A Mommy for Christmas

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “That would be great,” he told her gratefully. He strode over to the sofa, where Sophie lay curled up on the throw pillows, her favorite baby doll in her arms. He hunkered down beside her and patted her shoulder consolingly. “Holly’s here, sweetheart. So I’m going to take off.”

  Sophie’s lower lip curled out and she demanded pitifully, “I want to go to bed, Daddy.”

  “All right. I’ll get you tucked in….”

  “No! I want Holly to do it.” Sophie coughed until she could barely catch her breath. Her nose ran and her eyes watered. The little girl was clearly miserable, and Holly’s heart went out to her. “That darn cedar pollen,” Holly said sympathetically. “It gets you every year.” And it had been really stirred up by the winds the night before.

  “I know.” Sophie sniffed again and lifted her hands, signaling that she wanted to be carried.

  Travis hoisted her into his strong arms, and she dropped her head in the curve of his neck. “I want Holly to carry me,” she protested weakly.

  Travis shook his head. “You’re too heavy, sweetheart.”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Holly promised. Sophie coughed again, harder this time, her congestion evident. “You still have a vaporizer?”

  “Yep.” Travis strode down the hall and deposited his daughter on the white trundle bed in her room. He stepped back to let Holly take over. “I’ll get it out for you.”

  She drew back the pink-and-white covers, and Sophie climbed beneath them. Holly grabbed a tissue from the container on the bedside table and gently wiped the moisture from beneath the child’s nose.

  “You always make me feel better.” Sophie flashed a wan smile.

  “Being around you always makes me feel better, too,” she said with a burst of maternal love. She tucked the covers around the little girl.

  Travis came back in carrying the vaporizer, he set it atop the bureau and plugged it in. The muted sound of the motor and a whoosh of cool moist air immediately followed. “That’s going to help you feel better,” he promised. Then he looked at Sophie. “Anything else you want me to get you while I’m at the drugstore?”

  “No.” His daughter snuggled next to Holly and held her hand tightly. “I have a mommy to make me feel better. That’s all I need, Daddy.”

  SOPHIE’S WORDS WERE LIKE a blow to Travis’s heart, bringing up every anxiety he had ever had about parenting his two little girls on his own. From the look in her eyes, Holly seemed equally taken aback, unsure what to say. Because he had no clue, either, Travis simply nodded in understanding and headed off for the pharmacy.

  When he returned twenty minutes later, medicine in hand, the younger kids were still coloring, laughing and talking. Holly was upstairs with Sophie, propped against the headboard, reading to his daughter.

  And while his little girl still looked physically miserable, emotionally she was much better off. Feeling a bit frustrated that he hadn’t been able to reassure her himself, Travis measured the medicine in the little plastic cup, stood by while she drank it, then handed her the juice box chaser that would kill the yucky taste of the antihistamine decongestant mix.

  “Can Holly spend the night with us?” Sophie asked.

  “No, honey, I can’t,” she said, keeping her glance averted from his. “But I can stay a little longer this afternoon if it’s okay with your daddy.”

  “It’s great with me,” he agreed, letting his tone tell Holly how much he appreciated her being there, since she still wouldn’t look him in the eye. Probably because she was afraid she’d give too much away if she did. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” he said.

  Both of them nodded. Judging by the silence that followed, he would barely be missed.

  A half hour later, Holly came downstairs and said hello to the kids, who were now congregated in the family room, busily rearranging all the kid-safe decorations on the lower limbs of the Christmas tree.

  She moseyed over to the kitchen, where Travis was sitting. “You doing okay?” she asked softly.

  Nodding, he gestured to the laptop computer in front of him. “I’ve been ordering Christmas gifts online.”

  Holly’s eyes lit up with comically exaggerated excitement. She pulled a stool next to him, propped her chin on her hand. “Anything for me?”

  “We doing what we did last year? One gift each, with a ten-dollar limit?”

