“Hey.” When his eyes met hers again, he saw the faintest trace of annoyance, even though her lips tilted. “We were fine.”
Sheer exhaustion, combined with relief at being home again—those were the only reasons he could think of to explain the ache of desire, deep in his gut. The nearly overwhelming compulsion to cup her jaw, simply...to touch. To feel...
Ethan tried to smile, but it felt a little wonky. “I know you were. I wasn’t...” His cheeks puffed out with the force of his expelled breath. “I wasn’t worried. I just wanted to be home.”
Her eyes softened. “Of course you did,” she said, laying a hand on his upper arm, gently chafing it for a moment before another yawn attacked.
“Sorry,” she said, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Need coffee. Also, potty.”
“And I need to change before this suit becomes one with my skin.”
“There’s a lovely image,” she said with a low, gravelly, still-sleepy laugh. “So go change. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
* * *
Claire got a load of herself in the bathroom mirror, grimaced, shrugged and followed the scent of coffee downstairs to find Ethan standing in front of the tree with his hands jammed into the back pockets of his jeans and a lopsided grin on his still-unshaved face.
“We were all a little slaphappy by the time we finished,” she said, heading for the kitchen and the magic elixir beckoning to her from same. “I had no idea it took so long to decorate a tree. At least one this size.” She found a mug, poured her coffee. “We always had this puny little fake thing when I was a kid.” The mug cradled in her hands, she joined Ethan. “And Mom always did it on Christmas Eve anyway, so it’d be there like some big surprise when I woke up.”
“What about when you lived in New York?”
“Sometimes the roomies got a tree, sometimes not. Since I never really bonded with any of them, I didn’t bother.” She took another magnificent sip, reveling in the steam on her face as much as the very welcome jolt to her system. “And now that I live alone, I’m back to the little fake jobber. So decorating that one,” she said, nodding toward the tree, “was fun. Actually...” Another sip dispatched, she said, very carefully, “Being with the kids... I enjoyed it.” Her lips curved. “Mostly.”
She sensed his gaze swing to her profile, then back to the tree. Heard his quiet chuckle. “Sounds about par for the course. And anybody who tries to tell you that life with kids is always fun is full of it. Hey, pumpkin...” Setting his coffee on a nearby table, Ethan squatted as a sleepy Bella padded into the room, then ran to him. “Miss me?” he said, tucking her against his chest.
The little girl rubbed her cheek against her father’s shoulder, then sniffed. Loudly. And sneezed. Ethan immediately set her apart, frowning. “You okay, baby?”
“She has a little cold,” Claire said. “No biggie.”
“Jules, too,” Bella said, and, sure enough, Ethan’s head snapped up so Claire could get the full effect of his frown.
“Colds, Ethan. Not the plague.”
“The boys...?”
“Are fine. But then, I’m beginning to think they’re alien life forms anyway, impervious to things like viruses and germs and such. So no surprise there.”
At that, the frown eased, replaced by a short laugh. “You may have a point.” He got to his feet, hauling the baby up with him, and the love in his eyes when he looked at his daughter... Oh, dear God. “But you still should have told me.”
“And what would you have done about it?” Claire said gently over a microspurt of annoyance. “Because we were totally good, weren’t we, sweetie?” she said to Bella, who gave a vigorous nod.
“Totally good,” the baby echoed, then sniffed. Balancing her on his hip, Ethan swooped to snatch a tissue from a box on the coffee table, then righted them both again, expertly folding the tissue over the tiny nose.
“Blow,” he ordered, and she did. Kind of. Then he looked at Claire. “And I would have wanted to know for your sake. Okay, theirs, too, but mostly for you. Because I know this is totally outside your comfort zone, and I might’ve been able to help more than you think. Yes, from several hundred miles away. Bad enough I asked you to watch them for an entire day—at the last minute, no less—but to foist sick kids off on you, as well—”
“Which they weren’t when you left. So you can stop with the mea culpa routine, jeez.”
