Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: The Maverick's Thanksgiving BabyA Celebration ChristmasDr. Daddy's Perfect Christmas

by Brenda Harlen

“May I ask you a personal question?” he asked.

  Her breath caught. Personal? That certainly didn’t sound like small talk about the tree or the weather.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Why aren’t you married with kids of your own?”

  She felt herself flinch.

  He must’ve noticed, because he turned his attention back to the tree and said, “You just seem like the kind of woman who’d be married with a family of her own. Like someone would’ve snapped you up by now. Now that I’ve said that out loud, it sounds way too personal. I’m sorry. Pretend I didn’t ask.”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  Well, she did. Sort of. It wasn’t exactly her favorite subject to talk about, but she’d wanted a real conversation and this was their first one of substance. She wasn’t about to go back to shallow.

  “Honestly, I thought I’d be married by now. I should’ve been. I was engaged. I was supposed to get married last fall, but it didn’t work out.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But if you want to know the truth if it wasn’t going to work out, it’s better you found out sooner rather than later.”

  “Do we speak from experience?”

  “Yes, I do. I was married once and it didn’t work out. Divorce is hard. When the relationship isn’t right, someone always gets hurt.”

  “Was that someone you?”

  The answer was written all over his face.

  It was her turn to say, “Now I’m getting too personal. You don’t have to answer that.”

  He smiled, but she saw the sadness in his eyes. “You were forthright with me—”

  “Hey, Uncle Cullen and Lily, come here.”

  Lily looked up and saw Bridget motioning them toward a cluster of Fraser firs. “I want to show you something.”

  “Lucky you,” she said. “Saved by the kiddo. You’re off the hook for now. But this conversation is to be continued.”

  He gave her a warmer smile this time as he returned the tree back to the display. “Somehow I know you’re going to hold me to that, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I will.”

  She and Cullen joined Bridget, who was with Megan, who had appeared from behind one of the trees.

  “Uncle Cullen, what is this down here?” The older girl pointed to something under the tree.

  Hannah clasped both hands over her mouth, but the gesture didn’t contain her giggle.

  What were they up to? Something was going on.

  “I don’t see what you’re talking about,” said Cullen.

  “Lily, you see it, don’t you?” The girl pointed and scowled seriously as if the unknown object was very important. “Here, look closer.”

  The girl crouched down and pointed under the tree.

  Lily and Cullen exchanged bemused glances, and together they bent down to see if they could get a better look at whatever it was that had the kids so perplexed.

  Suddenly they heard a thud behind them. George had appeared from somewhere and was holding a small green branch over their heads.

  “Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!” Hannah sang as she jumped up and down.

  “It’s mistletoe,” Bridget exclaimed.

  “Now you have to kiss,” Megan said smugly. “If you don’t, it’s like you’ll be breaking the rules of Christmas.”

  For one breathtaking moment, Lily’s gaze locked with Cullen’s and time stood still.

  Something flickered in his eyes.

  He was going to kiss her.

  She wanted him to kiss her.

  But the sound of a ringing cell phone broke the spell. Lily flinched and pulled back, mortified by what she’d almost let happen.

  “You’d better answer that,” she said.

  It might be Giselle.

  Women like that always had impeccable timing.

  Before Cullen pushed the button to pick up the call, he leaned in and dusted her lips with a featherlight kiss.

  “We don’t want to break the rules of Christmas, do we?”

  Chapter Five

  It was one of those days.

  No, it was worse. Lily had never had a day when quite so many things had gone wrong. Cullen had been distant when she got to work that morning. Or maybe she’d been the distant one. The kiss, even as chaste as it was, had left them in an awkward place.

  After he kissed her, he’d walked away to take his call. Lily had stayed with the kids, distracting them from their whooping and hollering delight over their successful prank. She’d reminded herself that was all the kiss had been: the product of a prank.

  A prank that had suddenly made everything awkward.

  And that had set the tone for the day. After Cullen had nearly fallen all over himself to get out the door to work, Lily loaded the kids into the rented SUV and drove George to the community center to get him signed up for the basketball camp. He’d already missed three days of it. So she’d wanted to get him there as soon as possible.

  How was she supposed to know that he needed a specific kind of shoe to play basketball? A shoe with non-marking soles. Apparently shoes with dark soles scuffed up the court. They should’ve included this tidbit in the registration information.

  The coach had been nice about it, but he’d also been adamant that George could not play until he had the proper shoes. He’d even told Lily where she could buy them—at Main Street Sporting Goods right there in downtown Celebration.

  That sounded easy enough.

  Main Street Sporting Goods was five minutes away from the community center. They could go get the shoes and have him back within a half hour, maybe even before the kids had finished the warm-up drill if they hustled.

  Well, she could’ve gotten him back in time if Main Street Sporting Goods had had George’s size in any of the shoes the coach had recommended.

  They didn’t.

