Jennifer Greene: The Bonus Mum

He’d never identified it that way. Never thought of it at all.

Yet one look at Rosemary, and his libido showed up and started singing bass. With drums.

And yeah, the sadness in her eyes touched him—maybe should have warned him. But that sadness wasn’t her. It was about something that had happened to her. And...

“Dad! You’re burning the mac and cheese again!”

He glanced down at the pot. How had that happened again?

By the time they sat down at the table, Whit realized that something was up. A father of twins learned some things the hard way. Two children were just two children—but twins were a pack. Like wolves. Or badgers.

Especially like badgers.

“Listen, Dad.” Pepper shoveled in the mac and cheese, but took time to offer him a beguiling smile. She was always the troublemaker.

“I’m listening.”

“We’re really happy up here. It’s awesome and all. And we know you want us to forget Mom this Christmas.”

He frowned. “No. No, you two, not at all. I just thought this Christmas would be extra hard without your mom. By next year, we could do the holiday completely differently. Make a point of remembering your mom, in fact—like making some of her favorite holiday dishes. Remember her strawberry pie? Or putting the tree in the corner where she thought it looked best. I don’t ever want you to forget your mom, I just—”

“Dad, wind it up.” Pepper again, using her impatient tone. “We’re okay with all that. You don’t have to go on and on.”

“But here’s the thing.” Lilly, always the pacifier, jumped in when she thought her sis was being abrasive. “We don’t know Rosemary very well. But she’s alone. And we’re alone this Christmas, too. Like you said before, maybe we’d be an intrusion. But maybe not. I mean, what if we just—like when we’re cutting down our own tree tomorrow—cut one down for her, too?”

Pepper started her fidgety thing, dropping a napkin, then her fork. “And then we could just bring her the tree—and see if we’re in her way or if she really needs to work or something. Because maybe she really wants some company around. Especially us girl company. She said she loved girl talk.”

“It’s not just that,” Lilly interrupted again. “You know when I was little—”

“As compared to your being an old lady now?”

“Quit it, Dad. We’re having a talk. No joking.”

“Okay, okay.”

“When I was little, I remember the neighbor who came over for Christmas. Mom said she was alone because she lost her husband. So she asked her over for Christmas dinner. Mom said, and then you said, that Christmas isn’t just about presents. It’s about people being together. Sharing something good.”

“Sometimes you two worry me. You have this tendency to use things I’ve said against me.”

“Come on, Dad. We can take Rosemary a tree tomorrow, right?”

Whit couldn’t imagine how they could just show up at Rosemary’s back door with a tree out of the complete blue. But at least temporarily, he couldn’t figure out a way to say no that would make sense to the girls.

* * *

Rosemary bent over the corkboard. Heaven knew how she’d gotten hung up on the sex life of wild orchids in South Carolina. The subject would undoubtedly bore most people to tears. But when she needed her mind off stress, she’d always been able to concentrate on work.

Her stomach growled. She ignored it. She was pretty sure she’d ignored it a couple times before this.

It had taken quite a while to completely fill the corkboard on the coffee table. She’d pinned photos of local orchids—and their names and location—until the entire space was filled. Some of the names were so fun. Little lady’s Tresses. Small whorled pogonia. Yellow fringed orchid. Crested coralroot. Downy rattlesnake plantain.

Absently, she picked up her coffee mug. It was cold, and since it was also the last in the pot, it was thicker than mud. She still swallowed a slug.

She’d never planned on turning into an egghead. It was all sort of a mistake. When she’d cancelled the wedding, escaped from George (as she thought of it now) the two-year grant from Duke had struck her as a godsend. She could make a living—or enough of a living—and seclude herself up here.

The goal hadn’t been to get a Ph.D. She’d never wanted a Ph.D. She just wanted to work so hard she could forget about everything else for a while. Until she put her head back together. Until she figured out what to do with her life. Until she could analyze exactly what had gone so bad, so wrong, with George.

Mostly she had to figure out how she could have been so stupid.

She leaned forward, studying the photo of the small whorled pogonia. A white lip hung above the five green leaves. The species was teensy. It was hard to find, hard to notice. And it was probably the rarest orchid near the eastern coastline—which made it one of her treasures.

That was the thing. It wasn’t about academics. Or getting a Ph.D. It was about...survival. Why did some species fail and others thrive? How could a fragile, vulnerable orchid like this conceivably survive in such a hostile environment?

Not that she thought of herself as vulnerable. Or that she feared she couldn’t survive the mess she was in.

It was just that everybody believed the old adage that only the strong survived. Because it always seemed to be true. Except with these fragile orchids.

There had to be a reason. A logical explanation. Something in delicate orchids that enabled them to survive, when far tougher species died out.

A sudden knock on the door almost made her jump sky-high. A spit of coffee landed on her sweatshirt; she set the mug down, went to the door.

The twins huddled together like bookends, a platter in their hands covered with tin foil. “Hi, Rosemary. We can’t stay. We can’t bother you.”

“But we made some brownies to thank you for saving our lives yesterday.”

Clearly their opening lines had been prepared.

“The brownies,” Pepper added, “have some mints and some cherries on the inside. We didn’t sample any of these, but we’ve made them this way before. Honest, they’re really good. Although we usually put in marshmallows, only this time, we didn’t have any marshmallows so we couldn’t.”

Lilly’s turn. “We were trying to make it red and green on the inside. You know. Like to be Christmasy.” She took a breath. “Dad said we absolutely can’t bother you. So we’re leaving right now, this very instant.”

She noticed the golf cart behind them. Saw the hope on their faces, no matter what they said. “You can’t even come in to sample a brownie? That’s an awful lot for just me to eat by myself.”

“I don’t think we can. No matter how much we want to.” Pepper let out a massive sigh.

“Hmm. What if I call your dad and asked him myself if you could stay awhile?”

“Oh.” Both girls lit up like sparklers. “Yeah. If you call him, it’ll be okay.”

There ended her bubble of solitude. She called Whit first, so he knew the girls were safely with her, said they wanted to share a brownie with her, and she’d have the girls call when they were headed home. It wouldn’t be long.

Just that short conversation invoked symptoms she’d suffered when she met him yesterday. It was as if she’d been exposed to a virus. She felt oddly achy and restless, hot—when there was no excuse in the universe to react like a dimwit toward a perfect stranger.

But the girls distracted her from thinking any more about their father. The first priority was testing the brownies—which were fabulous. Both girls could somehow eat and talk nonstop at the same time.

Pepper went first. “Our dad thought we couldn’t handle Christmas at home. But we both know he’s the one who can’t. He hasn’t been out one single time since mom died. You know what that means?”