Mistletoe Bay

by Marcia Evanick

  “Really?” Now, that the boys would love.

  “What has you hesitating, Jenni? The sleeping arrangements?” Coop softly raised her hand and placed a kiss in the center of the palm. “There’s one bedroom there, Jen. It’s yours. As much as I would love to be sharing it with you, I understand. The boys and I will be bunking down upstairs. The entire second floor of the cabin is wall-to-wall beds, and an occasional dresser thrown between them for clothes. If I was looking for a romantic weekend getaway, I wouldn’t be inviting the boys.”

  Okay, that answered that question. But there were still a million more. She gazed into his dark brown eyes and tried to find those answers. She couldn’t.

  “What is it, Jen?” Coop squeezed her hand. “What has you so concerned? The fact that we haven’t known each other for that long of a time? What’s it been, six weeks?”

  “Halloween. I met you on Halloween.” She remembered that horrible afternoon when she had been covered in pink shaving cream and dirt. “You fixed the porch post.” He was right, it had been only six weeks, but it seemed longer. What would she do without him in her and the boys’ lives? He had rescued Tucker from the roof and found Corey when he had wandered off. Coop had even helped Chase with his homework tonight while she gave Tucker and Corey their baths.

  For the first time in over two years, she felt like a woman. A desirable woman. Cooper Armstrong had given her that gift.

  “The roof was about to cave in on your heads.” Coop brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

  “You were very sweet.”

  “Were?”

  “Are. You are very sweet.” She leaned forward and placed a quick kiss on his mouth. “Did I ever thank you properly for fixing that post?” She loved the way Coop’s eyes darkened when he stared at her mouth, something he did all the time.

  “No, but Dorothy gave me cookies.”

  “So you’re satisfied with sugar cookies?” Her fingers teased their way up his arm. Coop had rolled up the sleeves of his green flannel shirt, and she toyed with the dark feathering of curls on his forearms. Her breath hitched as she remembered the way the hair on his chest had felt beneath her fingers last night.

  “I was satisfied last night”—Coop leaned forward and brushed her lower lip with his mouth—“twice.”

  She smiled against his mouth. “Hmmmm.” She remembered every vivid detail of their first night together, including the part where she’d had to leave his warm bed to go back home to her boys. Her boys needed her. They were her top priority in life, but darn, it had been so hard to step back outside into a snowstorm. “You do know that can’t happen very often.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Coop’s mouth skimmed her jaw. “With you in my bed, I think it has a very good chance of happening quite often.”

  She chuckled. “I wasn’t referring to that, even though that’s a very nice compliment.” Coop did amazing things to her self-confidence in that department. She’d never considered herself a sexy or desirable woman before. She had a mirror; she knew she wasn’t ugly or repulsive. But sexy? Never. Jennifer Wright was a typical girl next door, or in reality the mother of three hooligans who lived next door.

  “What were you referring to?” Coop gave a playful nip to her earlobe and then moved away.

  “The boys.” She curled her feet up under her and reached for her now-cold cup of coffee. She drank it anyway. She was used to drinking it cold. “I don’t like leaving them like that, Coop. They don’t understand dating and being left at home with Dorothy or Felicity. This morning Tucker wanted to know why he couldn’t have come to dinner at your house with me. He thought you didn’t like him.”

  “Of course I like him.” Coop frowned. “What did you tell him?”

  “That of course you liked him.” She grinned. “I tried explaining how adults like to have some alone time, to talk about things only adults like to talk about, and to watch adult movies, but I don’t think he got it.” She twirled the empty coffee cup around in her hands. “I know you understand that I come with three boys, Coop. Do you really understand what that means?”

  “I will be the first to admit that I never dated a woman with children before, Jen. But, then, I never met you before.” Coop brushed her mouth with a slow kiss. “I understand they are a huge part of your life.”

  “Huge?” She tried not to roll her eyes. “They are my life.”

  “What about Dorothy? Isn’t she part of your life?”

