The Christmas Triplets

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“No clue.”

“How much does he weigh?”

Doubting that “heavier than a sack of potatoes” was the answer she wanted, Will shrugged.

She sighed. “How old is he?”

He leaned down to get the baked chicken while doing some mental calculations. “Five months, give or take.”

“You’re unbelievable.” Her glare was hotter than the inside of the oven. “Were you even there when he was born?”

“Of course not. That would— Wait! You don’t think he’s mine?”

Megan blinked. “It seemed logical, since Amy left him with you. And given your—” her face went bright red “—social habits.”

Unreal. If it had been up to him, he’d be married right now—perhaps with an actual baby of his own on the way—but this near stranger had him painted as some sort of depraved sex addict. “Lady, you don’t know the first thing about me.” Unlike Donovan Anders, Will didn’t seduce nineteen-year-olds.

“I—” She was interrupted by her daughters rushing back into the room.

“Hands clean,” Daisy declared, the entire front of her long-sleeved shirt soaked with water.

Megan pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is really not my night.”

Will felt a wave of commiseration. “If it helps, I know exactly how you feel.”

“It doesn’t.” She met his gaze, giving him the first real smile he’d ever seen from her. “But thank you.”

Chapter Five (#u70e61a8f-3eff-58ca-a209-0aba9ba53981)

Although Megan would normally admonish Daisy to eat more and talk less, tonight she was grateful for her daughter’s chatty presence. Even Iris, excited about their outing to the town’s Christmas tree lighting tomorrow, contributed to the dinner conversation, helping mask what would’ve been an awkward silence between Megan and Will. I misjudged him. She needed to apologize for her rash assumption, but it seemed like bad parenting to discuss his sex life in front of the girls.

She’d invited Will to stay for dinner, partly as atonement and partly because she was reluctant to disturb the baby who’d fallen asleep against her shoulder. Holding him so long was an enjoyable novelty, his breath coming in soft puffs against her neck. When her own girls were babies, Megan had felt like a one-woman assembly line. Just as she got one of the triplets to doze off, another would need a diaper or bottle.

Will stood, picking up his plate as well as Iris’s empty one. He nodded toward Tommy before carrying the dishes to the sink. “The last thing I want to do is wake him and set him off again, but if I let him sleep now, what are the odds he’ll sleep for me tonight?” He paused, his expression alarmed. “Do five-or six-month-olds even sleep through the night?”

“They can.” At least, Megan thought so. The first year had been a blur. Her daughters had kept her so busy she’d barely had time to be heartbroken over the divorce. In retrospect, she could find blessings in the chaos. “But it’s hard to gauge how he’ll react to being in a strange place. Did the notebook say anything about his sleep schedule?” Midway through giving Tommy his bottle, Megan had asked Will to look in the duffel bag for a burp cloth. He’d found a tiny spiral notebook with information like the pediatrician’s phone number and feeding instructions.

“Not that I saw, but I need to read through it more closely.” He returned to the table, pausing by Daisy and raising his eyebrows in Megan’s direction.

Megan sighed. “Are you going to eat any more food?”

Daisy shook her head, her dark curls swishing. “Full.”

“I shouldn’t have given you that chocolate this afternoon.”

“Amy mentioned you were giving out chocolate,” Will said, reaching for Daisy’s dishes.

“It was originally intended for you.” Megan squirmed in her chair, fighting the urge to duck her gaze like a guilty child. “As a peace offering for how short-tempered I was last night.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a rueful grin. “I wasn’t exactly on my best behavior, either. What do you say, neighbor? Fresh start?”

“I’d like that.” Especially since he was helping to clean her kitchen. That was more than fair compensation for her giving the baby a bottle and getting to snuggle him all through dinner. But since Lily would freak out if the tall, broad-shouldered man got too close, it was time for Megan to pitch in clearing the table. “All done?” she asked her daughter.

