Page 22 of Must Love Mistletoe

“Does Uncle Cal have a choice?” He’d come over to the table and was eyeing the goods with gratifying appreciation. “Vultures, the lot of you.” But he went and found plates and utensils from a nearby cupboard and then held up a drinking glass toward Beth. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Cherry cola if you have any.” May as well go for the sugar high to end all sugar highs. “The filling for the sourdough needs heating and there’s a cheesy sauce to go on top that could do with warming up as well.”

His eyebrows rose and a smile tugged at his lips. “And for the second time today I ask, what brings all this on?”

“Just trying new things.” She was hardly going to explain her newfound interest in love languages with this lot present. “Call it a thank-you for sharing your leatherwork skills with Sam.”

“Do we really have to call it that?” Madeline murmured with a suspiciously innocent smile as she reached for a brownie. “Cal, get back here and eat something. I’m trying to be polite and not start before you, but time is running out.”

Cal returned to the seating area with the cola and took his sweet time pouring it into Beth’s glass. “Ice?”

Beth knew he was stringing his sister-in-law along. “Looks cold enough to me.”

“I’ll get you some, anyway. On the side.”

“Ca-al!” Madeline looked truly pained. “I’m a woman on the edge. Hormonal. Unpredictable.”

“Nothing but the truth,” Seth said, with a fond glance for his wife. “They do say pregnancy does that.”

A cheer went up, and Beth watched fondly as a round of bro hugs and backslapping commenced. They really were something, these Casey men. Her son was lucky to have access to them.

When Cal finally picked up a cinnamon roll there was a pregnant pause and then another round of cheers when he bit into it.

Was there some kind of etiquette that demanded a host take first bite of gifted food? If there was, she’d never heard of it.

Beth perched on the edge of a wide-arm leather chair and cradled her cola and soaked in the sound of good-humored family bickering about names and whether they planned on finding out early whether it would be a girl baby or a boy.

“Would you have another baby, Mom? If you could?” Sam asked, leaning in to give her a one-armed hug and reaching for a slice of tart with his other hand.

“Maybe.” She was still young enough. Not yet thirty. “If I ever fell in love again and this was the kind of love and support involved. Would it bother you?”

“Hell, no,” Sam said. “I’d teach ’em everything I knew, wouldn’t I, Cal?”

She looked around to see Cal standing like a statue, as if he’d been walking over and had stopped mid-step in an attempt to change direction. He looked pale beneath his tan as his foot came down and he seemed to sway a little.

“You okay?”

“Thought I felt the earth move.”

“Too much pregnancy talk?”

“Could be.” If anything, he turned even paler as he looked at Sam. “You’d be a great brother.”

Even the simplest praise from this man could make her son’s day. “Like you.”

“Err…” He really didn’t know how to take Sam’s hero worship. “There’s two of mine here who might think otherwise—at least some of the time. I can be a bit—”

“Dumb,” Seth injected.

“Slow on the uptake,” Jett added. “Kids and animals seem to like him, though.”

“Always a good sign,” Seth said. “Reliable, too. And honest.”

“Patience of a saint,” Jett agreed. “Good genes.” He cocked his head to one side. “In any other family, he’d be the handsome one.”

Cal looked from one to the other and then to Sam. “It’s perfectly okay if you don’t want siblings. This would be one of the reasons why. What are you twodoing?”

“Singing your praises, man, as only a brother can.” Jett’s smile came swiftly. “Hey, you know what you need above this door? Mistletoe.”

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