Single Dad's Christmas Miracle

Today he wore dark trousers, white shirt and blue tie. His hair neatly combed and his brown eyes bright with enthusiasm, he was clearly happy to be getting back to his normal routine.

Her attraction sparked to life again, but, as always with anything to do with her hormones, she ignored it. As she prepared a single cup of coffee using the directions on the side of the coffeemaker, she nodded at his laptop. “Working already?”

“Reading the Wall Street Journal online.”

Now why in the name of all that was holy had that sounded sexy? “Ah.”

She ambled to the center island. Clark pointed at a plate of French toast. “Breakfast?”

“Yeah. As soon as I have at least one cup of coffee.”

He rose and grabbed the black suit coat from the back of his stool. “If everything’s under control here, I’m going to go into the office right now. Even with email and fax machines, we couldn’t get everything done we needed to get done last week while I was home with the kids. And we’re hopelessly behind in preparing some important government bids.”

He shrugged into the charcoal-gray overcoat that had been flung across the unused table by the French doors.

“You never did tell me what you do for a living.”

“I own an engineering firm.”

“Oh.” The way he said that sounded sexy, too, confusing her. She wasn’t the kind of woman to fall for the executive type. She had been a sucker for beach bums. Which was why she kept getting her heart broken and her bank account depleted and why she’d stopped dating.

He motioned for her to walk him to the front door. When they were out of earshot of the kitchen he said, “My wife was the brains of the operation. She was actually the engineer. I’m just a lowly liberal arts major who took business courses at university after we realized Carol wanted to start her own firm, and she’d need me to run it. When she died, I had to hire two people to replace her.”

The casual, very calm way he talked about his deceased wife baffled her. Until she remembered that was sort of how Clark talked about everything. Casually. Calmly. With very little emotion.

“I also had to learn as much about the work as I possibly could so that I could speak intelligently to clients.”

“So you’ve had a long, difficult three years.”

Reaching for the doorknob, he frowned. “I would think that would go without saying.”

Yeah. She supposed he was right.

“Anyway, I’ll be back around six. All of my contact numbers are on a sheet in the kitchen. As you probably noticed yesterday, Teagan is fine coloring or playing by herself. Do whatever you would normally do with Jack’s lessons, etc. And then spend the rest of the day however you want.”

“You’ll bring dinner?”

He chuckled. “Yes.”

With a quick yank on the front door, he opened it and left.

She took her time returning to the kitchen. He wasn’t a bad guy. Actually, he seemed like a really nice guy—a gorgeous nice guy to whom she was unexpectedly attracted. But he was an executive who’d handled his wife’s death with the cool efficiency he probably spent on the company’s tax return. He had to use a storybook to show his daughter she could depend on him.

It wasn’t his fault that his kids were quiet, sad. Maybe even slightly lost. He handled things the way he knew how.

But his kids were quiet and sad, and slightly lost, and she ached for them.

In the kitchen, she glanced at Jack who wore jeans and a T-shirt then Teagan who wore little blue jeans with pink flowers embroidered on the pockets with a matching pink T-shirt. Her long dark hair had been combed, even though she didn’t have a clip or band to keep it out of her face.

She ambled to the center island, filled a plate with two slices of French toast and sat on the stool beside Teagan.

“Are you ready to color today?”

The little girl yanked on Jack’s sleeve. He bent down and she whispered in his ear.

Jack sighed. “She said yes.”

Althea poured syrup on her toast, her heart aching for Jack again. The kid was twelve, isolated on a mountaintop—a beautiful mountaintop to be sure, but a lonely one. And a boy who should be in the ignoring-his-siblings stage had to speak for his baby sister.

He needed some fun.

And not just video games. Something unexpected.

“We’re going on a field trip this morning.”

Jack gaped at her. “Field trip?”

“Yeah. I need a coat and boots.”

Teagan blinked at her. Jack frowned. “You don’t have a coat?”

“I lived in Southern California for the past ten years. The heaviest thing I have is a hoodie.”

Jack just stared at her.

“Come on. You’re old enough to know the geography of this country. We have all different kinds of weather.”

“I suppose. I just don’t want my dad to be mad.”

“He’s the one who told me to get boots.”

She turned him toward the door. “Go get your coat and your sister’s coat. I swear we’ll have fun.”

CHAPTER THREE

JACK REMINDED ALTHEA that Teagan was too small to ride in a car without a safety seat, so they grabbed the extra one from the garage and installed it in her little red car.

The whole time they worked, Althea kept glancing back at Teagan, hoping for her to speak. Clearly excited at the prospect of getting out of the house, the little girl jumped from foot to foot. Her eyes glowed. Her smile could light the garage. But she never said a word.

As they rode down the hill, Jack chatted happily, filling her chest with the light airy feeling that comes from pleasing another person. She’d figured out he needed to get out of the house, she just hadn’t realized how badly. It was a stroke of luck that she needed a coat and boots.

She parked in front of one of the meters, fed it enough to give them an hour for shopping and turned the kids in the direction of the town’s general store.

In a shop stocked for winter in the mountains, she immediately found a coat and boots. The light blue jacket, black mittens and black boots she tried on not only fit, they were cute. But because she found them so quickly, their trip into town was ending too soon.

So, wearing her new coat and boots, she herded the kids across the street, telling them she wanted to see more of the town. About halfway down, she got her second lucky break of the morning: a Santa Shop.

There was nothing like seeing decorations, talking about gifts and sharing secret gift wishes to perk up children.