Mistletoe Mommy

Chapter Seven

Inside the store Brenna watched the three kids dart in seemingly a dozen different directions. Geoff grabbed a cart while his sisters made a dash for supplies.

“Just the essentials,” Adam cautioned them. “Food, a litter box…” Trailing off, he glanced at Brenna questioningly.

“You’ll need a cat carrier,” she said. “Ellie may have been pretty well behaved for a ride across Mistletoe, but you don’t want to drive back to Tennessee with an unsecured cat in the car.”

“Definitely not. Carrier, check.”

“Maybe a cat bed.”

He stopped in front of a multilevel, carpeted kitty condo. “Scratching post?”

“My recommendation would be a scratching pad-inclined corrugated cardboard with some catnip in it. It costs less, it’s portable and it’s effective for training, redirecting her if she scratches something you’d rather she didn’t.”

They stopped on an aisle that sold beds and toys. Adam stood back, letting the kids debate colors and laugh at jingly mice. He smiled, but his expression turned sheepish as he faced Brenna. “You probably think I’m a bad parent, bribing my kids to win their affection.”

It was odd-and unexpectedly touching-that he might care what she thought.

“No,” she said softly. “I still remember my first pet.” It had been right after her mother walked out on them. Brenna had been in emotional turmoil, but Josh-who’d gone through his parents’ divorce, a remarriage and now a sudden abandonment-had been equally overwrought. Fred had taken them to the animal shelter and picked out an exuberant golden retriever puppy they’d named Otis.

For Brenna, that dog had been a godsend. She’d spent far too much of her life, even the relatively quiet and happy times, dreading her mother’s next mood swing or capricious life change. And though Fred Pierce was a wonderful man who’d shown her nothing but affectionate welcome, Brenna’s ingrained trepidation had remained. If her own mother hadn’t wanted her, why would a man with no real obligation to her? Otis had shown her unconditional love until the day he’d gone to the great Dog Park in the Sky.

“You okay?” Adam asked.

She blinked, startled to find that her eyes stung. “Sorry, my mind wandered. I was thinking about a golden retriever Josh and I used to have. I realize that, as someone who works with animals, I’m biased, but pets can be a miraculous addition to your life. As long as you don’t mind the occasional messes, clawed drapes, getting up to let the dog out at three in the morning and their bringing you something dead to show their love.”

Adam’s laugh helped put her uncharacteristically sentimental moment behind them. “Wow, when you put it like that… No, I do know what you mean. There have been medical studies arguing tangible health benefits of owning pets, like lower blood pressure. A few people even maintain that chances of survival after a heart attack are higher for pet-owners.”

“This one?” Morgan asked suddenly, approaching with a small red-and-ivory cat bed.

After exchanging glances with Brenna, who shrugged, Adam nodded. His daughter put the bed into the cart, and the kids rounded the end of the lane into the next aisle. The adults followed at a more leisurely pace, Adam absently rubbing a purring Ellie as they walked.

“So what got you interested in cardiac medicine?” Brenna asked.

“My dad, indirectly. He was my hero when I was young-big, gruff, but with a truly gentle heart. He was an anesthesiologist, used to come home in awe of the surgeries performed at the hospital, the people who’d been healed and the lives that had been saved. I looked up to him, so I guess I decided early that I wanted to be like the doctors he looked up to.” Adam hesitated, his lips pursed. “Think I fell short of the mark, forgetting somewhere why my dad was such a hero to me in the first place. He was a great father.”

“And you don’t think you are?” Brenna hadn’t meant to ask-the answer, which was none of her business, anyway, was obvious. But the question escaped on a sigh of disbelief. “I realize I barely know you, but I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”

He flashed her a wan grin. “My ex-wife might disagree.”

“Even after this trip? Because I see a man who’s trying to sincerely connect with his children. You may have made some mistakes, but who hasn’t?”

He was quiet a beat, perhaps mulling over her words. When he spoke again, his tone was lighter, curious. “What about you? You have any mistakes you regret?”

“Me?” The question startled her.

“I’m sorry. That was probably rude to ask.”

He looked so chagrined that she blurted, “I make mistakes all the time. Just last week I forgot that a family had changed their alarm code and left my notebook in the car. Thirty seconds after I stepped into their house, the siren was blaring and two cops from the Mistletoe Police Department had to come out.

