Mistletoe Bay (24 page)

It appeared that every kid in Misty Harbor had the same idea as Coop had last night when he told the boys they would be going sledding come the afternoon. A foot of freshly fallen snow made for a great start to the sledding season, and because they had waited till lunch time, the roads had all been cleared and the sun was now shining.

They couldn't have asked for a better day. Or better company. She glanced at Coop standing beside her and saw the anxiety on his face as he watched the boys. She immediately returned her attention to the hill. Corey was doing wonderfully, heading straight down the hill, like she had shown him half a dozen times. Chase was right beside him. It was Tucker, as usual, heading straight for trouble. She knew allowing the boys to rub the runners of their sleds with an old candle had been a bad idea. Tucker was going way too fast and he was heading straight for the jump.

In horrible slow motion she watched as her son's sled hit the bump and both went airborne. She could see Tucker's body leave the wooden sled, but his hands still gripped the steering bar. Someone screamed, and it might have been her. She took a step forward, only to be brought up short by Coop, who had encircled her waist with his strong arms.

Tucker's sled landed back down on the snowy hill. She blinked, and Tucker was still on his sled, skidding into the mountain of hay. Cheers erupted from every teenager standing around the jump. Her knees went weak, and she would have fallen if Coop hadn't had such a tight grip on her.

“He's okay, Jen.” Coop's voice was low and hoarse against her ear. “Tucker's fine.”

She blinked and then swung her head a couple of yards to the left, where Chase and Corey were tumbling out of the hay, laughing their butts off. Her heart started to beat again. She let out a sigh of relief.

“Did you see me, Mom?” yelled Corey as he wiped snow off of his face and out of his tousled red hair.

Somewhere in the mound of hay was his new hat, the one with Thomas the Tank Engine on it. “You were fantastic, hon.” She couldn't very well tell him that she'd missed most of his run because of his suicidal brother. “Don't forget your hat. You don't want to catch a cold.” She wasn't really worried about colds or his hat. She just needed time to catch her breath and to kill her middle child.

“Coop, could you please keep an eye on Chase and Corey while I go have a few words with Tucker?” She thought her voice was calm, cool, and collected.

By the look on Coop's face, she wasn't fooling him. Coop glanced over at Tucker.

The boy was surrounded by half a dozen bigger kids, all congratulating him as if he'd just won the qualifying run for the Olympic bobsled event. Short of tying Tucker's sled to the bumper of her SUV, there wasn't going to be a way to keep him away from the jump now.

“You're not going to kill him, are you?”

“If I answer that question, they could get me on premeditated murder.” She started across the snow-packed ground to where Tucker stood. She had to dodge a couple of out-of-control sleds and nearly ended up on her butt twice, but she made it to within five feet of him. “Tucker James Wright, I would like a word with you.”

Tucker glanced over at her and grinned. “Did you see me, Mom? I went flying.”

“So I saw.” She was going to keep replaying that horrifying scene of him flying through the air every night in her dreams until he was married and settled down.

Every one of the kids congratulating him had to be in elementary school already. One little girl, who looked about six or seven and was dressed in all white and pink, batted her eyelashes at him. Her son had turned five just last month and he already had a snow-bunny groupie.

She shook her head, reached into the gang, and grabbed ahold of the back collar of Tucker's jacket.

Tucker must have realized he was in trouble, because his smile fell. “Oh, Mom,” he groused.

“Excuse us.” With her free hand she grabbed ahold of the rope from his sled and pulled them both a good distance away.

Tucker kicked at the snow with the tip of his brand-new boots, boots that now looked like they had walked across Antarctica on some polar expedition. What in the world had he done to them? Tucker had worn them a grand total of only three times so far. She didn't know what was going to go first, all her money or her mind.

“I told you not”—she hissed the word between clenched teeth—“to go over that bump. It was too dangerous.” She distinctly remembered telling him at least three times.

“I didn't get hurt, Mom.” Tucker wiggled all his legs and arms and put that “but you love me” smile on his face. “See? All in one piece.”