Lily nodded. She’d barely taken a bite, too busy watching their guest with a mixture of fascination and anxiety. Megan would put the kids’ leftovers in the fridge for lunch tomorrow. Cradling the baby against her with one hand, she took Lily’s plate and crossed the kitchen. Looking into the adjacent living room, at pint-size furniture and toys strewn across the carpet, she tried to think of anything the girls had outgrown that she could lend Will for the next couple of...days? Weeks? He hadn’t said when Amy was coming back, or why she had chosen him as Tommy’s caregiver in the meantime, and Megan hadn’t pressed for details in front of her daughters.

“Since you girls are all done eating, how about we put in that DVD we checked out from the library?” That would give her a few minutes to talk to Will without an audience. She found herself reluctantly curious about him. The last few months had given her an up close view of his social life, and she’d thought she understood him pretty well. But based on his patience with her daughters, his willingness to pitch in with dinner and the huge favor he was doing for Amy, maybe Megan had judged him too harshly. Not all men are Spencer.

True, but she’d been naive about her ex-husband, giving him the benefit of the doubt far more often than he deserved. It was a mistake she wouldn’t allow herself to repeat.

She went around the corner to get the DVD started. When she returned to the kitchen, Will was wiping down counters. “Thanks,” she said, “but you don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I do. I want to make sure I stay in your good graces for the next time I have a Tommy emergency.” He eyed the sleeping baby in her arms. “No matter how peaceful he looks now, I’m sure we’ll face plenty of challenges between now and when his mama gets back.”

“How long will Amy be gone?”

“I’m not sure.”

She recalled the young woman’s tear-streaked face. “Is she all right?”

He was slower to answer this time, the words softer. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re worried about her.” She studied his face, noting the concern in his dark blue eyes and feeling guilty for her assumptions about his selfish, carefree bachelor lifestyle.

“Yeah. She... No offense, but I probably shouldn’t be discussing the details of her personal life. Not that I know many of them. She and I aren’t nearly as close as you imagined.”

“Close enough that she trusts you with her child.” When he stiffened, she clarified, “I meant that as a compliment. I really am sorry I leaped to conclusions.”

“I guess, since she left the baby with me, I can understand why you’d think something so far-fetched. It never occurred to me anyone would make that mistake. Most everybody in town knows about her relationship with Donovan.” His voice was almost a snarl when he said the other man’s name. “I keep forgetting you’re new.”

She’d moved to Cupid’s Bow in January, practically a year ago. In a small town where most of the locals had lived here since birth, she still felt like an outsider. Raising three girls alone didn’t leave a lot of time for a thriving social life.

“What made you pick Cupid’s Bow?” he asked. “I mean, I love this town, but it’s a bit off the beaten path.”

“I needed a change after the divorce. I wanted to be someplace...” Where she didn’t feel ashamed of her failed marriage and where she wasn’t forced to wonder every time she spoke with a female acquaintance, Did Spencer sleep with you, too? She shook her head. “Before the girls were born, I worked at a botanical garden. I’ve always loved plants and flowers. I didn’t know Dagmar well before moving here, but she was my dad’s cousin. When she decided she wanted to cut back on her hours at the florist shop, she offered me a job. So here I am.”

“Just in time to do the arrangements for Cole and Kate’s wedding. You know she’s from Houston, right? Between the two of you and Sierra Bailey moving here, this is the closest thing to a population boom Cupid’s Bow has had since the 1800s.”

She laughed at the idea of a three-woman boom, and Tommy twisted in her arms, his eyelids fluttering. “Oops,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry about waking him. I should get him back to my place anyway.”

“Where do you plan for him to sleep tonight? In the car seat? In bed with you?” There was no reason for her cheeks to heat at the mere mention of Will’s bed. But now that her attitude toward him had softened, it was a lot harder to ignore how attractive he was. Get a grip. A hot fireman cleaning your kitchen is no reason to go weak in the knees. Wait, actually, a hot fireman willing to clean was a pretty solid female fantasy. And here Will was, fantasy made flesh.

In a timely reminder that real life was not fantasy, a rude odor began wafting toward her from the general vicinity of the baby’s rear end.

“Amy left some kind of playpen,” Will said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that her eyes were starting to water. “I just have to figure out how to assemble it. Then little man can crash in my room with me. I want to be close in case he needs me—not that I’ll necessarily know how to help him. I’ve never even changed a diaper.”

