'Tis the Season (14 page)

He wanted things he shouldn't want. He wanted things that couldn't be. Yet what he wanted must be pretty damned obvious if a perceptive eight-year-old boy could figure it out. Billy's questions hadn't just materialized out of the autumn air. They'd come from something specific, something he sensed. Something that kept springing to life between Evan and Filomena, pushing up like new green grass out of the cold November ground. The timing was all wrong, but those tender spears wouldn't stop growing.

He'd known he wanted her when he'd offered to paint
her porch. He'd known it when he'd found her in his home after work. He knew it whenever she left his house and it suddenly seemed a little darker, a little emptier. He'd probably known it the very first time he'd seen her standing in his backyard at night, with Gracie in her arms. He hadn't recognized the feeling for what it was right away, but he knew it now.

He wanted Filomena Albright the way he hadn't wanted a woman in a long, long time.

She turned from the door and her smile faded as she scrutinized Evan's face. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his wool flannel shirt when he'd come into the warm kitchen and shoved up the sleeves of his thermal shirt. But when she looked at him, her eyes so large and dark, he felt overheated.

“I was wondering,” he said, then cleared his throat because his voice sounded scratchier than the sandpaper.

“Yes?”

“Whether you had plans for Thanksgiving.” Because she was all alone in Arlington—that was why he was asking her. Because his parents were in Washington, D.C., and he wasn't going to be able to spend the holiday with them, and because three people seemed at least one too few for a Thanksgiving dinner. Because there was a faint smudge of flour on her chin, and for some reason it made him want her even more.

“Actually, I—No,” she said, almost but not quite smiling.

“I'm not planning anything fancy. I was figuring I'd just broil a turkey—”

That made her laugh. “Turkeys aren't broiled, Evan.”

“They're not?” He scowled. “Uh-oh.”

She laughed harder. “You just want me to cook for you.”

“Well, after eating these cookies and the stuffed peppers you made the other night…” He smiled and shook his head. “I don't want you to cook for me. I want…”
to touch you. To rub my thumb over your chin and wipe away flour, and feel how smooth your skin is
. “Your company,” he concluded.

“Evan.” She crossed to the table and brushed some invisible crumbs from its surface into her cupped palm. “It's a very sweet invitation, but…” She fell silent.

“But?”

“Daddy?” Billy barged into the room, all spiky energy. “Gracie fell asleep on the couch and I'm bored. Can I go play in the woods?”

“She fell asleep?” He glanced at his watch. Two o'clock. She still needed her nap most days.

“So can I go play in the woods?”

Evan turned to stare out the windows. The afternoon sun was bright. “Are you wearing your watch?” he asked Billy. Billy nodded vigorously. “Okay. Be back here by three.”

“Okay!” He bolted out the back door as if he expected Evan to change his mind. The screen door clapped against the door frame, and Filomena gave it an extra tug to close it all the way.

Silence circled them, silence and the rich aroma of the cookies. Evan gazed at Filomena, trying to remember where they'd been before Billy had interrupted them. He'd been contemplating the flour on her chin. He'd been admiring the glittering darkness of her eyes.

She'd been telling him she didn't want to have Thanksgiving dinner with him. And she was probably right. He
shouldn't push it. He should defer to her superior wisdom and accept her decision gracefully.

“So how come you don't want to eat broiled turkey with us?” he asked, forcing a smile to mute the disappointment in his voice.

“I didn't say I didn't want to spend Thanksgiving with you, Evan. It's just that…” She sighed. “I don't want to become dependent on you.”

Dependent on him? Hell, he was the one dependent on her. She'd brought his children back to him the night they'd climbed out Billy's window, and she'd provided him with the perfect solution to his child-care dilemma, and she'd made the past couple of evenings at his house more pleasant than any workday evenings in recent memory.

What on earth could she become dependent on him about? Surely the money he was paying her wasn't going to make a huge difference in her life, given that she owned this gorgeous minimansion and was working on a Ph.D. She was a classy lady. She earned the salary he was paying her, and she deserved every penny of it, but she wasn't going to become dependent on him over it.

