Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: The Maverick's Thanksgiving Baby\A Celebration Christmas\Dr. Daddy's Perfect Christmas (21 page)

She nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Let's see,” he said as he continued to read the rundown of her career history. Suddenly, he put down the paper. “What would you do with four spirited kids? How would you care for them?”

“I would keep them busy, of course. But first you and I would need to discuss your expectations for them.”

Cullen nodded and rubbed his temples. “I'm glad you brought that up. I'm not going to lie. They're a handful. They're good kids. Their father was my best friend. But since the loss of their parents, they seem to be working through their grief by acting out. They are the reason my housekeeper quit.”

“I'm very sorry for your loss. The loss of your friend, I mean.”

Of course he knew what she meant. He wouldn't think she was consoling him over the loss of his housekeeper.

Would he?

Ugh. She felt her cheeks heat. Why was she suddenly so nervous?

Her words hung in the air between them for a few awkward beats.

“Thank you. The kids seem to be resilient, but they have been a challenge. I wanted to be up-front with you about it. It's better that I tell you exactly what to expect than to have you walk out on us like Angie did.”

Lily squinted at him. “What do you mean, Dr. Dunlevy?”

“Please call me Cullen. There's no need for formalities.”

“Okay.
Cullen.
Did Angie interact with the children?”

“As little as possible. Her main objective was to come in and do her housework. She was my housekeeper for a number of years. With the kids here, it was difficult.”

“No disrespect to Angie—I'm sure she's great at what she does,” said Lily. “But in my experience, when a child acts up, it's usually a sign that he or she is looking for attention. I would imagine that the kids feel displaced and frightened after losing their parents. I would keep them busy doing fun activities. When kids are busy, they don't have a lot of time to get into trouble. And they tend to sleep better at night because they're tired.”

“Would you be willing to get out in the yard and run around with them like that?” He hiked a thumb toward the windows.

“Absolutely. Unless it's too cold or the weather is bad. And then there are lots of things we can do inside, like holiday baking and decorating for Christmas.”

She noticed the lack of decorations in his house. It was only December first, and yes, it was still early for some people to decorate. But it had been a tradition in her family to deck the halls the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

“Would you mind if the kids decorated for the holidays?”

“I can't remember the last time I even put up a tree,” he said. “I guess the kids will want one since they'll be with me until the New Year, if that long.”

“Are they going somewhere after that?”

Cullen raked a hand through his hair and looked a little unsettled. “They're not living with me indefinitely. It just wouldn't be fair to them. That's why I only need a nanny for a month. It may not even be that long if the attorney I'm working with is able to find a family willing to take them in. I want to keep them together. After all they've been through, it wouldn't be right to split them up. Of course, if you agree to take the job and the attorney comes through before the end of the month, I'll pay you through the end of December. That's only fair.”

Attorney?

“Those poor kids.” The words escaped before Lily could contain them.

Cullen drew in a deep breath and let it out. He seemed to be weighing his words.

Finally he said, “I know it's not ideal, but I'm not married and sometimes I work eighty hours a week. Kids their age need a family to care for them. As much as I hate the thought of shuffling them around, placing them in a good stable environment with a traditional family will be better for them in the long run. The agency is working hard to keep them together, but we're racing against a deadline. They have to go back to school after the first of the year. It would be less disruptive for them to start at their new school than to have them start here and transfer somewhere else.”

“They don't have any family who can take them?”

“If they did, we wouldn't be having this conversation.”

“Those poor kids have dealt with so much loss at such a young age. To be all alone, except for each other...”

The back door banged open and a cacophony of voices and running feet put an abrupt end to Lily and Cullen's conversation.

Cullen's gaze locked with Lily's. He seemed to be asking,
Are you on board?

She nodded.

He smiled, then called to the kids, who had blown right past them on their way to the kitchen. “Megan, George, Bridget, please come here. There's someone I want you to meet.”

The three of them walked back into the room and stood in front of Lily and Cullen. They cast suspicious, sidelong glances at Lily and then back at each other. Looking more subdued than they had when they were out in the yard, they seemed to be communicating in their own silent language.

Cullen introduced the children. “Please say hello to Ms. Palmer. We've been talking about the possibility of her being your nanny while I'm at work.”

“I'm almost eleven years old,” said Megan. “I don't need a nanny. I can babysit George, Bridge and Hannah. Mom used to let me do it all the time.”

“She did not,” cried George. “Don't be a liar.”

Megan gave her brother the stink-eye. George clamped his mouth shut and stared at his shoes.

“I'm not lying.” Megan sounded a lot older than a typical ten-year-old. Losing both parents made you grow up fast, Lily knew from experience. “I'm just saying, we don't need a babysitter.”

