“No,” she said.

  “But yet, you still weren’t sure what I meant about taking time to get used to you.”

  She held his stare and since she’d always been honest before, decided to be honest again. “I’m so out of my element here. Not just with you, but everything. This house, the kids, and the lifestyle.”

  “You sure don’t look it.”

  “Fake it till you make it. That motto has helped me survive.” She said it lightheartedly, but there was nothing blithe about it.

  “You’ve thrived, not just survived, Quinn. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  She always did, she knew that, but when you were just trying to get by day to day you didn’t have time to pump yourself up.

  “I’m trying to change that. It’s hard to break a lifetime of worries and stress, though. Nothing lasts forever, so I don’t get too comfortable.”

  Her breath caught when he ran the back of his knuckles across her cheek. There was a look in his eyes, one she’d never seen before and wasn’t sure she’d ever see.

  “I want you to get comfortable here. With the house, the kids…and me.”

  She closed her eyes, terrified they were filling with tears. The last thing she wanted to do was open herself up like that. She’d been hurt enough in life. Stay closed up tight, that was how she’d made it. It was how she needed to continue.

  “I’ll try.”

  What more could she say when he was looking at her so hopeful.

  No more words were spoken then. He only leaned down, smiled that impish smile she’d seen so many times when he’d been horsing around with the kids, and finally said, “Are we done talking now? I’m on the clock.”

  “I thought it was me on the clock,” she said, leaning into his palm and cuddling against his side.

  “Never. Not unless it’s my personal clock.”

  Her heart started to race. His eyes, his movements, everything about him was slowly chiseling away at the hard outer shell she’d built around herself.

  Christmas Memory

  A fire was burning, the snow was falling, the tree was lit, and the kids were bopping around the house like they’d ingested a pound of sugar apiece. Of course, Quinn had been making cookies all day long, so they probably had.

  It was like a Christmas Eve he’d pictured all those years ago. He’d never come close to achieving this, not once. Sure, he had some nice Christmases before his marriage went to hell, but the kids had been so young they never seemed to enjoy the full experience. Not like he had as a child.

  And he knew darn well Quinn never experienced anything remotely homey during the holidays. He didn’t even need to ask her to know, but he did anyway.

  “What’s your favorite Christmas memory?” he’d asked two days ago.

  She snorted. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Well no, not really. Do you have any fond memories of Christmas? Or any holiday?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  It shouldn’t have surprised him to hear her say that, but it did. He wanted to ask more about her experiences, but decided not to. The last few days had been wonderful between them. Playful almost, even though they were watching their steps in front of the kids.

  “What would you like to have then?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, looking confused.

  “Your perfect holiday. What have you imagined?”

  Now she laughed. “Max, there is no such thing as a perfect holiday. At least in my world. I was happy to have food on the table and no arguments in the house. No tension, no fights, and for once to not have to worry about the kids.”

  “The kids? Meaning your siblings?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I always call them the kids.”

  He hated that for her. That she couldn’t even consider her brothers and sisters as such, that she’d been raising them since she was a child herself.

  “Try to imagine what you would want then.”

  He was hoping she’d give him something. As simple as this all sounded, he wanted to give her an experience she never had as a child.

  “I don’t know. I guess I always have these images of a crackling fire, the stockings being hung, homemade cookies and snacks throughout the day, and a nice meal at night. Just a family relaxing at home.”

  Okay, he had the fireplace, the tree, and the stockings were hung up on the mantel. Even one with her name on it that he’d picked up earlier in the week when Lara pointed it out.

  “That’s easy enough to do this year and sounds perfect to me. Well, with the exception of you baking and cooking all day long.”

  “Why? I don’t mind doing that. It’s all part of the experience for me. I’m not a kid anymore, so I’d like to be able to do that for your kids. Do you have any rituals or traditions?”

  He’d always wanted them with the kids, but he didn’t have any. “No. Why don’t we start one? What do you think?”

  “Don’t ask me, ask the kids,” she’d said, smiling at him.

  He should have asked the kids but instead found himself asking her. For a moment in time, he was picturing traditions with her and the kids. Things to continue year after year. He saw her there year after year.

  “I’m asking you. Your two-month trial period is up. You’re staying, I forgot to tell you.” Walking over, he tugged on the ponytail she always wore and leaned down to quickly kiss her. The kids were downstairs and he felt safe at the moment.

  “Phew, I can breathe a sigh of relief now.” She whacked him on the butt when he turned and walked away.

  It was that frisky side of her too. One he always thought he’d have with a mate. One he had with Mia in the beginning and loved. He never realized how much he missed it.

  “So,” he said pushing again. “Tell me a tradition you wouldn’t mind starting with the kids.”

  She hemmed and hawed and finally said, “I know this is crazy, but I bought them new pajamas and I was hoping they could open them up on Christmas Eve. Christmas pajamas that they could wear that night. I remember when I was a kid hearing someone talk about that and just thought how nice it was.”

  “I think that’s a great tradition and the kids would love to open up a gift early. Did you get me Christmas pajamas too?”

