Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: The Maverick's Thanksgiving BabyA Celebration ChristmasDr. Daddy's Perfect Christmas

by Brenda Harlen

  Lily pointed to the coffeemaker. “Don’t forget your brew.”

  “Actually I haven’t had time to make it yet. Would you like a cup?”

  “If you’ll show me how to use that fancy machine, I’ll make myself a cup after you get yours,” she said. “I don’t want you to be late.”

  They walked over to the coffeemaker. She stood so close that he could smell her perfume, a delicate, feminine floral scent that had him breathing in deeper.

  He had just measured the coffee grinds and told her, “You need one scoop for every—” when an ear-piercing scream cut him off and had Lily and him racing into the living room to see what had happened.

  Hannah was standing at the top of the steps, crying and holding her finger. Megan was yelling at George, who was holding a stick that should’ve been in the backyard, not upstairs in the bedrooms.

  “You hurt her!” Megan said.

  Bridget was standing back quietly observing as her older sister continued to let George have it.

  “What’s going on up there?” Cullen asked from the bottom of the stairs.

  Lily had already gone up to the child and was kneeling at the little girl’s side, looking at her finger. “You’re bleeding, sweetie. What happened?”

  “George took away Franklin’s fetch stick. I didn’t want him to have it because he said he’s going to take Franklin outside without a leash. But I don’t want him to because Franklin might run away.”

  “George, what did you do, buddy?” Cullen asked once he was up there with them.

  “He yanked the stick out of her hand,” Megan answered. “That’s how she got the splinter.”

  Great. A splinter.

  “You have to be careful, pal,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice as even as possible. “You’re stronger than you realize. I’m sure you didn’t mean to do it on purpose, but you hurt your sister. Can you tell her you’re sorry?”

  All eyes shifted to the boy, whose face had clouded like a thunderhead. “No,” he said. “She’s dumb. She’s a dumb, crying baby.”

  He turned around and walked out of the room.

  Suddenly the dirty dishwater that the hospital tried to pass off as coffee sounded better to Cullen than the strong jolt of joe he usually made for himself, because there was nothing he wanted more right now than to leave all this chaos behind and go to work. Even if the hospital’s coffee was bad and that place could be a different brand of bedlam sometimes, at least it came with a chaser of quiet in the form of his closed office door. When he needed to think, all he had to do was shut the door, and unless the place was falling down, no one bothered him. Before they did, they had to go through his administrative assistant, Tracy.

  “We need to get this splinter out,” Lily said. “Do you have any tweezers? We’ll probably need some hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic ointment. A bandage would help, too.”

  “It’s all in the hall bath,” Cullen said. “The room where you cleaned up the blue foam yesterday.” The place that always seemed to draw the drama—whether it started or ended there.

  Cullen motioned Lily and Hannah to follow him. As the three of them squeezed into the hall bathroom, the dog tried to wedge his way in, too.

  Lily scooped up Hannah with one arm and petted Franklin with her free hand, keeping him at bay but allowing him to see that the girl was okay.

  “Thank you,” Cullen said. Caring for children was infinitely easier with two people. He had no idea how she managed it on her own. Then again, four kids, even kids as spirited as these, must’ve seemed like a picnic compared to a classroom full. Obviously some people had the gift and others didn’t. Lily, he decided as he gathered the supplies, was the child whisperer. He was way out of his league.

  He set his cell phone on the counter.

  “I’m going to move this over here so it doesn’t get splashed,” Lily said, pushing it behind her with her free hand.

  “Thank you. At the rate my morning’s going, I’d probably end up knocking it in the toilet.”

  He and Lily exchanged smiles, and it was...nice. It made him feel as if the day wasn’t destined to be all bad.

  First he had the little girl wash her hands with soap and water. Then as he prepared to swab Hannah’s finger with hydrogen peroxide, she pulled her hand away, tears brimming. “Will that hurt?”

  “It shouldn’t,” Cullen said. “But I’ll bet Ms. Palmer will let you squeeze her hand just in case.”

  “Her name is Lily,” Hannah said. “Yesterday, she told us that we could call her Lily.”

  “Fair enough,” Cullen said. He smiled as his gaze snagged Lily’s and he wondered why it was that he’d never noticed until now how green her eyes were. And they were flecked with little veins of gold. Nice.

  “It might be easier for me to get the splinter out if she sits on the counter,” he said as he picked Hannah up and set her on the vanity.

  He had just started to grab the tiny sliver of wood when his cell phone sounded the arrival of a text.

  “That’s probably the hospital. I’m late.” He nodded in the general direction of the phone, still trying to remove the offending particle. “Would you mind texting them back to say that I’ll be right there?”

  Lily picked up the phone.

  “Oh.”

  Cullen looked over and met her gaze. “Is there a problem?”

  Lily’s eyebrows rose and a faint blush colored her cheeks.

  “Well, it’s not the hospital. It’s someone named...Giselle?” Lily cleared her throat. “She says—and I’m paraphrasing here—but she’s very eager to see you tonight. It seems she has quite the night planned for you.”

  Oh, hell.

