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“What am I supposed to look for in order to know if either of those contingencies apply?”
She cocked her head. “In English?”
“What am I looking for? Like, if I’m supposed to use the powder or cream, how will I know?”
“Oh. Well, the cream you’ll use if anything looks red or irritated. As for the powder...” She shrugged. “Honestly, let’s table it for now. I’ll look it up online or ask Mom. Pretty sure it’s a moisture thing.”
“Want me to research it? I’m much better with that than diapering.”
“Sure. Thanks.” She returned her attention to the baby. “No sign of rash, so we’ll grab a fresh diaper, open it, then slide the back part under her—like this.”
Stepping alongside her for a better view, he nodded. “Got it. Next?”
“Pull up the front, fasten it with the sticky tabs, put her clothes back on and you’re good to go.”
“Wait—you didn’t say anything about the clothes. All of them come off?”
She sighed. “Now you’re being deliberately obtuse.”
“No, really. For whatever time I’m here, I want to be as much help as possible. I’m viewing this as a mission.”
“Wow. Please tell me you didn’t just equate my sister’s babies with battle.” Keeping one hand on the now-squirmy baby, she grabbed a pair of footie pj’s from a nearby drawer.
“What? You don’t want my help?”
“Mason, Vanessa and Viv are real-live babies—not burp-and-feed dolls you’d read about in a manual.”
“Duh. Why do you think I’m concentrating on what you tell me? I want to get this right. We’re in a zero-tolerance mistake zone, right?”
“Wow. Just wow.” She finished her task without so much as looking his way.
Whatever. He took her ignoring him as an opportunity to study the nursery layout. Two cribs, built-in shelves loaded with toys and books. Two upholstered swivel rockers. Changing table. Adequate stockpile of supplies on shelf beneath said table. Easy-access traffic flow—although down the line, the potted Norfolk pine in front of the window could pose a spooky shadow problem.
Overall impression? Way too much pink.
Once Hattie placed her baby in the crib, Mason took his turn at diapering. Forcing a deep breath, he rolled down minitights. It was still chilly, so he left the baby’s long-sleeved dress, undershirt, sweater and socks on her.
Watching Hattie, the diaper process had seemed straightforward enough. He easily undid the sticky tape but, upon lifting the front flap, was accosted by a smell so vile he damn near retched.
“Oh, my God...” He stepped back. Fanning the putrid air, he asked, “What the hell? Is she sick?”
Hattie glared. “Welcome to the wonderful world of babies. Lesson 101—poop stinks. Standard operating procedure.”
“If that last part was a dig at me, stow it. I’m doing the best I can here, okay?”
Her indifferent shrug told him she wasn’t impressed.
Had he really only a few minutes earlier felt sorry for her? Regardless, he forged ahead. “You didn’t mention Number Two in your lesson. Any special spray needed? Protective gloves or eyewear?”
“Want me to do it?”
“No.” And he was offended she’d asked. “I’ve got this.”
Dear Lord. Mason struggled to maintain his composure while cleaning the baby’s behind. Was this poop or tar?
He made the mistake of looking at the kid’s face and their gazes connected. Was she smiling? This one had to be Vivian—the baby whose personality matched Melissa’s. She’d get a kick out of seeing him tortured.
Finally finished wiping, with Hattie supervising, Mason found a fresh diaper and tried grabbing the kid’s ankles to raise her behind, but she kicked so hard it was tough to grab hold. Settling for one ankle, he tried lifting her sideways, then sneaking the diaper under.
“Not like that,” Hattie complained. “You’ll put her in traction before her first birthday.” Nudging him aside, she dived right in, catching the baby’s ankles one-handed on her first try.
“As much as it pains me to admit this,” Mason said with a round of applause, “you’re good.”
“I’ve had at least a little practice. You’ll get the hang of it.” She took the diaper from him and, once she had it properly positioned, stepped aside for him to finish. “She’s all yours.”
When Mason stepped back into place, their arms brushed. The resulting hum of awareness caught him as off guard as practically flunking his first diapering lesson. He and Hattie had never been more than friends, so what was that about? Had she felt it, too? If so, she showed no signs, which told him to chalk it up to his imagination, then get his job done. Another part of him couldn’t get Melissa’s words from his head. Hattie has harbored quite the crush on you for as long as she could walk well enough to follow you around. Could it be true?
Perhaps an even bigger question was, what did he feel for her?
