Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas Gift\The Soldier's Holiday Homecoming\Santa's Playbook (45 page)

Then he straightened from the huddle and backed away, shouting as he pumped his fist, like she'd seen him do on the field. Except now she noticed a limp she hadn't before. “Am I imagining things, or does Ethan's leg seem to be bothering him?”

A moment passed before the Colonel said, “It's his knee. He blew it out when he was over in Afghanistan. A month from coming home, too.”

“Oh, no... I didn't know.”

“Few people do. Doesn't stop him from functioning normally—for the most part, anyway—but it did put the kibosh on his playing professionally.”

Claire looked at the older man's profile. “He was that good?”

“Better,” he said after a moment. “Don't tell him I said anything, he hates talking about it. Doesn't want anybody to feel sorry for him—”

The screen door banged open, followed by Juliette tramping out onto the porch long enough to yell that dinner was ready. After some grumbling from down in the yard, everyone trooped back to the house. Claire stood so Ethan's father could formally introduce her to everyone, and she sent up yet another prayer of gratitude that her socially awkward days were long behind her. That she had absolutely nothing to fear.

Until Ethan's gaze snagged in hers, and...

Crap.

* * *

Seeing Claire and his father chatting away like they were old friends... It'd blown Ethan's concentration to hell and back. Because the man who'd raised him might be of few words—or at least, he used to be—but those words tended to be cut-to-the-quick honest. Subtle had never been the Colonel's style. Since it clearly wasn't Claire's either, heaven only knew how that conversation had gone.

What bothered him even more, however, although he couldn't have said why, was how easily Claire fit in with the family, how quickly she caught on to the inside jokes flying fast and furious around the fully extended mahogany table. Merri had gotten on fine with his brothers and sisters, of course—and they, her—but he'd always felt like he'd needed to shield her from the full force of their exuberance.

Not Claire, though, who handily gave as good as she got, laughing and joking with the whole clan as if they'd all known each other for years. What was up with that?

Ethan hauled the platter with the turkey carcass into the kitchen, where the women were busy cleaning and divvying leftovers into a thousand plastic containers and gabbing a mile a minute. He'd only meant to dump the pulverized bird on the island, then haul
his
carcass to anyplace he didn't have to see Claire, who was at the sink rinsing dishes and handing them to Tyler's fiancée, Laurel, to put in the dishwasher. Because she was making him uncomfortable in ways he didn't even want to think about, was why.

Except then he noticed Kelly bouncing a wailing Jonathon, Laurel's ten-week-old, who wasn't in the least bit interested in being jostled out of his bad mood...which in turn brought back memories from when Ethan's own kids were infants, miserable for reasons known only to themselves....

“I've got this,” Ethan said, plucking the kid from his startled sister-in-law's arms before booking it out of there, to somewhere, anywhere, where the women weren't. The family room was a no-go, however, since the space was crowded with guys—and his youngest sister Abby—cheering on the Eagles. Although at his soon-to-be stepson's cries, Tyler surged to his feet.

“You need me to take him?”

His youngest brother's concerned expression made Ethan's chest swell—who would have guessed that Tyler, the world's most dedicated bachelor, would hitch himself to a single mom with a newborn?

“No, we're good,” Ethan said, tucking the baby against his chest as he also rejected the living room, filled with loud little boys playing video games. And the younger girls had vanished upstairs to play dress up with all the stuff Jeanne Noble had collected over the years for
her
little girls. Even the ones who'd only been passing through—for a few days, a few weeks, a couple of years—finding with the Nobles a haven from turbulence or uncertainty.

Some haven it was now, Ethan thought, pissed with himself for reacting to Claire like this. All the women who'd come on to him in the past three years—even the nice ones, the pretty ones, the reasonably normal ones—their attentions had slid right off, like water from an oiled deck. Then along comes this chick who wasn't even trying...

He didn't get it, he really didn't.

Finally, Ethan landed in the year-round sunroom off the dining room. The sun had long since gone to bed, but enough light filtered in from outside to keep the room from being completely dark. Settling with the baby in a cushioned wicker rocker, he began singing some silly little song that'd always soothed his own kids when they were fussy. Not that his singing voice was any great shakes, but if the kids hadn't cared, neither had he.

