29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

The knock on my office door had my fork full of salad pausing halfway to my mouth. Dammit, I was starving. It was two days before Christmas and the daycare had been hopping this week.

Silly me had assumed we would be slower, and things would be a little more chill. Instead, there had been last-minute coverage for parents who had scheduled time off but needed to get shopping done. Preferably without little prying eyes who didn’t need to learn there was no Santa just yet.

Since it was the week of Christmas we were already short-staffed, so accommodating the parents had caused some extra scrambling on my part. I had been filling in as much as possible, and some of my staff that weren’t off for the holiday had also volunteered to pick up extra hours.

No one had warned me that kids were extra excitable in the days leading up to Christmas, either. When I had mentioned it to Ryan, as we’d each nabbed one of Quinn and Lachlan’s twins off of the shelves they’d decided to climb–who knew why–Ryan had given me a shocked look, then rolled his eyes.

“Really, Wyatt?”he had said in a disbelieving voice as he’d placed Rory safely back on the ground at his feet, pointing a finger at her and giving her a you’d-better-stay-put look. “It’s the most magical week on earth. Can’t you feel the anticipation in the air? It’s Christmas magic.”

“That’s a lot of magic,” I teased, wrangling Patrick down and sitting him next to his sister.

“Well, duh,” Ryan had given me side-eye. “That’s what it’s all about. I love this time of year. I’m as excited as the kids.”

Knowing what I did about Ryan and his Daddy, that news didn’t come as much of a surprise to me.

Christmas at the Cooper penthouse apartment had never been what I would ever call magical. There were no stockings on the mantle overflowing with candy and plastic toys. There were stylish stockings that were there for ornament only, placed there by stylish interior decorators for the perfect photo op. They stayed empty on Christmas morning, since Santa didn’t exist. You received one present, always something practical, like a new sweater, and then everyone went their separate ways until the cook had dinner on the table. Another perfectly prepared photo op.

It was a cold, emotionless holiday that I never got excited for. It seemed so different than what other people spoke of, or what I had seen glimpses of on TV when I would walk through the common area in the dorms at college.

Which was why I planned for Julianna’s first Christmas–and hopefully every Christmas after–to be the exact opposite of what I had known growing up. I had let out a relieved sigh that my parents had made plans over Christmas. Last week, my mother had sent a text with their itinerary, “In case the plane goes down, dear”. I had rolled my eyes reading that. They’d be spending the holiday in warm Turks and Caicos and didn’t plan to be back in the country until well after New Year’s.

I didn’t even feel a tiny bit bad that they had yet to meet their granddaughter. Once in awhile it made me sad, but mostly on Julianna’s behalf. Then I remembered the love that Miss Rose bestowed on my daughter every time she saw her. And the warmth that had been extended to us at the Sinclair Thanksgiving.

That’s what I wanted to give my daughter. All the joy and love at the holidays that I had been denied.

Grayson had helped me pick out a tree for my house, carrying the box in for me when I had insisted I didn’t want to have to try to keep a real tree alive. We’d had fun at the big box store on the edge of town, picking out all the tree trimmings. He had pushed the cart with Julianna securely fastened, carrying on a long and lively conversation with her. Doing a play by play of everything I was picking up, examining closely, putting back, then adding to the cart.

I had even caught him going behind me, grabbing all the items I had hesitated over, before placing them back on the shelf. There were just so many choices. All different colors and patterns. Glass and plastic, big and small. And the specialty ornaments were super cute. I had wanted to get Julianna one for her first Christmas, then spent twenty minutes trying to decide if she would prefer a Disney princess, or a cute animal, or a gingerbread house.

Finally, he had quietly suggested, “Sweetheart, why don’t we just get the one that says baby’s first Christmas and she can pick one next year.”

The way the word ‘we’ had made my insides go all warm and gooey, like a chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven, should probably have disturbed me more than it did. Instead, it had just felt right. Like it–we–just naturally fit.

We’d spent hours that night stringing lights and placing ornaments on the tree. Grayson, I discovered in horror, just placed ornaments willy-nilly on the tree, in no particular order, which set my teeth on edge.

“You’re putting too many purple together,” I had let him know, moving two ornaments away from each other. “You need to mix it up.”

“Relax, sweetheart,” he had chided, while deliberately, I was sure, hanging two red ornaments next to each other, “it’s supposed to be fun. Nothing bad is going to happen if the same colors touch, Wyatt.”

Huffing, I had set about undoing the havoc he had created, but I’d been smiling each time I’d moved an ornament from where he had hung it.

Now, Ryan poked his head in my office, where I’d come to hide to eat my lunch and start getting a jump on the timecards. With the holidays, I would need to submit it to our payroll processor earlier than the usual deadline.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, eyeing my forkful of spinach and cucumber with a grimace. Ryan avoided most healthy green things like the plague. “But your parents are here to take you to lunch.”

Shocked, I swallowed air, choking. “What?” I finally wheezed, shaking off his hands that were smacking my back, trying to help ease my distress. Swallowing, I questioned again, “What?”

“I’m guessing you didn’t know they were coming?” he moved away when I waved him off with a wan smile of thanks, and a shake of my head.

“They’re supposed to be on their way to a tropical paradise. Definitely not here.”

He shrugged, grinning at Julianna who was sitting on my desk in her carrier, trying valiantly to fit her toes in her mouth. “Maybe they wanted to see Julianna before they left. And you too, of course.”

Abandoning my salad, I brushed a hand down my pants as I stood, unconsciously trying to get rid of any wrinkles. “I don’t know why they would suddenly want to see her,” I muttered, a little pissed off and honestly annoyed that they had just shown up, unannounced. “They haven’t bothered before.”