Nothing romantic, that was for sure. For as long as he could remember, she’d been his friend. For sanity’s sake, he planned to ignore that rush of attraction in favor of putting Hattie safely back in the friend zone.
Subject closed.
It proved no big deal to get the diaper perfectly positioned, and while a few of his new-father SEAL friends whined about the whole sticky-tab thing being tough to tackle, Mason thought that part a piece of cake. He liked lining them up perfectly straight. Precision in all things—especially diapers—was good.
“There.” He couldn’t help but smile upon completing his goal. “Now what?”
“Take her dress off and put these on.” Hattie offered a pair of pj’s that matched Vivian’s sister’s.
“Just a thought—” Mason struggled to unfasten the row of tiny buttons up the back of the dress “—but what if we started color-coding the twins? That way, we’d know who’s who.”
“You mean dress Vivian in one color and Vanessa in another?”
“Exactly. That way, they won’t be sixteen and realize their whole lives they’ve been called by the wrong names.”
“While I applaud your suggestion, I don’t think we’re in danger of that. Besides, they already have so many pretty matching clothes, I’d hate to toss everything Melissa bought and was given as shower gifts.”
“Hadn’t thought of that. When I’m researching powder, I’ll see if I can find tips on telling twins apart.”
“You do that.” Though she didn’t smile, he’d have sworn he saw laughter spark her still-teary eyes.
Once both girls had been tucked beneath matching fuzzy pink blankets, Mason asked, “Now what?”
“Know how to do laundry?”
“Sure.”
She pointed toward an overflowing hamper. “Mind tackling that while I’m out?”
“Where are you going?”
“I have to at least make an appearance at the bar. I haven’t been in since first hearing the news.”
“But it’s Sunday. Thought no alcohol was sold or served?”
She patted his back. “You have been gone awhile. Two years ago, the new mayor, who’s a huge Cowboys fan, exempted every Sunday during football season.”
As a general rule, Mason never pouted, but he was damn near close. “But I’d rather go with you than be stuck here doing laundry.”
“Sorry.” She flashed a forced, unapologetic smile. “One of us has to bring home the bacon.”
“Hattie Beaumont, you turned mean.”
“Nah.” She ducked across the hall and into the bathroom. “Just practical.”
* * *
WITH HER PRACTICAL boots crunching on the city sidewalk’s hard-packed snow, Hattie realized she had never been happier to be away from someone in her whole life. Was she really supposed to live with Mason for however long it took him to get unattached from her sister’s will? Couldn’t he just fly up when it was his turn in court?
Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” spilled out the bar’s door at the same time as Harvey Mitchell.
“Got a ride?” Hattie asked.
Breath fogging in the cold night air, he hitched his thumb toward the road. “Wife sent the daughter to pick-me-up.” His last three words slurred into one. Looked as though someone should’ve gone home a few drinks earlier.
Hattie waited outside for the few minutes it took for Harvey’s sixteen-year-old, Janine, to show. The bar stood at the end of a pier. She took a deep breath, appreciating the water’s briny tang.
With Harvey safely gone, she headed inside, glad for the warmth and cheerful riot of Halloween decorations she’d put up weeks ago before knowing how tragically the month would end.
“Hey, sweetie.” Her best friend, Clementine Archer, stepped out from behind the bar, enfolding her in a hug. They’d gone to school together since kindergarten. When Clementine’s husband had lost his job at the fish-canning factory, Hattie had suggested her friend take an online bartending class, then come work for her. Five years later, Clementine’s husband had run off to Texas, leaving her on her own with their two sons, but she still worked behind the bar four days a week. Her mom watched the boys. “How’s it going? You’ve gotta be a mess.”
“Oh—I passed mess a long time ago. I’m currently a disaster.” Hattie deposited her purse in a lower cabinet beside the fridge. Before leaving, she needed to run upstairs to switch it out for her usual cargo-style bag. Might as well grab extra clothes, too.
“You leave Mason with the twins?”
Hattie nodded. “He wasn’t happy about it. Pouted like a second grader.”
“How is it?”
“What?” Hattie poured herself an orange juice on the rocks.
Hands on her hips, Clementine shook her head. “Don’t even try playing it cool with me, lady. I’m the one person aside from Melissa who ever knew exactly how much Mason meant to you. No way is his being here not impacting your life.”
