Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: The Maverick's Thanksgiving Baby\A Celebration Christmas\Dr. Daddy's Perfect Christmas (31 page)

“That's not a problem,” she answered coolly. “The kids and I will be working at the market. It closes at nine. After we clean up, I should have them home around ten.”

“Would it be possible for you to stay a little later than that?”

Oh.

Oh, my God.

He has a date.

She stared at him, refusing to help him out of this awkward pickle. She didn't want to believe that he would actually have the audacity to ask her to babysit while he went out on a date. Not after he'd kissed her and tossed her out like yesterday's news.

He cleared his throat. “Would you be able to stay with the kids until I get home?”

Oh, and meet Brenda?
That was rich. And really smooth. While she'd been sorry for him over his earlier anguish over George, it all fell away once she realized what else was on his agenda. Yes, this nanny had boundaries, and she was going to enforce them now.

“Sorry, Charlie, no can do. We'll see you when we get home at ten.”

She turned and walked away.

She wasn't a femme fatale like Giselle or a world-class surgeon like Brenda.

She was simply the convenient nanny with whom Cullen had briefly contemplated hanky-panky and then run as fast as he could.

She would watch the kids during the hours they'd established because it was her job to do that, but she wasn't hanging around late into the night while he went out on a date with his ex-wife.

She burned more with each step she took, but she wasn't going to cry. There was no way she was giving him the satisfaction of that.

As she approached the booth, she took a deep breath and shoved her disappointment behind her wall.

She was such an idiot for letting things get out of hand. How could she let herself fall for him?

Well, that was then and this was now.

Things were over with Cullen and she needed to get over it.

And the first step toward that end was reminding herself that they couldn't be over when they'd never really begun.

Chapter Ten

T
he following night, Cullen and Brenda agreed to meet at six-thirty in the bar at Café St. Germaine before their seven o'clock dinner reservation.

They planned to have drinks before dinner and catch up on everything that had happened since their last real conversation four months ago.

Brenda was late, as usual. So Cullen grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a Scotch and water. From where he sat, he had a great view of Main Street. The city had decorated the old gaslight-style streetlights with giant glittering stars and strung garland from lamppost to lamppost high across the road.

The storefronts had gone all out with their holiday window displays. On a Roll Bakery was even featuring loaves of Lily's homemade stollen in the window.

Lily.

She was everywhere.

Everywhere he looked he saw something that reminded him of her: her bread in the window; the farmers' market (he'd passed it on the way to Café St. Germaine); the athletic-shoe shop where she'd tried to take George to get his shoes before she ran out of gas. He harrumphed to himself when he recalled how she'd turned the tables on him when he was brooding over forgetting to pick up the boy.

He wasn't excusing himself, but she was right. He knew he hadn't purposely left the kid any more than she'd purposely run out of gas on the way to Dallas. None of the women he'd dated had been as forthright as Lily. Well, except for Brenda, and he'd married her.

However, what Lily had that Brenda lacked—and Brenda had many fine attributes: she was intelligent, beautiful and driven—was heart. Lily had a huge heart, always thinking of others, often before herself.

Sure, Lily challenged him at times—she certainly had a smart mouth to go along with that big heart. But it was her compassion that set her apart from the rest.

A pang of regret twisted in his gut. He felt like a bastard for treating her the way he had yesterday. It was the only way he could make the emotional break from her. He was damn lucky that
she
hadn't insisted on a clean break and left him and the kids high and dry to fend for themselves.

He would've deserved it—the same way he deserved the cool greeting he'd received when she brought the kids home after the first long night at the holiday market. He'd also deserved the sleepless night that had him tossing and turning into the wee hours of the morning, thinking about what a jackass he'd been to kiss her and cut her loose. But she and the kids, they were just getting too close...

He hated that about himself, that need to push people away when they got too close. That was the one thing he'd change if he could, but he was powerless. It was like asking an elephant to downsize. He certainly wasn't proud of this disconnect, but he didn't know how to change.

The kids would be so much better off with two adoptive parents who would welcome them as part of their family. But he kept circling back to the reality that so far Cam Brady hadn't had any luck finding a family that wanted to adopt four kids. With each passing day, hopes of that happening before the end of the year grew dimmer and slimmer.

Thank God for Lily. He'd been grateful when she'd arrived right on schedule. She'd quietly busied herself while he'd poured himself a travel mug of coffee. But there'd been no fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, none of the personal niceties that she'd gone out of her way to provide in the past. He had definitely been left to fend for himself, and he deserved it.