  Which had translated to gag gifts that related back to the kids—a reusable ice pack in an elastic-bandage sleeve from him, and a giant box of cartoon character Band-aids from her.

  She studied him now, an inscrutable expression on her pretty face. “Is that what you want?”

  Much seemed to be hinging on his answer. Wary of making a mistake that would take them off the track they were on, Travis pretended the kind of indecision he rarely felt. “I don’t know. Let me think about it,” he drawled.

  But Holly wouldn’t let it go, any more than she had been able to keep from kissing him back the night before.

  “Meaning what? You want us to stop giving gifts to each other?” she teased.

  Other direction, Travis thought, knowing that, once again, much hinged on his answer. Since he rarely lost when he went after what he wanted, he looked her square in the eye. “Actually…I’m thinking maybe it’s time we started giving each other gifts on a par with what we really mean to each other.”

  “SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED to make from a comment like that?” Holly asked Alexis Graham McCabe the next afternoon. A matchmaker by trade, Alexis was also Grady McCabe’s wife, and one of Holly’s best female friends.

  Alexis lifted a hand. “First—did you agree to up the ante on the gifts?”

  “Well, yes. It would have seemed wrong not to, given all he and I and our kids have come to mean to each other,” Holly admitted self-consciously. Not that she had a clue what she was going to give Travis, or he her. “Now back to my question. What am I supposed to infer from him making a move like that?” she demanded, still feeling off-kilter from the numerous changes Travis kept throwing her way. Big or little, it didn’t seem to matter—every alteration left her feeling as if she was no longer in charge of the direction of her life. She hadn’t felt that way since she had been married to Cliff, and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling, now or then.

  “What do you want to infer from it?” Alexis asked with a wry grin, from behind her sleek glass-and-chrome desk at Foreverlove.com.

  “Well, I don’t know!” Too restless to sit, Holly paced around the room.

  Alexis stood, too, and moved over to join her at the window overlooking downtown Fort Worth. “Sure you do,” she said gently.

  Holly turned back to her friend. These days, Alexis had it all. A stepdaughter who adored her, a husband who loved her more than life, a thriving career and a baby on the way.

  “What exactly is your relationship with Travis?” Alexis walked to the festive jar of peppermint bark on her console and wordlessly offered Holly the yuletide treat.

  She shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  “You seem to be more than casual friends,” Alexis noted.

  “We’re best friends.”

  “And…?” Alexis munched on a piece of candy, waiting.

  Holly blushed as she thought about the kisses she and Travis had shared. “What are you fishing for?” she snapped, shocked and embarrassed by how much the embraces had meant to her.

  Alexis straightened a stack of holiday cards from satisfied clients, then settled on the arm of a love seat, assessing Holly with a professional eye. “What do you want your relationship with Travis to be? Do you want to be romantically involved with him?”

  Holly flushed even more as an image popped into her head of her and Travis in bed, locked in each other’s arms. “Romance is a tricky thing to sustain.” She had failed miserably at it before.

  “Not when true love is involved. And if you want my professional opinion, I think you and Travis have enough chemistry to light up every Christmas tree in the Lone Star State!”r />
  Holly suspected that, too. “The thing is, he was really in love with Diana, his late wife. To the point that when I first met him I didn’t know if he would ever get over losing her.” Holly didn’t want to compete with that.

  Alexis understood. “It took me a long time to grieve the loss of my late husband, too. And while I’ll always have a special place for Scott in my heart, eventually I knew it was time to move on, to really start living again. And that’s when I met Grady, and everything changed in the most wonderful and amazing ways.” She paused. “I know it’s different for you. You’re divorced. But getting over that kind of loss takes grieving, too. Looking at you today, I think you’ve finally done that.”

  Holly had. She tilted her head, attempting to lighten the mood. “Are you trying to fix me up?”

  Alexis grinned and adjusted the star atop the tabletop Christmas tree in her office. “Are you in the market for a matchmaker?”

