Normally, Will entered the station house through the apparatus bay where the emergency response vehicles were parked. But that hallway would’ve taken him directly past the captain’s office. So instead, he and Tommy used the public entrance in front, by the classrooms. He nearly collided with EMT Kim Jordan as she exited the workout room, her dark skin glistening with sweat and a bottle of water in her hand.
She regarded the car seat he carried with surprise. “I didn’t realize it was bring-your-baby-to-work day.” She bent forward for a closer look at Tommy. “Well, obviously not your baby. He’s too cute to be related to you.”
“Ha-ha.” He was accustomed to Kim’s lighthearted heckling. She was known for being calmly efficient at even the toughest accident sites and for keeping the guys’ egos in check around the station house. “I’m babysitting for a friend.”
“And you thought the fire station was a good place to babysit? Good luck convincing the captain of that. If you were going to get a mascot, maybe you should have gone with the more traditional dalmatian.”
“I know the baby can’t stay here.” Firefighters didn’t go out on dangerous calls every day, but the nature of their job was that they had to be prepared to drop everything and respond—especially during rare cold snaps when people who didn’t bother with regular chimney maintenance decided to use the fireplace. “Marie Davenport is coming to pick him up.” Marie was a retired 9-1-1 dispatcher and his friend Brody’s aunt. She’d known Will all his life and said she’d be happy to help, except that she couldn’t come to get Tommy until after her cardiologist appointment first thing this morning. She also wasn’t going to work as a long-term solution, since she was leaving on Wednesday for Louisiana, where her youngest daughter was due to give birth any day.
Given how much Kate had enjoyed snuggling the baby, Will had hoped his future sister-in-law might be able to help while he was on duty. But her day was packed with wedding plans and piano lessons, getting her students prepared for the holiday recital. Gayle had clearly said she was unavailable, and neither of the two women Will had canceled upcoming dates with seemed particularly motivated to do him a favor. This morning, he’d tried to make day-care arrangements, only to be told Tommy could be put on a waiting list, but there were no available openings.
Kim glanced up and down the hallway, her expression furtive. “Can I hold him?”
“Sure.” He lowered his voice to match hers. “But what’s with the guilty whispering?” He knew why he didn’t want to draw attention to himself—so that Captain Hooper didn’t put him on bathroom cleaning duty for the next six months.
Kim opened the door to one of the empty classrooms and motioned for him to follow. “Not guilty, just... I turned thirty-three last month and it’s embarrassing how loudly my biological clock has started to tick.”
He unbuckled Tommy from the car seat, holding him while Kim babbled cheerful greetings and played peekaboo with her hands over her eyes. When the baby smiled back at her, Will passed him over.
She continued to make comical faces for Tommy’s benefit, cooing in a higher-pitched voice, “You are just the sweetest, aren’t you? Yes, you are!” Without altering her tone, she said to Will, “Tell anyone about this, and I’ll kick your ass. Yes, I will!”
“Nobody will hear it from me,” he promised. Kim taught self-defense classes at the community rec center. It was possible she could kick his ass.
She sighed. “I hate to give him back, but I need to hit the shower.”
Apparently, Tommy shared her reluctance to part ways, because when she moved toward the door, he let out a squawk of protest. Will’s heart thudded. So much for keeping a low profile. “None of that, now, little man. We—”
“What in tarnation was that?” came the captain’s voice from the hall. “Did I just hear a baby?”
Kim shot a glance over her shoulder, silently mouthed Good luck and slipped away.
Seconds later, Captain Hooper poked his bald head into the doorway. “Trent? Explain yourself.” The man’s forehead furrowed, his eyes nearly disappearing under bushy silver eyebrows.
“Do you remember Amy Reynolds? That apartment fire last summer?” he prompted.
The captain grunted. “You cut a hole in the roof for vertical ventilation. The Reynolds girl baked chocolate chip brownies for the crew the next week. Sweet kid.”
“Right. This is her son. Amy had a personal emergency and asked me to watch him.”
“Now, see here, Trent—”
“He’s not staying. The babysitter will be here to pick him up any minute.” At least, he desperately hoped so.
“All right. But, Trent? This better be the one and only time you bring him into my station.”
* * *
TUESDAY EVENING FOUND Megan on her living room floor, untangling a string of Christmas lights and fighting the urge to swear as her daughters looked on with eager faces. They’d been begging her to put up a Christmas tree, but since Megan hadn’t had a chance to buy one yet, she’d hoped to appease them with some decorations from the garage. Massive fail so far. The outdoor lights were snarled in impossible coils, the inflatable lawn snowman had a leak in it and one of the resin caroler figurines she’d unpacked was somehow headless. Worst of all, the LED wall art that was supposed to spell out NOEL in shimmery lights had a short in it and just kept blinking NO when she plugged it in.
