He needed to keep his big paws off her stuff.
Maeve put on a bit of makeup, hoping to hide the paleness of her cheeks. Although she was starting to feel better. Perhaps it had just been something she’d eaten.
Then again, maybe there was another reason for her sudden illness . . . she put her hand over her stomach.
No.
There was no chance. She was on birth control. She’d know if she was pregnant.
That was stupid.
So what if her period was late . . . that didn’t mean anything. She’d been under a lot of stress trying to complete all of her online orders. Dahlia was helping her package and send everything off.
Speaking of which . . .
Maeve heard the front door slam and rushed through the bedroom into the dining area of the cottage they lived in.
Which was also the area she’d set up as her office. They had a spare bedroom, but Maeve preferred to work out here and it was easier for Dahlia to have a table for packaging items.
“Morning!” Dahlia said cheerfully, unwrapping a lumpy, misshapen scarf from around her neck. “Brr, it’s getting so cold out there.”
“Morning!” Maeve said cheerfully.
Maeve was grateful she had a friend close by who could help her when she got busy. It was a bonus that Dahlia was also a Little.
“Did you come over by yourself?”
Dahlia shook her head. “Triple-T walked me over. I’m not to leave without him. Our Daddies just left to go get some stuff done before you guys leave. I am going to miss you!”
“Me too!” Maeve told her, giving her a hug. “Cute scarf by the way.”
It really wasn’t. It was terrible. It looked like a toddler had knitted it. But Maeve would never say that because Dahlia was super proud of her knitting ability.
“Thank you! I knitted something for you and Grumpy Bear.” Dahlia took off her knitted hat, which matched the scarf. They were both red-and-white-striped, but the stripes weren’t of equal thickness and sometimes a red stripe would just end, and a white one would start up. She drew out two items from her oversized tote.
Uh-oh.
Dahlia had once knitted Gray a sweater. It had been yellow with a brown smiley face that had looked more like a weird blob. The arms of the sweater had ended at his elbows and the bottom had only reached his belly button.
Gray had called it a poop sweater. Although not to Dahlia’s face, of course. Markovich wouldn’t think much of that, plus Gray would never hurt her feelings.
“I thought you might need them for your trip. You could wear them on the plane. Or on Christmas Day.” Dahlia showed her the two sweaters. One was red with tassels hanging off the end of it. It had a large brown blob on the front of it and one arm was definitely shorter than the other.
“It’s Rudolph!” Dahlia cried. “For you!”
“Wow, thank you. I love it.”
“Now, I know that Grumpy Bear loves yellow, but unfortunately, that just isn’t a very Christmasy color, you know what I mean? However, I did this for him. Ta-da!”
Dahlia held up a sweater that was mostly forest green. It was so long that it would likely reach Gray’s knees. Although the front did seem a lot longer than the back. In fact, the back might not even cover his bottom.
“I ran out of wool to do the back. Do you think he’ll mind that it’s a bit longer in the front?” Dahlia asked worriedly.
“Oh, I don’t think he’ll notice at all,” Maeve reassured her friend. That would really be the least of his concerns, considering the very strange image on the front of the sweater. It looked like . . . was it . . . hmm. How did she ask without hurting Dahlia’s feelings?
“Don’t you love the Christmas tree on the front?” Dahlia said cheerfully. “Since I did most of the sweater in green, I couldn’t do the tree in green too. So I made it yellow since that’s Grumpy Bear’s favorite color.”
It really wasn’t.
