Four Christmas Matchmakers

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Pushing aside his desire to take her in his arms and offer his congratulations that way, Cade remained where he was. “Never heard of her.”

  “Well, you will.” Allison compressed her soft lips. “Jennifer Moore is also a single woman in her thirties and she is a fabulous lifestyle influencer and blogger. She’s an oil heiress and a lot more bachelorette and less do-it-yourself-ish than me, but her emphasis is also on living the best life you can. Her blog City Lights has the same core audience and has been growing every bit as fast as mine has.”

  Zeus came into the kitchen, moving faster than usual. He stared at both Allison and Cade, and when they weren’t sure what he was trying to tell them, he nudged the back of Cade’s knee with his nose. Once, and then again. Harder this time.

  “What is it, buddy?” he asked gently.

  Allison added, “Do you need to go outside?”

  Zeus gave a little snort and swiveled his head around, as if directing Cade back in the direction they all had come. The Lab turned and began walking that way, stopped and looked back at them beseechingly, and walked again.

  Perplexed, Cade and Allison both fell into step beside him. It was extremely quiet upstairs again. Nothing was amiss in the living area. Except for... Was that a small puddle of liquid on the foyer floor? Next to the staircase?

  Zeus walked over to it, stood, staring down at it.

  And that was when they both heard the plop, plop, plop of water falling. In tandem, they looked through the front windows. It wasn’t raining outside. Then they turned in the direction Zeus was staring.

  “Oh, no,” Allison gasped, moving toward the staircase that led to the second floor. There, on the edge of the top tread, a river of water flowed.

  Chapter Three

  Allison raced up the staircase, Cade right behind her. As she reached the top, her shoe hit the saturated stair runner and then, in the hall, soggy wall-to-wall carpet.

  Sienna was standing in front of the open linen closet doors, a wet baby doll clutched to her chest, a towel in hand. Jade was in her bedroom, busily taking every item of clothing out of her dresser drawers. Amber was soundlessly emptying her toy bin while Hazel came out of the hall bathroom—a sun hat placed jauntily on her head, a baby doll in her arms, rubber rain boots on her feet.

  “What in the world is going on?” Allison cried.

  Cade leaped to turn off the spigot on the overflowing bathtub as a six-inch-high wall of water escaped out the door into the upstairs hall.

  “Towels!” he ordered, plunging his arm, sport coat and all, into the flooded tub to open up the drain.

  He was of the right mindset, Allison thought. They could sort this all out later. “Girls, help me!” she ordered frantically.

  She began tossing out stacks of towels, throwing some to Cade, others directly onto the bathroom floor and a bunch to the girls themselves. And still water gushed out into the upstairs hall, moving up to their ankles, where she stood.

  “Mop up the water!” Cade instructed, while Zeus watched patiently from down below, as if sensing that if he were to come up, he would only be in the way.

  Finally, the mini-lake of water had dissipated. Once the tub was fully drained, he grabbed the sopping wet towels one at a time and put all twenty or so into the basin.

  “How’s the hall carpet?” he asked Allison.

  “Completely saturated.” To the point she was beginning to wonder if the ceiling below would eventually collapse.

  “We’re going to need help.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, quickly scrolled through. “I’m calling Laramie Restoration.”

  While he explained the situation, Allison headed for the master bathroom. There were another six towels in there. She took them back into the hallway and laid them on the carpet, doing her best to soak up as much moisture as she could. Then she turned to the four girls.

  After removing her own sopping wet shoes, she grabbed four fresh pairs of socks and pants, then ushered the quadruplets, and their baby dolls, downstairs. When everyone was dry again, and sitting in the kitchen, she asked, “What in the world were you all thinking?”

  “We were just playing,” Sienna declared stubbornly.

  “Yeah,” Jade explained, wiggling her toes. “We wanted to take our baby dolls swimming.”

