Page 103 of Not Your Average Vixen
She waved the children in. “Well, a few days before Christmas, when my sister and I weren’t much older than the two of you, Lori and I went looking for snow angels. And guess what?”
“What?” Carly asked on a bated breath.
“We found one.”
“You did?” Cole whispered as Soren gave a skeptical harrumph. But she ignored hisbah humbuggery.
“We didn’t see the fairy when we found the snow angel. We were too late. But she’d left us something.”
“What was it?” Carly asked, twisting the covers in anticipation.
Bridget lowered her voice. “Two candy canes. One on each wing.”
“One for you and one for Aunt Lori?” Carly asked.
“Yes, and they were the sweetest, most pepperminty candy canes we’d ever tasted.”
“Wow!” Cole breathed, grinning ear to ear.
A warmth filled her chest, imagining her mother and father making the snow angel, leaving the treats, then using a shovel to smooth out the tracks around the make-believe fairy’s creation.
She tapped Carly’s nose, then Cole’s. “And with that, it’s bedtime. Sweet dreams.”
“Will you make me a Scooter burrito?” Carly asked, reaching out to the somber man on the other side of the bed.
Soren glanced at her, then to the girl. “Sure, Carly. One Scooter burrito coming up.”
“With the sound effects, please,” Carly requested, wiggling with excitement.
The man shook his head as the hint of a smile appeared on his lips. “You got it.”
Soren vroomed as he tucked the blanket around the little girl like a race car or, in his case, a scooter. It was sweet—a counter to the gruff, growly man who’d met her at the chapel.
“Cole, do you want a Scooter burrito tuck-in, too?” he asked, patting the boy’s leg.
“Not tonight,” the child answered, adjusting his glasses.
“Would you like me to set those on the side table for you?” she asked.
Cole stopped playing with his bright red glasses. “No, I’ll do it by myself in a minute. I have one more question about fairies, though.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Is a pixie a fairy,” he asked with a serious expression.
She nodded. “Yes, a pixie is very much like a fairy.”
“All right, Abbott kids. Eyes closed,” Soren said, ending the fairy talk and switching off the light.
She went to the door and stood next to him. “We’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”
“Okay, Aunt Birdie. I mean, just Birdie,” Carly said through a yawn.
She glanced at Soren, expecting to find the silly, sweet uncle who just made vroom sounds, but found him frowning. The Aunt Birdie slip of the tongue most likely the culprit. They stepped into the hall but left the door to the children’s room open a crack.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said, striding down the corridor a step ahead of her.
She followed him into the kitchen about done with his lightning-fast personality shifts.
