Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas Gift\The Soldier's Holiday Homecoming\Santa's Playbook (51 page)

Juliette's brow crunched for a moment before she slowly nodded. “I like that.”

Claire smiled. “Me, too.” The pizzas set on two cookie sheets, she slid them into the oven. “Some people give up, some go on. Just depends.”

“Which do you think my dad is?”

The oven door closed, Claire turned. “You know him a lot better than I do. What do
you
think?”

Another frown preceded, “Hard to tell. Somewhere in the middle, maybe?”

“Nothing wrong with that. Because he's doing what's right for
him.
And he's obviously doing right by you guys, far as I can tell. Or am I off base about that?”

The corners of the girl's mouth curved up. “No. You're not. He's a great dad. Even if he won't let me date until I'm sixteen.”

“Which, actually, is part of what makes him a great dad, no?”

Juliette rolled her eyes right as the twins exploded through the back door into the mudroom, both talking a mile a minute as they shucked off their wet clothes and—Claire saw—dumped them in heaps on the tiled floor.

“Hey,”
she said, doing the turn-right-back-around thing with her index finger when they came galumphing into the kitchen. “Ain't nobody here gonna clean up after you, so hang up your stuff. Got it?”

Julie and the twins exchanged a three-way glance.

“What?” Claire said, which got a trio of shrugs.

“Nothin',” Finn said, a moment before he and Harry trooped back to the mudroom to scoop their crap off the floor and sling it over the many hooks provided for exactly that purpose. But Claire caught the grins, oh, yes, she did.

And damned if she didn't feel...triumphant.

Chapter Ten

S
now smothered the town like a thick down comforter, pale gold in the early-morning sun. Ethan parked the Explorer in the drive, then stealthily let himself inside, grabbing the excited dog before he could start barking.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm back,” he whispered, muffling his own chuckles as Barney slathered Ethan's whiskery face in sloppy kisses. Except for the steady ticking of the grandmother clock in the crook of the stairs and the overcaffeinated beating of his own heart, silence cushioned the still-cold house. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of sunlight bouncing off the decorated tree in the living room's bay window. Still holding the dog, Ethan came closer, his lips pressed together to stifle a laugh. Judging from the helter-skelter placement of the ornaments—not to the mention that most of them were crowded on the lower branches—he guessed that Claire had let the kids trim the tree without her interference. That, or tree trimming was not one of her talents....

Speaking of whom... He glanced at the sofa to see some rumpled blankets, one of Jules's pillows, but no Claire. Not that he'd blame her for eventually choosing his bed over the sucky couch—and from those nights when he'd had a cold and didn't want to disturb Merri, he knew the pathetically thin pullout mattress wasn't any better—but now he had an image of Claire in his bed, her curls all tangled, making his sheets smell like her...

Man, those five-hour energy drinks were
wicked.

He finally set down the dog and shrugged off his topcoat, wanting nothing more than to get out of this suit and into his jeans and a sweatshirt. But that meant going to his room. Maybe if he was really quiet...

The dog practically tripping him, Ethan crept up the stairs and past the boys' room—both kids were sprawled across their beds at crazy angles, no covers, all appendages accounted for—then Juliette's closed door, before reaching the master bedroom. Where the door stood wide-open. Cautiously, he peeked into...an empty room. Bed still made, no girl stuff strewn about—

Ethan's chin jerked down when he felt a tug on his pants leg—Barney, clamped on and determined that Ethan follow him. For a moment he freaked—wasn't that what dogs did when somebody was in trouble?—until he realized if that'd been the case the dog would've gone ballistic the moment Ethan walked through the door. “What is it, boy?”

The dog immediately let go and pranced the few feet to Bella's room, where he sat and—Ethan could have sworn—cocked his head toward the door.

Obediently he looked inside...and dissolved. Because there they were, his baby girl snuggled against Claire's chest, Bella's poufy, pastel quilt loosely drawn over the pair of them. A half dozen storybooks lay scattered on the quilt, the floor; on the nightstand, the bedside lamp—a teddy bear in a tutu that Merri had gotten her when she turned three—still glowed.

As did the pair of them, Bella's silky blond strands entwined with Claire's curls, Claire's left arm cradling his baby's shoulder as they breathed in sync.

He couldn't move. Hell, he could barely breathe. The sweetness punched his barely healed heart, making his eyes burn, even as guilt slammed through him at what he'd been imagining before, even if only briefly. Before he could duck away, though, Claire stirred, her eyes drifting open. She started, her hand going to her mouth to block her gasp. Then she smiled, a sleepy, beautiful smile that delivered a second punch far worse than the first.

