AllFreeNovel
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Wrong.
Well, not so much wrong as more complicated than he’d expected. Starting with what they’d wear to school the next day. Apparently, his routine of rolling out of bed and throwing something on was not an option. No, Emme and Wren needed to have their outfit picked and laid out the night before.
At first, Chace didn’t get it, but after fifteen minutes of his nieces rummaging through their closets and dresser drawers, selecting and rejecting item after item, he understood completely. If they waited till the morning to do this, they’d never make it to school on time.
“I think I’ll wear this,” Wren finally declared from inside the closet.
Chace was relieved until she emerged with a ballerina leotard, rainbow-colored tutu, and ballet flats that looked much smaller than she actually wore. Before he could devise a tactful way to steer her toward another more suitable selection, Emme intervened. “You can’t wear that anymore. Mommy said.”
Ah, trying to get one over on the newbie, huh? Clever. And something he would have definitely tried at their age. Or even now for that matter.
Just when Chace thought he’d dodged the bullet of eighty-sixing Wren’s choice, the little minx decided to throw shit into the game by countering with, “Mommy said Uncle Chace and Aunt Holly are in charge while she’s away, and what they say goes.”
Then she turned puppy-dog eyes on him. “Can I please wear this to school tomorrow, Uncle Chace?”
Fu…dge, he amended his unspoken reaction to Wren’s counter-move to a more G-rated version. Now what? Like his nieces had done with over a dozen outfits, Chace considered and rejected several possible responses, finally settling on, “Wouldn’t you rather wear something more Christmassy?”
Please say yes.
“No.”
Da…ng it!“Well, if your mom said you can’t wear it anymore, I don’t think I should say you can. Do you?”
Her little face fell.
“Plus, it’swaytoo small,” Emme put in her two cents, emphasis clearly on the wordway.
“I bet Aunt Holly would let me wear it,” Wren countered, sticking her bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout.
“Then I’m afraid you’d lose,” Holly disputed from the doorway.
Though he wanted to pull his weight with the twins’ care, relief oozed out of every cell in Chace’s body at the sound of Holly’s voice. Wren stomped her foot in obvious frustration.Sorry, little girl.
And he was, because the next to last thing Chace wanted to do was disappoint either of his nieces. But allthiswas uncharted territory for him, and the last thing he wanted to do was to screw anything up.
Which was a real possibility, considering his nieces seemed to immediately home in on his experience in the child-rearing department, one of them without giving a second thought to taking full advantage of his ignorance. Not that Chace could blame them. At their age, he’d have done the same thing.
Hell, who was he kidding? If it worked to his benefit, he would do it now. As would his sister, making Chace wonder if cleverness in adapting a situation in one’s favor was a Dutton family trait.
“You have five minutes to get all these clothes put back where they belong and have suitable outfits laid out for tomorrow, including shoes and accessories,” Holly instructed, her tone firm and brooking no discussion on the matter.
As the girls hurried to do as instructed, Holly stalked across the room to pull clean pajamas and underwear from the dresser. She shoved them into Chace’s chest. “Take these into the bathroom for their shower. The towels and wash cloths are in the closet.”
“But we were going to take a bath,” Emme protested, producing a pout that rivaled her sister’s.
“And if you hadn’t wasted valuable time trying to outwit your uncle, you could have,” she countered, casting a look in his direction that saidsuckerloud and clear.
Chace resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at Holly. Instead, he also did as he was told. And in less than the five minutes they’d been allotted, Emme and Wren tromped into the bathroom with Holly on their heels.
Pulling back the curtain, she adjusted the shower knobs for the correct temperature setting and turned on the spray. “They’ve got it from here,” she said to Chace before turning to address the twins. “Five minutes,” she reminded them. “And once you’re finished, what do you do?”
“Turn off the water.”
“And?”
“Dry off.”
“And?”
