Santa's Playbook

No.

She grinned. “And here I thought we were bonding over a mutual love of the theater.”

Ethan bristled. Yeah. That. Or rather, that, too. Then again, knowing Jules, the stagestruck phase would in all likelihood go the way of the photography phase and the piano phase and a dozen other phases he didn’t even half remember anymore. This matchmaking thing, though, was something else again. He resisted the temptation to massage his knee, acting up despite his telling it not to. He loved Jersey, Jersey was home, but the damp weather sucked.

“Afraid not.”

Something like sympathy shone in her eyes, and he bristled again. After three years, you’d think the pity wouldn’t bother him anymore. “Then why’d you invite me to stay for breakfast?”

“I didn’t. Jules did.”

“But...”

“I didn’t want to come across like some hard-ass, okay?”

Her mouth curved. No lipstick. Or any other makeup that Ethan could tell. Not that she needed it, with her dark brows and lashes—

Yeah, it bugged him, bugged him like hell, this dumb physical attraction to the woman. Because he had no business being attracted to anybody right now, especially some cute little bouncy-haired drama teacher who was obviously feeding his way-too-impressionable daughter a load of bull. Man, Juliette’s constant yammering about the woman was about to drive him up the wall. Even though he knew this was only a crush—although considering how many of the teachers at Hoover were barely younger than the school’s namesake, he could hardly blame her.

Any more than he could blame himself, he supposed, for the not-so-little pings and dings and buzzings when Claire was around. He thought he’d buried his libido with his wife. Clearly not.

And this despite her dressing crazier than the kids. Take today, for instance—a sweater that came practically to her knees, the ugliest, puffiest vest on God’s green earth, boots that looked like Chewbacca’s feet. Three pairs of earrings. Granted, all tiny, but...

“Honestly, I had no idea the kid had an ulterior motive,” Claire was saying. “Nor would I have gone along with her nefarious plan if I had—” Something crashed overhead, shaking the house. She looked up. “Because that would drive me nuts.”

“You don’t like kids?”

Her gaze snapped to his, and Ethan’s face heated. A knee-jerk reaction, totally uncalled for and way out of proportion to the situation. Especially considering how often his progeny drove him nuts, too.

Claire tilted her head, a little grin tugging at her mouth. “Kids are great. Noise, not so much. Which is why I love teaching—I can get my fill of the little darlings, then they go home. To someone else’s house. And I go home to mine.” Harry yelled at Finn about...something. “Where it’s, you know, peaceful.”

Not for the first time, he found her presence...unnerving, he supposed it was. Aside from the attraction thing, that was. Because it was like she was always “on,” practically crackling with energy. Made sense, he supposed, given her being a drama teacher. But the idea of being around that all the time—especially considering the little life-suckers his kids were—made Ethan very tired. Merri... She’d been the epitome of calm. Not dull, no, but steady. Soothing.

Grief twinged, just enough to prod awake the loneliness, usually smothered under blankets of busyness and obligation. Willing it go back to sleep, Ethan walked over to the fireplace, figuring he might as well stack wood for this evening’s fire as the house filled with the scents of bacon and cinnamon rolls. Jules was going all out. Great.

“I wouldn’t know peaceful if it bit me in the butt,” Ethan finally said, to fill the void as much as anything. Crouching, he grabbed a couple of logs from the metal bucket next to the hearth. “There were always a lot of kids around when I was growing up. I was one of five, four of us being adopted.”

“Five? Wow.”

“And my parents fostered probably two dozen more over the years.”

“No kidding? That’s awesome.”

His back to Claire, Ethan smiled as he arranged the logs in the firebox. “Yeah,” he said, getting to his feet and dusting off his hands. “They were something else.”

Wearing an easy smile, Claire leaned against the arm of the sofa, her arms crossed, looking less...crackly. “Were?”