As Cullen took a long draw on his Scotch, Jake Lenox, an internist at Celebration Memorial, walked in with his girlfriend of the moment, a leggy brunette his coworkers had nicknamed Miss Texas. Jake was proudly showing her off like the trophy she was, but Cullen had to wonder if Jake was really happy.

Of course, on the surface, who wouldn't be happy to be with such a beautiful woman? Miss Texas was one of several beauties who had been in Jake's life over the years. The guy tended to be a serial monogamist. But Miss Texas had been around longer than some of the others. Was his friend actually getting serious?

Cullen knew he was guilty of similar romantic crimes. While Jake dated one woman for a few months before moving on, Cullen had an endless revolving door of short-term beautiful women. Funny how that door had stopped revolving once Lily and the kids had arrived. Had he given Lily the brush-off yesterday so he could reopen that sad process? Honestly, it didn't even seem appealing right now. In fact, it felt like going backward.

Since he didn't know what he wanted right now, it was best not to do anything.

Jake waved at Cullen and steered Miss Texas toward that end of the bar. Cullen knocked back the last of his Scotch.

“Hey, buddy, are you alone?” Jake asked.

“I'm waiting for someone.”

“Let me buy you a drink while you wait,” said Jake. “Have you met Dorenda?”

“Yes, we met at Quinn Vogler's Labor Day party.”

Dorenda simpered and offered Cullen her cheek. As any gentleman would, he kissed her. In the process he nearly choked on her perfume and almost lost an eye compliments of a shellacked curl.

Jake left the two of them alone while he ordered the drinks.

“Have you eaten here before?” Cullen asked.

“No,” she said. “I'm from Dallas.”

“What do you do in Dallas?”

“I'm a model.”

Not really in the mood for small talk, Cullen glanced at his watch. Was Brenda standing him up?

Order placed, Jake rejoined the party and started talking shop. Forty-five minutes later, while Cullen was halfway through drinks with Jake, Brenda finally arrived.

“So sorry I'm late. I had to go back to the hotel and freshen up. I spent the whole day at Celebration Pediatrics. Looks like it could be a good fit. Although, if I do come on board, several things will have to change.”

Typical Brenda. No call. No text. It was still all about her. Cullen managed to commandeer the conversation long enough to introduce Brenda to his friends.

“I'm sorry. I don't think I caught your last name,” he said to Dorenda.

“Parks,” she said. “Dorenda Parks.”

“Dorenda Parks, this is Brenda Byrd. Brenda, this is Dorenda.”

“Dorenda and Brenda,” Jake said. “You're practically twins.”

Brenda eyed Miss Texas dubiously. “Nice to meet you.” Her tone was cool.

“What would you like to drink, Brenda?” Jake asked.

“Nothing, thanks. I'm sure Cullen is starving. Why don't we go see if our table is ready?”

“She gets cranky when she's hungry,” Cullen tried to joke, hoping to cover for her brusqueness.

“I'm not cranky,” she said. “I was only thinking of you.”

This was going nowhere fast. “I think we'd better go see if they're still holding our reservation.”

Brenda was busy checking her phone and didn't seem to hear Cullen's attempt to cover for her aloofness. Or maybe she did and just didn't care. That was entirely possible. This detachment had been a factor in why they had divorced. She was a hell of a doctor, but she still lacked charm and bedside manner unless she chose to turn it on.

Since they were so late, they'd lost the reservation, but after Cullen primed the hostess with a twenty, she remembered she had a table in the back and seated them immediately.

“How did your emergency turn out yesterday?” Brenda asked once they were settled at the table.

Cullen glanced at her over the top of the wine list. “Everything is fine. Do you want red or white?” Everything wasn't fine, but he didn't want to talk about it.

“I don't know. It will depend on what I order.”

The server came with a basket of bread and took their drink orders—chardonnay for Brenda, merlot for him. She promised to take their dinner order when she returned.

“Actually I need to be home by ten,” Cullen said.

“Curfew?” She smiled and arched a brow before she sipped her water.

“Babysitter.”

She choked and then wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

“Excuse me? Did you say
babysitter?
”

“I did. Although she's more of a nanny than a babysitter, and the kids would take issue with me saying they were being babysat.”

Brenda leaned forward, her jaw slack. “Whoa. Whoa, back up. Kids. As in plural? Who are old enough to object to being babysat?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, okay. I get it. You're joking, aren't you? Very funny, Cullen. You almost had me there.”

