Mistletoe Mommy

Chapter Fifteen

Brenna opened her front door when she heard the tires in the driveway, resolved to be strong. Adam had called her last night to make sure she wouldn’t be flitting off to her first morning assignments before they got there.

“You will be there, right?”

Was it her imagination, or had there been an implied threat in his tone-as if he contemplated hunting her down if she tried to duck out of the farewell? He’d immediately seized the advantage when she hesitated, claiming that the kids deserved the chance for a face-to-face goodbye and that she should understand that better than anyone. Dirty pool, in Brenna’s opinion.

But despite the attractive draw of the coward’s way out, Brenna couldn’t do it. Not only did she owe the kids a goodbye, she owed it to herself.

Well, here’s your chance.

Her eyes burned but remained dry as she watched the Varners file out of the SUV. At dinner last night, Maggie had confided that Adam had called her yesterday, asking if he and the kids could buy the Pierces lunch at the Diner. It was clear he wanted to make amends for what had happened and demonstrate that he didn’t blame Maggie in the least.

“We actually had a pretty good time,” Maggie said sorrowfully. “They’re a really nice family. Even that Eliza, when you get beneath the anger and pubescent mood swings. She’ll grow out of that.”

As usual, Brenna’s stepmom was right. They were a great family, and Brenna would miss each and every one of them. Even Eliza.

“Brenna!” Morgan squealed, restored to her usual exuberance since the last time they’d seen each other.

Brenna came down the porch steps to hug her. “Ready to take Ellie home and show her Tennessee?”

“Yep! Dad says we can pick out more stuff for her once we get her to his place. I made you a thank-you card for taking care of her.” Morgan handed her a folded piece of paper with crayon renditions of herself, Brenna and the cat.

“Thank you. This means a lot to me.” I am not going to cry.

Geoff was next. “It was nice to meet you. We had a great vacation.”

But now it was time for all of them to return to the real world.

She squeezed his shoulder. “Thanks for your help with my taxes.”

He winked at her, and she had a premonition of him as a grown man. “Try not to get audited.”

Adam cleared his throat. “Geoff and I are going to get Ellie’s stuff and load it into the car. If that’s okay?”

Brenna nodded, choking on everything she wanted to say to him. Even though no part of him brushed her as he passed-he gave her an unnecessarily wide berth-she felt his nearness as tangibly as a touch. The boys went inside, and Morgan asked permission to go pet Zoe and River one last time.

“Yes,” Brenna said, “but you have to promise me you’ll never follow another animal away from your parents or brother or sister or caregiver. It’s not safe. People need to know where you are, and you shouldn’t approach strange animals, anyway.”

Morgan hung her head. “I know. I told everyone I was really, really sorry.” Suitably reprimanded, she slunk into the house.

Leaving only Eliza, who sat on the hood of the car, picking at her nails. She’d chipped the hell out of her manicure.

Brenna sat next to her. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, but humor me. One last girl-to-girl.” First their chat about boys on the sunporch, then the crash course on pads, tampons and the most effective way to treat menstrual cramps. I’m having quite the Dear Abby summer.

Would the third time be the charm? She hoped that the girl was open-minded enough to truly hear what Brenna had to say. Since Brenna would probably never see the Varners again, she stood to gain nothing by this, but if a brief chat could make any improvement in Eliza’s life or Adam’s…

“I get why you were mad at your father the other day, but try to cut him some slack. When you guys get back home to Knoxville, don’t bust his chops every time he asks out a woman.”

Eliza remained mutinously silent.

“Seriously, you stand to benefit from your dad finding romance. Love isn’t finite. That’s something I didn’t realize at your age.” She recalled how worried she’d been that Fred and Maggie might not have enough parental affection to go around for their natural child and Brenna.

“Loving someone teaches you to have a bigger heart, makes you more likely to be patient and demonstrative with everyone else in your life. I know I’m better off for having fallen in love with-” She stopped abruptly, appalled at what she’d been about to say. “I’m better off.” Best to leave it at that.

Eliza finally looked up. “You don’t hate me?”

“Oh, honey.” If Brenna couldn’t understand a kid bitter about potentially losing a parent, who could? Just because Eliza was dead wrong about Adam-he would never willingly leave these kids-didn’t make her pain any less real. “I don’t hate you.”

“I know I’ve been a little…grumpy.”

Brenna managed a grin. “We’ve all been there. Let she who is without PMS cast the first stone.”

Eliza laughed. On the steps to the house, Geoff and Adam both froze at the musical sound.

“Whoa,” Geoff said to his father. “How did Brenna do that?”

Adam shrugged, but the ghost of a smile played about his lips. “She must have mad skills.”