  “You don’t wear pajamas,” she said, reminding him.

  “I would if you bought them for me.”

  “Maybe I prefer you without pajamas.”

  He’d laughed at her, and they tabled the conversation because Lara had come running into the room at that point.

  Now he looked over as Quinn finished frosting the last of the cookies she’d made today, Christmas Eve. These were the cookies that were being left for Santa. Davey didn’t believe and Lara was on the fence. If he could buy one more year, he’d take it.

  Dinner was over and done with, the kitchen was pretty immaculate as always, and he was sitting in the family room waiting for her to finish.

  The minute she was done, she called the kids over, just as he and Quinn had discussed days before.

  “Time for a gift,” Quinn said.

  “But Daddy doesn’t let us open gifts on Christmas Eve,” Lara said, jumping up and down excited. “We get a gift tonight?”

  “Quinn wanted to give you both something before bedtime, which is going to be soon. It’s the only gift you get to open. The start of a tradition of sorts,” he explained.

  The kids each took their own neatly wrapped boxes and started to open them. He knew pajamas weren’t anything exciting and hoped the kids showed some enthusiasm over them.

  As luck would have it, Lara started to squeal when she saw bright pink pajamas with kittens all over them wearing Santa hats. Lara had been asking for a kitten, but he wasn’t ready for pets in the house yet.

  Davey showed equal appreciation when he saw his were just plain navy bottoms and a top, but the front of the top had cartoon characters in karate robes and Santa hats in various poses.

  She knew his kids well.

  “You can wear them to bed tonight, so you go to bed and wake up in new Christmas pajamas.”

  “That’s so neat,” Lara said. “What about you and Daddy?”

  Quinn laughed and handed a box to him. He knew she might do that, but he wasn’t about to be outdone and handed her one too.

  The look on her face when she saw her red pajama top had the words “Kiss the Chef” written in candy canes was priceless. How he wished he could have done just that, but couldn’t right then. Definitely later, though.

  He opened his box. Inside was just a pair of pajama bottoms, no top, because he never slept in a shirt. All over the pants were reindeer with stethoscopes around their necks.

  “Let’s put them on now,” Davey said, standing up and running to his room to change. Lara quickly followed.

  When the kids were out of sight, Max leaned over and kissed Quinn. “The shirt says to do it.”

  Ten minutes later, everyone was wearing their new pajamas, including Quinn, and him with a sweatshirt. They looked ridiculous, but at the same time, looked like a family.

  He was just about to tell the kids they needed to get ready for bed when his cell phone rang. He looked over and saw it was Mia calling. What a great way to kill the Christmas spirit.

  “Hello, Mia,” he said.

  “I’d like to talk to the kids and neither one of them is answering their phones,” she said, sounding put out.

  “They were told to shut their phones off today and tomorrow. They can be away from their friends for twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m not their friend. I’m their mother.”

  “And you got ahold of them by calling me. Hang on, and I’ll give you to Lara.”

  He watched as Lara took his phone, then walked out of the room. Must be Mia told her to do that and he could only imagine what was being said. It didn’t matter, Lara would tell him like she always did.

  Then he looked over and saw Davey’s set face, and knew the drama that might unfold. “Do you want to talk to your mother?” he asked.

  “No,” Davey said quickly.

  Before Max had an opportunity to say anything else, Lara came skipping in. “Mom said we could open our gifts now while she is on the phone.”

  “No,” he said. “You’ll open your gifts on Christmas morning like you always do.”

  Lara’s face dropped, but Quinn jumped up and said, “Lara, why don’t you go grab a book from your room and you and I can read it together while your father is on the phone.”

  That seemed to pacify Lara, so she ran out of the room to do as Quinn asked.

  Max put the phone to his ear. “You don’t get to tell the kids what they can and can’t do.”

  “I sent them gifts and I want them to open them and hear their reaction.”

  “Then you should have come to visit. Or you can call in the morning and I’ll have them hold off on opening your gifts until then.”

  He thought he was being accommodating and was wondering why he bothered anymore.

  “It’s Christmas where I am,” she argued.

  The sad part was he didn’t even know where she was right now. The kids probably didn’t either.

  “It doesn’t matter. They can call you in the morning if you wish. Our morning, when they get up.”

  “Let me talk to Davey,” she said, ignoring the fact he just offered to have the kids call her. He never understood why she didn’t want them to.

  “He doesn’t want to talk to you right now,” he found himself saying while he watched Davey’s shocked expression. He’d be damned if he’d ruin this holiday for his son, or let Mia do it.

  “Max, don’t be stubborn and hand him the phone. He’s a kid and doesn’t know what he wants.”

  Something in him just snapped. He wanted to yell at her, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t put that stress on the kids. Instead, he said as calmly as he could, “If you were around more, you would know he is capable of making decisions. If you bothered to call more than on just holidays and birthdays, then maybe he’d have a few words for you. You don’t get to decide what he does.”