“You mean, because I'm painting your porch? That's nothing, Fil. That's what neighbors do for each other.”

She shook her head. Having already cleaned the nonexistent crumbs off the table, she concentrated on sponging nonexistent drops of water from the counter by the sink. “I'm all alone,” she said, her voice so low he had to strain to hear her. “Both my parents are gone, I've got no sisters or brothers…But you and Billy and Gracie have made me feel like I'm not alone.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing. It's just…” She set down the sponge and
spun around to face him. Her eyes were dry, her mouth curved in one of those smiles he couldn't read. “I'm leaving in January.”

“I know.”

“I mean, maybe I'm assuming things I shouldn't, but…”

“No, you're not.” He was assuming the very same things. An electric thrill sparked his nerve endings at the thought that she was assuming what he was assuming.

“So nothing is really going on here.”

Like hell. “Just friendship,” he lied.

“And a job.”

“And a job,” he agreed.

They stared at each other for a long minute. Then he took a step toward her, and another, until he standing next to the sink, facing her. She smelled of baking scents and something more, something subtle and feminine. Her eyes were wide, almost defiant, as she gazed up at him.

He reached out and rubbed his thumb over her chin. Her skin was like velvet, downy and warm. “You've got flour on your face,” he explained. “It's been driving me crazy.”

“Oh.” She didn't laugh. Didn't back away. Didn't flinch as he stroked his thumb over her chin again, tracing the line of her jaw, the indentation under her lower lip. “Just friendship and a job,” she reminded him in a near whisper.

“Right,” he murmured, then lowered his mouth to hers.

It was foolish, he knew. Risky and brainless. She was leaving in January, and she was the kids' baby-sitter, and he was a guy who'd failed spectacularly at marriage, and there was really no room for an involvement here, no
room at all. But her mouth was so soft beneath his, soft and welcoming, and if he hadn't kissed her, he would have gone nuts. So all right, sue him for being irresponsible and selfish and wanting just one kiss from a woman who'd been haunting him since the first time he'd seen her with her hair flowing wild and a silver-moon pendant resting between her breasts. Charge him with gross stupidity. Call him dimwitted, hormone-driven, bewitched. Definitely bewitched.

Her lips moved, glided against his, pressed lightly. Energy zapped through his body, tensing his muscles, coiling in his groin. He slid his hand under her braid, under the ribbed turtleneck collar of her sweater to the warm skin at her nape. She drew a shaky breath and lifted her hands to his shoulders, sending another shock through his body.

He brought his other hand to her waist, wanting to draw her tight against him—except, for God's sake, it would be embarrassing for her to realize how much one kiss could arouse him. He could explain to her that it wasn't just the kiss that turned him on—it was
her
, her smile, her eyes, her dependability, her affection for his children. Or else it was magic. Because they hadn't even done more than brush mouths, and he was already imagining making love to her, more than imagining it. More than wanting it.
Craving
it.

Her hands tightened on his shoulders and he realized, through a blur of brain-numbing lust, that she was pushing him away. He jerked his head back, furious with himself for having done what she clearly didn't want him to do. If she quit baby-sitting for the kids, it would be his fault. Yeah, he needed Daddy School classes. He was the worst father in the world, jeopardizing a magnificent
child-care arrangement just because he'd been unable to resist kissing Filomena.

“I'm sorry,” he muttered, staring at the deep porcelain sink to avoid looking at her.

She cupped her hand under his chin and steered his face back to hers. “No,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis. “You're not sorry. Neither am I.”

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes slightly glassy, her lips damp. All from that one little kiss? Had it staggered her as much as it had him?

“It can't happen again,” she added, sounding rueful.

“Okay.” Not okay, but what choice did he have?

She took a step backward and sighed. “Do you think…do you think we can still manage Thanksgiving together?”