  “Of course she is.” What a stupid question.

  “And Felicity?”

  “Don’t be stupid.” What was Coop trying to say?

  “What about your company, Mistletoe Bay? They are all part of who you are, Jen. You’re not just the boys.”

  Okay, he’d made his point. “Aren’t you afraid to date a woman with three kids?” Any sane man would be running in the opposite direction as fast as he could. And that would be before he met Tucker.

  “I knew you had three kids before I asked you out. I would have asked you out if you had ten kids, Jen.” Coop’s palm cupped her cheek. “Don’t you understand that what I’m feeling for you is that strong?”

  “The boys don’t scare you?”

  “Spitless, but they are part of you.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “They aren’t a complication, unless you make them one, Jen.”

  “Okay.” She grinned. “If you wouldn’t mind being spitless for the weekend, we’ll go.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. But we can’t go until after Christmas. There’s just too much to do before then. There’s the house to decorate, baking to be done, the business, Chase has to practice his role of an elf for the school play, shopping, the—”

  Coop’s kiss not only effectively stopped her from listing the thousand things that had to get done, it shut down her brain, leaving only the sensations of touch and desire.

  Dorothy bustled around the kitchen singing along with the radio playing in the other room. Eli had turned his radio to a channel that was playing nothing but Christmas songs while he repaired the plaster walls, getting them ready for the wallpaper she and Jenni had picked out. It was the perfect evening to start her holiday baking and admire a strong set of shoulders.

  Things were really shaping up in the Wright household. The dining room was being done, and Pete had finished all the tile work in her bathroom. The room was going to be gorgeous and she couldn’t wait to use it. Showering with Buster the turtle staring at her bare bottom was unnerving, to say the least.

  Eli had brought the girls over to help with the baking while he worked on the walls. Hope and Faith were lovely girls, but they wouldn’t be much help in the kitchen. Neither knew anything about cooking, except what they had learned in school in home economics class, or whatever they were calling it nowadays. Although both girls knew there were three teaspoons in a tablespoon, neither knew how to sift flour.

  Well, they’d come to the right place. It wasn’t their fault that their mother had deserted them, horrible woman that she must have been. What kind of mother sent her kids off to school one morning, packed her bags, and left behind a hastily scribbled note and arrangements with a neighbor to watch the kids until their father got home from work? Eli had been blindsided by the desertion and the knowledge his wife had been having an affair for the past two years, but he’d held it together. It had been poor Faith, the younger girl, who had been traumatized by the whole thing. It had been Faith’s first day of school.

  Dorothy yanked her baking sheets out of the top cabinet with a little more force than necessary. If she ever met up with Eli’s ex-wife, she’d throttle the woman.

  “Can I help you get them?” Hope, who was taller than Dorothy, tried to take the trays from her. Hope had her father’s height but probably her mother’s coloring, like Sam. Sam and Hope both had rich brown hair and deep brown eyes, while Faith, who also inherited their father’s height, had his coloring of blond hair and blue eyes.


  “Thanks, but I’ve got them.” She pushed those dark thoughts away and got down to business—cookie business. “Okay, you two, you each get to choose what kind of cookies you want to bake tonight.” She pointed to the counter. “See that list? Each of you pick one.”

  This morning she had dropped the boys off at day care, and then spent the next three hours shopping. Her first stop had been Krup’s General Store, where she had made a very impulsive buy. She had purchased eight plastic reindeers, a sleigh, and Santa himself. Thankfully a stock boy had come out and secured a couple of the boxes to the top of her SUV because they all couldn’t fit inside.

  Her grandsons had loved them on sight and wanted them up immediately. They all lit up and were supposed to go on the roof of the house. That idea had been vetoed by every male at dinner. The reindeers and Santa were going up on the porch roof this very minute. Coop and Sam were on the roof, with Felicity and Jenni doing the supervising from the front yard. The boys were all outside completing a snow fort by spotlight and keeping an eye on the grownups.

