The Christmas Baby Surprise

by Shirley Jump

  Clark walked to the counter, opened a rollaway door and pulled out a coffeemaker. Feeling odd with nothing to do, she said, “I could put on the pot of coffee if you show me how.”

  On his way to the counter to get the groceries, Jack snorted a laugh. Clark faced her with a smile. “This is a single-serve coffeemaker. I can make two cups of cocoa for the kids and an individual cup of coffee for each of us.”

  “Oh.” And didn’t she feel stupid?

  While the first cup of cocoa brewed, Clark whipped around the kitchen, gathering bread and ham and retrieving milk for the coffee from the fridge, along with condiments for their sandwiches. Teagan crawled up on one of the stools beside the center island where Clark opened the deli meat and a loaf of bread. The dog clip-clopped over to her, soundlessly parking herself beside Teagan’s tall chair. Outside, the snow continued to fall. Big, beautiful white flakes on a huge, silent mountain.

  Silent.

  She glanced around. That’s what bothered her. It was as quiet in here as it was outside. Jack had put away the few things his father had directed him to, but he said nothing. Teagan sat on one of the tall chairs by the center island, just watching as Clark raced around, going between the coffeemaker and the refrigerator, gathering things for the sandwiches.

  “Can I help with anything?”

  “No. No. I’m fine. I’m accustomed to doing this.”

  Doing what? Getting lunch? Having quiet kids? Being a one-person whirlwind of activity? Because it was Tuesday, Althea suspected his wife was at work. So maybe when she was around everything was noisier?

  With the ham, bread and condiments on the center island, Clark motioned for her to come over. “Fix yourself a sandwich while I make Teagan’s cocoa.”

  She walked over, put bread on a paper plate and noticed Teagan watching her, her dark brown eyes cautious, curious. “I can make your sandwich first.”

  The little girl buried her face in the dirty pink bear she held. Though they’d been in the house ten minutes, she still wore her jacket with the hood on her head and her mittens on her hands.

  Clark hustled over. She tugged on his shirtsleeve and he leaned down.

  She whispered something in his ear.

  He said, “Okay,” and went back to the coffee/cocoa maker. “We don’t have that flavor.”

  Her lips turned down in an adorable pout, as she slid her hood off. Her hair was as dark as her eyes. The pale pink coat she wore accented both. As pretty as a princess, she blinked at Althea.

  “I can help you with your coat, if you want.”

  Teagan’s gaze whipped to her dad. He walked over with a cup of cocoa. “I’ll get her coat. You just finish making your sandwich.”

  Teagan tugged on his shirtsleeve again. He leaned down. She whispered in his ear.

  Baffled, Althea stopped slathering mayonnaise on her bread. Not only did the little girl think it normal to talk only to her dad and only in a whisper, but also Clark was so accustomed to it, he automatically leaned down to listen.

  “Sure. We have marshmallows.”

  She almost asked Clark about it. But she knew kids hated it when adults talked about them as if they weren’t in the room. Any minute now she and Clark would go into the den for her interview. She could ask him then. Delicately of course.

  “Jack, do you want to make your sandwich now, too, so that I can put all this stuff back in the fridge before we go into the den?”

  Jack walked over, grabbed some bread and ham and fixed his sandwich without a word.

  Althea’s eyebrows rose. She’d taught middle school for six years. She knew twelve-year-olds. They were sassy, moody, and the boys were always hungry. They didn’t wait for an invitation to make a sandwich.

  What was going on here?

  Clark handed Teagan her sandwich then he brought over her cocoa, complete with marshmallows, and started the first cup of coffee. He made his sandwich and the second cup of coffee then he put away the bread, ham and condiments before he faced the kids.

  “Althea and I will be in the den. If you need me, just come back and get me.”

  Teagan blinked. Jack nodded.

  She followed Clark down a long hall off the front foyer to the den. He motioned for her to take the empty chair in front of the desk then sat on the tall-back chair behind it.

  “I think we should just get right to the point.”

  She nodded, knowing what was coming. With a housekeeper in the hospital with pneumonia and a wife who obviously worked, this job had morphed into babysitter/teacher. She might even have to cook. Or clean up. It was not going to be the piece-of-cake, easy-money job she’d expected. Not that she was above helping out. Plus, truth be told, taking this position was about more than money. Spending four weeks close to her sister, but not really in Maryland was a stall tactic. She longed to see her sister. But she was afraid to see her dad. So finding employment close enough that Missy could drive up and visit her here in Pennsylvania might have been too good to be true.

  That was usually how her life worked. Everything she thought was “perfect” ended up being a scam.

  She smiled slightly. “Sure. Let’s just get right to the point.”

  “My wife was killed in an automobile accident three years ago.”

  Her mouth dropped a bit. That wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting. From the casual way he’d mentioned her when she complimented the view, she never would have guessed his wife had died. She’d even suspected the poor woman was at work.

  “Jack did okay until this fall. Now suddenly he’s failing all his classes. He’s done so poorly that his former teacher quit. I need you to pack four months of learning into one month.”

  “That’s quite a job.”

