She did warn him.
Two hours later, Carson stood in Jenna’s compact kitchen trying to scrub burned macaroni and cheese off her stove top. Behind him at the kitchen table, Jolie in her high chair was starting to fret and rub her eyes and Kip was gabbing a mile a minute about all the things he wanted Santa to bring him the next night, though for the life of him, Carson couldn’t figure out who the kid was talking to.
His brothers certainly weren’t paying him any attention. Hayden and Drew were arguing about everything under the sun, from the best place to go fishing in the summer to how to throw a spitball to which of them was better at Super Mario Galaxy.
He was quite certain his head was going to explode in another sixty seconds.
What the hell was he thinking, imagining even for a moment that he could handle this?
The Wii argument was quickly getting out of hand and he finally had to step in. “Guys. Guys. Come on. Your mom’s going to wake up if you keep at each other’s throats like this.”
Drew instantly backed down. “Sorry, Mr. McRaven,” he said.
As he might have expected, Hayden wasn’t nearly so cooperative. “Why do we have to listen to you?” he asked in that surly tone Carson had become used to, though he took some small degree of satisfaction that the boy had forgotten to cop his attitude for a large part of the afternoon. Apparently the temporary cease-fire was over.
“You shouldn’t even be here,” Hayden groused.
Damn straight, he shouldn’t. He couldn’t have agreed more with the boy. He was completely out of his element here. But he had given Jenna his word and right now he didn’t see any other alternative.
At least she wasn’t around to see how miserably he was failing her. Jenna had fallen asleep a few hours ago—and he was amazed she had made it as long as she had. When he carried her inside the house, she had insisted he set her on the living room couch in front of their lopsided Christmas tree.
Anyone looking in on the scene might have guessed she had been away from her children for weeks, the way none of them wanted to let her out of their sights. At first he thought they were extraordinarily clingy, until he remembered how frightening the situation must have seemed from their standpoint, children who lost their father just two Christmases ago.
She hadn’t seemed to mind having them right there with her. While Carson stood by feeling helpless, she had talked with them for a good half hour even while he could see her energy begin to wane.
Before he could usher the children out of the living room, she was fast asleep, as she had been for the last two hours.
“Look, your mom needs rest,” he reminded her boys and the darling little cherub in the high chair with the orange cheese sauce mustache. “I know she’ll want to be feeling better tomorrow for Christmas Eve so we all need to give her the chance to take it easy while she can.”
“We were supposed to go look at Christmas lights tonight,” Kip said with a pout. “My friend Cody says his house has more lights than anyone in Pine Gulch and I want to go see it.”
He thought about piling them all into his Suburban and driving into town. It would be a distraction, anyway, and might put Jolie to sleep. On the other hand, the logistics of loading them all in overwhelmed him—quite a humiliating realization for a man who owned dozens of companies and managed to keep track of each one of them.
“Are you still going to be here on Christmas Eve?” Hayden asked crossly.
“I don’t know,” he answered. Lord, I hope not. “I guess that will depend on your mom and how she’s doing.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when the woman in question appeared in the doorway looking pale and rumpled. Her hair was a little disheveled but she still looked as lovely as ever.
He didn’t know when he had ever seen a more welcomed sight. Apparently her children shared his sentiment.
“Mommy!” Kip exclaimed and rushed to his mother.
Carson didn’t miss her wince as the boy collided with her but she quickly hid it and enveloped him in her arms. A weird ache quivered in his chest as he watched the two of them. She had to be feeling like she’d been run over by a truck right about now, but she still let her little kid maul her.
“I’m sorry.” She pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “I didn’t mean to sleep so long. I didn’t mean to sleep at all, actually.”
“With all the meds they filled you with at the doc’s, it’s a wonder you lasted as long as you did.”
She made a face. “I hate the stuff. I wish I could have convinced Jake that a couple of aspirin would do just fine for me.”
“Mommy hurt,” Jolie said. She looked adorably empathetic, her little chin quivering as if she was going to cry, too.
Jenna hobbled to her high chair and leaned down to press a soft kiss on the top of her daughter’s curls. “Just a little, baby.”
“We had macaroni and cheese,” Kip announced. “Only it wasn’t the good kind like you make with the gooey cheese and the crumbly top.”
“Sorry,” Carson muttered. “I did my best, but apparently I don’t have your skills in the kitchen.”