“I'm not joking, Brenda.” He raised his right hand. “Honest. I have four kids, ages five to ten, living with me.”

“But they're not yours,” she said. “You couldn't have a ten-year-old. We were married then.”

It was a strange feeling the way he wanted to object to her statement that they weren't his. “Obviously we have a lot of catching up to do,” Brenda said. “Where did these kids come from?”

Cullen picked up his water glass and took a sip. “Do you remember when I introduced you to Greg Thomas, my best friend growing up?”

She looked up from the menu. “Oh, right. He and his wife came to visit right after you and I started dating. They drove that little blue convertible.”

“Yes, he's the one.”

He told her about Greg's accident, how he'd promised Megan she could call him if she and her siblings ever needed anything, and how she'd held him to that promise when the adoptive family Greg and Rosa had secured fell through.

“I'm sorry, Cullen. I know Greg was a good friend. That must've been difficult for you. But I have to say, four kids? What are you going to do?”

Cullen shook his head. “I'm trying to figure it out, but right now I just don't see any other choice but to find them a family that will adopt them. I have a family-law attorney working on it. I won't let them be split up. I refuse to let them get swept up by the foster-care system.”

“You do realize how difficult it will be to keep four kids together? That's going to be tricky. What are you going to do if you can't find someone to take them all?”

“I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.”

“Don't tell me you're thinking about keeping them, because you need four kids like you need a hole in the head.”

He closed his menu. “Brenda, you haven't met them. They're pretty cool. They're smart and fun. They keep me and Lily on our toes.”

Like yesterday, when he forgot George. Common sense reminded him that there was being challenged, and then there was being in denial. Denial to the point that he was ignoring what was best for the kids.

Then, as if she were reading his mind, she said, “Is Lily the nanny, or is she someone special?”

“She's very special.”

He surprised himself when the thought morphed into words.

“Oh, I see.” She sounded disappointed. Her gaze searched his eyes, and he could see the wheels in her head turning.

Before he could clarify, she said, “Cullen, you do realize that basically you gave up your right to a normal family life when you took the Hippocratic oath? You're married to your job. You'd need a live-in nanny if you adopted four kids. So don't make me come over there and smack some sense into you.”

She smiled at him as if she had just made a joke, but he could tell by her body language that there was at least some grain of seriousness to it. That was the thing about Brenda: she had honed passive aggression into an art form.

Still, her words echoed in his head and gave him pause.

You gave up your right to a normal family life.

“Didn't you ask me to dinner because you wanted my advice? I seem to remember you saying that.”

“Yes. Yes. I want to know everything you can tell me about working and living in Celebration. But— Look, I didn't mean to sound like I was telling you what to do. I simply hate to see you make a mistake that might end up leaving these children worse off than they are now.”

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment.

And she reached out and put her hand on top of his.

“I'll be honest. Sometimes I think leaving you was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life,” she said. “The last few months, I found myself thinking about you a lot. About us. Then when I learned of the possibility of the job right here in Celebration, I thought it had to be a sign. And you know me. I don't believe in signs.”

What? Oh, no. They'd been there, done that, and they'd learned that the two of them were great as friends and colleagues, but terrible as a couple.

“Now that we're settled in our careers and we've both been around the block a bit, maybe we could try again? I mean, we could take things slowly.
If
I end up taking the job here.”

He suddenly felt a little claustrophobic, as if the walls were closing in. So, this was what she wanted to pick his brain about. Living and working in Celebration with him—a minor detail that she'd forgotten to mention.

“Don't take the Celebration Pediatrics job for me—or for us. You need to go through with the other interviews you have lined up and not make any decisions until you can compare offers and choose the one that's best for you.”

She lifted her chin.

“Of course,” she said, but he could see the disappointment in her eyes. “It's the sensible thing to do. Your saying that is case in point of why we would be so good together. We understand each other so well.”

Funny thing was, Cullen didn't understand her at all. Never had, never would.

Cullen's phone rang, and he fished it out of his pocket, wanting to see not only who was calling but the time. His gut tightened when he saw Lily's name and number on the display.

He stood. “Excuse me. I need to take this.”

He answered as he walked toward the restrooms.

“Hi, Lily. Is everything okay?”

“Hi. I'm so sorry to bother you, but Bridget is running a fever. I brought her and the kids home early from the holiday market because she was just feeling lousy. I was going to wait until you got home to ask you about ibuprofen, but there's no need for her to suffer like this when I can just give you a quick call.”