She thrust Tommy toward him. “You’re in luck.”

Will’s nose wrinkled. “That does not smell like luck.”

* * *

WILL COULDN’T REMEMBER the last day he’d had that was so full of surprises. The noxious diaper was an unpleasant surprise; he really could have used a fireman’s mask and self-contained oxygen. But Megan finally grinning at him, after months of guarded glances and sharp tones, almost made up for it. As he knelt over the baby, her eyes danced with amusement.

“Good thing I’m a badass with no insecurities,” he deadpanned, “or all your laughing at me could be highly damaging to the ego.”

Working together, they’d cleaned Tommy up, but Will had insisted he needed the practice of putting on the new diaper alone. That was proving more difficult than expected. At least the girls had fled the room, protesting the smell. He could just imagine Daisy showing him her properly diapered baby doll and shaking her head at his incompetence.

Now that Tommy was fed and rested, he appeared to think it was playtime. He kept rolling onto his hands and knees, as if to crawl away. Will’s challenge was to keep the baby pinned in place without inadvertently hurting him. “I never realized how big my hands are.” They looked massive against Tommy’s small limbs.

“It can’t be that much of a surprise. You’re hu...” When she trailed off, he glanced over his shoulder and caught her studying him. “I mean, you’re even taller than your brothers.”

True. He’d towered over his mother by the time he was in middle school. Did Megan like tall men?

He blinked at the errant thought. I don’t care what kind of man she finds attractive. Until tonight, they’d barely exchanged a civil word. He sure as hell wouldn’t be asking her out.

“Okay.” He sat back on his heels. “I think that’ll hold. You’re free to flip over on your tummy all you want, little man.” Tommy did exactly that, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. He rocked back and forth, not exactly moving forward but gaining impressive momentum. Will watched with concern. “You don’t think he can actually crawl, do you?”

Real mobility probably required some kind of baby-proofing. Megan’s living room had safety covers in the outlets and gates in the doorways. When she’d unlocked a series of gates for the girls earlier, he was reminded of the weekends he helped on his friend Brody’s ranch, herding cows through pens into the chute. But he’d refrained from comparing Megan’s daughters to cattle out loud.

She was watching the baby’s movements. “Doesn’t look like he’s crawling yet, but it won’t be long. And I warn you, once it happens, they move faster than you’d expect.”

Fantastic. Amy, you’d better get back to Cupid’s Bow soon. More terrifying than anything else—even toxic diapers—was the open-endedness of the situation. He’d been sincere about wanting to help Amy, but he couldn’t keep a baby indefinitely.

What were his other options? He couldn’t stomach the thought of handing over the infant to Donovan or, after reading Amy’s letter, her mother. And calling social services would feel like a total betrayal. So, for now, he’d be patient and take his unexpected guardianship one day at a time.

He lifted Tommy in front of his face. “We’ve imposed on Ms. Rivers long enough. Think we can manage by ourselves for the rest of the night?”

The baby gurgled happily, blowing a spit bubble.

“I’ll take that as hearty agreement.”

“Here.” Megan reached over to a small table and pulled a crayon out of a basket, then scribbled something across a piece of paper. “In case you have any emergencies tonight.”

“Thank you.” He stared at the purple digits. Megan Rivers was the last woman in town he ever would have expected to give him her phone number. Although hoping not to need it, as he folded the piece of paper into his pocket, he realized he was surprisingly happy to have it.

Chapter Six (#u70e61a8f-3eff-58ca-a209-0aba9ba53981)

As dawn stretched across the sky and the sunlight spilling through his bedroom window grew brighter, Will knew his chances of getting any decent rest were dwindling. His longest stretch of sleep all night had only been an hour long. It wasn’t that Tommy had been unreasonably demanding. He’d only needed one bottle, around four in the morning. Will had stubbed the hell out of his big toe while maneuvering through the dark room for diaper supplies, but the night had been otherwise uneventful. Still, he’d been plagued with uncharacteristic insomnia.