He was the CEO of one of the leading tech innovation companies in the world. He shouldn’t feel like a complete loser just because he could only make mac and cheese out of a box.
He would have felt about three inches tall if he hadn’t caught Jenna’s eyes and seen a glowing light there when she looked at him.
“You did great, Carson. Actually, I’m amazed you’re still here and haven’t run screaming from the house.”
“I was tempted a few times.”
Her smile was warm and grateful and he told himself the ache in his gut was just hunger. “I can’t thank you enough for sticking around. I’m only sorry I fell asleep and left you on your own. That wasn’t in the plan.”
“You needed it, just like you need to get off that bad foot. Come and sit down and I can get you a bowl of this orange gunk.”
“Mmmm. Sounds delicious.” She smiled again at him and he was astounded that she could still smile when he knew her pain pills had to be wearing off.
She slid onto the empty chair at the table and he dished up a bowl of the macaroni and cheese and set it in front of her. He found it to be a strange turn of events after the last few days that now he was the one feeding her.
“Thanks. I’m suddenly starving. Even for orange gunk.”
His stomach rumbled and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since the breakfast she had served him and the Hertzogs that morning. He dished some onto a plate for himself and slid onto a seat of his own at the table across from her.
It had been years since he’d had the boxed stuff, but to his surprise, it wasn’t that bad, especially if a man was hungry enough.
He was further surprised that the boys actually stopped fighting and sat in relative peace around the table with them while they ate.
“What did you do while I was sleeping?” Jenna asked.
“We went downstairs and played foosball and video games,” Drew said. “It was super fun.”
“Only because you whipped me six ways to Sunday at Wii Sports.”
Drew giggled and the sound tugged a reluctant smile out Carson. He had to admit, he had enjoyed that part of the afternoon.
He had been filled with panic when Jenna fell asleep but he discovered the boys were actually quite funny and didn’t require much more than a peacekeeper. He found it remarkable that each was such a distinct personality.
And Jolie was a major snuggler. She hadn’t wanted to leave his lap, which made swinging a Wii tennis racket a little tough.
“You played all afternoon and then you came up and fixed dinner and everything. I’m really embarrassed I slept so long.”
“Don’t be. You needed it.”
“We tried to be quiet so we didn’t wake you up,” Drew assured her.
“Some of us did, anyway,” Hayden muttered with a dark look to Kip, who Carson had discovered never met a quiet moment he didn’t try to fill with chatter.
“I tried,” his brother exclaimed. “It’s just hard for me.”
Carson’s gaze met Jenna’s and he smiled. As he watched, color crept up her high cheekbones. Why? he wondered, even as that hunger he had been fighting surged up inside him again.
She looked slight and fragile and he still had a hard time believing she was the mother to the four children around the table.
“And we did our chores, Mom, without you even having to nag us,” Drew added. “We fed the ponies and Frannie and then we shoveled the snow while Mr. McRaven fixed dinner for us.”
“I’m impressed,” she told Carson. “What sort of magic obedience school did you send them to while I was sleeping?”
He laughed. “That’s my secret.” He decided not to tell her he had promised them if they did what he asked, he would get them a copy of a cutting-edge video game one of his companies was creating. It might be bribery, but, hey, a man had to use the tools at his disposal.
Before she could press him, Jolie yawned suddenly, a wide, ear-popping stretch of her jaw, and Jenna instantly went into Mommy mode.
“You’re exhausted, aren’t you, munchkin?” She pushed away the rest of her mac and cheese. “Let’s get you to bed. All of you.”
The boys grumbled and looked as if they wanted to argue but Carson shook his head with a pointed look to cut them off before they could even start.
“What do I need to do?” he asked Jenna.
She looked confused and a bit befuddled at how quickly her boys fell into line. “The boys can all shower on their own but Jolie needs a bath. Do you think you can help me with that?”
The thought terrified the hell out of him but he had promised to help her. He couldn’t just pick and choose the jobs in his personal comfort zone.
“Sure. You’ll have to walk me through it, I’m afraid. Bathing little kids isn’t exactly in my skill set.”
She smiled. “You’re in luck, then, because it is in mine. Boys, take turns in the shower and then meet back here in half an hour for our story.”
How was it humanly possible for a man to look so utterly, adorably masculine while he tried to figure out how to put a diaper on a little girl?