Ethan’s brows lifted, humor glittering in his eyes and tugging at his mouth, and Claire’s sleep-slogged brain joined forces with her pitifully deprived girl parts to conspire against her, sending up a steady tattoo of want, want, want through her veins.
Like, really loudly.
Turning smartly on her heel, she retreated to the kitchen to rinse out her now empty mug and set it on the drain board, almost painfully aware that Ethan was watching her every move. She half wondered what he was thinking, decided she didn’t want to know. Since whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly bode well. For either of them.
“Well,” she said, returning to the living room to retrieve her coat and purse and tote bag from where she’d dumped them on a chair the day before. “I guess my work here is done, so I’ll be off—”
“We could all go out to breakfast,” Ethan said, which got an enthusiastic nod from Bella and, probably, a bug-eyed gawk from Claire. “Because,” he said, all intense blue eyes, “the least I can do is feed you. To say thank you?”
Well, of course. Totally reasonable. Except... “Everyone else is asleep?”
“I’ll go wake them up!” the little girl said, wriggling out of her father’s arms and racing up the stairs, yelling, “Hey! Boys! Get up!” at the top of her lungs.
“Not for long,” Ethan said, his mouth hitched into a ridiculously sexy smile. Although Claire sincerely doubted that was his intention. Which was made it so sexy. Not to mention ridiculous. Dammit.
And which made her need to get the hell out of there all the more pressing. Years, it had taken her, to finally, fully catch on to the concept of self-respect. Not to mention emotional self-preservation. So damned if she was about to let a sexy smile derail her. Even if that smile came as part of a package that included humor, tenderness and a protective nature that made her ovaries spin like Tasmanian devils.
“Um...thanks, but...I have stuff to do and...stuff. So I really need to go—”
“You’re not going to breakfast with us?” Bella—who’d reappeared like a genie—asked, her forehead all crumpled. Claire squatted and the little girl moved right into her arms. Of course.
“Not this time, baby,” she said, pushing past the knot in her throat even as she clung to the last remaining shreds of her common sense by the very tippy-tips of her fingernails. She reared back, smiling, wondering where the woman who didn’t think she wanted kids had got off to and who the hell this chick was she’d left in her place. She tapped Bella’s nose. “But I’ll see you at Juliette’s play, right?”
“When’s that?”
“Friday night. Right before Christmas vacation starts.” She glanced up at Ethan, who was looking at her with that same expression she’d caught when she’d first woken up. Except then she’d thought she’d only imagined it, what with her still being half-asleep and all. Apparently not. “You are coming, right?”
“Of course,” he said, with a “what are you, nuts?” dip to his brows.
Claire looked back at Bella, who was toying with one of Claire’s curls, a sweet gesture that twisted her heart even more. “So I’ll see you then?”
The child nodded, then linked her arms around Claire’s neck and pulled her close, and now Claire thought her heart would incinerate. “I love you,” Bella whispered, then kissed Claire’s cheek before running up the stairs again.
Blushing, Claire got to her feet, swaying slightly for a moment before finally worki
ng up the courage to look at Ethan again. But either he hadn’t heard Bella’s declaration or was ignoring it or—option three—the kid gave her heart to everybody so this was no big deal. In any case, all he did was walk Claire to the front door and open it, flooding the entryway with bright white light.
“Well. Thanks again.”
Claire nodded, opened her mouth, realized she had absolutely no idea what to say and walked out into the crisp, beautiful morning a helluva lot more conflicted than she had been when she’d arrived the day before.
* * *
There’d been no way, of course, Ethan would’ve told Claire that Bella hadn’t shown that kind of affection to anyone other than family since her mother’s death. Bad enough that Jules—clearly on a high after her performance and talking nonstop to her grandparents in the packed Performing Arts Center’s lobby—had yet to let a day pass without singing Claire’s praises. Effusively. About how she hadn’t even flinched when she’d realized Jules and Bella were both sick, or taken any guff from the boys, or even tried to influence the kids’ tree-decorating decisions.
