He loved her.
The knowledge settled over him without any sense of shock. In his heart he’d known it all along. The special qualities she possessed—her loyalty, her patience, her generosity—made her easy to love.
But he’d been too afraid to face up to it and admit it. So he’d hidden behind emotions he’d called desire and passion, want and even lust…
But he loved her. And that admission freed him.
Catherine was watching him with gentle understanding in her eyes. “You will make sure Candace doesn’t get hurt?”
“Mom!”
“Of course,” Nick assured Catherine, ignoring Candace’s horrified expression.
“You will take care of her if anything happens to me?”
For a split second, Nick glimpsed stark fear in the eyes so like Candace’s. “I’ll take care of her—and Jennie. But be assured nothing’s going to happen to you. Not for a very long time.”
“Thank you.” The smile was sweet. Then Catherine looked down at the baby in the pram. “Look, Jennie’s waking up—”
A cross gurgle of complaint made them all laugh.
“I think the time has come for that walk in the garden,” said Nick.
They’d gotten back to the house—Candace didn’t think it could ever be called a home—and she’d bathed and fed Jennie. Nick walked into the nursery as she was putting a sleepy Jennie into the crib.
Restlessness seized Candace. Excusing herself on a pretext, she’d gone downstairs to make herself a cup of chamomile tea and had just settled down in the upstairs sitting room with the hot drink and a magazine when Nick came out of the nursery.
“She’s fast asleep.” He sat down on the love seat opposite her and stretched back, folding his arms behind his head.
She shifted, aware of him watching her, conscious that night was falling and that the two of them were alone with so much unspoken between them.
“I liked your mother,” he said at last.
Candace set the magazine down on a lamp table beside her cooling tea. “Thank you.”
“But I will admit that I was surprised today,” he added.
“Why?”
“Your mother had met Jennie before.”
“Once. She had a fall and the staff called me to come and see her because she was badly shaken.” She looked at him through her lashes. “It was the day you thought I’d kidnapped Jennie—and you almost filed a missing persons report.”
“Ah, that day.”
“I didn’t want to call you for help…so I took her with me. I’m sorry, Nick, I should’ve told you.”
“But then you would’ve had to explain about your mother.”
Nodding, she agreed, “Exactly.”
There was a long pause.
“You’re going to marry me,” he said with such a lack of fanfare that for a second Candace thought she’d misheard. But the leap of her heart, coupled with the determined resolve in his eyes, told her that she’d heard right.
“Nick…” She sat forward on the edge of the love seat, and searched for the right words.
This was exactly what she didn’t need. She might love Nick until it hurt. But she wasn’t marrying him, because she wasn’t prepared to confine him in a trap he would come to resent.
Sex would never be enough…
If there was one thing Candace was certain of by now, it was that Nick had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. He’d done everything in his power to save Henry and Bertha’s garden center because they’d offered a young rebel a job; he’d been prepared to do everything in his power to help Jilly have the baby she desperately desired, even though he’d never loved her.
Now Candace couldn’t rid herself of the memory of the expression on Nick’s face when he’d all but promised her mother he would take care of her, too.
“You can’t just say things like that,” she said at last.
“I’m not just saying it…we’re getting married.”
“Why? So that you can take care of me?”
His eyes grew slumberous. “Among other things.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me!”
Candace wasn’t going to allow him to distract her. Sex would never be enough. Not without love. And she wasn’t about to fool herself that her love would be enough for both of them. Nick had been down that road once before, and it had brought nothing but unhappiness to everyone concerned.
Finally, she had no choice but to tell him the truth. “I have no intention of trapping you into a loveless marriage.”
“You’re not Jilly.” Nick got to his feet and came around the glass coffee table to sit beside her. “You wouldn’t be trapping me. I want to marry you. Trust me to know the difference.”