“I’m not,” Chloe said. “It’s not even eight yet.”
Her daughter was firmly convinced that going to sleep before her bedtime would violate some grand cosmic law.
Chloe was still learning how to tell time on a clock with hands, so she always went by the digital clock on the stove. On particularly long days, when parenting two children by herself seemed singularly exhausting, Andrea may or may not have been guilty of adjusting that digital readout ahead by fifteen minutes.
“Let’s clean up the kitchen and then take your baths. By the time we’re out, it will be eight.” Or close enough, anyway.
“I’ll take care of the kitchen,” Marshall said. “You worry about the baths.”
She wanted to tell him she could clean it when she was done putting the children to bed, but his firm expression convinced her it would be useless to argue.
“Thank you. Come on, kids.”
They didn’t argue, either too exhausted from their chaotic night and a day packed with activity or simply intrigued at the novelty of bathing in the old claw-foot tub in the guest bathroom.
The children wanted to linger in their respective baths. Finally they were both clean, dried and dressed in clean pajamas.
This was her favorite part of being a mother, when she knew they’d had a good day filled with discoveries and they were now sleepy, sweet-smelling and cuddly.
“Where’s our book?” Will asked. “Did you bring it?”
“Yes. It’s by the bed in the room I’m using. I packed it last night.”
She loved children’s books and collected holiday stories all year long. For the past few days, they’d been reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, about the wild Herdman kids and the lessons they learned about giving.
“Do you think Marshall will read to us?”
At some point that day, Will had dropped calling him Sheriff Bailey or Sheriff Marshall. Now he was just plain Marshall.
“I don’t know,” she said, not sure how she felt about giving up the sweet, quiet bonding time she considered her payoff for all the hard work of the day. “I’m sure we’ve bothered him enough for today. We should probably give the guy a break.”
“I’m gonna ask him anyway,” Will said.
Before she could call him back, he padded into the family room in his superhero pajamas. She could hear Will’s high-pitched voice and then a lower one in reply, and a moment later, her son hurried back.
“He said he would,” he announced gleefully.
“Yay!” Chloe exclaimed. She was out the door almost before Andie finished brushing out the tangles in her hair.
Feeling a little let down, Andie cleaned up after them in the bathroom, wondering as she frequently did how it was possible for two small children to make such a mess and spill half the bathwater. When she was satisfied Marshall could safely maneuver in here on his crutches if he needed to, she followed the sound of his voice to the den.
She paused out of his view to listen. He had a beautiful, deep reading voice and inserted the perfect amount of inflection and dramatic pauses. He even changed his voice a little higher to read dialogue bits spoken by the younger children in the story.
As Andie listened, a soft, tender warmth soaked through her.
He was so good with them. She had thought him so brusque at first. Harsh and austere, even. How could she ever have guessed he would be sweet and patient and loving? He was inordinately kind to them, even though she assumed it couldn’t be comfortable for him to hold Will on his lap like that or have Chloe squeezed in next to him on the recliner, leaning on his arm so he could barely turn the page.
They needed a male figure in their life. It hurt her heart that her children didn’t have a grandfather or an uncle to help Will become a good, decent man and Chloe to know what things to look for in one.
Marshall could show them that. He was exactly the sort of man she would like her son to emulate and her daughter to someday seek for herself—full of strength and determination, yet also kindness and compassion.
She was falling in love with him.
The realization didn’t tumble over her like a clump of snow falling from a tree branch so much as it whispered in an insistent voice she couldn’t ignore.
She drew in a sharp breath. Oh. This would never do.
She couldn’t fall for him. The implications were as disastrous as they were inevitable.
She had made a terrible mistake, letting him so far into their lives. When their paths diverged, Chloe and Will would see it as another blow, the loss of yet another important male in their world.
Anything more than friendship between them was completely impossible—and she suddenly wasn’t sure she was strong enough even for that.