  “No,” Holly murmured. I already know the man I want. The question was, did she have the guts to go after him? And what if she risked everything, only to fail, just as she had before, when she was married to Cliff?

  Alexis continued studying her. “If I may offer a word of advice…”

  Holly could use an objective opinion from a friend. And if there was anything Alexis was an expert on, it was man-woman relationships. “Please do.”

  “I know you’re hesitant to rock the boat. I can’t blame you. Your life, in many ways, is perfect right now.”

  And lacking in others, Holly thought, recalling how she’d felt when Travis kissed her, and the restlessness she’d felt ever since.

  “But in my experience people in situations like these get closer, or they drift apart. I’ve never seen two people sustain a platonic relationship at the level of intimacy you and Travis have, without one of you eventually wanting more and taking it to the next level, or getting frustrated if it doesn’t happen,” Alexis warned. “And when that occurs, well, it usually signals the end of the friendship as they knew it.”

  Disappointment spiraled through Holly. “So you’re saying?” she asked, feeling anxious again.

  “I think this is one of the times when you need to consider which direction you really want your life to go. And then act accordingly.”

  “HOW DID YOUR MEETING with Alexis go?” Travis asked later that afternoon, when Holly went over to his home to collect her two kids.

  Their shared nanny, Mrs. Ruley, waved on the way out the door.

  “Great,” Holly said. Alexis had given her a lot to think about. Plus things had gone well from a business perspective. “She really liked my proposed mural of the characters from the Beatrix Potter books for their nursery.”

  “I’m not surprised. The preliminary sketches you showed me yesterday were really sweet. Just like the artist.”

  Were they flirting? Holly blushed. Apparently, they were.

  “And speaking of sketches…” Travis grabbed hold of her wrist. He eyed the kids, who were all entranced in building a play village on the family room floor. Then he tugged her wordlessly into the walk-in pantry. “I need sketches, too,” he whispered as they cleared the portal.

  “Of what?” Holly playfully whispered back.

  He mocked her with a look, clearly impatient for them to get on the same page. “The playhouse and the spaceship,” he explained. “I talked to Dan. He’s going to have one of his architectural interns draw up the plans tomorrow, so my crew can start building it immediately. First, we have to know what they’re supposed to look like. So…can you do it this evening after the kids are in bed, and get them to me in supersecret fashion?”

  She grinned. Supersecret, indeed. “Yes, of course,” she said dryly.

  He hadn’t needed to tug her into the walk-in pantry to ask her that! But now that he had…Holly gazed up at him and her lips parted. His mouth lowered at approximately the same time two tiny hands clamped around their legs.

  Holly looked down and saw Tucker standing between them, with a curious expression on his face. “Whatcha two doing?” he asked.

  “Talking,” Travis replied innocently.

  “About what?” Tristan demanded.

  “About secret Christmas things!” Travis confessed, hoisting both little boys in his arms.

  “I want to know about the Christmas secrets!” Sophie raced to join them, with Mia on her heels.

  “Me, too!” her sister cried.

  “Well,” Travis said with great drama, “Holly and I were thinking that maybe…” he paused, and Holly could tell he was doing this on the fly, trying to come up with something good.

  “You kids should give each other Christmas presents this year!”

  “Hurrah! Presents!” they all shouted.

  “And that means we’re all going to have to do some Christmas shopping this weekend,” Holly continued.

  “Sounds good to me,” Travis said. He winked at her and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Great save!”

  Yet another example of what a good team they made.

  THAT EVENING, LONG AFTER the kids were sound asleep in their beds, Travis and Holly met in the side yard between their two houses. Up and down the pastoral suburban street, exterior lights twinkled and decorations added a festive air. Overhead, the black velvet sky was lit up with hundreds of stars and a beautiful crescent moon. The scent of wood smoke and the faint aroma of baking sugar cookies filled the air.

