“Well, hello there yourself. You taste like…chocolate.”
There were enough lights on our house to light up a street so I could plainly see the flush rising up his neck. “I had to pick up a few last-minute presents. Faith and I had a date at the diner.”
“You had Greta’s chocolate cream pie, didn’t you?”
He held up a finger. “I did. But…” He leaned back into the SUV and pulled out a bag. “I brought a whole pie home for Christmas.”
“Okay. Forgiven.” I took the bag and peeked inside. “Anything else for me in there?”
“Different bag and not until tomorrow.”
“Mean.”
He grinned at me. Then the piercing scream of our daughter tried to shatter glass. He crossed his eyes and put his other bags down. He opened the door to the backseat. “Faith Mistletoe MacGregor, what is your malfunction?”
I laughed and peeked around the window to wiggle my fingers at Faith. “Hello, love. Are you giving your daddy trouble?”
“Only because she’s not the center of attention for five seconds.”
Faith giggled and grabbed Cal’s beard.
“Ouch.” He untwisted her fingers and finally got the five point harness undone. Just like a champ, he had her swaddled into the blanket we always kept in the car. Coats and carseats didn’t work anymore with all the new laws.
I flipped back the edge of the blanket so she could see me. “Boo.”
Faith’s laugh bubbled out along with some drool. I had a feeling teething was going to be in our future sooner rather than later. Cal hiked her onto his shoulder and grabbed her bag, handing it off to me.
Weighed down with all our bags, we trudged up to the front steps.
“What’s this?” He pointed at the insulated container on the porch.
“Nothing.”
“Hmm.” He gave me a narrow-eyed look and opened the door for me.
Before I could get through the door, he gave me a quick, hot kiss.
He glanced up at the mistletoe.
“That’s new.” I couldn’t stop the smile even as Faith howled out her disgust at being bundled up.
“Okay, okay. I’m moving as fast as I can.” We headed inside and Cal whipped off her blanket and slung it on the couch. “I may have put a few decorations up.”
I automatically picked up the blanket and folded it. “We have decorations everywhere.”
“Yeah, just a few.” He bounced Faith a few times to get her giggling again as he undid her sweater.
I glanced at the archways to each room from the foyer. There were lit up bows of evergreen tacked up with a little dangling bit of mistletoe for each. “Really?”
“What? It’s the Christmas spirit.”
“You don’t need an excuse to kiss me, sir.”
“No, but I don’t mind the extra bonus kisses.” He picked up two of the shopping bags and dropped them by the tree.
I followed, picking up the baby things he’d left laying around. Before we got into the kitchen, he swung me around into his arms with Faith. He planted a kiss on Faith’s ruddy cheeks then one on my laughing mouth.
“Did you eat?” He went right for the fridge and took out a bottle for Faith. We had a nice schedule down for her, and it seemed to help her sleeping habits.