Kitabı oku: «Bride Under the Mistletoe: The Magic of a Family Christmas», sayfa 2

CHAPTER TWO

“WHAT did you do?”

So much for thinking that deep down inside he was a nice guy. “I didn’t do anything!”

A childish whimper floated to Wendy. Her office didn’t have a window, so when the lights went out, the room became pitch-black.

She bounced from her seat. “Harry, everything’s fine. The ice probably brought down a power line or two.”

“Damn.”

That had been Cullen.

Sliding her fingers across the edge of her desk, she began feeling her way to Harry. Instead, she bumped into Cullen’s thighs. Once again solid muscle greeted her and she jerked her hands away. It seemed fate was determined to find ways for her to touch him.

“Sorry!”

He cleared his throat. “It’s fine. I think Harry’s about two paces to your left.”

She found her way to Harry. Putting her hand on his shoulder for security, she said, “Here’s what we’ll do. It’s still light outside, so we can open the drapes in Mr. McCoy’s office.” She squeezed the little boy’s shoulder. “Is it okay for me to go and do that?”

Harry said, “Yes.”

“Okay. You stay here.” She carefully navigated past her desk, praying Cullen hadn’t moved in the thirty seconds she’d spoken with Harry.

“Don’t you have a flashlight or something?”

Cullen’s voice came from behind her, thank God.

“I’m sure there’s one in maintenance. Would you like to walk through the dark plant and then down the dark-as-night steps to the basement to get it?”

“Very funny.”

In another few seconds she found her boss’s desk and walked to the window behind it. Running her hands along the curtain, she found the pull string and opened the drapes. Pale light filtered in, but it was enough that she could see Harry and Cullen.

“If you guys want to sit in here, I’ll—”

Before she finished her sentence, Harry raced into the office. She stooped and caught him as he threw himself at her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, but he hugged her fiercely.

Looking away, Cullen scrubbed his hand across his mouth. “Now, what do we do?”

“It depends on how long it takes for the electricity to come back on.” She rose and grabbed Harry’s hand. “Benny Owens works just inside the door to the plant. He has a radio. It runs on batteries. It’s a mandate of our safety manual because in an emergency, we can tune it to the local station and hear what’s going on. There are five of them in strategic locations throughout the building. Benny’s is the closest.”

“Makes sense.”

“I’m the most familiar with the plant layout so I’ll go and get the radio.” She stooped in front of Harry. “Do you want to stay here with Mr. Barrington or come with me?”

He glanced at Cullen, then back at her, pulled in a big breath and said, “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Wendy laughed, rose and tousled his hair. The kid certainly caught on fast. “This should only take about five minutes.”

Standing in the semi-dark room with the uncomfortable little boy who’d promised to keep an eye on him, Cullen frowned. One minute turned into two. Two turned into three. Harry began to squirm.

“Don’t worry. Your mom will be back soon.”

The little boy peered up at him. “She’s not my mom.”

“Your aunt?”

He shook his head. “She’s nothing.”

Cullen frowned. “Nothing?”

Harry pushed his glasses up his nose. “I’m a frosting child.”

“A frosting child?”

“You know. Somebody else has to take care of me until portal services decides what to do with me.”

“Portal services?”

Exasperated, Harry said, “The place that puts kids in a home.”

“Oh! Social services. You’re a foster kid.”

He nodded. “Yeah. My mom died.”

Cullen’s heart stopped. Sadness filled him. Hoping he’d heard wrong, he said, “Your mom died?”

He nodded again.

Cullen bent down to talk to Harry on his own level. “Mine did, too.”

“Really?”

“A few months ago. January.” He shook his head in wonder. Time had certainly flown. “It’s been almost a year, but I still miss her.”

“I miss my mom, too.” He caught Cullen’s gaze. “She was sick though. Everybody says she’s happy now.”

Cullen nearly cursed. At the wake when people had told him his mother was in a better place, he’d believed it. But it was cruel to tell this little boy his mom preferred leaving him to staying with him.

“I’m guessing you don’t have any aunts or uncles?”

He shook his head.

Though he hesitated, half afraid of the answer, Cullen asked, “Where’s your dad?”

Harry shrugged. “He’s around somewhere.” Then he flapped his arms in exasperation, as if this is what he’d seen and heard adults do when they talked about his dad. “We’ll find him eventually.”

The kid was just a tad too observant.

