“They always told me you were in football, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized you were the Maxwell Smith from the Sharks.”
He smirked, shutting the front door behind her. “Jeez. They must not have talked about me too much, huh?”
“Oh, here and there,” she said, sweeping some hair out of her eyes. Her lips curled at the edges. “But for the past couple years, I’ve been living overseas, so whenever I saw them, it was more about catching up. And getting to know the kids.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re excited to see them.” His heart thudded as he led the way deeper into the house, toward the living room where the triplets awaited. “Were you at the funeral last week?” He sure would have remembered this face.
“No, I wasn’t.” She sighed. “My flight was canceled, and I couldn’t make it back in time. It broke my heart that I couldn’t be there.”
Questions swarmed him, but none made the leap past his lips because the second they stepped into the living room, the triplets started screaming with excitement. The three toddled over, stumbling and laughing in the process.
“Auntie! Auntie!”
“There are my little stars!” Jill crouched down to receive their hugs as the three of them tumbled into her arms. Maxwell cocked his head, watching with interest. International traveler, yet somehow she knew the kids this well…yes, the questions were accumulating rapidly.
Jill kissed each of them in turn multiple times before releasing them. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you all,” she gushed.
Shelley began tugging at Jill’s hand, guiding her toward the play kitchen. Maxwell eased onto the edge of the long couch against the far wall of the room. A sea of toys stretched between him and the others. Peppa Pig snorted from the television screen.
“So you know them pretty well,” Maxwell said.
“I had been gone for a while,” Jill explained, grinning down at Shelley while Kevin and Cameron both scrambled to join in. “Living abroad, like I said. But I’ve been in the process of moving back.” She paused suddenly, as though questioning how much to reveal. Then she offered him a sparkling smile. “And I made it a priority to get to know the kids. We did tons of video calls. Wayne was my cousin, but we grew up together. He felt more like a brother.”
“He was a good man,” Maxwell said, his throat tightening. Because it was the truth. Neither Wayne nor Maxwell’s stepsister, Carmen, deserved to miss out on their children’s entire lives. All the smiles and milestones and happiness. “Sometimes I still can’t believe it’s real.”
Jill shook her head sadly, her gaze falling back to the kids. “I’m glad I’d already started moving back to Savannah; now I need to be here more than ever. I want to be in their lives. They need us.”
They need us. Maxwell rubbed at the back of his neck, the familiar emotions from the past two weeks washing over him again. “Yeah. It’s the truth.”
The triplets didn’t grasp that their parents were gone and not coming back, but Maxwell, and their combined families, needed to do their part to make sure the kids grew up knowing how much love they came from.
Jill played with the three kids for a bit, laughing as they showed off various plastic food items and tried to serve her platters of chicken nuggets. She fingered the tight curls on Shelley’s head.
“This girl needs a haircut.”
“I was thinking about finding someone,” Maxwell started.
Jill tutted. “Uh-uh. These kids need to go to the right someone who specializes in Black hair. I know exactly where they should go. I’ll set something up—I can take them.”
“That would be great,” Maxwell said with a relieved laugh. “Honestly—I don’t know the first thing about…well, any of this. I’ve just been sticking to the schedule. I remember Carmen always talking about that much, at least.”
Jill sent him a knowing look. “Schedules are key. So, what’s on their schedule for today?”
“You know, we were just about to head out and go to the park.” Normally, he’d race around fighting to get the kids dressed and ready on his own. But today, he recognized Jill’s arrival for what it was: a chance for the kids to visit with their family and a chance for Maxwell to spend some guilt-free time with a gorgeous lady…who could teach him a thing or two. “Do you want to come with us?”
Jill’s dazzling smile returned, washing his mind clean of whatever sadness or confusion that lingered. “I would love that.”
2
Jill shielded her eyes against the sun as she gazed across the playground. Shelley, Cameron, and Kevin played an intense round of hide-and-seek with Maxwell. After enough swing-pushing to make her arms hurt, she’d retreated to the bench to watch Maxwell run off all his NFL energy alongside the kids’ toddler energy.
Her cheeks hurt from smiling so much. And really, she tried to tell herself that it was only the kids making her smile this much.
But no. That wasn’t the whole truth.
Maxwell Smith was fine. So fine that he was hard to look away from. His dark brown eyes swam with mischief whenever their gazes locked, his dark hair and olive skin tone a fatal match for her libido. His biceps were big enough to make her wonder what he might have going on in his personal life…and whether she could get those biceps wrapped around her…
Jill, you stop that right now. This is not the time to be thinking like that and you know it.
Lord, did she know it. She’d been formally moved back to Savannah for only a week, but her professional life was already running a thousand miles a minute. Maybe that was the upside of being a dentist—there was never a shortage of need, wherever she went. Even if it meant her soon-to-open pediatric dentistry clinic in Savannah already had a waiting list a mile long…she chose to see it as a good thing. No, a great thing.
“Auntie Jill!” Shelley ran her way, her curly locks bouncing. She was the one who reminded Jill most of her cousin Wayne, and the glee on her face removed some of Jill’s sadness. The triplets were pure joy—and occasionally frustration—and she intended on spending every moment possible with them.
Her original goal in moving back to Savannah had been to move closer to family and start a new, expansive phase of her career. And now, after losing Wayne, she didn’t just want to be physically closer to family—she needed all the family she could get. And if she had her way, she’d be seeing these kids as much as possible—just short of moving in and calling herself the fifth resident in Maxwell’s stunning, palatial home.
“Shelley, are you having fun?” Jill lifted the little girl onto the bench beside her. Shelley nuzzled into her side, and Jill relished the brief window of alone time, while the boys shrieked and laughed near the slides with Maxwell. Shelley clearly needed a break from all the activity, and Jill welcomed the chance to pull her into her lap and watch the chaos of Maxwell and Shelley’s brothers playing together.
“Your Uncle Maxwell sure is a cool guy,” Jill murmured, unable to prevent her gaze from sliding over the angular muscles of his calves and the wide spread of his shoulders. Yes, he looked like a snack, for sure.