“Oh.”
“Maybe you could call again sometime soon?” Or, even better, come see him in person. Trying not to sound too impatient—her recovery was important—he asked, “When are you coming home?”
“I... It’s difficult to tell. The counselors say that if you leave too soon, you’ll almost certainly relapse. As much as it kills me to be away from him, I have to do what’s best for him in the long run.”
Will’s neck and shoulders stiffened, tension radiating to the base of his skull. “Okay. So, what are we talking here? Days? Weeks?” He almost choked on the word. He hadn’t even made it through one full week, and it felt as if Tommy had turned his life upside down. Plus, he had best man duties and Christmas just around the corner.
“I have to go,” Amy said in a rush. “Give him kisses for me, and don’t forget his well-baby appointment on Monday.”
“Well-baby?”
“At noon. It’s in the notebook.”
“Amy, wait! What if—”
“God bless you, Will. You truly are a hero.”
Then she hung up, and he sat alone in his car, swearing heroically.
* * *
MEGAN OPENED HER front door, feeling a moment of surreal intimacy as she situated the baby against her hip and smiled up at Will, half expecting him to say “Honey, I’m home.” It was like misplaced déjà vu, as if it should remind her of her marriage, except that her marriage had been nothing like that after the girls were born. When Spencer had returned from business trips, there were strained silences and unspoken suspicions, not smiling reunions.
Will held up two plastic bags. “I come bearing barbecue.”
“My hero.” It had been a long week and when he’d called to tell her he could take care of dinner, she’d nearly wept with relief at the idea of not cooking.
His face crinkled in an unreadable expression as he took Tommy, who’d reached for Will as soon as he walked inside.
“What is it?” Megan asked.
“You’re the second woman to call me a hero today.”
Not surprising, given his career. “Did you put out a fire? Save a cat from a tree?”
“It wasn’t work-related. I heard from Amy.”
“How is she?” Although Megan still didn’t know the exact details of where the young woman had gone or why, she’d started listening more closely to local gossip whenever Amy or Donovan was mentioned and she had some educated guesses.
“Better, I think. But she’s not sure when she’ll be back.” He sounded as if he was trying to keep irritation out of his voice.
She mentally applauded the effort even as she sympathized with how hard this must be for him. Before the girls were born, Megan had read stacks of books, taken classes and even printed out internet articles on parenting, yet once the triplets came, there had been dozens of days when she felt unprepared and overwhelmed. Will, in contrast, hadn’t been given much notice before a baby was dumped in his lap, disrupting his bachelor lifestyle.
“I like the little guy,” he was quick to add. “But not knowing how long he’ll be with me or what kind of plans I should be making...”
“I understand.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re handling it like a champ.”
He glanced down to her fingers over his, and when he raised his gaze again, his expression had changed. Heated. A twinge unlike anything Megan had experienced in years fluttered in her midsection. Oh boy. She dropped her hand, but that quivery feeling inside her didn’t go away.
Knowing her cheeks were growing red, she quickly turned toward the kitchen. “This smells so delicious I don’t even care that my daughters are going to have barbecue sauce all over them in ten minutes. Girls, dinner!” Yesterday, as soon as Will had arrived to pick up Tommy, Daisy and Iris had clustered in the doorway, both clamoring to tell him about their day. Luckily, yesterday’s recap had not included any mention of Abe Martin’s dog.
She knew that the only reason the girls hadn’t come running when Will knocked on the door this evening was that they were finishing up their pictures. When she’d reminded them earlier to be sure to thank Will for coming with them, Iris had wanted to express her gratitude with a drawing. The other two had liked this idea, especially Lily, since drawing didn’t actually involve speaking to anyone.
They all gathered at the table. For a change, Megan didn’t have to ask anyone to quit playing with their food—or, in Daisy’s case, remind her to stop talking long enough to eat something. The girls ate quickly, either in testament to how good the food from the Smoky Pig was or in excitement for their outing. Iris finished first and bolted from her chair. Moments later, she reappeared in her chunky winter coat, her gloves on the wrong hands and dragging her scarf behind her.
“Zip me, Mommy?”
Megan bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Oh, honey, it’s not cold today. Don’t you remember? You said you were hot when we went to see Miss Hadley at the library.”
Iris thrust out her bottom lip. “But Christmas trees!”
It probably didn’t help that, for the last two nights, Iris’s requested bedtime story had been a picture book about a little girl and her father tromping out in the snow to look for the perfect Christmas tree. “The irony,” Megan told Will, “is that if it were freezing outside, it would take us forty-five minutes to locate both of her gloves.” She shrugged. “Okay, Iris. You can always take off the coat if you get too warm.” Megan was bringing the megastroller anyway, since Will didn’t have one for the baby. They could throw Iris’s extra clothes in it when she began shedding them.
All three girls got ready with impressive speed, and even Tommy seemed swept up in the enthusiasm, vocalizing lots of mmm and g-g-g sounds. While Daisy tried to make a run for the door in mismatched shoes, Lily hung back, tugging on the hem of Megan’s boat-necked T-shirt.
“What is it, honey?”
