Page 32 of One More Baby for the Boss

“Do we have everything we need?” Elijah asked. “We can go check out if you’re ready, Alex.”

“I’ve got everything I was looking for,” Alex said. “Lead the way.”

Elijah led them over to the checkout counter. The woman working there was probably in her late sixties, and she smiled broadly at the sight of them. “What a sweet family,” she said.

Elijah froze, and he was aware of Alex growing still beside him as well. He forced an awkward laugh and was about to explain to the woman that she had made a mistake, but Jack spoke up before he could say anything.

“We’re going to make a family tree,” he announced. “That’s what the chicken wire is for. We’re going to make it out of papier-mâché.”

“Won’t that be amazing,” the woman beamed. “Family trees are such fun. And I’m sure the three of you will make all kinds of wonderful memories working on it together.” She rang up their items. “You’ll have to take a picture of it when it’s all finished and bring it in so we can put it up on the craft wall over there.” She pointed. “That’s where we display all the most interesting things customers have created using our products.”

“Well, we can certainly do that,” Elijah said. “If Jack here wants to, that is.”

“What do you say, Jack?” the woman asked. “Want to tell your mom and dad to take a picture of your family tree and bring it back for us?”

Jack was uncharacteristically silent. He must have noticed that the woman was referring to Alex as his mother, Elijah thought, and of course he wouldn’t know what to do with that.

“We’ll give it some thought at home,” Elijah said. “Thank you for asking us.”

As he left the store, he found that — in spite of the strangeness of the moment — he was smiling. It had been a long time since anyone had looked him and seen afamily— not a tragic single father, but a happy, wholesome family. It was good to be seen that way again, even if it was a mistake.

It was good to be seen that way with buoyant, gorgeous Alex. He wouldn’t have enjoyed it half as much if he hadn’t been standing next to her, and that wasn’t just because of her blond hair and soft curves. It was because she was who she was.

And he found himself hoping that Jack would decide to include Alex in his family tree when he made it, for that reason if for no other. Someday, when Alex had gone on to other things and it was just the two of them again, maybe that would serve as a reminder of the brief window in their lives when it had felt as if they were part of a family again. He already knew that he would miss that feeling when it was gone.

CHAPTER 15

ALEX

The next day was Saturday, and Alex and Jack spent hours in the kitchen mixing up papier-mâché paste, dipping strips of paper into it, and draping them around the chicken wire sculpture of a tree they had made. The tree was about three feet tall and stood in the center of the kitchen table, so both of them had to stand on chairs to reach the top branches, a fact that made Jack giggle relentlessly.

“And I don’t know where we’re going to eat our breakfast tomorrow,” he commented as they put their supplies away for the day. “Not with that tree in the middle of the table.”

“We’ll have to have a picnic in the living room,” Alex said. “That’ll be fun, right?”

“Can we watch TV while we eat?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Dad doesn’t usually let me do that.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Alex said. “I think he might agree that these are unusual circumstances.”

“Unusual circumstances?”

“I just mean that he’s not going to ask us to move our tree,” Alex said with a smile. “Although he probably is going to want to know why you’re not in bed yet, Jack. It’s half an hour past your bedtime.”

“I’m not tired,” Jack protested. “I want to keep going. Can’t we paint the tree?”

“We cannot. For one thing, we have to wait for it to dry before we put any paint on it,” she told him. “Also, we don’t have the paint yet, remember? We didn’t buy it when we were out yesterday. We can go shopping tomorrow and get some paint, so be thinking about what colors you want.”

“Brown and green,” Jack said promptly. “What else?”

“It’s up to you! Trees can be different colors.”

“No, they can’t.”

“Of course they can,” Alex said, laughing. “What about in the fall, when the leaves change colors?”

---