One Mistletoe Wish. A.C. Arthur
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in a way that would make her stop looking at him with such sincere inquisitiveness. It was the strangest thought he’d ever had, especially since Gray wasn’t known to get caught up in anyone’s emotions about anything.
He was the strongest of the Taylor sextuplets, the first one to be born on that humid July evening thirty years ago. His brothers and sisters all shared his birthday, but none of them had ever shared the weight of being the first baby born of the first set of multiples in the town of Temptation. That had been his title for the first seven years of his life—“the first born of the first Temptation sextuplets.” The Taylors of Temptation was what they’d named the reality show that featured his parents as they brought home their six bundles of joy and lived in the huge blue-and-white Victorian with the river at its back. As Gray recalled, the show would have been more aptly named if it had been called Terror of the Taylors instead.
“Do you like Christmas?”
He was yanked from his thoughts by the soft voice of the little girl who had been sneaking glances at him. Her hair was dark and long, brushing past her shoulders with red bows at the end of each ponytail. She wore jeans and a red-and-white striped sweater. Her boots had black-and-white polka dots.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Do you like Christmas?”
She nodded and said, “Yes. I do. So does my mother.”
As she said those words Gray nodded. “Is your mother up there directing the play?”
“Yes. Her name is Morgan Hill. She’s a teacher, too.”
“You’re not supposed to talk to strangers,” a little boy said as he came up beside the girl and pulled on her arm.
She jerked away. “He’s not a stranger. His name is Grayson Taylor and he owns this building.”
Gray didn’t like the stoic way in which she’d mimicked his previous words.
“We don’t know him, so he’s a stranger,” the boy, who looked a little like the girl, said. “I’m gonna tell Mama.”
Gray almost smiled, but he felt his forehead drawing into a frown instead. Twins?
“No need to tell,” he declared. “How about we all go up front and sit with your mother? That way she’ll know where you both are.”
It would also give Gray a chance to ask a few questions about the building. From the looks of the outside, he didn’t think he’d get much for the building itself, but the land might be worth something. Between the sale of this building, the hospital and the house, the total should be a good chunk to split between the six of them. Not that Gray needed the money. His vision and the talented people he’d hired to work at Gray Technologies had made him a rich man years ago. No, any money that came from the properties would be what the Taylor sextuplets thought of as their father’s payment for destroying their lives all those years ago.
“Mama, he wants to sit with you,” the little girl said when they’d come to a stop next to the chair where her mother sat.
Morgan looked up from her clipboard and then hastily stood. “Oh, I apologize,” she said. “I hope they weren’t bothering you.”
Now it was Gray’s turn to simply stare. She was very pretty, he thought, as if he hadn’t noticed that before. Her skin was smooth and unmarred by any cosmetics. Gray was used to seeing more glamorous women, from the ones he worked with to the ones trying to get into his bed. High heels, tight dresses, heavily made-up faces and beaming smiles—that’s what he was used to.
Morgan was looking at him like she couldn’t decide whether to curse him out or be cordial to him. The look, coupled with the stubborn lift of her chin and the set of her shoulders, tugged at something deep inside him. Glancing away was not an option.
“He doesn’t know if he likes Christmas, Mama,” the little girl said.
“She’s always telling,” the boy added with a shake of his head.
“Hush,” Morgan told them.
“Ms. Hill! Ms. Hill! Ethan forgot what to say,” another child’s voice exclaimed.
“I did not! I’m imposizing. That’s what actors do,” the boy in the white wig—who Gray now knew was named Ethan—argued.
“The word is improvising, Ethan, and I’d prefer if you just repeated what’s written in the script,” Morgan replied.
She’d moved quickly, heading to the stage where the two arguing children stood. She spoke in a voice that was much calmer than he suspected she was feeling. She guided the children to where she wanted them to stand on the stage and spoke the lines she wanted them to repeat, all while Ethan looked as if he had other, more exciting things to do.
“He thinks he knows everything,” the little girl told Gray.
She’d scooted onto one of the chairs by then.
“Be quiet, Lily. Mama’s gonna show Ethan who’s the boss,” the boy told her.
“I think he’s the boss,” Lily said to her brother and they both looked up to Gray.
He was just about to speak—to say what, Gray wasn’t totally sure—when the lights suddenly went out. Screams were immediate and should have been expected since Gray didn’t think there was anyone in this room over the age of six or seven, besides him and Morgan.
“Stay calm,” he heard Morgan say over the growing chaos of children’s voices. “It’s probably just a blown fuse again. I’ll take care of it.”
Gray slipped his phone from his jacket pocket and turned on the flashlight app, but when he attempted to take a step toward the stage, he found his moves hampered. Gray was six-two and he weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds, which consisted of mostly muscle thanks to the ten to twelve hours a week he spent at the gym. Last year he’d run in the 5K marathon to fight diabetes and finished in under fifteen minutes, so there should have been no problem with him walking across this room to assist Morgan in whatever was going on. Except for the two sets of arms that had wrapped tightly around each of his thighs, holding him down like weights.
“Here’s the fuse box,” Morgan stated about two seconds before Gray’s hands brushed over hers.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said, moving her hand to the side.
“You don’t know anything about this building,” she snapped. Her hand was still warm from where he’d touched her and Morgan rubbed it against her thigh as if she thought that would erase her reaction to his touch.
He was holding his phone, with its glaring light, pointed toward the fuse box, but Morgan could see the shadow of his face as he turned to look at her.
“I own this building,” he replied.
Morgan huffed. “That doesn’t mean you know your way around it, or how much it means to the people of this town,” she quipped.
It was really hot in here. They were in the basement and Morgan tried to take a step back, but there was only a wall behind her. To her right was a door that led to the crawl space. To her left, the wall with the fuse box. Directly in front of her, the man with the flashlight and delicious-smelling cologne.
“But I do know how to turn on,” he began, still watching her and, if she wasn’t mistaken, moving a step closer.
Morgan tried to shift to the side, but she stumbled on some cords that were lying on the floor and ended up against his chest, again. The light from the phone wavered as his hands dropped to her shoulders, sliding down slowly as he kept her from falling. Embarrassed and irritated by the heat that had spread quickly from the hand that he’d touched moments ago to the rest of her body, Morgan tried to pull away from him. She slammed her back into the wall.
He