“Sure.” A hell of a lot better than he could manage it alone, given that she seemed to know a great deal more about how to cook a turkey than he did. They'd have the kids between them for Thanksgiving, though, so the temptation to kiss would be thwarted. And now that he'd kissed her once, maybe he would build up an immunity to her, the way a person built up an immunity to certain diseases by being exposed to them. For all he knew, his blood might already be bubbling with Filomena antibodies. She would never be able to enchant him again.

Sure.

“I'm going to go paint your porch,” he said, because at the moment it seemed like the only way to avoid her spell. A dose of biting November air, the sharp chemical smell of the paint, some muscle-flexing labor—he'd stick with that until the antibodies kicked in and the fever broke.

“I
S THAT TURKEY
big enough?” Gracie asked dubiously.

Filomena checked the tag. Eleven and a half pounds. “It's big enough,” she assured Gracie. “And it's better to get a smaller turkey. The smaller ones taste better. They're younger and juicier. Like you.”

“I'm not juicy!” Gracie protested with a giggle.

Filomena lowered the turkey into the shopping cart, then turned to see Billy approaching from one of the aisles, carrying four cans of cranberry sauce, one balanced atop another, his chin propped on the uppermost can to keep the stack from collapsing.
“Four?”
she blurted out. “How much are you guys planning to eat?”

“Lots,” Gracie answered for both of them.

Filomena had taken the kids to the supermarket Monday evening while Evan was at his Daddy School class. The outing would keep them occupied, and she didn't want to wait until Wednesday to buy her Thanksgiving supplies, because the aisles would be jammed with frenzied last-minute shoppers then. Even Monday evening, the store was busier than normal.

All right, so she'd buy four cans of cranberry sauce. Evan was going to pay for the groceries, anyway. He'd insisted on it, saying it was the least he could do once she'd insisted on cooking the meal. No way was she go
ing to let him prepare it. If she did, they'd wind up with broiled turkey.

She'd also insisted on hosting the meal. She had so many wonderful memories of Thanksgiving dinners at her parents' old stone house. She used to come home from school for the holiday weekend, and her parents would be in Arlington along with friends of theirs, fascinating people—academic colleagues of her father's, artistic, bohemian friends of her mother's, one year the guide who'd accompanied them on a white-water expedition on the Snake River, another year a New Zealand couple they'd met in Sydney, Australia. Every bedroom would be occupied, and all the guests would mix and mingle. Filomena's mother would serve a magnificent feast, her father would uncork his best wines, and they would all give thanks for the privilege and joy of being together.

This year would be her last opportunity to have Thanksgiving in the house. She would use the heavy linen tablecloth and napkins her mother had stored in the sideboard, the elegant candlesticks, the china. Her meal wouldn't be as grand as her mother's used to be—she was nowhere near as talented in the kitchen—but at least she would be able to give thanks for a fine hearty meal shared with friends.

Friends
. She didn't like using that word to refer to the Myers family. The children were her wards, and Evan…

Damn it. He never should have kissed her. She never should have let him. Because ever since Saturday afternoon, she'd discovered she could no longer think of him as a friend, an employer, a dad.

She thought of him only as a
man
. A tall, virile and unbearably
male
man. Just one kiss had been enough to
obliterate the professional aspect of their relationship and the easy camaraderie of it. She still accepted his money for watching his children, and she still enjoyed his company, but…

Oh, that kiss.

It lingered in her body, dormant, but flaring up every now and then; it stirred a need so powerful it hurt. It throbbed in her memory like a life pulse; it visited her in her sleep. It made her want more than she could have. If Evan knew how irrationally she'd reacted to one little kiss, he probably wouldn't let her near his kids anymore.

“Okay, do we have everything?” she asked brightly, surveying the contents of the shopping cart. “Cans of pumpkin? Apples? Whole-wheat bread?”

“I don't like whole-wheat bread,” Gracie whined.

“It's for the stuffing. Trust me, you'll love it. Butter? Garlic?”

“I don't like garlic,” Billy said.

“You'll hardly even notice it,” she promised. “I think that's everything. Let's go.”

