Page 21 of Santa Baby Maybe
“I told you, I’m not searching for love. I’m searching for a wife. And having a damn hard time of it.”
“Why in such a rush? It can’t just be about your thirtieth birthday. It’s not like your biological clock is ticking.”
She sat on the edge of my desk and for some reason it distracted me. She was wearing a loose sweater that fell to her hips and draped all around her. Pants and boots today, instead of a skirt, no doubt because the temperature had dropped significantly over the last few days. The way she was perched on my desk in those pants, I realized I could see her ass for the first time.
Her plump, round bottom in pants that actually fit her.
I cleared my throat. “You know there is a chair there.”
She got the message and moved from my desk to the chair. “Afraid I was going to alter the contents of your desk with my butt?”
No, I was more afraid of her butt in general and thinking about what it might look like without the pants.
“So tell me. I want to know. Why are you trying so hard now to find Mrs. Darling?”
“Because I want it all,” I said with huffed laugh. “From the time I was eighteen and knew what the Army could do for me, I wanted everything. My college degree, a job with a big, fancy office. A nice car. A really nice house with a backyard and plenty of space for the kids to play. Well, I have the degree, the job, the office, and the car. Now I need a wife to complete the rest of the picture.”
“Fair enough. That’s a nice image by the way. A house with a big backyard.”
“Did you have that growing up?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It was just me and my dad. I lost my mom to cancer when I was five. Anyway, we mostly stayed in base housing. It was fine, just not…I don’t know, it was never really homey. We moved around a lot so I knew not to spend any time getting attached to things. Dad didn’t like any kind of clutter. As he used to tell me all the time, he liked to keep us mean and lean.”
“Did mean and lean include Christmas ornaments for your tree?” I had a hunch the answer was no.
She smiled sadly. “You’re more intuitive than I thought. No. No ornaments. And yes, that’s probably the reason I got into making them. I told myself someday I would have all the ornaments I wanted. When I fell in love with glass blowing, making them for myself just made sense. Then I found out I could actually make money from it and bam! I’ve got the best job ever.”
“Do you want the image?” I asked suddenly. “The house, the kids. The husband.”
She frowned and it made my gut tight. Like suddenly her answer was super important. “I’m a little afraid. To be honest.”
“What? What are you afraid of?” I pressed.
Because I was. I was desperately afraid of some of the things I wanted.
“I’m afraid I won’t really know how to be a good mom. I won’t know what to do or how to be because I didn’t have it growing up. I mean, maybe it’s instinctual. Maybe it will just come naturally. But what if it doesn’t?”
“There are books you can read,” I said quickly. Too quickly. Because when she looked at me, she could see it. My fear that I also wouldn’t know how to be a good parent.
“W.B….”
“I told you, you could call me Dare.” It was what I wanted her to call me.
“Why Dare?”
“It’s short for Darling. It’s what my buddies in the Army started calling me and it stuck.”
“Okay, but why not just call you by your name? What does W.B. stand for?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t stand for anything. That’s my name. Legally.”
“Come on, the initials have to be for some names. Your mother didn’t name you W.B.”
“Nope,” I said. “Subject closed.”
“Oh, I get it. They do stand for something, but obviously not a name you care for. So not William. That would be fairly normal. What about Wilber? Wilber Bubba.”
I glared at her.
