“When they get it into their head…”
“…that something is possible…” she murmured, continuing his thought.
“It’s awfully hard to change their mind,” he finished.
“Supposedly it’s a stage all three- and four-year-olds go through.” Holly munched on a chip. “You know…where they think they have everything figured out and you can’t convince them otherwise.”
Silence fell between them.
They locked eyes and exchanged beleaguered grins, both of them knowing how lucky they were to have these kinds of problems—especially at Christmas.
“So what do you want to do?” Holly continued to hold Travis’s gaze.
“The usual dinner and a movie?” he offered with a shrug, glad he didn’t have to handle the upcoming “explanation” alone.
Holly perked up. “Tonight?”
He nodded. “The sooner we clear this up with the little ones, the better. And we can fit the ‘discussion’ between the two events.”
Holly grinned as the waitress bustled back to their table with two plates of puffy tacos. “Sounds good to me.”
THERE WERE TIMES IN every parent’s life, Holly Baxter thought, when “backup” was required. Tonight was one of them. Which was why she was so very glad she had Travis Carson to help her face life’s problems, big and small.
“What do you mean we have to write letters to Santa?” Travis’s daughter, Sophie, demanded with all the indignation a four-and-a-half-year-old spitfire could muster.
“We already wrote them!” her three-year-old sister, Mia, complained.
“And we wrote ‘em, too,” Holly’s son, Tucker, stated in frustration.
“Or at least you wrote down what we said,” his three-and-a-half-year-old twin brother, Tristan, concurred.
Holly looked around her kitchen table. The four children looked so much alike, with their blond hair, big blue eyes and cherubic little faces, they could have been siblings. Indeed, during the two years she and Travis had lived side-by-side, the preschoolers had spent so much time together they might as well have been.
Which was what made it so easy to deal with them in a group.
“Your daddy and I know that.” Holly took the lead with Travis’s tacit encouragement. Emboldened by his sexy, reassuring presence, she continued affably, “But there’s a problem with what you all asked Santa to bring you. First of all, boys, they don’t make toy space ships big enough for you to climb in, and secondly, toys like that don’t fly.”
“Well, they should,” Tucker grumbled, crossing his arms in front of him.
Tristan stubbornly agreed. “Yeah, how are we supposed to get to outer space if they don’t go up in the air?”
Travis gave Holly a look from the other end of her farmhouse-style kitchen table. “They have a point,” he mouthed.
She ignored him. If Travis made her giggle, it would be all over.
“Second,” she said, even more gently to his little girls, “Santa Claus makes toys at the North Pole, not people, and mommies are people.”
Travis nodded as if to say, Way to go, team!
“But,” Sophie exclaimed, “a mommy is what Mia and I want!”
“Yeah,” Mia echoed. “‘Cause we don’t have one.”
Actually, Holly knew all too well that they’d once had a very kind and loving mother. When she had first moved into this house, two-and-a-half years ago, Travis had just lost his wife. Back then, Diana had been all he talked about. She’d tragically succumbed to a virus that had attacked her heart and killed her in a matter of days.
Eventually, he had come to terms with the suddenness of his late wife’s death. But the loss of the woman he had loved more than life had continued to haunt him—just as Holly’s unexpected divorce had haunted her.
Eventually, things had gotten better. And now life was pretty much back to normal, Holly thought. With one exception. Neither of them was dating, or intended ever to date again.
“The thing is, girls,” Travis interjected quietly, “mommies aren’t brought by other people.”
“Then how do you get one?” Sophie asked, completely flummoxed.
“Generally, the daddy goes out, and finds a wife. When he marries her, she becomes a mommy,” Travis explained.
“Then that’s what you should do, Daddy,” Mia said, as if it was obvious.
“Yeah,” Tucker agreed, waving his arms enthusiastically. “Just go out and find one.”
Tristan nodded vigorously. “There’s lots of them around. We see them all the time at the preschool.”
“Most of those mommies are already married,” Travis said.
“Our mom isn’t!” Tucker blurted out.
Caught off guard, Holly skipped a breath and felt her pulse ricochet. For a second, Travis looked equally nonplussed. But the moment passed, and Travis took command of the room again.
“What I’m trying to say, kids, is that finding a wife is a long process and it’s not something I have time to do today. I’m very busy downtown.”
“Building the Water Tower!” Tucker yelled, excited as always by the thought of bulldozers, cranes and all manner of construction equipment and trucks at the site of Fort Worth’s newest mixed-use development project.
“It’s called One Trinity River Place,” Holly reminded her son gently. And it was quite a coup. Travis and four of his friends each played a role in making the development happen. Grady McCabe had put the deal together. Dan Kingsland was the architect who had designed the three-block-wide, thirty-eight story building overlooking the Trinity River. Travis’s company was handling the construction. Jack Gaines’s firm was installing all the electronic, satellite and phone systems. And Nate Hutchinson’s financial services company was taking up a huge chunk of office space. The rest would be leased out independently. Plus there were retail shops and restaurants going in on the lower floors, and luxury condominiums taking up the top floors. All in all, it was a pretty impressive project. And Holly’d had work there, too. Right now, she was finishing up a mural in one of the restaurants on the ground level.
“Anyway—” Travis looked at all four kids “—the point is it is December 5, and we need to write new letters to Santa, amending what you asked for into something he can actually bring you.”
“You know,” Holly added for good measure, “something he can actually fit on his sleigh.”
“Like new baby dolls,” Travis told his daughters.
“Or the bikes with training wheels that you boys have been wanting since last summer,” Holly said.
The kids shrugged, their excitement clearly dimmed. “Okay,” Sophie said finally.
“That’s what we want,” Tucker agreed with a disgruntled sigh.
“Can we watch the movie now?” Mia asked. “I want to see what Curious George does tonight!”
“Okay,” Travis said. “But just thirty minutes. And then we’re going home and getting ready for bed. School tomorrow.”
The kids scrambled for places on the L-shaped sectional sofa in Holly’s family room. They lined up together, various blankets and stuffed animals on their laps. Travis set up the DVD player. A second later, the soothing sounds of the video about the monkey and the man in the yellow hat started.
Travis came back into the kitchen.
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