He wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the whole “just friends” thingy—especially after that toe-curling kiss. The whole way home, I traced my fingers over my lips, replaying it over and over again.
I pulled into my driveway and watched out the side window as Thad pulled into his. We both exited our cars and stared at one another over winter’s brown lawn. My feet wanted to walk toward him, but my heart and mind kept them firmly planted in place.
“Good night, Casey,” Thad called out after a few seconds.
I smiled, even though he couldn’t see it in the dark. “Good night, Thad.”
Would we be able to keep that promise to ourselves and each other? More importantly, would I be able to do it? I leaned back against the front door for a moment and once again played out the whole parking lot scene. One more time, and then I needed to zip it up and pack it away.
As I climbed into bed a few minutes later, I thought to myself, Okay, maybe a few more times, and then I’ll pack it away. I fell asleep dreaming of Thad’s beautiful blue eyes staring down at me and my body tingling from head to toe.
The next three weeks went by in a blur and before I knew it, it was the week before Christmas.
“I can’t believe it’s already the nineteenth of December and you haven’t put your tree up,” Linda, one of the other ER nurses, commented as we sat at the main desk and finished up paperwork.
“I know. I bought all the trimmings, but I just haven’t had time. I’ve been working so much overtime that when I get home, I’m beat. Besides, it’s only me, why do I even need a tree?”
Linda’s eyes popped out of her head, “You can’t be serious? You have to have a tree, it’s sacrilegious to not have one.” She shook her head. “Why don’t you do it tonight? You’re getting off in thirty minutes.”
“But it might take me two hours to get home in this snowstorm.” I shivered, “I didn’t realize it snowed this much up here.”
Linda laughed, “Oh, this is nothing; it’s only a couple of inches. Drive slowly, take main roads, and be careful. You’ll be fine.”
“Easy for you to say. I think I’ve driven in snow twice in my life, and it was an inch or two at the most.”
“It’s almost three, you should be home by four, and you will have plenty of time to put up your tree.” She went back to her reports.
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll see how stressed out I am when I get home.”
I completed my reports and said goodbye to everyone as I left. I was regretting not taking Thad up on his offer to go SUV shopping. I thought I had at least a few more weeks before we’d get a snowstorm.
As I drove home, I focused on the road. The snow was coming down so heavily that my windshield wipers were set almost to the highest setting to keep my view clear. I felt the car slip once or twice as I put my foot on the brake too quickly. Fifty minutes later, I pulled up in the driveway and let out a huge sigh of relief.
Hopefully, by tomorrow when I had to report in for a night shift, the roads would be plowed and safer. I slipped on the driveway as I climbed out and almost went under my car. Why did I move up north?
I had only been in the house ten minutes when there was a hard knock on the front door. “Who the hell is out in this weather?” I said aloud as I went to the door.
I pulled it open to find Thad and Tommy on the front step. “Casey, I need a huge favor,” Thad’s face was as tense as his voice.
“What’s wrong? What do you need?” I stepped aside while the two of them entered the living room.
“There was a major crash on the highway, something like seventy-five vehicles, and they need me to come out and help. Unfortunately, Corrine is stuck out at the college and staying at a friend’s house, and I don’t have anyone to watch Tommy.”
I glanced down at the little boy as he grinned up at me. “You want me to watch Tommy?”
“Please, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask if I had any other choices.”
“Thad, relax. I don’t mind watching him. Go. Go do what you need to do, but be careful, it’s slick out there.”
His shoulders visibly relaxed. “Thank you, I owe you one.”
Before I could say anything else, he leaned down and kissed Tommy on the head, “Be good for her.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m always good.”
Thad winced and looked up at me, “I might owe you two. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Don’t rush. Do what you have to do, we’ll be fine. How much trouble could he be?”
As he turned away, I thought I heard him say, Make that three, under his breath.
Tommy and I stared at each other for ten whole seconds after the door closed. Okay, now what?
“Do you want to watch television?” I asked him.
“Yeah, okay. Do you have anything to eat? I’m hungry.”
“Well, you’re in luck, I am too.” I walked over to the television and turned it on. “Here’s the remote. You can put on what you want to watch. Let me go see what I can fix for us.”
“I want hot dogs and mac and cheese,” he said as he climbed up on the sofa and began to channel surf.
Hot dogs and mac and cheese, yeah, I don’t think I have any of that. What the hell else could I feed a five-year-old?
I pawed through my cabinets looking for something that might work. “Tommy, will spaghetti and meatballs do?” I had made sauce and meatballs up the week before and froze them. All I had to do was thaw them in the microwave and cook some pasta.
Tommy didn’t answer, so I walked out of the kitchen and looked around the living room; he wasn’t there. My heart skipped a beat, “Tommy!” Oh, my god! He’d been in my house for five minutes and I’d lost him already!
“Tommy!” My heart started pounding in my chest, and I took off down the hall, checking the bathroom to find it empty and then my office to find the same.
As I reached my bedroom door, I heard a crash coming from within and I jumped as I stopped at the door. “Tommy! What are you doing?”
