Tangled in Divine(Divine Creek Ranch 14)(53)

Teresa snickered. “It is a bit of a shitstorm, or at least I’m sure it was for you last week.” She turned her warm brown eyes on Gwen. “Not that you’re totally out of the doghouse for leaving us wondering what you were doing or where you were going, mind you.”

“I’ll never live my little ‘walkabout’ down, will I?”

“Eventually. But for now, you’re here. Just see what happens with those two. When I look at the three of you together, it just seems so right. Maybe everything will work out somehow?’

“I don’t see how it can. I’ll be in Colorado. They’ll be here.”

“You don’t think they’d move to Colorado for you?”

“Teresa, their lives are here. Friends, family, friends who are just like family. I can’t ask that of them.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t need to.”

“What do you mean?”

Teresa smiled cryptically and shrugged. “I just have a good feeling about the three of you.” She looked over at the men and placed her hand over her mouth as she giggled softly. She turned her gaze to Gwen, her eyes watering, and said, “If I wasn’t already married, I would be so in love right now. You’re crazy if you don’t snatch that man up and never let him go.”

Gwen looked over at what Teresa was surreptitiously pointing at and bit her lip. Warmth trickled through her torso as a giggle shook her insides. Chris was crawling around on all fours with Eleazar draped over his back. Chris was so huge that Eleazar’s arms and legs were spread-eagled.

Eleazar patted Chris’s shoulder and piped, “Good hossie. I is wounded, so you gotta get us home to Mommy.”

Teresa bit her lip. “He must’ve encountered Indians.”

Chris gave his best neigh and made a slow circuit around the wrapping-paper-strewn floor and then stopped. “What’s this? Oh.” He lifted a toy cell phone from the floor and looked at it, then made a funny ringing sound and handed it back to Eleazar. “It’s for you, dude.”

Eleazar took the phone, sat up on Chris’s back, and then dug his heels into Chris’s ribs and grabbed Chris’s shirt collar as he put the phone to his ear. “Hello.”

Chris cast a grin at Gwen and said, “He’s a slave driver,” as he kept carefully crawling around on the floor while Eleazar jabbered on the phone.

Gwen’s heart pounded as she watched, thinking this was everything she’d been missing about Christmas for more years than she could count. She turned her misty gaze to Teresa and whispered, “Thank you.” Thank you for this little slice of heaven. The hard thing was that she didn’t just want a slice. She wanted to gorge on this moment, soak it all in, and not force herself to look upon it as a nebulous taste of what she couldn’t have in reality.

“You’re welcome. Stop. Just live in this moment, okay?” Teresa got her attention and she looked her in the eye. “You could ruin this, worrying about March.”

Gwen nodded and blotted at her eyes again. “You’re right.” Don’t ruin this perfect, precious moment.

“Okay,” Eleazar said into the toy phone. He held the phone over Chris’s shoulder and said, “Hossie, phone for you.”

Without missing a beat, Chris took the phone from the toddler and said, “Yeah! Gimme two large deep dish pepperoni pizzas. Extra pepperoni.” Gwen and Teresa snickered at his put-on East Coast accent. He hung up the phone and handed it back to Eleazar, who proceeded to kick him up to a trot.

Eleazar giggled as Chris gave him a quick circuit around the room and then gently rolled to his side, so Eleazar fell off on the couch by the crackling fireplace and Chris could tickle him. “Kid, that’s about the most this hossie’s knees can take for now.”

Gwen and Teresa exchanged a glance and Teresa murmured, “That’s a real man, Gwen, in case you were curious. Oh, look.” She gestured at Julián as he spoke softly to Michael who held the remote control device for the Air Hog helicopter Julián had given him. Julián gave him pointers on how to hover and maneuver the toy until it reached near the ceiling, then patiently instructed him in how to get it back down without crashing it into the flagstone floor of the den.

They were so different from each other, and both so wonderful. Chris was like a big teddy bear, allowing both boys to climb all over him, getting down on their level so that he didn’t accidentally hurt either one of them, getting involved in their play. Julián was more quiet, patiently mentoring Michael in mastering a toy that would be challenging for a boy his age. He’d make a great father some day. They both would.