Once Upon a Christmas (42 page)

“I saw Danny outside, and he says you’re not even
blowing things up today,” she went on with an air of mock disappointment. “What
gives?”

“What gives? What gives is that four-foot, one-kid
wrecking crew out there.” Nick glanced through the window at his nephew. “I’m
surprised
he’s
not blowing things up.”

“Come on.” Rolling closer, Chloe looked out the
window, too. “I’m sure you were the same way as a kid.” Her shoulders
straightened as she pinned him with a give-me-a-break expression. “Admit
it. You weren’t always Dudley Do-Right in disguise.”

“Maybe not. But I’ve been a steady Steadman since
birth.”

“I think there’s a cure for that now. An anti-boredom
vaccine or—”

“Ha, ha. Anyway, it must skip a generation, because
Danny’s immune.” Nick sighed and faced his beaker of solution again. “I
like having him around, but the kid’s a demolition expert in tennis shoes. So
far he destroyed my Bunsen burner, erased my invention journal file—”

“You, being you, had a backup, of course.”

“—sure, but that’s not the point. Chloe, in the twenty
minutes since his mother dropped him off—”

“Naomi, Nadine, Nancy, or Nora? I can’t keep them all
straight.”

“—Naomi, and neither can anyone else except my mother.”

“Nester, right?”

He grinned at her. “Having fun?”

“What? It’s cute.” She raised her arms, wobbling a
little on her skates as she formed a TV-style frame around her head. “The
Steadman family was brought to you today,” she said with Sesame
Street-style peppiness, “by the letter ‘N’ and the number seven.”

“—and since Naomi dropped him off,” Nick
continued, returning to the subject of his destruction-happy nephew, “Danny’s
done all that, plus almost reformatted my hard drive, made a mud castle with
the potting soil for my research, and—”

“—and, in general, acted like a perfectly normal,
seven-year-old kid, right?” Chloe folded her arms, turning her gaze away
from the window. “What did you expect when you agreed to spend Saturdays
with Danny?”

Nick shook his head. “Aww, I don’t know. Don’t get me
wrong. I love the little guy. With my schedule, spending weekends with my
nieces and nephews is about as close as I’ll ever get to having a family of my
own.”

“I dunno about that, Nick.” She turned her back on
him and gazed out the window again. “My dad’s theory was leap-year
parenting, and I turned out okay.”

In spite of it
, Nick added silently. If he ever did
have a family, he’d want to devote more time and care to it than Chloe’s
multiply divorced parents had. The way he saw it, a man could either be a good
father and husband and provider—or he could be a great achiever and innovator
and workman. Trying to be all those things simultaneously wasn’t fair to
anyone.

But the point was, “I’m telling you. I’m lucky as hell
not to have kids yet, Chloe. I swear I’d never get anything done.”

“Yeah. Lucky, lucky you.”

“Nice sarcasm. What’s gotten into you?”

She shrugged and trailed her fingertips along the tabletop
beside them. “Maybe what’shername’s ticking clock is contagious.”

He shuddered. “I think there’s a cure for that now.”

“Har, har,” Chloe snorted, her gaze falling on his
filled beaker. “So, what’s this great new invention of yours?”

Thoughts of nephews and destruction faded.

“It’s a growth accelerator.” He ran his fingers
along the smooth glass beaker. The solution within winked blue and green, an
ocean of possibilities. “This is a new version I came up with this
morning. I was just about to test it.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Want
to watch?”

Chloe grinned. “That’s not the kind of question a girl
like me is asked very often.”

“That’s because that menagerie you keep next door
scares off half your dates.” He picked up the beaker and prepared to pour.

“Fun-ny. I’d hardly call a dog, a cat, a few fish, a
hamster and”—she kiss-kissed at the bird on her shoulder—“Shemp here,
a menagerie. I’d need to add at least a representative lizard or turtle to even
begin
to have that kind of variety.”

She propped her hands on her hips, pushing her right skate
forward and back, adding the imminent threat of wheeled lab destruction to her
words.

“Besides, my so-called menagerie loves me. They don’t
snore, leave dirty socks lying around,
or
bail out on me when the going
gets tough.” She gave him a pointed glance. “That’s not something you
can say about just any old—oh—oh—oh!”