Yep, a born salesperson, that one.
Not that any hard sell was needed, although Ethan wasn’t about to share that bit of information, either. With Jules or anyone else. Bad enough that nearly a week later, he still hadn’t gotten over his reaction to Claire that morning—a reaction only reprised every time he saw her at school. Or, like now, as he heard her distinctive laugh, caught a glimpse of her shiny curls as she worked the crowd. So, yeah—he was smitten. And hell, yeah, tempted...despite the laughable impracticalities of even trying to see where that temptation might lead.
And hallelujah for impracticalities, he thought as she finally made her way through the throng to them, her smile bright—she was wearing lipstick, he noticed, a bright red that actually made his mouth go dry—her joy a palpable thing, radiating more brightly than the Christmas lights on Main Street. Ethan had never seen her dressed in anything but her weird outfits, so her simple black dress, dark stockings and pumps—even if those were the same color as her lipstick—came as a shock. As did the way the clingy fabric hugged her curves, the neckline dipping just low enough to hint at cleavage...peeking out from underneath a necklace of blue and green stones roughly the size of the Christmas wreath on his door. It was all so...Claire, he thought with a smile.
As the twins shyly grinned, looking almost civilized in the sweaters and khakis Ethan had insisted they wear, Jules squealed and gave her teacher a hug, then introduced her to Merri’s parents. Claire’s eyes softened as she took one of Carmela’s hands in both of hers before wordlessly pulling the plump, dark-haired woman into a hug. He could count on one hand the number of women he knew who expressed that kind of selflessness, two of whom were right in front of him.
And the other two—Jeanne and Merri—were gone.
Dulled though it may have been, pain streaked through him, along with the same warning that had played in his head with both increasing frequency and urgency the past several days:
Do not go there.
Do not set yourself up for more hurt, more misery...more hell—
“Dad? You okay?”
Ethan snapped back to attention to smile for his daughter, avoiding Claire’s curious glance as she talked with both grandfathers. “Sure, honey. I’m fine.”
“I was just remarking,” Carmela put in, “about how impressed we all were with her performance. I had no idea Julie was so talented. Best Ghost of Christmas Past I’ve ever seen!”
“Isn’t she?” Claire said, her gaze deliberately bouncing off Ethan’s before returning to Carmela’s, then John’s. She laughed. “And I’m not only saying that to blow up you guyses’ skirts.” Slipping her arm around Jules’s waist, she gave his daughter a quick squeeze. “She’s a real natural.”
“Yes, she is,” Ethan agreed, taking a perverse pleasure in seeing his daughter’s gasp of surprise. Of course, she had no idea about his standing outside her room the night before, hearing her go over her lines with Rosie, the almost electric shock that had gone through him when he’d realized her gift.
And to deny her the opportunity to see where that gift took her, no matter the risk, would only make him a jerk of the first order.
Behind her, Claire’s eyes went shiny as she pressed her hand to her chest, giving him a short, slight nod before resuming her conversation with the grandparents, while the twins took Bella over to the refreshment table. Jules, however, let the crowd wash around her as she faced Ethan, arms crossed, brow puckered.
“Did you mean it?”
“Hey. Did you notice how still the audience got, like they were hanging on your every word?”
Her mouth twisted to one side. “I was kinda busy up there.”
“Well, they did. And if this is something you really want to pursue, I won’t stand in your way. Because what I saw tonight...” He shook his head, as if that would dislodge the lump in his throat. “It was magic, is the only word for it. And your mother would be... What was that expression she liked to use? Over the moon, that’s it. I couldn’t be prouder, honey.”
“Oh, Daddy...” Juliette’s eyes glittered before her arms wrapped around his waist. But the moment was short-lived when that Scott person appeared, looking sheepish and determined at the same time. Jules had finally confessed that, yes, her new tutor was indeed the boy in the cast she’d let upset her at the mall on Black Friday, but that she was completely over it now. Judging from the startled look on his daughter’s face, he somehow doubted it. Judging from the look on the boy’s face—he had waited until Ethan let his daughter go before extending his hand—Ethan seriously considered adding a forty-foot tower to the house.