The light from the window in Mr. McCoy’s office thinned as Wendy walked farther into the building, but when she reached the main corridor, emergency lights were lit. She scrambled to the door and into the plant. At Benny Owens’s workstation, she snatched the radio and quickly made her way back to Cullen and Harry.

The second she stepped into the office, Cullen caught her gaze. His normally bright eyes were soft, sincere.

“Harry was telling me about his mom.”

“Oh.” She glanced at Harry, who looked up at her with a smile. “You okay, little guy?”

Still smiling, he nodded.

Whatever had happened between the two of them, Harry was okay. He might have even gotten afraid in the dark again and Cullen had taken care of him. Surprising, but good. She turned to smile at Cullen in thanks, but when their gazes caught, that funny feeling happened in her stomach again. Only this time, her chest also tightened. It became hard to breathe. She sort of felt as if she were drowning in the deep pools of his eyes, once again overwhelmed by the strange instinct that deep down he really was a nice guy—

The church bell across the street rang twice, jolting her back to reality.

“Must be two o’clock,” she said, brightly, trying to pretend nothing had happened because nothing had happened. So they’d looked into each other’s eyes? It wasn’t a big deal.

Setting the radio on her boss’s desk, she said, “I forgot about the emergency lights. The corridors are well-lit. The plant has emergency lighting, too.”

She turned on the radio and slowly moved the dial until she found the local station. The announcer said, “The mayor is telling everybody to just sit tight—”

She glanced at Cullen. “Either I have perfect timing or this is an emergency broadcast that’s repeating.”

“To repeat…Trees and power lines are down all over town. Route 81 has been shut down due to accidents.”

Cullen cursed.

She faced him. “What?”

“That’s the only highway out of town. The only way to get to my hotel.”

“I’m sure it will be open before you want to go back.”

“Since I can’t work without a computer, I want to go back now.”

“Good point.”

They both glanced at the radio.

“I’m sorry to say, folks,” the announcer said, “the power company is warning that this is going to be an all-nighter. Get out your candles, light your fireplace, and be careful.”

The announcer stopped talking and a song floated from the radio. Wendy shifted away from the desk. Technically, she and Harry could leave. They could even bake their cookies. She had a gas stove. And a fireplace. They could roast marshmallows and sleep in sleeping bags on the living-room floor.

This could actually be the most fun day of his stay with her.

She put her hand on Harry’s shoulder, took another step back, easing toward the door.

It almost seemed wrong to leave. Almost. The truth was she didn’t know Cullen Barrington. And she was attracted to him. The first man since Greg. That left her feeling odd enough. When she added that he was a playboy, out of her reach, the man who owned the company she worked for, in front of whom she’d prefer to be on her best behavior, not walking around a dark old house with a flashlight…Well, it was for the best that she not invite him to her home. She shouldn’t feel guilty for leaving him to figure out what he’d do for the next twelve to twenty-four hours—in the dark—when she not only had light and warmth, she could also cook dinner.

While he sat in the dark? Slept on the floor with his jacket for a cover?

Damn it!

Why couldn’t her conscience just shut up long enough for her to get to her car?

“Do you want to come with us?”

His head jerked up. “Where are you going?”

“As you said, we can’t work in the dark. So Harry and I are going home. I have a gas stove and a working fireplace in the living room. Even my hot-water heater is gas. We can be without power for a week and the only thing we’ll miss is television.”

“I don’t watch television.”

“Then you should be fine.”

He growled as if annoyed with the inconvenience of humbling himself to go to the home of an employee, and she said a silent prayer that he’d be stubborn enough—or maybe independent enough—to decide he’d rather sit alone in the office, maybe reading files by the emergency lights in the corridor, than go with her.

Please, God…

He pulled in a breath. “Okay. Fine. Let me get my coat.”

CHAPTER THREE

THEY stepped out into the parking lot and Cullen motioned to the right. “That’s my rental car.”

“And it’s a fine car,” Wendy said, “but with power lines down, we can’t drive. We don’t want to become part of the problem.”

Cullen ignored her sarcasm in favor of more pressing concerns. “Part of the problem?”

“We could get halfway home, come across a tree that’s down and either have to leave our cars in the middle of the road or drive back here and walk anyway.”

She faced him. Sunlight sparkled off the thick ice on the trees surrounding the parking lot, encircling her with a glow that made her look like a shimmering angel. He shook his head to clear the haze, but there was no haze. She truly sparkled in the icy world they were caught in.

