Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas GiftThe Soldier's Holiday HomecomingSanta's Playbook

by Allison Leigh

  “Hey, guys, look who I found!”

  Juliette looked around, her pretty face registering simultaneous surprise and delight when she spotted Claire. Squealing, the teen jumped up to give her a hug, then made her brothers scootch down to make room. The boys glanced up, gave her shy smiles, then returned to whatever they were playing on their phones. Phones! At twelve! In her day, she thought, then caught herself. Because this was her day—or night, whatever—and this was going to be fun, dammit. Then she realized Juliette was introducing her to an older man on the other side of her very bundled up baby sister.

  “My grandfather on my dad’s side,” she shouted, and the tall man unfolded himself from his seat to reach across Bella and shake Claire’s gloved hand.

  “Preston Noble,” he yelled.

  “Claire Jacobs. One of the girls’ teachers.”

  Chuckling, the elder Noble sat back down, still leaning toward her. “I’ve heard a lot about you. You’ve made quite an impression.”

  “A good one, I hope.”

  Even in the semidarkness, she could see a twinkle in the man’s almost silver eyes. “Oh, very good.”

  A roar went up from the other side of the stadium as the visiting team was announced and their players ran out onto the field. “We’ll chat later,” Ethan’s father said with a short salute, then pulled his little granddaughter onto his lap.

  “Okay,” Juliette said, having to practically sit in Claire’s lap to be heard. “This is a play-off game—if Hoover wins tonight, we’ll go on to the regional championship, which is played after Thanksgiving.”

  “So what’s the Thanksgiving game?”

  “Against Edison High,” Rosie yelled in her other ear. “Hoover’s rival.” She shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “It’s this traditional thing that’s been going on for decades.”

  “More for bragging rights than anything else,” Preston Noble put in from several feet away. “Which doesn’t mean it’s not taken very seriously,” he said, and both girls nodded in agreement. Then he held up a thermos. “You warm enough, Miss Jacobs? I come prepared—hot chocolate or coffee. Name your poison.”

  A shudder picked that moment to streak up her back with such violence she nearly fell off the bleacher. “Coffee would be terrific, thanks. And black’s fine.”

  Nodding, Ethan’s dad poured out the steaming brew into a foam cup and handed it over.

  “Bless you,” she said, and he gave her another salute.

  “PopPop was a colonel,” Juliette whispered. “In the air force. So that’s what everybody calls him. The Colonel.”

  “Good to know,” Claire said, and took that first, wonderful sip, and her insides sang hallelujah. Then another roar—five times louder—went up as Hoover High’s finest poured onto the field.

  “You realize you guys will have to explain this to me.”

  “We can do that,” both girls said, and between that, and the coffee, and the crowd’s boundless energy, she decided, Y’know, this could be fun after all.

  At least she was hoping.

  * * *

  There was nothing like the energy pulsing through a locker room after a win, Ethan thought as he passed through the throng of bellowing, butt-slapping, high-fiving young men whose chops he’d been busting since August. One game closer to the championship. One game closer to several of his players being offered college scholarships, to further cementing his own career, maybe getting himself a raise for next year. Another change of plans he’d never seen coming, God knew. But seeing the joy on the guys’ faces, feeling the pride surging through him—in both them and himself... Right now, there was nothing better and nowhere he’d rather be.

  Once the locker room cleared, he headed out, the cold air a welcome relief from the hot, smelly stadium underbelly. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush, maybe it was the general atmosphere, but his knee wasn’t even bothering him as he walked around to meet up with the others, then go on to their favorite place for dinner like they always did after an early game.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” Bella called out, running up with outstretched arms. “PopPop said we won!”

  “We sure did, sugarplum,” Ethan said, kissing his baby on her cold cheek and making her giggle. A moment later the twins were in his face as well, both talking at once about their favorite moments:

  “Defense totally rocked tonight, didn’t it, Dad?” Finn asked, bouncing as they walked back toward the others.

