Decidedly with Wishes - Stina Lindenblatt Page 0,30

best not to cringe at the name Eli had told her.

“Eddie? Isn’t that a boy’s name?”

Fortunately, I didn’t have to answer. A girl, who must have been around six or seven years old, with long blonde hair pulled up in pigtails, and the recognizable features of Down syndrome, threw her arms around my waist. “I like Eli’s pretty girl. She has pretty hair and pretty earrings.”

“Thank you. I like your pigtails. They’re pretty, too.”

She beamed at the compliment.

The adults watched me with interest. A man, who I guessed was Eli’s father, had his arm around his wife. Another man, who must have been about six years older than Eli, had his arm around the waist of a blonde woman who shared some of Eli’s features. His sister, perhaps?

The little girl grabbed my hand and tugged on it. “Come meet my dollies.”

“I would love to meet them.” I was relieved to have a moment to regain my breath. I let her lead the way into the house. “What’s your name?”

“Abby.”

The others were chatting behind us with Eli as Abby and I stepped into the house.

She pulled me into the living room and over to the couch, where a collection of dolls stood against the back of it. A few of them were baby dolls, but most of them resembled Barbie.

She handed me a doll and an outfit. “Put this on her.”

“Say please, Abby,” the woman who I guessed was Eli’s sister said as the rest of his family joined us.

“Please.” Abby peered hopefully up at me.

While I replaced Barbie’s dress with a ball gown, Eli introduced me to his family, including his sister, Sarah, and her husband, Michael. Even now, Michael had his arm possessively around his wife like she was one of the most precious things in his world.

“Here you go.” I gave Abby the doll.

“Thank you,” she responded without needing to be prompted.

I crouched to her level. “You’ve got quite a collection of dolls. Do you have any favorites?”

She surveyed them and handed me a Barbie dressed in a doctor’s lab coat. She then passed me another outfit.

I changed that for her, too. “Are these dresses difficult for you to put on and take off the dolls?”

The manufacturers tended not to consider little girls like Abby, who struggled with their fine motor skills. It was one of Amelia’s frequent complaints as a pediatric OT.

Abby nodded and accepted the doll from me.

“That must be pretty frustrating.”

Again, Abby nodded and smiled.

“Why don’t you two wash up,” Eli’s mom said to Eli and me. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

“Then I’m taking you on a hayride.”

Eli was looking at me when he spoke, but Abby was the one who replied, dancing around and saying, “Yay, hayride.”

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Sarah said. “But we have to be heading home after dinner. We can go on a hayride another time.”

Abby pouted. “I want to go with them.”

Eli gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I know, princess. But I promise there’ll be other hayrides for us. This is Na—this is Eddie’s first time.”

“What Uncle Eli is trying to tell you is that he and Eddie will be making icky, kissy faces the entire time.” Her father chuckled a nudge-nudge, wink-wink sound.

Abby’s gaze shifted from each of us, and she scrunched up her face. “Ewww.”

That only made the adults laugh.

“I left some towels on your bed,” his mother told us after Abby and her family (along with the entire doll collection) had left. “I know I said Edit—Eddie would be staying in the guest room—because even though you’re twenty-nine years old, Eli, we still have the ‘No girls in your bedroom’ rule. But the hotel accidentally overbooked for the week, and we had to put your cousin William in the guest room. So you and Eddie will be sharing your bedroom after all.”

Oh, crap.

“That’s fine, Mom,” Eli said before I could respond.

Fine? How was “us” sharing a bedroom fine?

He must have two beds or possibly even a bunk bed. That would make sense. Because no way was he thinking that we were sharing a bed.

That’s because he doesn’t know that you’re horny for him, my body not so helpfully pointed out.

I wouldn’t exactly call it horny. More like super aware of him.

He was good-looking, sweet, thoughtful, and sexy.

Those four things combined were like tossing gasoline on a fire. Kaboom.

Did this mean I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off him if we shared a bed?

Not at all. I could show restraint, even if he smelled