Cabin Fever With My First Flame (Sweet Christmas Kisses)

5. Bailey

Chapter five

Bailey

I’m startled awake by a kick in the head, and I mean that in the literal sense. Ava has somehow managed to do a one-eighty in the bed we’re sharing, and her little feet have ended up in my face. Once her little toes start tickling my neck, all bets are off, and any chance of getting back to sleep has gone out the window.

I roll out of bed and stare down at my sleeping angel. “At least one of us got some sleep.”

I shuffle downstairs into the kitchen to get a pot of coffee brewing. The house is dark except for a light over the oven, and not a creature is stirring—not even a mouse. I take a moment to enjoy the peace and listen as the wind whips in a frenzy outside.

As I rummage around in the kitchen, I end up making more noise trying to be quiet than I would if I had been banging around. I find the coffee, filters, and purified water with ease, but the contraption in front of me is besting me in every way. I end up talking to myself as I mash 27 buttons, attempting to turn on the coffee pot. “What happened to a good, old-fashioned Mr. Coffee? You just pop in a filter and a few scoops of coffee, then press one button! Voila! Coffee!”

“It helps if you plug it in,” says a voice that cracks at the end.

I spin around and clutch my heart, wondering why anyone else would be up at this hour. The clock on the stove taunts me with a big 5:03 in neon green lighting. “Micah, you scared the dookie out of me!”

The teenager, wearing sleep shorts and a band tee, throws his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Johnson. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He points toward the sofa, “I was just sleeping over there and couldn’t help but overhear you trying to beat the coffee pot into submission. I thought I could help.”

I chuckle. “It’s McNamara again, but you can call me Bailey. I apologize if I woke you. It should have been me sleeping on the couch in the first place.”

Micah smiles. “It’s not a big deal. The sofa is super comfortable.” He plugs in the brewer and shows me which buttons to press. I guess when it has power, it’s actually user-friendly. Who knew?

Instead of going back to sleep, Micah sits on a stool on the other side of the kitchen island. The kitchen is part of a spacious open floor plan that connects with the living room, kitchen, and informal dining area. There’s a formal room area around the corner and to our right, behind a set of French doors, but I prefer the open space. “Micah, aren’t you going back to sleep?”

He shrugs. “There’s really no point. Finn will be up in less than an hour to do his morning workout in the basement. The clanging of weights is what I use for an alarm clock, and he’ll expect me to join him.” Micah lowers his gaze. “Is it okay if I have coffee with you?”

I pull out two mugs from the cabinet above the coffee pot. I set one down in front of him while we wait for the brew cycle to finish. “I’d love some company. Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer if it makes you feel uneasy.”

“I’m an open book. Ask away,” he replies.

I lean on the counter, keeping plenty of distance between us so that he doesn’t feel like a cornered animal. “How come you call Finn by his name and not Dad?”

“Because that would be weird. Finn didn’t ask to be in this position, but he stepped up when our mom got sick. He took us in, packed up our stuff, and moved us here, but he’s still adapting to the role of a father figure. Our relationship just isn’t like that, no matter how much we love him or he loves us. I doubt we’ll ever call him ‘Dad.’”

I always pegged Finn to be the doting father, not a man who walked away from his responsibilities. Then again, he walked away from me and that might just be his modus operandi . I clearly didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.

I smile sadly and reach across the island to squeeze Micah’s hand before turning around to grab the coffee pot, not willing to continue talking about a sore subject. However, I feel a burning need to give my condolences. As I pour us each a cup, I tell him, “I’m sorry for your loss, Micah. I know that probably doesn’t mean much coming from a total stranger, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “The hardest part about losing my mom is the holidays. She loved Christmas with a passion, and this is the first time she’s not with us. Finn is trying to be strong for us, but he’s feeling the loss as much as we are. I think he regrets not spending more time with Mom, especially in the final days.”

I want to ask what happened, but it seems callous to butt into Micah’s personal life when he barely knows me. I take a sip and peer at Micah over the top of the mug. “If there is anything I can do to help while we’re here, let me know. If you need a hug, my arms are open. If you need an ear, I’m available to listen.”

Micah grins, and there’s an impish glint in his eyes that flashes for a nanosecond. “Thanks, Bailey. I’m not much of a hugger, but Finn is. Maybe when you see him, you can wrap your arms around his waist and give him a good squeeze.”