  “They sure did—” Wait...who was that with them?

  Harry stumbled over his suddenly size-twelve feet, knocking against Ethan’s arm. Ethan caught the boy before he fell flat on his face even as the kid said, “And then White made that touchdown with five seconds left on the clock! Holy cow!”

  Holy cow was right, Ethan thought as he got close enough to see Claire. Clutching her coat collar as if she was about to freeze right on the spot, she grinned at him, her eyes bright. Although from what, he couldn’t say.

  “Look who Rosie found before the game!” Jules said, her breath puffing around her face. “So she sat with us and we taught her stuff.”

  “Relating to the game, I hope,” Ethan said, and his oldest girl rolled her eyes.

  “Da-ad, jeez...”

  “And what did you think?” Ethan asked Claire, immediately sucked into her glittering brown gaze.

  “I thought it was, to use a common parlance, awesome,” she said with a light laugh even as she shivered. “G-granted, I still had no clue what was going on half the time, but I haven’t had that much fun in ages. Seriously, it was like being at a rock concert.” Ethan pushed a breath through his lips, and she grinned. “And Roland kicked serious butt.”

  “She said a bad word, Daddy,” Bella said, and Claire clamped her hand over her mouth.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she said, lowering it. “I won’t say it again, I promise.”

  “That’s okay,” Bella said with a serious nod, and Ethan nearly choked with trying to keep a straight face. “Since it’s not one of the really bad ones.”

  With that, the laugh burst out anyway, mingling with Claire’s under a starry sky in an empty high school parking lot, and Bella laughed, too, in his ear, even though she obviously had no idea what was so funny. Then Ethan glanced past Claire to see Juliette’s wide eyes, his father giving him a thumbs-up. Brother.

  “Your dad invited me to come with you guys to Murphy’s,” Claire said. “Hope that’s okay?”

  “Of course.” Because he felt too damn good to let a little thing like a busybody father and a cute-as-hell brunette with sparkling brown eyes and a laugh that promised things she probably had no idea she was promising ruin the high he was riding. Something he didn’t get too often these days, not like this—another one of those moments—and like hell was he gonna let it go just yet.

  Even if Claire Jacobs and her sparkling eyes were part of that high.

  * * *

  Claire hadn’t been inside Murphy’s in... Hell. A million years. But as they all smushed inside the packed restaurant, it all came roaring back—the come-to-mama aroma of onion rings and charred beef, the dark-paneled walls choked with signed senior portraits dating back to the seventies, when the place first opened. The noise, easily rivaling that of a pair of subway trains passing each other through a tiled tunnel. The warmth.

  Speaking of which... Holding his little girl again, Ethan was standing close enough to Claire that his arm pressed into her shoulder. Solid. Sturdy. Nice.

  Sigh.

  Oh, she was here entirely of her own volition. She’d driven herself to the game, and she could have easily refused the Colonel’s invitation...despite Juliette’s and Rosie’s earnest pleas for her to accept. But you know what? One, she was absolutely starving, the kind of hunger that nothing short of some hideously caloric burger-and-fries combo was going
to sate. And two, so sue her, despite being unable to feel her toes at times, she’d had a blast. And she wasn’t ready for it to be over yet. Even if that meant being squished next to Ethan Noble for a minute or two or six while they waited for a table.

  Sigh, redux.

  Knowing she was close to endangering her hormones’ immortal souls, she glanced up. Bella had nestled herself good and tight against her daddy’s chest to lay her head on his shoulder, facing Claire, from which vantage point she gave Claire a sweet “life is good, huh?” smile. Claire smiled back and the little girl grinned more broadly and, okay, there might’ve been some heart tugging going on. And not only because the kid was so fricking cute, but because Claire remembered her own dad holding her like that. And how safe she’d felt in his arms. Safe, and loved.

  “Sorry,” Ethan said over his baby’s head. “It’s always nuts here after a game.”