“The noise nearly gave the poor Chihuahua I was sitting a heart attack. Not to mention, I felt like an idiot in front of several clients, including the next-door neighbor and one of the policemen on call. He has a mynah bird and an African gray parrot.”

Her confession might not be emotionally on par with Adam’s parental concerns, but his smile was both grateful and sympathetic.

“So, lesson learned,” she concluded. “From now on I take my notebook inside even if I’ve done the assignment a hundred times and feel like I know everything. Especially if I feel like I know everything, because those are the times when you forget to notice what’s going on around you.”

He looked thoughtful. “The same could be said for marriage. I-”

“Dad, we found the food Dr. Higgs recommended,” Eliza called from her kneeling position in front of the shelf. “What size bag do we want?”

After that, the kids needed more input and there was less time for Brenna and Adam to talk. Helping the Varners plan for Ellie’s care, Brenna found herself back on familiar, neutral territory.

Until Adam pulled out his credit card for the cashier and turned to ask Brenna, “So, should we just follow you to your house now?”

“DAD, IS MS. PIERCE trying to lose us?” Geoff asked from the passenger seat.

“No, I’m sure that was an accident,” Adam said. Or a Freudian slip. Brenna had accelerated at a yellow light just as it became red, stranding Adam behind her. “Look, she’s already pulled over on the side of the road to wait for us.”

Since they’d agreed earlier that Ellie would stay with Brenna during the remainder of their vacation, he’d assumed he was bringing the cat over. But judging by Brenna’s startled expression when he’d asked about going to her house, she had not made the same assumption.

“Actually,” she’d explained back at the store, “I don’t normally allow customers to drop pets off at my house. It’s tougher on the animal. It’s more fun for them, more exciting, to ‘go for a ride,’ which a lot of pets love as much as going for a walk. On the other hand, when their owner leaves them somewhere and they’re stuck behind, feeling abandoned…”

She’d trailed off, just for a second, but long enough for Adam to register a fleeting change in her expression.

“Never mind all that,” she’d contradicted herself. “Your situation is unusual. Since you guys haven’t had time to establish a strong bond yet with Ellie, it makes just as much sense for you to come with me. Help her get settled, visit her a few times while you’re in Mistletoe. We don’t want her thinking she’s my cat at the end of three weeks.”

After the intersection, Adam caught up to Brenna and followed her onto a quaint street lined with a hodgepodge of houses-a brick ranch home sat between a two-story log cabin replica and a Cape Cod. It wasn’t like modern subdivisions with a grand name, private neighborhood pool and only about three different floor plans alternated between twenty houses. Brenna’s neighborhood-if a single strand of homes could be called that-was eclectic but well kept. Lawns were neatly trimmed, hydrangeas were in bloom and oaks and pear trees provided shady respite from the sweltering heat.

At the curve of the cul-de-sac Brenna pulled her car into the driveway of a stone-faced, cottage-style house. It wasn’t big, but it had a generous front yard and what looked to be a huge, fenced-in backyard.

She was out of her car and beside his before he even got his door open. “Sorry about leaving you back there. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She paused, her lips twisting in a self-deprecating smirk. “I lied. I do know what I was thinking. I had a sudden brain lapse where I thought if I hurried I might have a minute or two to straighten up before you arrived. Which is when it occurred to me that you didn’t know how to get here.”

He found the explanation endearing. “Don’t stress over the house. We’re the ones imposing.” Besides, how messy could her place be? She seemed too brisk and efficient, hardly the type to leave dishes in the sink or toss a towel on the floor.

She went up the front sidewalk, followed by his kids, and Adam felt as if he and the cat were bringing up the rear of a strange little parade. As Brenna unlocked the front door, frenetic barking came from inside.

“Don’t worry,” she said over her shoulder. “That’s my dog, Zoe. She’s occasionally noisy, but incredibly friendly.”

“Even with cats?” Morgan asked, casting an alarmed glance toward Ellie’s new carrier. The feline had flattened herself inside the towel, her ears twitching and her fur puffing with apprehension.

“Absolutely,” Brenna assured her. “Zoe and my cat, River, are the best of friends.”

Morgan laughed. “River? Cats don’t like water.”