“So what do you say we skip the first few steps we know might not work, and just walk?”

Great. Maybe a little exercise would help him get himself back to normal around her. “Fine.”

“Good. You can carry Harry.”

He gaped at her. “Carry Harry?”

“It’s a ten-minute walk. And he’s a forty-pound kid. Are you telling me that rich guys are too soft to carry forty-pound kids?”

He snatched the little boy off the ground and hoisted him to his shoulder. Not that he took her bait about him being soft. He liked Harry. Who wouldn’t? The kid had suffered the kind of loss that would flatten most adults, yet he was taking it like a man. He deserved a little special treatment.

“You have a smart mouth.”

She grimaced. “Not usually.”

He didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to know that she was behaving out of character in his presence. It was confirmation that she was attracted to him, too. If they were attracted to each other and about to spend the night together that might be trouble. Of course, if she was being smart with him it could be because she didn’t like the attraction any more than he did—which should make them perfectly safe.

Occupied with his thoughts, Cullen slipped on the ice and bobbled Harry, who squealed with delight. “This is fun!”

“Always happy to oblige,” Cullen told Harry, before he leaned toward Wendy and whispered, “Italian loafers weren’t made for walking on ice.”

“It’s a very short walk. Ten minutes tops.” She pointed to the grassy strip beside the sidewalk. “But if I were you I’d walk in that.”

He stepped into the bumpier grass and found the footing a little more solid. Harry groaned. “Darn.”

With his hands on Harry’s thighs, holding him on his shoulders, Cullen shook his head. “Kids. You think the weirdest things are fun.”

Harry giggled. Cullen’s spirits unexpectedly lifted, but he told himself to settle down. He might want to make Harry’s life a little brighter, but he wasn’t here for fun and games. He had to work with Wendy Winston for the next few weeks. He had to be nice to her, but he also had to keep his distance. He didn’t want to accidentally start a relationship that would have to end when he left.

He stayed quiet the rest of the way to her home. Walking on the grass, he managed to slip only a time or two, but that provided Harry with a few laughs, and Wendy with something to talk about with Harry.

Suddenly she turned up an icy walkway to the right, and Cullen stopped.

Oh. Dear. God.

“Come on.”

Swallowing back a protest, Cullen carefully navigated the walkway and the five icy stairs to the wide front porch. They stepped inside a freezing-cold foyer with beautiful hardwood floors, a new paint job and a modern table holding a ginger-jar lamp and a stack of unopened mail.

She stripped off her coat. “As soon as I light the fireplace and turn on the oven, the downstairs will be toasty warm.” Heading for the kitchen, she called over her shoulder, “If you’re cold, don’t take off your coat until the place heats up.”

He slid Harry to the floor. The little boy immediately shucked his coat, found the hall closet and tossed it inside. Cullen grimaced. He’d look like a real wimp if he stayed in his coat, so he shrugged it off and followed Harry into the kitchen.

Wendy beamed at Harry. “Oh, you took off your own coat!”

Harry nodded. “I saw you put it in the closet before so I know what to do now.”

Cullen caught the exchange but he was too busy staring at the kitchen cabinets to comment.

Wendy winced. “I know they’re ugly.”

“My father hated them, too.”

Her pretty green eyes widened. “This was your house?Your family was the rich family that left town and neglected it?”

“That would be us.”

“And your mother is responsible for this floor?”

He shrugged. “It was the eighties. Linoleum was all the rage.”

“Yeah, but now I’m stuck with it. I should shoot at least one of you.”

Cullen heard her, but didn’t respond. Memories of conversations over breakfast with Gabby, the Barrington’s housekeeper, came tumbling back.

Are you ever going to learn to make pancakes?

No.

I like pancakes!

Little boys aren’t supposed to get everything they want. Makes them spoiled.

Gabby hadn’t been mean about it. She’d laughed. She was a fun, easygoing woman who sometimes even sat at the table and ate scrambled eggs and toast with him before she drove him to school.

“I asked if you wanted anything to drink.”

Hearing Wendy’s question, he spun to face her. Standing by the open refrigerator, she held a pitcher of something pink. “What is it?”

“Pink lemonade.”

“Got any bottled water?”

“I have tap water.”

“That’s fine.”

“Glasses are in the cupboard.” She pointed at the one by the sink. “Help yourself.”