  “I remember,” Claire said, having to seriously invade his space so he could hear her. And hence, nearly passing out from how terrific he smelled. “In fact, my friends and I usually avoided Friday nights at all costs. But that was then. This is now. And now is good.”

  Ethan gave her a funny look, then nodded. “You’re right. Now—this moment—is good. So—”

  “Noble! Party of eight! This way, please!”

  The harried little hostess hustled them over to their table—two tables, actually, pushed together—smack in the middle of everything. The Colonel anchored one end, Ethan the other, and in the mad scramble to get seated Claire found herself between one of the twins and the Colonel and across from the girls. Where, you know, she was safe from penetrating gazes and such from handsome widowers. As were her hormones.

  Whew, close.

  While they waited for their food, the Colonel grilled her about her New York days, allowing Claire to dredge up some almost forgotten and borderline hair-raising stories. Rosie looked horrified, the Colonel amused and Juliette enthralled, leaning forward with her chin in her hands.

  “I cannot wait,” she finally said when two servers arrived to set sizzling platters of greasy yumminess in front of them. “It must be so boring being back here.”

  “Not at all,” Claire said, chomping an onion ring large enough to encircle Saturn. “A lot quieter, maybe.” Grinning, she waved the ring to indicate their surroundings. “Most of the time, anyway. But there is nothing even remotely boring about working with you guys. And anyway, I’ve always felt it’s my choice whether to be bored or not. There’s always something to do, even if it’s only listening to music. Or reading,” she said with a pointed look at the girls, who both rolled their eyes.

  “What about being lonely?” Juliette asked, stuffing a fry in her mouth.

  Claire didn’t miss a beat, even if her heart did. “Same thing. Because honestly, if you enjoy your own company, how can you be lonely? Also, as you get older, you’ll discover that solitude can be a very precious thing.”

  Rosie laughed. “Clearly you haven’t met my family. But it’s all good, since I probably wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I were ever really alone.”

  “Yeah. Same here,” Juliette said, sighing, and Claire chuckled even as she caught the Colonel’s pensive expression. For a moment she considered laying a hand on his wrist to let him know she understood what he was feeling. She remembered how hard the holidays had been on her mother after her dad’s passing. On her, too, of course, but not the same way. After all, Claire’s future still beckoned, full of promise. Not like—as her mother had said often enough—a big, dark void.

  Then her attention drifted down the table to Ethan, as he calmly listened to the boys still going on about the game while trying to get Bella to eat at least one bite of the broccoli he’d ordered with her chicken tenders. Silly man, she thought, smiling, as his eyes lifted to hers, and he smiled back. But she could tell the earlier euphoria was already fading, swallowed up in reality.

  It’s okay, Claire mouthed, although she had no idea what had possessed to say such a thing at all, let alone to him. Although with any luck he’d think she meant the broccoli debacle rather than anything deeper. And far more personal.

  Looking away, she took another bite of the most bodacious burger in Jersey, wiping her chin as she glanced around at the restaurant’s interior, familiar and strange all at once. Like Maple River itself had felt for weeks after she’d returned. Sure, there were changes out on the highway—new stores, new places to eat—but here, in the town’s heart, so much was both eerily and comfortingly the same. Home, she thought with a bittersweet pang.

  “They still put up those tacky tinsel Christmas decorations?” she asked the table at large.

  “You mean the ones from when we were in school?” Ethan said, taking a napkin to Bella’s greasy hands as the child pronounced herself done. Chicken 3, broccoli 0. “Yep. Wouldn’t be Christmas otherwise—”

  “Dad?” Juliette said. “I forgot to tell you—I’m helping Kelly do Thanksgiving dinner over at PopPop’s, so I won’t be able to watch the other kids at the game.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess we’ll work something out. Maybe they could go to Pop’s house early.”

  The boys both looked horror-struck.

  “And miss the game?”

  “No way!”

  “Then let me see if either of your uncles are going—”

  “I can take them,” Claire said, and a half-dozen heads swiveled in her direction. “If you can’t get anyone else, I mean.”