Jonny's wails gradually lost steam before the exhausted little guy finally passed out, slumped against Ethan's chest, and Ethan melded with the rocker as the infant did with him. He might have drifted off, too, except movement out of the corner of his eye made him start to attention. For a moment he assumed it was Laurel, come to collect her son, only to realize the shadowy figure was too short to be his future sister-in-law.

And her soft chuckle too raspy.

“The cute, it burns,” she said.

“You can see us?”

“Heck, yeah.”

He tried to sit up straighter, but nothing's heavier than a sleeping baby. “You're still here.”

A beat or two preceded, “Got a problem with that?”

Ethan felt his cheeks tingle. “I was more thinking that you might. We're a pretty unruly bunch.”

He heard her laugh. “I can handle unruly a little while longer, I think. Also, I'm too full to walk home.”

“You walked?”

“Five blocks. Go, me.” She paused, then said, “Want company?” and Ethan heard himself say, “Sure,” and then she was perched on the edge of the chair nearest him, her hands curled around the edges of the striped cushion, her attention fixed on the baby. The weak light glanced off her curls, the side of her face. Through the leftover scent of the meal and burning logs, he caught a whiff of her perfume, something musky that tugged at a vulnerability he was too damned tired to argue with. Then he heard another gentle laugh.

“Omigosh—he's snoring?”

“They do that,” he said, mentally shaking off an errant thought or six as he lowered his chin to smile at the baby. “One of the reasons Merri and I never coslept with the kids—they all made too much noise.”

Claire tucked her hair behind her ear. In the nanosecond before it bounced back, he caught a glimpse of a tiny diamond stud, twinkling dully in the weak light. Her other earrings, they changed. But not that pair, nestled in her ears' upper curves—

“Your family's great.”

“If borderline certifiable.”

“That's what makes them great. I haven't laughed that much in a long, long time. Or felt...”

“What?”

“Good,” she said, even though something told him that's not what she'd been about to say. “Like being in a living Normal Rockwell painting.”

Ethan grunted. “We're hardly that.”

“More than I ever had, that's for sure. It's a nice change.” Another pause preceded, “You know, it occurs to me I've never held an infant.”

“Seriously?”

“Nope. Babysat a few times as a teenager, but no actual babies.”

“Wanna hold this one? I'm sure Laurel won't mind—”

“No, no... That's okay. Wouldn't want to disturb him, he looks so peaceful.” She smiled again. “So do you.”

Trick of the light,
he wanted to say. Because if it was one thing he did not feel right now, it was peaceful.

Although no way in hell was he gonna let her see that.

“I can't believe it's been six years since I cuddled a little person like this,” Ethan said quietly, gazing at his little nephew. “Since Bella. It really is one of the best feelings in the world.”

* * *

Watching the big guy currently cuddling the tiny one, something tugged so hard inside Claire's chest she could barely breathe. Hard to believe this was the same dude who'd been bellowing at his players on the field earlier that day, who'd walked right into the middle of a fight outside the cafeteria the week before, prying apart a pair of Godzilla-size kids as if they were made of straw.

“I heard you singing, before.”

“Poor you.”

“Not at all.” Because what he lacked in musicality, he more than made up for in sincerity. Suddenly antsy, Claire shifted in the chair. “Did you sing to your own kids?”

“To the twins and Bella, yeah. Jules would pass out right after she ate. No entertainment necessary. She was so laid-back Merri said she'd almost forget she was there. Good thing, too, since I was away so much, there at the beginning. But the boys...” He sighed. “Both of them were colicky, too. Like this one. Soon as the sun went down, they'd start crying. And they'd keep it up for hours. We'd no sooner get them both settled than somebody would rev up again.”

“Gee. Fun times.”

“I won't lie, for about six weeks there it was hell. I lost fifteen pounds.” Chuckling, he added, “And Merri gained it. I don't think she ever forgave me
or
the boys for that.”

“I don't blame her. Jeez.” At his short laugh, she flushed. “Sorry, it just seems... I'm not sure I could handle that.”

