“Well, I was just rereading it one more time. And I found a problem. We weren’t expecting anyone to see it or read it until after Christmas? But if anyone got their hands on it and discovers the goof, they’d probably wonder about the accuracy of the rest of our data. At the very least, they’d think we’re careless—”

  She carried the phone to the kitchen, where she could start making coffee. His voice was trembling again. “Jonas, do you know what the mistake is?”

  “What I know is that it’s all my fault.”

  “You know what? Maybe it is your fault. But however big or small the mistake is, it probably isn’t going to affect world peace. We’ll survive if there’s a problem. You’re okay. Just tell me.”

  She gulped down two mugs of coffee before she got it out of him. He was like her sisters when they were younger—heaven knows, they were willing to talk, but it took a deep shovel to dig out the real problem.

  Poppy had dreamed of earning this grant for more than two years—when she’d first discovered the Greedy Glugger. It was a fish with a mouth almost bigger than its body—a species never seen before in Wisconsin’s northern lakes—who seemed content to gulp down any fish smaller than him. They weren’t reproducing as fast as rabbits, but close.

  Intruders entered lake waters all the time, but identifying them could be a pistol and a half. Defending against them was always a challenging crisis. To kill all the monsters sounded easy, but it wasn’t. First, they needed to know how they got in their specific lakes. How to get rid of them in a way that didn’t harm the other species of fish and growth in the lakes. How to understand their breeding ground, and why they found certain freshwater lakes so enticing to breed in.

  Simple solutions rarely solved complex problems. Which is why they needed a grant, with enough funds to study the darned Glugger before it did any more damage.

  Wherever the species came from, perhaps it was benign. But here it was interacting with unfamiliar species. The result was unfortunately noxious. Bigger fish who tried to eat it became poisoned.

  “Jonas, take it easy. We’ll figure this out.”

  “It was my numbers that were wrong. It wasn’t actually an error in calculation, Poppy. Somehow I just put in an eight instead of a six in a certain graph, and that affected the results all the way through.”

  “Jonas.” By then she’d washed out her mug, brushed her hair, and yanked on clothes—she’d put him on speaker for part of the call. “It’ll take me an hour and a half, maybe two, to get to the lab—”

  “I’ll be there. I’ll be there before you’re here.”

  She sighed. His voice was so earnest, his tone so relieved she was coming. “We’ll fix it, Jonas. Not today. My family’s coming over for a big Christmas Eve dinner. But I can spare an hour if it’ll help you stop worrying about it. We’ll see what’s what, make a plan, figure it out. I promise, it’s going to be okay.”

  He almost laughed, but his choked voice sounded closer to crying. She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t just leave the kid that panic-stricken without answers over the holidays, and he was right that this was potentially a mighty serious problem.

  Poppy sent a text to Sam—telling him she needed to be at her lab and couldn’t be back until early afternoon. After that, she sent emails to family, just to let them know where she was and telling them that though dinner might be postponed by an hour, she’d be there, nothing to worry about.

  Only there was. The whole drive to the lab, Poppy’s heart kept drumming an ominous beat.

  This was the story of her life—the story she’d been trying to change. The running nonstop. The responding to everyone’s needs ahead of her own. Her reacting to whatever anyone else wanted.

  Only this really wasn’t the same thing. The Christmas Eve dinner might be a little late, but she wouldn’t be gone that long. She couldn’t strand one of her students with a crisis. After all, she was the boss. And she had the whole responsibility for this project and grant and everything that went with it—if it failed, it was her job, her reputation at stake.

  She was making lots of progress with saying no lately. She’d said no to her dad. She’d said no to Gary. Maybe she hadn’t fully confronted her sisters yet, but who could move a mountain in a day? She was hardwired to put others first.

  Okay. So she’d only made inroads, so far. Not major changes. Putting herself first still loomed as strange new territory. She was still rushing. She hadn’t had any breakfast yet, hadn’t thought to bring even a snack for the drive. Yesterday there’d been no time for lunch at all. And now she’d be going home to a roomful of presents that still weren’t wrapped, and the zillions of things related to Christmas Eve dinner that she was responsible for.

