Some kind of wonderful by Maureen Child, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress) DLC

What kind of woman comes up with something like that? He chuckled softly, amused in spite of himself. Carol Baker was different. Intriguing.
    But even as he thought it, he told himself it wasn't that he was thinking about Carol, so much as he was trying not to think about himself.
    Christ, he'd been thinking about nothing but himself and his own problems for the last two years. Even he'd had enough of him.
    Carol stood in the open doorway and watched him as he studied the baby. The slant of moonlight defined his silhouette as he leaned in to cover Liz with a blanket and something inside her shifted at his tenderness. What was it about the image of a strong man with a baby that could stab at a woman's heart?
    "Is she asleep?"
    He turned, and even though his face was in shadow, she felt the power of his gaze lock onto her. The night seemed suddenly darker and more intimate. Moonlight shimmered behind him. She heard him breathing, felt the tension radiating from him in waves of heat that reached for her from across the room. Her insides jumped and her pulse raced. A swirl of something dark and hot and needy opened up deep within her and Carol swallowed hard.
    "Yeah," he said after several long heartbeats of time passed.
    "Good," Carol whispered, squeezing the single word through a throat tight enough to strangle her. "Thanks."

    He nodded and she wished she could see his features, read his eyes. Then she might know if he was feeling the same, surprising sense of... expectation that was spi-raling through her. And if she could, she asked herself, what then?
    Walking toward her slowly, he stepped out of the patch of moonlight and drew close enough that the light from the kitchen illuminated his features. She saw his eyes and felt a nudge of sympathy for the shadows she glimpsed in their depths. What had brought him back home to Christmas? To a place he clearly didn't want to be? Was it just to help out the sheriff, as he kept insisting? Or was there more to it than even he knew?
    He stopped just short of the doorway, an arm's reach from her, and Carol held her breath. The quiet of the room settled between them and she could almost hear her own heart beating. Not a good thing, she told herself as her mouth dried up and her throat closed.
    His shoulders looked impossibly broad and the brush of whiskers on his jaw made him look even more dangerous than she knew he was. Oh, not dangerous in the sense of her actually being afraid of him.
    But definitely very dangerous to her nice, calm world.
    She'd built a life for herself here in Christmas. She'd carved out a spot for herself here. It was everything she'd ever wanted.
    A home of her own.
    A place to belong. Stability. Comfort.
    Ordinary.
    People always turned their noses up at the word "ordinary." But Carol liked it. She much preferred it to words like "risky," or even "exciting." Growing up, she'd dreamed of a place like this. She'd clung to the fantasy images of home and hearth to get her through

    the loneliness. And now that she'd finally found what she'd been chasing all her life, Carol wasn't ready to lose it. Not by falling for a pair of icy blue eyes with too much past and not enough future in them.

    Always ready to support him even when he didn't want it. Even when he didn't deserve it. They were a solid unit, surrounding him with love and concern. Which was, sometimes, damn hard to take.
    His gaze shifted to Carol. The corners of the kitchen were dark. Only the light directly over the small table shone brightly, spotlighting the two of them. With the hanging plants surrounding them and the soft music drifting through the radio on the counter, it felt... cozy sitting here with her. And he hadn't felt cozy in a long time.
    Her eyes looked soft and dreamy. Her mouth curved in a small smile that seemed to hit him as hard as a well-thrown punch.
    "How about you?" he asked, his voice hushed, to match the quiet solitude of the moment. "Where's your family?"
    She inhaled slowly,