Page 59 of Season of Gifts

“Guess we—” His voice cracked.“We won’t be doing that today.”

Chapter thirty-one

Alice

Wadehauledhimselfoutof the driver’s seat and leaned on the rental car’s roof as Alice got out.“Doesn’t happen every time, but with clients, you have to expect it.Part of building the one-on-one connection so they bring you the next project and the next.”

They slammed their doors simultaneously, a sharp crack in the chilly evening air.Alice snugged her scarf ends into her coat.Giving her hands something to do stopped her from checking her phone obsessively.She’d barely had time to tap out a response to Henry’s voice message on her way to the lobby to meet Wade.Henry was sensibly going to make it an early night anyway.Fuck, today must’ve been scary as hell for him.An ambulance overnight, more time at the hospital—he was dealing with so much by himself and somehow keeping it together.Meanwhile, her brain was throwing a snit fit because of one stupid dinner.With, okay, the ex she’d rather not see again and who deserved one hundred percent of the blame for her being away from her husbands in the middle of a crisis.

A rap on the car roof jolted her out of navel-gazing.Wade tipped his head toward the house.“You ready?”

She shook out the wiggles like a kindergartner and slapped on a friendly corporate smile.“Ready to project confidence that we’ll have a solution for them soon.”

Normally she’d love an analysis task with a puzzle to solve.Not today.

With a snort, Wade started walking up the driveway.“If you want to move up in project management, client development is the big lift.You know how to handle the tech stuff”—he waved down the protest on her lips—“yeah, yeah, you didn’t presto-chango the machine today, but you will.I remember what it was like.Point is, when you have all the numbers in your head, it’s the people that give you fits.”

He wasn’t wrong.Nine hours of beating her head against an intractable problem—and it was, because she hadn’t found a single misstep in the guts of the build, yet the puncher missed by micrometers, and that was enough to throw off the entire rest of the process, which meant the line didn’t churn out the pieces and nothing else at the site could happen until it did—but nine hours of that was nothing compared to the torture behind the door in front of her.

“So a bunch of travel”—she ticked the list off on her fingers—“and dinner at clients’ homes, missing time with your family, no more marathon design sessions…” She shrugged as he rang the doorbell.“Why move up at all?”

“The money.Kids are expensive.”He laughed, maybe joking and maybe not.“Most places you get to try a nice restaurant or two—and then you and the client can argue over who gets to expense the meal.”

A restaurant would’ve been exponentially more comfortable than dining at Adam’s house.The place looked cheery enough, with welcoming yellow light shining through the windows.And enormous, a rancher at least twice the size of her parents’ house.But Wade had kept Adam busy with administrative networking or whatever all day in what seemed like a deliberate move to give her space to work.She hadn’t said more than good morning to him since his sniping at the airport.

The door jerked back a few inches, then a few inches more.

“Oops, no no no”—a woman’s voice grew louder—“Caylin, wait for Daddy—Aidan!”

A half-dressed child toddled through the gap, and Wade scooped him up and onto his hip before the kid’s bare feet hit the concrete.“Hey there!Are you Aidan?Are we dinner buddies?This is my friend Alice.”He dipped the kid sideways, making him giggle.“We’re hoping for chicken nuggets.How ’bout you?”

One wide-eyed stare, and the kid’s face disappeared against Wade’s sweater, inside his unzipped jacket.

“I’m so sorry about that.”The woman snatched up a second child, barely bigger than the first, and nudged the door farther open with her hip.“I thought Adam was getting him dressed, but that battle’s clearly been lost.I’m Chelsea.Aidan you’ve met, and Caylin here”—she bounced the little girl, who produced a winning smile—“is our unexpected door opener.Come in, please.”

Relief sluiced down in a wave so powerful Alice knocked her shoe into the doorsill and grabbed Wade’s free arm to say no-thank-you to a faceplant.“Yeesh.Usually I walk fine, I swear.”

This dinner wouldn’t be half the nightmare she feared.Adam was happily married, with a pair of preschoolers who looked like copies of their parents on a printer running out of ink—lighter brown hair, lighter hazel eyes, but stamped with the same features as Mom and Dad.No pissing contest, no rehashing of old times.The crick in her neck finally released as she shrugged out of her coat.

Chelsea, after the obligatory are-you-okays, patted her shoulder.“Don’t worry about it.Adam told me you’ve been on the machine floor all day crawling through every inch of the place.I should be offering you ibuprofen instead of appetizers.”

“That and a hot shower are what made me presentable for dinner.”She grand flourished like Jay would have done, copying his playful public face.Her plain black pants and red-and-black checked sweater were meant to be for meetings.Dinners out hadn’t factored into her packing.“At least, I hope they did.”

“They did, they did, you look great.Here, let me trade you”—she thrust the girl at Alice, who quickly rearranged her arms like Wade’s to form a snug seat against her hip—“and I’ll take Aidan so we can find where his shirt and socks have gone.”She plucked the boy from Wade’s grasp and rubbed noses with him.“Did you run off and leave Daddy behind?”

“Chelsea?Did Aidan come through here?It’s almost time—” Adam strode out of a hallway and stopped dead at the line where living room met kitchen.“Correction, it’s exactly time.Wade, Alice, welcome to the chaos.”

Handshakes and hurried married shorthand sent Chelsea and Aidan down the hall while Adam checked on the stove and opened the fridge.“What can I get you?Beer, wine, water?”

“Whatever you’re having will be perfect.”Wade posted up at the kitchen island, planting his shoe on the footrail.He settled his winter jacket around a seatback, then slipped Alice’s coat out of her Caylin-cradle and added it on top.“You have a lovely family.”

“Yeah, thanks.Huh.The matching was unintentional.”Adam winked at Alice as he set a beer in front of her and uncapped the bottle.“But pretty as a postcard.”

Of course it was unintentional; it’s not like he could’ve engineered the kids to come out with their parents’ hair and eyes.“They are adorable.”

“What?”Adam pushed at her shoulder.“No, you, silly.”

Maybe she hadn’t formally rescinded his permission to touch her, but he needed to cut that shit out.Could she retroactively draw up a breakup contract that includeddon’t put your hands on me, because we aren’t pals?Probably not while holding his kid.“Me?”

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