all of the heady possibilities swirling between them, when the doorbell rang and immediately yanked Rachel right out of the spell Nicholas had put over her.

Michael was here to take the surfer off her hands…just in time to save her from doing something she would regret.

CHAPTER FIVE

As Rachel went to answer the doorbell, Nicholas quickly dug a pair of jeans and a shirt out of his bag. After he finished dressing and walked back toward the kitchen, he could hear her saying, “Thanks so much for dropping everything to come take Morgan's guest to Grams, Michael. Between getting a flat tire on the way to the ferry, the call from Charlotte's school, and then her throwing up all over him in the backseat of the car, somehow it turned into this epic odyssey.”

Nicholas heard Michael laugh, then say, “She threw up on him?”

“Don't laugh,” she replied, although he could hear humor seep into her voice. “It was so nice of him to offer to hang out in the backseat with her to try to keep her spirits up. And then
splat!
Poor guy, it was really gross. I'm sure he's dying to get out of here and into Grams’ house by now.”

But she was wrong about that—and he'd be shocked if she didn't know by now that he wasn't at all in a hurry to get away from her or her daughter, even if it meant risking getting splashed by Charlotte again.

In any case, Nicholas felt a little weird listening in on their conversation. It felt as if he was intruding on a private family affair. He knew how families worked, although he didn’t really have much of one to call his own anymore and was starting to realize just how much he missed it. Quite a bit, actually.

How close were Rachel and this Michael guy, he wondered. Close enough that she could call on him at a moment’s notice, obviously. And Nicholas knew that he couldn’t be the only one who saw what a beautiful, interesting woman she was.

“Speaking of getting out of the house, once Charlotte's all better, if you'd like me to take her out to see a movie one night so that you can—”

“Look, here's Nicholas,” Rachel said, cutting Michael off before he could say exactly what Rachel would be doing on a night without her daughter—although it wasn't a stretch at all for Nicholas to assume it was likely a hot date with some guy who would spend all night drooling over how gorgeous she was.

Michael looked to be a couple of years older than Rachel, with the muscular physique of someone who worked with his hands. Nicholas could see the other man giving him the same appraisal.

“Hi, I’m Nicholas.”

“Michael.” The other man’s grip was firm and a bit rough. “Rachel asked me to come give you a ride over to Grams’.”

“Thanks.” Nicholas turned to Rachel. “And thank you for bringing me this far. I hope I’ll see more of you when Charlotte’s feeling better.”

She looked a little flustered at that and sounded just as flustered as she said, “I...you...” She shook her head as if to clear it. “I'm sure I’ll see you up at Grams’ house.”

Nicholas went and untied his surfboard from the roof of Rachel’s car then attached it to the roof rack on Michael's SUV. Michael seemed like a nice enough guy, and even better, Nicholas hadn't noticed any sparks jumping between him and Rachel. Still, he needed to know for sure.

“So, you and Rachel, are you…” Nicholas said as Michael pulled out onto the road.

Michael looked more than a little shocked at the idea, which immediately put Nicholas' mind at ease. “The Walkers took me in when I was a teenager,” he explained. “Rachel and I are like brother and sister.” That came with a slightly pointed look. One that clearly said Michael considered them his family and that Nicholas should be respectful and not cause them any problems.

“Rachel is one of five, isn't she?” Morgan had given him the rundown on her sisters, but after he'd met—and been so stunned by—Rachel, the details on the other Walker women had gone a bit fuzzy in his head.

“I’ll give you a quick rundown of everyone before we get to the house,” Michael said. “You’re staying with Ava, their grandmother. She’s a lot of fun. Used to be a dancer over in Seattle. Tres, that’s William Walker III, is their father. You probably won’t see that much of him, because he doesn’t come up to the house much. Then there are the Walker sisters. Hanna is the youngest. She’s a filmmaker. Next is Morgan, who you know. After Morgan, there’s Paige. You’ll probably meet her up at the house if she isn’t at the dance studio teaching classes or getting students ready for their next performance. Rachel’s the second-oldest, and then there’s Emily. She’s a guidance counselor at the school and also runs things around the house.” His voice softened when he talked about Emily, especially as he said, “She’s pretty special.”

“Are they all going to be okay with me staying up at the family house?” Nicholas asked. He’d been surprised when Morgan had insisted that he stay with her grandmother. Surprised and maybe a little worried about ruining a collection of lace doilies, or that Ava might turn out to own a dozen cats. Now, though, it sounded more like he had to worry about not upsetting a whole bevy of sisters.

“It’s just Emily, Paige and Grams up at the house. Morgan, Hanna and Rachel all have their own places. Besides, Ava’s the one who insisted that you come and stay. Depending on how busy things are with the dance studio, Paige might not even notice you’re there.”

“So, if Emily runs the place, is there any way of making sure I stay on her good side while I'm here?”

“I’ve yet to find a way of doing that—a way that works, anyway,” Michael said, although there was something almost possessive about the way he said it. Almost as if he was trying to suss out whether Nicholas was planning to make a move on Emily. “Although that could just be me. She and I have always had a different relationship from the others. We both like to be handy and in charge—so it means we butt heads quite a bit.”

Nicholas had never been very good at going along with other’s plans either. He’d always been more about doing what felt right, regardless of who was telling him to do otherwise. It was one of the reasons he was looking forward to doing this TV work. He'd been surfing competitively for so long that he was interested in trying new things just for the joy of them, rather than because of a need to win a prize.

“I’ll try not to cause any problems,” Nicholas promised just as they pulled up to the curb.

The house he’d be staying in for the next week was a big, old-fashioned place, obviously built many years ago, with plenty of space for a large family, but obviously well cared for.

Michael led the way inside, letting himself in with the ease of a man who obviously felt right at home. He took the bags into the hall while Nicholas carried his surfboard.

A spritely older woman stepped into the hallway. She was elegantly dressed in a long skirt and a pale blue blouse, and she moved with the grace of an athlete. Her features were beautiful and full of character. Nicholas could easily see the resemblance to Rachel.

She took his hand in a firm grip. “You must be Nicholas. I’m Ava. It’s lovely to have you here. Why don’t you leave your things here for now and come through to the kitchen? You can prop your surfboard against the stairs.”

Nicholas followed her into the kitchen, where she began to make coffee, waving away Michael’s attempt to help. “If you really want to help, you can tell me why my social network accounts all seem to be going wrong at once.”

“More computer troubles?” Michael went over to a big, family-sized kitchen table and started tapping away on a laptop.