“Busted,”
she said soundlessly, then inched away from the sleeping little girl, clumsily extracting herself from the quilt to get to her feet. She was wearing jeans, he saw, along with a soft-looking sweatshirt the color of raspberry ice cream. Her curls slithered over her shoulders when she quickly bent to grab those god-awful rubber shoes of hers, then silently crossed the floral rug and through the door to Ethan, now standing in the hall.

“She woke in the middle of the night,” she whispered. “So I thought reading a few books would ease her back to sleep. Guess it worked for both of us.” She blinked up at him. “When did you get in?”

“Five minutes ago,” he said, trying not to notice her flushed cheeks, her wild hair. The lingering scent of perfume on her sleep-warmed skin.
Really
trying not to notice the effect all of it was having on him. Never mind that guilt was still all up in his face like some smart-assed street kid, going,
Yo, remember me?

Remember your
wife?

Except yearning's whisper was far more importunate. And dangerous.

“The snow had stopped,” he said, forcing himself not to look away, to face this thing down and prove his dominion over it, “but everything was so backed up I wouldn't have been able to get out until later this morning. So I rented a car. Got the last one on the lot.”

Wide-eyed, Claire folded her arms over her stomach. “You drove all night? In the
snow?
”

Ethan smiled. “It was clear by then. And I-76 was good.” He curled his palm around the back of his stiff neck as his gaze landed once more on his sleeping daughter. “It was making me crazy, being away. Being stuck. I had to get back, one way or the other. Would've been here sooner, but had to drop the car off at the airport, pick mine up—”

“Hey.” When his eyes met hers again, he saw the faintest trace of annoyance, even though her lips tilted. “We were fine.”

Sheer exhaustion, combined with relief at being home again—those were the only reasons he could think of to explain the ache of desire, deep in his gut. The nearly overwhelming compulsion to cup her jaw, simply...to touch. To
feel...

Ethan tried to smile, but it felt a little wonky. “I know you were. I wasn't...” His cheeks puffed out with the force of his expelled breath. “I wasn't worried. I just wanted to be home.”

Her eyes softened. “Of course you did,” she said, laying a hand on his upper arm, gently chafing it for a moment before another yawn attacked.

“Sorry,” she said, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Need coffee. Also, potty.”

“And I need to change before this suit becomes one with my skin.”

“There's a lovely image,” she said with a low, gravelly, still-sleepy laugh. “So go change. I'll meet you in the kitchen.”

* * *

Claire got a load of herself in the bathroom mirror, grimaced, shrugged and followed the scent of coffee downstairs to find Ethan standing in front of the tree with his hands jammed into the back pockets of his jeans and a lopsided grin on his still-unshaved face.

“We were all a little slaphappy by the time we finished,” she said, heading for the kitchen and the magic elixir beckoning to her from same. “I had no idea it took so long to decorate a tree. At least one this size.” She found a mug, poured her coffee. “We always had this puny little fake thing when I was a kid.” The mug cradled in her hands, she joined Ethan. “And Mom always did it on Christmas Eve anyway, so it'd be there like some big surprise when I woke up.”

“What about when you lived in New York?”

“Sometimes the roomies got a tree, sometimes not. Since I never really bonded with any of them, I didn't bother.” She took another magnificent sip, reveling in the steam on her face as much as the very welcome jolt to her system. “And now that I live alone, I'm back to the little fake jobber. So decorating that one,” she said, nodding toward the tree, “was fun. Actually...” Another sip dispatched, she said, very carefully, “Being with the kids... I enjoyed it.” Her lips curved. “Mostly.”

She sensed his gaze swing to her profile, then back to the tree. Heard his quiet chuckle. “Sounds about par for the course. And anybody who tries to tell you that life with kids is always fun is full of it. Hey, pumpkin...” Setting his coffee on a nearby table, Ethan squatted as a sleepy Bella padded into the room, then ran to him. “Miss me?” he said, tucking her against his chest.

The little girl rubbed her cheek against her father's shoulder, then sniffed. Loudly. And sneezed. Ethan immediately set her apart, frowning. “You okay, baby?”

“She has a little cold,” Claire said. “No biggie.”

“Jules, too,” Bella said, and, sure enough, Ethan's head snapped up so Claire could get the full effect of his frown.

“
Colds,
Ethan. Not the plague.”

“The boys...?”

“Are fine. But then, I'm beginning to think they're alien life forms anyway, impervious to things like viruses and germs and such. So no surprise there.”

At that, the frown eased, replaced by a short laugh. “You may have a point.” He got to his feet, hauling the baby up with him, and the love in his eyes when he looked at his daughter... Oh, dear God. “But you still should have told me.”

“And what would you have done about it?” Claire said gently over a microspurt of annoyance. “Because we were totally good, weren't we, sweetie?” she said to Bella, who gave a vigorous nod.