  “Only we couldn’t find our swimsuits, only theirs,” Amber explained, petting Zeus, who had come over to cuddle with her.

  “We were being quiet,” Hazel said, seeming to think that quiet equaled good in this instance.

  Allison buried her face in the palms of her hands.

  Cade appeared in the doorway. Looking big and strong and masculine, he sauntered into the kitchen. “We’re in luck. The restoration company has a crew that can be here in fifteen minutes to suction up any remaining water upstairs. Pull the carpet in the hall. And put out the fans and dehumidifier so everything will dry out.”

  Four sets of eyes turned to the repast Allison had been preparing. “I’m hungry,” Amber declared.

  “Me, too,” Sienna agreed.

  “Can we have some tea?” Jade asked.

  “And drink it like this?” Hazel held out her pinkie and giggled.

  Aware her babysitting gig had started out on an especially disastrous note, Allison nodded wearily and rose. Too late, she realized she should have listened to Cade’s advice when he’d warned her something might be going on with the girls.

  He hung his jacket over the back of a chair and rolled up his damp sleeves to just below the elbow. Then loosened his tie and undid the top button on his dress shirt. “I’m curious,” he said, squinting down at their young charges. “Is this something you would have done if your parents were home?”

  Guilty looks all around. “Well,” Amber finally allowed, speaking for the group, “maybe if we were outside and Mommy said it was okay to get in our baby pool.”

  Hazel accused petulantly, “Allison just said to play nicely. She didn’t say what.”

  “That’s true,” Allison said, burying her face in her hands yet again. And as hard as it was to admit, Cade was right. As an only child who hadn’t babysat since she was a preteen, what did she know about taking care of pre-K quadruplets?

  “Still,” he chastised gently, “I’m guessing you all knew better.”

  Silence fell. Reluctant nods all around.

  Allison got up to bring the platters of tea sandwiches and petits fours to the table, along with six plates and some napkins.

  “So, don’t you think you owe Allison an apology?” he asked.

  More nods. Big sighs. “We’re sorry,” the girls chimed in unison.

  Jade bit her lip. “Are you going to tell our mommy and daddy?”

  Allison looked at Cade. Surprisingly, they were in agreement. “No,” she said solemnly, pouring raspberry lemonade for the girls while Zeus settled in his spot underneath the table. “I’m not going to tell your parents. Not right now. As long as you don’t do anything like this again.”

  The girls exchanged looks. Sober now. “We won’t,” they promised.

  “What about Santa?” Hazel asked. “Are you going to tell him?”

  Allison looked at Cade. Again, she found they were of the same sentiment. “No,” she said.

  The girls breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Because we do not want to be on the Naughty list,” Sienna declared fervently. Her sisters agreed.

  Talk then turned to the general rules of the house when Mommy and Daddy were home. Allison and Cade made sure the girls understood the same standards applied when Sarabeth and Shawn were not home.

  By the time they had finished their tea, the three workers from the restoration company had arrived. Allison bundled up the girls and took them out to the backyard to play, and Cade stayed inside to lend a hand there while the water extraction machinery was utilized. He came to get them when all was cle
ar.

  Allison went upstairs with the girls to inspect the second-floor hallway. The fan and dehumidifier were going. The hall carpeting and padding had been removed, leaving only a wooden subfloor in place.

  “Where are all the towels and the bath mats?” Allison asked.

  “I carried it all down to the laundry room and started a load,” Cade told her.

  She met his gaze, not sure there would ever be words to explain how grateful she was for his calm in the midst of this crisis. Not to mention his lack of judgment or recriminations. “That was helpful,” she praised him sincerely.

  He favored her with a sexy half smile. “I aim to please.”

  Exactly what she’d feared. That this comradery would somehow lead to physical and emotional closeness, and she couldn’t risk being that vulnerable to him again. Not when she’d made a life that was perfect without him in it. Or nearly perfect. “Girls, how about you go to your rooms and begin cleaning up your toys and putting them back in the toy chests? Then I’ll come up to help you with your clothes.”