Nights like this are why people put rum in their eggnog.
When someone knocked at the front door, she harbored a moment of fleeting, irrational hope that it was a rum delivery service. It was probably Raquel Abernathy, who hadn’t been able to make it by the shop before closing to pick up a custom gift basket; Megan had told her she could come to the house as long as she didn’t ring the doorbell after the girls’ bedtime.
“Just a minute,” she called as she boosted herself into a standing position. She cast the lights a final withering glance, attempting to shame them into cooperation.
To her surprise, the person on the other side of the door wasn’t Mrs. Abernathy. Instead, Will Trent stood smiling down at her, Tommy nestled in the crook of his arm.
What a difference a few days could make. On Saturday, when she’d opened her door to Will, she’d felt only confusion and disdain. Now, heady warmth coursed through her and she found herself grinning for no apparent reason. The man was like a walking shot of rum.
She leaned against the door frame. “Hey, neighbor. Long time, no see.”
“Have I stayed away long enough for you to miss me yet?” His eyes flashed with humor. “Don’t answer that, I’m terrible with rejection.”
“Probably because you don’t have any practice with it.” Women told him yes all the time—and she was starting to understand why.
His laugh had an edge to it. “Shows what you know about my life. Haven’t you heard? I was rejected by my own bride-to-be the night before our wedding.”
Megan blinked, at a loss for words. Will Trent had been engaged? The most socially active bachelor in Cupid’s Bow had been willing to settle down? “I, uh... Come on in.” She waved him into the house, trying to regain her composure. Finally, she said, “Sorry about your fiancée. That must’ve been...” Shocking? Devastating? Soul-crushing? “Difficult.”
“She broke my heart.”
There were moments in Megan’s life when she felt as if her understanding of the world had just been knocked sideways—the day when an OB had told her that not only was she finally pregnant, she was carrying triplets, the day she’d learned that Spencer had cheated on her. This was less extreme but still a challenge to wrap her mind around. She’d always assumed that Will did the heart-breaking, not the other way around.
“It was for the best in the long run,” he said. “I fell for her when I was a kid and never got to have the normal dating experiences. We might have resented each other when we were older. But I didn’t come over here to whine about my past. How are the girls? Is Daisy feeling better?”
From behind the baby gate that separated the living room from the foyer, Daisy called, “Hi, Mr. Will! Come see our Christmas.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you guys celebrating early?”
“I’m trying to decorate, but I’m afraid I’m going to lose the sun before I get the lights up outside. And the girls are bummed we don’t have a tree yet. On the bright side, Daisy is back to her usual energetic self. Lily ran a low fever yesterday and didn’t have much of an appetite, but everyone seems fine now. Fingers crossed.”
“Good. So now for my other, more selfish reason for coming over. It has been pointed out to me that, no matter how cute Tommy would be in a miniature firefighter outfit, he can’t hang out at the station while I work.” He held up his free hand as if trying to ward off any argument before she made it. “I know you have a busy work schedule, too, but you’re usually home by early afternoon, right?”
“Well, yes. But—”
“Because Kate and her grandmother can help me out most mornings. It’s the afternoons that get trickier with Kate teaching piano lessons. And I thought, with Christmas right around the corner, you might be able to use the extra income from watching Tommy.”
He had her there. The problem with three children dictating letters to Santa was that there was no sane way to explain why a man gifted with magical elves and flying reindeer would be limited by something so mundane as a budget.
She bit her lip, weighing the extra cash against the extra work. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to answer yet.” He tried to look innocent. “Why don’t you think about it while I hang up these lights for you?”
“You mean, while you leave me with the cute baby in the hopes he’ll win me over?”
Will grinned shamelessly, handing her Tommy. “Any chance that might work?”
Hell, she’d probably agree to his child-care proposition just to get assistance with the stupid Christmas lights. It felt like forever since she’d enjoyed the luxury of someone else’s help. Since the divorce, she’d shouldered so much alone. It had caught her off guard Sunday when Will offered to do the favor of taking Lily and Iris to see Santa. Even though she hadn’t taken him up on it, she’d been genuinely touched by the suggestion and found herself frequently smiling over the last two days at the memory of how he’d carried Iris on his shoulders and made her laugh.
She pointed toward the living room. “The lights are in there. But we have to get them untangled and find which bulb is out before we can hang them up.”
“On it.” He strode in that direction, exchanging greetings with the girls. Lily didn’t say anything to him, but she didn’t shy away when he waved to her, either. That was progress. It had taken her months to really warm up to her day-care teacher.
Will turned the task of unknotting the lights into performance art, entertaining the triplets by pretending it took all his strength to pull the cord free. Megan was surprised to find herself amused by the very chore she’d been silently cursing ten minutes ago. Life is easier with a partner.