  Holly shivered in the light coat she had thrown on, while Travis studied by flashlight the sketches she had done. “I really like all the fancy stuff on the exterior of the playhouse,” he said. “And this spaceship is going to be phenomenal.”

  “I thought we’d furnish the playhouse with a table and chairs and maybe a little kitchen set. And have bench seats and a control panel in the spaceship. Maybe a steering wheel or two in front of the Plexiglas window, so they can really feel they’re flying the ship.”

  Travis shook his head in admiration. “I knew you would come up with something great.”

  She flushed, basking in his praise. “You’re the one who’s going to be building it.”

  He shrugged. “With help from some of the apprentices who work for me.”

  Holly knew he’d be hands-on in making sure they got what they wanted for their kids. “In any case, it’s going to be a Christmas to remember.” It was still two weeks away and the children were already so excited!

  “Yes. It is.”

  Travis carefully slid the sketches into the Carson Construction folder he had brought with him, and took them over to his SUV. When he returned, he appreciatively inhaled the aroma wafting on the air. “We are definitely going to have to bake some cookies soon,” he said.

  Holly laughed. Those cookies did smell good. “Maybe this weekend.”

  “Speaking of which…” Travis smiled. “Grady and Alexis are having the holiday potluck for our social group at their house, and they would really like you and the boys to come. During the party, Grady’s daughter, Savannah, is hosting a ‘movie and game night’ for the other little kids—and also a sleepover for any child who wants to stay on.” He searched Holly’s eyes. “So what do you say? Saturday? Four o’clock? All you have to do is show up with a casserole or something. We could carpool if you like.”

  “Actually, Alexis already mentioned it, earlier today.”

  “And…?”

  “I told her the kids and I would love to come,” she replied.

  Travis grinned, as aware as she was that with sleeping children inside their homes, they really needed to get back. “Too bad we can’t just run away and do something completely reckless and irresponsible right now,” he whispered.

  Indeed. “Ah, well,” Holly murmured, wishing she could give in to impulse and kiss him again. “Duty calls.” She marshaled her common sense and, with one last, wistful look, started to turn away.

  “You’re right,” Travis agreed. “But before it does…” He encircled her wrist with his fingers and tugged her to
ward him. When she collided with his chest, he wrapped one arm around her waist and threaded his other hand through her hair. “How about this?”

  The next thing she knew, his lips were on hers—and once again she was reminded of how much she had been missing ever since the twins were born. Friendship and teamwork could satisfy her only so far. She knew continuing down this road would be risky, but he tasted and felt so good, so undeniably hot and male. Desire made her tremble inside and she thrilled at the sensation of his deep, mesmerizing kisses. Warmth swept through her and still they kissed, until her pulse hammered in her ears and she could hardly catch her breath.

  She was throbbing when they slowly drew apart at last. Holly looked up at Travis as a car turned into the driveway across the street, ending their private moment.

  “I never felt this much like a teenager when I was a teenager,” she confessed, wishing their make-out session didn’t have to end.

  “Me, either,” Travis agreed, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to take her to bed and keep her there. “But I like it,” he murmured quietly but honestly.

  Holly grinned, figuring this once that she would say exactly what was on her mind. “So do I.”

  Chapter Five

  Holly strode into the preschool Monday afternoon, still perplexed about the request that she stop by as soon as possible to discuss the morning’s activities. It was three o’clock and all the students had gone home. A film crew from the local television station was set up in the gymnasium, near the stage that had been decorated to look like Santa’s home at the North Pole. It looked like they were wrapping up.

  She turned to search out the twins’ teacher, Ms. Garland, and ran smack-dab into Travis. Seeing him here was both a relief and a worry. He narrowed his eyes in concern, looking just as confused as she felt. “Did the school call you, too?”

  Holly nodded. She stepped close enough so they could confer without being overheard. “Ms. Garland said they had something they wanted me to see.”

  “Same here.” Travis frowned and ran the flat of his hand across his smoothly shaved jaw. “I got a call from Sophie’s teacher as well as Mia’s.”