A Celebration Christmas

“Actually I haven’t had time to make it yet. Would you like a cup?”

“If you’ll show me how to use that fancy machine, I’ll make myself a cup after you get yours,” she said. “I don’t want you to be late.”

They walked over to the coffeemaker. She stood so close that he could smell her perfume, a delicate, feminine floral scent that had him breathing in deeper.

He had just measured the coffee grinds and told her, “You need one scoop for every—” when an ear-piercing scream cut him off and had Lily and him racing into the living room to see what had happened.

Hannah was standing at the top of the steps, crying and holding her finger. Megan was yelling at George, who was holding a stick that should’ve been in the backyard, not upstairs in the bedrooms.

“You hurt her!” Megan said.

Bridget was standing back quietly observing as her older sister continued to let George have it.

“What’s going on up there?” Cullen asked from the bottom of the stairs.

Lily had already gone up to the child and was kneeling at the little girl’s side, looking at her finger. “You’re bleeding, sweetie. What happened?”

“George took away Franklin’s fetch stick. I didn’t want him to have it because he said he’s going to take Franklin outside without a leash. But I don’t want him to because Franklin might run away.”

“George, what did you do, buddy?” Cullen asked once he was up there with them.

“He yanked the stick out of her hand,” Megan answered. “That’s how she got the splinter.”

Great. A splinter.

“You have to be careful, pal,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice as even as possible. “You’re stronger than you realize. I’m sure you didn’t mean to do it on purpose, but you hurt your sister. Can you tell her you’re sorry?”

All eyes shifted to the boy, whose face had clouded like a thunderhead. “No,” he said. “She’s dumb. She’s a dumb, crying baby.”

He turned around and walked out of the room.

Suddenly the dirty dishwater that the hospital tried to pass off as coffee sounded better to Cullen than the strong jolt of joe he usually made for himself, because there was nothing he wanted more right now than to leave all this chaos behind and go to work. Even if the hospital’s coffee was bad and that place could be a different brand of bedlam sometimes, at least it came with a chaser of quiet in the form of his closed office door. When he needed to think, all he had to do was shut the door, and unless the place was falling down, no one bothered him. Before they did, they had to go through his administrative assistant, Tracy.

“We need to get this splinter out,” Lily said. “Do you have any tweezers? We’ll probably need some hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic ointment. A bandage would help, too.”

“It’s all in the hall bath,” Cullen said. “The room where you cleaned up the blue foam yesterday.” The place that always seemed to draw the drama—whether it started or ended there.

Cullen motioned Lily and Hannah to follow him. As the three of them squeezed into the hall bathroom, the dog tried to wedge his way in, too.

Lily scooped up Hannah with one arm and petted Franklin with her free hand, keeping him at bay but allowing him to see that the girl was okay.

“Thank you,” Cullen said. Caring for children was infinitely easier with two people. He had no idea how she managed it on her own. Then again, four kids, even kids as spirited as these, must’ve seemed like a picnic compared to a classroom full. Obviously some people had the gift and others didn’t. Lily, he decided as he gathered the supplies, was the child whisperer. He was way out of his league.

He set his cell phone on the counter.

“I’m going to move this over here so it doesn’t get splashed,” Lily said, pushing it behind her with her free hand.

“Thank you. At the rate my morning’s going, I’d probably end up knocking it in the toilet.”

He and Lily exchanged smiles, and it was...nice. It made him feel as if the day wasn’t destined to be all bad.

First he had the little girl wash her hands with soap and water. Then as he prepared to swab Hannah’s finger with hydrogen peroxide, she pulled her hand away, tears brimming. “Will that hurt?”

“It shouldn’t,” Cullen said. “But I’ll bet Ms. Palmer will let you squeeze her hand just in case.”

“Her name is Lily,” Hannah said. “Yesterday, she told us that we could call her Lily.”

“Fair enough,” Cullen said. He smiled as his gaze snagged Lily’s and he wondered why it was that he’d never noticed until now how green her eyes were. And they were flecked with little veins of gold. Nice.

“It might be easier for me to get the splinter out if she sits on the counter,” he said as he picked Hannah up and set her on the vanity.

He had just started to grab the tiny sliver of wood when his cell phone sounded the arrival of a text.

“That’s probably the hospital. I’m late.” He nodded in the general direction of the phone, still trying to remove the offending particle. “Would you mind texting them back to say that I’ll be right there?”

Lily picked up the phone.

“Oh.”

Cullen looked over and met her gaze. “Is there a problem?”

Lily’s eyebrows rose and a faint blush colored her cheeks.

“Well, it’s not the hospital. It’s someone named...Giselle?” Lily cleared her throat. “She says—and I’m paraphrasing here—but she’s very eager to see you tonight. It seems she has quite the night planned for you.”

Oh, hell.

Heat warmed his face. He glanced down at Hannah to see if she’d caught on to the situation. But she was studying the finger that was now splinter free.

“Here—never mind.” Cullen held out his hand for the phone. After Lily gave it to him, he shoved it into his pants pocket as if the action could undo Lily having read the message, which was bound to be graphic, knowing Giselle.

He felt like a letch for having subjected her to it. Of course, if he’d known Giselle would pick that precise moment to offer a preview of coming attractions, he wouldn’t have asked Lily to pick up the text. In fact, he’d been so busy since the kids arrived that he’d completely forgotten he was supposed to see her.

Was that tonight?

He couldn’t bring a woman like her around while Lily and the kids were here. Before he’d taken the kids into his home, he hadn’t realized all the ways they might change his life. When had he ever recoiled from a spicy Giselle text or passed up a chance to see her? But given the circumstances, he didn’t have a choice but to decline.

“Does your finger feel better, Hannah?” he asked after he’d slathered it with antibiotic ointment and applied a bandage.

She nodded through a one-shoulder shrug. “Sort of. It would feel much better if I had a princess bandage.”

Lily took the little girl down from the vanity, held her good hand and led her out of the bathroom without looking at Cullen. “The next time I go to the store, I’ll make sure to get some princess bandages. A princess should always have a special bandage. You’re very brave to wear the ordinary one for now.”

Cullen stood alone for a moment, listening as their conversation grew faint. He certainly hadn’t thought taking in the kids would throw him into a crisis of conscience. After all, he was single. He and the women he dated were consenting adults and very clear about the no-strings-attached nature of their relationships. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.

So why did it feel as though he was?

He took a deep breath and reminded himself that it wouldn’t be this way forever. The kids would be living with him only until the end of December. Then he could resume life as he knew it.