  As they dispersed to their rooms, Cade and Allison lingered in the upstairs hall. She looked around. “We’re lucky Zeus alerted us and we caught it when we did. Otherwise the ceiling could have collapsed.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  Her pulse raced at the gentle undertone in his low voice. It was hard to imagine how overwhelmed she would have been had he not been here to help. Or how much she enjoyed leaning on those broad shoulders of his again. “Are they going to be able to save the carpet?”

  He walked the length of the hall, inspecting as he went. “Oh, yeah, they just need to dry it out first. The carpet pad underneath will have to be replaced, but that’s not much.” He returned to her side.

  “How much is all this going to cost?”

  He shrugged his brawny shoulders, as self-assured as ever. “I’ve got it covered.”

  She propped her hands on her hips, aware of the fact she was now barefoot, which gave him an eight-inch height advantage. “Cade...”

  He cut her off with a lift of his big calloused palm. “It’s already taken care of.”

  His willingness to take responsibility for something that clearly wasn’t his fault, along with the reminder he had hit the big time while she was still struggling to make it, brought forth a wellspring of humiliation and resentment. “I can’t let you do that.”

  Suddenly seeming a little embarrassed, he said gruffly, “Already done.”

  When she would have continued protesting, he explained, “The owner of the restoration company is a big Texas Wranglers fan. He knows I still have connections with the team, and he agreed to help us out in exchange for a set of tickets for opening night next spring for him and his entire crew. So, I made the call. And it’s done.”

  “Oh.” Of course, he’d been able to play the celebrity card. Why hadn’t she realized that? And why was she allowing the fact that he was still more successful than her, professionally, bother her so? It wasn’t as if he had edged away from her, back when they’d been dating, because she hadn’t been good enough to be on the arm of a major leaguer...was it?

  His voice turned husky with regret. “Besides, if I hadn’t been distracting you, the tub might never have overflowed.”

  Allison wasn’t positive of that. She had been pretty wrapped up in her own world. Preparing tea for her blog. Taking a work phone call...

  “Allison...we need help...” One by one, the girls appeared in the doorway of their bedrooms, their expressions pitiful.

  “I’ll be right there,” she promised. Taking his arm, she guided him in the direction she wanted him to go. “First, I have to walk Cade out.”

  His bicep swelled beneath her fingers. “Sure you don’t want me to stay and assist?” he asked.

  She shook her head and continued escorting him down the stairs. It was far too tempting to lean on him as it was...the way she had when they were young...

  * * *

  Knowing Allison hadn’t really thought this decision out, Cade persisted, “There’s a lot of picking up to do. And I doubt the girls are going to get very far on their own. At least with the organizing of their dresser drawers.”

  Allison sashayed her way back to the laundry room. “You’d be surprised how adept I am at things like that.”

  He imagined he would be surprised about a lot of things.

  She plucked his socks out of the dryer and handed them to him. “Besides, don’t you have plans this evening with some of your arm candy?”

  So she’d heard the talk that he’d had plenty of female visitors from Dallas during the last year, especially when it looked as if he would fully recover from his injury and go back to being the star pitcher he had been. And that he liked to go on group rather than individual dates, because the expectations on him for any kind of intimacy were a lot less.

  He sat down to pull on his socks, then his shoes. “Haven’t been doing that much anymore.”

  She checked her heels, then slipped them on, too. Straightened. “You’re not interested? Or they’re not?”

  He stayed seated. “Both.”

  Silence fell. Was that a gleam of satisfaction and relief in her eyes? And what did it mean if it was? “What about you?” he asked curiously. “Dating anyone in particular?”

  She went about the kitchen, tidying up unnecessarily. “Not that it’s any of your business, but...no.”

  He watched the elegance of her moves. “Why not?” She was certainly gorgeous and accomplished enough to attract plenty of men. Not that he really wanted to see her go out with any of them...