Walking to the sink, he watched her pour a drink for Harry and one for herself then carry eggs, butter and milk to the center island after storing the lemonade. He tried to remember his mom even being in the kitchen, let alone cooking, and not one memory surfaced.

“We’re baking cookies, if you want to help.”

He turned at Wendy’s question. Her smile was forced. Her eyes not as bright as they had been. She obviously didn’t want his help and he wasn’t really in the mood to remember things that only made him a weird combination of angry and sad.

“No, if you have a book somewhere I wouldn’t mind passing the time reading.”

She relaxed. “I have a roomful of bookcases stuffed with just about anything you could want. Third door…”

“On the right. I know. It used to be a library and office. That’s why there are built-in bookcases.”

“Okay. Just open the drapes. When it starts to get dark, we’ll break out the candles and flashlights.”

“Great.”

He entered the library feeling a mix of nostalgia and disappointment. His mother had worked in this room every night and most weekends. But Wendy didn’t have a desk and leather chairs. Instead, a chaise sat by the bay window. A well-worn yellow comforter lay across the foot. The room that had been a place of work was now a place of peace and quiet. He scanned her titles, found a thriller by a favorite author, and settled in on the chaise.

After an hour, the scent of fresh-baked cookies drifted into the room. He closed the book and inhaled deeply before rising from the chaise and walking into the kitchen.

“Smells good in here.”

Green icing on the tip of his nose and flour across one cheek, Harry grinned at him from his chair beside the kitchen island. “I’m painting stained-glass windows on a church.”

Cullen laughed. “No kidding!”

Wendy looked offended. “Hey, I can get pretty fancy with my cookies.”

Glancing at the rows of already painted cookies on the far end of the island, Cullen nodded. “So I see.”

Harry nodded. “You paint one, Mr….”

“This is Mr. Barrington,” Wendy supplied.

“Since we’re kind of in close quarters and unusual circumstances I think you might as well call me Cullen.”

“Okay, Cullen!” Harry said, handing him a cookie. “You paint this one. It’s a bell.”

“I see that.”

“So paint it.”

“With frosting,” Wendy qualified. “But you should also wash your hands first.”

He was going to say no. He’d never done anything like this in his life and he was too old to start now. But just the mention of the word frosting squeezed his heart. Unable to catch every word said about him, Harry had repeated what he thought he’d heard and had called himself a frosting child. In a way he was. He was a sweet little boy left in the hands of a cold, sterile system. How could Cullen turn away the request of a child who’d just lost his mother?

“Okay.”

He washed his hands, picked up his cookie again and chose a paintbrush from those assembled beside the colorful cups of frosting. He watched Wendy dip her brush into the yellow icing and paint the bell she held a bright yellow, then switch brushes to add red icing to create a bow. He mimicked her movements, except he dipped his brush in blue. He covered his cookie in pale-blue frosting and painted the bow shape at the top white.

Harry approved it with a smile. “I like it.”

“I like it, too, but you know what? I’m kind of getting hungry.”

Wendy said, “Let me finish up here and I’ll make hamburgers.”

“Actually, I make a great hamburger. You said your gas stove will work, right?”

She nodded. “That’s how we made these cookies.”

“Then you guys just go ahead and keep painting. I’ll make burgers and by the time you’re done, dinner will be ready.”

Wendy smiled. Cullen’s heart tripped over itself in his chest. Now that they were in a comfortable environment, he’d begun thinking of things a little more normally. But that wasn’t necessarily good. Instead of envisioning off-the-wall images like sparkling angels when he looked at her, he was now thinking how he’d like to kiss the lips that had pulled upward into a smile. They were a soft reddish color. Untarnished by lipstick or gloss. Very real. Plump. Tempting.

But that was wrong. They’d be working together for the next weeks. Visions of angels were one thing. Actually wanting to kiss his employee was another. Anything he said or did could turn into a sexual-harassment suit. He had to stop this and stop it right now.

He walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the hamburger. “What’s going to happen to everything in your refrigerator if the power stays out for a long time?”

“If we don’t open the refrigerator often, lots of it will be okay. Plus, I have blocks of ice in the freezer for times when this happens. It acts like a big cooler. Everything in there will stay frozen and I can put the important things from the refrigerator in there, if I need to.”

“You’re pretty smart.”

Holding a cookie she’d just painted with bright-red frosting, she laughed. “Yeah. Right.”