A half hour later, the groceries were wedged into her refrigerator and she and the kids were back at Evan's house. He wasn't yet home from his Daddy School class, so she organized Billy to read a chapter of
Freddy the Detective
and filled the tub in the upstairs bathroom with warm water for Gracie's bath.

Filomena had never given a child a bath before. But she assured herself that if she could hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up again, she could probably handle giving Gracie a bath—especially since Gracie was so willing to offer guidance. “Don't make it too hot,” she warned. “And don't make it too cold, or I'll get goose bubbles.”

“Goose bumps?”

“Yeah. This is good,” Gracie said, dipping her hand into the water accumulating in the tub. “Don't make it too high or I'll
dround
. And I need my toys…” She gathered a plastic sailboat and a plastic frog from the ledge of the tub. “And my washcloth…” She unhooked it from a bar attached to the wall and tossed it into the water. “That's it, Fil. That's enough water.” Without a moment's modesty, she peeled off her clothes, struggling only a little with her pullover shirt. “My nightgown is in my bedroom, prob'ly somewhere on my bed, okay? You better go get it, 'cause I'll need it when I come out.” She climbed into the tub and sat with a gentle splash.

Filomena hoped it was all right to leave the child alone in the tub for the time it took to fetch the nightgown. She raced down the hall, located the garment under the wrinkled blanket on Gracie's unmade bed and raced back to the bathroom, to find Gracie propelling her boat contentedly through the water. “Daddy gives me the best shampoos,” she announced. “You have to do it without getting any shampoo in my eyes.”

“I'll do my best,” Filomena promised, shoving up the sleeves of her sweater and kneeling on the hard tile floor next to the tub.

“You can talk to me, too.”

Filomena lifted the bottle of baby shampoo from the side of the tub. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, what do you talk to your dad about when he's shampooing your hair?”

“We talk about whether he should get married,” Gracie said. “I can't decide whether he should marry a prin
cess or a jock—because you know, he loves sports. Sports is his job.”

“Are those his only two choices?” Filomena asked, grinning despite the fact that the subject of Evan's love life was a dangerous one for her to explore with his talkative daughter. “A princess or a jock?”

“Well, he said he wasn't going to marry Heather. She's very pretty, but I guess that doesn't matter to him.”

Filomena considered steering the conversation in a different direction. That would be the wise thing to do. But she wasn't feeling wise. And she
was
feeling remarkably at home in his house, bathing his daughter. So she said, “Maybe he doesn't want to be married.”

“I think he does. He was married before, you know. To my mommy.”

“Well, maybe…” Again she contemplated changing the subject. Again her curiosity overruled her conscience. “Maybe after getting a divorce, he decided it would be better not to get married again.”

“I don't know,” Gracie said matter-of-factly. “My mommy liked sports a lot. I don't know much about her, but I know she liked sports, or athletes, or something. Daddy doesn't talk about her much. I think she made him mad because she left him.”

“I can't believe anyone would leave your father,” Filomena murmured, fishing Gracie's washcloth out of the tub and wringing the excess water from it. “He's a very nice man.”

“'Cept when he gets angry.”

“What does he do when he gets angry?” Filomena wondered whether he'd been abusive to his ex-wife. She couldn't imagine it, but she supposed it was possible.

“He says we're in trouble,” Gracie told her. “Some
times he grounds us. Once he caught us jumping up and down on Billy's bed and he got really mad because he said we could have hurt ourselves. He yelled at us a lot that time. He always gets mad when we do something that might hurt us.”

“Like climbing out a window,” Filomena reminded her.

“Yeah. He was really mad about that. He told us we did a stupid thing. I was afraid he was going to cry, but he didn't. Daddies aren't supposed to cry. But I think if he was allowed to, he would have cried that time.”

Far from abusive, he sounded like the sweetest, most devoted father in the world. “He gets mad because he loves you,” Filomena said in his defense. “I think if you got hurt, it would break his heart.”

