Her cheeks were mottled, and she hiccupped, so he pulled out the chair next to her and sat down, transferring her to his lap. He smoothed a hand through her hair. “We’ve had a very busy day.” She seemed to be responding to his calm voice, so he kept up the one-sided conversation. “How about we go swimming when we’re done with dinner?”
“I swim?” She gazed up at him with watery eyes.
“Yep. You’re going to swim like a shark.”
“I a shawk.” Evvie swished her butt on his thigh.
“You sure are.”
“Go swim now.” She started to get off his lap.
He set her back in her seat and handed her a fork. “Nope. Now, we eat. Then, we swim. Sound good?”
She stabbed a cheese-covered noodle with a fork and opened her mouth wide as a plate. He nearly died with how long it took for the food to get inside, as it wavered and detoured before finally hitting her tongue. Her jaw snapped shut and she chewed dramatically. “Das good.”
“Well, you can thank Santa for it.”
She cut a shy glance toward the man in the red costume.
His dad was watching him like he didn’t recognize him. Concerned, Cole got up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You’re just so good with them.”
“Oh, well, I’ve had a few days.”
“He is, though,” Hailey said. “He’s amazing.”
“So, listen.” His dad clapped his hands. “What do you say we give the girls a Christmas to remember? We can take them to Disneyland, stay in my house in Malibu. We don’t need to worry about flights. We can just take the jet. They’ll have the time of their lives.”
Hailey reached for Cole’s arm, grinning up at him. “Well, we know where you get it from.”
His dad’s gaze locked on the touch, then slowly drifted up to Cole. A slow grin spread across his features.
Happiness spread through him, and he smiled back.Yeah. It’s like that.
“Let me call Spike,” his dad said. “So, he can make the arrangements. They’re going to love it.”
Cole didn’t even have to see Hailey’s expression to know what she was thinking. “Thanks, Dad, but we’re going for a different kind of Christmas.”
“Different how?”
“We’re giving them a simpler holiday. More focused on baking cookies and making ornaments—you know, family time.”
“I don’t have to go with you. You can take them yourselves. I’ll just set it all up. Come on, Disneyland? It’ll be magical.”
“No, if we went, we’d definitely want you there,” Hailey explained. “We just want to give them a magical Christmas at home.”
“We want them to feel safe. And right now, that means they stay here with us.” He could tell his dad didn’t get it. “They don’t need exotic locations. They don’t need Snow White. They just need us and hot chocolate and a few presents.”
“Gotcha. Okay. Let me go home and change. I’ll come back in a swimsuit and reintroduce myself.” His dad made a big show of saying goodbye to the girls, reminding them to be good, and then took off.
“I seriously can’t believe that’s Trevor Montgomery.”
“Yeah. My dad’s pretty great.” But something was off, and Cole didn’t know what it was.
She rubbed his arm. “Hey, you okay?”
“I don’t know. We might’ve hurt my dad’s feelings.”