She had Felicity to thank for that particular saying. Whenever there was a loud commotion and her niece beat her to the scene, Felicity always yelled that he was in one piece. Who “he” was never had to be clarified.

“You might not be once I get through with you.” She was so upset not only with his blatant disobeying of her but also with the chance he had taken. Hundreds of kids every year got injured or died from sledding. “Do you want to ruin the day for your brothers and go home now?”

“No.” Tucker's lower lip started to tremble. “I didn't mean to make you mad, Mom.”

“What did you mean to do?”

“Show Mr. Brown what a good sledder I am.” Tucker looked over to where Coop and the other two boys stood. They were laughing about something, which made Tucker frown.

The boys had been competing for Coop's attention all afternoon long. “Well, I'm not going to ruin the rest of your brothers' day, but as for punishment for you, young man, no toboggan run.”

“Mom?” Tears welled up in his hazel eyes. “You said we could go down with Mr. Brown.”

Felicity, Sam, and his sisters were on Suicide Hill with a large toboggan. Jenni had been so busy with the boys that she hadn't been paying attention to the death-defying run. She had told the boys they would do one run down the hill, as long as Coop was with them. There would have been room on the toboggan for her, Coop, and all three boys smashed in the middle, but now it didn't matter.

“I said we will go down, as long as everyone behaves themselves. You didn't behave, so no toboggan.” She felt like such a meanie, but she was at her wit's end with Tucker. One of these days her son was going to get seriously hurt.

“Mom,” sniffed Tucker.

“No, you may continue to sled on this hill, but if you so much as look at that jump, your butt will be in that SUV heading for home so fast, it will take a week for your head to catch up to it.”

Tucker's eyes widened.

Great, she had now resorted to threats. She was a horrible mother. “Now scoot.”

Tucker grabbed hold of the rope and scooted right over to his brothers.

Fifteen minutes later, Coop passed each of the boys and Jenni a hot chocolate. “Careful, the lady said it was real hot.” Jenni and the boys were standing around one of the fifty-five-gallon drums that had a fire going and were taking a break. Jenni had gotten the tin of cookies that Dorothy had sent along out of the SUV.

“There's Sam!” shouted Tucker as he waved wildly.

Coop looked over to see Felicity, Sam, and his two sisters making their way to them, pulling their toboggan. By the bright red cheeks and smiles, he would say they were having a good time. “Hi, guys. how was the run?” He hadn't been on a toboggan in a dozen years and he was itching to show Jenni his ability to master the five-foot-long sled and the ice. He just hoped he hadn't forgotten anything.

“Great,” answered Hope. “Last night the fire department came out and squirted it down. It's solid ice beneath the snow.” Hope was watching a group of teenage boys head over to the makeshift hot chocolate and coffee stand. “Come on, Faith. Let's get something to drink.”

Coop tried not to chuckle at Sam's expression. The big-brother look was hardening the boy's face. Sam handed him the rope of the toboggan. “Here, you can borrow it now to give the boys a ride.” Sam tugged on Felicity's hand. “Come on. Let's get something to drink.”

Felicity balked. “Leave your sister alone for a moment. Nothing could possibly happen to her standing over there talking to some boys. Geez, Sam, you aren't her father.”

“No, I'm her brother. She's too young to be hanging out with boys.”

“She's fifteen. By next year she'll be getting into cars with them and dating them. Are you planning on going along for the ride?” Felicity sat down on one of the tree stumps dotting the area.

Coop almost felt sorry for the boy. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to have two younger sisters. He looked over at Felicity, and whatever she had been smiling about a moment ago was gone. The girl was pouting. Felicity was pouting a lot lately, but then again every time he saw her and Sam together, Sam's sisters were right there, and his father was in the other room, usually flirting with Dorothy.

He sympathized with Felicity. Dating in a crowd wasn't conducive to romance. He looked at Jenni's boys and had to smile. All three had chocolate mustaches.

