Five Kids, One Christmas (The Brannigan Sisters) Read online

She held up two fingers when Helen would have objected. "—which is not to say that you, Colonel Brannigan, or you, Mr. Crockett, have neglected the children or failed to maintain as much visitation as you were allowed. From the emotional standpoint, however, your children have not lived with either of you for any length of time in over five years. They have, on the other hand, spent a great deal of time with Mr. and Mrs. Sanders, especially while Mr. and Mrs. Maximovich were in Europe preparing to adopt Jane, and then later, Maximilian. They are, therefore, in a far better position should they in fact choose to seek custody."

  "But," Nat interjected, impatient to confirm what he already suspected.

  "But?" Helen echoed uncertainly. But this won’t be that simple, she answered herself. Of course not. Not when John Maximovich had anything to do with the will.

  The lawyer smiled tightly. "But," she replied with a nod.

  Chapter Two

  ~ALL SAINTS DAY~

  For being only three letters long, but was one hell of a big word when it held your entire life hostage. Or, actually, nine entire lives, if you counted Nat’s mettlesome—and yes, meddlesome, too—ex–outlaws.

  And that put it mildly, to say the least.

  But if you choose to contest the custody arrangements and drag all the children through the hell of a custody battle and destroy their psyches for all time…

  But if you choose to move into the house—separate bedrooms, separate living arrangements, of course—and be supervised by the courts for six months to a year, share parenting for all five children, share expenses, disciplining duties, responsibilities…

  But if you choose to change your life completely…

  The first day and night and day were rough.

  "That’s not the way my real mom does… did it." Zach, rebellious, tortured, torturing. No tears, because that wouldn’t be manly. "I don’t want you."

  "My Grammy Sanders does that better than you." Cara, trying to give Helen and Nat the benefit of the doubt, trying to smile around the ache in her eyes. Letting Helen know the oatmeal she made without swirling strawberry jam through it to look like Mickey Mouse wasn’t up to speed. "Maybe we could call her and she could tell you what she does."

  "I want Mama!" Max, adamant. No tears, no screams, just huddled and cowering in the middle of the night, deep in a corner beneath John’s heavy leather–topped desk in the library, holding tight to one of Grammy Sanders’s afghans and the worn, well–loved stuffed dog Amanda had made for him. "Tell my daddy to come."

  "Mother, didn’t that army teach you to do anything?" Libby, exasperated and rolling her eyes, holding up leggings that had once been kelly green and were now a somewhat indecipherably streaky red–green–black–brown. "I mean really, Mum, even I know you have to check the setting on the back of the washing machine and make sure to wash colors in cold water."

  "Why don’t you do the wash then?"

  "Because you’re almost forty years old and Grama Julia says it’s about time you learn."

  Helen gritted her teeth. Oh, good. Thanks, Ma.

  "Mama!" Screamed and sobbed as only a three–year–old can scream and sob: pulled up from the bottom of her toes, painful in volume and pitch, a helpless ache for the listener’s heart. "Mama! Where’s my mama? I want my daddy."

  "Shh, Janie, hush." Nat, crooning, gentle. Holding Jane tightly after her restless nap, sensitive fingers stroking her tear–stained face. Gesturing toward where he felt Helen standing. Unwillingly mindful of her presence. Reluctantly glad he didn’t have to find out whether or not he was equipped to handle this alone. "We’re here, I’m here, shh."

  "You’re not Mama! You’re not Daddy. You’re not, not, not." Jane, hitting at them both, breaking away to run to the encompassing comfort that was Zach and Cara, Libby and Max. "I don’t want you. Go away, go ’way, go ’way!"

  "Sweetheart."

  Helen, trying to reach out, to be kind. Not knowing how to do any of it, make any of it better. Wishing she herself could scream and sob so Nat would rock and comfort her. Wishing she could run to her own mother and cower behind Julia’s skirts until the world went away or she could figure out how to handle a crisis that concerned the everyday drama and tragedies of real life rather than the high tech protocol of national security.

  Wishing she could find humor in the situation the way her office staff had when she’d called and told them to sign her out on an open–ended extended family emergency leave and knock off the "real mother" jokes.