Geoff groaned. “Don’t say stuff like that, Dad, I beg you.”

Though Eliza could no doubt hear them just as well as Brenna could, she ignored them. Instead, she frowned thoughtfully at Brenna. “You know, I think my mom would really like you.”

Once the kids and cat were packed into the car, Adam came toward her. Her heart hammered in her chest. She felt like she was dying for him to kiss her goodbye but risked dying a little inside if he did. Better to keep a safe distance, she told herself. Then she gave herself a shake. Her entire life, she’d subconsciously tried to keep people at a safe distance.

Until Adam and his kids.

Even with as much pain as she felt now, she was glad she’d met them, glad she’d been with him. In that spirit, she marched forward and clutched his shirtfront as she rose on her toes and planted one last kiss on his lips.

He clearly hadn’t expected that. His eyes were wide when she backed away. “I won’t ever meet another woman quite like you.”

“Safe journeys, Adam. Take care of your kids.”

“Take care of yourself,” he told her.

Those damn tears tried to rise again. “I always do.”

He got in the car and after one final, lingering look, gunned the engine and backed out of the driveway. She shaded her eyes against the sun and watched the SUV’s progress up and over the hill. Adam Varner was gone from her life just as he’d driven into it.

THE TRIP TO Knoxville wasn’t bad as far as road trips with three kids went. There was minimal yowling from a crated Ellie, punctuated by isolated squabbles. But none of that was as bad as Adam’s hollow feeling, as if he’d left part of himself in Mistletoe. Namely, his heart.

Luckily the kids all seemed to be in high spirits, excited to tell their mom and friends all about their vacation, so he tried to use that to bolster his own mood. It worked mostly, right up until the time they passed the Welcome to Tennessee sign and Eliza burst into tears.

“What now,” Geoff muttered, rolling his eyes in the front seat.

Eliza didn’t seem to notice. “You were right, Dad. I am a selfish brat!”

“Uh…” Adam searched his memory bank. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that.” Had he? Sara would kill him. He was pretty sure name-calling fell under the heading of Bad Parenting.

But then, so did losing your youngest child.

“At Kerrigan Farms,” Eliza insisted. “It’s what you said, more or less.”

“I think sometimes you can act selfishly,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “The same is true of everyone. Work harder to make good choices, and take other people’s feelings into consideration. What is this about, Liza?”

“Your feelings. And Ms. Pierce’s. I was so upset when Bobby liked that other girl.”

Bobby the punk lifeguard? Adam waited, not sure where his daughter was going with her line of reasoning. Assuming there was one.

“But you must feel a billion times worse leaving Brenna! I never should have yelled at the two of you.”

“I agree that you overreacted the other day, and if you’re feeling badly about what you said, maybe you could send her a note of apology. But don’t beat yourself up too much. We were always going to leave Mistletoe. Brenna knew that.” Had seemed to accept it more easily than he had, as a matter-of-fact. “We never had a real future.”

“But she loves you,” Eliza sobbed. “I messed up everything! You could have been happy, like Mom and Dan.”

His mind flashed to Sara and Dan’s wedding, only it was himself he pictured, Brenna’s face beneath the ivory veil. And it was all too easy to picture the two of them away on a tropical honeymoon.

“Let’s not blow everything out of proportion,” he said, his caution more for himself than his daughter. “Brenna cared about me, she cared about all of us, but ‘love’ is a strong-”

“I’m not being melodramatic! She said it this morning. She said she loved you and was a better person because of it.”

Adam’s heartbeat exploded in his ears. For a second he felt so dizzy he worried about driving safely. Taking a deep breath, he maneuvered the car over to the shoulder of the road.

“You’re sure?” he asked his daughter. He had difficulty letting himself believe it, but maybe it wasn’t so farfetched.

After all, he’d fallen in love with her.

“Eliza, what else did she say?”

BRENNA SAT with Quinn and Arianne Waide on Quinn’s front porch, battling the suspicion that she’d been invited to their girls’ night because Quinn felt sorry for her. But coming here to vent over margaritas had sounded a damn sight better than staying home and wallowing. Since the clients who’d scheduled their vacation to coincide with the Fourth of July were home now, she didn’t even have a busy work schedule to take her mind off things.

Things? Way to deflect, Bren. There was only one “thing” on her mind. Dr. Adam Varner.

“We’ve lost her,” Ari told Quinn in a mock whisper.

“Thinking about the handsome doc again?” Quinn asked sympathetically.

“Yes.” There was no point in denying it.

Ari ran her finger around the rim of her glass, bringing the salt to her lips. “I’m sorry I never got to meet him. Our entire family has been so wrapped up with the new baby. Was the surgeon really that hot?”

“Yes,” Quinn and Brenna chorused.

