Second Chance at Love(25)

Ashley sidled up next to her brother. “Mr. Dom hasn’t showed up yet?”



“No,” Kyle answered, his voice just as blue as his sister’s. “Ashley, do you think he forgot about us?”



Wiping a tear from her eye, she sniffed, “I hope not.”



Bringing a box of ornaments from the basement into the living room, Karen abruptly stopped in her tracks. Her babies practically had their noses pressed to the window. For over an hour they’d been moping around with long faces. She empathized with what they were feeling. Dom hadn’t so much as called to say he was running late or to cancel.



See, this was the very reason why she had doubts about getting involved with Dom. And now she was regretting letting him get close to her children. It was killing her to see her babies so dejected. If Dom had bailed out on them, she had to make the best of a bad situation.



Putting on her best smile, Karen called out, “Come on guys and help me take this stuff out of the box.”



With identical slouching shoulders, the children made their way over to their mom. Opening the box, Kyle began to pull out an array of colorful ornaments. Ashley went to the large box that held the artificial tree and began tugging on it.



Letting a corner of the box flop open, Ashley looked at her mom with sad, watery eyes. “Mommy, do you know where Mr. Dom is?”



Kyle stopped his rummaging through the box as he turned expected eyes on his mother. Karen wanted to kick something. She didn’t want to be the one to extinguish the small glimmer of hope she saw in his dark eyes.



Breathe girl, breathe. This has got to be the worst Christmas Eve. When I see that jerk I’m going to cuss him out like he stole something from me. Karen wanted to lie and tell her babies that he would be there any minute. But she couldn’t do that. She had tried calling him on his cell phone, but the calls just went to voicemail. If he changed his mind, he could have at least had the decency to call. Coward.



Going to her children, Karen took them by the hand and sat them down on the sofa. She had to break the news that Dom most likely wouldn’t be coming to spend the day with them. Karen let out a deep breath. She knew this whole new holiday thing was a bad, bad idea.



This was so hard. All week Ashley and Kyle had gone on and on about their special holiday plans with Dom. They’d even come up with a menu of cheeseburgers, chicken tenders, pepperoni pizza, french-fries and milkshakes. Oh, Dom was going to feel Karen’s wrath…big time. His not showing up brought back bad memories of her and Starr, waiting hours for their dad to show up for some special occasion. She remembered the sad look in her mother’s eyes as she struggled to tell them their father wasn’t coming.



This is it. She was cutting Dom out of her children’s lives. No way would she subject Ashley and Kyle to being disappointed because he decided he had something better to do. No way would she have her kids blame themselves, thinking they had done something to keep him away. Besides, it wasn’t like Dom was their father. What responsibility did he have when it came to her children? None. So for that very reason, whenever he did show his face, she was completely cutting him out of their lives.



“Listen guys, I don’t think—”



The ringing doorbell interrupted Karen.



Kyle and Ashley nearly knocked each other over as they jumped up and ran to the front door. Kyle tried to reach for the lock on the door, but his older sister was much quicker. Pulling open the door, both the children squealed in delight. “Mr. Dom!”



Dom laughed, catching the children as he was almost plowed to the ground. Hugging the children close he glanced over their heads to see Karen sitting on the sofa. The hard glare she sent him told him she was not happy with him at all. “Hey! How’s it going?” Dom was just as excited to see the children. Before they could answer, Dom said, “Hold on a minute. I got something.” Disappearing outside onto the porch, he returned with a beautiful, lush white spruce Christmas tree.



“Wow! A real Christmas tree! Look Mommy it’s a real tree! It’s beautiful!” Ashley exclaimed, practically skipping all over the place. Kyle ran over to Dom, his tiny arms struggling to pull the huge tree into the house.



Arms across her chest, Karen continued to glare at Dom. “Yes, it is beautiful,” Karen dryly responded to her daughter’s exuberant outburst. The smile she wore was forced. How dare he show up almost two hours late, no phone call, no nothing and act like everything is fine? And how dare those little traitors she carried for nine months and labored in agony to bring them into world defect to the side of the enemy? Weren’t they like two seconds ago moping around with long faces and tears in their eyes? Well guess what? She wasn’t letting him get away with having them waiting and wondering if he was coming or not.