Page 43 of Single Dad's Christmas Cookie

“I love that you got me lunch. I’m sorry I messed up your surprise.”

“Have you had lunch?” I asked. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m too cold to be hungry. But now that you’ve mentioned it, I should probably eat something. I’ll heat up some soup when we get to the house.”

“I’ll heat up some soup. You are going to get warm,” I reminded her.

“Do you even know how to heat up soup?” she teased.

“Amelia can always show me how to use the microwave.”

19

NOVA

Isat curled up on the couch.

Bryan crouched down in front of the fire, poking at it. It was not quite roaring to life the way I think he had expected it to. He set the poker carefully into the rack and turned to me. “How are your toes?”

My toes were protected up under me and in a thick pair of his wooly socks.

“My toes are nice and warm,” I said.

He had been asking me about my toes from the very moment he carried me from my car to his. I was more concerned with his back, or having him rupture a hernia. I wasn’t a lightweight, but he moved me without any problems. He even insisted on carrying me inside when we had arrived at the house.

“Get your shoes and socks off!” he ordered after he set me down on a chair.

He ran into the house, his coat still on.

“Amelia, can you help?” I held out my coat sleeve to her the same way she did for me to help her take her coat off. Once she pulled my coat off, I helped her.

“Why are your boots still on your feet? I thought I told you to get those off immediately.” Bryan stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his arms full of thick gray sweats and a folded up pair of socks in his fist.

“Let me look at your feet.” The tone of his voice was very clear that I was not to argue.

“You do not need to see my feet,” I responded as I pulled off one boot, and then the other.

He held out the socks. “Put these on. Stop being so weird, Nova,” he said in a calm, even tone. “I need to see if your toes are okay.”

“My toes are perfectly fine.” I was tempted to shove my foot under his nose and wiggle my toes at him, but instead, I tucked them under the chair I was sitting on, hiding them from his view.

“Amelia is right there,” I said under my breath, cutting my glance to where his daughter was wrestling with our coats.

Bryan just shook his head before crossing the room and helping Amelia. “Fine. I won’t look. Are your toes pink or white?”

“That’s a stupid question. They’re skin colored,” I snarked.

“And what color is the skin, Nova, pink or white?”

My toes were actually starting to get itchy as the feeling was coming back into them. I pulled off the damp socks. I looked down at my toes.

“Oh, my God, they’re bright pink,” I said. I stared at my toes and wiggled them around, wondering why they were such a lurid color. “I look like a boiled lobster. That can’t be good. Can it?”

“Bright pink is good,” Bryan said.

“Are you sure? These don’t look right.” I held out my foot and wiggled my toes. The whole foot was bright pink and the prickly, itchy feeling started to feel more like a burning sensation.

He returned to where I sat and kneeled down in front of me, cupping my heel and pulling my foot forward until he rested it on his thigh. He rubbed his hands over the tops of my feet. “Pink is good. It means you don’t have frostbite.”

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