“Mis-tah Will’s dwawing,” the girl whispered. She made a beeline for the living room and returned with all three slightly crumpled drawings, which she thrust at her mother.
“Wouldn’t you rather give them to him yourself?” Megan prodded. There was a fine parenting line between nudging your child out of her natural comfort zone and supporting her sense of security. When Lily shook her head, Megan sighed. “Will? The girls made these for you. To say thanks for coming with us tonight.”
“Thank you, Mr. Will,” Daisy and Iris chorused.
He looked startled by the outpouring of gratitude, maybe even a little uncomfortable. But then he knelt down so that he could study the pictures at the girls’ eye level. He gave each sheet of paper serious study, as if he were admiring museum paintings, and Megan swallowed, her chest tight. The girls had a fairly limited social circle—their mama, the people from day care, librarian Hadley Lanier, their “aunt” Dagmar. Watching this big man patiently make the effort to fit into their three-year-old world took her breath away.
“...and these are all the forest animals with their Christmas tree,” Daisy said, pointing to each one. “Bunny. Fox. T. rex.”
Will smothered a laugh, his eyes dancing. “This is, hands down, the very best Christmas drawing with a dinosaur in it I’ve ever been given. Thank you, darlin’.”
“And this is my picture,” Iris interrupted. “See all the snow? Christmas is s’posed to have snow.”
Smoothing out the final sheet, Will glanced at Lily. “And you drew this one?”
She nodded.
“It’s beautiful.” The paper was dominated by a triangle-shaped blob of dark green with different colors decorating it. “A perfect Christmas tree.”
Lily’s smile was tentative, but she stood taller.
“Well, ladies.” He held up the tree drawing. “This is our mission. Let’s go find the perfect tree!”
Dais
y let out a whoop of glee as Will opened the front door for her. There was a flurry of activity as the girls climbed into their booster seats and Will strapped Tommy safely into his infant seat. He paused by the passenger door, laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m about to get in a minivan.” Will shook his head in amusement. “With four car seats. And a triple stroller. My reputation may never recover.”
The giddy glow that had enveloped her as she watched Will discuss the drawings with her daughters dimmed. She knew he was kidding around, not taking jabs at her lack of cool, but his joke highlighted the differences in their situations. What had he said earlier this week? Until Amy gets back, my time’s not free. But Amy was coming back. This wasn’t his real life. He would go back to late nights and serial dating, and Megan would still be driving a minivan with a ginormous stroller in the back.
This is my reality. He’s just visiting.
She started the van and popped in a CD of Christmas music, hoping it would cover her suddenly pensive mood.
As they rolled up to the tree farm, she asked, “Are you sure we’ll be able to strap both trees on to the van?” They were supposed to find him a tree, too.
“I’ll only get a small one for my place. I don’t go all out, because I’ve never spent a single Christmas at my house. We decorate the station, and my brothers and I help our parents put up the giant family tree. My mother considers it an annual tradition to embarrass us with all the horrible elementary school ornaments we made her and terrible pictures of us as kids. Well, terrible pictures of Jace when he had braces and a regrettable haircut. I was always incredibly photogenic.”
She laughed out loud. “I believe that.”
As they buckled Tommy into the stroller, Will asked, “What do you think I should get little man for Christmas? I’m sure Amy will send presents,” he hastily added, “but I feel like he should have plenty to open. It’s his first Christmas.”
Although she was touched by the sentiment, she couldn’t help teasing him. “You do realize he won’t be opening anything, right? It will be a steady stream of ‘oh, what’s in this bag, Tommy?’ Then you open it for him and coo things like ‘look, Tommy, it’s a stuffed giraffe, just what you always wanted!’”
“This is your response to my sincere request for help? Sarcastic stuffed giraffe references?” He gave her a stern look. “I expected more from you, Megan.”
“Okay, okay. No more terrible hypothetical examples.” She mulled it over, thinking back to the girls’ first year. Her mother had sent gorgeous but impractical dresses. What Megan had really needed was about a million diapers. “I can give you a list of great baby and toddler books. He’s probably getting tired of the two that were in his duffel bag.”
“Definitely. Just last night, he complained that the suspense of whether or not the boy finds his green balloon wasn’t gripping enough and requested that we move on to George R. R. Martin novels.”
“Balloon?” Daisy asked, looking around to see if someone was handing them out.
Will glanced down apologetically. “Sorry. I was only making a joke. But who needs balloons when we have rows and rows of Christmas trees to scope out?”
Rows and rows. Oh, goody. Megan tried not to think about how she’d been up since five thirty in the morning and still had wedding pew bows to work on once she got the girls asleep tonight. At least I’m wearing my comfortable sneakers. She dimly recalled that there had been a time in her life when she occasionally left the house in high heels. She was pretty sure none of those shoes had been out of their boxes since she’d moved to Cupid’s Bow.
“Can I have a reindeer ride?” Daisy asked.
Will looked around, then turned to Megan, his expression puzzled.
“I think she means on your shoulders,” Megan said, fondly recalling how he’d coaxed Iris from her tantrum at the festival.
Daisy nodded. “Iris got a turn. I wanna turn.”