Happy to have their minds back on work, he said, “You are. All your performance appraisals say that.”

“You read my performance appraisals?”

“I read your file this morning. You are my administrative assistant for the next four weeks. I figured I’d better know who I was getting.”

“Oh.” She placed her cookie on the aluminum foil that lined the far end of the island and reached for another one. “So, how did you learn to cook?”

He grimaced. “Our housekeeper taught me.”

“That’s right. Your mom was the last company president.”

He nodded. “My dad owned an investment firm and my mom ran the factory, so my parents were overly busy. Our housekeeper was the one who fed me, nudged me to get dressed, drove me to school…” He pointed at the stove. “And taught me to cook. Nothing fancy, just the basics. Eggs. Hamburgers.” He shrugged. “That kind of stuff.”

“So that makes you pretty handy to have around the house.”

He laughed. “And also a good roommate for everybody in college.”

“Where did you go to school?”

He could tell she was only making casual conversation, but he nonetheless felt odd, as if he were bragging and he winced. “Harvard.”

“Ah. Right.”

“Where’d you go to school?”

“Community college for two years, then I met my husband and realized I could be an administrative assistant while he did his internship at the local hospital. When he died, I probably should have gone back for a degree.” She shrugged. “But I just never found anything I wanted to study.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

With her focus on choosing the next cookie to paint, Wendy shrugged again. “It’s all right.” She said the well-practiced words easily, but the emptiness that shuddered through her contradicted them. Still, as she’d told Harry, she shouldn’t dwell. She’d moved on. Gotten tougher, smarter. “It’s been two years since Greg died.”

Surveying the cookies to be painted, Harry casually said, “Cullen’s mom died this year.”

Wendy spun to face the stove. “Now, I’m sorry.”

“As you said, it’s all right. She actually died in January. So my dad and I are pretty much beyond it.”

Finished patting the hamburgers into shape, Cullen poked through cupboards, looking for a frying pan. Wendy watched him, feeling a shift in the funny catch she got in her heart every time she looked at him. Hearing about his mom’s death reminded her that he was as human as everybody else. But was it really good to begin seeing him as a normal man? Wasn’t it wiser to continue thinking of him as a super-good-looking but unapproachable playboy?

By the time the hamburgers were ready, Wendy and Harry had finished painting their cookies, and laid them on the island to dry. Wendy pulled paper plates from the pantry and handed them to Harry.

“Since we’re not sure when we’ll get power again, it’s probably a good idea for us not to dirty too many dishes.”

Harry scurried to the round table in the corner of the room and arranged the plates in front of three chairs. Cullen set a platter of hamburgers in the center.

Wendy found the plastic cutlery and carried it to the table along with a bag of hamburger buns and a bag of potato chips. “We can eat reject cookies for dessert.”

“Sounds good to me,” Cullen said, pulling a seat up to the table.

But Harry stopped him. “I want to sit there!” he said, shifting Cullen to the left, to the place beside Wendy.

Wendy looked over at the little boy. He didn’t seem upset. He seemed to genuinely want the seat on the end. So she said nothing. They passed the hamburgers and buns around the table, then the chips. Pale light filtered in from the windows in the top half of the back door. The sun was setting.

“I think I might need to get a candle.”

“Do you want some help?”

“No, I’m fine. I just have a feeling it’ll be dark before we’re done eating.” She rose from the table and found the big round candles and matches she kept for times the electricity failed. She lit one of the fat beige candles, set it between the hamburgers and the chips and took her seat again.

As they ate, the light from the window faded and the candle’s light replaced it, creating an unfortunately romantic glow. Wendy stole a look at Cullen. He was stealing a glance at her. A sizzle of electricity arced between them. Time stood still as they simply stared into each other’s eyes.

“My head looks like a watermelon,” Harry said with a giggle, pointing at a shadow cast by the flickering candlelight.

Wendy laughed. It was exactly the comic relief they needed. “So does mine.”

Cullen turned to see the wall behind him. He laughed. “So does mine.”

Harry settled into his seat again. “I like this.”

One of Cullen’s black eyebrows rose. “Eating in the dark?”

“No. Laughing.”

Wendy glanced at Cullen, again just as he looked at her. This time, instead of chemistry sparking between them, understanding did. This little boy had spent the past months of his life not doing anything, not going anywhere, probably never laughing.

