“Hey, Dad.” Predictably when the twins were planning Armageddon, Pepper took the lead. She and Lilly wandered over to the west window, where they could see their handmade crèche. It was dark as pitch, but their glow sticks created a soft light on the scene.
The manger definitely looked better by night than day.
“We had a good time today, didn’t we?” Pepper continued. “It was like...unique. We never did anything like that before.”
“I liked it, too,” Whit said. “Especially liked doing it with you two.”
“And Rosemary.” Lilly exchanged a quick glance with Pepper. “Both of us have been worried that she was upset.”
So this was the topic they’d been brewing on? “Because she left before dinner?”
“Yeah. We were thinking...maybe we shouldn’t have talked about Mom so much.”
“Yeah,” Pepper chimed in. “I mean, she’s done all this great stuff with us. And she’s alone this Christmas, too. And then we started talking about Mom and feeling sad.”
“Hmm,” Whit said.
“What if we hurt her feelings? Like maybe she thought we weren’t thinking about her being alone. And tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. And we want her to come over on Christmas Day, too. And she said she would.”
Lilly added, “Tomorrow she said we could go over to her place and make a bunch of stuff. Like a coconut cake for dessert on Christmas. And a blueberry coffee cake for Christmas morning. And like black cherry Jell-O in a mold, you know, like we both liked since probably before we were born. And she said we could have cocoa with marshmallows while we’re making everything.”
“But we’re worried that won’t happen if she’s upset with us,” Pepper said urgently.
“All right. I don’t think that’s the case, but if you’re worried about, I think you should call her.”
“No. We can’t do it.” Pepper and Lilly exchanged glances again, then looked at him. “We think the only answer that’ll work is if you go over to her place, Dad.”
“Me? Now?”
“Listen, Dad.” Pepper pushed Lilly ahead, the way she always did when she thought Lilly could present the most persuasive argument. “First off, it’s not very late. And you could talk to her the way a grown-up talks. So if we did something to upset her, you could explain it or fix it. She probably wouldn’t say anything to us—not the truthful, real thing—because she’s nice. And she wouldn’t want to hurt our feelings. So if we asked her, we still might never know why she left so fast.”
“And tonight, besides, Lilly and I were just gonna watch a movie. The Hunger Games.”
“You already saw it,” Whit reminded them.
“Exactly. The first time we saw it with you. Because you said we either saw it with you or we didn’t get to go. But now we’ve seen it, and you did, too, so you know it isn’t terrible or too old for us or anything. And we want to see it again and you don’t. So it’s easy, you know? You can go over and talk to Rosemary, and you don’t want to be here anyway while we’re watching a movie you don’t even like.”
Whit scratched his head. He was positive a shoe was going to drop. The kids were offering him a chance to do the one thing he really wanted to do—even though they didn’t know it. Surely fate was going to show up and drop a shoe on his head. This was just too easy.
“I don’t like leaving you at night.”
“Like you think we’re babies? That’s just dumb. If something happened, we could call you and you could be back here in less than ten minutes. What could happen? Even if another bear showed up, we could hide and call you. For Pete’s sake, you’d just be a little way up the mountain.”
Whit looked up. There had to be a cloud in this sky. There just had to be. “Well, maybe Rosemary’s not up for company. For sure I should call her first—”
“No, no! No calling first! That’d just give her a chance to say she’s tired or she’s working. And then we still won’t know if something’s wrong. You have to just show up.” Pepper frowned. “Like...take something. A glove. Say we thought she dropped it.”
“That won’t work, dolt,” Lilly interrupted. “Dad can’t lie. He’s no good at it.”
Wilt wanted to pursue that unexpected character judgment, but just then he didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth and risk it disappearing. “Well, if you two are sure you think it’s a good idea...” He said grudgingly.
“We do. We both do. And like we can call you or you can call us if there’s any problem. We can’t go get you. Unless you’d let me drive the Gator—”
“No.”
“Worth a try,” Pepper muttered to Lilly.
Whit was out the door before he let a bark of a chuckle escape. The girls were so sure they’d outwitted him.
Of course they often did outwit him. Both were smarter than he was, and together, they were formidable.
But right now there was nothing on his mind but Rosemary. All afternoon, he’d watched her with the kids. She wasn’t just a natural mom; she was a natural nurturer. Full of fun. Full of zesty energy and up for anything. So easy, so natural to be with. And not just for the girls.
He’d never been comfortable with Zoe. He’d been in love with her, the way a young man could be crazy in lust, and what could possibly matter more than sex when you’re a kid? Sex mattered then. And later. And probably forever, Whit figured, since he hadn’t noticed any lessening in drive or need.
But the urge had paled in the past years with Zoe. She wasn’t any less beautiful. Any different than she’d ever been. But he hadn’t noticed, for so long, how critical she was of everyone and everything. He could go weeks without doing anything right. Weeks where he didn’t want to go home—except to see the girls. Where dinner and breakfast and weekends were an effort, to be careful about what he said, what he did, how he did pretty much anything.
Rosemary was like...a fresh rose.
Complex. Way smart. But no undercurrents other than pure sweet female, a woman who loved life and loved others and loved every adventure a day could bring.