Jenna sat on the chair Carson had brought in from the kitchen for her and tried to oversee as best she could. It proved tougher than she had anticipated. He really meant it when he said he didn’t know what he was doing.
Sitting on the sidelines was frustrating—but a bit amusing, she had to admit.
“No, the tabs go on the back. You slide that section underneath her bottom and then bring those sides around to connect at the front. Yes, that’s the way. You did it!”
He looked ridiculously pleased with himself, even as lopsided as the diaper was. She feared Jolie’s entire bedding would be soaked before morning. But she had learned early in her marriage that the quickest way to ensure her husband never helped around the house was to criticize the way he did things—or more subversive and destructive, to go behind him and redo things to her satisfaction.
He struggled to put the pink footie pajamas on until she explained her trick of putting the foot without the zipper on first, then the other foot and the arms last. When he zipped her up, Jolie clapped her hands and beamed at him with her wide, toothy grin. Poor Carson looked so bemused, Jenna could tell her daughter had already bewitched him.
She considered it a minor miracle that the boys bathed and put on their pajamas without turning the house into a major battlefield. They did bicker about whose turn it was to open the wrapped storybook for the night.
Tonight’s turned out to be one of their favorites, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, much to the boys’ glee.
“Are you sure you’re up to this? Do you want me to read the story?” Carson asked.
“Not a chance. It’s my favorite part of the day.”
Jenna took a seat on the sofa by the fireplace in the living room with Jolie in her lap while the boys gathered around. Carson took the easy chair by the Christmas tree, much to her surprise.
Jolie fell asleep round about the time the Grinch was dressing Max the dog in his reindeer antlers. Her soft, warm weight was sweet comfort against her. Even though she ached just about everywhere, she wanted the peace of the moment to go on forever.
She glanced over at Carson and found him watching her out of those fathomless blue eyes.
It seemed oddly right to have him there.
Ridiculous, she told herself. He didn’t belong here. He was Carson McRaven of McRaven Enterprises. He had a private jet while she had a Dodge minivan with bald tires. He was only doing her a favor by helping her out while she was injured and she would do well not to put any more importance to it than that.
She finished the last page and closed the book.
“We’re almost done with the books!” Kip exclaimed. “That means Santa Claus comes tomorrow night!”
Jenna gave an inward wince as she thought of all the presents she still needed to wrap and the stockings that needed to be filled. She nodded. “I know. We have a lot to do tomorrow to get the house ready for him and I’m going to need everybody’s help.”
“Is he still going to be here in the morning?” Hayden asked, with a head jerk toward Carson.
“By he, do you mean Mr. McRaven, who has been kind enough to feed you dinner and play foosball and Wii with you?”
“Yeah. Him.”
She glanced at Carson but he appeared unoffended by her son’s rudeness. “I don’t know. We’ll have to see what happens tomorrow. Now into bed, guys. Say your prayers and turn off your lights.”
They grumbled a bit but after Carson cleared his throat, they quickly subsided. She wondered how on earth was he doing that and could he teach her? as the boys trudged up the stairs to their rooms.
Carson rose. “Let me carry her upstairs for you.”
She knew she couldn’t argue. “Thanks. I’m not sure I could do it one-handed.”
“Not with your cane, anyway.”
He scooped Jolie out of her arms a bit awkwardly and she was aware of the heat of his hands as he brushed her chest in the process. “Which one is her bedroom?”
“The pink one. First door on the left.”
He nodded and headed for the stairs and she was astonished at the tenderness that welled up inside her as she saw Carson—big and rangy—holding her small, fatherless child with such gentleness.
She didn’t think she could hop up the stairs so she opted to scoot after him on her bottom. He stepped out of Jolie’s room just as she reached the top of the stairs, wishing for a little dignity.
He frowned at her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I need to tuck in my boys,” she said.
He rolled his eyes but held a hand out to help her to her feet—or foot, anyway. She hobbled into the room Kip and Drew shared and kissed them each in turn then went across the hall to Hayden’s football-maniac room, with its huge Broncos posters on the walls and the orange, blue and white theme that was everywhere she looked.
He looked a little disgruntled that Carson was there as well but she was pleased that he still let her kiss him and tuck the blankets around his shoulders. Her oldest was going to be a teenager before she knew it. How much longer would he let his mother kiss him and rub his hair? Forever, she hoped.