He had pulled out a drawer to my dresser and climbed on it to reach for something on top. In the process, he had knocked off my vanity mirror and little shards of glass were all over the floor.
“Don’t you move!” I threatened him with a pointed finger. I stepped carefully over the glass and scooped him up. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”
I carried a strong, squirming little boy back to the living room and dropped him on the couch. “I asked you a question. What were you doing in my bedroom?”
He shrugged, “Looking.”
“Yeah, well you were doing more than looking. You were touching, and you broke something.” I finally got a reaction from him as his head hung down.
“Sorry,” he said quietly.
With my hands on my hips, I sighed and glanced around. “I need to go clean that up, and then I need to fix us some dinner. If you can be good while I do that, I have a project you can help me with, but you have to behave and sit on this couch and watch television until we’ve eaten.”
His entire body sprang up off the couch, and he jumped on the cushion, “What? What are we gonna do?”
I grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to stand still, “You are going to sit still and not jump on my couch. You are going to park yourself on this couch while I clean up and then cook dinner. Then afterwards, if you have behaved, you can help me decorate my Christmas tree.”
Tommy glanced around the room, “You don’t have a tree up yet?”
“Nope, and I need some help, but only if you can be good.”
“Okay, I can help you do that.” He plopped back down on the sofa and picked up the remote.
“You promise you won’t get off that couch until I tell you?”
He rolled his eyes, and I wondered where a child that age could learn such a thing. “Yessssss,” he hissed in annoyance, as if I was just ruining his life—he wasn’t even a teenager!
I cleaned up the mirror and hoped that the seven years of bad luck were not being cast on me. Tommy was pretty wild, and that surprised me. I would have expected Thad’s child to be a bit more, I don’t know, tame. This kid was a firecracker.
I managed to make dinner with him only getting off the couch once, and then he only came into the kitchen for something to drink. Instead of going back to the sofa, he pulled up a chair and climbed up beside me, asking me question after question. Why did I paint the walls a girlie color? How come I was wearing doctor type clothes? Why didn’t I have any kids?
Ouch, that one hurt. By the time we sat down to eat, I was exhausted. I glanced at the clock; it was not even six o’clock. Hopefully, Thad would be back soon. How long would it take to deal with a major car accident?
Shit, he was going to be hours. I groaned internally and ate slowly, hoping to kill as much time as I could. I had a feeling that my plan to decorate the tree was going to turn into a nightmare of epic proportions—and, holy hell, was I right!
This was the first time I had ever put up a tree, and trying to follow directions while a five-year-old was saying he knew how to do it, put my blood pressure in the extra high range. Two hours after I opened the box, I stood back and looked at the slightly lopsided tree—whatever, I was too tired to care.
Tommy had already begun to dig into the generic ornaments that I had purchased and was haphazardly hanging them from the tree, of course all in one area.
By the time the tree was done, so was I. I made Tommy lie down on the couch, covered him with a blanket, and watched him basically pass out in five seconds flat. I collapsed into my chair and closed my eyes.
I opened them again when I heard a soft knock on the front door, and then it opened. Thad stood there, shaking snow off his head. I wanted to cry, I’d never been so happy to see him.
“You should have locked your door,” he chastised in a hushed tone, and I shrugged as I tried to sit up.
“I was hoping one of us would be kidnapped,” I replied as I tried to pluck tinsel off my sweatshirt and stood up.
Thad laughed, “Was he that bad?” He glanced at Tommy sound asleep on the couch.
“Not while he’s sleeping,” I stated.
Thad chuckled again and stepped closer to me. “Why are you all tangled up in tinsel?” He pulled a piece out of my hair.
“Because your son thought it was more fun to decorate me rather than the tree.”
Thad startled and looked at me hard. “What did you just say?”
Was he as tired as I was and couldn’t think straight? I thought I’d said that pretty clearly. “I said, ‘He thought it was more fun to decorate me than my tree.’”
Thad grinned and dropped his head back, “You called him my son.”
I shrugged, “Yeah, so?”
“That’s what this is all about. You think Tommy is my son.”
The grin on his face was huge as he stepped closer, looking almost predatory, and my heart tripped in my chest.
“Casey, he’s not my son. He’s my nephew. Corrine is my sister.”
“What?” I squeaked out.
He rubbed my arms up and down as he got closer. “Corrine and Tommy came to live with me so she could go to college and not have to pay for housing. I’m not married. That’s what you thought, wasn’t it?”
Relief flooded my system at the same time as embarrassment filled me. The mixture of the two made my heart beat erratically. “Yes.”
“Jesus, woman, why didn’t you say something before?” He cupped my cheeks. “Is that the reason you said we could only be friends? God, what kind of a man you must have thought me to be.” He shook his head.
“You’re not married?” Was I dreaming this?
Thad leaned closer and placed a kiss on my lips, “I’m,” he pulled back and then gave me another one, “not,” and one more time for good measure, “married, Casey.”
I stared up at him for a few long seconds, and then I threw my arms around his neck and drew him to me. Our lips melded together as our bodies did the best they could around his uniform and duty belt.
