“Try playing hard to get, Button. Men don’t like it when you’re too obvious. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“No personal experience?”

She made a noncommittal murmur, braced herself, then leaned down to pick Button up. But the baby wanted Mat, and as Nealy rose, she lunged toward him and grabbed his shirt, throwing Nealy off balance. “Oops. Sorry.”

He caught her automatically, and his chest felt warm against her side. She’d spent so many years suppressing her sexual feelings that denial had become automatic, but this contact was a shock treatment, reminding her she was still a woman.

He didn’t move away. Instead, a slow smile caught the edges of his mouth and traveled right up into those gray eyes. “I thought you didn’t believe in being obvious.”

Was he coming on to her? No one ever came on to Cornelia Case. When she’d been in college, she’d had to ask boys out herself because they were too intimidated to approach the daughter of the Vice President. And they were definitely too intimidated by all the Secret Service hovering around to try to get her into bed. Even so, she was certain she could have managed a few sexual encounters here and there, but she hadn’t done it.

From her earliest years, she’d been raised with the constant reminder that the smallest misstep on her part would bring disgrace to her father. Eventually, her caution had become so ingrained that she lived a shadow life, suppressing her natural curiosity, her sense of adventure, her sexuality, suppressing so much that would have helped her figure out who she was. When she’d met Dennis, she’d been a virgin.

For once, the memory of Dennis didn’t bring her pain. Maybe time was finally starting to do its healing job, or maybe she was simply too distracted by the man standing before her.

The baby lunged again. Mat shifted his weight against Nealy, then looked at her oddly.

“I—I’ll take her down to the pool,” she said.

His reply was slow in coming. “You do that.”

Button howled as Nealy carried her from the room.

Nealy spent the next few hours sitting at the side of the baby pool worrying about Button getting a sunburn or drowning. Since the pool sat in the shade and the only time the baby was more than a few feet away occurred when Lucy took her in the big pool, she knew she was being foolish. Some of her fretting might be a defense to keep from thinking too much about Mat.

Maybe the freedom of not being herself was affecting her in more ways than she’d imagined. Who was this Nell Kelly person? In addition to having an active libido, she didn’t seem to care much about offending people. Nealy smiled. She liked everything about Nell except her fascination with Mat Jorik’s body.