“Well, I don't babysit,” said Lily. “So I think we're okay. We can just hang out.”

“Hang out?” Megan scoffed.

“Yes,” said Lily. “Don't you like to hang out?”

Before Megan could answer, the doorbell rang.

“I'll get it,” said George. He sprinted out of the room before anyone could protest. Cullen hadn't been joking when he'd said the kids were
spirited...
well, except for Bridget. She hadn't uttered a single word since they'd met.

“Excuse me,” said Cullen. “I'm expecting someone. I'm sorry about the interruption. Everything seems to happen at once around here. It's a new way of life.”

He smiled and Lily liked the way his eyes creased at the corners. At least he had a sense of humor.

“Continue to talk and get to know each other. I'll be right back.”

Lily nodded. It would be good for them to have a few minutes of girl time.

“How old are you, Bridget?” Lily asked.

“She's seven,” Megan answered. “George is nine and Hannah, who you haven't met, is five. She's the baby.”

“I met Hannah when I first arrived,” Lily said. “She was in the living room having some quiet time with Franklin.”

“I'm the oldest,” Megan underscored.

“And I'll bet you're a very good big sister.”

Megan didn't smile, but the compliment seemed to soften her demeanor a bit.

Lily heard Cullen and the voice of another man. Their tones were low and muffled. Whatever they were talking about sounded important. She wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but she was trying to get a sense of how long Cullen might be occupied. He hadn't officially offered her the job and she didn't want to assume it was hers for the taking. He might even have had other candidates to interview.

Still, Lily did her best to engage the kids in conversation, taking care to steer clear of sensitive topics that might upset them. It was more difficult than she'd imagined. That was why she was a bit relieved when George bounded back into the room holding a box of candy. It was one of those big yellow
sampler
types available in drugstores.

Megan shot him another of her stern glares. Maybe she didn't want to share the chocolate. That was fine. Split among four siblings, even the big box wouldn't go far. Lily didn't want to take the kids' candy.

“Since Ms. Palmer is going to be our
babysitter,
” George said, “we should give her something special.”

As he held out the box to Lily, Megan crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

“That's so nice of you, George, but I don't want to take your candy. Save it to share with your sisters.”

The boy jumped up and down on one foot. “No! I want to share with
you.
Here!”

He thrust the box at Lily. She took it, fearing he might drop it hopping around like that.

“Okay, just one piece. Thank you—”

When she lifted the lid, something long and black and jumpy sprang out at her. Before Lily could stop herself, she screamed and threw the box into the air.

Chapter Two

A
n ear-piercing scream eclipsed Max Cabot's explanation of the documents he was dropping off. This time the scream wasn't from one of the girls; it was Lily.

Hell. What had the kids done now? Lily was his only option for a nanny. If they drove her away... He didn't want to put them in day care.

He'd just have to make sure they hadn't scared her off.

“I have to go, Max. I need to go see what's going on in there. I'll look at these and call you later.”

When Cullen walked into the kitchen, Lily was on her knees scrambling to pick up what looked like a spilled box of chocolates, shooing the dog away before he could eat them. It looked as though the dog was ahead in the race. The kids stood and watched with guilty-looking faces.

Where had the chocolates come from?

“Everything all right in here?” he asked.

Lily stood up and smoothed her skirt. “Yes. Fine. Everything is fine. Sorry to interrupt you. I dropped the candy that the kids so generously offered to share with me. I shouldn't have screamed. I'm embarrassed.”

She screamed over dropping a box of candy?

Cullen squinted at her. He didn't know her well, but she didn't seem like the type to overreact. And when he saw the way the kids were standing there with certain looks on their faces and the way Hannah was looking in from the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, he had a feeling he wasn't hearing the entire story.

“I'm just worried about...the dog,” Lily said. “I'm afraid he will get sick from the chocolate. Wouldn't want that to happen. Would we, kids?”

As if on cue, the big, mangy mutt jumped up and put its paws on Lily's stomach and licked her. When Lily stepped back, Cullen saw the dark streak the mutt left on Lily's white blouse. This stain was even worse than the one that had ruined Angie's pants.

Great. Now Lily was going to walk out, and Cullen was out of options except for day care.

“Kids—George, Megan—” He drew a deep breath to take the edge off his voice. “Put the dog on a leash. He has to stop jumping on people. He just got chocolate all over Ms. Palmer.”

George took Franklin by the collar and held him while Bridget left the room. Presumably to get the leash.

Lily was brushing at the stain on her blouse.

“I'm sorry about that,” he said. “Send me the bill for the dry cleaning, or if your blouse is ruined, I'll replace it. Sometimes chocolate is hard to remove.”