“Try telling mine that. Now, I’m going in first. You guys give me a sec to put Zoe outside, okay? This will be less chaotic without her in the middle of everything.” She disappeared inside, then quickly returned. She ushered them into a living room where two overstuffed, dark green couches faced each other across a hardwood floor. “Come down the hall, and I’ll show you where we can get Ellie’s stuff set up.”

“It smells awesome in here,” Geoff said, inhaling deeply.

Adam had to agree. A blend of spices perfumed the little home, nearly making his stomach rumble.

“Slow-cook pot,” Brenna explained. Behind her, he could see into a kitchen. “Since I’m not home much during the day, I throw food in before I leave in the morning.”

“What did you fix today?” Eliza asked. Her question made Adam reflect guiltily that it had been a long time since lunch. He was accustomed to skipping a meal here and there if he had a long day of surgery, but the kids needed to eat more regularly.

“Chicken with a citrus marinade,” Brenna told his children, her expression resigned. The three kids had gone so wide-eyed in unspoken longing that Adam was reminded of the famous waif paintings by Margaret Keane, a Tennessee-born artist. “I don’t suppose you’d like to stay for dinner?”

“Heck, yeah!” Geoff wasn’t shy about accepting the invitation.

Adam was secretly glad for his son’s brashness. The polite response was probably to thank her for the offer but insist they couldn’t intrude more than they already were. The truth was, Adam had been enjoying her company. He was struck with the realization that it had been ages since he’d spoken to a woman who wasn’t a patient, fellow doctor, surgical nurse or his ex-wife. And her stepbrother claimed Brenna had no life? She wasn’t the only one.

“If that’s okay with you,” Eliza qualified, nudging her brother and jerking her head in Adam’s direction.

“Thank you,” he told Brenna. “We really appreciate that, really appreciate everything you’ve done for us today.”

“You’re welcome.” Her gaze met his as she smiled, and he felt a funny little twinge of loss when she broke the eye contact. She padded down the hallway, more hardwood covered with a slate-blue runner. Past a set of stairs were two doors on the left-an office and a bathroom-and one on the right. “Here we are, the guest room.”

That had no doubt been its original purpose. In here, the flooring was a tile that looked inexpensive and easy to clean. Instead of a bed and armoire, there was a love seat draped in a fuzzy mauve blanket, two carpeted towers like the kitty condo he’d seen back at the store, a large water bowl, a dog kennel against the far wall and a plastic container filled with chew toys. Up in the windowsill was a small television, and he suspected that Brenna kept on the Animal Planet channel or similar programming for visitors in this room. A cloth mouse dangled from a string looped over the doorknob.

Morgan looked delighted. “It’s a playroom for animals!”

Once they were all inside the room, which was barely big enough for five people, Brenna closed the door. “Go ahead, put Ellie down. We’ll let her explore for a minute. Can one of you go get her litter-box supplies?”

Adam shot his children a pointed glance. “I seem to recall lots of promises in the car about taking responsibility for your new pet?”

He got a trio of quick nods, and all three children started toward the bedroom door.

“Be careful not to let Brenna’s cat outside,” he warned.

“Oh, she spends her day on the screened-in sunporch,” Brenna said. “We’ll let her in soon.”

The kids slid through a partially open door while Ellie tiptoed around her new surroundings.

Adam’s conscience prompted him to ask, “You’re sure it’s okay if we stay for dinner?”

“As long as no one looks too closely at any of the furniture. I vacuum a lot to keep up with the animal hair, but I don’t spend a lot of time dusting. Just one of those things I unintentionally let slide because no one ever comes over.”

“Not even Josh? Or…a boyfriend?” He’d wondered since first seeing her yesterday if she was single. Though her stepbrother had all but confirmed it, Adam found that he wanted to hear it straight from her lips.

“Not for a long time,” she admitted. “Not since Kevin.”

“Dr. Higgs?” So he hadn’t been imagining the veterinarian’s reaction to her.

“Yeah. We dated for a while, but we wanted different things. My fault, probably. When you’re starting your own company, it can be pretty all-consuming. I barely had time and energy left over for myself, much less enough for another person.”

“Being a surgeon is a bit like that,” he commiserated. “From what little I saw on our walk-through, your house looks clean to me. And you smiled and waved at about a dozen people in the Diner. You’ve been working all day, and yet still managed to have a dinner waiting for you when you got home. I envy your balance.”

