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“You do realize how difficult it will be to keep four kids together? That’s going to be tricky. What are you going to do if you can’t find someone to take them all?”
“I’ll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about keeping them, because you need four kids like you need a hole in the head.”
He closed his menu. “Brenda, you haven’t met them. They’re pretty cool. They’re smart and fun. They keep me and Lily on our toes.”
Like yesterday, when he forgot George. Common sense reminded him that there was being challenged, and then there was being in denial. Denial to the point that he was ignoring what was best for the kids.
Then, as if she were reading his mind, she said, “Is Lily the nanny, or is she someone special?”
“She’s very special.”
He surprised himself when the thought morphed into words.
“Oh, I see.” She sounded disappointed. Her gaze searched his eyes, and he could see the wheels in her head turning.
Before he could clarify, she said, “Cullen, you do realize that basically you gave up your right to a normal family life when you took the Hippocratic oath? You’re married to your job. You’d need a live-in nanny if you adopted four kids. So don’t make me come over there and smack some sense into you.”
She smiled at him as if she had just made a joke, but he could tell by her body language that there was at least some grain of seriousness to it. That was the thing about Brenda: she had honed passive aggression into an art form.
Still, her words echoed in his head and gave him pause.
You gave up your right to a normal family life.
“Didn’t you ask me to dinner because you wanted my advice? I seem to remember you saying that.”
“Yes. Yes. I want to know everything you can tell me about working and living in Celebration. But— Look, I didn’t mean to sound like I was telling you what to do. I simply hate to see you make a mistake that might end up leaving these children worse off than they are now.”
They sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment.
And she reached out and put her hand on top of his.
“I’ll be honest. Sometimes I think leaving you was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life,” she said. “The last few months, I found myself thinking about you a lot. About us. Then when I learned of the possibility of the job right here in Celebration, I thought it had to be a sign. And you know me. I don’t believe in signs.”
What? Oh, no. They’d been there, done that, and they’d learned that the two of them were great as friends and colleagues, but terrible as a couple.
“Now that we’re settled in our careers and we’ve both been around the block a bit, maybe we could try again? I mean, we could take things slowly. If I end up taking the job here.”
He suddenly felt a little claustrophobic, as if the walls were closing in. So, this was what she wanted to pick his brain about. Living and working in Celebration with him—a minor detail that she’d forgotten to mention.
“Don’t take the Celebration Pediatrics job for me—or for us. You need to go through with the other interviews you have lined up and not make any decisions until you can compare offers and choose the one that’s best for you.”
She lifted her chin.
“Of course,” she said, but he could see the disappointment in her eyes. “It’s the sensible thing to do. Your saying that is case in point of why we would be so good together. We understand each other so well.”
Funny thing was, Cullen didn’t understand her at all. Never had, never would.
Cullen’s phone rang, and he fished it out of his pocket, wanting to see not only who was calling but the time. His gut tightened when he saw Lily’s name and number on the display.
He stood. “Excuse me. I need to take this.”
He answered as he walked toward the restrooms.
“Hi, Lily. Is everything okay?”
“Hi. I’m so sorry to bother you, but Bridget is running a fever. I brought her and the kids home early from the holiday market because she was just feeling lousy. I was going to wait until you got home to ask you about ibuprofen, but there’s no need for her to suffer like this when I can just give you a quick call.”