“Night, bud. Thanks for your help today. I don’t know what I would do without you,” she whispered as she kissed him. His cheeks turned a little rosy and she could tell he was pleased.
“I’m not letting you scoot down the stairs again,” Carson said after they closed the door to Hayden’s room.
She caught her breath as he scooped her into his arms with effortless ease. He carried her down the stairs without even breathing hard.
She was breathing hard enough for both of them, though she did her best to hide her reaction. She didn’t want to admit how truly wonderful it felt to be held like this, to be cherished and watched over.
It was only natural. She had been alone for two years, had been forced to rely only on herself for everything her family needed, from mowing the lawn to taking the car to be fixed to repairing a leaky faucet. The chance to lean on someone else for a change shouldn’t seduce her so completely, but she felt powerless to control it.
Downstairs, he set her back on the couch and she forced herself to recall his words that morning, a moment that now seemed a lifetime ago.
She wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted. He had told her so, straight-out and she couldn’t forget it.
“Where’s the best place for me to bunk tonight?”
“This is silly, Carson. You don’t need to stay here. Hayden and Drew and I should be able to handle things. I don’t need a keeper.”
His sigh stirred the air between them. “Do we really have to argue about this again? You’ve got a concussion, a broken wrist and a sprained ankle. How could I possibly feel comfortable leaving you here alone to deal with four kids by yourself, especially with those heavy-duty painkillers on board? Now where’s the best place for me to bunk?”
She wanted to argue, but she could clearly see by the stubborn set of his features that he wasn’t going anywhere. And as tough as it was to admit, she felt more comfortable having another adult in the house. The painkillers left her loopy and she couldn’t go up and down the stairs if, God forbid, the house caught fire or something. Her pride recoiled at needing his help but since the situation was beyond her control right now, she would just have to accept it with as much grace as possible.
“There’s a guest room just off the kitchen. It’s the room my mother-in-law uses when she visits.”
Just another stress she would have to figure out in the morning, she thought with an edge of panic.
“That should be perfect,” Carson said.
They lapsed into silence broken only by the crackle of the fire. Outside she could see snowflakes drifting down. It would have been an idyllic scene if not for the undercurrents that ebbed and flowed between them. She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about their kiss in his kitchen that morning or the devastating scene that followed it.
“All right,” he finally said. “Out with it. I can see your mind is whirling.”
She flushed. “Oh, you’re psychic now?”
He shrugged. “You have to be a little omniscient when you buy and sell tech companies. But I don’t have to be psychic to see those wheels turning. Your face is remarkably expressive, in case you didn’t know.”
What else could he read on her face? she wondered. Could he see the slow heat she couldn’t seem to control around him?
“Joe used to accuse me of having the worst poker face in eastern Idaho.”
“You might as well play your hand, Jenna. What’s on your mind?”
Of course, she couldn’t tell him what she had been thinking so she quickly made something up. “I, um, was just wondering how long before the boys will safely be asleep. Hayden and Kip usually go right to sleep the minute their lights go out, but Drew has a tendency to read under his covers until I catch him at it and make him turn off the flashlight.”
“He pick that up from you or his dad?”
She made a face “Me. I used to do the exact same thing. There are still nights I stay up entirely too late caught up in a good book.”
She paused and something about the quiet intimacy of the night made her admit, “It helps to keep the darkness away.”
His features softened with sympathy and she instantly regretted her openness. She quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, I still have a few last-minute gifts from Santa to wrap. I need to make sure the boys are all asleep beyond a doubt before I dig them out.”
He arched one of those expressive eyebrows. “And how do you expect to wrap presents? With your teeth?”
Her arm ached as if on cue and she gazed down at her cast with no small amount of consternation. “Oh, dear. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“I can help. I can’t guarantee the kind of job I’ll do since wrapping presents is another one of those things out of my skill set but I can do my best.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve done enough, Carson. I’ll figure something out. Maybe Santa just won’t wrap everything this year.”
He made an impatient gesture. “Where are your presents and the wrapping paper?”
There was no dissuading the man when he had his mind made up about something and Jenna decided to admit defeat. “We need to make completely sure nobody will be sneaking down the stairs first. Let’s give them a few moments and then I’ll direct you to my secret stash.”