Hattie looked at her drink. “Yeah, so maybe I’d like a splash of vodka for this, but you know...” She stared at the crowd of regulars: some played pool, others poker, others still watched one of the four flat screens or just talked. Everything about the night was normal, yet not a single thing in Hattie’s life felt the same. Her eyes welled with tears again. She blotted them with one of the bar’s trademark red plaid napkins she’d had monogrammed with Hattie’s. “It’s all good.”
“Oh, sweetie...” Clementine ambushed her with another hug. “You don’t still have a thing for him, do you?”
“No. Of course not.” Which was why when he’d swooped her into his arms outside of the lawyer’s her heart had skipped beats. When he’d stood beside her in her sister’s kitchen or they’d shared feeding time on the couch or he’d tugged her onto his lap for a comforting hug, everything she thought she knew turned upside down.
And that was bad.
It didn’t matter that Melissa was no longer with them. Mason would always belong to her. Their bond had been unbreakable. So much so that not only had her sister reached from beyond her grave to ask Mason to raise her girls, but she’d had the audacity to suggest he also be Hattie’s man.
Chapter Five
“Thanks for bringing all of this by, Dad—and thank you, Fern, for driving.” His ditty bag and iPad couldn’t be more welcome sights in this unfamiliar home.
While his dad grunted, prune-faced Fern waved off Mason’s appreciation in favor of snooping about the kitchen. She’d tossed her red down coat on the granite counter, but still wore her orange cap and a hot-pink sweat suit with striped blue socks. She’d abandoned her sturdy Sorel boots at the front door. “Where’d Melissa keep her coffee?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“Times like these folks need coffee. Hattie didn’t make any? And Danish. Doughnuts. At the very least, she could’ve set out a bag of Oreos.”
Mason tried like hell not to smile. “In Hattie’s defense, she hardly expected anyone to be here. I’m sure her mother’s got plenty of food left from the wake if you two want to head over there?”
“Lord...” Hands on her hips, Fern surveyed Melissa’s top-of-the-line Keurig K-Cup–style coffeemaker. “Prissy and downright pretentious is what this is. If I were you, I’d run this straight out to the dump and get you a nice stove-top percolator.”
“Sure. I’ll see what I can do.” What he failed telling Fern was that he thought the whole single-cup thing pretty damned cool. He’d never known coffee technology existed until his friend Heath’s new bride, Patricia, had it listed on her bridal-shower registry. The damn thing had been pricey, so Mason and his pal Cooper had gone halvsies on it. Which reminded him, he needed to call his CO and SEAL team roomie about not being home as scheduled.
“Ready?” His dad, Jerry, joined them. “I’ve got shows.”
Fern furrowed the caterpillars she called brows. “For cryin’ out loud, Jer’, step into this century. Haven’t you heard of a DVR?”
“Haven’t you heard the government uses those things to bug your house—they put pinhole spy cams in there, too.”
After a grand eye roll, Fern sighed. “S’pose next you’ll be telling me sittin’ too close to my TV’ll make me blind?”
Jerry shrugged. “Judging by your outfit, you may want to push your recliner a ways back.”
“Oh, for God’s sake...” Mason grabbed Fern’s coat and held it out to her. “Get a room and leave me in peace.”
“I wouldn’t sleep with your father if he laid gold nuggets.”
“Thanks for that visual.” Wincing, Mason held out the garment, wagging it in hopes of enticing Fern to slip it on and then slip right out the door. “I appreciate you two bringing my gear, but if you don’t mind, I’ve got baby-care research to do. Oh—and, Dad, here are your keys.” Mason fished them from his pocket. “Thank you for letting me use your ride.”
“No problem, but what’re you gonna drive now?”
“I suppose Alec’s Hummer.”
“Talk about pretentious.” Fern snorted. “I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but I never did approve of that car—if you could even call it that. More like a tank.”
Jerry snapped, “You didn’t seem to mind much last winter when you stuck your Shirley Temple curls out the sunroof for the Christmas parade.”
“Shut your pie hole, old man. You’re just jealous no one asked you.”
Fingers to throbbing temples, Mason counted to ten to keep from blowing. Fern and his dad had always been combustible neighbors, but he’d forgotten to what degree. At least they could now retreat to separate vehicles.
After ten more minutes’ bickering, Fern and Jerry finally left Mason in peace. Only, even then he didn’t truly feel calm because of the emotions warring in his head. Guilt for not feeling more sadness in regard to Melissa’s and Alec’s deaths, confusion over the sheer logistics of caring for their infant twins, hurt over being treated like a pariah by two families he’d once very much loved and felt a part of.
