“Happy Thanksgiving,” he said, a small smile touching his lips. As though he knew full well that right now she was seriously questioning her sanity. Then she thought, Okay, this is nuts, I can handle a couple of kids. Right?
“You, too. Okay, guys—let’s get a move on.”
“Wait,” Ethan said as his sons slowly roused themselves and got to their oversize feet, stretching and yawning. He pulled out his wallet, handed her a pair of bills. “The secret is to keep them fed. Early and often.”
“So I noticed. But I don’t need—”
“Take the money. No arguments.”
“Yeesh, you’re as bad as your dad,” she said, and his forehead knotted for a moment before he walked over, grabbed her hand and pressed the bills into it. And yeah, things fluttered. Strike that—more like jerked to attention with a what the hell?
“Yes, I am. And you’ll thank me later, trust me.”
“Hey, Coach,” one of his assistants said from the office door. “We’re just waiting for you.”
“Be right there.” Then he turned a stern eye on his sons. “You guys listen to Miss Jacobs, you hear me? Do whatever she tells you.”
“Yeah, yeah, Dad,” Harry said. “We’ll be good, promise.”
“Promise,” echoed Finn.
“Meet back here after?” he said, and Claire nodded, and then Ethan was gone and she was left alone with a pair of seventh-graders who were taller than she was, loping behind her like a pair of Great Dane puppies.
“Can we stop at McDonald’s or someplace on the way there?” somebody said from the backseat after they were buckled in. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah, me, too,” chimed the other one, and Claire sighed.
“Sure thing,” she said, thinking, Two hours. I can do this....
* * *
As usual, until the buzzer sounded at the end of the game—which had ended in a frustrating tie, since the overtime rules were suspended because of the holiday—Ethan had remained focused on the game, relying on a two-decades-old ability to compartmentalize his feelings. Not that he didn’t occasionally wonder how Claire was getting on with the twins, but he’d refused to dwell on it. If she could handle a class of thirty hormonized juniors, she could handle a pair of twelve-year-old boys, right?
Even so, when they met up after the game he was grateful to see that she wasn’t twitching too badly, although there was no denying the relief on her face when she caught sight of him. The same as there was no denying a brief but nearly overwhelming urge on his part to give her a hug, reassure her she’d done good. Since, after all, both boys were still with her and no one was missing a limb.
Instead, he settled for giving her a thumbs-up before sticking both hands into his jacket pockets, his chest twinging a little at her slightly frazzled smile.
“Sorry you guys didn’t win,” she said, and he shrugged, even as he noted the “you guys” bit. As opposed to, say, “we.”
“It’s okay, it happens. They both played good games, that’s all. And it’ll only fire up everybody even more next year.”
“You weren’t kidding about the food consumption,” she said over the grunts and shouts of the boys’ tussling with each other behind her. Merri had always said it was because they’d spent the first nine months of their lives entwined in the womb that they couldn’t seem to stay away from each other for longer than thirty seconds, although Ethan suspected that was due more to their being boys than anything else. “Where on earth do they put it all?”
“We’ve long suspected they have extra stomachs. Like cows. So you survived, I see.”
“I did. Although I may need a nap before the day’s out.” Harry poked Finn, and they were off, zooming around the nearly empty parking lot. Ethan heard Claire chuckle. “They’re like a pair of cheetahs, aren’t they?”
“Not as graceful, but yeah.” His eyes narrowed. “See how Finn keeps dodging Harry? It’s still too early to tell, of course, but I think the kid has real potential as a wide receiver. Because of his agility,” he explained. “It’s hard to catch him.”
She nodded. “And Harry?”
“Not sure yet about him. He likes the game well enough, but I don’t think his heart’s in it. Not like his brother. Baseball, though... Now, that, he loves. So we’ll see.”
“And you’re good with that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Kid’s gotta do what makes him happy.”
“I see,” she said, in that way women did when there was a lot more to say. “So. Your dad said to come around two or so, which gives me time to go back home and take that nap—”
“For real?”
