Chapter 8
ARRO
LAST CHRISTMAS
My chest ached with a longing I was well familiar with as I watched Mac with the kids. He worked with them at my kitchen table, helping them roll the cookie dough and cut out shapes with Christmas cookie cutters. Mac had flour in his hair, even some in the scruff on his cheeks.
“Look, Uncle Mac, I did it purrrfectly!” Eilidh raised her arms in a wide V of triumph.
Mac looked down at the wobbly Christmas tree cookie and grinned. “So you did.” His attention moved to Lewis, methodically cutting out snowman-shaped cookies. “Looking good, Lew.”
Lewis gave him a small smile. “Can I make him blue?”
My lips twitched.
“Well, he is made of snow, and people tend to turn blue when they’re cold, so I don’t see why not.”
I chuckled, drawing Mac’s gaze, and he flashed that sexy grin at me.
“Am I wrong?”
“No.” I smiled so hard, my cheeks hurt.
I’d been like this since Thane dropped off the kids.
It was our tradition that Eilidh and Lewis spent the first weekend in December with me baking cookies, putting up decorations, and watching Christmas movies.
This year was different, however, because only days ago, some drunk, grief-stricken bastard (and he was a bastard no matter his circumstances) had tried to kidnap Eilidh outside the school.
Thanks to Regan and other parents, Sean McClintock (said bastard) was apprehended.
But he’d hit Regan and terrified my niece and nephew.
For that reason, Thane was reluctant to let the kids out of his sight while McClintock was out on bail.
He’d only agreed to let them stay once I volunteered Mac to be here with us and sleep on the couch.
As I knew he would, Mac had said it was no problem.
Watching him put up the Christmas tree, laughing with the kids, his unending patience with them as they helped bake and decorate cookies, I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering. The fantasy that unfolded in my head of a future of Christmases together with our own kids.
Mackennon never talked about wanting more children, but I knew of men who hadn’t become fathers until they were in their forties.
Lachlan would be one of them if Robyn fell pregnant in the future.
There was still time. And I knew I wanted kids.
I’d known it from the first moment Thane placed newborn Lewis in my arms. I knew it the first time he called me Aunt Arro.
But there was only one man I wanted those children with.
I wanted that future with Mac so badly, it was a physical ache.
“Can we watch Nightmare of Christmas now?” Eilidh asked suddenly.
“It’s The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Lewis corrected her.
“No, your dad doesn’t want you watching it,” Mac replied before I could.
Disgruntled, I placed their cutout cookies on the tray. I wanted to share one of my favorite Christmas movies with the kids, but Thane thought it was too scary for Eilidh. “We’ll watch The Christmas Chronicles instead.”
“But we watched that last year,” she said, pouting.
I smiled as I slid the tray into the oven and set the timer. “That’s the point, sweetheart. You rewatch your favorite Christmas films every year.”
“I wanna watch Elf, then!”
“We watched Elf yesterday,” Lewis grumbled and turned to me. “Please, Aunt Arro, I don’t want to watch it again.”
I nodded and walked around the table to my niece. “We’ll watch something everyone wants to watch, okay?”
She nodded rapidly. “Uncle Mac gets to choose, too, then.”
Mac grinned at her. “Thanks, darlin’.”
“Whatcha wanna watch?”
“What do you want to watch?” His lips twitched.
“Uh … Frozen!”
Lewis scowled. “That’s not a Christmas movie.”
“Is so!”
“Is not!”
“Is so!”
“Okay,” I raised my voice a little and held out a hand to both of them. “There will be no Christmas movie or cookie decorating if you’re going to argue.”
“Here’s what we’ll do.” Mac stood, towering over us in the kitchen like the big, friendly bodyguard he was.
“We’ll each choose a film we’d like to watch, we’ll write them down on a wee bit of paper, mix them up in a bowl, and then Aunt Arro will choose a paper from it.
Whichever film is written on it is the first film we watch. Plan?”
The kids nodded, happy with that solution.
Me? I inappropriately wanted to jump the man.
In the end, we watched Frozen and Frozen II.
Lewis didn’t complain. He was just as engrossed in the movies, even though he’d seen them a million times.
Eilidh sang along to the songs. We paused to decorate the cookies, and I’d allowed them a few each before putting the rest away.
They’d then changed into their Christmas pjs (I had too—it was part of the deal) before we returned to watch the films, each with a mug of hot chocolate.
The kids fell asleep before the second movie finished.