Her right skate shot out from under her. Flailing, she
clamped her hands on his biceps, making his solution slosh against the sides of
the beaker. If he didn’t lose the whole thing between Danny, Chloe, and Chloe’s
winged avenger, it would be a miracle.

Gritting his teeth, Nick raised the beaker out of reach and
inadvertently pulled Chloe halfway in the air, too. She shrieked and clutched
his middle instead.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing with that?”
She eyeballed the solution. “I think you spilled some of your magical
Kool-aid on Shemp.”

The bird in question flapped to the light fixture and
resumed his attempts to cast disco-ball mood lighting on them.

Chloe glanced upward worriedly. “Are you okay, Shemp?
Do you feel anything yet?”

As if the bird planned to answer
. Nick frowned and
put down the beaker. “I’m at least as good with magical Kool-aid as you
are with roller skates,” he pointed out, wrapping his arms around her so
he could unclench her fists from the small of his back. It felt as if she was
bending his vertebrae into new and interesting shapes.

Wait a minute
…he held her in his arms for a second,
testing his reaction. No thoughts of stroking, kissing or anything else
remotely erotic popped into his head. All clear. Double-whew! His earlier
Chloe-induced fantasy had clearly been an aberration.

Maybe he’d been working too hard. Eight hours at the office
and half as many more at home inventing each night would take its toll on any
guy’s libido, wouldn’t it? It only made sense he’d fixate on the nearest woman
within squeezing…stroking…kissing…distance. Even if said woman happened
to be his best platonic female friend.

He had to start getting out more.

Nick set her upright again and picked up his beaker. Chloe
shot him a small, inexplicably disappointed glance, then bumped her hip on his
lab table and stared at him.

“Okay. Let’s have a look at what this joy juice of
yours can do.”

Momentarily discombobulated by the dispirited note in her
voice, Nick stared back at her. Chloe had always been his most ardent
supporter, even more than his family and close-packed clan of relatives. They’d
known him all his life. None of them actually believed any of “Nicky’s
little inventions” would ever amount to anything. But to Chloe, his pal
and confidant, he was Mr. Wizard and The Science Guy and the Absent-Minded
Professor, all rolled into one big “you can do it!” package.

Nick rubbed the side of his nose, temporarily skidding his
glasses askew. “What’s the matter, Chloe?” he asked, setting them
straight again. He tried to peek at the calendar hanging on the wall behind her
without being too obvious about it. “Is it that time of—”

“Say it and die.”

Her threat lacked punch, but he shut up anyway. He pulled
the potted ivy close again.

She thumped her hip on the table, setting test tubes
tinkling in their holders. A sheaf of Nick’s notes trembled atop the computer
monitor and scattered like cottonwood leaves over his chair and floor. Chloe
gazed at them with a faintly morose expression and crossed her arms over her
chest. Sigh.

He gently tipped up an ivy leaf and poured solution in the
soil inside the plant’s terra cotta pot. Beside him, Chloe’s next sigh trembled
past his ear. The ivy’s glossy leaves fluttered.

He quit pouring. “Spill.”

“What?” She shouldered next to him and peered up
at Shemp. “You did spill some? How much? Is Shemp going to be okay?”

“Aside from remaining a bird, yes.” Nick pulled
over the next test-group plant, being careful not to look at her. “I mean,
spill. Whatever’s bugging you.”

Silence.

An instant later, she grabbed the beaker. “At this
rate, no wonder your experiments take months. You need an assistant or
something.” She glanced around his lab, frowning at a stack of pizza
delivery boxes in the corner. “You know, somebody to tend to the details
of real life for you while you’re off in La-La Land inventing stuff.”

Nick folded his arms, looking at her carefully. “Now I
know something’s bothering you. You only turn mean when cornered.”

Chloe’s startled expression caught him unaware. So did the
way she chewed her bottom lip, looking…vaguely guilty, if he didn’t miss his
guess.

She thrust her hands in her hair, loosening her bright
bandanna by mistake and showing off the paler blond highlights she’d crowed
about to him last week. The gesture was a dead giveaway. She’d never have
messed up her hair for anything less than sex or a natural disaster.

Nick had a feeling this fell in the disaster category.

Chloe had a secret.

He wanted to know what it was.