  "Your mama can’t—"

  "Just get away from her. Leave her alone." Zach, fierce and protective, stepping between the four younger children and Helen and Nat. "She doesn’t want you. She doesn’t need you." Turning to herd the others ahead of him into the playroom, pulling the door shut behind him. "Neither do we."

  Slam.

  Helplessly Helen stared at Nat, her shoulders slumped, hands hanging uselessly at her sides. For a moment Nat’s face was as blank as his eyes, then his mouth tightened, hands fisted. The dog, Toby, unharnessed and off duty beside him, nudged Nat’s fist with his nose. The fingers opened slowly, fanned over Toby’s head.

  "Show me the door," he ordered softly.

  Startled, Helen took an automatic step forward, but the dog had already stood and slid his ruff under Nat’s hand, and was soon guiding him to the playroom door. Nat spread his fingers over the wood, slid his hands down until he found the doorknob. Tried it. Swore beneath his breath.

  Locked.

  "They need time to adjust," Helen offered weakly. Criminy Moses, didn’t they all. "Maybe if we leave them be for a while…" Wasn’t that what Grandma Josephine used to say? If you ignore it, the thing you want will come to hand? The philosophy had worked to one extent and another with the guys at the Point, with all the other military higher ups who’d held the power to let Helen become who she wanted to be.

  "If we ignore them, they’ll think we don’t care." Nat sounded like he knew. He knocked on the door. "Zach? Cara? Please, I just want to help—"

  "Take a number," a child’s muffled voice advised.

  The lock rattled; the door opened wide enough to allow Libby’s head egress. "Sorry, no adults, no calls, we’re in a meeting."

  "But don’t you need—"

  "We’ll get back to you," Libby announced firmly, shutting the door and locking it again.

  Nat’s jaw dropped and his throat emitted a sound of incredulity. He faced the disturbingly seductive scent of Helen. Not the time or the place. The thought echoed years past, time spent warning himself against her even after his divorce, while Amanda and John were still alive. Never a good time or place… He beat distraction back.

  "Your daughter," he managed to say finally, inadequately.

  An accusation if ever Helen had heard one.

  She drew herself up and inclined her head modestly—a useless gesture, since he couldn’t see it—accepting aspersion as tribute. "So I’m told," she acknowledged. The pride in her voice was evident even to her. No sense denying the obvious.

  "Do something about her."

  "Why?" Helen’s foot tapped the floor, to Nat’s perceptive ears sounding more as if she’d said, "Like what, hmm?"

  "She’s never lied to me before."

  "What? What’s she lying about?" Helen viewed him as though he were daft—another wasted activity. "And anyway, what’s that got to do with it?"

  Nat’s mouth flattened, but he maintained silence.

  Helen sighed. Five frightened kids—make that four frightened kids and one Libby—and an overly sexy, blind partner to get used to all in the same day. Was God never going to allow her to fall into anything by halves? "She said they’d get back to us, and they will."

  Nat’s mouth tightened once more. It was his turn to foot tap.

  Helen sighed again. "Oh, fine." No gracious acquiescence here. She stepped to the door, rattled the knob. Didn’t feel the warmth of Nat so near her back, or so she told herself.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d lied
to herself about what she did or did not feel about Nat.

  "Elizabeth Jane Maximovich, open this door this instant or I will get a screwdriver and take it off its hinges."

  There was a moment’s considered silence. Then her daughter said, "The hinges are in here."

  Helen gritted her teeth. Who the hell had taught the child political one–upmanship tactics? Oh, yeah—she took a sheepish puff of breath—that would be her. "Yes, but there are screws in the lock plate out here."

  "So?" If logic didn’t work, fall back on childish response. Libby was, after all, a child.

  Exasperated, Helen shut her eyes—the classic long–suffering–mother response, if only she knew it. "Elizabeth Jane!"

  Libby’s sigh was audible even through the solid wood. "Oh, all right." After a slight clatter, the door cracked open. "What?"

  Helen looked at Nat. "What?" she asked.