  “You sure?”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  Ethan nodded sideways at the boys, currently seeing which one could stuff the most fries in his mouth. Claire sighed. Right. But...

  “I think I can manage. Besides, it’s not like I’m doing anything else that day.”

  “At all?” Juliette asked.

  Claire laughed. “We didn’t do much when I was growing up. With three people, there’s no sense cooking a turkey, and Mom wasn’t much of a cook, anyway. So it’s never been a big deal for me.”

  “But what do you do?”

  She shrugged. “Watch the Macy’s parade in my jammies. That dog show that comes on afterward. It’s a Wonderful Life.” She grinned. “Then I eat an entire pumpkin pie by myself. Which is glorious, believe me. But,” she said, turning to Ethan, “I can easily DVR the parade and the dog show and watch them later, so I could certainly take the boys to the game—”

  “And then you’re coming for dinner,” the Colonel said. “Because nobody should be alone on Thanksgiving. You hear me?”

  “Yeah, what he said,” Juliette put in, practically quivering with excitement. “Then you can meet everybody else, too. Well, mostly, I think my aunt Sabrina is going to her fiancé’s out on the island. But it’ll be so much fun! Please say yes. Please?”

  Oh, dear. Claire glanced down the table at Ethan, who was so busy dealing with Bella about something that Claire wondered if he’d even heard his father’s invitation. So what his reaction to said invitation might be, she had no clue. Hers, however...

  How to explain that, that day alone? Eating pie all by herself? It was her sanctuary. Or had been, for years. She’d rarely even accepted friends’ invitations when she’d been in New York, that Great Gathering of Strays that happened every year, turning colleagues and strangers into family, even if for only one day. Oddly, not Claire’s thing. So now, faced with the prospect of, once again, pretending to be part of something she wasn’t, making small talk with people she didn’t know... Ack.

  Except then Ethan said, “Dad’s right. Nobody should be alone on Thanksgiving.”

  Her heart pounding, Claire lifted her eyes to see him watching her, his steady gaze damn close to...a challenge? What the hell? Then she turned again to catch the brightness in Juliette’s eyes, hope in the Colonel’s. Although she knew what lay behind the girl’s excitement
—alas—she had no idea why her presence was so important to her grandfather. But it clearly was. And she couldn’t find it in herself to disappoint the older man. Or worse, come across as either rude or even weirder than she was.

  “Then I’d love to come,” she said, which got a huge smile from Juliette and a sharp, approving nod from Ethan’s father, as though she’d given the right answer. And from Ethan? An expression—from what she could tell anyway, when she dared another glance in his direction—she couldn’t even begin to read.

  Guess it was time to figure out how to set her DVR....

  * * *

  By the time Thanksgiving morning arrived, Claire had decided that the grease fumes at Murphy’s must’ve gotten to her the other night. Because what else could have possibly possessed her to take responsibility for a pair of twelve-year-old boys for two hours?

  However, a promise was a promise. So she girded her loins—with thermal long johns, actually—said goodbye to Wally, who twitched his tail at her from sunlit windowsill, then hied her thermalized booty to the school, where she was to collect the boys from Ethan so he could go on the bus with the team to the college stadium where the game was being played.

  All three were in Ethan’s office, the boys slumped in a pair of chairs against the wall, all knees and elbows as they played games on their phones. Spikes of dark blond hair seemed determined to escape from Harry’s brightly patterned knit hat, complete with a fetching tassel and a pair of braided ties hanging down to his shoulders, while Finn’s thin, freckled face with its high cheekbones peeked out from a fake fur–rimmed hood. Her stomach clutched again. What would they talk about? And what if they had to go to the bathroom—?

  Ethan stood, his expression indicating he’d been doing some second-guessing of his own. In the grayish glow from the fluorescent lighting, he looked as though his responsibilities weighed on him like anvils. And yet, amusement still flickered in his eyes, the humor of a man trying to make the best of things.