Claimed by the Rebel: The Playboy's Plain Jane / The Loner's Guarded Heart / Moonlight and Roses. Jackie Braun
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happened, it felt as if it was not the outfit he saw at all. It was the look on her face, the sweet curve of her smile.
He realized why he had been so anxious to focus on the killing of her ex-husband. Because to focus on her was to threaten what remained of his tattered control after he had seen her do her spontaneous little dance over the Tac Revol tickets, after he had tasted the clear-brook sweetness of her kiss.
There was a look on her face as she studied Jake that was rapt, even more beautiful than when she had danced. She looked serene, almost like a Madonna.
A decent girl. A wholesome girl. A smart girl. A girl absolutely born to be a mother.
He was well aware that there on the cold hospital floor sat a woman he’d offered everything to: he’d offered to wine and dine her, escort her to the most-sought-after functions, take her on his motorcycle, give her dreams carved in ice.
She’d said no to each of his invitations without even a moment’s hesitation. And then when he’d finally done something genuinely nice—as accidental as it may have been that she thought those tickets were for her mother—then it had been her turn to issue the invitation.
That was what Katie was doing even now, sitting on the floor, playing with the baby, shining with an inner light that was nearly blinding. She was issuing him an invitation to a life he had turned his back on when his mother had gotten ill. A life that he had decided was too full of foibles, too unpredictable, that extracted too great a cost.
That’s why he had avoided her ever since she had ever so tentatively extended her invitation for coffee.
He was not unaware of a feeling of the universe conspiring against him. He’d decided, after seeing her dance with the Tac Revol tickets, after her kissing him, that the game was up. Over. The stakes had become a little too high for his tastes. And yet here he was, tangled with her again.
“Thanks, Katie,” he said, coming up to her.
“Is your sister okay?”
“Whacked out on drugs. She seems to think I’d be a good candidate to look after Jake.”
“Aren’t you?”
What had he ever done to deserve the look of trust on her face?
“No.”
“Haven’t you ever looked after Jake before?”
“I’ve taken him out a couple of times by myself. To the mall. And the park. The little devil is a chick magnet. And the man-with-baby thing is unbelievable. The women are all over me when I have Jake.” He knew exactly what he was trying to do. Put back the barrier that had been so conveniently provided by names of women she didn’t know. Tara. Sarah. Janet. Margot.
“Trust you to see a baby as useful for that reason!”
“His usefulness is limited,” Dylan said. It was working. She looked justifiably horrified. Part of him was thinking, Katie, my lady, please see me in a bad light. You make the decision to not have anything to do with me. Because I can’t seem to follow through when I make that decision about you.
“The baby’s usefulness is limited?” she asked, indignant.
“Oh, sure, he’s cute, but he’s basically a poop machine. Just when things have the potential to get interesting, he fills his pants. He actually leaked on me once. I thought I was going to hurl.”
“Daredevil Dylan McKinnon was going to throw up over a little baby leak?” She started to laugh.
“Don’t be so damned sanctimonious. You weren’t there. The horror was unimaginable, even for someone like you, who probably has a fairly good imagination. Have you ever had to deal with a situation like that?”
“I used to babysit in high school. I wouldn’t let a baby leak scare me!”
He snorted. “That’s like a soldier who has never been in a combat zone saying bullets don’t scare him.”
“It’s not quite the same thing,” she said dryly.
“Yeah, well, baby leaks scare me, and I’m man enough to admit it.”
“I appreciate your vulnerability,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.
“Don’t tell anybody. I’d be ruined. And don’t you start smiling!”
Really, her smile was becoming the hardest thing to handle. It lit something in her. Had he known, right from the beginning, in some place he’d been afraid to go within himself, that her smile would be like this? Worth it. Worth everything. Even the uncertainty of his own soul. Even coming face-to-face with all his own fears.
“Why does everyone think me being tortured is funny?” he asked. He was asking the universe as much as her!
“Oh, Dylan, it’s not exactly you being tortured that’s funny. It’s you being terrified of something so darling as a little baby.”
That showed what she knew! “You won’t think he’s such a little darling when his forehead wrinkles up, he holds his breath and starts turning red.”
He could see way too clearly that he was playing with something far too big now, something he might not be able to control. He’d never be able to forget the beauty he discovered, all her hopes and dreams in her face.
Wasn’t that at the heart of this whole thing? Some instinct had told him she was beautiful, and he had wanted her to look beautiful again, had wanted to see those hopes and dreams shining in her face, had needed to know that some precious part of her had not been destroyed by whatever she had been through.
Proof his plan was working—there she sat on the floor in her Maria Von Trapp outfit, playing with baby toys, radiating absolute and extremely worrisome beauty.
“Hey,” she said, looking up at him, wrinkling her nose. “Don’t look so worried.”
He had that sensation, watching her play building blocks with his nephew, that Katie could know him in ways he had never allowed people to know him. No one in the world ever guessed when he was feeling pressure, when he was rattled, when he was scared. Not even when he’d been posed at the door of that airplane waiting to jump had he betrayed how truly frightened he was. He’d made some wisecrack remark that had made everyone laugh.
But if she had been there he had the uneasy feeling she would have known, just as she had known to take those car keys from his hand a half an hour ago.
And Dylan McKinnon wasn’t quite sure if it felt good or bad to be quite so transparent to another human being.
“So, what’s the battle plan?” she asked him, brushing off her skirt/short fashion disaster and getting to her feet.
“The same as any battle plan,” he told her. “Survival.” And he was not sure he was referring to looking after a baby, either!
She looked askance at him. “Battle plans aren’t about survival,” she pointed out. “They’re about victory. Winning.”
Now, if anyone should know that, it should be him. He did know that. He’d had a battle plan all along, prove a decent girl would go out with him, give her the gift of hope in return and then, mission accomplished, withdraw. Now his battle plan was wavering before him like a mirage of an oasis on a blistering desert afternoon.
But now he saw it differently. Survival. His.
“I can take it from here,” he said bravely. “I’ll take him over to my sister’s. I have her key. The place is babyproofed and supplied.”
Something flitted across her face. Relief? But it was quickly replaced by another look. Determination. “You don’t think I’m leaving you alone with this baby, do you?”
“I can manage a baby.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, you can’t.”
He should have felt insulted, but he