Last night had been Jenni's and his time together, and it had been perfect, but short. He hated driving her home at midnight, as if she was Cinderella. Her snow boots hadn't been made out of glass, but it hadn't mattered. Jennifer Wright had stolen his heart as surely as Cinderella had stolen the prince's.

He was falling in love with not only a beautiful, intelligent woman, but a mother of three small boys.

“What?” Jenni was looking at him strangely. “What's wrong?”

Coop shook his head. “Nothing's wrong.” In fact, everything was beginning to look right in the world.

“Can we go on the toboggan now?” Chase asked as he tossed his empty cup into a waste barrel.

“Yeah,” cried Corey.

“Yeah,” echoed Tucker as he pitched his empty cup.

“Felicity, would you mind watching Tucker while Coop and I take Chase and Corey down a few times?” Jenni looked at her middle child. “Until Tucker learns to listen, I'm afraid he's going to be missing out on all kinds of things.”

Coop was proud that Jenni was taking a firmer stand with Tucker, even though he could see that it was killing her inside. His own heart had nearly stopped beating when he saw Tucker go sailing through the air. Tucker could have been badly hurt.

“Mom?” moaned Tucker in dismay.

“Not one word”—Jenni folded her arms—“or else.”

“Yeah,” groused Tucker. He pointed to the parking area where the SUV was, saying, “My butt will be there.” His finger indicated the cove. “And my head will be there.”

Chase and Corey's eyes grew round in their little faces. It was quite obvious that Jenni didn't usually threaten the boys.

“Right, and don't you forget it. Stay away from that part of the sledding hill.”

Felicity slapped her snow-crusted mitten across her mouth and started to laugh.

 

 

Dorothy heard the cars pull up out front and the boys' shouts before they had even hit the porch. The family was home from their sledding adventure. She glanced into the dining room at the man who had kept her company all afternoon: Eli. The man was easy on the eyes and good for her spirit. Eli Fischer made her feel like a woman.

A young, desirable woman.

A woman whom she was not. There were mirrors in the house; she knew what she looked like—a grandmother of three rambunctious boys. Thanks to Estelle's magic, though there still was gray in her hair, it was camouflaged with highlights, and the new carefree hairstyle suited her. Estelle had talked her into buying a firming moisturizer for her face, but while her skin actually felt smoother, the wrinkles around her eyes were still there. To top it all off, in one month she would be fifty, and the hot flashes were getting worse. None of that seemed to matter to Eli.

The man was not only blind, he was nuts. As it turned out, he also was six years younger than she. She had asked.

Eli, who was perched on top of a ladder, must have felt her gaze, because he looked right back at her and winked, just as the front door flew open with a bang. The man was incorrigible. And oh-so very tempting.

All afternoon he had playfully flirted with her while helping make the big pot of chili bubbling away on the back burner. He also had managed to take down over half the wallpaper in the dining room. Eli claimed he was going to redo that room as payment for all the meals he and his daughters were mooching.

“Wow, Eli, you got a lot of it down.” Jenni surveyed the work as she stripped off her gloves and hat. “Are you sure I can't pay you for all this work?”

“Dorothy's paying me in the most delicious cooking I have ever had, both for me and my kids.” Eli winked at her mother-in-law. “I need the physical work to keep all the added weight off.”

Dorothy huffed. Eli didn't have an extra pound on him. In fact, she was taking it as a personal challenge to put a couple pounds on him. “He told me he'll have it done for our Christmas Eve meal.” She didn't see how, but she had humored him and brought home three wallpaper sample books from a store over in Franklin yesterday morning before the snow started. Jenni and she had come to an agreement that she would go through the books first, and Jenni would pick something from her choices.

“Well, make sure you eat early, because you won't want to miss the Festival of Lights.” Coop entered the room and glanced around at what Eli had been doing. “Will you be running new electricity, Eli?”

“Pete's doing that, and I'll be helping him put in the new windows in this room and the bathroom upstairs next weekend.”

“Who's going to be doing the wallpapering?” Coop asked.