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“Order your one-way ticket, Sam. Since your parents moved next door to me, I have all the help I need. Plus Joey’s almost out of college for the summer, and is planning on helping in between football camps.”
He stopped the chair at the curb, putting the brake on before stepping in front of it. “Did you say my parents moved in next to you?”
“Last month. Didn’t they tell you?”
“Not exactly. They said they were moving to a warmer climate, someplace where the winters weren’t quite as cold. I thought that was a great idea. But I was thinking South Padre, not Austin.”
“Oh, well,” she said brightly. “Austin is so much better than Amarillo, as far as they’re concerned.”
“I guess so.”
She could tell he was very nonplussed by his parents’ choice of residence. In a way she felt sorry for him. He was the last person on the planet who’d known about the babies. “My parents live on the other side, in the Reefer’s old house,” she said softly, as he helped her into the waiting limo the hospital had ordered. She had to speak softly because reporters were still running tape, the Maitlands were still smiling, blue carnations in green paper were pressed into her hand—and she so much wanted to appear like a normal family. No matter how much they weren’t.
“Anything else you’d like to enlighten me on? Maybe just when you felt like I needed to know?”
She sensed his hurt and understood. “Would you like to ride with us?”
“I may as well,” he muttered. “We’re enough of a spectacle as it is.”
“I prefer to think of it as a circus. Active, bright, colorful, cheery. That’s our family tree.”
“That’s not how I’d describe a circus.”
She stared at the babies which were securely in car seats, one next to each parent. “Wave,” she instructed. “With a big smile. Maitland Maternity has given us a future.”
She waved madly, smiling from the limo window as the car pulled away. Sam eschewed the all-is-right-with-the-world appearance. Absolutely nothing was right in his world.
He saw the delighted smile brightening his wife’s pixie face, eyes glowing with happiness and pride as she called thanks to everyone on the hospital sidewalk waving goodbye to them—and knew nothing had been right since he’d left.
He missed the hell out of her. Unfortunately it didn’t seem she felt the same way. She had everything she’d ever wanted now—and more.
“CAN YOU HEAR anything?” Sara Winston asked Franny Brady, who had her ear pressed to a glass held firmly against the closed bedroom door.
Tufts of Franny’s iron-gray hair stood up a bit wildly as she leaned close to listen. “It’s pretty quiet.”
“Oh. That doesn’t bode well.” Sara pursed her lips. “Maybe Sam doesn’t like the new decor. It’s possible we went a teensy bit overboard with the Miami look.”
Franny shook her head. “Maddie needed decorating with attitude. It lifted her spirits considerably.”
“Has he gone into the bathroom yet?”
“I haven’t heard any howls. Guaranteed if he didn’t like the bedroom, he’ll resist the oranges-and-bananas tropical wallpaper and—”
“Shh!” Sara didn’t want to think about it. The pretty fountain they’d installed on the bathroom counter might not exactly be a hit. Of course, if they’d gotten the water to flow out of the statue’s bowl instead of shooting from the woman’s mouth, it wouldn’t be so bad. “We may have some tweaking to do here and there. But all in all, I think we did a good job.”
“Sure he’ll be proud of how much we’ve tried to do in his absence.” Franny pulled away from the door, and they went up the staircase to join the rest of the family. “Not that I mean to criticize your son, Sara. My daughter was just as much at fault.”
Grandfathers Virgil Brady and Severn Winston rocked in matching white rockers.
“Where are the babies?” Franny demanded, seeing that the grandfathers weren’t holding babies as they’d been when she’d left.
“Maddie came and got them for a bath,” Virgil answered. “She said they needed a feeding and a nap. A second later, I heard the doorbell ring. Who was it?”
“Sam,” Sara said grimly. “And he barely had a word to say to us! You’d think that boy could hug his mother after being gone so long. Not so much as the courtesy of a phone call to tell us he was coming back! But as soon as Franny told him Maddie was in their, uh, her bedroom, he headed in there so fast you would have thought bees were after him.”