“Balance?” She laughed. “You should come to Sunday dinner and tell my family that. They’d laugh you out of the house. You heard what Josh said about me last night.”

“Yes, but he’s wrong,” Adam said, questioning his own vested interest. In a few weeks he’d be gone from Mistletoe, so what did it matter whether Brenna was able to balance romance in her busy schedule?

She arched an eyebrow. “He’s known me most of my life. You’ve only known me two days.”

“Still.” He smiled. “It’s always best to get a second opinion.”

IF ANYONE HAD told Adam that during his family vacation, he’d be having dinner two nights in a row with the same beautiful woman, he would have assumed feverish delirium and checked the speaker’s temperature. Or possibly have ordered a CAT scan.

Yet here he was in Brenna’s kitchen, instructing his kids to scrub in for supper. Since there were only four chairs at the oval table in her kitchen, she’d gone to grab the desk chair from her office. He asked Morgan to sit on the side closest to the wall since it was easiest for her to squeeze in; while he filled glasses with ice cubes, Geoff and Eliza seated themselves at either end. When Brenna returned, rolling the padded office chair up to the oblong table, Adam realized he’d be sitting next to her. Closely.

As tantalizing as the food smelled, when he was in such close proximity to Brenna, he didn’t notice the aromas of garlic or orange. Instead, it seemed as if he could only breathe in the heady smell of her, some kind of vanilla-based mixture that was sweet without being flowery or cloying. Her lotion or shampoo, maybe? Whatever it was, he liked it a lot. Much like Brenna herself, it was sexy without being blatantly obvious.

As dinner progressed, she finally struck a casual balance between trying hard-apologizing for any imagined housekeeping deficiencies, chatting a mile a minute about the town’s amenities-and holding herself courteously aloof, as he’d sensed her doing when they first arrived at the vet’s office. She regaled them with anecdotes about River, a long-haired tortoiseshell Manx with no tail. Unlike any other cat Adam knew, River would play fetch and loved to annoy the dog by taking off with Zoe’s smaller toys and hiding them in hard-to-reach places. As a child, Adam hadn’t owned a cat, but there’d been two big dogs in his home.

Smiling over long-forgotten memories, Adam recounted how their family German shepherd had been afraid of the yappy little poodle next door, and told the story of a dinner party that had been ruined when the pork roast that had been cooling on a counter disappeared entirely.

“Until that evening, I didn’t realize Mom even knew any bad words,” Adam reminisced. His parents were retired near Crossville now and owned a medium-size mutt they’d brought with them in February when they visited for Geoff’s birthday.

Adam frowned when he realized he hadn’t seen them since then-and he’d barely spent any time with them during that visit because one of his repeat patients had suffered a massive pulmonary embolism that week. His parents were generally more understanding about the demands of his career than his children, but the fact remained that Adam was struggling to prioritize between saving other people’s lives and being there for the people in his own life.

After dinner the kids checked on Ellie, then decided to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather by playing Frisbee in the backyard with Zoe.

“I could call them back in,” Adam offered, carrying three plates and a half-empty glass, “and get them to help us with dishes.”

Brenna shook her head. “Nah, we’d just be tripping over one another in this tiny kitchen. As it is, you and I keep…”

Bumping? Brushing against each other? He’d noticed. And he liked it. While he didn’t deliberately collide with her-he had more maturity than Geoff, for pity’s sake-he didn’t go out of his way to step aside if she was passing him, either.

“Anyway.” She swallowed. “Border collies are active dogs. It’s good they’re giving Zoe the extra playtime and exercise since I’ve been gone a lot this week.”

“Are you all done for the day?” he asked, trying not to stare as she bent over to wipe the far side of the table. She had an amazing figure. It seemed as if, over the past few years, he’d fallen into the implausible habit of thinking about the human form in only clinical terms. Brenna’s body was more art than science.

“Nope.” When she answered him, he struggled momentarily to remember what his question had been. “I’ll do about an hour of office work, then head back out to put some dogs in for the night. Not everyone has doggie doors installed, and there are a lot of reasons not to leave dogs out all night-weather, increased barking and, for the smaller dogs, the threat of coyotes.”

“So how did you come to work with animals?” he asked. “It sounds great in theory-be your own boss, play with cute puppies-but the reality seems pretty difficult.