  Not that Jenni and Coop would be doing anything questionable in front of the boys. It was Dorothy’s own daughter and Sam who were turning her neatly highlighted hair grayer. They were growing entirely too close. They were too young to be in such a serious relationship. Both had their entire lives before them. It was time to have another serious talk with her daughter, or else she would be spending every free moment for the next several years in Estelle’s Beauty Salon getting rid of the gray.

  “Wow!” gushed Faith. “You can make all these kinds of cookies?”

  “I can bake any kind of cookie that has a recipe, and some that don’t.” She wasn’t tooting her own horn, but when it came to her passion, cooking, she knew her stuff.

  Eli walked into the kitchen and smiled at the way his two daughters were hugging either side of Dorothy while they went over the list. “How about those orange ones with white chips in them?”

  “Orange ones?” Dorothy smiled over at the man standing in the doorway wielding a tool covered in wet plaster. She refused to acknowledge the sudden heat that clutched her gut. Lord, he was magnificent, and he was in her kitchen asking for cookies. How could she refuse? “Orange as in color, or taste? What are they called?” She racked her brain for an orange cookie recipe.

  “I don’t know.” Eli frowned, causing her heart to flutter. “One of the other mechanics’ wife brought some in last year. They were the best cookies I ever tasted.”

  She raised a brow at that.

  “I mean besides yours, Dorothy, my sweet.” Eli flashed a boyish grin. “Do you want me to call her and ask what they’re called?”

  Both of his daughters giggled.

  “No, just tell me what they tasted like.” She glanced at the one open shelf in the kitchen. About thirty of her cookbooks were jammed onto it. The rest of her cookbook collection was upstairs in a bookcase in her bedroom. She pored over cookbooks like Felicity poured over fashion magazines.

  “Those ice cream bars.” Eli looked like he was concentrating. “You know the ones, they’re orange on the outside and have white creamy stuff on the inside.”

  “Orangecicles?”

  “Those are the ones.” Eli flashed her a heated look that melted her knees.

  “If you have our dining room done in time for our Christmas Eve meal, I’ll serve Orangecicle cookies for dessert.” She’d never heard of them, but there wasn’t a recipe she couldn’t find.

  “I take it we’re invited for Christmas Eve dinner?” Eli looked hopeful.

  “Smooth, Dad,” groused Hope with a roll of her eyes. “Why don’t you just kiss her and get it over with?”

  Dorothy flushed a brilliant scarlet as she stared at the girl. Was what she felt for Eli that apparent?

  “Hope, apologize to Ms. Wright. You just embarrassed her.” Eli frowned at his eldest daughter.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Wright.” Hope looked to be the embarrassed one now.

  “It’s okay, and call me Dorothy, please.” She refused to turn around and face Eli. “Your father isn’t interested in me that way, Hope. He’s only after my cooking.” She gave the girl a big smile and winked. “Besides, I’m much too old for your father.”

  Hope looked unsure about that and Eli muttered something under his breath as he left the room and went back to the plaster.

  “Now, which batch of cookies do we do first?” She didn’t want to think about Eli or kissing. “Faith, you get to pick the first batch.” She reached into the pantry and started to pull out the flour and the sugar while the girls made up their minds.

  Felicity walked into the house and couldn’t believe it. She smelled cookies baking. Her mother had started baking the Christmas cookies without her. Impossible. It was their tradition. She had baked the holiday treats with her mother ever since she could remember. Hell, she probably had been rolling dough in her high chair.

  She hurried to the kitchen and stared in shock. There was her mother, singing Christmas carols, off-key as usual, with Hope and Faith right beside her. Peanut butter cookies were cooling on racks and they were loading up the trays with chocolate-chocolate chip—her favorite. Her mother knew they were her favorite.

  “Felicity,” cried Faith, “look what your mom is teaching us to do.” Faith looked so pleased and thrilled with herself. There was a swipe of flour across the young girl’s cheek, and half a pound of it on her clothes. Faith looked like she had been rolling around in the stuff.

