Twelfth Night Proposal. Karen Smith Rose
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Chapter Five
Prologue
Montgomery Boat Company
Avon Lake, Texas
Glancing at the TV in his office, Leo Montgomery saw paradise. Well, a spot that was supposed to be paradise. There was a lake and grass and trees and a guy dressed in a tuxedo. But it wasn’t the guy who captured Leo’s attention.
There was a woman. The perfect fantasy woman.
Leo glimpsed her face for a moment—maybe half a moment—less time than it took to take a breath. He caught the sparkling, huge brown eyes. Then she was turning…away from him. When she turned, his palms tingled to touch her long, curly brown hair with its red highlights reflecting the sun. The dress she wore was some wispy material. It was short and bared most of her back, the fabric molding to her long legs as she walked away from the camera and away from him. She handed the guy in the tuxedo a can of soda. Large red letters proclaimed its name—ZING. Leo’s gaze was still on the woman’s back and those curls. When she lifted a parasol, tilted it over her shoulder and walked away, the letters on the parasol spelled ZING, The Fantasy Soda. As the jingle for ZING filled the airwaves, she disappeared into the trees.
To Leo’s amazement, he found himself aroused…stirred in a way he hadn’t been stirred for a very long time. Since well before Carolyn’s death two years ago, for sure.
Giving himself a mental shake, willing his libido to calm down, Leo flicked off the TV with the remote. That fantasy woman on the screen was just that—a fantasy. He knew better than most men that fantasies don’t become reality. On the other hand, however, maybe he should think about getting involved with someone from his country club. As his sister, Jolene, told him often, Heather needed a mother. His daughter needed more than the nanny-housekeeper Jolene had just hired.
Heather needed a mother, and he didn’t want to sleep alone for the rest of his life.
Although the cursor on the computer screen blinked before him, Leo couldn’t forget the fantasy woman’s mass of reddish-brown curls, those long legs, that bare back.
He couldn’t remember a feature on the model’s face, but he supposed that was the whole idea—to charge a man’s fantasy. Nevertheless, Leo wasn’t the type of man to dwell on fantasies when reality was sitting right in front of him.
He checked the information on the computer with the boatyard orders on his desk. The dream woman forgotten, work filled his head. That’s the way he wanted it for now. Jolene’s advice might be sound, but he wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t ready for involvement or commitment.
That’s just the way it was.
Chapter One
“Montgomery here,” Leo said as he flipped open his silver cell phone and stepped away from the boat trailer into the hot December sun.
“This is Verity. Heather’s nanny.”
The fact that he had to be reminded of her job position spoke of how little he’d paid attention to the new nanny. Maybe that was because he expected her to come and go as the rest had. Maybe it was because of her glasses, tied-back hair and oversize T-shirts. For almost a month she’d moved around like a ghost in his house, seemingly quite capable, as Jolene had predicted she would be, yet definitely always in the background.
Now he was on the alert because this call most probably concerned his daughter. “Verity, what is it?”
“It’s Heather. I didn’t want to bother you, but I thought you should know that she fell against the coffee table in the great room and cut her forehead.”
Leo’s heart pounded and he felt panic grip him. “Is she all right? Did you take her to the emergency room?”
“I applied pressure and used a butterfly bandage, but you might want to have her checked. Just tell me what you’d like me to do.”
Merely three, with her light-brown, wavy hair and her blue, blue eyes, all Heather had to do was look at him and his heart melted. The thought of her hurt—
“I’ll be right there. Fifteen minutes tops. Is she crying? Is she upset?”
Verity’s voice was helpfully patient. “She’s sitting in my lap, sucking her thumb with her head on my shoulder.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I tell my foreman where I’m going. Keep her calm and call me if you see any change.”
“Yes, Mr. Montgomery.”
Leo headed for the production plant.
Fifteen minutes later he arrived at his house in a select section of Avon Lake, Texas, where the houses in his development were quietly luxurious. His ranch house sat back from the curb with a curved drive leading to it. He left the car in the driveway and hurried to the front door.
Usually when he came home, he was filled with the same sense of well-being he felt at the boatyard. Today dread clouded his thoughts as it had when he’d learned about Carolyn’s brain tumor. What if Heather had seriously injured herself? What if she had a concussion?
His boots sounded on the ceramic tile floor in the entrance foyer as he headed straight ahead for the great room. The fireplace, cathedral ceiling and skylights made it his favorite room in the house. He barely noticed any of that now as he hurried to the denim sofa where Verity was seated with Heather. His daughter was dressed in red overalls with a little white sweater underneath. Her cheeks were pink and tear-stained, and her eyes were wide, as she kept her head on Verity’s shoulder and stared up at him.
“Hello, baby,” he said as he went to take her into his arms. To his surprise she hung on to Verity.
Verity whispered to her, “Go with Daddy.”
But Heather shook her head, held on even tighter and mumbled around her thumb, “I wanna stay wif you.”
Leo felt a stab to his heart.
With understanding eyes, Verity looked up at him, and Leo saw her, really saw her, for the first time since she’d been hired. There was a quiet equanimity about her that had calmed him from the first moment he’d met her. She was young—twenty-two. Her major in college had been early childhood education, and in the short time she’d been with him, she handled Heather as if she knew exactly what she was doing. He had a feeling that had more to do with natural ability than any schooling. Her blue wire-rim glasses had always distracted him from looking at her eyes before now. They were a beautiful brown, the color of teak. Her hair, tied back in a low ponytail, looked silky and soft. Her face was a classic oval, and her nose turned up just a bit at the tip. Although here on the Gulf most residents were suntanned, he noticed Verity’s skin was creamy white.
“She’s still upset,” Verity said.
“Instead of the E.R., we’ll take her to the pediatrician. I called him on the drive here. He said to bring her right in.”
With utmost gentleness, Verity stroked Heather’s hair. “Do you want me to go along?”
“I don’t think I can pry her away from you,” he responded wryly, realizing how that bothered him. Apparently,