  Her sisters knew how to do the dinner stuff. They’d done it a zillion times with her. They could take charge, she told herself.

  Only they never had before.

  Once the worry itch got under her skin, it was tough not to scratch it. Poppy pulled into the empty parking lot at the lab, feeling as if she were on a crash-and-burn course that was going to explode by dinner. The crux of the problem was Sam.

  She didn’t want to be someone in his life who added little more than a goofy woman who excelled at running at a frazzling pace. He needed a woman who had time in her life for him, and that’s who she wanted to be. What she wanted for him.

  But at the moment, all she could really do was run. She’d had almost two weeks to reboot her life—and she’d thought she was on the right path—but this sure felt like repeating old history. Grabbing her purse, running for the lab because there was a problem. Instead of sending Jonas home, she promised to rush in to fix it. Even worse, as always, she was counting on herself to fix it, too.

  * * *

  AN HOUR AFTER receiving Poppy’s text, Sam zoomed over to her cabin. Obviously she was going to be at her lab for several hours, but that was exactly why he charged over so early.

  He understood about a crazy work crisis. It happened to him all the time in the summer. He could help do the dinner prep, make sure Poppy had less to do later.

  Surprising him, there were already three cars in her driveway—so her clan had shown up to help, too. That was good news—and he figured the second car had to be her father’s. It was past time he met the dad, Sam thought. In fact, when it came down to it, the serious talk he’d wanted to have with Poppy was about all the unanswered questions he had about her father. Maybe it was just as well he’d have a chance to meet George before that talk.

  Whistling as he vaulted out of the truck, he let Bubbles bound ahead of him, dressed appropriately with velvet antlers and jingle bells. Sunlight dazzled on fresh snow. Couldn’t be a more perfect Christmas Eve.

  He yanked down the tailgate, shook his head. He had a mountain to haul inside—food, cookery, general holiday stuff. Not that he was a sucker for Christmas, but he always had been, always would be. Santa fashion, he hauled a big bag of presents on his shoulder, carried the rest, and let Bubbles lead the way.

  Sam opened the door with a boisterous “Ho ho ho” only to find three stressed-out people. Both sisters were wringing their hands, pacing from window to window dressed in velvets and spangles and Christmas attire—but no smiles.

  Cam spotted him first, trailed by Marigold. “Sam! So glad you’re here. Do you know where Poppy is?”

  “Well, sure.” He was confused by the question, even more confused by why the ladies both looked so freaked. “Why is anyone worried? Poppy said she’d texted everyone, so you’d know she had to go into her lab.”

  “We know,” Cam said. “And dinner’s all planned—but we don’t know when to start anything. How she wants the table. We just realized we don’t have a big enough pan for the ham. And she usually decides which dish to make the vegetables and potatoes in.”

  Sam waited a minute, but that seemed to be the gist of all the stress. Nothing that affected world peace, as far as he could see.

  “Okay. Here’s a plan. I brought a major-size pan for the ham just in case there wasn’t one here at the cabin. For everything else, make whatever decisions you want. Fill me in if I can help. I’ll take on the rest. And we’ll tell Poppy anything that goes wrong is all my fault.”

  They went for it. His brothers should be so easy to appease. Sam started dropping parcels, carting some to the kitchen counter, some by the tree, trying to take in the rest of the situation, just in case any more problems were begging to show up.

  And of course there were. The fireplace was smoking—someone didn’t know much about how to light one. Bubbles was already eyeing a coffee cake on the counter. And finally he got a first look at Poppy’s dad.

  George was tall and lean. He had the girls’ dark auburn hair, but his was liberally streaked with silver. He was a good-looking guy—hardly a surprise, considering he had three gorgeous daughters. He’d parked in the big easy chair, was sipping from a fresh steaming mug of coffee, and appeared settled in for the day.

