Holiday with a Twist

by Shannon Stacey

  She managed to cross the living room and bend over the portable crib without jostling TJ, and then she held her breath as she very slowly lowered him onto the mattress. His little mouth twitched and his hands balled into fists, but he didn’t wake up. Atticus dropped to his belly next to the crib and rested what passed for a pug chin on his front paws.

  After grabbing the bottle, Leigh headed to the kitchen, trying to avoid the squeaky spots in the old wooden floor. Croy followed her as she went to the sink and unscrewed the top of the bottle to rinse it out.

  “You did it,” Croy said in a quiet voice.

  “So far, so good. I have a little anxiety about the diaper situation, though.”

  “I think he’ll let you know if he’s uncomfortable.”

  Leigh ran the water hot and popped the nipple out of the ring to rinse them both. She’d leave it for Hope to thoroughly wash, but she could get most of the milk off. “Yeah, he’s not shy about that.”

  As she turned the water off and ripped a paper towel off the roll to dry her hands, Leigh became hyperaware of how close Croy was standing. And when he subtly shifted so he was standing behind her, the prickly sensation of anticipation almost took her breath away.

  “So tell me something.” He swept her hair to one side, baring her neck. “Is there a statute of limitations on your best friend’s ex-boyfriend being off-limits?”

  She laughed softly, and it came out a little breathless. “I’m not sure. Maybe a couple of years after the best friend doesn’t reply to your last attempt at communication?”

  “We’re well past that, aren’t we?”

  When his lips brushed the side of her neck, Leigh closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. As the breath left her in a shaky sigh, she tilted her head to give him better access. Or maybe permission. She just knew she liked his mouth on her skin.

  “All of our lives growing up together,” he said, still close enough to her neck so she felt his breath along with his words, “and I never once thought about kissing you. Then you walked into my bar after years away and kissing you is all I can think about.”

  “I think about it a lot, too.” She smiled as he moved her hair farther to the side so he could kiss the back of her neck. “I might have mentioned I like kissing.”

  “Oh, I remember. Even if I wanted to forget, I swear I hear you say it in my dreams.”

  Unable to take the teasing across her neck a second longer, Leigh turned in his arms. She tipped her head back and their eyes locked only for a second before his mouth was on hers.

  She parted her lips as he kissed her the way she’d dreamed of being kissed by a man. One of his hands cupped her neck, while the other slid up into her hair. His tongue dipped, dancing over hers, and she scraped his back with her fingernails.

  When his fingers tightened in her hair, she stood on her tiptoes, wanting more. His kiss grew more demanding and she surrendered to him, moaning against his mouth. She could feel his hunger for her in his touch, and she wanted him just as badly.

  But when her fingers bunched in the back of his T-shirt, ready to yank it free of his jeans so she could touch his skin, she forced herself back to reality. They were in her parents’ kitchen. She was supposed to be watching TJ.

  As if Croy could read her mind, or had felt her slight withdrawal, he nipped at her bottom lip and pulled back. Leigh’s pulse was pounding and their breaths sounded ragged.

  And...moist.

  The breathing wasn’t Croy’s, unless he was suffering from a very sudden-onset sinus infection. Looking past him, she saw Atticus sitting just inside the kitchen doorway, staring at them.

  “I think my sister’s dog is judging us.”

  Croy turned and then chuckled at the dog’s expression. “He’s a cute little thing.”

  She snorted. “I would question your taste, but since you were just kissing me, I’ll let that one go.”

  “You don’t think he’s cute?”

  “In a creepy, moist way, I guess he...no. I don’t think he’s cute.” When the dog continued to stare, Leigh frowned. “You don’t think this is some kind of Lassie thing, do you?”

  “Like what, he’s trying to tell you TJ’s stuck in a well?”

  “Or awake.” She stabbed his chest with her finger. “Now I know why people always seem to freak out if their babysitters have their boyfriends over. You’re distracting me with kisses in the kitchen while my nephew could be stuck in a well.”

  “I really doubt TJ’s in a well. But he could be awake, I guess.”

  She went into the living room and peeked into the portable crib. TJ was still sound asleep, his cheeks rosy and his little fingers curled against his chin. Atticus walked up to her and resumed his silent judgment, but Leigh reached out this time and scratched the top of his head. Other than his tongue flopping out the side of his mouth, nothing about his demeanor changed.

  When Croy’s phone chimed, Leigh stood and frowned at him. Despite the fact TJ didn’t stir, he gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry. That’s my get ready for work alarm.”

  “Oh, you have to go?”

  “Pretty soon, yeah. Sorry.”

  “Did you set that alarm to go off so you could miss the diaper changing?”

  He grinned. “No, but I might have if I’d thought of it.”

  Then Leigh’s phone chimed and she sighed as TJ shifted in his sleep. She silenced it before it could go off again and read the text. “Tim didn’t show, so they’re on their way back.”

  “That was shitty of him.”

  “He’s a shitty guy.” Leigh tucked the phone back in her pocket. “But at least they might be home in time to change his diaper.”

  “With any luck. I guess I should go. I really do have to get changed for work, plus your mom might not be happy to have me hanging around here with you while she’s out.”