He wanted to call it smitten. Wanted to call it a major lust attack. Wanted to call it all kinds of things—because it seemed too damn soon to be so sure. But he was sure, like it or not. That he’d fallen in love with her.
Real love.
The SUV already knew its way to her house, even on a pitch-black night, on the unlit mountain road. It was only when he saw the lamp shine in a downstairs window that his stomach suddenly clutched.
Out of nowhere, he suddenly remembered that she’d left faster than a bat out of hell that afternoon. She’d been stressed. He’d guessed a zillion reasons why—starting with her being horrified at the images of Zoe she must have formed—or because the girls’ crying had hit her in some unforeseen way—or, or, or. He could guess reasons forever, but the fact was...he didn’t know.
And he really had no idea what kind of reception he might get when he knocked on her door.
* * *
When Rosemary left Whit and the girls, she felt as unsettled as a cat in the rain. While she put away her jacket, her gaze flew to the fragrant tree, and the crazy, wonderful decorations the girls had made for it.
Somehow the tree made her feel another naggy restlessness.
Christmas should be about kids. And family.
She felt so badly that the girls had broken down into such a serious cry fest. It wasn’t that she thought crying was bad. And bringing up memories of their mom wasn’t a bad thing, either. But she hadn’t wanted to provoke painful memories for the kids...or for Whit.
The whole afternoon had relentlessly reminded her of what she already knew. Whit and his girls’ memories of Zoe were still very much part of their lives.
As much as she cared, as much as she’d even come to love them, she was inarguably an outsider. They needed each ot
her, needed to be with each other that night. She understood that.
But she still felt mighty lonely in the big old lodge. She wasn’t up for working. Wasn’t up for settling in front of a movie or TV show. She couldn’t concentrate enough to read.
So...she poured a glass of wine and carted a vanilla candle upstairs to the bathroom. It wasn’t often she had a total pamper session, but tonight seemed the time for it.
An hour later, she’d finished half the wine and peeled off a green facial mud mask. She stepped into the shower for the rest of the spa treatment. There wasn’t much she could do with her hair, except give it an extra dose of conditioning. Then came shaving her legs—with real shaving cream, because she loved the foam.
It had been months since she’d given herself the whole female indulgence thing, and she wasn’t humming by the time she stepped out of the shower and reached for a plump red towel. But she was almost humming.
A happier mood was trying to sneak back, and part of that was remembering some of the great things that day. How all four of them had laughed. How they’d all taken the manger idea seriously. How Whit was such a total sucker for anything that made his twins smile. How Lilly was so thoughtful and caring. How Pepper needed someone to help her believe she wasn’t just a screw-up.
When it came down to what mattered...she’d laughed more in the past week than she’d laughed in months and months.
The sound of someone pounding on her front door startled her—and made her catch her breath. People occasionally got lost on the mountain...but December 23 was an unusual time for hikers and campers. She’d never been afraid up here. She’d learned young to be self-reliant, and she knew every nook and cranny of her mountaintop. Still, it was dead dark and almost nine at night.
When she failed to answer immediately, someone pounded on her door again. She grabbed jeans and a sweatshirt from her bedroom, yanked them on over still wet skin, used her fingers to comb her damp hair and yelled, “I’m coming!” when the door pounding continued.
She ran downstairs barefoot, her heart starting to pound, instinctively grabbed her gun from the closet top shelf, ran to the door, looked out...
And there was Whit.
He looked cold, his shoulders hunched, his hands stuck in a buffalo plaid shirt jacket, his head bowed. His face appeared blue-white in the yard light.
She immediately opened the door. “You didn’t have to stand in the cold, you could have just come in! You know I don’t lock the door!”
“I was afraid I’d scare you.”
“You did. How come you didn’t call first?”
“Because the girls insisted I come over without calling. I’m here on their very specific orders.”
* * *
“Really,” she said quietly. She was pretty sure he hadn’t made up fibs before...but the way he looked at her as he pulled off his flannel jacket and tossed it on the couch had no resemblance to a mild-mannered dad. He looked like a lone wolf hungry for firelight. Hungry for her.
“They wanted me to apologize.”
“For what?”
“You were terrific with them, Rosemary. The girls—and me—we couldn’t have had a better afternoon. And even if it sounds odd, that includes the girls doing some crying near the end. I mean—I don’t want you feeling bad about their getting a little upset. I’ve never been sure if they’re supposed to talk about their mom all the time or not. I think it was good, their letting out those memories. And for me, it just felt better because you were there. Because—”
“Whit, it’s okay to take a breath.” Her tone turned gentle. She’d never seen him talk nonstop before. Never seen him remotely nervous. Once his jacket was off, his hand scraped through his hair. He pivoted around and saw that the fire needed tending, so he hunched down, opened the screen and grabbed the poker.
“They’re counting on coming over here tomorrow. Apparently you offered to let them cook with you? Or bake, I guess they said. Stuff that would be part of dinner for the next day. And I forgot to ask you what time we should come for Christmas dinner, mostly because I don’t have a clue. I’ve got a twelve-pound ham. Not sure how long that takes to cook. I was hoping you could tell me—”
“Whit.”