At times like this, she could understand why her mother had fought against the divorce, believing Megan’s life would be simpler if she stayed with Spencer. But there were worse complications than uncooperative Christmas decorations. If Megan had stayed with him after his multiple betrayals, she would’ve grown to despise them both. She amended her earlier thought. Life wasn’t automatically better with a partner, only with the right partner. Spencer hadn’t been that for her, and it sounded as if Will’s ex had proven to be the wrong one for him.
He certainly found a bright side in the breakup. If Will had lacked the “normal” young adult dating experiences, he was more than making up for missed opportunities.
“All right,” he said. “Time to go make your house the envy of the neighborhood. You have tools and a ladder, or should I get mine from next door?”
“In the garage. How about I order a large pizza while you work?” She’d been so preoccupied with decorations that she hadn’t given dinner much thought.
“Sounds perfect. But so you know, I don’t show up here at suppertime just to mooch free food.” He winked at her. “I also come to mooch the free child care.”
She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, if I take your babysitting job, you’ll be getting a bill for my services.” And as far as the free pizza went? If he got those blasted lights working, she’d even spring for a side order of cheesy garlic bread. “What do you like?”
A slow grin spread across his face, and for no good reason whatsoever, heat climbed in her cheeks.
She gave him a stern look over the top of the baby’s head. “On your pizza, William.”
“Anything but mushrooms. But I can pick them off if you want them.”
“Actually, I hate mushrooms.”
“Common ground, huh? Why, Miss Rivers, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
* * *
ALTHOUGH WILL’S STOMACH rumbled appreciatively at the smell of pizza wafting upward, he told Megan that she and the girls should start without him. “I’m almost finished,” he called down to her, trying not to let his gaze linger on the enticing V-neck of her sweater from atop the ladder. Admittedly, she was beautiful, but his phone’s contact list held the numbers of a dozen beautiful women. Physical appearance wasn’t what made Megan special.
He valued the unexpected, burgeoning friendship between them. Flirtatious banter and easy smiles were second nature to him, but if he crossed a line, would Megan return to her disapproving glances and curt, one-sentence conversations?
The ladder wobbled as he shifted to watch her walk into the house, and he almost rolled his eyes at his own idiocy. Firefighters responded to a wide variety of 9-1-1 calls. How many accidents and home injuries had he seen that were caused by someone not focused on what they were doing? He knew better. Pushing aside thoughts of Megan, more or less, he concentrated on the job at hand.
He might have helped her cross Christmas lights off her to-do list, but from his vantage point, he couldn’t help noticing other odd jobs that needed attending. There were some shingles on the roof that needed replacing, the gutters needed to be cleaned out and there was a decrepit tree far too close to the house that should probably be cut down before some spring storm knocked it over. None of which was any of his business, but this was Cupid’s Bow. Neighbors looked out for each other.
That’s right, keep defaulting to the “neighborly” argument until it starts to feel convincing.
He climbed down from the ladder and plugged in the cord to make sure the lights worked. Perfect. He turned them off, smiling in anticipation of showing the girls, and went inside, where he was greeted by the heavenly scent of sausage and tomato sauce and still-warm-from-the-oven pizza crust.
“Success,” he told Megan. “We can have the great unveiling after everyone’s finished.”
As a firefighter, he helped people daily, in capacities as minor as rescuing cats from trees to literally pulling people out of burning buildings. And yet it was the beaming smile Megan shot him from across the table that made him feel heroic. That kind of reaction could be addictive.
He broke eye contact, clearing his throat. “Where do you, um, keep the glasses?”
“Here.” She crossed the kitchen and pulled a tumbler from a cabinet. When she handed it to him, their fingers brushed and he couldn’t help wondering—if she hadn’t been holding a baby just then, if they didn’t have an audience of three little girls, would he have succumbed to the urge to tug her closer? To wrap his hand around hers? Maybe—don’t even think it—kiss her?
Damn. You thought it.
“Thanks.” He jerked away and filled the glass with cold water. “I, uh, noticed while I was out in the yard, there’s some other stuff you could probably use a hand with.”
Her lips thinned. “Is this like when representatives from the neighborhood show up to say the lawn isn’t mowed well enough and I’m dragging down property values?”
“Not at all. No criticism, I promise. But you’ve already done so much to help me with Tommy, and if you ever need my help... I mean, being on ladders is half my job, so cleaning out your rain gutter would be nothing. And I’m supposed to stay physically active. The county pays for us to have state-of-the-art workout equipment, for pity’s sake, and—” When he realized he’d started babbling, he stopped abruptly. Smooth, Trent. This your first day trying to talk to a woman? “So. Pizza!”