Brenna raised her eyebrows.

Quinn chuckled. “Well, he was.”

“These summer-lovin’ flings never end well,” Ari said, the sage tone a bit humorous coming from a twenty-three-year-old. “Grease being the exception that proves the rule.”

“The worst part is he was a good guy,” Quinn said. “If he had any decency, he would have done something hateful so we could sit here and bash him, which might make you feel better, Brenna.”

“No, I knew from day one that he would be leaving. And I knew his kids needed to be his top priority. That’s one of the things I admired about him even.”

Quinn shrugged. “Then I’m afraid all I’ve got is the chestnut about it being better to have loved and lost than to-”

“Oh, please!” Arianne was aghast. “I always thought that dumb saying applied only to wimpy women. I say if you love them, track their butts down.”

Quinn looked equal parts fascinated and horrified. “Ari, I think any guy you ever set your sights on should be a little afraid.”

Tuning out their banter, Brenna allowed herself to consider, just for a second, what “tracking him down” would entail. A long-distance relationship? To what end? Even if she thought they were suited to that-and she suspected she wasn’t, while he’d flat-out said he didn’t want that-where would it lead? The more time she spent in Mistletoe, the deeper the roots of her company. Besides, as she’d learned after going away to college, this was home. She’d gone too long without one to give it up lightly. Whereas Adam had a cardiac practice and the three most important people in the world to him grounding him in Knoxville.

No, it was best that they’d parted ways cleanly. The most she could do now was try to learn from what happened between them. Maybe, eventually, she could honor her feelings for him by being more open to relationships in the future. Unfortunately, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t imagine being happy with a “next” guy. Her heart already knew the guy it wanted.

SARA INSISTED that Adam at least stay for dinner before heading home. “You’ve been on the road for hours. Stay, please.”

The kids had enthusiastically cheered this idea, so he’d capitulated. He couldn’t get that excited about going home to his empty place, anyway. He found himself absurdly grateful for the cat. She would help mitigate the solitude-plus, she was a reminder of Brenna. After dinner Geoff disappeared into his room to call Gina, Eliza booted up her computer to message her friends and Dan went to tuck in a very tired Morgan.

“So.” Sara propped an elbow on the table, leaning her chin on her fist. “Some trip, huh?”

“I am so sorry about Morgan getting lost like that. I swear I-”

“Adam. I don’t blame you for that. We’ve never endured anything on quite that scale, but there have been moments. Do you remember when Eliza was about her age and I told you how much I panicked when I looked around a department store and didn’t see her?’

He was startled. “No.” That seemed like something he should remember.

“Oh. Well, it turned out she thought it would be funny to play hide-and-seek and had dropped to the floor, crawling into a rack of clothes. She was only gone for a minute or two before I realized what had happened, but for that minute…”

“Thank you.” After all the times he’d given Sara reason to be frustrated with his parenting efforts, or lack thereof, he deeply appreciated her trying to make him feel like he was a good father.

She suddenly grinned, mischievous. “I want to hear more about this Brenna.”

His face actually warmed. Oh, brother. Was he blushing in front of his ex? He’d managed to head off the moment at dinner when Eliza had started to share that Brenna “loved” him, but he hadn’t done so quickly or gracefully enough to deter Sara’s interest.

What the hell, he might as well tell her about Brenna. If he didn’t, she’d hear all about her from the kids, anyway.

“She’s amazing. It’s like she gave everyone exactly what they needed. A cat for Morgan, the pride of employee responsibility for Geoff, womanly advice for Eliza-just until we were able to get you on the phone,” he added quickly.

“What about you? What did she give you that you needed?”

He was quiet for so long that even he didn’t think he would answer the question until he heard himself say, “Love. It sounds insane, doesn’t it? But I think I love her.”

Sara straightened. “Then what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re in love with a woman in Mistletoe, Georgia.”

“Yes.” Funny, but the more times he admitted it, the better he felt.

“Then either she needs to be here or you need to be there. Adam, no offense, but I’ve watched you squander love before. The kids’, before you finally wised up-this vacation was the smartest thing you’ve done in years-mine.” She held up a hand, fending him off. “I’m not blaming you for the divorce. We both could have done things differently. But people loved you.”

“And I took it for granted,” he said softly. After this past week he truly believed that he and the kids were on the right track again. But how much time had he lost?

He thought of Brenna and considered Sara’s deceptively simple question: What are you doing here? Did he want to lose any more time with someone he loved, or seize the day and be with her?

SINCE BRENNA HADN’T been sleeping well for the past week and a half, it seemed likely that the SUV sitting in her driveway was a hallucination born of exhaustion. She rubbed her eyes and looked again.

Still there.