“They’re watching one of those Hunger Games movies. I’m opposed to kids seeing violence and sex in movies, and even though they think they’re old enough, they’re only eleven. I went with them the first time, which mortified them to death—which they’ve told me over and over. Thank God I knew some other dads who insisted on going, too, so I wasn’t the only one embarrassing my daughters into an early grave, which they still bring up at every opportunity—”
“Whit. You didn’t come here for the girls.”
Finally. He stopped talking. Stopped stoking the fire and adding logs and poking it and being busy. He looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“You came for me,” she said softly.
“I know. I—”
“You came for me,” she repeated, even more softly.
The fire cracked and popped, shooting sparks up the chimney. She flipped off the overhead light—the only glaring light in the room—and then came toward him. She saw his head tilt, expressing a question about what she was doing, but she couldn’t have answered him.
She didn’t know what she was doing. At least not exactly. For sure she wasn’t seducing him, because George had scrubbed any aggressive sexual ideas out of her head with a Brillo pad. But Whit...
She’d seen how he looked at her.
He’d been celibate since Zoe’s death—she’d have bet the farm on it.
So he had to be horny. Probably horny times a million. And the girls still dominated his heart, his emotions, so that’s how it would likely be for a while yet.
But when she came close—close enough—to lift her arms around his neck, to lift up, to lift her lips to his...a low groan came out of him that was more primal than a wolf’s cry.
Just like that, she knew what Whit wanted for Christmas. And that she was likely the only one who could possibly give it to him.
It was easy, so easy, to love him. The first touch of her lips and he folded faster than a house of cards. His arms roped around her, his big hands sliding around her ribs, her waist, pulling her to him. Closer. Then closer yet, until she was leaning against him, her breasts crushed against his chest, her pelvis cradled between his hips. He was erect. In those two seconds, he’d already gone harder than rock, as if she had the precise key for his ignition switch.
His mouth took her invitation and made it into a party. A private party, involving intoxicants and sweets and music and firelight. He was the intoxicant. She was his sweet taste. The fire glowed on his face, on his harshly intent expression, on his closed eyes.
Then her eyes closed, too, taking in the rush of his wanting her, of his touch, the feel of him, the warmth and power of him. The need.
Her need, too.
For so long, she’d needed...without a name for what it was. Needed a man she could trust. Needed to love. To feel loved. Needed to express....
This.
Heat like a fire.
Need like a force. Delicious need. Luxurious, wicked need. Labor intensive need.
And yeah, she worked to provoke, to incite, to please. It was hard work, touching Whit. Yanking off his henley sweater, laying her cheek against his heartbeat as she slowed down, letting her fingers tickle through chest hair, discover the slope of his chest and ribs, find the iron in his shoulders and upper arms.
She tried a kiss on his chest after that, an eyes-closed, petal-soft trail of kisses from his Adam’s apple down, down...
Courage came easily. He was so responsive—the sounds he made, the way his body heated for her touch, tensed for her touch, so readily conveyed that he was starting to burn, hot and bright. Maybe he
wasn’t thinking about her...but for certain he wasn’t thinking about Zoe and loss, about kids and loneliness, about life.
He was just...living. Not thinking, not analyzing.
He was just heart-beating alive. Heart-thundering alive.
With her. For her.
Even as those thoughts raced through her head in flashes, she was touching, stroking, learning him. A little fear seeped in there. Not fear of him. Not exactly anyway. It was just...he was so much bigger, so much stronger, so...much. The hammer in his jeans strained the zipper. Strained against her leg to free him, to uncage the tiger.
And that was when that unexpected worried quiver showed up again. She’d never teased a tiger before.
Back when, she’d thought George was. It had been more than startling to discover George had no more prowess than an alley cat.
And that was the thing she never let surface, didn’t want to ever surface, and for damn sure, she didn’t want to think about him now. But her history proved that she hadn’t been enough for George. Hadn’t been enough for a stupid, immoral alley cat.
So it was pretty darned hard to feel safe with a tiger.
Particularly when she abruptly found herself on her back, on the hearth rug, and the look in Whit’s eyes was a whole lot hotter than the fire. “So,” he said, in a slow voice as if he had all the time in the world to spend on that one syllable, “we know you’re a hard-core giver.”
“Not necessarily,” she began, annoyed as the devil when some of those worried quivers showed up in her voice.
“Yeah. Necessarily. You’re a hard-core giver all the time. And as I keep discovering, you’re a relentless giver, as well.”
“That’s not—”
“Yeah, it is true. But the question is, the really serious question, is how good are you at taking?”
“Tak—?” She was utterly confused at the whole conversation, partly because her tongue was so thick, her mind so discombobulated, that she couldn’t follow much of anything. At least anything verbal.
The kiss that leveled her flat to the ground...her entire body comprehended that right off. Whit was a bully. Who knew? There were massive holes in his character she hadn’t been exposed to before. His bully side. His demanding side. His earthy, no limit to his bad ideas side. His...
Mackinnon 03 - The Bonus Mom Page 11