  Not only was he watching Davey, but his eyes were shifting to Quinn, too. Didn’t she say she wanted a Christmas with no arguments or fighting? And here he was doing exactly that.

  No, that wasn’t true. He wasn’t fighting, he wasn’t arguing, he was stating facts.

  Mia huffed on the other end of the line, but that was nothing new. He was used to this behavior. She only put up a token protest, though.

  “Fine. I’ll call in the morning if I have time. Hopefully once he sees what I sent him, he’ll talk to me.”

  “Whatever, Mia. One of these days you’ll understand. Or maybe not.”

  She didn’t bother to answer him, just hung up the phone. He’d bet anything she didn’t call the kids tomorrow. And she wouldn’t call for months again either.

  He’d find time to sit down and talk to Davey about this. Or he’d find someone else again for Davey to talk to.

  But tonight, well, tonight and tomorrow was about the three of them. Then he looked over and saw Quinn sitting next to Lara on the couch, her arm around her shoulders, and amended—no, it was about the four of them.

  Angel Wings

  Christmas morning, afternoon, and now night came and went with no call from Mia. Just like Max had secretly confided to her.

  The kids were passed out cold in bed, finally succumbing to the exhaustion of the day mixed in with the gluttony of food.

  Quinn, never in a million years, thought she’d be present for a Christmas morning like today. The number of gifts under the tree was probably more than she’d seen her whole life. The funny part was, more than half came from Mia and she could tell it disgusted Max to even have them there.

  He’d told her he hated that Mia did this all the time. Hardly called or talked to the kids, but then tried to buy their love and affection with gifts. Half the time, it was things the kids didn’t even want, let alone like.

  Quinn was yawning and stretching her arms over her head, getting ready to shut her light off and crawl into bed when there was soft knock at her door, then Max’s voice calling out, “Are you up?”

  Walking over, she opened the door and smiled at him. “Of course. Is there something you need?”

  “There’s a lot I need and want, but that isn’t why I came down,” he said, grinning at her.

  “Come on in,” she said, opening the door wide for him, then shutting it. She didn’t expect anything to really happen, but she didn’t want the door open either, just in case.

  “Let’s sit on the couch and talk, if you’re not too tired.”

  “I’ll make the time for you.” She sat down next to him and lay her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for the yoga outfits and gift card from the kids. I thought I’d die when the kids commented on the clothes.”

  She loved the feeling of his chest rumbling with laughter next to her. “I didn’t want to lie.”

  “It wasn’t that. It was the way you looked at me when you told Lara that I worked out when no one was home.”

  “She didn’t question it,” he said, running his fingertip down her cheek and tweaking her on the nose. Who would have thought how playful he was?

  “No, but watching your face flush when Davey asked how you knew I did that when no one was home was pretty funny,” she said, snorting.

  “Not as funny as your face when I told him I snuck home one day to get something.”

  “Seriously, did you have to say that?” She was still mortified over it.

  “I didn’t lie. I came home to get you. Davey didn’t ask what I was getting, so what’s the big deal?”

  She giggled then. “What would you have said if he did ask?”

  “He didn’t, so I don’t have to worry.”

  He lifted her chin with his fingertips and leaned down to kiss her. “I wanted to do this first thing this morning before the kids woke. Wish you a Merry Christmas with a kiss, but they got up earlier than I thought.”

  “They’re kids and were excited. You can’t blame them.” She’d long since given up waking early to see what Santa might have brought.

  “I still don’t understand how you were up before them. Do you even sleep?”

  She was secretly excited over her first Christmas with the kids and couldn’t sleep. “I wanted to make it special for them. And show them what real homemade cinnamon buns tasted like.”

  “They did seem to appreciate that.”

  “Obviously not as much as you, since you had four of them. Definitely not as much as I loved my gift card to Williams-Sonoma from the kids. That was perfect!”

  “I confess I looked into the history of the laptop you use and saw that you’d been on the site. I took a guess you were window shopping.”

  It was a good guess. Everything on that site was well beyond her budget. “I do a lot of window shopping. Still that gift card was way too much, Max.”

  It was a week’s worth of pay in a gift card and she was shocked.

  “I consider it money well spent since I’ll be getting the benefit of whatever you buy from there,” he said.

  “That’s true.”

  She liked that he was relaxing with her right now, and tried to push away the want or need of having this every night. She wouldn’t allow her mind to go there. Kind of like window-shopping. Just taking a peek but knowing deep down it was well out of her reach.

  “I wish I could stay here all night,” he said. “I hate knowing you’re down here so close and I’m upstairs thinking and dreaming of you.”

  “It’s too risky.” Even if she did feel the same way.

  “I know. Anyway, aside from cuddling and kissing you right now, I wanted to thank you for giving the kids such a great Christmas.”

  “I didn’t do much,” she argued.

  “You did. You ordered half their gifts for them and you even wrapped some for me without me asking. It saved me time and allowed me to handpick other things for them. But it wasn’t that. It was how you made the holiday homey. You made us all feel like a family the last two days. They needed that, almost as much as I did.”