Gracie peered up at her, looking surprised and pleased by this explanation. “Maybe that's why he never gets soap in my eyes. Because he knows that stings. You can use that cup to wet my hair—that's how he does it,” she said, pointing to a plastic cup on the rim of the tub.

Filomena carefully shampooed Gracie's hair, doing her best to keep the lather from touching the little girl's forehead, let alone dripping near her eyes. Gracie babbled about princesses and haunted castles and how the best castles had water all around them and funny ridges along their roofs, and Filomena thought about Evan, about his gentleness and concern, his capacity for love—and about the woman who had walked away from him. Why? Why would anyone leave a family and a home like this one?

She was rinsing the last of the suds from Gracie's hair when she heard footsteps in the hall, too heavy to belong to Billy. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Evan fill the doorway, his leather jacket unzipped to re
veal a cotton sweater and a pair of jeans. He still carried the outdoor chill on his clothes, and it clashed with the humid warmth of the bathroom. “Hey, you didn't have to give her a bath,” he said, remaining at the threshold.

“Hi, Daddy!” Gracie chirped, her voice echoing off the hard surfaces of the room. “Fil's doing a great job! She didn't get any soap in my eyes!”

“Great!” He gazed at Filomena, and she wanted to apologize for her presumptuousness in performing an evening ritual that rightly belonged to him. But his eyes were a hushed, sweet gray, and when he said “Thanks,” he sounded as if he truly meant it.

Filomena could have stared into his eyes forever—and it might have taken her forever to figure out exactly what he was thanking her for. But she didn't want to respond to him, or to think about the undercurrent that passed between them, dark and relentless. “Well,” she said briskly, turning from him, “this bath is hereby officially done.”

“You gotta help me out so I don't slip,” Gracie instructed her. “Daddy put these no-slip things on the tub, but you still have to help me out.”

Filomena had thought perhaps Evan would take over and get his daughter out of the tub, but he only remained in the doorway, watching. She rose on her knees, cushioning them on the fluffy floor mat, and wrapped her arms around Gracie's compact, slippery torso. She clung to Filomena's forearms and hoisted one leg out of the tub, then the other, managing to splash only a quart or so of water on Filomena.

“That's my towel,” she said, pointing to one of the two bath towels hanging on the opposite wall. Before Filomena could grab it, Evan reached into the room,
lifted it from the towel bar and handed it to her. His fingers brushed hers as he released the towel, and she was shocked by the surge of awareness she felt at that brief accidental contact.

Turning from Evan, she wrapped the towel around Gracie and dried her off. Gracie was prattling about something—she wanted her daddy to brush her hair, because he never yanked at the snarls. But when Filomena looked back toward the door, Evan was gone.

“Do you need help with your nightgown?” she asked Gracie.

The little girl rolled her eyes. “Of course not. I'm not a baby!” She wriggled into the gown and pulled her wet hair through the neck hole. “Daddy, you brush my hair, okay?”

Filomena looked toward the door again. Evan was back, minus his jacket and armed with a pale-blue hairbrush with long white bristles. “Sure, Gracie, I'll brush it.” He caught Filomena's eye as she hauled herself to her feet. “Thanks,” he said in almost a whisper.

She sensed she was being dismissed, which was just as well. She needed to leave this house, to get away from the children she was growing way too fond of—and away from their father, who could stir too many emotions inside her with one glance, one smile, one simple word, one inadvertent stroke of his hand against hers. She definitely couldn't stick around long enough to watch him brush his daughter's hair. Honestly. A woman could fall in love with a man for no better reason than he didn't yank at the snarls in his daughter's wet tresses.

The hallway seemed cold after the time she'd spent in the steamy bathroom. Her sweater, damp from where Gracie had splattered water on it, felt clammy against her
midriff, and she plucked it away from her skin. Downstairs, she found Billy sprawled out on the floor of the den, lying on his stomach with his knees bent, his feet in the air and his chin resting against his fists. The television was off; he was reading.

“Hey, Billy,” she called to him. “I'm leaving now.”