  Apparently lots of other little boys needed shoes with non-marking soles, too, because the store was sold out. The sales associate was good enough to call the national chain sporting-goods store in Dallas, which was about twenty minutes away. What choice did Lily have but to load the kids back into the car and head to Dallas? If they didn’t dawdle, they could be back before lunch, right?

  Well, they could’ve been if she hadn’t been in such a blasted hurry that she’d neglected to check the gas gauge and realized that it was frightfully low...until she and the kids ran out of gas halfway between Celebration and Dallas.

  How could she have been so stupid? Wasn’t that one of the things that her grandmother had drilled into her head when she taught Lily to drive?

  Always check your gas gauge before you back out of the driveway.

  Besides, rental cars usually came with only a minimal amount of gas. After the SUV had been delivered late yesterday afternoon, they’d driven to the tree lot. Granted, it wasn’t a long haul, but after the electricity of that kiss, stopping for gas had been the furthest thing from either of their minds. Case in point of why she didn’t need to distract herself with an inappropriate crush on a man she had no business thinking inappropriate thoughts about.

  She was driving her own car back and forth between home and Cullen’s house, driving the SUV only when she needed to take the kids somewhere. Even if she could’ve chalked it up to distraction, thanks to her carelessness, here she was, stuck along the side of the road with the children she’d been charged with looking after.

  “I want to go home, Lily,” Hannah whined.

  “We can’t go home until we get my shoes,” said George.

  “Why are we stopped?” Bridget asked.

  “We’re out of gas,” Lily said matter-of-factly. She tried to keep her voice calm and even because the kids would follow her lead. Even though panic and frustration were clawing at the back of her
throat, she wasn’t going to lose it in front of her charges. Running out of gas was humiliating. But that didn’t mean she was entitled to lose her cool in front of them.

  “Out of gas?” Megan asked, an incredulous edge to her voice. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  That was a good question. She searched in the glove box to see if the rental came with any sort of roadside assistance. She’d read somewhere that it was an extra that you had to purchase at the time of the rental. Cullen hadn’t mentioned it and she couldn’t find any indication in the paperwork that he’d opted in.

  Fishing her phone out of her purse, Lily curved her lips into the most sincere smile she could muster. “I’m going to call someone to come and help us.”

  “Uncle Cullen?” asked Bridget.

  Heavens no.

  “Uncle Cullen is so busy,” Lily said. “I don’t want to bother him. I’m going to call a friend of mine who doesn’t live too far from here.”

  First, she tried to call the rental company, but they wouldn’t talk to her because she couldn’t supply the credit card used to rent the car.

  Darn it.

  Next, she looked up Sydney James’s number in her contacts and hit the call button. The phone rang and rang...three times...four times...before Sydney’s proper, crisp voice sounded on her voice-mail recording.

  “Hello, you’ve reached Sydney. Please leave a message and telephone number after the tone and I’ll call you back at the earliest opportunity.”

  The earliest opportunity might mean that afternoon, especially if Sydney was on location shooting a segment for Catering to Dallas, a reality TV show that chronicled the inner workings of the Celebrations Inc. Catering Company.

  That was how Lily had met Sydney. The show wanted to give a local couple the wedding of their dreams. The only catch was that the wedding and the days leading up to the ceremony and reception would be filmed for Catering to Dallas and aired on national television.

  Lily won the contest. She, who had never won anything in her entire life, had been named Celebration’s Bride. Little did she know the honor would also lead to the ultimate demise of her long-term relationship and near broadcast of her humiliation.

  She and her boyfriend, Josh Stockett, had been dating for years. They’d talked about getting married...or, if truth be told, Lily had talked about getting married. They’d been together forever. She loved him. He loved her. After the deaths of her grandmother and parents, she knew the only way she would ever be part of a traditional family again was if she had one of her own. At that time, she was on the downward side of her mid-twenties, and she wasn’t getting any younger.

  She hadn’t meant the Celebration’s Bride contest to be an ultimatum. Seriously she hadn’t. She hadn’t expected to win. So she told Josh she was entering and if she won—ha-ha—he would have to marry her.

  And holy moly, she’d won.

  Josh ended up breaking up with her while the camera was rolling. They had captured every painful second of it on film. To rub salt into the wound, one of the executive producers wanted to air the footage. Sydney, her angel of mercy, had stopped that from happening. Since then, the women had been fast friends.

  As if Sydney hadn’t done enough for her, Lily hoped she could come through one more time and drive out and take her and the kids to get some gas. Then they could all get on with their day.

  The last thing Lily wanted to do was interrupt Cullen at the hospital and ask him to come to her rescue. What kind of irresponsible person ran out of gas with a carful of kids?

  “Hi, Syd, it’s Lily. I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m in a bit of a bind. It’s ten-fifteen. Could you call me back as soon as possible?”

  A sinking feeling told Lily that if Sydney hadn’t picked up the phone, that probably meant she was busy. It would probably be a while.

  Lily scrolled through her list of contacts, trying a few, but receiving voice mail after voice mail.

  “Why don’t you just call Uncle Cullen?” Megan insisted. “He’ll come and get us. He told me that he would always be there for us if we ever needed him.”

