Single Dad's Christmas Miracle. Susan Meier

      Still, a sensible man would have at least looked in the obvious places—

      But a man who’d been blindsided by his wife’s death and double blindsided by her infidelity jumped to all kinds of conclusions.

      When he couldn’t delay any longer, he walked downstairs. Hoping Althea had gone to the den to be with Jack, he turned right, into the living room, and there she stood in front of the discreet bar housed in a black built-in beside a huge window. She held a short glass with two fingers of bourbon.

      She handed it to him. “Is neat good?”

      He smiled. “I don’t sully whiskey with frozen water.”

      She laughed. “Have a seat.”

      He lowered himself to the gray sofa. “You’re going to quit, aren’t you?”

      She sat on one of the two white club chairs across from him. A glass-and-chrome coffee table sat on the gray, white and black printed rug that connected the small conversation group in the big living room.

      “I’m not going to quit.”

      “I sent the police after you.”

      “You were afraid.”

      He downed his drink, savoring the soothing warmth as it ran down his throat. He rose to get another. “Right.”

      “I saw the look on your face. You were terrified.”

      He grabbed the bourbon bottle and poured.

      “You’d thought I’d taken your kids. There has to be a reason you were so suspicious.”

      “I was angry with myself for leaving the kids with someone I really didn’t know.”

      “Maybe. But something pushed you to the point that you panicked rather than check things out.”

      He sighed. This time he sipped the whiskey. There was no way in hell he’d recount his private failures to a stranger. A stranger he’d wronged no less.

      “All right. You don’t want to talk. I get it. But I also see your kids are in trouble emotionally and so are you.”

      He snorted in disgust. “Are you saying we all need therapy?”

      “I’m saying you need to give yourself a break and need to give your kids a break. You’re overorganized. Your kids seem to feel they need to be super quiet to please you.”

      Heat of shame filled him. The day before, he’d noticed that he’d been taking advantage of Mrs. Alwine. Was it such a big stretch to consider that he’d forced his kids to overbehave?

      He ambled back to his seat. She rose from hers. “I can understand that you don’t want the help of a stranger. I’m also not a therapist. But I have spent six years with kids Jack’s age. I know they sass. I know they experiment with cursing. I know they sulk and whine and roll their eyes and in general make the lives of adults miserable. And Jack does a few of those things, but not often. He’s too concerned with pleasing you.” She sucked in a breath. “You have an opportunity here. It’s four weeks before Christmas. Four weeks when you can decorate together, tell him stories about Christmases past with his mom. Watch old Christmas movies. Make snowmen. Sled ride.”

      He raised his gaze to meet hers.

      “The choice is yours. Use Christmas to turn your family into a family again. Or let this go on. Pretend Teagan’s not talking is shyness. Pretend Jack’s simmering silence is part of being a twelve-year-old. And six years from now when Jack leaves home without a word of why, and with no intention of ever coming back, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

      Jack’s angry comment about living in prison rumbled through his brain. He was failing as a father and though he was loathe to talk about any of this, he’d be a fool if he didn’t realize he was drowning.

      He blew his breath out, rubbed his hand across his mouth and finally decided he had no choice. He didn’t want his kids to hate him or to be unhappy. But he also didn’t want them going into town, and if the way to keep them home was to tell their current babysitter the whole story then maybe that’s what he had to do.

      “The day my wife died, I came home from work to find the house empty and cold.”

      “So when you came here today and found we’d gone, the empty house scared you?”

      “Not as much as having the kids go to town.” He scrubbed his hands across his mouth again. He hated this. Hated his misery. His humiliation. But he did not want his kids in town. “My wife had been having an affair. Apparently for at least a year. Brice Matthews, one of our employees, showed up at the funeral overcome with grief and sobbed over her coffin. He called me every name in the book for not letting her go—not giving her a divorce—when she’d never asked for a divorce.”

      “Oh, my God.” Clearly shocked, she sat again. “I’m so sorry.”

      “That’s why I don’t want the kids in town.”

      “Because of gossip?” She shook her head. “It’s been three years. Trust me. You can stop worrying. People aren’t that interested in anybody’s life.”

      “Everybody’s interested in Teagan’s.”

      Her eyes narrowed. “Teagan’s? Jack’s the one old enough to understand—” Then her mouth dropped open. “Oh, God. Teagan was only a few months old when your wife died and your wife had been having an affair.”

      “For a year before she died.”

      “You think people wonder if she’s yours?”

      “I don’t think. I know lots wonder whether or not she’s really mine.”

      “They’ve told you this?”

      “No. But a few days after Carol’s death, people started looking at Teagan oddly. If I’d go to the grocery store with her in a carrier, everybody peeked in to see her. Some people were more obvious than others. It took me a while, but I realized everybody thought she was Brice’s child and they were looking at her to see if there was a resemblance.”

      “That’s awful.” She shook her head again, as if marveling at the stupidity of some people. “I’m sorry.”

      “That’s the second time you’ve said that.” He sniffed a laugh. “And I appreciate the sentiment. But you certainly weren’t at fault.”

      “I know. But on behalf of crappy, unfair things that happen everywhere, I feel somebody has to say they’re sorry.”

      He laughed again. His chest loosened. The knot in his stomach unwound.

      Their gazes met and he smiled. “Thanks.”

      “On behalf of crappy things everywhere, you’re welcome.”

      “No. I meant thanks for listening.” He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “You’re the first person I’ve told this story to.” And he didn’t feel god-awful. He felt calm, almost normal. “Anyway, that’s why I don’t want the kids to go into town. I don’t want Teagan subjected to scrutiny or Jack to hear things about his mom he’s too young to understand.”

      “Got it.” She rose, smiled briefly. “Jack’s probably got the computer up and running by now.”

      With that she left the room, and he flopped back on the sleek gray sofa, looking at the gorgeously appointed living room in the house so well designed “perfect” was too small of a term to use to describe it. In the end, the “perfect” house had meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.

      His wife had cheated. Her affair had started before Teagan was conceived. And if Brice Matthews ever figured that out, he might lose Teagan long before he lost Jack.

      He sipped his bourbon and closed his eyes. His life was a mess and though he appreciated Althea’s suggestion about decorating, he didn’t