Wanted: One Mommy by Cathy Gillen Thacker

Author:Cathy Gillen Thacker
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2010-07-06T04:00:00+00:00

I COULD GET USED TO THIS, Caroline thought, several hours later.

She had gone back to the office, returned phone calls and finished up a few things, then rushed home to change into a pair of denim capris and a boat-necked navy-and-white three-quarter-sleeved T-shirt and flip-flops. Then it was back to Jack’s.

Maddie had been waiting for her, in a pair of apple-green pajamas with an adorable dog-and-cat print. Bounder was following the little girl everywhere she went.

“I think Bounder wants her collar to come off,” Maddie told Caroline the moment she walked in the door.

Caroline didn’t doubt that for a minute. The satellite-dish-shaped “hat” looked like a royal pain.

“Maddie,” Jack warned. “We talked about this. Bounder has to wear it so she won’t chew her bandage off and start bleeding again.”

Maddie’s lower lip shot out. “Bounder wouldn’t do that!”

Caroline knelt down so she was at eye level with the little girl. “Bounder wouldn’t mean to hurt herself, Maddie. But she would. Because that’s how dogs take care of their owies. They lick them. And when you lick a cut like that it usually starts bleeding again. Kind of like if you scrape your knee and it starts to get better and then you fall down again and it starts bleeding all over again. Like that.”

“Oh.” Maddie’s expression turned solemn.

“But I know Bounder appreciates how much you love her. And what good care you are taking of her,” Caroline continued.

Maddie’s face lit up with enough joy to inspire a thousand smiles. “I do love her very much,” she said, reaching forward to envelop Caroline in an exuberant hug.

And it would be so easy, Caroline thought, as she returned the little girl’s heartfelt embrace, to love you as my very own. So easy to let you into my life…

Maddie released her hold on Caroline shyly.

Her heart bursting with unexpected affection, Caroline stood.

And looked at the other person in the room she wouldn’t mind calling family….

She’d had the impression that Jack was looking fine tonight when she came in, but she hadn’t had a chance to really look at him. Now she did. He, too, was just out of the shower. He had shaved, brushed his hair. The dark suit contrasted nicely with the marine-blue shirt and striped tie. Most intriguing of all was the cologne he wore. Cedarwood and moss combined with expensive leather and crisp sun-dried linens…The fragrance conjured up an earthy sophistication…success…a briskness that was both pure Jack, and pure spring…. She had never inhaled anything quite like it, and she knew she would never forget it. Or the specific way it fit the man who had just splashed it on his skin.

“Your mother gave that to you, didn’t she?”

“Conjured up for me just this week.” Jack winked. “Said it’s guaranteed to attract the woman of my dreams.”

Patrice was not matchmaking, Caroline reassured herself calmly. And besides, she had fallen into bed with Jack that afternoon without help of such artifice.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Caroline murmured, aware her attraction to Jack was so much more than his cologne.

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