“Well, Pop still is, although he’s more than content being a grandpa these days. Mom passed away some years back. But being raised with all those kids... It only seemed natural that I’d have a batch of my own someday. Would’ve had more, but that wasn’t in the cards—”

And why the hell was he blathering on to this woman he barely knew? But while he could stanch the blathering, he couldn’t do a blamed thing about the memories—of the other babies he and Merri had lost...of what he’d lost, period. Of the what-might-have-beens he rarely indulged, for everyone’s sake. And yet—stronger, even, than the scents coming from the kitchen—they practically choked him this morning. It was strange how even after more than three years they could pounce out of nowhere, throw him for a loop.

Releasing a breath, he met Claire’s disconcertingly gentle gaze again and switched the subject. “You got brothers and sisters?”

“Nope,” she said, shaking her head before plopping cross-legged on the floor to rub Barney’s belly. “There were a few distant cousins, but I rarely saw them.” She grinned when the dog licked her hand. “I like people. It’s living with them I have issues with. I have a cat, though. Does that count?”

“I’m gonna have to say no to that,” Ethan said, and Claire snorted another little laugh as the dog crawled into her lap.

“What is he?”

“A schnoodle.” Claire’s eyes lifted to his. “Schnauzer/poodle. We got him...” He cleared his throat. “Three years ago.”

Still petting the dog, Claire quietly said, “Juliette really keeps trying to fix you up?”

“Yeah,” he breathed out.

“I assume you’ve asked her to back off?”

“Repeatedly. Only to get this look like I’m speaking Klingon—”

“Breakfast’s ready!” Jules called, and Claire shoved to her feet again.

“I could talk to her, if you want—”

“I can handle my own daughter, thanks,” Ethan snapped, only to realize how dumb that sounded, considering what he’d said not two seconds before. A realization Claire obviously picked up on, judging from the damn twinkle in her eyes.

“Yeah, well, as someone who used to be a teenage girl I can tell you they’re very good at ignoring what they don’t want to hear. Especially from their fathers. And since this doesn’t only concern you, I do reserve the right to set things straight from my end.”

Jeez, the woman was worse than his daughter. But Ethan also guessed she had Juliette’s ear, which apparently he didn’t. At least not about this.

“Fine. Do whatever you think is best. But for now...let’s just get this breakfast over with, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Claire said with a quick smile before following him to the kitchen, and Ethan pushed out another sigh that, God willing, in a half hour this—she—would be nothing more than a tiny blip on the old radar screen.

Because it’d taken the entire three years since Merri’s death to fine-tune the playbook that held his family, his life, together...and damned if he was gonna let some curly-headed cutie distract him from it now.

Claire ducked into the main floor half bath as the landline rang: Jules had already picked up by the time Ethan reached the kitchen, deftly cradling it between her jaw and her shoulder as she served up omelets and fried potatoes, looking so much like her mother Ethan’s heart knocked.

“Hey, Baba—” The spatula hovering over the skillet, she went stock-still. “Oh, no...that sucks! Ick....Yeah, I’ll tell him....No, we’ll work it out,” she said as Ethan motioned for her to give him the phone. But she only brandished the spatula, shaking her head. “Of course I’m sure. You need us for anything?...Okay, then....We’ll talk later.” She redocked the phone, glancing at Ethan as she finished dishing up breakfast. “Baba’s got a tummy bug, she can’t take Bella to dance class.”

He silently swore. Right or wrong, he depended on Merri’s parents to sometimes fill the gap, a role they both seemed to relish. And it’d been Carmela’s idea to put the little jumping bean in ballet class to burn off at least some of her boundless energy. Kid could run ten circles around her brothers. Speaking of whom... “The boys have their game at ten, I can’t do both.”

“Another argument for letting me get my license sooner rather than later—”

“Forget it. Maybe I could get Pop to take her—”

“PopPop in a room full of baby ballerinas. Yeah, I can totally see that. Hey—maybe Miss Jacobs could do it?”

“Maybe Miss Jacobs could do what?” Claire said as she returned, scrubbing her obviously still-damp hands across her butt.