Dreaming of His Snowed In Kiss - Jessie Gussman Page 0,3

house fire. Out of the house fire, not more urgent.”

“Yeah. We could let the barn be burned down. As long as there aren’t any animals in it.”

“There are. But unless I could find someone to watch the children, I wouldn’t take that chance.”

Okay, she didn’t like the idea that someone would have to choose between saving the life of an animal and saving the life of a child, but she did agree that the children were more important.

“You take care of her.” She nodded at the baby, who must be a girl, even though she had a blue sleeper on. “And I’ll feed these guys. If that will help.”

West eyed her. He didn’t look relieved exactly, almost skeptical, maybe.

Yeah. Their relationship hadn’t exactly been super friendly.

Not her fault, Poppy told herself.

“Appreciate it,” West said eventually, holding the baby in the crook of his arm as he rooted through the cupboard, she assumed looking for a container of baby formula since she saw the old one lying at the top of the overflowing trash can.

“All right, boys,” she said, drawing out the word “boys.” She was pretty sure from what she’d heard at church there were three boys plus the baby. “Let’s get our hands washed, and we can sit down and have some lunch.” She made a goofy face at the boy in her arms. “You guys hungry? I have mashed potatoes.” She said “mashed potatoes” the way she might have said candy bars, because in her experience, kids love mashed potatoes.

The one in her arms stared at her along with the older boy West had called Warren.

This might be harder than she was expecting.

Chapter 2

West set the can of formula down on the counter and struggled to open it with one hand while trying to awkwardly bounce the screaming baby in his other arm.

Trying to be happy Poppy was there.

Actually, there was a lot of him that was happy that Poppy was there.

He did a good job of pretending she was annoying, but her bright face and happy personality lit up any room that she was in. And drew people like magnets. Him included.

She already had enough admirers. She didn’t need him.

Still, that he was in over his head with these kids was obvious. And Minnie wasn’t going to be getting out of bed anytime soon.

He’d heard her coughing last night. She was so weak and thin it amazed him that she was even able to get up at all.

He didn’t want to be happy about the fact that the boys didn’t jump when Poppy said “let’s eat.”

It was more of a struggle than what she was expecting, he was sure, to get their hands washed and their faces wiped and have them sitting down at the table.

He didn’t smirk over that, either. After all, she was helping him.

By that time, he had managed to one-hand the formula container and mix up a bottle.

Gabriella still wasn’t entirely convinced that bottles were better than her mother, but she was taking it better than she had five days ago. Thankfully.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think her mother would ever be feeding her again.

Minnie knew it. Which is probably why she’d ended up at his house.

With a bottle in Gabriella’s mouth and her blissfully sucking in sweet silence, he strode casually behind the chairs at the kitchen table where the little towheaded boys sat.

Trevor was strapped in the high chair.

The brand-new high chair that his bachelor’s house had never seen the likes of, not until four days ago when Pastor Race had brought it.

Funny how he’d gone from totally inept with that chair to being able to put a kid in it one-handed in the last four days.

He couldn’t believe two people could be alone at home with a houseful of children and actually raise them themselves.

The title of that book—It Takes a Village—made a lot more sense now. Obviously, the author was talking about how many people it took to feed two kids lunch and get up with a baby at night. He needed to assign about three people per child in order to keep up with everything.

“Do you want me to feed her while you eat?” Poppy asked.

Like his stomach heard the question, it growled right as Poppy asked.

“No, thank you.”

He supposed he made fun of her perpetually happy personality because he felt threatened by it.

He had never thought of himself as a particularly dark person until his parents had died and he ended up in the same foster home as Minnie.

There’d