Nancy Thompson - A Celebration Christmas

“We need to get this splinter out,” Lily said. “Do you have any tweezers? We’ll probably need some hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic ointment. A bandage would help, too.”

“It’s all in the hall bath,” Cullen said. “The room where you cleaned up the blue foam yesterday.” The place that always seemed to draw the drama—whether it started or ended there.

Cullen motioned Lily and Hannah to follow him. As the three of them squeezed into the hall bathroom, the dog tried to wedge his way in, too.

Lily scooped up Hannah with one arm and petted Franklin with her free hand, keeping him at bay but allowing him to see that the girl was okay.

“Thank you,” Cullen said. Caring for children was infinitely easier with two people. He had no idea how she managed it on her own. Then again, four kids, even kids as spirited as these, must’ve seemed like a picnic compared to a classroom full. Obviously some people had the gift and others didn’t. Lily, he decided as he gathered the supplies, was the child whisperer. He was way out of his league.

He set his cell phone on the counter.

“I’m going to move this over here so it doesn’t get splashed,” Lily said, pushing it behind her with her free hand.

“Thank you. At the rate my morning’s going, I’d probably end up knocking it in the toilet.”

He and Lily exchanged smiles, and it was... nice. It made him feel as if the day wasn’t destined to be all bad.

First he had the little girl wash her hands with soap and water. Then as he prepared to swab Hannah’s finger with hydrogen peroxide, she pulled her hand away, tears brimming. “Will that hurt?”

“It shouldn’t,” Cullen said. “But I’ll bet Ms. Palmer will let you squeeze her hand just in case.”

“Her name is Lily,” Hannah said. “Yesterday, she told us that we could call her Lily.”

“Fair enough,” Cullen said. He smiled as his gaze snagged Lily’s and he wondered why it was that he’d never noticed until now how green her eyes were. And they were flecked with little veins of gold. Nice.

“It might be easier for me to get the splinter out if she sits on the counter,” he said as he picked Hannah up and set her on the vanity.

He had just started to grab the tiny sliver of wood when his cell phone sounded the arrival of a text.

“That’s probably the hospital. I’m late.” He nodded in the general direction of the phone, still trying to remove the offending particle. “Would you mind texting them back to say that I’ll be right there?”

Lily picked up the phone.

“Oh.”

Cullen looked over and met her gaze. “Is there a problem?”

Lily’s eyebrows rose and a faint blush colored her cheeks.

“Well, it’s not the hospital. It’s someone named...Giselle?” Lily cleared her throat. “She says—and I’m paraphrasing here—but she’s very eager to see you tonight. It seems she has quite the night planned for you.”

Oh, hell.

Heat warmed his face. He glanced down at Hannah to see if she’d caught on to the situation. But she was studying the finger that was now splinter free.

“Here—never mind.” Cullen held out his hand for the phone. After Lily gave it to him, he shoved it into his pants pocket as if the action could undo Lily having read the message, which was bound to be graphic, knowing Giselle.

He felt like a letch for having subjected her to it. Of course, if he’d known Giselle would pick that precise moment to offer a preview of coming attractions, he wouldn’t have asked Lily to pick up the text. In fact, he’d been so busy since the kids arrived that he’d completely forgotten he was supposed to see her.

Was that tonight?

He couldn’t bring a woman like her around while Lily and the kids were here. Before he’d taken the kids into his home, he hadn’t realized all the ways they might change his life. When had he ever recoiled from a spicy Giselle text or passed up a chance to see her? But given the circumstances, he didn’t have a choice but to decline.

“Does your finger feel better, Hannah?” he asked after he’d slathered it with antibiotic ointment and applied a bandage.

She nodded through a one-shoulder shrug. “Sort of. It would feel much better if I had a princess bandage.”

Lily took the little girl down from the vanity, held her good hand and led her out of the bathroom without looking at Cullen. “The next time I go to the store, I’ll make sure to get some princess bandages. A princess should always have a special bandage. You’re very brave to wear the ordinary one for now.”

Cullen stood alone for a moment, listening as their conversation grew faint. He certainly hadn’t thought taking in the kids would throw him into a crisis of conscience. After all, he was single. He and the women he dated were consenting adults and very clear about the no-strings-attached nature of their relationships. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.

So why did it feel as though he was?

He took a deep breath and reminded himself that it wouldn’t be this way forever. The kids would be living with him only until the end of December. Then he could resume life as he knew it.

* * *

Nothing said let’s be friends like a big stack of homemade pancakes. After Cullen made his awkward exit, Lily did her best to put the racy contents of the text she wished she’d never read out of her mind.

It wasn’t easy to erase the image of Cullen doing the things Giselle had so graphically described in her message. The only problem was her brain kept imagining Cullen doing those things to her.

Lily wasn’t a prude—she’d been engaged and had enjoyed a healthy relationship with her fiancé before everything turned south—but those thoughts were so inappropriate when she was supposed to have her mind on the kids. For God’s sake, the thoughts were inappropriate even if she wasn’t watching the kids. Cullen Dunlevy was her boss. And even as progressive and open-minded as she fancied herself, she certainly was no Giselle.

She forced the thoughts out of her mind—or at least relegated them to the very back, dark corners of her overactive imagination—and fired up the griddle she’d brought with her. She made cheerful small talk with the kids as she mixed up a batch of pancake batter for them.

She let them flip their own, which the girls loved. George, however, was less than impressed. He slumped on a bar stool at the kitchen island, kept his head down and his attention on his handheld video game while the three girls enjoyed their breakfast and chatted among themselves.

“Come on, George. Will you please put down the game for five minutes so you can make your pancakes?” Lily cajoled. “It’ll be fun.”

George didn’t answer.

“Just five minutes, George, please? That’s all it will take.”

Nothing.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Lily said. “If you’ll make your pancakes, I’ll let you lick the bowl when we make sugar cookies after breakfast.”

George looked up, his eyes glossy with irritation. “Doesn’t Uncle Cullen pay you to make my breakfast?”

Lily’s eyes widened at the boy’s cheeky response. She walked around to the same side of the island where George was sitting, pulled out the bar stool next to him and sat down.

“Your uncle Cullen pays me to look after you.” She took care to keep her voice even and soft. She was used to dealing with the occasional conflict like this in the classroom, but George’s attitude grew from a place of hurt. The boy probably felt angry and displaced after losing his parents and the adoptive parents who had agreed to take in his sisters and him. He was in limbo and unsure where they would end up, much less if he and his sisters would be able to stay together. Of course, Cullen said keeping the kids together was his goal, but Lily couldn’t help wondering how realistic it was, especially given that he was intent on finding them a place by the end of the year.