Celebration's Family

Calee reached out and, with a couple confident taps, she pulled up the page he’d tried to hide as she and her sister had burst into the room.

“Duh. This auction. You were just looking at it. Oh-em-gee. Why are you pretending you weren’t?”

She put her hands on her slim hips and affected a disapproving look. That was the thing about teenage girls: nothing got by them. That’s why he was so careful not to do anything that might embarrass them or undermine the strict house rules under which he was raising them. Honesty was at the top of the list, and since he led by example, this was the perfect time to be truthful, a good teaching moment.

“I was looking at the website because I went to a meeting today, and they were talking about it. Some of my colleagues are going to be in it to help raise money for the pediatric surgical wing.”

Did partial truth count? His colleagues were going to help. He’d just omitted the part about him declining to take part, too.

“I left to do rounds before the meeting was over. So I was checking the webpage to see what it was all about.”

Amanda moved closer to stand beside her sister. She watched as Calee held up her hands. “Wait. Wait. Wait. You said your colleagues are doing it? Why aren’t you?”

Liam was about to reassure her that he wasn’t doing it because he didn’t want to embarrass her and Amanda, but he was relieved when she didn’t wait for him to answer.

“Oh-em-gee. You totally have to do it. You. Have. To. Do. It. Tonight at dance class Lacy Vogler was bragging about how her dad got invited to do it because she said he’s the hottest dad in Celebration.”

Lacy Vogler? She had to be Quinn’s daughter.

“But I told her that he wasn’t the hottest dad, that you were. Because you’re his boss, right? Right?”

She was talking a mile a minute, and Liam was doing his best to follow what she was saying. Did this mean she wanted him to do the auction? He had a sinking feeling she might.

“Well, no. I’m not exactly his boss. He works at the hospital just like I do. I’m in charge of pediatrics, and he’s in charge of orthopedics—”

“But you’ve been there longer, right? Right? Lacy Vogler just moved here, and we’ve always been here, and she’s coming in and trying to take over. Please tell me you’re going to do the auction, because if you don’t, she will think she won and that her dad is better than you and—”

This time Liam held up his hands. “Whoa, Calee, take a breath.”

He gave his head a quick shake, trying to stop it from spinning thanks to her breathless tirade. Also because he didn’t like this trend of one-upmanship he was witnessing in her. And this wasn’t the first time, either.

“Calee, in this family, we don’t worry about keeping up with the Joneses. So it doesn’t matter what Lacy says. The auction isn’t to decide who has the hottest dad.” He cringed before the sentence was completely out of his mouth. “Or however you put it.”

Hottest dad? Since when did teenage girls even think about dads in those terms?

The way his daughter was reacting was exactly why he didn’t want to participate in the auction in the first place. Well, okay, not exactly the reason. Sort of the flip side of the coin. Life and happiness weren’t about looks, or who got the most bids or raised the most money.

“This auction is about helping. It’s about doing something for the greater good of the community.”

“Right, but Lacy’s last name is Vogler? Not Jones?” Calee said. She’d also developed a habit of putting verbal question marks at the end of statements when she was trying to make a point.

When Liam squinted at her, she explained, “Haha, Dad. You said we’re not interested in keeping up with the Joneses. It’s Lacy Vogler, not Lacy Jones.”

She spat the girl’s name, as if the mere mention of it left a bad aftertaste, and that bothered him, too. Maybe even more than the thought of putting himself up for auction.

“I know what her name is,” Liam said. “You know what that expression means. Stop being a smarty-pants.”

“So, then, that means you’ll do it?” Calee said.

Had she not heard a single word he’d said? He glanced at Amanda, who was still conspicuously quiet. Probably because she couldn’t get a word in edgewise when her sister was on a roll. Or possibly because she understood the implications of what her sister was trying to do.

Liam shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ll be in the auction. I will definitely contribute money, because the funding is what’s important. The community and the hospital gravely need a pediatric surgical wing. It’s a great cause, and I do want to help, but I’ll have to think about whether or not I want to be in the auction.

“You see, the way it works is the women bid on the men. That money goes to the hospital. But then the guys have to take out the women who placed the winning bids on a fancy date and spend a lot of money. I think I’d rather give that money to the hospital. Instead of spending it on a date. Don’t you think that’s better?”

He paused to let the reality of that sink in. He wondered if Calee had been so caught up in outdoing Quinn Vogler’s daughter that she hadn’t even realized that being in the auction meant that a woman who was not her mother would expect to go out on a date with him.

He paused, waiting for the implications to sink in.

But Calee and Amanda were standing there staring at him, not giving him the horrified reaction he’d expected.

“Because you do realize that, by being in the auction, I would have to go out on a date?”

“It’s not like you’d be cheating on mom or anything.” The voice came from behind Calee. Liam’s gaze shifted to Amanda. She may have been the quieter of the two, but sometimes she seemed ages wiser. In fact, Joy used to call Amanda her “old soul.”

“Well, no, I suppose not,” Liam answered, feeling as if the last of his reasons for not participating in the auction were flying out the window fast.

“I guess I’ve been worried about how you two would feel if I took another woman out on a date. I didn’t want to commit to the auction because I was afraid it would upset you.”

Calee and Amanda looked at each other. Despite the fact that they were as different as night and day, they were as close as close could be. They stuck together. Calee, the more assertive of the two, always looked out for her sister and usually spoke for her, as well. Every so often the girls might get into a tiff, but no one besides the two of them got away with saying a cross word about the other without suffering the consequences.

Sometimes, like now, it was as if they had a secret, silent language in which only they communicated. It was almost telepathic. Liam saw them at work now.

“Dad,” said Amanda, who had apparently been elected spokesperson for the matter at hand. “Just because some woman bids on you in an auction and you take her out, doesn’t mean you have to like her. You know, you don’t have to like her, like her.”

Those matter-of-fact words, which weren’t snotty or hateful, just truthful, were the well-placed punch in the gut he thought he’d avoided earlier when they had first started talking about the damn auction and the possibility of him spending time with someone who was not Joy. Only these words landed a little harder because now he felt foolish.

“Well, of course not,” he said.

“But you wouldn’t have to kiss her or marry her or anything like that,” said Calee.

“So you’re telling me that you two want me to participate?” Liam asked.

“Yes!” Calee cheered. Then she grew uncharacteristically serious. “Just as long as you don’t let Mrs. Herring win you.”

Chapter Three

Liam was early for the lunch meeting with Kate. She had called first thing that morning and said she’d come up with a plan to get him off the hook with Dunlevy. She wanted to discuss it with him.

A plan, huh?

Yes. One she’d rather not talk about over the phone. Or so she’d said and asked if they could meet for lunch. His first inclination, as he stood at the nurses’ station, had been to decline and tell her that he’d decided to go through with the auction, but then he decided it couldn’t hurt to hear what Kate had to say.

Now, as he waited alone at the table for two in Luigi’s Italian Kitchen in downtown Celebration, he glanced at his watch. Eleven fifty-five. It was good to have a few minutes to take a deep breath. The morning had been hell. No different from any other day, except that he’d been forced to find a stopping place in the middle of his rounds. Usually he didn’t take a lunch break; he’d grab something in between patients or meetings. It was strange to find himself outside the hospital walls at this time of day.

If Kate could offer a viable option other than the auction, he wanted to hear about it before he tipped his hand.

As he took a sip of the water the server had set in front of him, he glimpsed Kate entering the restaurant and stepping up to the hostess stand. Liam stood and waved. She said something to the hostess and then flashed a smile at him as she began walking toward their table.