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“I don’t know. Over the years I’ve always taken care of kids, and I’ve picked up things here and there.”
Jace held up a lumpy figure. “Aunt Charlie, this is you. Do you like it? Your hair is blue because there wasn’t any brown play dough.” His blond brows creased as he awaited her verdict.
“I love it. I’ve always thought it would be fun to have blue hair.”
Jace smiled with satisfaction.
“It looks just like you,” Josh joked. Charlie whacked him in the arm with her fist.
“Aunt Charlie, are Micah and Ellis your babies?”
“No. They’re my brothers.”
“Really? But you’re so old!”
She laughed, “Yes, I’m very old. I’m twenty-five. But we have the same mom. You’ll meet her on the ski trip. You’ll like her, and she’s gonna love meeting you.”
“She will? Why?”
“Because Ellis and Micah are her first boys, so she doesn’t know anything about little boys. You’ll be able to teach her all sorts of things about what little boys like. You won’t mind helping her, will you?”
“No. I’ll teach her everything I know,” he pledged with a serious tone. “Hey, Aunt Charlie? Do you have any kids?”
“No. I’m not married. I don’t have any of my own kids, so I only get to play with other people’s kids. That’s why it’s nice your Uncle Josh is sharing you and Chloe with me.”
“So why don’t you want to marry Uncle Josh, then? I wouldn’t mind being your kid. And Chloe likes you, too.”
Josh felt the blood rush to his face. Charlie’s cheeks were bright red as she quickly answered, “I’m sure I can still play with you after Uncle Josh and Aunt Olivia get married.”
Jace frowned. “But Uncle Josh said—”
“Time to go,” Josh interrupted, hurrying to grab Chloe’s diaper bag. Charlie scurried around as well, quickly packing some homemade cookies for Jace to take home.
“But I wasn’t finished with my turtle,” Jace complained.
“No problem,” Charlie said, placing a large quantity of green play dough in a zip-lock bag and handing it to Jace.
“Thanks, Charlie,” Josh said as he escaped out the door with Chloe. “Come on, Jace. We’ve got to go.”
“I’m coming.” Jace’s lower lip was pushed out. On his way out the door, he tugged on Charlie’s arm and when she bent over, whispered something in her ear, at which her face flushed again.
In the elevator, Josh asked warily, “What did you say to Aunt Charlie?”
“Nothing,” he said, lifting his chin and clamping his lips shut.
GRACE HUGGED EMILY when she opened the door. “Thanks, for having me over for dinner. Brad’s pulling a double shift to make up for having so much time off. Hey Big Brother.” Though she stood on tiptoe, Spencer still had to stoop to give her a hug.
“You don’t have to teach at all this week?” he asked.
“No, we go
t a sub for the whole time instead of me coming back for two days before the Christmas break. So I’m off until school starts again in January.”
Emily said, “We looked at the twenty pictures you put up from the honeymoon trip. Surely you’ve got more.”
“Yeah, Brad went crazy with his new camera. We have about a thousand,” she chuckled. “Now he’s editing, so who knows how long it will take to go through all of them.”
“I made your favorite for dinner,” said Spencer. “Fried chicken strips and baked sweet potato chips.”