Cullen rose and unexpectedly grabbed Harry, hoisting him over his shoulder and tickling the strip of belly exposed when his T-shirt rose. “Yeah, well, if you like to laugh so much how about this?” He tickled him again and Harry giggled with delight.

Wendy’s heart melted in her chest. Never in a million years would she guess somebody like Cullen could be so perceptive, but he was and she was grateful.

“I have a good idea,” she said, rising from the table. “Why don’t we throw away these dishes and take the cookies into the living room? The fireplace is already lit. We’ll put our sleeping bags down on the floor and make popcorn.”

Cullen swung Harry to the floor. “Or we could tell ghost stories.”

As Harry’s small feet touched down he said, “Ghost stories?”

Cullen smiled evilly. “Oh, I know plenty. I spent some time in Gettysburg.”

Harry’s nose wrinkled. “You were in prison?”

Cullen and Wendy both laughed. Wendy said, “No! Gettysburg is a famous battlefield. But rather than ghost stories,” she said, giving Cullen a look, hoping he’d understand, “why don’t we tell funny stories?”

Harry jumped up and down. “I love funny stories!” Then he raced out of the kitchen, toward the living room.

Obviously realizing his mistake, Cullen rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “Sorry. I forgot his mom just died or I never would have mentioned ghosts.”

“That’s okay. I’ve slipped up a time or two myself today.”

He glanced around. “Have you got any marshmallows?” Dipping into the pantry and then out again, she displayed a bag of fat white marshmallows. “I always keep a bag on hand in case I ever want to make s’mores.”

“We’ll start toasting those over the fire and tell funny stories and he’ll forget all about the ghosts.”

Wendy smiled her agreement, but her smile faded when he turned away, gathered the catsup and mustard and walked to the refrigerator as if it were very normal for him to be in her kitchen. In a way she supposed it was. This had been his home. But she had the oddest feeling that he was right where he was supposed to be.

And so was she.

Blaming that feeling on the fact that they both called this house home, she shook her head, told herself to stop acting like an idiot and carried the marshmallows to the living room where Harry eagerly awaited her.

They spent the next hour roasting marshmallows and teasing Harry. Then Cullen realized he’d not only have to sleep in his uncomfortable clothes; he’d also have to wear them the next day unless he went to his car.

Wendy grabbed two flashlights from the kitchen and met him at the front door.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“It’s a ten-minute walk to my car, remember? I hadn’t yet checked into my hotel, so I can grab my duffel bag and be back in twenty-two minutes.”

As he spoke, he smiled down at her, and she suddenly knew why she kept getting these odd feelings. In the office when he was Cullen Barrington, owner of Barrington Candies, he was an unapproachable playboy. But here in this house where he was comfortable, with a little boy he couldn’t resist being kind to, she was seeing a side of him she would bet few people—if any—had ever seen. And she was beginning to like him.

She quickly looked away and stepped back. She didn’t want to like this guy. At least not romantically. This time next month, he’d probably be on a beach or in a casino. There was no sense forming an attachment. But more than that they came from two different worlds, saw life two different ways, probably had totally opposite beliefs about most things. Liking him was just wrong.

“See you when you get back.”

He opened the door and pointed at his Italian loafers. “Wish me luck.”

Wendy couldn’t help it; she laughed. “Luck.”

While he was gone, Wendy went to the storage room and found the two sleeping bags that she and her husband had used on camping trips. Because there were only two, she grabbed blankets from the linen closet and brought them along, too.

After she and Harry laid the open sleeping bags on the floor to serve as a cushion, they covered them in blankets. She took Harry upstairs, helped him wash up and eased him into his pajamas. On the way back to the living room they stopped in the library and found a tattered copy of A Christmas Story.

By the time Cullen returned, she’d begun reading it aloud to Harry. Cullen took his duffel bag upstairs and returned dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt. Not interrupting her reading, he slid under the blanket on the other side of Harry. She read a few chapters until Harry’s eyelids began to droop and eventually closed completely.

Wendy slid the blanket up to his chin. He snuggled into the pillow.

She glanced over at Cullen and whispered, “This wasn’t exactly how I’d hoped our first night would turn out.”

“This was your first day with him?”

She nodded.

He laughed softly. “I don’t think Harry minded.” He pulled in a breath. “And I have to thank you, too. I’d have been sleeping on your boss’s lumpy couch tonight if you hadn’t come to my rescue.”