She sighed but rushed back upstairs to find the items.
“You don’t have to stick around,” Cole said as soon as she left. “Believe it or not, I can comb hair and read books.”
“I don’t mind. I’m looking forward to it, if you want the truth. I don’t get the chance to read too many bedtime stories. Or comb hair, for that matter. I’ll read to her and then check on Ty one more time before I take off.”
She followed Jazmyn up the stairs to her room and spent a very enjoyable half hour with her. Jazmyn was sweet and uncharacteristically docile, obviously tired after a busy day at school and all the activities they had done together afterward. She seemed even more relaxed after Devin finished combing through her wet hair and reading the truly delightful holiday story that had captured everyone’s imaginations the previous Christmas.
“I love that story,” Jazmyn said with a happy sigh after she finished reading. “Did you know there’s going to be more Sparkle stories? That’s what my teacher said, anyway.”
“I’d heard. I can’t wait.”
Jazmyn, tucked into her cute bed, smiled a little, then grew silent for a long moment, her fingers clutching and unclutching the quilt.
“Is Ty going to die?”
The fearfulness in her voice wrenched at Devin’s heart. Poor thing—still traumatized from her mother’s death. She must see every sneeze, every cough as reason to fret in a suddenly uncertain world. “Oh, honey. No. I think he’s just got a stomach bug. Or maybe he ate too many of the treats while we were at my sister’s store. With any luck, he’ll be just fine in the morning.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Positive.”
Relief flickered in blue eyes very much like her father’s. “Whew. I don’t want him to die. He can be a pain and everything but I love him and I would really miss him.”
“Have you told him that?” she asked, thinking of the girl’s sometimes negative behavior to her brother.
“What? That I love him? Sure.”
She thought again that this wasn’t her business but a few well-chosen words surely couldn’t hurt. “Sometimes people say one thing but act another way. Have you noticed that?”
“All the time,” Jazmyn said. “Like my dad saying we should be nice to people but not letting us talk to our grandpa and I don’t even know why.”
She wasn’t even going to dip a toe into those deep waters. That was for Cole to explain.
“Sometimes we say hurtful things to the people we love most. Do you think it makes Ty feel good when you’re always telling him he can’t do things as well as you do? Like coloring pictures or cutting out paper strips or building snowmen?”
“He can’t. He’s just six and I’m eight. I’ve had way more chances to do those things than he has.”
“Maybe so, but I believe it hurts his feelings when you remind him all the time that you’re better at everything than he is. Maybe you could try pointing out how much progress he has made at something or offer to show him how you do it. Could you do that?”
“I guess,” she said doubtfully.
Devin smiled and squeezed the girl’s hands on top of the quilt. “You’re a good girl, Jazmyn. Sleep well, sweetheart.”
Once Jazmyn was settled, Devin turned her light off and left the door ajar on the girl’s orders, then walked down the hall to Ty’s room.
The glow from his Buzz Lightyear night-light illuminated his face, which looked much more relaxed and peaceful. He didn’t look nearly as pale and seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
She gently tucked back a strand of hair that had slipped into his eyes, subtly checking his temperature at the same time. No fever, she was happy to see. By all indications, he appeared to be feeling better. For Cole’s sake, she hoped they would all sleep soundly and comfortably through the night.
Devin let out a sigh. How had these two children become so dear to her in such a short time—funny, strong-willed Jazmyn with her bold opinions and her deep streak of creativity and Ty with his sweet, loving nature and curiosity about the world around him? She adored them both.
She would miss them when these few days were over and Cole no longer needed her help. Perhaps she would have been smarter to guard her heart a little better so she wouldn’t feel the sting of loss or the long-familiar emptiness of wondering what might have been.
Her life wasn’t empty, she reminded herself sternly. She was doing exactly what she’d dreamed of since she was a little girl bandaging all her dolls’ injuries. She loved helping people in her hometown, bandaging them up when they needed it, holding their hands when they didn’t, dispensing advice and antibiotics and her concern.
She loved her beautiful house on the shoreline, waking up to the loons and the Canada geese and the reflection of the stunning Redemption Mountain Range on the turquoise-blue waters.
She had dear friends in town, her sister, McKenzie, and their wider circle of friends and knew she could count on each one to jump off a raft into the frigid lake to save her.
What more could she want?
Maybe she had moments of loneliness, times when she yearned to be part of something more, but she couldn’t fill that loneliness by pretending she had a role in these children’s world. She was only helping out their father while he was in a bind, tossing at least a small life preserver to help him stay afloat a little longer in the churning waters of his life.
Making this into anything more was dangerous to her psyche. Her presence in their lives was transitory and ephemeral. She was friends with their aunt, but beyond that, she had no real role here and needed to keep that in mind.
He was waiting for her in the entry at the bottom of the staircase, his hair oddly damp. He looked as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, an image that made her insides suddenly flutter with nerves.
“Did I hear you check on Ty?”