She laughed. “In case you hadn’t noticed, those two are major energy suckers. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t any trouble—”
“You sure?”
“They’re great kids, Ethan,” she said, then looked back at the boys. “And they think the world of you. Omigosh, they’re so proud of their dad, when you’re out there on the field... It’s adorable.”
He huffed a laugh. “Now there’s a word I haven’t associated with those two since they were six months old.”
Laughing a little herself, she smiled up at him again. “We had fun. Yes, honestly. But I definitely need to recharge.” She made a face at what looked like a mustard stain on her jeans. “And change. I swear, I cannot be trusted around condiments.”
“I apologize for my father strong-arming you about coming to dinner.”
Her forehead knotted and she glanced up at him. Then, looking away, she smiled. “He is a hard man to say no to.”
“You’re telling me,” Ethan muttered, and her eyes cut back to his. “As kids, we all quickly learned not to argue with him. It’s that military training. It seeps into the blood.” He smiled. “Flexible was not a word any of us would have ever used to describe him.”
“As in strict?”
“Consistent was more like it. But it was that very consistency that saved so many kids’ butts. Made them—us—feel...secure.”
“Isn’t that what any parent wants for his kids?”
“Well, yeah. Of course. And he set a great example. But he can also be pushy as hell. So please don’t feel you have to go.”
Their gazes tangled for a long moment before Claire said, very softly, “I don’t.” Then she started walking backward toward her car, the breeze tugging at her curls. “So I’ll see you there—?”
“Need directions?”
“I’ve got the address, it’s not far from my place. Bye, guys!” she yelled to the kids, who waved over at her before trooping back to Ethan, panting and grinning.
Ethan grabbed Harry around the shoulders to give him a one-armed hug as Finn shoved his hands into his parka’s pockets, his goofy grin more and more reminding Ethan of the one picture he had of his birth father—
“So what’d Miss Jacobs say?” Finn asked. “About us?”
“That you were good. Why?” Ethan said when the boys exchanged a glance. “Is there something I should know?”
“Nuh-uh,” Finn said, the sun glinting off his spiky red hair. “And Miss Jacobs... She’s okay, too. Even if she did ask, like, a million questions so it was kinda hard to concentrate on the game. So when’s dinner? I’m starving.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Harry said.
“I swear, I’m about to hook you two up to an IV,” Ethan muttered as they started across the lot toward his car, and the boys laughed, making him smile, even as it killed him that Merri was missing all this.
Then again, it occurred to him on the drive back to his dad’s, maybe she wasn’t. Maybe the dead really could keep tabs on the ones left behind, what the hell did he know? But even if Merri was somehow aware of what was going on, that didn’t stop Ethan’s pain, did it? Not entirely.
Not enough.
/> Certainly not enough to risk going through that particular brand of hell again, he thought as Claire’s slightly shell-shocked expression, her obvious covering for the boys’ antics, invaded his thoughts, making him smile in spite of himself. She was something else, that Claire.
Much like a certain pretty blonde who hadn’t been like all the others either, a girl he’d fallen so hard for that when she left, he could barely get up again. Oh, he had, of course, for their kids’ sakes. And here he was, plodding along day after day, doing what needed to be done... A poster child for the walking wounded. In more ways than one, he thought as his knee briefly throbbed from the morning’s exertion.
Yeah, life was plenty good already at tripping up a person when he least expected it. To let himself get caught in the trap when he could see it, plain as day...
That was just plain stupid.
Minutes later, they walked into his childhood home, smelling of roasting turkey and pumpkin pie, and nostalgia collided with longing as the twins torpedoed to the kitchen to scavenge. Before he could catch up, he heard Jules shriek at her brothers to keep their mitts off whatever it was they had in their sights. His five months’ pregnant sister-in-law Kelly, however, was laughing and telling the boys they could take whatever they wanted, not to worry.
