Merry Christmas, Babies. Tara Quinn Taylor

      “Then face facts,” Joe said. “You’re taking a huge risk being here alone. And I have absolutely nothing at my condo that won’t do just fine without me for the next several months.”

      That was an understatement. She’d bought him a kitten once—he gave it to one of his sisters. She and everyone in the office had bought him a fish tank for Christmas the following year. He’d let Kelly take it in the divorce. She’d bought him plants—he’d left them at the office for her to water.

      “I know your habits,” he continued. “And that’s half the battle of living with someone. You’re an early riser, you don’t stay up past eleven and you hate having the news on right before bedtime.”

      Elise’s surprise must have shown on her face because he said, “You’re at work before the cleaning crew. If I call you past eleven you’re asleep and one time when Kelly and I were over for dinner, the two of you talked about watching the shopping network at night because it put you to sleep.”

      Elise remembered Kelly had started the conversation by enlisting her help in a battle for the bedroom TV, claiming that Joe insisted on having the news on but always fell asleep as soon as it started, leaving her to lie there in the dark and hear all kinds of horrid things.

      “You don’t like pizza for breakfast,” he said with a completely straight face. “You eat frozen dinners, but prefer salad, and you’d rather stay in than go out at night.”

      Not really. But when you were a woman alone…

      “It would make most sense if we eat together when we’re both here,” he said now. “We could share grocery costs, cooking and cleanup. But if you’d rather not, I’m okay with that, too.”

      “No, that’s fine,” she said, slightly woozy again as she filled in the pause he’d left.

      “I’ll pay half the utilities. Personal incidentals we’ll buy separately.”

      “Right.”

      “If you show me which room I’ll be using, I’ll go home and pack and get moved in by tonight.”

      He really meant to do this.

      “Joe.” She reached out and grabbed the material of his shorts as he turned to head for the formal dining room and the short hall off from there that led to two of the three bedrooms. The third, hers, was directly off the dining room. “We can’t do this. You can’t move in here.”

      “I already have,” he said. “I just haven’t brought my stuff over yet. Now which room would you like me to use?”

      It was impossible to argue with Joe when he was like this—especially when she was coming off an entire night of nausea and vomiting. At the moment, he made a doom-impending sort of sense.

      He made it to the hallway before she did and had already figured out which of the two extra bedrooms he’d use. The largest had four sandalwood cribs and two white, pink and blue dressers. Darin was sleeping on top of one of the dressers. Samantha was nowhere in sight.

      “I’ll switch with you,” Elise blurted, coming into the smaller room behind him. “Once the babies come, if you’re still here, I’ll need to be next to them.”

      He looked as if he was going to argue that, too.

      “Plus, I’ll be closer to the bathroom.”

      One of the few downsides to owning the older home. She and Joe were going to be sharing the one bathroom.

      And, she was afraid, much, much more than that.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      JOE INTENDED TO BRING one suitcase—a couple of changes of clothes, some toiletries, shorts to sleep in. It wasn’t as if he was leaving town or wouldn’t have access to his condo every single day. The cell phone charger on his nightstand reminded him that he’d need it to charge the technological wonder every night while he slept so it would be up and running by morning. And there was the book next to it, the one he’d been reading each night for the past week. He was almost through with it and so added it, along with the next in the stack, to the to-go pile on his bed.

      Back and forth to the bathroom a time or two and he’d collected various other necessities such as aspirin and mentholyptic muscle rub for the occasional aches and pains during the night. He wasn’t going to use Elise’s personal care items and there was no reason to buy a second set of everything when he had a perfectly good set of his own.

      And for that matter, he replaced the travel-size shampoo and shaving-cream containers with the full-size ones in his shower. No point in purchasing more of them, either.

      His miniature DVD player landed on the bed—never knew when he’d feel a hankering for a shoot ’em up action movie. He tossed a couple of his favorites on top of the stack. Grabbed a lint brush to deal with her cats’ hair. And headed out to the garage for a bigger bag. Or two.

      ELISE WENT ABOUT the rest of her day the same as usual. By the time she was showered—having taken extra minutes to remove the decorative towels on the second rack in the big bathroom and replace them with a usable set for Joe, scrub the toilet and the tub, throw the rug in the wash, scour the sink and put all her essentials away in drawers and cabinets—both the crib sheets and the changing table had arrived as promised and were waiting in brown-paper-wrapped packages on the small porch connected to her side door.