“Nobody is. Especially when you're in the middle of it. Six weeks seems like forever when you're so sleep deprived you can barely remember your name. But then they start crying less and laughing more, and you know what? In the greater scheme of things, a few sleepless nights are nothing. Of course, then they hit the Terrible Twos—”

“Oh, God, I can only imagine.”

“—and you survive that, too. Because two-year-olds are funny as hell. And the hugs? Ah, man—there's nothing like 'em. And it only gets better...” He sighed. “Great. Now I sound like a freaking Hallmark card.”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Jonny stirred in his sleep; Ethan adjusted him on his chest, big hands cradling tiny bum and back, and Claire practically leaped from the chair and over to the French doors. Moonlight soaked the yard, making everything glow silver. “I can't believe how warm this room is,” she said, grasping for a more neutral topic. “All these windows and not even a draft.”

“Triple paned. And radiant heating underneath the tiles.” Behind her, the chair faintly creaked. “It was my mom's favorite room. When she got sick, Dad had it completely weatherized so she could stay out here as long as she wanted, whenever she wanted. And he set up bird feeders all over the place, so she could watch them. The cardinals, especially, were her favorite.”

Although Claire couldn't hear the sentimentality in his voice, she could sense it in his heart, beating soundly against a sleeping baby's ear. She cleared her throat, then said, “The rest of the house, too—speaking of Norman Rockwell. It's like... It feels so welcoming.” She paused. “Safe.”

“It was. Is.”

“Almost seems a shame to sell it.”

She heard Ethan sigh. “Can't say I'm not conflicted about that, frankly. It was Pop's and Mom's first home.
My
first home. Not to mention home to more foster kids than I can count. But it hasn't been the same since Mom died. For any of us, but Pop especially. He provided the protection, the sense of order and stability that some of those kids had never known before. But Mom...”

The chair creaked again. “She was the light,” he said, his voice hushed. “The joy. For a long time I think Pop wanted to stay here because it reminded him of her. Now I think it only reminds him of what's missing. Not that he ever talks about it—I can't remember ever seeing him outwardly grieve, to be honest—but some things don't have to be put into words.”

Now Claire heard it, even if only faintly: Ethan's own grief echoed in his reminiscence of his father. She turned, her arms crossed. “And you?” she said gently.

“Me?”

“Yeah. I can't imagine how hard it must be, still living in the house you shared with your wife. Heck,
I
can sense her presence there, and I didn't even know her—”

“Not even remotely the same situation,” he said sharply, and she realized she'd overstepped.

“Sorry, I—”

“No,” Ethan breathed out. “It's okay. Because to be honest, once the initial shock wore off I did consider finding us another place. For exactly the reasons you said. Hell, even after all this time I half expect her to walk into the family room, plop down beside me on the sofa. Or I'm gonna find her in the kitchen, making cookies or something. So at the beginning? I thought I'd go nuts, frankly. Except then I thought, it wasn't only about me, you know? That the kids... After what they'd just gone through, no chance to say goodbye, even...” He stopped, took a breath. “They needed consistency in their lives far more than I needed...” He paused again, and Claire though her heart would crack in two.

“Peace?”

His gaze briefly met hers before veering away again. “The kids... They come first. Always.”

“So...you never do anything strictly for yourself?”

His laugh was dry. “At this point I'm not even sure what that would be.”

“That's so sad.”

“No, it's life,” he said, more out of weariness, she thought, than as a rebuke. And, from years of digging into what makes a character tick, of analyzing literature up the wazoo, Claire thought maybe she heard a little warring going on inside his head—that his commitment to his kids' needs was perhaps taking more of a toll on his own that he'd admit. Or was ever likely to.

Which in turn reminded Claire of those months when, even though her primary focus had been making sure her mother was as comfortable and happy as possible, how often Mom would urge her to get out for a little while, go see a movie. Not that she did, or at least not very often. And during those last few weeks, never. But knowing she
could,
at least in theory—that she had permission to take care of
herself—
went a long way toward easing what, yes, had occasionally felt like a burden, even though she'd loved her mother with all her heart. So who was giving Ethan that same permission? To live not only his kids' lives but his own?