  It was Nat’s turn to be nonplussed. Only a moment ago, he’d known exactly why he wanted to follow the children into the playroom—to comfort and console and make sure they’d come out again. But all he said lamely was, "I just want to make sure everything’s all right."

  "Fine," Libby said, none too reassuringly. "Jane doesn’t like strangers after her nap. We’ve fallen back to regroup—"

  Helen cringed at the military terminology. Perhaps she’d spent more time with Libby than she’d realized over the years.

  "—so go away for now—"

  "Libby."

  "—and I’ll let you know if you’re wanted." She looked up at Helen, green eyes suddenly all anxious, vulnerable little girl. "Okay, Mum? Please, Mum? It’ll be better later, I promise. Please?"

  Helen felt Nat slump behind her, caving in to her daughter’s request before she had a chance to. "Okay." She nodded. "We’ll be downstairs—"

  "Talking," Libby suggested.

  "Oh, undoubtedly," Helen agreed darkly. "But what I was going to say before you interrupted was that I’ll fix dinner—"

  "Not your chili." Libby shuddered. "Jane won’t eat spicy stuff and Max doesn’t trust you not to feed him something nasty yet and Zach and Cara only like chili made with tomato soup—"

  "Fine," Helen interrupted. "No chili." The next question got away from her before she could catch it. "Anything else?"

  To her right, Nat snorted, and the dog groaned as if in agreement: she’d left herself open for this one.

  Libby deliberated for hardly a moment. "Chicken," she said. "We won’t eat chicken. Or peas. Cara hates peas, and you have to make a good impression if you want this to work. Oh, and broccoli, cauliflower, tomato aspic, lima beans, instant pudding, store–bought pizza, anything with tuna fish—"

  "Save the dolphin," Nat muttered.

  "Exactly," Libby agreed, and went on as though he hadn’t interrupted. "Lemon cookies, fish with bones in, ham with raisins…"

  The list was long and formidable. Nat took Helen’s arm. Fingers shaping themselves to fit just above her left elbow, curving around the fabric of her sleeve, sent warmth seeping through the barrier. Shock rocked them, sent jittery tremors through nerves and pulses, flaunted awareness where it had no right to be. Thoughts rose and hissed rudely between them, shared and disturbing: No time for this, no place for this, no need for this, no hope for this…

  After a staggered instant of indrawn breath, a moment where their faces turned toward each other—Helen’s revealing but unseen, Nat’s eye–opening but as quickly masked—she gathered her senses about her, turned blindly and moved them toward the stairs. There she instinctively paused and placed Nat’s hand on the banister, the textbook sighted–escort gesture.

  Reaction was a book of its own.

  Sensation skittered down the slope of already jangled emotions, sent them teetering toward some disastrous brink, linked physically at the same time they were left alone inside themselves, the old recognition renounced but roaring around their ears: I know you, I want you, come take me—

  Not a word passed between them—the only saving grace in this whole abominable, awkward and uncomfortable situation. If she’d spoken, he’d have known exactly where her mouth was and shut her up with his. If he’d spoken, there was no telling what he’d say among the multitudes of things he shouldn’t.

  Swallowing, Nat slid his hand out from beneath Helen’s, lightened his grip on her arm. God, oh God, just what he needed, to have life reduced to this: a constant physical ache for the carnal satisfaction his body told him he’d find inside Helen’s, warring with the crushing emotional need to be the best father he could be to all five of the children who lived in this house. And to have to depend on the woman who turned both his conscience and his libido to putty, whose husband had married his wife… He felt Helen tremble and sway slightly toward him, then grab hold of herself and turn her attention back to the stairs. And to know that within a heartbeat, a single touch of his hand, his mouth on hers…

  To know with misgiving that she wanted him, too.

  Behind them, Libby’s voice continued to chant the "don’t like" litany. Concentrating on the hum of the child instead of the thrum in their veins, they descended the stairs.

  * * *

  Dinner was cheese pizza and orange pop from the pizza place down the street, with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for dessert. Zach was put out by the lack of pepperoni, but everyone else ate—if not with vigor, then at least without complaint. Jane fell asleep in the middle of her ice cream and didn’t wake when Helen gently cleaned her up, then carted her off to bed. Cara and Libby dragged along after her to make sure Helen did everything she was supposed to before turning off Jane’s light.