Mac lifted Lewis into his arms, and I followed with Eilidh into the guest room. Neither of the kids woke up as we tiptoed out, closing the door just enough to allow in a crack of light from the hallway.
“Thane will be mad I didn’t brush their teeth,” I whispered as we walked away.
“It’s just this once,” Mac assured me. “Make sure they scrub them in the morning.”
“Coffee?” I asked as he followed me into the kitchen.
“You got decaf?”
“Of course.”
I set about making us both a cup of decaf, but I could sense his attention. Glancing over my shoulder as I filled the machine with water, I caught Mac looking at my arse.
Once upon a time, he would have looked away, irritated to have been caught checking me out, but now he raised his eyes to mine and asked gruffly, “What the hell are you wearing?”
Earlier that night, when I’d appeared from my bedroom dressed in a Christmas onesie, I’d delighted at the thorough once-over Mac had given me.
I hadn’t bought the onesie with anything but my Christmas weekend with the kids in mind, but feeling his eyes on me, I felt rather smug about the purchase.
It was red and white with reindeer printed on it, and it clung to every inch of my body.
“It’s a onesie.” I bit back a smile as I put the machine on its base and settled the decaf pod within.
“I thought a onesie was supposed to be oversized. This one doesn’t leave much to the imagination.”
It was rather a sexy onesie, though that hadn’t been my intent. I looked over my shoulder again. His dark eyes glinted with more than a hint of desire. My skin tingled and my stomach flipped, low, deep. “Then you must have a dirty imagination because I’m barely showing any skin.”
Mac swallowed hard, and to my frustration, looked away. “I meant the style of it.”
Staring back at the coffee machine, I reined in my impatience. “I know what you meant.”
Hearing movement, I turned to watch him walk into the living room and sighed heavily.
A few minutes later, I followed with mugs in hand, enjoying the glow of the Christmas tree lights. We’d switched off all other lamps in the living room and put on the fire, and what had been cozy for the kids was now something a wee bit more intimate for me and Mac.
I piled blankets and pillows on the armchair for him to use for sleeping. He was on the sofa, staring broodingly into the fire.
“Thanks again,” I said, handing him a mug as I snuggled into his side.
He raised an eyebrow at my proximity but merely asked, “For what?”
“For sleeping on my bloody uncomfortable couch just so I could have my weekend with the kids.”
“You know I don’t mind.”
Our gazes held for a second, and then we both took a sip of coffee.
“Even after watching Frozen and Frozen II?” I teased.
Mac chuckled softly. “Ach, it reminds me of when Robyn was wee. I was the one who took her to see all the latest Disney films because Stacey hated going to the movies.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Who hates going to the cinema?”
“She did. Claustrophobic.”
“Ah. That’s a bit shit for her,” I said reluctantly.
Even though I’d never met the woman, I wasn’t a fan.
I now knew that Mac had tried for years to contact Robyn, had sent letters and gifts.
He’d even sent gifts to Regan. Stacey had returned all of them and hadn’t told Robyn.
When Mac showed Robyn all the returned letters, it went a long way toward helping mend their relationship.
I think that’s all she’d really wanted—to know he loved her.
Funny how we had that in common.
“Finished?” I asked after a while, nodding to his mug.
He handed it to me, and I got up to dump the mugs in the sink. When I came back, Mac still stared into the fire, but he looked a little more relaxed than before.
When I sat back down, I made sure our bodies touched.
He flicked me a dark look. “There’s a whole lot of couch here, you know.”
My lips twitched with amusement. Sometimes with Mac, I felt like a naughty rogue trying to seduce an innocent maiden. “I enjoy being near you. How are your wounds?”
He raised an eyebrow at the subject change, but shrugged. “It’s been months. They’re all healed up.”
“Let me see.” I reached for the hem of his shirt before he could protest and slid it up his torso. Mac sucked in a breath. For once, I wasn’t distracted by his well-formed abs.
All I could see were the white scars. Three of them, clustered together.
Fury filled me at the thought of Fergus.
He’d been Brodan’s closest friend at school.
Then, when I was sixteen, he noticed me.
I thought he was cute and kind, and I liked that an older guy was interested in me.
My brothers, except for Lachlan, who was in Hollywood, were at university.
Brodan was no longer there to keep an eye on Fergus, and my dad was clueless about what I got up to.
I was lonely. And Fergus was this handsome, twenty-year-old my brothers all liked.
It never even occurred to me he shouldn’t have been taking an interest.