A Mummy for Christmas. Cathy Thacker Gillen

and Tristan were delighted by the chance to see “their best friends in the whole wide world.” They promptly got into their jackets and raced across the frigid yards to get to Travis’s front door, where they punched the doorbell with childish vigor.

      Holly winced, imagining what that sounded like inside. “I think that’s enough, boys.”

      Travis opened the door with an amused grin. Three-year-old Mia had hold of one of his legs. Tinsel decorated her blond curls. She peeked around to greet the boys, squinting her eyes and wrinkling her nose. They did the same back, then all three burst into riotous giggles and raced off.

      “I’m coloring!” Mia shouted over her shoulder, as the tinsel she’d been wearing as a crown went every which way. “Want to color, too?”

      “Sure!” the twins enthused in unison.

      Travis stepped back to let Holly pass, and bent to pick up a few errant strands of silver. “Come on in.”

      She grabbed a couple strands, too, and handed them over to him, to be returned to the tree. “Where’s Sophie?” It was unusual for the four-year-old, self-proclaimed leader of the Baxter-Carson posse not to appear at the door, too.

      Abruptly, the light went out of his eyes. Travis pressed his lips together in parental concern. “On the sofa in the family room,” he said quietly.

      Knowing something was up, Holly stopped midstride and curved a hand around Travis’s biceps to halt his progress. That was all it took to remind her of the kisses they’d shared, and her reaction to them. Forcing herself to ignore the jolt of attraction zipping through her, she concentrated on the problem at hand.

      Her back to the breakfast room table, where the three younger kids were madly coloring, laughing and talking all at once, she asked with the bluntness of a close and trusted friend, “What’s going on? I mean, aside from the fact Sophie’s under the weather?”

      Travis held Holly’s glance, seeming relieved that she was there. “I’m not sure what’s going on with Sophie. She’s been cranky and glum all day. Part of it is her allergies—I know she’s not feeling good.” He frowned in concern. “But there’s something more bothering her, too.”

      It was frequently easier, Holly knew, for children to unburden themselves to someone other than a parent, whom they were often trying to protect. “Want me to see if I can figure out what it is?”

      “That would be great,” he told her gratefully. He strode over to the sofa, where Sophie lay curled up on the throw pillows, her favorite baby doll in her arms. He hunkered down beside her and patted her shoulder consolingly. “Holly’s here, sweetheart. So I’m going to take off.”

      Sophie’s lower lip curled out and she demanded pitifully, “I want to go to bed, Daddy.”

      “All right. I’ll get you tucked in…”

      “No! I want Holly to do it.” Sophie coughed until she could barely catch her breath. Her nose ran and her eyes watered. The little girl was clearly miserable, and Holly’s heart went out to her. “That darn cedar pollen,” Holly said sympathetically. “It gets you every year.” And it had been really stirred up by the winds the night before.

      “I know.” Sophie sniffed again and lifted her hands, signaling that she wanted to be carried.

      Travis hoisted her into his strong arms, and she dropped her head in the curve of his neck. “I want Holly to carry me,” she protested weakly.

      Travis shook his head. “You’re too heavy, sweetheart.”

      “I’ll be right behind you,” Holly promised. Sophie coughed again, harder this time, her congestion evident. “You still have a vaporizer?”

      “Yep.” Travis strode down the hall and deposited his daughter on the white trundle bed in her room. He stepped back to let Holly take over. “I’ll get it out for you.”

      She drew back the pink-and-white covers, and Sophie climbed beneath them. Holly grabbed a tissue from the container on the bedside table and gently wiped the moisture from beneath the child’s nose.

      “You always make me feel better.” Sophie flashed a wan smile.

      “Being around you always makes me feel better,

      too,” she said with a burst of maternal love. She tucked the covers around the little girl.

      Travis came back in carrying the vaporizer, he set it atop the bureau and plugged it in. The muted sound of the motor and a whoosh of cool moist air immediately followed. “That’s going to help you feel better,” he promised. Then he looked at Sophie. “Anything else you want me to get you while I’m at the drugstore?”

      “No.” His daughter snuggled next to Holly and held her hand tightly. “I have a mommy to make me feel better. That’s all I need, Daddy.”

      SOPHIE’S WORDS WERE LIKE a blow to Travis’s heart, bringing up every anxiety he had ever had about parenting his two little girls on his own. From the look in her eyes, Holly seemed equally taken aback, unsure what to say. Because he had no clue, either, Travis simply nodded in understanding and headed off for the pharmacy.

      When he returned twenty minutes later, medicine in hand, the younger kids were still coloring, laughing and talking. Holly was upstairs with Sophie, propped against the headboard, reading to his daughter.

      And while his little girl still looked physically miserable, emotionally she was much better off. Feeling a bit frustrated that he hadn’t been able to reassure her himself, Travis measured the medicine in the little plastic cup, stood by while she drank it, then handed her the juice box chaser that would kill the yucky taste of the antihistamine decongestant mix.

      “Can Holly spend the night with us?” Sophie asked.

      “No, honey, I can’t,” she said, keeping her glance averted from his. “But I can stay a little longer this afternoon if it’s okay with your daddy.”

      “It’s great with me,” he agreed, letting his tone tell Holly how much he appreciated her being there, since she still wouldn’t look him in the eye. Probably because she was afraid she’d give too much away if she did. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” he said.

      Both of them nodded. Judging by the silence that followed, he would barely be missed.

      A half hour later, Holly came downstairs and said hello to the kids, who were now congregated in the family room, busily rearranging all the kid-safe decorations on the lower limbs of the Christmas tree.

      She moseyed over to the kitchen, where Travis was sitting. “You doing okay?” she asked softly.