  Looking at the three of them before she left the room, Helen felt her frightened heart tug, felt something fierce and determined wedge itself into the gap the tug created. Mother… The word whispered through her senses, gummed up the springs in the biological clock she’d ignored since John had won Libby away from her. The clock creaked awake and chimed: cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo… time, time, time…

  She panicked. God, I’m not ready. I don’t know how….

  Too bad, the clock retorted. Too late. They’re here, you’re here, it’s time….

  She wanted it to be time.

  Back downstairs, she spotted Nat in one of the big chairs near the fireplace, reading aloud from a children’s book written in braille about a dragon who kept getting bigger and bigger until people stopped saying there was no such thing as dragons, then the dragon shrank until it was the size of a cat and lived happily with its new family. At first Helen thought he was simply reading for the exercise. Then she saw Zach pressed tight against a wall near the library door. He was listening hard, his face pillowed on his knees. His shoulders heaved slightly and a light snuffling sound seemed to issue from somewhere in the depths of his chest. It stopped when Helen approached. She looked down at him, wanting to comfort, but he glared up at her through defiant, teary eyes, daring her to even try to take Amanda’s place. She knew she couldn’t, so she went in search of Max.

  He was hard to find, but she finally located him curled up behind Nat’s chair, fingers twined in Toby’s fur, head butted tight against the patient dog’s soft neck. Nat smiled once, lopsidedly, acknowledging her presence, but went on reading, his voice quiet and even and soothing. Without changing tones, he inclined his head almost imperceptibly toward the door. Helen looked. From the corner of her eye, she saw Libby and Cara inch into the room and settle into corners near the dog and Max, saw Cara lean toward her father’s chair, then pull back, lean in again as though trying to decide which way was better. Carefully, Nat put out a hand toward his daughter, touched her hair. For an instant Cara relaxed, let him slide wayward hair out of her face. Then she pulled away and flattened herself on the floor beside Toby, not quite ready to accept more from Nat.

  Sucking in a breath that felt suspiciously full of tears she hadn’t even been aware she knew how to shed, Helen retreated to her bathroom, locked the door and cried.

  * * *

/>   Transitions were the pits, she and Nat agreed later over mugs of espresso so strong it should have wired them to the gills for days to come. But it didn’t; they were too distracted, too out of their depth. Too emotionally exhausted. The hot cups warmed their hands, offered a scent of something familiar over which to share… Neither was sure what. Long silences, furtive sighs, awkwardness… When it came right down to it, they had little to say. Too much to absorb, and too little sponge left to soak it up.

  Helen wished they could exchange glances of support, shore each other up without words.

  Nat wished he could touch her face and read her mind, decipher what expressions accompanied the nuances in her voice.

  Without common biology to fall back on, they were expected to be parents of the same children, after all. Strangers in unknown company. Strangers with shared history and desires to be sure, but strangers nevertheless.

  To each other and the children who stood between them.

  If they didn’t know enough about themselves to trust each other, how could children who’d lost everything they’d ever known begin to trust them?

  And in the midst of everything else, between the two of them lurked that powerful, frightening something—intimacy, awareness, recognition—from which they’d long ago run away.

  * * *

  It wasn’t a great deal different the next day or the day after that… And so on.

  They tried, but it was a learning process Helen and Nat needed to get right from the start. They had no time to learn as they went; they had no choice but to try to sop up the lessons as they came. Their lives and concerns centered on the children, on the process of gaining trust; their conversations dealt with necessities

  "We’re out of milk."

  "Did you find the bread?"

  "Do you think it’s all right for Zach to spend all his time playing video games?"

  "I found this in Libby’s dresser…."

  "Does the dog need to go out?"

  And so on, short and clipped. Not unfriendly, merely to the point. There wasn’t time to skirt around the edges, come to terms with the underlying heat of their proximity to one another. They were parents without benefit of courtship rituals, dumped together in separate bedrooms without a private place, or a private way, to get to know each other.