By the time she’d parked behind it, she’d already seen the man sitting at the top step of her porch. Adam! She was completely flummoxed, her shock not fading in the slightest as she got out of the car and approached him with no clue what to say.

“What are you doing here?”

He leaned back on his elbows and grinned. “I get that a lot. You look good.”

Then he must be even more tired than she was. She’d overslept this morning and dressed without a shower, slapping a ball cap on her head and vowing to come home and clean up more when she was done with the visits that had to be taken care of early. She certainly hadn’t expected to find Adam sitting here when she returned.

“How long have you been waiting?” she asked.

“Since about seven-thirty. I brought two cups of coffee, hoping to catch you before you started your day. I wound up drinking them both,” he said sheepishly.

“B-but what if I hadn’t come home between morning and midday assignments? You weren’t really planning to sit on my porch all day?”

“Not all day.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “I have an appointment at three.”

She plopped down on the step next to him, partly because she didn’t think her legs would support her anymore. This was a lot to take in. “You came back.”

For her? What kind of appointment? Was he doing some sort of medical consulting here in Mistletoe?

“Had to. I forgot something.” He slid closer, turning her face to meet his gaze. “I forgot to mention that I’m in love with you.”

Her mind went blank. Completely and utterly void. She wasn’t even sure how long she stared back at him, stupefied.

Say something, Bren! A woman more comfortable with emotional declarations would probably say she loved him, too.

Brenna, on the other hand, told him he was crazy. “In love? But that’s nuts. I’m…You…What about your kids?”

“Actually, I think my improving relationship with them has made it easier to accept falling for you. As it turns out, loving someone just makes you more receptive to giving and accepting love from others. It makes you a better person.”

She blinked, hearing her own words coming back to her. “Your twelve-year-old has a big mouth.”

“And a big heart. She already loves you a little. And I love you a lot.” For a moment his smile slipped, vulnerability leaking into his expression. “But I should probably stop beating you over the head with declarations I’m not even sure you want to hear. You haven’t mentioned whether…”

Oh, God, hadn’t she said it yet? It was so ever present in her thoughts that she was surprised people couldn’t look at her and hear her thinking it.

“I love you, Adam. I can’t believe you came back for me!” When had she started crying?

He kissed her with slow thoroughness. She recalled how rushed they’d been with each other the night they’d made love, because they’d known they didn’t have long. Now his every unhurried caress spoke of a man who believed they had a future.

“I’ve thought about you, too,” she admitted, tilting into his touch as he wiped away a tear with his thumb. “I even entertained mad ideas about moving to Tennessee. But-”

“Lord, don’t do that. It would be pointless if you moved there and I got a job here. Very O. Henry.”

“You’re applying for a job here?” she said, certain she hadn’t heard him right.

He shrugged. “Why not? I care about what I do, but it doesn’t have to be in Tennessee. People in Mistletoe have hearts, too.”

She could attest to that. Hers was currently full to bursting.

“The medical center is attracting all kinds of new patients, and the local hospital is going to need to take on new doctors to keep up with the growing number of surgeries. I don’t think it will keep me as busy as my current position in Knoxville, but I want more time for me. For my kids.” He stared into her eyes. “For us. Our relationship would have to be long-distance for at least a few weeks, while I get everything settled, but the people I’ve talked to seem very interested in signing me on.”

She resisted the urge to succumb to the pure, shimmering happiness threatening to engulf her, afraid there must be some kind of catch. Not even Maggie and Fred and Josh opening their hearts to her had quite prepared her for someone loving her on a scale of this magnitude. “But how would the kids feel about it? You just said your relationship is improving, so-”

“I didn’t do this without giving it serious thought,” he vowed. “If that were the case, I would have been back the same night as the day I left. I talked to the kids, talked to Sara, and what we decided is this-when you love people enough, you make them part of your life. You make an effort in spite of geography. Conversely, when you’re not trying, not even living under the same roof is a guarantee of being close.

“The kids don’t live with me, anyway. I get them for special occasions and some weekends, which they voted unanimously that they’d be happy to spend here. Knoxville is not at the other end of the galaxy. I can-I will-get up there for birthdays and graduations and school plays.”

Just like that, the dam broke. The joy she hadn’t quite dared to feel rushed over her in a wave and she was more than happy to let the undertow drag her out over her head. I love you, I love you, I love you.

She stood. “I have more pet visits to do.”

He nodded, looking disappointed but trying to hide it. “I understand. Maybe-”

“But I need to shower first. You know-” she tapped her finger to her lips “-we never really got to have our date on the Fourth of July.”

He arched an eyebrow. “No, I guess not.”

She pushed open her front door, grinning over her shoulder. “Come on, Dr. Varner. I owe you some fireworks.”