“Do what? Dip plastic spoons into chocolate? So my options are — eat Doritos and read and love on the horses, who I didn’t touch? I can choose this, or go in there and get chocolate all over my clothes for some stupid Girl Scout project that my sisters have?”
He was drowning here. “You don’t have a project for Girl Scouts?”
“Teresa and I are having our own project that does not involve dipping plastic spoons in chocolate.”
Oh, he didn’t want to know, did he? “What kind of project?”Why did I ask?
“We are going to tell everybody about Christmas ghosts. Apparently there are lots of Christmas ghosts, so we’re going to talk about that and also about stuff that people did back in the olden days, like when they wrote the Scrooge book.”
“Oh, well, that’s pretty cool.”
She nodded, her dark eyes lit up. “I know. We’ll talk about food and stuff too. Like figgy pudding.”
“Speaking of food, I think the horses have had enough, and I think if you feed Rosie any more carrots he’s going to poop orange for a month. So why don’t you come on in the house? You don’t have to dip spoons in chocolate. I don’t care, but it’s cold, and cold makes my arm ache. I think you should come in.”
Please don’t argue, little girl.
“Okay.” She gathered all her things and handed him the lantern. “It’s going to get dark soon. I think that’s why they talked about ghosts all the time at Christmas because it’s so close to dark all the time.”
“I bet. It gets dark in London at like, three in the afternoon this time of year.”
“Does it?”
“Yep.” And cold as a witch’s tit, and everyone got the lurgy, as they called it. His momma called it the lung crud or the creepin’ crud.
“Wow. That’s great for ghost stories, but how do they ever go outside and do anything?”
“That’s a good question.” He tried not to trip over Rosie. If he went down, he would never get back up.
She chattered at him all the way inside, cheerful as all hell, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her off. He really didn’t.
Not that it mattered because when he came inside with Sarah, Bekka saw all the things they were hauling. Her eyebrows flew up, and she pursed her lips. “Sarah, you’re not supposed to be out in the barn with horses when no one’s with you. Daddy said so.”
Sarah looked at him and he zipped his lips with his hand, like, “Nope, this is between you and your sister.” Cam was not gonna get in between Bekka and her mommy duties again, if he could help it. He would referee if it got ugly, but that was it.
Sarah tipped her chin up in the air. “Daddy said I couldn’t mess with the horses, and I didn’t. I didn’t touch them. I didn’t get in their stalls. They couldn’t hurt me.”
“But what if they had, and Daddy Cam was the only one here? You could have gotten him hurt. You have to think about things, Sarah. At least you should ask.”
That got him a guilty look from Sarah. “I’m sorry, Cam. I should have asked you.”
How would Mitch handle this? Cam thought about that for a full five seconds, probably, and then he nodded. “Thank you for that, Sarah. I appreciate your apology. And Bekka, I appreciate you taking up for me and making sure your sister stays safe.”
Both girls looked a little relieved at his words. Happy he wasn’t mad at them, he thought, which made him grin. “So Sarah says she doesn’t need to do this project with you guys, right?”
Rachel dipped a spoon and then pulled it out, chocolate flying. Her tongue stuck out between her teeth. “Nope. Sarah’s going to do her own thing.”
“Cool, then it’s okay if I take Sarah to the front room and we watchA Christmas Carol?” He thought the Patrick Stewart one was not so scary that Sarah couldn’t watch it. She’d watched scarier things at Halloween.
Bekka nodded and waved him off, and Sarah rolled her eyes, her bag of Doritos still clutched in her hand. He noticed that the carrots had been left on the table.
“Come on, frozen little girl. Let’s go watch Victorian ghost stories about Christmas.”
“Okay,” she grinned at him and ran to cuddle on the couch. “The horses like it when I read to them, you know?”
He wasn’t going to argue with that. “They do seem to listen, don’t they?”
“Yeah, they sure do.” She wrapped them both in the huge comforter that lived on the sofa. “Love you, Daddy Cam.”