“I did. He seems to be doing okay. His color is better and even the low-grade fever seems to have broken. I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that you all get some sleep tonight.”
“Should I make a point of checking on him during the night?”
“Good idea.” Though he seemed to be a little out of his depth, Cole was a good father, trying hard to take care of his children.
“It’s snowing a bit. I shoveled the walk for you and brushed off your car. You’ll have to be careful. It’s slick out there.”
Ah. That explained the wet hair. It must be from melting snowflakes.
He had gone outside in the cold and snow to take care of her. Warmth seeped through her at the sweetness of the unexpected gesture and she wanted to stand here for a moment and bask in it. She had been self-sufficient for a long time, through college, then medical school and her residency and internship. It felt deliciously addicting to have someone else watching out for her.
“Thank you. That was very kind.”
“Compared to everything you’ve done for me and the kids, it’s a tiny thing. But you’re welcome.”
She paused, feeling awkward suddenly. She was aware she owed him an apology but the words were harder than she might have expected, clogging in her throat like spring runoff through a logjam.
“I’m sorry about pushing you earlier, about your dad,” she finally said. “It was rude and intrusive of me and I should never have been so quick to offer an unsolicited opinion. In case you haven’t noticed, I like to fix broken things.”
To her shock, he laughed, the sound low and rough and unbelievably sexy in the quiet house.
“Good thing you went to medical school, then.”
“Yes. Isn’t it?”
She smiled back and they shared a comfortable, amused moment. He looked big and dark and gorgeous there in the glow from the small lamp in the foyer and the glistening lights from the Christmas tree and the trailing fairy light
s she and his children had wrapped around the banister the other day.
The moment stretched out and shifted to something else, alive with sudden awareness that seemed to sizzle in the air between them.
His smile slid away, leaving his features stark and hungry.
He wanted to kiss her. Cole Barrett, this rough and tumble, ruggedly, overwhelmingly sexy man wanted to kiss her.
Devin swallowed, aware of the thud of her pulse, the jittery dance of butterflies in her stomach. Desire was a heavy ache inside her.
She made some sort of sound—a sigh, a breath, his name, she wasn’t sure. The next moment, he uttered a curse, stepped forward and lowered his mouth to hers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OH, THE MAN knew how to kiss.
His mouth was firm, focused, determined, as if he had a goal to kiss her senseless and wouldn’t stop until he reached it.
She wrapped her hands around his neck, savoring the hard muscles against her soft curves, the steady solid strength of him. She never thought she was all that interested in big men. They seemed too physical somehow. Intimidating.
Cole, however, seemed to be just right. She felt slight in comparison but not overwhelmed.
He smelled delicious, leather and cedar and pine, and he tasted even better. She wanted more. Either he was amazingly prescient or he wanted the same thing. He made a low, sexy noise in his throat and deepened the kiss, snugging her tightly against him. His body was rock hard against her and her whole body responded accordingly. Everything inside her seemed to melt like gourmet chocolate bits, soft and gooey and warm.
Yes. This was the best idea ever.
She wanted it to go on forever, to just forget about everything else she had to do and stay right here in his entryway, being kissed with delicious, single-minded purpose by Cole Barrett.
She might have, if his dog Coco hadn’t wandered in to investigate the strange noises they must have been making. The dog brushed against the back of her leg and Devin, not aware she was even there, gave a little gasp.
Cole froze and his eyes popped open. His irises were huge, dilated with heat and passion, and he looked dazed. He blinked as if to clear his mind and she watched reality crash back like that avalanche he’d been talking about earlier.
He pulled away, eyes still drenched with desire. A moment later, that expression was replaced by one of dismay.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. That was out of line.”
“It was?” She couldn’t seem to catch her breath and she felt stupid, suddenly, her brain numb and her thoughts a wild scramble.
He drew in a ragged breath. “It’s been a long while since I’ve spent this much time in the company of a soft, pretty woman. A very long time. I’m afraid I may have...lost my head.”
His words seemed to slip through the haze around her, more seductive, even, than his kiss.
She hadn’t felt like a soft and pretty woman in forever, maybe not since finishing medical school and starting her residency. Her studies had been everything. All she wanted was to become a doctor, to help others heal as she had been helped.
It wasn’t that she never dated. She had even had one serious boyfriend in college, a fellow premed student she met her sophomore year. They had dated all through her undergraduate studies and had even applied to the same med schools.
He had been brilliant, just as driven as she was. In some small corner of her mind, she thought perhaps the relationship had the potential to get serious eventually, until they were accepted to med schools on opposite sides of the country.
Kyle ended up marrying another woman just six months after they met, while he was still in med school, and they quickly started a family. Some part of her still wondered if that was why they’d drifted apart with distance, because he wanted what he knew she could never give him.
Regardless, somewhere along the way, she had become so focused on her calling as a physician that she had forgotten she was also a woman who sometimes needed quite desperately to feel sweetly feminine.