  Felicity didn’t blame Faith or Hope for baking the cookies and ruining the one holiday tradition she had thought wouldn’t change. Her nephews were still too little to be baking cookies. She blamed her mother.

  Her own mother was replacing her.

  “Felicity, do you want to help?” Hope carefully and precisely placed the next mound of cookie dough onto the baking sheet in front of her. “Your mom said we have time for one more batch.”

  She felt her throat work, but no words were coming out.

  “Felicity?” Dorothy glanced at her daughter with concern. “What’s wrong?” She dropped the spatula she had been using to scrape the bowl and walked toward her. “Are you all right?”

  Tears filled her eyes. No, she wasn’t all right. Suddenly she felt sick to her stomach. If her mother wanted to bake cookies with Sam’s sisters, well, fine. Let her. “I’m coming down with something.” It was the truth. “I think I’ll go to bed now. Tell Sam I said goodnight.” She ran from the room and up the steps as fast as she could.

  She could hear her mother calling her name, but she didn’t slow down until she was in the bathroom and slamming the door. If they thought she was sick, her mother would give her the privacy.

  The whole family was going insane. She purposely had come in from outside to see if her mother wanted to bake a batch of cookies for the guys. Coop and Sam were freezing their butts off putting up the reindeer and sled her mother had bought this morning. She personally thought they were stupid-looking, but the boys thought they were cool, so who was she to spoil Christmas for her nephews?

  Someone had to enjoy this festive holiday season, because it sure wasn’t going to be her.

  Tears poured down her cheeks as she sat on the side of the tub. The one thing she had been looking forward to was baking cookies and listening to her mother try to sing. It was the one happy memory she had of the holiday season. And now it was gone.

  She reached for a tissue and glared at Buster, who was in the tub munching on a piece of lettuce. Buster ducked his wrinkled old head back into his shell as soon as he saw her watching him.

  Great, freaking great. Not even the stupid turtle wanted her there.

  “Dorothy, please sit down. Relax for a moment. The kitchen can wait. It’s been a long day. I’ll help clean up in a minute, just let me sit for moment.” Jenni was tired, sore, and worried. “I think we need to talk.”

  The house was in shambles. Between the dining room furniture, boxes of decorations, and tins of cookies, she could bar
ely walk from room to room. Her legs ached from being up on them all day making soap. She had a headache from the smell of polyurethane and Tucker’s endless list of stuff he wanted from Santa. But more important, her body longed for Coop. She wanted nothing more than to spend a week in his bed. A few quick kisses under the mistletoe were only frustrating her more.

  “About?” Dorothy grabbed the last cup of decaf in the coffeemaker and sat. The kitchen and the rest of the house smelled like polyurethane. Eli had finished with the dining room floors tonight. All they had to do was wait until they were dried, and then they could wallpaper and move the furniture back in. Christmas Eve dinner was definitely going to be in the formal dining room.

  “Felicity. I’m worried about her.” Jenni frowned when she thought about her niece. “She’s not acting like herself. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “She said she was coming down with something. I checked on her earlier, and she wasn’t running a temperature. Maybe she and Sam are having a fight.”

  “I think Sam’s concerned too, but he’s not saying anything.” Felicity had been awfully quiet today in the shop. Usually she and the two new girls she had hired part time were nonstop chatter and laughter. Three nights ago Felicity had said she was coming down with something. Whatever it was, her sister-in-law should have had it by now.

  She had bid Coop a quick goodnight so she could go to Felicity, but the girl had already been in bed—not at all like her late-night self. Maybe they should make a doctor’s appointment.

  “Sam’s just worried that football season is now over, and he’s not the star of the basketball team like he had been on the football team.” Dorothy drank her coffee.

  “You don’t like Sam, do you?” She knew her mother-in-law wasn’t thrilled with how close Sam and Felicity seemed to have become, but she had thought Dorothy had finally accepted the fact that her baby was growing up.