“Yikes,” Ryan looked worried, “I’m sorry. Should I not have told them that you were here?”

Shooting him a smile that probably looked more like a grimace, I unbuckled Julianna and picked her up, kissing her warm cheek before propping her on my hip. “It’s fine. I’ll see what they want and why they’re here. Are you good if I need to leave?”

Mentally, I was calculating the ratio of kids to staff we had on hand.

He nodded, “No worries, there. Lachlan just picked up the twins, and I’ll have Brendan come get Charlie. That will just leave six kids, and there’s still three staff members here. We’re covered. Go…” he hesitated, a frown between his brows, “take care of what you need to.”

Standing tall, I made my way to the main play area of the daycare. Sure enough, my parents were standing in the middle of the play floor, looking around like they had found themselves somehow transported to Mars.

“Mother, Father,” I greeted them, “what are you doing here?”

My mother sniffed, as if something was rank in the air. “Wyatt, how could you spend your inheritance on this…this….” She looked around in horror, at the colorful play mats, cubbies, toys, and kids happily playing, all supervised by my staff, “place.”

“Now, Jane,” my omega father warned her softly, “you promised.”

My mother towered over my father by a good six inches, her alpha giraffe shifter height no match for his omega gazelle shifter. And he always backed down to her. Always.

“Robert, don’t. This is not acceptable. Wyatt, I insist you stop this nonsense and come home. Major Montgomery still wants you to work on that secret project, and the military has doubled the amount they are willing to pay.”

Sighing, my father turned away, putting a few inches of distance between my mother and me.

“First, I didn’t spend my inheritance on this, Mother. I spent my own money, that I earned. Yes, Mother, I had money and projects you didn’t know about,” I tacked on smugly, and was rewarded with her hard, narrowed gaze. “I’m a genius, remember. Did you honestly think I didn’t? Second, how dare you show up here, unannounced. This is my place of business.”

Julianna, deciding she had been ignored long enough, let out an ear-piercing shriek. She’d discovered last week she could make noise just to make noise, screaming without any tears or anything actually distressing her, and it had tickled her pink. She’d spent the next two hours happily screeching her lungs off. Grayson and I were mostly used to it by now.

Her shriek got my father’s attention, and he turned back to us from where he had been taking in the daycare center, since my mother’s attention was no longer on him. He gave Julianna a small, wistful smile. I had often wondered if my father had wanted to carry more children, knowing my mother had insisted that “One is quite enough, Robert.”

Mother gave Julianna an annoyed look, waving her hand at us dismissively. “Wyatt, don’t you have people that can take that child from you. I can’t believe you actually watch other people’s children. It’s so beneath you. You are a Cooper.”

Ryan, who had been chasing after one of the kids, having heard my mother, mouthed a “Wow,” at me, and gave me a sympathetic look.

Taking a steadying breath, I closed my eyes, and slowly counted to five. “Mother, first of all I don’t have people. I have employees. And second, meet your granddaughter, Julianna. Or did you forget you even had a granddaughter?”

My father’s eyes lit up, and he stepped forward, crouching down to coo at Julianna, “Well, hello, I’ve been wanting to meet you.” Turning bright, shining eyes to me, he whispered, “She’s beautiful, Wyatt.”

I had never loved my father more than in that instant. “Thanks, Father.”

He started to say something else, but my mother cut him off, “Wyatt, that child looks nothing like you. Her eyes and hair are so dark. She can’t possibly be yours.”

Blinking at her in astonishment, I snapped, “I can assure you she is mine. I was there and had the stitches to prove it. And she looks like her alpha dad.”

“Don’t be crass, Wyatt.”

“I’m not a child, Mother. I’ll remember my manners when you remember yours.”

“All right,” my father got between the two of us, something he had never done my entire life, “let’s all settle down. It’s Christmas–”

I snorted loudly, giving my mother an arched brow when she glared at me.

“And,” my father continued, “we arranged our flights so we would have time to see you today. We leave tomorrow morning for LAX, then our flight leaves from there on the twenty-fifth. We thought we could take you to lunch, catch up this evening. Spend some time with Julianna.”

My mother tapped her foot, looking at her nails. She didn’t fool me one bit. “You wanted to see Julianna, Father. Mother wanted to try to get me to come home, and to convince me to work on the military contract. The one I’ve turned down twice already. But we can go to lunch, and you’re welcome to stay in my guest bedroom tonight.”

I was being more than generous and offering more than I wanted to. I wanted nothing more than to tell them to leave. But my father’s eyes lit up every time he looked at Julianna, and I just couldn’t take this time away from either one of them. Maybe it was what my mother would need to finally get her to see I was living my life on my own terms now.

“We’d like that very much,” Father smiled, running a hand over Julianna’s dark head of wild curls. Despite what my mother had said, those curls were all from me–with a little from Grayson’s family tree– so there was something of me in Julianna.

“Let me just grab her bag and I’ll be ready to go. You can follow me to my house and drop off your luggage, and then we can grab some lunch.” Plus, I needed a few seconds to text Grayson. His shift was over at five and he was planning on making dinner tonight for us. He was making his spaghetti bake, meatless for me, and it was yummy. My mouth watered just thinking about it and I’d been looking forward to it for days. Luckily, it made a huge pan so there would be plenty.

Me:My parents are here! This is NOT a joke! Feel free to bail on dinner tonight, if you want. I won’t hold it against you. We can grab dinner at a restaurant or something. I might need you to come rescue me later, though.

When there was no immediate answer, I figured he was on a call. He would see it when he was able and respond then. Giving Julianna a look, I kissed the top of her head.

“So, those are your grandparents. I’m just going to apologize for them now. Thank the Goddess you won’t remember their visit.”