LITMIR.BIZ

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tell her you’re going to marry someone—” she broke off, her eyes widening and a mischievous grin appearing as she peered over Phoebe’s shoulder “—someone like that!”

      Laughing, Phoebe threw a casual glance behind her. Then the laughter died. Jackson, looking rumpled and dangerous in jeans and another of his work shirts—half-unbuttoned—was stalking her way.

      Oh, goodness.

      A breathless panic made her look frantically around her for an instant, trying to figure out why an unattached man like Jackson Abbott would be striding across the grass in the direction of playground swings and shrieking children.

      He was staring directly at her.

      Something brought her to her feet. It was the width of his shoulders, maybe, or that glimpse of tanned skin in the vee of his shirt. Possibly the hard, chiseled planes of his face.

      Earlier this morning his looks and manner had unleashed pinballs of reaction in her belly. Now his sensuality acted on her like a fishing line. One look and he reeled her right in.

      He halted a couple steps from her. “Phoebe.”

      She gulped for air like a landed sturgeon. Just her name on his lips gave her a rousing wave of shivers.

      The other women around her had fallen silent. Out of the corner of her eye, Phoebe saw another female, this one a golden-haired mop top of a toddler with a lollipop in one hand, stop in her tracks to gape at him.

      She swallowed. “You were looking for me, Jackson?” After their unstated conversation this morning, she’d doubted she would ever see him again. And she’d been glad of it.

      Daddy’s touch or not, she’d been right about the hardness of the man. An attraction to one such as him was something she couldn’t afford right now. With Rex—and Teddy for that matter—occupying her life, she was exactly right in thinking the last thing she needed was another troublesome male.

      Still, just looking at him made her cheeks heat.

      His eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

      She swallowed again. “Sure. Fine.” Stop babbling, Phoebe. “Okeydokey.” Curses. The thing was, all the cautions and unstated rebuffs in the world didn’t make that deep aloneness she sensed in him any less compelling.

      Her hand fluffed her bangs self-consciously. “Why, um, why are you here?” she asked, staring at his hair and the way the smooth and shiny stuff curved against his strong neck.

      “A couriered package was left for you. They knocked on my door first, by mistake, and I signed for you, but then I got to worrying that it might be something…important.” He frowned darkly, as if worrying about her annoyed him. “Maybe it’s from Rex’s—from your brother. Mrs. Bee told me where I could find you.” He paused. “Phoebe?”

      She started. Darn! She was as easily mesmerized as Rex. From Jackson’s hair her gaze had wandered to the dark stubble of beard along his jaw, and she’d heard, but not quite absorbed, his explanation.

      “Say again?” she said.

      Crossing his arms over his chest, he once more narrowed his gaze. “Package. For you. Might be important.”

      She blinked, appreciating his succinctness. “Oh. Okay. Thank you.” Though she doubted Teddy would have made a decision so quickly—he wasn’t one to promptly respond to anything even slightly unpleasant—she’d better check it out.

      Whirling around, she bent for the diaper bag, Rex, the quilt and the stroller.

      “Let me.” Jackson reached for the baby.

      Phoebe dumped the diaper bag in the seat of the stroller and folded the quilt then placed it atop the bag. Squashing a traitorous sense of feminine smugness over the man she was walking away with, Phoebe waved her fingers in a brief goodbye to the still-stunned play group.

      The stroller wheels crunched over the dusting of sand on the park’s cement path. With Jackson leading and Phoebe slightly behind, they headed toward home. She gazed on the broad expanse of his back and tried not to be fascinated by the powerful muscles she saw playing beneath the worn fabric of his shirt.

      Suddenly little footsteps pounded against the cement behind them. The three-year-old mop top caught up with them, her fat cheeks pink with exertion. Her mother was trailing behind her, a puzzled look on her pleasant face.

      “Mister!” The toddler looked up at Jackson with the same kind of awe that Phoebe barely hid better.

      Frowning, he looked down. A pained expression crossed swiftly over his face, but then was gone. “What?” he said harshly. Then he took a breath and seemed to deliberately soften his voice. “What is it?”

      “You that baby’s daddy?” She pointed her sticky lollipop at Rex’s puffy, diapered bottom.

      He shook his head, turning as if to move on.

      The tot wasn’t going to let him go that easily. “Mister!”

      Jackson froze, then shifted back. “Yes?” He raised an eyebrow and his lips tilted upward, his expression now half-amused and all masculine.

      A totally foreign zing of heat sizzled through Phoebe’s bloodstream. She blinked.

      The little blonde blinked.

      The little blonde’s mother stumbled.

      They all stared at Jackson, his face hard, but patient, and the picture he made in rough boots, soft jeans and chest-baring shirt, cuddling the tiny infant. Goose bumps prickled Phoebe’s scalp.

      “Yes?” he prompted again.

      “Well…” The little girl seemed to screw up all her courage. “If you’re not his, will you be my daddy?”

      The toddler stared up at Jackson.

      The toddler’s mother emitted a little squeak.

      Phoebe briefly closed her eyes, without a clue as to how Jackson might react.

      He shocked her. Hunkering down, Rex still cupped against his chest, he looked at the little girl eye-to-eye and smiled.

      It was the first time Phoebe had seen him give one, and she almost keeled over in the sand. It softened the stark handsomeness of his face, changing it to something altogether devastating. White, warm, Jackson’s smile gave Phoebe another secret zing where a woman who’d made her kind of promise to herself had no business zinging.

      The smile must have given the little girl confidence. “Well?” she demanded. “Will you be my daddy?”

      He smiled once more, then tapped the little blonde on the nose with one long finger. “Thanks for the invite, pumpkin,” he said gently. “But I’m not cut out to be anybody’s anything.”

      Chapter Three

      Jackson stood outside Phoebe’s door, a tall takeout cup of coffee heating each palm, and creamers, sugar packets and red stirrers balanced on each plastic top. He didn’t know why he was here. Well, yeah, he did. On his way into the Victorian after work this morning, he’d run into Melinda Richie, the nurse who lived on the first floor. She’d just happened to mention that Phoebe and Rex had a rough night.

      He’d suddenly remembered dark hours from a thousand years ago. Crying babies that were only soothed by walking the floors in someone’s arms. Being so tired he hadn’t made it to school the next day, even though he’d already missed way too many of his classes.

      Listening to Nurse Richie describe Phoebe’s disturbed night, an unexpected, but by now not unfamiliar, Samaritan impulse had overcome him. The day before, the impulse had sent him to find Phoebe in the park—a bust of an idea, since the package was something not urgent and pertaining to her business. This morning the impulse had taken control once again and sent him back out of the Victorian and to the local Speedy-Mart for the coffees and

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