Page 29 of Shy Santa

“I can do that.” I nodded; grateful she was willing to watch Ace.

Now to make sure my dick understood Addy was off limits. My chest felt tight at the thought of keeping my hands to myself.

CHAPTER17

Addy

“Do you want to have a tea party?” I asked Alice-Grace while I picked through her thick curls. She had the softest mahogany brown hair I ever played with.

“Can we?” she asked, her voice soft.

Those soft, hopeful words sent sorrow spiraling through me. “Of course we can. I’ll see if Aunt Shirley still has her tea set. Maybe Bear has his Gran's. Do you want to ask him?” I paused my detangling for her answer.

She nodded her head. “Do you think he kept any of his Grans’ stuff?”

Taking a deep breath, I cleared my throat. I knew what it was like to want a connection to family. Mom tried, but those summers coming down for a long visit with Aunt Shirley; I loved the best. Shirley lived in the house Mom and she grew up in. It wasn’t anything special like this place, but it still held memories.

Mom sent me for a week or two at a time because she needed a break from me and my questions. As a kid I loved learning and then wrote stories about what I’d learned for my stuffies or dolls to play out. Growing up, we didn’t have much, so going to the library for books to escape were vacations. Mom worked hard, but she was a single mother.

Dad left her for a skinny witch before I was born. I hated him for leaving us. As a kid, I never understood what happened. And Mom did her best, but the little snide comments about how I needed to watch my weight so a guy wouldn’t leave me took its toll.

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Don’t know what?” Bear’s deep rumbling voice soothed over me. God, it was so hard watching Alice-Grace for him when my body reacted this much to his voice.

Turning, I saw he stood in the kitchen doorway. A burgundy shirt stretched across his chest, ready to burst at the biceps. Black cargo pants slung low on his hips. God, how that man made me tingle all over.

A crooked grin spread over his face as he watched me. “You okay, Addy?”

“Yep, I’m great.” My cheeks burned like crazy. I snapped my attention back to fixing Alice-Grace’s hair in a twisted half up do. “We’re going to have a tea party this weekend. She wondered if you had any of Nora’s tea sets. I remembered her and Shirley would have tea parties and Nora always set a pretty table when I came with.”

“After she passed, I had the house packed up and put into storage. Haven’t had time to go through her stuff since I’ve been back.” Bear walked to the kitchen island and sat down next to Alice-Grace. “How about tomorrow, you and I go to the unit, and we can pick our way through till we find her china?”

It’s been two weeks since we had amazing sex, and I’d agreed to watch Alice-Grace. Every day, it was harder to keep my hands to myself. I swear the man liked to tease me, walking around looking like a tasty treat.

We’ve worked on the cover for two of my finished stories in the mornings after I dropped Alice-Grace at school. Sitting next to him, smelling his unique blend of masculine and woodsy scent, short-circuited my brain. No matter how many times I’ve slept here—in the guest room sadly—I haven’t been awake to see him come home from a shift at the revue.

“We can?” Alice-Grace throws her arms around Bear’s neck, hazel eyes wide with excitement. “Thank you, Bear.”

It broke my heart to see this precious child call her father by his name. I got it, but it still hurt my heart. If I passed my father on the street, I wouldn’t recognize him. At least Bear had the excuse of not knowing about Alice-Grace.

“Now, what are the two of you up to today?” Bear sat at the counter.

He snagged one of the orange wedges I’d cut for his daughter. Slowly, he sucked the slice in his mouth, never taking his eyes off me. The man ate so provocatively. Damn him, how did he expect me to function when he does dirty things to citrus in front of me?

“We’re going to get things ready for a tea party Saturday. We might even splurge and look for some funproper ladies’ hats for High Tea.” Alice-Grace giggled at my wonky British accent.

“That sounds like fun.” A grin tugged at Bear’s delectable lips. God, I needed my head examined. He made it clear the morning we agreed to me watching Alice-Grace that sex was off the table. “I’m gonna work on the house for a couple hours before work.”

“Good news is we won’t be underfoot.” I set the brush aside, happy with how Alice-Grace’s hair looked this morning. “Go grab your purse.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” She ran off at top speed, slipping down the hall to the stairs in her stockinged feet.

“We’ll hit a couple of stores in Louisville. But be around town today.” I listened for Alice-Grace upstairs, then lower my voice. “I planned on taking her Christmas shopping, nothing to crazy. But she was asking about finding something for you.”

Bear nodded. Emotions passed too fast through his eyes before he locked them behind a wall. “Okay. Let me know what I owe you for that.”

We stood awkwardly there for a few moments, unsure what to do. I tried hard to keep the chatter up between us, but like his daughter, both took silence to the extreme when they wanted to.

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