Victoria Pade - The Maverick's Christmas Baby

“It’s where the first Crawfords in Rust Creek Falls lived when they started the store. A lot of us have taken advantage of it over the years. You can’t beat the commute to work,” she joked.

“You’ll bring your baby home here?”

“I will. There are two bedrooms—the nursery is almost ready, I just have a few finishing touches to put on it. And living up here after the baby is born—even before I’ve actually gone back to work—will let me still oversee some things. Then when I can get back to business as usual, I’ll have a nanny or a sitter here with the baby, but I’ll be able to carry a baby monitor with me to listen in and I’ll also be able to come up as many times a day as I want or need to.”

“Handy,” he agreed.

“I think it will be.”

“And is this still going to be a house of sugar when you have your own kid?” he asked as she set iced cookies out on a plate and then brought the pan of hot chocolate from the stove.

He was teasing her again and it struck her that there was already some familiarity in it. Familiarity she liked...

“It’s Christmas,” she defended. “And the middle of the afternoon—I’m sure they had lunch and dinner is far enough away that this won’t spoil their appetites.”

“And they’ll be so wired they won’t have to ride home in the truck, they’ll be able to run behind it,” he joked before advising, “Give them all half cups of hot chocolate.”

“Killjoy,” Nina accused playfully. And slightly flirtatiously, though she didn’t know where that had come from....

“Oh, so you’ve heard about how glum I’ve been the past year,” he joked back, smiling that crooked smile that lifted one side of his agile-looking mouth higher than the other.

His eyes were intent on her, and the humor allowed them to share a moment that told Nina she wasn’t alone in whatever it was she’d been feeling about him as her rescuer. That, regardless of the old feud between their families, things between the two of them were different now even if they were no longer in dire straits.

It pleased her. A lot.

Dallas took two mugs of hot chocolate in each of his big, capable hands, leaving Nina to carry the fifth and the plate of cookies into the living room. They set everything on her oval oak coffee table and the boys gathered around it, sitting on the floor while Nina and Dallas sat on her overstuffed black-and-gray buffalo-checked sofa.

After the boys tasted their hot chocolate and each took a cookie, Robbie looked to his father and said, “When are we gonna put up our tree?”

“You don’t have a tree yet?” Nina asked, surprised.

“Dad’s been too busy,” Jake answered, disappointment and complaint ringing in his tone as the three boys carried their cookies and hot chocolate with them and went back to playing with the train.

“Busy and not much in the mood,” Dallas confessed, quietly enough for the boys not to be able to hear.

“Scrooge,” she teased him the same way.

“I’m not usually,” he admitted, his voice still low and echoing with sorrow. “But this year...I don’t know. It’s felt all year like this family has been left sort of in shreds and I’m not quite sure how to sew it back together again. Or if I’m even up to it.”

“Kids need their holidays kept, no matter what,” Nina insisted.

But she couldn’t be too hard on him, considering that this was the anniversary of the end of his marriage and it couldn’t be an easy time for him.

So rather than criticizing any more, she decided to fall back on the reason she’d contacted him in the first place.

“I called because I wanted to thank you again for helping me on Wednesday,” she said, setting her own cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table and breaking off a section of a bell-shaped cookie. “I also wanted to apologize for the way my family treated you at the hospital.”

“I’m sure they were worried and upset about you and the baby—”

Robbie overheard that and perked up to look at them over his shoulder. “You’re gonna have a baby? I thought you just liked beer.”

Confused, Nina looked from the youngest Traub to Dallas and found Dallas grimacing. “We met an old friend of mine earlier today. He was a lot heavier than the last time I saw him and I razzed him about his beer belly.”

“Ah...” Nina said.

“But you,” Dallas went on in a hurry, obviously doing damage control. “It doesn’t seem like you’ve gained an ounce anywhere but baby—you really look...well, beautiful...”

It sounded as if he genuinely meant that—not like the gratuitous things that often came with people talking about her pregnancy. And that, too, pleased Nina. And when their eyes met once again, when she really could see that he didn’t find anything about her condition off-putting at all, and when Nina had the feeling that there was suddenly no one else in the world but the two of them, it made her all warm inside.

But there were other people in the world, in the room, in fact. His kids.

And just then Ryder said, “I need to get to Tyler’s.”

Dallas seemed to draw up short, as if he, too, had been lost in that moment between them and was jolted out of it by his eldest son’s reminder.

“His friend Tyler is having a sleepover,” Dallas explained. “And I still need to pick up a few things downstairs—our houses and the main barns were spared by the flood but some of the outbuildings and lean-tos had some damage. I thought we’d fixed everything but the blizzard showed us more weak spots, and I came for some lumber and some nails.” He paused, smiled slyly, then said, “And I figured if I came here rather than going to Kalispell I’d get the chance to ask how you’re doing...”

“I’m doing fabulously,” she answered as if he’d asked her.

The sly smile widened to a grin that lit up his handsome face.

“I told Tyler I’d be at his house by now,” Ryder persisted.

Dallas rolled his eyes but allowed his attention to be dragged away. “Okay, cups to the kitchen,” he ordered in a tone that sounded reluctant.

“I’ll take care of it,” Nina said.

“Not a chance.” Dallas overruled her, even cleaning up after her by taking her hot chocolate mug, too, and leaving her to merely follow behind them all with the cookie plate.

Once the cups were rinsed and in the sink, and coats were replaced, Nina went with them to the apartment door, opening it for them.

The boys immediately went out and headed for the stairs.

“Wait for me right there,” Dallas warned as he lingered with Nina.

Then he glanced at her again with the same look in his blue eyes that had been there when he’d told her she was beautiful. “I’m really glad to see that you’re okay. Better than okay.”

“It’s all thanks to you,” she told him.

He flashed that one-sided smile again. “All me, huh? Doctors, the hospital—none of that had anything to do with it?”

“They just did the checkup. It was you who got me through the worst. And then took heat from my family for it.”

“Just happy to help,” he said as if he meant that, too.

“I owe you....”

“Nah. You don’t owe me anything.”

Nina merely smiled. “I’m glad you came up today.”

“Me, too.”

“Dad!” Ryder chastised from the top of the stairs.

“In a minute,” Dallas said without taking his eyes off Nina. He was clearly reluctant to leave. “Guess I better go. Take care of yourself. And that baby,” he advised.

“I will,” she agreed.

Then he had no choice but to go, and Nina leaned out of her apartment door so she could watch him join his sons, so she could watch the four of them descend the steps.

And all the while she was still smiling to herself.