GIVEN HOW THEIR trip to Greece had started, Gideon supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by Adara’s reaction, but the way she paled and panicked startled him. She took herself back to the house as if her skin was on fire. In their room, she pulled on a sundress and revealed a level of agitation he’d never seen as the thwack of chopper blades became loud enough to make the house hum.
He dragged on shorts and a collared shirt, concerned by the way her hand shook as she tried to apply makeup.
“Adara, you look great,” he reassured her, even though her lips were bloodless and her eyes pools of anxiety.
Coming back from a place of dark thoughts, she gripped his forearm with a clammy hand. “Thank you for being here with me. I don’t know if I could have done this alone.”
Shaken by the reliance and trust her statement represented, he wanted to pull her into his arms and assure her he’d always be here, but she was already pulling away from him. She had been waiting for this a long time and he could see she was both eager and filled with trepidation. Not knowing her brother or how this would go for her filled him with his own anxiety, wanting to shield her yet knowing he had to let whatever happened happen. He could only accompany her outside where the sound of the chopper blades faded to desultory pulses.
Walking out a side door, they stood on the steps, Adara’s fingernails digging into his biceps as she gripped his arm.
They watched Nic Marcussen help a woman with crutches from the helicopter. Rowan Davidson was vaguely familiar to him as a moderately famous child actress who’d had a flirtation with notoriety among the euro-trash social elite. She seemed surprisingly down to earth now as she spun with lithe grace on one foot, accepting her second crutch while trying to take a bag from her husband at the same time.
Nic shouldered the bag’s strap and reached back into the chopper for one more thing: an infant carrier.
As the couple made their way across the lawn toward them, Gideon felt the slicing gaze of the media magnate take his measure.
It wasn’t often that Gideon met a man he considered his equal. Standing on the man’s stoop didn’t exactly put him on an even playing field and he might have been more uncomfortable with that if a severe expression of anguish hadn’t twisted Nic’s expression when he transferred his gaze to Adara.
Her tense profile barely contained the emotions Gideon sensed rising off her as viscerally as if they were his own. Everything in him wanted to pull her close and screen her from what was obviously a very painful moment. But he had to stand helplessly waiting out the silence as Nic paused at the bottom of the steps and the siblings were held in a type of stasis, staring at each other.
Like a burst of rainbows into a rainy afternoon, Rowan smiled and stepped forward. “We’re so glad you came,” she said in a warm Irish accent. Hitching up the steps on her crutches, she embraced Adara with one arm, kissing her cheek. “I’m Rowan. It’s my fault we’re late. And you’re Gideon?”
She hopped over to hug him as if they were long-lost relatives, and for once Gideon didn’t take offense at an unexpected familiarity, accepting her kiss on his cheek, still focused on his wife who seemed to be in a kind of trance.
Slowly Nic set down the baby carrier and let the bag slide off his shoulder on his other side. He took a step forward and Adara tipped forward off the stoop, landing in the open arms of her brother. It was beautiful and heartrending, the reunion so intense it could only be the result of long, intense suffering apart.
“We should give them a minute,” Rowan said huskily, her eyes visibly wet as she dragged her gaze from the pair. “Would you be an absolute hero and bring Evie into the house for me?”
Gideon didn’t like leaving Adara, but followed Rowan to the kitchen where she began preparing a bottle. The baby craned her neck and followed Rowan with her Oriental eyes, beginning to strain against the confines of her seat, whimpering with impatience.
“I know, you’re completely out of sorts, aren’t you?” Rowan murmured as she released the baby while the bottle warmed. Cuddling the infant, she nuzzled her cheek and patted her back, soothing the fussing girl.
“We were supposed to be here all summer just enjoying being a family,” she said to Gideon. “Then it came up that I could have a few pins taken out of my leg. I wanted to put it off, but Nic said no, he could handle Evie for a couple of nights while I was in hospital. But Evie decided to cut a tooth and bellow nonstop. He didn’t get a wink of sleep. Then he found out Adara had come looking for him. He didn’t know which way to turn. Here, do you mind?” she said as a ping sounded from the cylindrical bottle warmer.
She held out the infant and Gideon had no choice but to take her so Rowan could retrieve the baby’s bottle.
He held the sturdy little girl’s rib cage between his palms. Her dangling legs wriggled and her tiny hands scratch-tickled his forearms while her doll’s face craned to keep Rowan in view. She was the smallest, most fragile creature he’d ever held and fear that he’d break her made him want to hurriedly hand her back, but Rowan was occupied tipping the bottle to spray milk on her wrist then licking it off.
“I’ve used crutches so many times I can do a full tea service on them without spilling, but I haven’t mastered juggling a baby. Yet.” She smiled cheekily and hopped over to him. “Just rest her in the crook of your arm and—yes, I know you want that. You’re hungry, aren’t you? Uncle’s going to feed you.”
No, I’m not, Gideon thought, but found himself with a weight of soft warmth snuggled onto his forearm. As little Evie got the nipple in her mouth and relaxed, he did too. Her charcoal eyes gazed up at him trustingly and he felt a tug near his heart. Her foot tapped lightly onto his breastbone while she swallowed and breathed heavily with audible greediness. He felt like a superhero, making sure she wasn’t going hungry.
“Shall we sit outside? I hope you’ve been comfortable here?” Rowan led him out of the kitchen to the patio.
“Very,” he assured her, sincere. “You’ll have to let us return the hospitality when our cruise ship launches next year. Now, how do we do this? Do you want to sit and take her—?”
A noise inside the house snapped Rowan’s head around like a guard dog hearing a footstep. “That was Adara into the ladies’ room. I’ll just— Do you mind? I want to make sure Nic...” She was good on crutches, swooping away like a gull, a telling thread of concern in her tone as she disappeared into the house.
He snorted in bemusement, thinking that Nic Marcussen seemed the least likely man in the universe to require a mother hen for a wife, but apparently he had one.
While Gideon was literally left holding the baby.
He looked down at the girl, surprised to see how much of the bottle she’d drained. As her bright gaze caught his, Evie broke away from the teat to give him an ear-to-ear milky grin of joy and gratitude and trust.
A laugh curled upward from deep in his chest, surprising him with how instant and genuine his humor was. Little minx. They learned early how to disarm a man, didn’t they? He was in very real danger of falling in love at first sight.
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