“
Totally
good,” the baby echoed, then sniffed. Balancing her on his hip, Ethan swooped to snatch a tissue from a box on the coffee table, then righted them both again, expertly folding the tissue over the tiny nose.

“Blow,” he ordered, and she did. Kind of. Then he looked at Claire. “And I would have wanted to know for
your
sake. Okay, theirs, too, but mostly for you. Because I know this is totally outside your comfort zone, and I might've been able to help more than you think. Yes, from several hundred miles away. Bad enough I asked you to watch them for an entire day—at the last minute, no less—but to foist sick kids off on you, as well—”

“Which they weren't when you left. So you can stop with the mea culpa routine, jeez.”

Ethan's brows lifted, humor glittering in his eyes and tugging at his mouth, and Claire's sleep-slogged brain joined forces with her pitifully deprived girl parts to conspire against her, sending up a steady tattoo of
want, want, want
through her veins.

Like,
really
loudly.

Turning smartly on her heel, she retreated to the kitchen to rinse out her now empty mug and set it on the drain board, almost painfully aware that Ethan was watching her every move. She half wondered what he was thinking, decided she didn't want to know. Since whatever it was, it couldn't possibly bode well. For either of them.

“Well,” she said, returning to the living room to retrieve her coat and purse and tote bag from where she'd dumped them on a chair the day before. “I guess my work here is done, so I'll be off—”

“We could all go out to breakfast,” Ethan said, which got an enthusiastic nod from Bella and, probably, a bug-eyed gawk from Claire. “Because,” he said, all intense blue eyes, “the least I can do is feed you. To say thank you?”

Well, of course. Totally reasonable. Except... “Everyone else is asleep?”

“I'll go wake them up!” the little girl said, wriggling out of her father's arms and racing up the stairs, yelling, “Hey! Boys! Get up!” at the top of her lungs.

“Not for long,” Ethan said, his mouth hitched into a ridiculously sexy smile. Although Claire sincerely doubted that was his intention. Which was made it so sexy. Not to mention ridiculous. Dammit.

And which made her need to
get the hell out of there
all the more pressing. Years, it had taken her, to finally, fully catch on to the concept of self-respect. Not to mention emotional self-preservation. So damned if she was about to let a sexy smile derail her. Even if that smile came as part of a package that included humor, tenderness and a protective nature that made her ovaries spin like Tasmanian devils.

“Um...thanks, but...I have stuff to do and...stuff. So I really need to go—”

“You're not going to breakfast with us?” Bella—who'd reappeared like a genie—asked, her forehead all crumpled. Claire squatted and the little girl moved right into her arms. Of course.

“Not this time, baby,” she said, pushing past the knot in her throat even as she clung to the last remaining shreds of her common sense by the very tippy-tips of her fingernails. She reared back, smiling, wondering where the woman who didn't think she wanted kids had got off to and who the hell this chick was she'd left in her place. She tapped Bella's nose. “But I'll see you at Juliette's play, right?”

“When's that?”

“Friday night. Right before Christmas vacation starts.” She glanced up at Ethan, who was looking at her with that same expression she'd caught when she'd first woken up. Except then she'd thought she'd only imagined it, what with her still being half-asleep and all. Apparently not. “You are coming, right?”

“Of course,” he said, with a “what are you, nuts?” dip to his brows.

Claire looked back at Bella, who was toying with one of Claire's curls, a sweet gesture that twisted her heart even more. “So I'll see you then?”

The child nodded, then linked her arms around Claire's neck and pulled her close, and now Claire thought her heart would incinerate. “I love you,” Bella whispered, then kissed Claire's cheek before running up the stairs again.

Blushing, Claire got to her feet, swaying slightly for a moment before finally working up the courage to look at Ethan again. But either he hadn't heard Bella's declaration or was ignoring it or—option three—the kid gave her heart to everybody so this was no big deal. In any case, all he did was walk Claire to the front door and open it, flooding the entryway with bright white light.

“Well. Thanks again.”

Claire nodded, opened her mouth, realized she had absolutely no idea what to say and walked out into the crisp, beautiful morning a helluva lot more conflicted than she had been when she'd arrived the day before.

* * *

There'd been no way, of course, Ethan would've told Claire that Bella hadn't shown that kind of affection to anyone other than family since her mother's death. Bad enough that Jules—clearly on a high after her performance and talking nonstop to her grandparents in the packed Performing Arts Center's lobby—had yet to let a day pass without singing Claire's praises. Effusively. About how she hadn't even flinched when she'd realized Jules and Bella were both sick, or taken any guff from the boys, or even tried to influence the kids' tree-decorating decisions.