“Seems fair,” Will agreed. “Hold on a sec.” He shrugged out of the flannel plaid shirt he’d worn unbuttoned over a dark T-shirt and tossed it into the stroller on top of the jacket Iris had already discarded. Then, in one fluid motion that made Daisy shriek with delight, he scooped her up and onto his shoulders.
Megan tried—unsuccessfully—not to notice his forearms and the ripple of muscles beneath the thin cotton T. If staying fit was part of his job, the man deserved a raise. She pushed the stroller forward and admonished herself to focus on Christmas trees. Virginia pine. Fraser fir. Bare-chested Will.
Her pulse sped up, her skin tingling at the memory of his opening his front door wearing nothing but a towel. She’d been struggling for days not to think about that. But her traitorous mind had other ideas.
After Megan had lived in Cupid’s Bow for a few months, Dagmar had tried to set her up on a date or two, insisting, “You may not have the time for a grand romance or the desire to remarry, but a woman still has needs.”
“Not currently,” Megan had protested. “I don’t have enough energy to fuel a sex drive.”
That had certainly changed. Her libido had not only reawakened, it was well rested and eager.
“What do you think, Megan?” Will’s deep voice was an inviting rumble.
She inhaled sharply, terrified that her barely repressed lust was visible on her face. “A-about?”
“About the tree.”
“Right. Of course.” She stared at the fir in question, not really seeing it, taking a moment to collect herself and hoping she looked like she was thinking deep tree thoughts. “Do you like it, Lily?”
Her quietest child was sitting in the shade beneath the tree, collecting fallen needles.
“This one!” Iris declared, darting across the aisle. “And this one!” Barreling forward, she’d identified three other contenders by the time Megan caught up to her.
“But which one’s your favorite?” Megan asked.
“All of them!”
Behind them, Will laughed. “You’re gonna need a bigger van.”
“Will Trent?” A woman with high cheekbones and sleek blond hair poked her head out from between a couple of cypress trees, then stepped into the aisle with them. “I thought I heard your...” Her breathy tone had changed to one of confusion as she stared at Daisy atop his shoulders.
Will shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. “Stefani. Do you, um, know Megan Rivers?”
The woman raked her dark gaze over Megan. “Hi. Stefani Coyle, friend of Will’s.” She gave him a chiding glance from beneath her lashes. “At least, I thought we were friends. What gives, Trent? You don’t write, you don’t call...”
“Been busy.”
“Am I going to have to wait for you to enter another bachelor auction and bid on you just to get some of your time?”
“Sorry, no auctions in my future. It was just that once, for charity.”
“Uh-huh.” The woman stared at him in bewilderment, obviously trying to understand what he was doing here with three preschoolers, a baby and a frumpy single mom.
At least, Megan felt frumpy in comparison. The blonde had an expensive-looking sweater dress and an impeccable manicure. Last manicure I had was when the girls and I painted our nails in that bubblegum-scented glitter polish.
“Can we go?” Daisy demanded. “More trees.”
Megan knew she should scold her daughter for her rude tone, yet couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Because she was feeling anxious to move on, too.
“More trees,” Will agreed. “Merry Christmas, Stefani. Nice seeing you.”
The woman laid a hand on his arm. “We should have drinks soon. Catch up.”
“I don’t know. Like I said, busy time.”
“Right.” She gave him a tight smile. “Merry Christmas.” The inflection she put on the words made it s
ound as if she’d said something else entirely. Then she shot a final glance in Megan’s direction and stalked off.
“Just a hunch,” Megan said in the awkward silence that followed, “but I don’t think she’s going to buy flowers from me anytime soon.”
“Sorry about that,” Will said. “Stefani...has her qualities.”
Megan couldn’t help wondering if one of those qualities was that Stefani also looked great wearing nothing but a towel.
“Daisy, I’m going to set you down for a minute so you can get a better look at the trees, okay?” He lowered the girl to the ground. Within moments, all three girls were giggling and playing hide-and-seek among the pines.
Will lagged behind with Megan and the stroller. “Just so you know, I never dated Stefani.”
Had her jealousy been that evident? Embarrassment made her snap, “You don’t owe me any explanations about your love life.”
He grinned. “Welcome back, Prickly.”
Eyes narrowed, she prepared to blast him. But as soon as she opened her mouth, he gave her such a pointed look she ended up laughing at herself. “Busted. The few times I saw Dagmar as a kid, she called me mouse. Still does—her idea of an endearment. Maybe she should have gone with porcupine.”
“Or hedgehog.”
“Spiny sea urchin.”
He guffawed. “Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
“Nicknames aside, I didn’t mean to get snippy. But your romantic choices are really none of my business.”
“I just felt compelled to let you know she was not among my romantic choices. She broke Jace’s heart a couple of years ago, and I wouldn’t do that to him. I don’t think she’s accustomed to being told no.”
“A woman that beautiful? I imagine not.” When he made a noncommittal noise—as if there could be any doubt about Stefani’s appeal—she rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, most guys would salivate at the chance to go out with a flawless blonde.”
He stopped walking. “I’m not most guys.”
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