I arch an eyebrow in his direction. “I’ll take that under advisement. However, I was referring to what I can do to help you, Isaac, and Jonah. Is there anything that I can do to make the holiday a little brighter?”

He thinks about it for a minute and then nods solemnly. “Mia mentioned you bake cookies, and we used to make gingerbread men with my mom every year. Would it be okay if we spent the day doing that?”

“That sounds like a fantastic idea,” I tell him. It’s a tradition that I have with my girls as well, but six kids in the kitchen is going to be a disaster. Yet, it’s a disaster of the best kind. I’ll have to warn Finn, who has always kept everything in its place, so much so that he cleaned up last night after the kids went to bed. He started to rearrange the decorations, but that’s when I stepped in and stopped him. Cleaning up is one thing. Rearranging the children’s hard work and love is another.

“What’s a fantastic idea?” Finn asks, interrupting the conversation.

“Bailey is going to make cookies today, and we’re going to help,” Micah answers for me. It’s a good thing, too, because I don’t know if I can formulate words with my mouth hanging open and practically salivating at the Adonis in front of me. Finn is shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of charcoal-gray sweatpants hung low on his hips. The tapered waist and “V” that women obsess over are prominently displayed and getting closer to me with every step. I start to reach out and touch his stomach to verify it’s not a figment of my imagination, but I snatch my hand back at the last second.

“How many cookies are we talking about? One sheet?” Finn asks, already calculating in his brain how much of a mess this is going to make.

I laugh, Finn’s comment snapping me from the “six-pack-abs haze” I was in. “Surely, you jest. A sheet holds roughly a dozen cookies, Finn. There are six kids and two adults, and five days until Christmas. Even at just one cookie per person per day, that’s a three-dozen minimum. No one can eat just one cookie. Then there are the quality control samples, the cookies we’ll bring into town when you take us to my parents, the ones that end up broken, and…”

“I get it, Bailey. It’s going to be a lot of cookies. How many are we talking about?” Finn asks.

I put my hands on my hips and ignore the broad chest in my face as I stare up at Finn. “As many as the kids want, Finn. This is for them. I can promise you that this is going to get messy, and I can guarantee that the younger ones will be wearing more icing than the cookies. But rest assured, I keep a clean kitchen. If I didn’t, my restaurant would have failed every health inspection we had. By the time we’re finished, your kitchen will be spotless.”

“I’ll help Bailey clean up,” Micah adds before laying on the guilt. “Mom would have wanted us to continue the tradition.”

Finn’s shoulders slump in resignation, knowing he’s been defeated before he can even mount an offense. “Micah, are you going downstairs to work out with me? If so, now would be a great time to get ready. Just be quiet so that you don’t wake up Ava when opening your drawers.”

“I can work out in what I’m wearing?” Micah says, not getting the hint.

I walk around and rest my hand gently on Micah’s arm. “Finn would like to talk to me privately. This is his nice way of asking you to give us a moment.”

“Oh. Um. Yeah. I’ll just go and get changed. My bad,” he retorts apologetically. Before Micah leaves, he leans over and whispers, “This might be the time to give Finn that hug we talked about. He looks like he could use one.”

I push him away and laugh. “Get out of here!”

Finn waits until we’re alone before he clears his throat. “I haven’t seen Micah smile like that since his mom died. Is baking cookies really that important to him?”

I nod and walk around the counter so that I’m face-to-face with Finn and his pectorals once again. “It isn’t the cookies themselves that make the kids happy. None of the children need any more sugar, that’s for sure. It’s the sense of normalcy they get by doing something that once brought them joy, Finn. The girls and I spend all day making cookies to share with the neighborhood and friends. It’s what we do. The boys did the same with their mother.”

“This could backfire, Bailey. They may end up missing their mom more than ever,” Finn argues.

I lift my shoulder in response. “It could, but would that really be so bad? At least, it would be fond memories they’re remembering. Or are you the one who would have trouble handling the memories? I’m sure that you loved her immensely.”

Finn inhales deeply and squares his shoulders. “Of course I did. She was always there for me and was my best friend. I just wish I had been around more for her.”

I had once thought Finn had felt that way about me. Hiding the hurt under a false bravado, I turn my back to him and say, “Then you should understand the importance of keeping her memory alive.”

“You’re not their mother, Bailey. You don’t need to do all this,” Finn says with a little bit of bite to his tone.

“You’re right, Finn. I’m not. But I can be their friend.”