He’d finished one slice and was reaching for another when Megan caught his gaze. “Sorry I got defensive when you commented on the yard. Guess you were right about me the first night you came over,” she said. “I can definitely be ‘prickly.’ Since the divorce, I’ve worked hard to be self-sufficient. I didn’t really have a choice. But somewhere along the way, I may have forgotten how to accept help gracefully.”
“No apology necessary. Your yard is none of my business, and my family has a history of overstepping our boundaries. It turned out well for Cole, whose childhood habits of finding facts and being bossy work in the sheriff’s office, but for the rest of us...” Would now be the right time to warn her that his meddling, overstepping mother might try to fix Megan up on dates?
“Mr. Will?” Daisy’s small face was crinkled with impatience, as if she couldn’t understand why no one’s attention was on her. “Guess what I saw today? Mr. Abe’s dog made a big poop on the sidewalk.”
“Daisy! That is not appropriate talk for the dinner table,” Megan chided.
Will tried hard not to undermine her authority by laughing out loud. “I grew up with two brothers,” he reassured Megan softly. “I’m not easily grossed out.”
“Still.” She shot one last stern look at the irrepressible Daisy. “I think a change of subject is in order.”
“Are you busy Thursday evening?” he asked. “Because, as it happens, I don’t have a Christmas tree, either. We could go shopping together.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“The girls are liable to be...excited. To put it mildly. Not everyone wants that kind of chaos taking up their free time.”
The invitation had been sheer impulse, one he didn’t want to examine too closely. So he nodded toward Tommy, his tone nonchalant. “Until Amy gets back, my time’s not free anyway. Why not spend it with four lovely ladies, who I’m willing to bet have excellent taste in Christmas trees?”
Daisy and Iris excitedly chanted, “Christmas tree! Christmas tree!” Lily grinned, her round cheeks covered in tomato sauce.
Megan smiled fondly at them and then turned back to Will. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a date.”
“Excellent. Now, who wants to go outside and see the lights?” he asked.
“First, you have to wash hands and faces,” Megan said over her daughters’ delighted squeals. They scampered out of the room in a rush of footsteps that were surprisingly heavy for such little girls.
Will laughed. “Would you be offended if I said I’d witnessed cattle stampedes that were quieter?”
“See what I mean about the chaos?”
“I don’t mind.” His own childhood had been full of stomping feet and muddy boots.
“Then you’re a better man than their father.” Immediately, she straightened in her chair, her expression appalled. “I didn’t mean to say that. It’s just, Spencer will be here in two weeks, and part of me is dreading it. The girls need a father, so I’m glad he’s coming, but his visits are always so strained. He spends his time in the grown-up world, golfing at country clubs or wining and dining clients. He’s palpably uncomfortable around sticky hands and occasional tantrums.”
“Is that why you two divorced?” Will asked, filled with an extreme dislike for the unseen Spencer.
“I—”
“Mommy! All clean!” The triplets raced into the room, their socks skidding a little on the tile floor. Will stood, planning to intervene if it looked like anyone was going to crash into the kitchen island.
Megan rose, too, instructing the girls to grab their shoes and coats. Then they all tromped outside. Will took the baby so that Megan could have the honor of plugging in the display. He couldn’t help chuckling at the heartfelt oohs and aahs, which would have been more suited to the aurora borealis than a few measly strands of multicolored lights.
“If you guys want to see something really impressive,” he said to Megan, “go by Brody Davenport’s ranch this month. They do an annual light display to raise money for the hospital’s children’s center. We’re setting up this Saturday, and it covers a hundred acres. Admission is whatever small donation visitors choose to make, and Brody gives it all to the center.”
“I’ll definitely put that on my calendar, thanks. Do you have someone to watch Tommy while you’re helping with that Saturday?” At his nod, she said, “As for someone to watch him while you’re at work, I’ve decided I can use the cash. So you’re covered, as long as we can make our work schedules match up.”
Relief washed over him. He’d known when he picked up Tommy at Marie’s earlier that he was running out of options. “I’ll trade some shifts if necessary. Thank you so much.” Despite how glad he was to have found a solution, his conscience demanded he ask, “Are you sure this won’t cause too much trouble for you?”
“It could make things a bit more hectic, but hectic is where I live.” She shrugged, giving an endearingly lopsided smile. “Might as well embrace it.”
Too bad her husband hadn’t been able to do that. It was a shame her marriage had ended. She talked about the girls needing a father, but what about her? Did she ever want a husband to hold her hand and brave the chaos with her? To tease her until her harried expression melted into that sweet smile? To take the garbage to the curb for her after she’d had a punishingly long day or carry a Christmas tree into the house? Will’s mother was right—Megan deserved a good man.
In the meantime, she’s got me.