  Lily didn’t look up from her phone. “He is there for you, Megan. Your uncle Cullen is a very good man. I just don’t want to bother him.”

  As a last resort, Lily dialed Kate Thayer’s number. Kate was married to Liam Thayer, Cullen’s colleague at the hospital. Liam and Kate had told her that Cullen was in need of a nanny.

  “Hello, Lily?” Kate said. “How nice to hear from you.”

  After reaching so many voice mails, Lily felt her heart leaping at reaching a real live person.

  “Oh, Kate, I’m so happy you picked up.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Lily explained the situation, sheepishly admitting she didn’t have a subscription to a roadside-assistance program and that they hated to bother Cullen at the hospital.

  “Not that I want to bother you,” she said. “But is there any way you can help?”

  “Lily, I’m so sorry, but I’m in New York on business. If I were there I’d be happy to help.”

  As the president of the Macintyre Family Foundation, Kate was in charge of a multimillion-dollar nonprofit organization. Of course she wouldn’t be sitting around waiting for something to do or someone to rescue. But it had been worth a try.

  “Thank you, Kate,” Lily said. “I hope I didn’t interrupt you.”

  “No, of course not,” Kate said. “I’m happy you felt comfortable enough to call me. Hey, wait a minute. I have an idea. Let me call my office manager, Becca Flannigan. She might be able to meet you and take you to get some gas. Where are you?”

  Before Lily could answer, the call-waiting tone sounded. Lily pulled the phone away from her ear and saw Cullen’s name on the display screen. Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest; then her entire body went numb. For a fleeting moment she thought about not answering, but she knew that wasn’t an option. “Kate, Cullen is beeping in. May I call you right back? Or better yet, so as not to bother you, why don’t you just text me Becca’s number and I’ll call her? That way you won’t have to be the middle person and you can get back to work.”

  “Sounds perfect,” said Kate.

  Lily thanked her again before ending the call and picking up Cullen’s.

  “Hello, Cullen?”

  “Hi, Lily. Is everything okay? I just picked up an SOS text from Megan. She said you were stranded along the side of the road. I’m on my way to the car. Where are you?”

  * * *

  “Cullen, I’m so sorry about this,” Lily said as he popped open the trunk of his car and removed the red gas can. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here to rescue us. I had someone lined up to bring us some gas.”

  Rescue us. The words resonated with him and he felt the edges of his mouth turn up. He’d been so angry when he’d gotten the text from Megan, but standing here now, all his anger melted away. Lily Palmer was feminine and graceful, but something in her posture and the apologetic expression on her face told him she wasn’t fond of being rescued. He wondered how much of her hesitancy over calling him stemmed from the kiss they’d shared last night.

  “I told Megan we didn’t want to bother you at work,” Lily said. “I had someone lined up to bring us some gas. And where on earth did Megan get a cell phone? I had no idea she had one.”

  “It’s a disposable phone,” he said. “I got it for her to help her feel more secure. She and her siblings have been through so much change. I just thought it would help her feel better to know I was only a phone call away. A lifeline.”

  Lily’s mouth formed a sympathetic O. “Of course,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I was just a little surprised.”

  “When I gave it to her, I told her it was for emergencies only. And since this would constitute an emergency, I’
m glad she texted me. Why didn’t you call me? You were stranded on the side of the road, Lily. Who knows what could’ve happened?”

  His gaze snared hers for a second before she blinked and looked away.

  “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “I’d rather you called than end up roadkill. Besides, I needed a break,” Cullen said. “It’s nice to get outside and away from the hospital for a change.”

  Lily looked at her cell phone. “At ten-thirty in the morning? It’s nice of you to say that, but it’s a little early for lunch.”

  “Not when your day starts at six-thirty,” he countered. Then again, her day started even earlier since she was usually at the house a good half hour before he left. This morning things had felt a little awkward. Both of them had been distant. She’d been preoccupied and he had to admit he’d been in a hurry to get out the door.

  Cullen wondered if she was thinking about that, too, as she crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Even if you do break for lunch this early, I doubt this is how you wanted to spend your time. You hired me to make your life easier, not complicate it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” His voice sounded gruffer than he’d intended. Again, he snared her gaze and held it for a few beats longer than what might be considered casual. This time she didn’t look away. Not until he opened the car’s fuel door and unscrewed the gas cap.

  That was when he noticed four kid faces peering out from inside the SUV. Before Lily had gotten out of the car, she’d laid down the law and told the children that under no circumstances were they to get out of the car. Not on the highway. Thank goodness they seemed to be complying.

  George pressed his face against the window so that his nose was flattened into a pig snout. As Cullen drained the gas into the vehicle, he tilted his head to the side and made a face back at George, extending his jaw so that his bottom teeth jutted out over his upper lip.

  All four kids, even shy, subdued Bridget, seemed to find this hilarious and started making faces back at him.

  Lily laughed. “What are they doing? And why are you egging them on?”

  They shared the laugh.