For that brief, glorious time in Cole’s arms, she had been reminded of the heady power in knowing that a man wanted her in the most basic of ways.
She drew in a shaky breath, wanting more than anything to rewind the clock a few moments to relive that magic.
Not a good idea, when one of his children was sick upstairs and the other was still probably awake and could come sneaking down the stairs at any moment.
“Apparently we both lost our heads,” she finally answered, declining to mention that some giddy, previously unknown part of her didn’t mind one bit.
“It won’t happen again,” he said sternly, almost as if he could read her mind.
That little part of her seemed to sigh with disappointment. “Sure. Of course. It was a mistake, all the way around.”
It hadn’t seemed like a mistake, though. It had seemed bright and wonderful, every Christmas wish she had ever whispered to herself all rolled up in one big, gorgeous package.
“I should probably go.” She pointed vaguely toward the door. “I’ve got to stop by the hospital and check on some patients.”
“Right. I’ll grab your coat.”
She didn’t want to think about how relieved he sounded.
“Thank you. I hung it in the hall closet. It’s navy blue wool with a knitted scarf.”
“I’ll find it.”
She could find it herself but it seemed pointless to argue. And how stupid of her to describe the coat, as if he wouldn’t recognize a coat that didn’t usually hang in his closet.
In a moment, he returned with her coat in his hand, the draping, multicolor scarf trailing along. The contrast of such a frilly item in his masculine hands was oddly arousing. She swallowed again and forced herself to focus on the evergreen garland climbing the stairs.
“Thanks,” she managed to murmur when he handed over her things.
“You’re welcome.” He gave a strained sort of smile and held out the coat to help her into it. Again, she had to hide her shiver at the sensation as the heat of him standing just inches behind her seeped through her. She quickly slipped her arms through the sleeves and tied a knot in the scarf.
He stepped away, shoving his hands into his back pockets. “I hate to sound like a broken record but thank you for all your help, especially with Ty. You probably figured out that I don’t have a lot of experience with sick kids.”
With his casual stance and tone, she might have thought him completely unaffected by their kiss if not for the little twitch she could see in the muscle along his jaw.
She could pretend, too. She forced a smile as nonchalant as his, even as awareness seemed to writhe and curl around them like smoke. “Good thing I was here, then, when he decided to lose it. I do have a lot of experience with sick kids.”
“You were great with him. Calm and patient, even when he started to get tetchy there before he went up to bed. I’m not sure I can be that calm.”
“You will, with a little more practice. You didn’t panic. That’s the first step when it comes to dealing with a sick kid, whether he’s losing his lunch or running a fever.”
“I guess. Regardless, I owe you. Again.”
They were both trying very hard to pretend that kiss had never happened, she realized.
She, at least, wasn’t succeeding.
“I’m planning to help you tomorrow, right? That was our agreement. My office schedule got changed around a little but I’m sure my sister could pick the children up after school. They had a good time hanging out at her store and I know she wouldn’t mind their company again.”
“I don’t think I’ll need your help tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, surprised at how disappointed she felt.
“Don’t worry. Our agreement will still hold, especially af
ter all your help with Ty tonight. My own schedule is pretty light tomorrow. I don’t have any trips out of town, so I’ll be here when they return from school—providing Ty is up to going to school, that is.”
“I’m not infallible by any means but I think he’ll be fine.” She paused. “He would hate missing school right now, since he told me earlier today his class is working on a few top secret projects of the Christmas gift variety. Don’t tell him I told you, though.”
He smiled a little and some of the tension still humming around them started to ease. “That seems to be the order of the week. This morning at breakfast, Jazmyn mentioned something about her class being up to the same thing.”
“How fun. I miss those days of being a kid, just about out of my head with excitement for weeks before Christmas. That must be the best part about being a parent, being able to relive that feeling through your kids.”
“I hadn’t thought about it. This is the first Christmas I’ve spent with them, ever.”
She stared. “Seriously? Didn’t you, like, trade off or something with their mother?”
He laughed roughly, without humor. “We weren’t quite that civilized.”
“You didn’t have a divorce decree?”
His features hardened. “Yeah. Which was basically worthless. Sharla ignored the decree and did her own thing. She knew I couldn’t win against her in court. She did what she wanted most of the time, letting me have visitation only when it was convenient for her. Turns out, Christmas never was.”
Because of his troubles with the law that she still hadn’t found the nerve to ask him about? “All the more reason you have to give your kids an amazing holiday, Cole, whatever it takes.”
“I’m working on it.”
“If you need help—”
“I’ve got it,” he said curtly.
She stiffened, then reminded herself she had no right to feel hurt.
“I’m sure it will be amazing.” She gave him another fake-casual smile. “I really do have to go. Unless I bump into you at the rehab center at the hospital while you’re visiting with your sister, I suppose I won’t see you again until Wednesday.”
Evergreen Springs Page 15