  “He’s been over the material once already. Technically only the December material will be new.” He leaned back in his chair. “He’s not a stupid kid. In fact, he’s very bright. I’m sure he’s retained some of what he heard. This is more about getting him focused again and making him see that if he decides to slack off, there are consequences.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t about him grieving for his mom?”

  Clark sighed. “She died three years ago. He had two therapy sessions. One right after. One about a year ago. He has the techniques and tools to cope.”

  “But he’s in a new life phase. And I’m not a therapist—”

  “If you think he needs to begin seeing his therapist again, back he’ll go. But I think this is more about him getting soft than anything to do with his mom. Twelve is a normal rebellion stage.” He winced. “I know that because I went through one myself.”

  When she pictured rebellion, she didn’t picture silence. She envisioned anger. Pouting, sure. But not the control and quiet she’d seen in that kitchen.

  Still, he’d said if she believed his son needed to talk to someone he would get him help. She couldn’t argue that.

  “So, what makes you want a temporary job?”

  “As I said, I lost my job and I’m on my way to live with my sister in Maryland. I want the extra cash to give me more time to look for a teaching job.”

  He nodded as if remembering their conversation outside.

  “Plus, she has triplets and a new husband I haven’t yet met.”

  He frowned. “You haven’t met your sister’s family?”

  She shrugged that off easily. She could answer this without giving away any of her secrets. “California’s a long way from here. I didn’t have the money to just pop home and I also couldn’t take the time off work.”

  Accepting that, he shifted on his chair, getting more comfortable, a sign that the interview was going well from his perspective.

  “Since Jack’s original homeschooling program failed, I found three excellent replacement options you can use to catch him up on th
is semester, but there are also some incredible subject-specific websites you can use to reinforce the material.”

  “Sounds like you’ve done your homework.”

  “Being a single parent is something like a full-time job.”

  She inclined her head. She understood what was going on. He could easily handle the concrete and the obvious. Parental duties and tasks, things he could see. Insubstantial, delicate things like talking weren’t as easily handled as getting groceries, finding homeschool programs or making lunch. He might be ignoring warning signs because he didn’t know to look for them.

  He smiled. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  “Yes. I’d like to know about Teagan.”

  “Do you mean what will Teagan do while you teach Jack?” He tossed a pencil to his desk. “I was hoping she could color in the room you and Jack use for your class work.”

  “Actually, I’m more concerned about the way she only talks to you and then only in a whisper.”

  He laughed. “She’s three-and-a-half. She’s just shy.”

  Three-and-a-half? And her mom had died three years ago? The poor thing had been only six months old when her mom died. Technically, she didn’t know her own mother. And he thought she didn’t talk because she was shy?

  “Really? You think she’s just shy?”

  “Yes. She’s fine.”

  Althea took a bite of her sandwich to stop herself from saying something she might regret. Either this guy was in complete denial about his kids or he was right.

  If he was right, if Jack was in the throes of a normal twelve-year-old rebellion and Teagan was just shy, everything would work itself out. If he wasn’t—

  Well, if he wasn’t, these kids were suffering. They might not be huddled in a closet, desperately trying to block out the sounds of their dad beating their mom the way she and her older sister Missy had been, but they were suffering. And if their dad didn’t understand, there was no one to help them.

  She knew she might be reading too much into this situation, but after her own miserable childhood, when every teacher, every neighbor, and even her grandmother missed the signs that she, her sister and her mom were in trouble, she couldn’t just walk away.

  “I’ll take the job.”

  He sat up. “Really?”

  The disbelief in his voice made her laugh. “You were afraid that when I’d realized I may also have to become your temporary housekeeper/babysitter this week, I’d refuse.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask you to do the housekeeping, but if you could at least tidy up after meals it would be a big help.”

  Drat. Her and her big mouth.

  “I have some projects at work that I should be attending to. If you could start today, I could get an afternoon of research in. I’ll work from here, of course, so you and the kids will have today to get accustomed to each other. But I really do need to catch up. I missed all of last week.”

  His hopeful voice made her shake her head. What the heck? She wasn’t doing anything else. And the sooner she sat down with these kids and tried to figure everything out, the better.

  “As long as I don’t have to cook.”

  “You can’t cook?”

  “No reason to cook when I lived alone.”

  “I’ll get takeout.”

  She glanced across the desk at him with a smile to confirm their deal, but he rose and extended his hand to shake hers. She stood up. When she took his hand, a bolt of electricity crackled up her arm. Their eyes met and from the quick glimmer in his, she knew he’d felt it as clearly as she had.

  Her gaze fell from his handsome face to his sweater-covered chest to his snug blue jeans and the crackle of electricity sparked again.

  She stifled the urge to yank her hand away. It was one thing to take a job as a live-in employee, knowing she was attracted to her employer. She’d always been able to ignore her hormones.

  But knowing he was attracted to her, too—

  Weren’t they tempting fate?

  ISBN: 9781460320020

  THE CHRISTMAS BABY SURPRISE

  Copyright © 2013 by Shirley Kawa-Jump, LLC

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