  “How very teenager of us.”

  “It’s kind of weird to be sneaking around when we’re not actually doing anything wrong.”

  She knew it was awkward for him, but she wasn’t ready to deal with the fallout of her breaking the news to her family yet. “But my mom doesn’t know that.”

  “She could.”

  Before she could respond to that and turn the comment into a conversation with the potential to go south on them, he kissed her quickly. “I’ll see you around. And you did great today.”

  “Except the part where I was kissing you in the kitchen instead of watching him.”

  He paused at the front door and turned back to her. “Kissing with babies in the house is allowed. If it wasn’t, everybody would only have one kid.”

  She wanted to point out it was different when it wasn’t her kid, but he was gone before she could say anything. Smiling to herself, she went back to the couch and sat down to wait for TJ to wake up or her family to come home, desperately hoping the latter happened first. The dog watched her from his spot next to the crib.

  “What do you think, Atticus? Should I be kissing Croy Dawson in the kitchen?” He didn’t seem to have an opinion on the matter. “I realized too late when I said people freaked out over their babysitters having boyfriends over that he might think I was saying he’s my boyfriend, but he didn’t even blink.”

  Atticus tilted his head, which Leigh took as an invitation to continue. “It wouldn’t be a very good idea for him to be my boyfriend since I won’t be here long. Oh, and because my entire family thinks I’m still engaged. Do you think I should tell them the truth?”

  The dog gave her one shrill bark, but before she could decide what that meant—or why she was asking relationship advice of a pug—TJ started fussing and she knew it was only a matter of seconds before he sounded like a tornado siren.

  Leaning over the crib to pick him up, Leigh really hoped her dad was the one driving because she needed Hope to
come home. Her son smelled like somebody had let a garbage bag sit in the hot sun for a few days and then shoved it down the back of his diaper.

  Chapter Five

  When Croy got a group text from Lucas notifying everybody there would be a mandatory staff meeting—but only for the family—an hour before opening, he was tempted to ignore it. Knowing Lucas, there would be numbers and projections and blah blah blah and probably more nagging about them needing a better communication system.

  He would rather keep doing what he was doing, which was working around the house while thinking about kissing Leigh. It didn’t make sense to him how one kiss could dominate his thoughts through an entire evening of work, a restless night and into the next day, but kissing her was all he could think about. What it had been like kissing her. When he could kiss her again.

  “Now I know why people always seem to freak out if their babysitters have their boyfriends over.”

  What her words and all of his thinking about kissing her might mean.

  But there would be more nagging about not attending the meeting than there would be nagging about communication at the meeting, which tipped the scales in favor of going.

  Since he was already going in early, Croy added an extra few minutes and went up the back staircase. There was a sign nailed to the railing that matched the sign on an interior door by the storage room. Private Entrance.

  The way the house was laid out would have made it difficult to add access to the second and third floors from the ground floor, so they’d built a small deck and added an exterior door to what became their father’s kitchen. It had been an expensive renovation and every one of them was on the hook for making sure the pub was a success, but it was worth it. The house had been in the Croyden family for four generations and his mom had been the last. It had meant a lot to her and, after she died, their father couldn’t let go of his wife’s love of the house. It might look a little different now, but they all knew she would have loved what they’d done.

  After a perfunctory knock, Croy opened the door and let himself in. He figured Lucas would already be downstairs, preparing the data and projections none of them would pay any attention to as long as the bottom line was still good.

  And he found his dad in his home office, as expected. Hank Dawson had been a long-haul trucker until it started taking a toll on his health and his marriage. He’d transitioned to being a freight broker, matching truckers with loads so once they’d delivered, they could pick up more freight instead of returning home empty.

  Croy waited in the hall until his father ended the call he was on, and then rapped on the doorjamb. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Croy! Perfect timing.” He stood and stretched, and then they walked to the kitchen together.

  “Are you going downstairs for the meeting?” Croy asked as their dad poured them each a black coffee.

  “Lucas asked me to, so I told him I would.”

  That was good news. If Lucas had asked for their dad’s presence, it probably wouldn’t be an hour of droning on and on. Because his name was also on the loan documents and he owned the house, Hank was kept up to date on everything to do with the Center Street Pub, but he got condensed recaps.

  Croy was pretty sure Jeff had first thrown out the idea of turning the huge house into a restaurant, which made sense, since he was a cook. He’d started in high school, washing dishes in a restaurant, and worked his way into cooking and then managing kitchens in increasingly large restaurants. Lucas had the business degree and Croy had tended bar, so the plan didn’t seem so ridiculous after a while. But Hank felt like he didn’t have a lot to add, other than occasionally wandering through the dining room, chatting up their friends and neighbors, so he kept brokering freight runs.

  “Lucas told me the Holloway girl’s back in town.”

  Croy took a longer sip of his coffee than he’d intended, just so his mug hid any reaction to his dad’s words. Leigh hadn’t been back for very long, but they’d spent a lot of that time together, which was bound to invite speculation from anybody paying attention.

  “Heard you’ve seen her a couple of times,” his dad continued.

  “Yeah, I have.”