  He reminded Sam of a ship captain—his blue eyes concentrating on some far-off land, appearing pensive and thoughtful. He glanced up when Sam walked in, offered an immediate jovial smile.

  Sam reached out a hand. “George? Pleased to meet you. I’m Sam Cooper. Great to share a Christmas Eve with you.”

  “Feel just the same. Sit down, sit down, have some coffee. I’d love to hear what you do, where you live, all that.”

  He would have liked to do just that, but the place really was a mess: the smoking fire had to be handled first, then the coffee cake rescued from Bubbles. They needed to get ham in the oven, and the packages dealt with, and the table set. George was oblivious.

  Sam told himself he should have been prepared, but until then, he hadn’t really believed their father was capable of ignoring everything around him.

  “Give me a minute to handle a couple things,” he said. “Then I’ll be back for a talk.”

  “Sure, sure . . .”

  The smoking fireplace, first. Somehow the flue had been partially closed, and the fire built a little too fast. A window opened helped the smoke escape.

  Cam and Marigold framed him. Marigold had made the fire. “What’d I do wrong?”

  “Nothing, you did fine. But in an old fireplace like this, you must always check to make sure the flue is completely open.”

  “Sam.” Cam wasn’t quite through wringing her hands. “It’s after one already. Don’t you think Poppy should be here by now?”

  “I don’t see how she could possibly get here before now. It’s a couple hours there and back. We don’t know what the problem was. But she had to need time to assess what was wrong. And she’d have called if something was going to affect her getting here by midafternoon.”

  Cam quit twisting her hands together, frowned at him. “You’re right.”

  “I’ll be darned. I’m not sure I ever heard those words from a woman before. It may take me time to recover from the shock.”

  There now. Not just a smile but a punch on the arm. It was his turn to grin.

  “How about if we get everything started? Dinner should be around the same time, or maybe just a little later. If I understand Poppy’s text, there was a mistake in some grant she was working on. One of her college students—Jonas—discovered that some figures were wrong. She said he was the numbers guru on the project, so he was really freaked at finding the goof. A lot was at stake.”

  “But that’s work,” Marigold said incredulously.

  “Yeah.” He’d assumed Poppy had sent them the same information. And maybe she had. But it was pretty obvious that nothing had gotten through. “Somehow, I can’t imagine Poppy letting something important get ignored, just because of a hurricane or a tornado or a snowstorm, can you?”

  Cam started laughing. “No.”

  “She’ll be here,” he said reasonably. “She’ll probably be tired and crabby and hungry. She won’t have forgotten it’s Christmas Eve. She’ll just be trying to do fifty things at once.”

  Now Marigold picked up a grin. “That’s our sister.”

  “So. I figure I’ll take on the ham, just because it’s such a heavy sucker. I brought over a big cooker in case you needed it, but it’s still in the truck. I’ll pop out to get it. Nothing like that is ever a problem in my clan. We all have so many big meals together that we always have cooking gear. Anyway. You want your ham rubbed with brown sugar, sealed up, or some other way?”

  “I can’t believe it. You know how to cook?”

  “My mom wasn’t about to raise three boys who couldn’t cook—and do dishes. We’re all used to chipping in for the big meals. It’s no sweat. So, Cam, if you could find the tinfoil and brown sugar, I’ll start on the ham. And Marigold, I see all those gifts under the tree.” He scratched his chin. “I could have sworn you all said you weren’t going to exchange presents this Christmas.”

  “Well, that’s what we agreed to. But we both thought Poppy needed presents. We don’t need anything. But we thought she did.”

  “Well, I can see from the bedroom doorway that her bed’s heaped with packages. So apparently she ignored the rules and bought stuff, too, just never had time to wrap anything. I’m thinking—how can we make this all go a little more smoothly? Marigold, how about if you take all her presents, all the presents under the tree—and put everybody’s gifts in grocery sacks and mark who they’re for? That way, everyone’s presents will look the same. And no one will feel bad if theirs aren’t wrapped—”

  “Like Poppy’s. And I get to see hers and everyone else’s ahead of time.” Marigold offered a happy Cheshire-cat grin. “What a great idea, Sam.”