“Well, I…ah…”

Good move. He gave her ten points for convincing hesitancy.
Except Chloe was probably the least hesitant person he knew.

“Mmmm-hmmm?” he nudged.

“I—I—” She rolled her eyes, clearly conjuring up a
whopper. The question was, a whopper to cover what?

“Good start,” he coaxed, feeling close.

Her eyes brightened. “I’m worried about meeting Mr.
Griggs at the bank tomorrow, that’s what. That’s it!” Her newly triumphant
gaze shifted to him and lost a couple degrees of cockiness. “I mean, sure.
That’s it. That’s what’s bugging me.”

“You’re worried about your loan application.” It
wasn’t a question.

“Umm, sure.”

“Come on. What kind of a—”

“That’s it.” Now that the lie was out, she
practically oozed relief. With a celebratory flourish worthy of game show
hostesses everywhere, she raised the beaker.

Thoughts of her mysterious secret and whatever rebuttal he’d
been about to make flew out of Nick’s head. No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t…

Gaily, Chloe poured every aquamarine drop of solution in the
first ivy pot. “There! Now you can go on and do something fun with your
day,” she announced, whisking her palms together.

In the pot in front of them, the soil sizzled. The sound
grew louder—loud enough to attract even Shemp’s birdbrain onto the scene. He
swooped on Chloe’s shoulder and cocked his head. She did the same. So did Nick.
He’d never heard anything quite like that sizzle.

An instant later, the lustrous green ivy plant drooped in
its pot, looking about as growth-accelerated as a strip of overcooked bacon.

“Looks as if it’s back to the old drawing board.”
Chloe peered sadly at the ivy. “But I know you can do it, Nick. Hey—can I
watch?”

Chapter Three

Chloe couldn’t believe it had come to this.

Bleary-eyed and yawning, she stared at the pregnancy test
instructions in her hand. She blinked beneath the glaring seven A.M. lighting
in her bathroom and read them again. Yup, it really did say she was supposed to
pee on a stick. Gross.

She picked up the package. There, above several lines of
fine-print medicalese, blazed the words that had lured her to this particular
test. Ninety-nine percent sure. If it took bathroom acrobatics to come up with
results like that, she guessed she’d better give it a whirl.

It took less time than she expected, more dexterity than she
hoped, and miles more steadiness than her shaky hands could muster. Her stomach
pitched as she set the tester on the vanity and turned her tomato-shaped kitchen
timer to the three-minute mark.

Tick, tick, tick.
The first minute passed about as
quickly as hot weather in Arizona. Chloe paced across her black-and-white
checkerboard-tiled floor, swiping microscopic dirt from the vanity and trying
not to look at herself in the mirror.

Dumb. That’s what she was, for not thinking of this
possibility beforehand. When Nick found out…

He wasn’t going to find out. She couldn’t tell him about
this.

She
had
to tell him about this, she argued with
herself. She hadn’t been with anyone else for more months than she cared to
count. Her period was already two weeks late. Despite their fumbling,
post-Kahlúa precautions, Nick might be a father in the making. He had a right
to know, didn’t he?

I’m lucky as hell not to have kids yet. I swear I’d never
get anything done.

Oh, yeah. Nick didn’t want kids. He’d told her that before.
He wasn’t ready for a family now, at least not until he’d gotten the inventing
bug out of his system and gotten established in his career…and turned serious
about settling down.

Ha! As if
that
would happen anytime soon.

But part of him already wanted to settle down, Chloe told
herself as she straightened the already-neat bathmat and fluffed out the shower
curtain. The wistful expression on Nick’s face when he’d looked out the window
at Danny yesterday had been proof enough of that.

With my schedule, spending weekends with my nieces and
nephews is about as close as I’ll ever get to having a family of my own.

Then again, he seemed pretty resigned to waiting for it.

Shoot.

And what about the little white lie she’d told him? Nick
didn’t even remember their night together. What if he never forgave her for
lying to him in the first place?

What if he didn’t believe her at all? She’d lose her best
friend. End of story.
Finito
.

Aaack. The whole thing was too muddled to deal with. With a
helpless groan, Chloe flipped down the toilet seat and sat on it. Chin in hand,
she stared at the pregnancy test. It grew bigger in her imagination, pulsing on
the vanity like an atomic experiment from one of Nick’s Godzilla movies.