  Heat warmed his face. He glanced down at Hannah to see if she’d caught on to the situation. But she was studying the finger that was now splinter free.

  “Here—never mind.” Cullen held out his hand for the phone. After Lily gave it to him, he shoved it into his pants pocket as if the action could undo Lily having read the message, which was bound to be graphic, knowing Giselle.

  He felt like a letch for having subjected her to it. Of course, if he’d known Giselle would pick that precise moment to offer a preview of coming attractions, he wouldn’t have asked Lily to pick up the text. In fact, he’d been so busy since the kids arrived that he’d completely forgotten he was supposed to see her.

  Was that tonight?

  He couldn’t bring a woman like her around while Lily and the kids were here. Before he’d taken the kids into his home, he hadn’t realized all the ways they might change his life. When had he ever recoiled from a spicy Giselle text or passed up a chance to see her? But given the circumstances, he didn’t have a choice but to decline.

  “Does your finger feel better, Hannah?” he asked after he’d slathered it with antibiotic ointment and applied a bandage.

  She nodded through a one-shoulder shrug. “Sort of. It would feel much better if I had a princess bandage.”

  Lily took the little girl down from the vanity, held her good hand and led her out of the bathroom without looking at Cullen. “The next time I go to the store, I’ll make sure to get some princess bandages. A princess should always have a special bandage. You’re very brave to wear the ordinary one for now.”

  Cullen stood alone for a moment, listening as their conversation grew faint. He certainly hadn’t thought taking in the kids would throw him into a crisis of conscience. After all, he was single. He and the women he dated were consenting adults and very clear about the no-strings-attached nature of their relationships. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  So why did it feel as though he was?

  He took a deep breath and reminded himself that it wouldn’t be this way forever. The kids would be living with him only until the end of December. Then he could resume life as h
e knew it.

  * * *

  Nothing said let’s be friends like a big stack of homemade pancakes. After Cullen made his awkward exit, Lily did her best to put the racy contents of the text she wished she’d never read out of her mind.

  It wasn’t easy to erase the image of Cullen doing the things Giselle had so graphically described in her message. The only problem was her brain kept imagining Cullen doing those things to her.

  Lily wasn’t a prude—she’d been engaged and had enjoyed a healthy relationship with her fiancé before everything turned south—but those thoughts were so inappropriate when she was supposed to have her mind on the kids. For God’s sake, the thoughts were inappropriate even if she wasn’t watching the kids. Cullen Dunlevy was her boss. And even as progressive and open-minded as she fancied herself, she certainly was no Giselle.

  She forced the thoughts out of her mind—or at least relegated them to the very back, dark corners of her overactive imagination—and fired up the griddle she’d brought with her. She made cheerful small talk with the kids as she mixed up a batch of pancake batter for them.

  She let them flip their own, which the girls loved. George, however, was less than impressed. He slumped on a bar stool at the kitchen island, kept his head down and his attention on his handheld video game while the three girls enjoyed their breakfast and chatted among themselves.

  “Come on, George. Will you please put down the game for five minutes so you can make your pancakes?” Lily cajoled. “It’ll be fun.”

  George didn’t answer.

  “Just five minutes, George, please? That’s all it will take.”

  Nothing.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” Lily said. “If you’ll make your pancakes, I’ll let you lick the bowl when we make sugar cookies after breakfast.”

  George looked up, his eyes glossy with irritation. “Doesn’t Uncle Cullen pay you to make my breakfast?”

  Lily’s eyes widened at the boy’s cheeky response. She walked around to the same side of the island where George was sitting, pulled out the bar stool next to him and sat down.

  “Your uncle Cullen pays me to look after you.” She took care to keep her voice even and soft. She was used to dealing with the occasional conflict like this in the classroom, but George’s attitude grew from a place of hurt. The boy probably felt angry and displaced after losing his parents and the adoptive parents who had agreed to take in his sisters and him. He was in limbo and unsure where they would end up, much less if he and his sisters would be able to stay together. Of course, Cullen said keeping the kids together was his goal, but Lily couldn’t help wondering how realistic it was, especially given that he was intent on finding them a place by the end of the year.

  The boy had returned his attention to his video game, his thumbs stabbing angrily at the buttons on the device. What George needed more than a battle of wills over pancakes was some compassion and understanding.

  Lily stood. “Okay, if you don’t want pancakes for breakfast, you can have milk and cereal. Help yourself.”

  George didn’t respond. He simply poured himself a bowl of oat cereal, skipping the milk. He took his breakfast and his game and headed into the other room.

  “George, don’t you want to help bake cookies?” Lily asked, giving it one more try.

  George turned around and glared at her. “No.” He started to walk away.

  “Then what would you like to do?” Lily asked. “I don’t think your uncle Cullen wants you spending your entire Christmas break playing video games.”

  He leveled her with a blank stare.

  “I could get you some books if you’d like to read.”

  He grabbed a handful of cereal and shoved it into his mouth.

  “Or if you don’t want to read, tell me some of the things that you enjoy doing—besides video games.”

  “Not baking,” he said. “Baking is for girls.”

  She thought about telling him that some men were pastry chefs and they were actually quite famous for it, but she knew there was no sense in trying to win him over.