  “Also heard she’s engaged.”

  Croy sighed and took another gulp of coffee to buy himself a few seconds. This was his dad and by not sharing Leigh’s news, he risked his father thinking less of him. But it was a small town and it would be too easy for word to get back to Ted and Dianne Holloway, and Leigh would obviously know it had started with him.

  “I had to go Christmas shopping and so did she, Dad. Other than the Aubrey incident, we’ve been friends our entire lives. You know that. And you also know me better than that.” He didn’t lie because he didn’t address the issue of Leigh’s relationship status, but not mentioning the kiss felt like a lie of omission. “We should probably get downstairs.”

  “I do know you better than that. And you’re probably right. Lucas gets cranky when he’s kept waiting. Or crankier, I guess.”

  After downing the rest of his coffee, Croy washed out both cups and then they went down the interior stairs to the restaurant.

  Croy usually loved being there right before it opened for the day. Even though his brothers could really be a pain in the ass, he was proud of what they’d built together. And it grew a little bit more every month, which was good since they’d all given up their jobs to roll the dice on the Center Street Pub.

  Today, though, he had no patience for it all. The sooner they got through this meeting, the sooner they could get ready to open. And maybe, even though she hadn’t said anything, Leigh would stop by.

  There was also a weird vibe today. Lucas was usually sitting at the head of the table where they always sat for the meetings, but today he was on his feet. He wasn’t quite pacing, but he was definitely antsy. Carrie was the only one who was sitting, but she looked even more uncomfortable than usual. She clearly wasn’t sleeping well and Jeff had his hand on her shoulder.

  As he watched, Carrie slowly pushed herself to her feet with a grimace. Jeff said something Croy couldn’t hear, but it made his sister-in-law shake her head.

  “I spend too much time sitting. It’s better if I try to walk a little. You heard the doctor say it doesn’t hurt me to walk as long as I don’t overdo it.”

  “It looks like everybody’s here,” Lucas said when he spotted Croy and their dad. “We can get started, I guess.”

  Croy was surprised his brother wasn’t holding any papers. There was no laptop in sight. He didn’t even have his cell phone in his hand.

  “The TV station called this morning. We won a viewer’s poll for best family-owned pub. It’ll be announced on the six o’clock broadcast and go up on their Facebook page.” When silence greeted his announcement, Lucas scowled. “This is good news.”

  “How the hell did that happen?” their dad asked, and all three of his sons turned to stare at him. “Don’t look at me like that. Of course I know we’re the best family-owned pub in the state, but how did everybody else know?”

  “They set up some kind of poll on social media and we got the most votes.”

  Jeff put his arm around Lucas’s shoulders. “Because I cook the best food.”

  Croy snorted. “Or because my drinks are so good they forget about what they had to eat with them.”

  “Boys,” their dad said. “We’re celebrating.”

  “We’re going to be busy,” Carrie said. “I don’t know how long it’ll last, but we’ll probably see a lot of new faces who are just hearing about us and are curious. And we’re a little out of the way for people Christmas shopping at the outlet mall, but not enough to keep people away who are intrigued by the award.”

  “We’re pretty well stocked,” Jeff said. “I’ll talk to the serving staff about offering recommendations and stuff.”

 
Croy smiled, amused every time Jeff mentioned the serving staff. Jo and Deb were sisters who’d worked at a local restaurant for thirty years, until it burned to the ground the same week the Dawsons signed papers to start the pub and the restaurant owner chose not to rebuild. As frequent customers of the place, in large part because of the service, the Dawson family didn’t bother placing help wanted ads when they opened the pub and offered the job to Jo and Deb instead. They were practically family, but Jeff believed in separation of management and employees, even if one of the employees had once slapped him in the back of the head for finger painting in the condiments when he was a kid.

  “This is exciting,” Lucas said, beaming.

  Croy nodded because, even if nothing else came of the recognition, it was good to see his brother smiling. He’d always been the most serious of the brothers, but he’d taken a turn for the grim since the divorce.

  “We’re going to have to be on the top of our game for the next couple of weeks,” Lucas continued. “Anybody who’s dissatisfied will be more likely to spread it around Facebook because of the award, so we’re going to make sure everybody leaves here happy. Everybody ready to work your asses off?”

  Croy happened to be looking in Carrie’s direction when her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. The color seemed to drain from her face as she turned to look at Jeff.

  “I think my water just broke.”

  * * *

  “I don’t remember you winning this ribbon.” Leigh sighed when her mom held up a dark blue ribbon with a gold number one in the center. “You didn’t play any sports, did you?”

  “I won that in the fifth grade for reading the most books over summer vacation.”

  “Oh, that’s right. If I could go back in time, I’d write on the back of every award and picture so the current me would remember everything.”

  “It was a reading ribbon, Mom. Not that big a deal.”

  Her mom sighed and covered Leigh’s hand with hers. “I told every person I ran into that you read the most books over summer vacation, and I called the friends I didn’t bump into. You’ve always been so smart and yes, I was proud of you. We didn’t have Facebook back then, but if we had, I would have posted a picture of it and then added the entire list of books and then tagged everybody I was friends with.”