Lily waved him off. “All I have to do is pretreat it and throw it in the washer. It'll be fine. I'm just worried about the dog ingesting all that candy. Isn't chocolate supposed to be bad for them? Should we take him to the vet?”

Ah, hell.
She was right.

He pulled out his smartphone. “I have no idea where the closest vet is—”

“It's not chocolate,” George murmured as he strained to hold Franklin back. The dog whined in protest. “He doesn't need to go to the vet.”

“What was in the box?” Cullen asked.

George looked sheepish. “Mud balls that look like chocolate. They won't make Franklin sick. He eats mud all the time.”

There was a beat of silence, during which Megan and Hannah turned and left the room, murmuring something about helping Bridget find the dog's leash.

Cullen counted to ten before he spoke. These pranks were just not acceptable. Sure, the kids were bored and hurting over the loss of their mother. But driving away every single potential caregiver had to stop.

Still, Cullen took extra care to check his tone.

“So, buddy, if they're mud balls, why were you offering them to Ms. Palmer? That's not cool. They could've made her sick.”

There was another beat of silence, during which the boy's eyes flashed defiantly before they began to fill with tears, belying his stony expression.

“Oh, no,” said Lily. “He wasn't trying to trick me into eating them. He was just showing me how realistic his candy sculptures were.”

She nodded a little too adamantly.

“Candy sculptures?” Cullen asked.

“Yes,” Lily said. “As you can see, they're quite true to life.”

“Mmm,”
Cullen answered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spied another of the mud bombs that had rolled under the table. When he bent to retrieve it, he saw a coiled rubber cobra lying about three feet behind it.

Okay. Now he was starting to piece together the chain of events: the boy handed the lady a candy box; the lady opened said candy box, saw the realistic-looking rubber snake inside, screamed and threw the box.

Obviously it had startled her, but now she was covering for the boy.

Hmm...

Cullen walked around the table and picked up the snake by the tail. It uncoiled and bounded as he held it up. It was so realistic looking that it made Cullen want to wince, but he didn't.

“George, I think this belongs to you,” Cullen said. “Did you scare Ms. Palmer with it?”

“Oh, no, he's fine,” Lily interjected. “We were just getting to know each other. No harm done. Right, George?”

Seriously?

Cullen looked back and forth between the two of them. Lily was smiling. George looked sullen. Okay. If she wasn't bothered by it, then he wasn't going to press the issue.

Not now, anyway.

In fact, it was nice to see that she had the fortitude to deal with the pranksters. Maybe if they didn't get a reaction out of her they'd stop.

“George, please take the snake and the dog in the other room. I need to talk to Ms. Palmer.”

George kept his head down as he yanked the snake out of Cullen's hand and herded Franklin out of the room.

Lily stood there in the middle of the kitchen floor smiling, but looking uncertain and...so damn pretty, even in her stained blouse. Her cheeks were flushed pink. Combined with her green eyes, blond, curly hair and full bottom lip, which she was biting, she looked... Well, the old Van Halen song “Hot for Teacher” came to mind. Cullen forced it out of his head as fast as it had arrived. That was so wrong. Worse than George's pranks and the dog jumping up on her.

He could tell from the short conversation he'd had with her that Lily Palmer was...
different
from the women who usually floated his boat.

She was
different
and she was off-limits...at least until her month of caring for the kids was up.

Stop. Stay on task,
he reminded himself.

“You didn't have to defend him,” Cullen said. “His behavior was inappropriate.”

“He's just a kid,” Lily said.

“Does that mean you still want the job?”

Lily blinked at him as if changing channels from champion of children to nanny candidate. “Well, yes. Of course I do.”

Cullen exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Next, he gathered his own inappropriate thoughts and urges, stuffed them into a mental box labeled
Off-limits
and pushed them way in the back of his consciousness. If he was going to hold George to a standard of appropriateness, then he had to set the example.

“Can you start now?”

* * *

“Why didn't you get George in trouble?” Megan asked Lily. “Because you totally could've. I'll bet you could've gotten him grounded if you wanted to.”

“Nuh-uh,” said George. “Uncle Cullen can't ground us. Only Mom and Dad could do that, and they're dead.”

Lily winced and brother and sister continued to verbally duke it out. As long as they didn't come to physical blows, she was willing to let them settle it while she regrouped and figured out what they were going to do for the rest of the day.

She hadn't planned on being hired on the spot, much less starting today. If she'd known there'd been a chance of that, she would've planned better. She would've brought things for the kids to do. But, she rationalized, being hired on the spot was far better than having to wait or getting passed over for the job.

She'd had a certain level of confidence coming into the interview since her friends Kate Thayer—who was married to Dr. Liam Thayer, who worked with Cullen at the hospital—and Sydney James, who was good friends with Kate, had both recommended her for the position.

