Will she want it someday?
Am I thinking about waiting around for her if she does? Hoping. Like I did with Shelby.
“Chad …” she says in a low voice.
Her voice is like a siren, drawing me closer. Like a doomed sailor, I’m ready to dive in and drown.
“Daddy,” a voice whispers loudly, making Ivy jump and let out another startled sound, this one mostly a rush of air. I tighten my fingers around her waist but draw in my first deep breath in several minutes. “Is Santa here?” Scarlett asks.
It’s for the best that she interrupted before I did anything rash, but disappointment plummets through me anyway. I turn toward my daughter, sliding an arm around Ivy’s waist—to keep her steady, obviously. Her crutches are on the ground, and their clattering is probably what woke Scarlett up.
“Not yet,” I say, embarrassed when my voice comes out in a croak.
Scarlett rubs her eyes and tilts her head at me. “Why are you up, then?”
“I … uh, thought I heard something. That maybe it was him,” I say quickly. “I thought I should check, just in case.”
Scarlett turns to Ivy. “Did you hear Santa too?”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Ivy nods. In the dim light that the sliver from the door casts into the room, I can see that her cheeks are flushed.
Scarlett’s eyes widen and she grins. She gives a soft clap of her hands and bounces.
“Hurry back to bed,” I say before she gets too excited. She’ll be up half the night. “You don’t want Santa to catch you awake.”
She nods and holds out her hand. “You come too, or Santa will see you.” She makes an urgent waving motion at me, and Ivy snickers.
I can’t help my smile at that. Another image dances through my head. Kissing Ivy in my kitchen and one of the girls catching us, all of us laughing, then Ivy scooping one of my daughters up into her arms and dancing around with her. Us moving fromromance to moments like that smoothly, making eyes at each other during an impromptu family dance party.
“Daddy,” Scarlett says, her whisper growing louder—and threatening to wake up Zoey if I don’t keep my head in the game.
“I’ll be right there. I need to help Ivy get her crutches.”
Scarlett lets out a long-suffering sigh and turns to go back into my room.
“You okay?” I ask, turning to Ivy. I clench my other hand, letting my fingers dig into my palm to keep myself grounded to the moment so we don’t fall back under the spell.
“I’m fine.” She starts to bend to pick up the crutch nearest us, but I hold her firmly.
“I’ll get them.” I shuffle us closer to the wall, letting her rest against it. She doesn’t look at me as she presses her palm to the wall. She has her other hand behind her, and the plastic sack rustles against her back. “What did you need from your room so urgently at midnight?” I ask, holding her crutches to her.
“Nothing,” she says. She still avoids my gaze as she starts toward the bedroom she’s sleeping in.
I scowl at her. “It was important enough to get up in the middle of the night.”
She pauses by the couch, where we laid out our stockings—well, mine and the girls’. Ivy and Carlie Googled an ingenious way to fold a hand towel into something that resembles a stocking for her, and I insisted on sharing the candy that I’d bought.
She lifts her chin and meets my gaze for the first time since I almost kissed her. “Let me have one secret tonight, okay?” she says in a soft voice.
“Okay …” But I don’t move. I stare at her, a part of me arguing that I should try to recapture that moment before Scarlett interrupted.
“Go to bed, Chad,” she says softly.
It takes a beat for my feet to obey, but finally I move, walkingpast her and into my bedroom. I close the door softly but stand there waiting and listening as the bag rustles again. A few seconds later I hear her crutches moving from the living room and into the other bedroom. Then comes the softsnickof her door closing.
I run a hand slowly down my face.
My mind rolls back to the first time I kissed Shelby. The way she laughed when I said I couldn’t help falling for her.Be careful, Chad Harrell, she’d teased.That’s a risky fall.