  “On the radio this morning, I heard about a boys’ basketball camp that’s going on during the holidays over at the community center,” Lily said. “Would that interest you?”

  His expression changed. It wasn’t quite what you’d call agreeable, but it was a far cry from the defiant make-me face he’d worn just a minute ago.

  “If you’d like, I can talk to your uncle Cullen about getting you signed up for it.”

  He nodded, then turned and disappeared into the next room with his cereal and game.

  When the girls were finished with their breakfast, Lily put Hannah and Bridget to work measuring flour into large bowls. She had Megan creaming butter and sugar together. Her plan for the day was to have the kids make and decorate Christmas sugar cookies. She also wanted to teach them how to make a Christmas bread called stollen, a confection filled with dried fruits and marzipan.

  “A long time ago, in Germany,” she said, “they used to make a huge loaf of special Christmas bread called stollen. It had all kinds of fruits and spices and a special filling. It weighed tons and it was big enough to share with everyone in the city. They’d bring it out and feed everyone.”

  Megan was squinting at her. “They ate stolen bread? Who did they steal it from?”

  “No, it wasn’t stolen, as in illegally taken from someone,” Lily said. “It’s called stollen. It sounds the same, but it’s completely legal. Believe me, I wouldn’t teach you about anything illegal.”

  “How big was it?” Megan asked, still looking as if she wasn’t buying the story.

  “What?” Lily asked.

  “You said the stollen bread loaf was big enough to feed the entire city,” she said incredulously. “How big is that?”

  “This big?” Hannah hopped off the bar stool and held out her arms wide.

  “Oh, much bigger than that,” Lily said, winking and playfully waving her off.

  “This big?” Hannah’s arms were stretched so wide she was bending backward.

  “Yes, maybe that big,” Lily said. “Possibly. But maybe even a little bit bigger.”

  She reached down and tickled the little girl. Hannah squealed in delight.

  “I’ve never seen the big loaf of bread in person,” Lily said. “But I’ve heard it was so big they had to put it on a horse-drawn carriage and pull it around. I mean, if it was big enough to feed the entire town, it had to be huge.”

  All three girls gasped.

  “Several years ago, they revived the stollen festival in Germany. Now it’s called Stollenfest. Every year at Christmastime, they still bake a gigantic loaf all yummy and covered with powdered sugar. They still put it on a big carriage and parade it through the streets on the way to the Christmas market. When they get there, they cut it into lots of pieces with a huge knife. I mean, think about it. You’d need a gigantic knife to cut a loaf of bread that big, don’t you think?”

  The girls nodded.

  “Well, they cut it up, but now instead of giving it away, they sell it and give the money they make to a charity that helps people.”

  Megan nodded as if she believed Lily.

  “When do they do that?” asked Hannah.

  “Stollenfest takes place in the middle of Advent.”

  “What’s Advent?” Bridget asked.

  “It’s the period of time leading up to Christmas. Usually the three or four weeks before. So Stollenfest probably takes place two weeks or so before Christmas. So they’re probably getting ready for it right about now. It’s a very fun day.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” said Hannah, dramatically putting her hand on her forehead. “That’s still a long time before Christmas comes. That’s like forever.”

  Lily smiled. To a kid, the weeks before Chri
stmas did seem to last forever. “Well, in Dresden, Germany, that’s how they make the time before Christmas go faster. They do lots and lots of baking. So that’s what I thought we could do.”

  The girls were watching her attentively.

  “So, what do you say?” she asked. “Do you want to learn how to make stollen? We could have our own Stollenfest right here in Celebration.”

  “Are we going to make one big enough to feed the entire town?” Hannah asked, jumping up and down. “Are we going to parade it through the streets?”

  “Well, no,” Lily said. “We don’t have an oven that big. But we can make smaller loaves from my great-grandmother’s recipe. Maybe we could make enough to give it to the neighbors as Christmas presents?”

  The girls clapped their hands and nodded their agreement.

  “Can we make some for Uncle Cullen, too?” Bridget asked.

  “You bet we can. It’s a lot of fun to make. My grandmother and I used to always bake it during the holidays. I think out of everything, stollen puts me in the best Christmas spirit.”

  “Why doesn’t your grandmother come and make it with us?” asked Bridget.

  Lily considered her answer for a moment, afraid that bringing up the subject of death might upset the kids. Tiptoeing around the truth would be worse. If it upset them she could help them learn to cope.

  “My grandmother isn’t living anymore,” she said.

  “Is she with the angels?” asked Hannah, her eyes earnest and sober as she got back on her stool.

  “Yes, she is,” said Lily.

  “My mommy and daddy are with the angels, too,” Hannah said.

  “Hannah...” Megan’s tone was a little sharp, but the sadness in her eyes reflected her grief.

  “It’s okay to talk about your parents, Megan,” Lily said. “When you’re ready.”

  The girl looked back down at her bowl and stirred its contents halfheartedly.

  “I understand how hard it is,” Lily said. “My parents are with the angels, too.”

  All three girls looked up at Lily.

  “So you’re just like us?” said Bridget. “Maybe that’s why I like you so much.”