  She threw a damp paper towel into the trash. “Men are unreliable.”

  He tracked the movement of the golden heart pendant, visible in the V-neck of her cashmere sweater just above the hollow of her breasts. “Not all.”

  She met his eyes. Steady now. Resentful. “The ones I have been really interested in have been.”

  Funny, even though it had been years since they had dated, he could swear she was talking about him now.

  Her phone chimed with an incoming text. She pulled it out of her pocket and frowned at the screen. Clearly unhappy.

  The need to protect her was as strong as ever. “Everything okay?”

  Her delicate brow furrowed. “I just got notice a package was delivered to me.” She showed him the view from her front-door security camera.

  He studied it, seeing nothing amiss. “And that’s a problem because...?”

  “I’m not expecting anything, never mind a package from Chef Express marked ‘perishable.’ I mean, what if it belongs to someone else, and it’s their dinner, and they are waiting for it?”

  Certainly possible. Feeling neighborly, too, he asked, “Want me to run over and pick it up for you?”

  For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse, pretty much on principle. Then the reality of her situation seemed to dawn on her. She bit her lip. “Actually, that would be easier, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Anything to give him an excuse to spend more time with her. He winked. “Be back in a jiff,” he promised before slipping out the door.

  When Cade returned, ten minutes later, the girls had apparently finished straightening upstairs and were settled around the living room coffee table, playing a game of Candy Land.

  They were so engrossed in what they were doing, they barely looked up as he carried the shipping box into the house for Allison. Seeing that it was indeed addressed to her, she frowned in confusion and waved him toward the kitchen.

  Once there, she set the box on the breakfast room table. She cut through the clear package tape. Inside the cardboard box was a Styrofoam cooler with all the meal ingredients, along with a large gift envelope.

  As she opened it and read the card, her expression was so stunned he couldn’t help but ask, “Who is it from?”

 
; “Laurel Grimes and Tripp Taylor, the executives from HITN.”

  The beneficiary of many such business gifts himself, he shrugged. “That’s nice.”

  Her expression tightened with apprehension. “It’s not a gift.” She looked up at him. “This is my first test in the job interview process. They want to see how I operate under pressure. They’re going to be contacting me in less than an hour, and they expect me to prepare the dinner in this box, in my cottage kitchen, while they simultaneously interview me via Skype.”

  Cade almost laughed, the notion was so ludicrous. Except it was no joke. She really was expected to do this. With very little notice, no less. Yet she already seemed up to the challenge. “You don’t seem all that surprised by the request,” he remarked.

  Allison peered around the corner, checking to see if the girls were still well occupied with their board game. Reassured that they were, she returned to his side to continue talking to him in private. “Laurel Grimes warned me...when we first started talking...that the competition for this slot was going to be fierce and I was going to have to prove myself, time and time again, if I wanted it.” She shook her head amiably. “I guess this was what she meant.”

  He watched her look through the packets of meal ingredients and color-photo instructions. “What about the kids?”

  Allison replaced the ice packs and put the top back on the cooler. “Well, normally I would just take them with me to my cottage if I had to do something for my work, but...”

  He lounged against the counter, watching as Allison packed up her laptop computer, video equipment and camera. “It’d be a little hard to cook while answering questions during a Skyped job interview, and still keep an eye on them.”

  “Exactly,” she murmured, sliding her cell phone into her shoulder bag. “In that sense...because I’m babysitting,” she admitted ruefully, checking her watch, “this opportunity couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

  And yet she was dealing with it, he noted with admiration.

  She squared her slender shoulders, looked him in the eye and went on resolutely, “But the good news is you’re here, and the girls apparently adore you, and you already wanted to be more involved this weekend. And Sarabeth and Shawn wanted that, too. So...if you’re still ready, willing and able to help watch them for a little bit, it’s all good. Right?”