But she had to admit her confidence took a tumble when she saw Angie racing to get out of the house.

Lightweight.
She chuckled to herself and then reined it back in. Not everyone was cut out to care for children. Those who weren't had no business trying. There was a fine line between keeping a child in line and breaking his or her spirit.

The Thomas kids needed special care after all they'd been through. Maybe even a bit more slack than she would usually allow the typical kid in her class. To a point.

Through the years, she'd learned that caring for children was not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. It was an ongoing choose-your-battles work in progress.

“How about if we play a game of Monopoly?” Lily suggested with all the enthusiasm she could muster. “Your uncle Cullen said he just got it for you.”

Playing a board game, especially one like Monopoly that had the potential to last hours, would not only be a good way to keep them occupied, but might be a good way to get to know them better.

“You know he's not our real uncle,” said Megan. “We just call him that. He was my dad's best friend.”

“He's a good guy,” Lily said. He must've been. It was a commitment to take in four kids. Even if it was just temporary.

“I'm hungry,” said Bridget. “Can we have something to eat first?”

Lily glanced at her watch. It was later than she'd realized, well past lunchtime. Cullen had left some money and the number of the local pizza place that delivered. It had been so chaotic she hadn't even thought about whether or not they'd eaten. “You know what? That's a good idea. What kind of pizza should we order?”

The girls wanted cheese. George wanted
the works.
After she placed the order, she instructed the kids to set up the game and count out the money.

While they were busy, she searched the pantry, which housed a full wine refrigerator and not much else. Then she started opening and shutting cabinets in search of a light snack to tide them over. Other than cereal, which they told her they'd had for breakfast, she found a jar of peanut butter in the cupboards and some fruit, baby carrots, a gallon of milk and juice in the refrigerator. That was it for the healthy snacks. Of course, she also found some fancy crackers that were past their expiration date, a jar of olives and a rather smelly, green-looking wedge of blue cheese in the refrigerator.

Typical fare for a bachelor who never ate at home. Then again, he did say he usually ate most of his meals at the hospital.

That was a dismal thought. Unless he had good company.

It was none of her business, but that didn't stop her curiosity. A good-looking guy like that, there was probably a line of eligible women interested in keeping him company as he ate his late-night hospital-cafeteria food. Maybe he even had a girlfriend—though she certainly wouldn't be a very good girlfriend if she wasn't willing to help him out with the kids.

If there was someone, maybe she worked. What else would she do with her time? Maybe she would help him care for the kids in the evening. Because he hadn't said anything about her being a live-in nanny for the month.

Probably because of the girlfriend. What were the chances of a guy like Cullen Dunlevy being unattached? He probably had someone he could count on in the evening.

Beyond the fireworks and breathless delight of a relationship, wasn't one of the best things about being involved knowing you had someone you could depend on? Not in the boring sense of the word, but someone solid. Someone you could count on.

That did sound boring.

Maybe that was her problem. Maybe dependability was just a nice way of saying
boring.
Maybe that was why Josh had broken their engagement.

No, he'd told her she was too fat, that he didn't want to settle for someone who didn't care enough to keep in shape. She was an ample size ten, sometimes spilling over into a twelve. She was curvy and she loved to cook.

To her, food was love. And while she was miles from being thin, she'd never felt fat. She was healthy.

Until the day he'd voiced his repugnance and walked out on her, she'd thought those were the qualities he'd loved about her.

Not so.

Her heart ached at the memory as she grabbed the bag of grapes and carrots and shut the refrigerator door. The kids could snack on them while waiting for the pizza to be delivered.

She'd stop by the store tonight after she got off work and pick up some healthy, kid-friendly food so they wouldn't have to keep ordering in.

They all sat down at the table to start playing the game as they waited for the pizza. Lily asked, “What do you all like to eat?”

“Cookies!” shouted Megan.

“Chicken nuggets,” said Bridget.

Hannah tugged on Lily's sleeve and motioned for her to lean closer. Lily did.

“I like mac and cheese,” the little girl said.

“Do you?” Lily asked.

Hannah nodded enthusiastically.

“I happen to make the best mac and cheese in the world.”

The little girl's eyes grew large. “You do?”

Lily nodded and noticed that the other kids were quietly watching her, except for George. He was fiddling with the game piece shaped like a race car, spinning it on the board, seemingly unaware of the food talk happening at the table.

“I don't suppose anyone would like me to make mac and cheese tomorrow, would they?”

The girls hooted their appreciation. Hannah climbed into Lily's lap and leaned forward to position her game piece, the dog, at the starting square. But George still sat stoically, making the race car spin the way someone might set jacks atwirl.