And no wonder, Ethan saw when he got there. Because save for two tiny spaces on the granite island where Jules and Kelly were working, trays and platters and serving dishes of food took up every square inch of the surface. With goody-laden paper plates, the boys took off again, trailed by a chocolate Newfoundland and a boxer mix, Ethan’s brothers’ dogs.
“Jeez, Kell...” Ethan plucked a couple black olives from the already decimated relish tray, popping them into his mouth before he registered the classical music playing from her iPod. He tensed—since Merri’s death, he’d deliberately not listened to the music she’d loved so much. But he pulled himself together and asked, “How many people you expecting?”
The redhead grinned. “With this family? You never know. Extras happen.” She frowned at the appetizers tray. “Um...Jules? You mind getting another couple cans of olives from the pantry?” After the girl left, Kelly turned to Ethan, her voice lowered. “Speaking of extras... Jules tells me her teacher is coming?”
“Yep,” he said, punching his hands into his Hoover jacket. Playing it cool. “She was at the game on Friday, went out with us to Murphy’s after. Pop invited her. You know how those things go.”
“Oh, I do,” Kelly said, deftly cutting little crescents in the crust of some sort of fruit pie before sliding it into the upper oven. “So what’s she like?”
Ethan almost laughed. Honestly, what was it with women? “And you’re asking this, why? Especially since you’ll find out for yourself soon enough.”
Kelly climbed onto a bar stool across from him, snitching one of the olives herself. “I’m asking because your daughter seems inordinately excited about this turn of events.” She shrugged. “So I’m curious.”
“She’s her favorite teacher, that’s all,” Ethan said with a shrug of his own. “Seems to get the kids. Nice lady.”
Another olive disappeared. “I see,” Kelly said, as Jules plunked the cans on the counter.
“Um...if you don’t need me for a while...?”
“Nope, not until one-thirty,” Kelly said with a smile. “So begone with you, child.” And, as a giggling Jules hightailed it out of the kitchen, Ethan felt at least some of the tension he’d been carrying around for what seemed like forever slough off his shoulders. In the past year, both his brothers had brought new aunts into the family, at least partially filling the gap in his children’s lives. Sure, they’d had his sisters, who loved the kids to bits. But Sabrina had her life in Manhattan and was therefore rarely around, and Abigail was too young at twenty-three to be much of a mother figure. Kelly, however, as well as Tyler’s fiancée, Laurel, provided excellent role models for his girls.
Meaning Jules would eventually realize she already had what she needed without trying to fit someone else into the family routine.
“So Jules tells me she finally caved and got a math tutor?”
“Yeah,” Ethan breathed out. “Some geeky senior, I gather.”
“How’s that going?”
“She passed her last test, so I’m guessing okay.” Ethan suddenly noticed the army of pies lined up on the counter, including no less than a half dozen pumpkin. Following his gaze, Kelly snorted.
“Yeah, I might’ve gotten a little carried away.”
“Ya think? I mean, we all like pie, sure, but...” He frowned. “You think I could set one of the pumpkins aside for...for later?”
“Since half of ’em are gonna go home with you guys, anyway... Wait. I thought Jules said you weren’t a big pumpkin pie fan?”
“It’s...not for me.”
Kelly gave him a curious look, then shrugged. “There’s pie boxes in the pantry. Go for it.”
Ethan carted off one of the fragrant, glistening pies to tuck it away, then returned to the kitchen in time to see his younger brother, Matt—with Kelly’s curly-haired four-year-old daughter, Aislin, perched on his hip like a little monkey—give his still-new wife a quick kiss.
“You doing okay?” he asked, palming her growing belly, his darker Hispanic coloring a riveting contrast to Kelly’s ivory complexion, and a pang of envy pierced Ethan’s genuine happiness for his brother.
Kelly laughed, breaking the spell. “I’m fine. Although I think...” She yawned, then smiled. “I might go take a quick nap before the final push.” She got up, then leaned over to give her little girl a noisy kiss on her cheek. “You be good for Daddy, ’kay?”
“’Kay.”