  Questions kept coming. They didn’t want to start cooking anything, veggies or potatoes or setting a table or whatever, because they didn’t know how Poppy would want something done.

  “What?? She used to yell if you didn’t do something her way?”

  “No.” Cam looked at him as if he were nuts. “You know Poppy. She’s not a yeller. But we always include her. Partly because she’s so good at organizing everything.”

  AN HOUR LATER Sam corralled the sisters over the kitchen counter, taking a break with the rest of the coffee cake. “Can I share something private with you two?” he asked.

  “Of course you can.”

  “Well—I suspect you know this, but Poppy loves you two more than life.”

  “And we love her back the same way.”

  Sam nodded. “A few years ago, I lost a woman I’d been positive I wanted to marry. She felt I never gave her enough attention.”

  Cam hesitated, but then said cautiously, “Are you saying we should be giving Poppy more attention?”

  “No. I’m saying that I learned the hard way that it’s too darned easy to assume what someone else needs. I had no idea what this woman wanted or needed in her life. She needed something different entirely than what we were doing. I felt bad. I thought I knew her. And hurting her really made me think about what I did wrong.”

  “Honest to Pete, that person sure doesn’t sound like Poppy.”

  “She isn’t,” Sam agreed emphatically. “In fact, Poppy is almost the exact opposite of that lady. For instance . . . Poppy doesn’t like being noticed. She doesn’t like drawing attention to herself. Am I wrong?”

  “You’ve got that dead right,” Marigold affirmed.

  “So, how I love your sister is obviously different from how you love her. And you’ve known her much longer besides. But from what I’ve noticed, she really has trouble finding a stop button.”

  Cam foraged in a holiday tin for a cookie. “You mean she can’t stop working until a problem is solved, or a project is finished . . . or if someone’s unhappy, she’s trying to help them.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking, too. She doesn’t need more attention—or less. Attention isn’t remotely an issue for her. But what I think—if I’m going to be the right guy in her life—is that I have to find a way to shut the door. Turn out the lights. Hide her phone.”

  “She needs balance,” Cam said. “That’s exactly why she’s been so worn out. She never stops. And there’s no point in trying to reason with her. She just digs her heels in even harder.”

  Marigold frowned. “Maybe we could try harder just to talk about silly things, instead of problems. Not responsibilities. Things like where would you go on vacation if you could go anywhere? Teasing her. Not asking her for advice all the time, just being with her.”

  “Teasing mercilessly is a sister-acquired skill,” Cam said.

  “I have two brothers, so believe me, I know how that goes. I can’t do what you two sisters can do. But I can make sure she gets some peace time. Some renew-the-spirit, do-something-new, lazy happy time.”

  “Hey, Sam?” Cam interrupted the conversation with a determined gleam in her eye. “You’re more than a little serious about her.”

  “Are you trying to tell me something I didn’t know?”

  She chuckled. So did Marigold, but the youngest sister added, “You think you can rein her in, you’ll have to rope her into a chair, Sam. Maybe even try a padlock.”

  “I know. I know. It’s hard work. But someone’s got to do it.” He didn’t add that he didn’t want any other guy doing it.

  He glanced at the clock. It was pushing around two thirty. Dinner couldn’t be ready before four thirty, which was fine. He just hoped Poppy didn’t come home too soon, because he had yet another one-on-one he needed to tackle.

  “George . . .” He ambled over to the couch across from Poppy’s dad. “Is it too early for a little nip?”

  George brightened. “Not too early for me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  POPPY WAS BREATHING guilt, smelling guilt, tasting guilt, itchy with guilt. And that was before she finally got back to the cottage and found no places to park. The family—and Sam—were all here.

  She’d left everything for them to do.

  It wasn’t as if she’d forgotten the time. But once she and Jonas were in the lab, poring over their study and the complete grant proposal—well, it wasn’t as simple as just finding and correcting a mistake.