“It’s rewarding, mostly. I’ve loved animals ever since I was a little girl, and as I mentioned last night, the nine-to-five thing just wasn’t for me.”

“Not enough working hours in the day?” he teased.

She grinned over her shoulder. “It was more the corporate culture, office politics. As it turns out, I apparently don’t play well with others.”

In her flippant response, she was selling herself short. He didn’t know much about pet-sitting, but he knew what it was like to work with various personality types. His patients had all kinds of quirks and preferences, but they needed him. Brenna had made it sound as if she was actively striving to grow her business, which must require good word of mouth, which meant she had to be careful to cater to her clients. Even if one was being a pain in the butt.

“Do you like the majority of the people you work for?” he wanted to know.

She tossed her dishcloth into the sink. “Yeah. I appreciate every one of them-even the ones who change their pet’s diet or medication and forget to tell me, or the ones who have nanny-cams installed every ten inches and make me feel like I’m stuck in my own reality television show. Obviously I couldn’t do this for a living without my customers, but it’s more than that.

“I’m grateful to them for…making me part of their lives.” She winced. “Well, that sounded corny as hell.”

Adam smiled, charmed equally by the personal revelation and her subsequent cranky reaction.

Abruptly she changed the subject. “Other than getting her a cat, which should qualify you as the most beloved parent in all of Mistletoe, have you figured out what you’re going to do for Morgan’s birthday?”

“No.” Finished with the dishes, he leaned against the counter. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“Earlier today I remembered something my stepmother did once. She treated me to a girlie day at the local spa. Mani, pedi, sparkly lipstick. At Morgan’s age, she might get a kick out of being treated like a princess. Eliza could do it with her, but I guess that leaves you and Geoff out in the cold.”

“It might work,” Adam said slowly. With three kids, it was difficult to get one-on-one time with each. Maybe he and Geoff could have some time to chat while the girls enjoyed an hour or two of glamour. And it was the type of thing that would be a surprise-people expected moms to come up with beauty-day ideas, not fathers.

“So, your dad married Josh’s mom?” he asked. If Brenna and her father were close, perhaps she could give him some insight into improving his relationship with Eliza.

“No.”

“But…” Hadn’t she said Josh was her stepbrother? And she mentioned a stepmother.

Brenna turned to the window overlooking that backyard. “I hate to break up the kids’ fun, but I really do have some computer work I should get to.”

“Of course, sorry.” The last thing he’d wanted was to overstay his welcome. “I should have herded them inside sooner, instead of sticking around to shoot the bull.”

“I’ve never liked that saying,” Brenna admonished with mock affront. “But at least it’s not as bad as ‘more than one way to skin a cat.’ What kind of monster came up with that?” She gave an exaggerated shudder.

Was the silly banter her way of softening the impression that she was kicking them out?

“From here on out, only metaphors in which no animals are harmed,” he promised solemnly. “Where do you stand on ‘raining cats and dogs’?”

Her lips twitched as she tried to keep her expression deadpan. “It depends. Are they wearing protective gear?” At the last moment, her suppressed smile broke free, making her truly beautiful, and it was as if something inside Adam had been liberated, too.

Without conscious, rational thought, he leaned forward and kissed her.

At first it was only the feather-light contact of his mouth against her smile, but even that sent a jolt straight through him and down to his toes. He nipped at her bottom lip, grazing his tongue over her, nearly overcome with the urge to haul her closer, frame her face in his hands and kiss her deeply. I want her. Wanted her smiles, her playful conversation, her more serious observations about life and her delectable body.

Stunned at the intensity of his reaction, he righted himself. “I…” Should apologize, yet he couldn’t bring himself to say he was sorry. How could he pretend to regret the kiss when what he really wanted was to do it again? Soon. Thoroughly.

“Should go,” she supplied tremulously, as if unsure of her own words. Her clear green eyes were startled. But did they also reflect back something more? “You should get going.”

“Right.” His feet wouldn’t move.

They stood there for a heartbeat that felt like a lifetime, staring at each other.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll round up my kids.”

She nodded, bemused.

Neither of them said anything else, but when he got to the back door, he couldn’t resist looking over his shoulder at her. She remained in the same spot, motionless. Except that she’d pressed her fingers to her lips.

As he stepped through the doorway, a whisper of sound followed him. He thought it might have been Wow.