After she left, Ethan sensed his brother watching him. He looked over, frowning at Matt’s all-too-knowing expression. His cop look, they called it. The music changed, to some piano piece he’d always associate with Merri. Rachmaninoff, he thought. “What?” he pushed through a tight throat.
But Matt only gave Ethan’s shoulder a quick squeeze before carrying his daughter out of the room, and Ethan scrubbed a hand down his face, ignoring the knot in the center of his chest, his stinging eyes.
It’ll get easier, everyone had said. Just give it time....
Which was the biggest lie since Santa, he thought on a bitter, bitter sigh.
Chapter Six
The Colonel’s house was even closer than Claire had first realized, a short walk through the very pretty neighborhood of restored Queen Annes, handsome redbrick Colonials, the occasional Craftsman duplex. It’d be dark by the time the party broke up, but after late-night treks and subway rides through at least three of New York’s five boroughs, Maple River’s sleepy streets held no terror.
Although the prospect awaiting her sure did. Honestly, it was like being sixteen all over again, when she had the crush that would not die on Brandon Hicks, who sat two rows ahead of her in U.S. History. Every time she saw him, her mouth would go dry and her heart rate would ramp to warp speed. And the one time he smiled at her—although he might’ve been smiling for someone behind her, she was too freaked to find out for sure—she’d nearly wet her pants. So sad.
The good news was, Claire mused as she turned onto the Colonel’s block, she was much more in control of her bladder these days. Not to mention other things. Okay, so her attraction to Ethan Noble wasn’t waning the more she got to know him, which wasn’t good. At all. But since that attraction was completely illogical—if not downright stupid, especially given his obvious attempt at giving her an out if she’d decided not to show—and since she wasn’t sixteen anymore, thank God, she could handle it. And anyway, she was here for Ethan’s father. And the food.
Her heart ramming against her rib cage, she paused at the end of the brick walk leading to the lovely Victorian, glowing in the midafternoon sunshine. It
was easily twice the size of Ethan’s house, as was the lot it sat on. Impressive. But not, she decided, channeling Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music as she marched up the walk, intimidating.
That’s right. Confidence, she had it.
Dogs barked when she rang the doorbell; a second later, the white paneled door swung open and Juliette let out a squeal, not even trying to keep the dogs—Claire momentarily thought one of them was a bear, good God—from joyously accosting her.
“You’re really here!” The orange streaks in her hair matching her lacy cropped sweater and the patterned tights covering the vast amount of leg her short denim skirt didn’t, Juliette tugged Claire through the wriggling beasts and into a shabbily graceful foyer with worn wooden floors and faded Oriental rugs, a staircase wall choked with framed photos.
“I really am.” Claire shrugged off her coat, breathing in the turkey-scented steam heat as she chafed the sleeves of her favorite sweater, a handkerchief-hemmed cardi that discreetly hid the result of her penchant for cheesecake. “Did you think I wouldn’t come?”
“Were you sure you would?” the girl asked bluntly, and Claire laughed, waggling her hand. The teen grinned, then nodded toward a multipeg rack on the wall. “You can hang your coat there with the rest. Then come back to the kitchen and I’ll introduce you to Kelly. My new aunt,” she added with a very pleased grin. Claire thought of all the fifteen-year-olds she knew who reeked of bored cynicism despite privileged, even charmed, lives. This kid knew from heartbreak, and yet she seemed to genuinely appreciate what she had rather than grieving what she’d lost.
“Where’s everyone else?”
“Out back. Football,” Juliette said with such a face Claire had to laugh. “I’m guessing you don’t want to play?”
“Um, no,” she said, and the girl giggled, then sobered as she—and the dogs—led Claire back to the kitchen.
“When we were little,” Juliette said, “Grandma would put the turkey in the oven, then we’d all go to the game, and then we’d come back here to finish up the cooking. And then we’d eat. Like, for days. Then Grandma died, so Mom took over the turkey.”
Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas GiftThe Soldier's Holiday HomecomingSanta's Playbook Page 49