“Nice to see you, Coach Noble,” the boy said with a firm, confident shake. Point to him. “Scott Jenkins—”
“Yes, I know who you are. Jules tells me you’ve been a huge help with her math.”
The kid turned his smile on Jules, whose glittery grin was only surpassed by the boy’s. And he wasn’t even wearing braces. “Can’t take a whole lot of credit for that. Julie’s ridiculously smart—”
“I’ve always thought so,” Ethan said. Sternly.
“I know, right? But between you and me, Mr. Noble...” Scott leaned in to Ethan, his voice lowered as his eyes darted furtively around the noisy lobby. “Miss Henry is nice and all, but she isn’t the greatest at explaining things. So it was really only a matter of finding another angle.”
His grin at his own joke seemed slightly nervous. Good. “As it were. Once I did that, Julie immediately caught on. Anyway...” He straightened. “My parents—they’re over there—” he pointed to a reasonable enough–looking middle-aged couple a few feet away “—are hosting the cast party at our house. So I was wondering if it’d be okay with you if I took Julie? Not as a date,” he hurriedly added, “because she told me you won’t let her date until she’s sixteen, but...as a friend?”
Brows raised, Ethan looked at his daughter, who was staring at the boy openmouthed. Beside him, Scott prattled on.
“I mean, we don’t live very far, and you can talk to my parents, if you like. But I can promise you, sir, there won’t be any alcohol or drugs or anything like that. And Miss Jacobs’ll be there, too. And she’s worse than my parents. About making everybody toe the line,” he said, his face turning more red than Juliette’s.
That was definitely true, Ethan thought, remembering what Jules had said about Claire’s interaction with the pair of monkeys currently masquerading as his sons. He also recalled his own pleas to Carmela and John, all those years ago, to let him go out with their daughter, the anxiety in their eyes even as they finally, reluctantly, said okay when they were sixteen. The combination of guilt and excitement as holding hands led to sweet kisses, which quickly escalated into heated kisses, which in turn naturally and inevitably led to all those things every paren
t fears and no parent wants to think about. Not when they were sixteen, no, but by eighteen...
A cold chill streaked up Ethan’s spine.
But right now, they were only talking about a chaperoned cast party at somebody’s house. And Claire would be there. He could count on her.
Without a shred of doubt.
“Let me talk to your parents.”
Scott nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Sure thing...”
So he did, and got his reassurances, and then Claire appeared to tell him she’d have Jules home by midnight, and he got another hit of her perfume and his brain tripped for a second. Then he watched his baby walk off with some hormone-addled teenage boy with Claire beside them, that dress cupping her ass, swaying slightly as she walked in those killer red heels.
And he closed his eyes, swearing.
* * *
Oh, dear, Claire thought as she pulled into Ethan’s driveway and caught a glimpse of Juliette beside her, her expression so rapturous in the glow from the Christmas lights Ethan hadn’t yet turned off that a casual bystander might think the girl’d had an angel visitation.
“Um...you’re home?”
“I know.” Juliette sighed, slowly unbuckling her seat belt. “Was that the best party ever, or what?”
“It was very nice,” Claire agreed, unlatching her own belt, and Juliette frowned.
“You don’t have to see me inside, you know.”
“Have you met your father?” she said, the precise moment Ethan opened the front door.
The teen sighed again, then shrugged. As though not even the world’s most protective daddy was going to mar this most perfect of nights.
“You said midnight,” the daddy in question muttered as Juliette floated past him.
“For pity’s sake, it’s five after—”
“Ten after.”
Claire ignored him. Well, as much as one could ignore the presence of this hubba-hubba hunk taking up his entire front door opening. “And Scott’s mom is not someone to whom you simply say, ‘I had a great time, thanks so much,’ and leave. Man, can that woman talk—”
Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas GiftThe Soldier's Holiday HomecomingSanta's Playbook Page 57