Maddie’s nineteen-year-old college-linebacker brother, Joey, halted in the process of stacking diapers, putting away tiny infant clothes and carefully placing numerous baby gifts, which had been delivered to the hospital, on rectangular window seats around the nursery. “I called him,” Joey confessed. “He knows what Maddie did.”
“You called Sam in France?” Franny asked with a gasp. “When?”
“Yesterday. Someone had to tell him about the babies.” Joey’s face was miserable. “I don’t think Maddie could. I think she had good intentions of telling him what she’d done, but as the months wore on, I think she got too scared.”
“We promised her,” Sara said. “Maddie’s going to be angry. She wanted to tell him herself. She asked us just this once to let her handle her life. Oh, dear,” she moaned. “And yet I do believe you have a point, too, Joey. It did seem as if she never got around to making that call. I do believe in my heart that she was so distressed she simply froze.”
“Never mind that. There’s a saying about playing the cards you’re dealt. And Sam and Maddie have been dealt a pair of sweethearts.” A pleased grin lit Franny’s face. “No wonder he was in such a hurry. I’d say that’s a good sign.”
“Nothing to do but sit and wait for the explosion,” Virgil said. “Come here, woman.” He gestured to his wife, and Franny went to sit on his lap.
Too refined to lap-sit, Sara took the window seat closest to Severn. They sat silently for a long moment, surveying the gentle decor and cheery blue and white train furnishings with pleasure. “Now, this room we did right,” Franny said.
“I agree.” It was the room Sara had enjoyed redecorating the most.
“So, how are Sam and Maddie?” Virgil wanted to know. “Did you get to see them together before the boudoir door slammed shut? Did they rush into each other’s arms?” His sun-furrowed skin creased with hopeful expectation. Like his energetic wife, he wore faded, comfortable clothes much like he’d worn on the cotton farm they’d spent their long marriage working. Just as they’d worked the farm, Virgil and Franny were putting every ounce of their effort into seeing that these grandbabies had parents who lived under the same roof—even if they hadn’t been under the same roof for nine months.
“I don’t think that’s exactly how it went,” Franny said sadly.
“A bit of tweaking is all they need,” Sara said. “I can tell our son still loves your daughter.”
“Tweaking is good. Tweaking is important.” Franny screwed up her face. “Maybe we should vacate to our houses so they can tweak.”
Sara thought about that for a moment before shaking her head. “Let’s just carry on as we planned. Sam left. Sam will have to adjust. If Maddie wants us to leave, that’s different, but she might feel we’ve abandoned her in her hour of need.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way!” Franny was aghast. “My daughter did feel deserted when Sam left the country. Although I’m sure he’d rather have stayed if they could have worked matters out. If he’d felt that she wanted him to stay.”
“For the sake of these precious grandchildren, we must act as if nothing’s changed. Even if everything has changed, from the decor to…well, you know.”
The two women shared a conspiratorial glance. “Everything could change back,” Franny said thoughtfully. “Maybe we haven’t seen the last of the Brady-Winston miracles!”
“You said that right before you turned the fountain on,” Sara reminded her. “We rigged that the wrong way.”
“Well, the second time is supposed to be the charm.” Franny brightened considerably, jade-green eyes identical to her daughter’s glowing with mischievous intent. “This time, the plumbing is sure to work just fine!”
Chapter Two
“I feel like I’ve been hit by a two-by-four,” Sam muttered as he stared at the two babies in matching bassinets in the bedroom he had once shared with his wife. “I’m a father!”
Maddie smiled as she stood beside him. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
His almost-ex wife was beautiful. The tiny, writhing potato sacks with appendages he could only call astonishing. “I don’t understand how you did this. How could you not have told me?”
He turned from the babies to the woman he’d been separated from for nine months. Was there a woman on the planet who could make him feel the emotions Maddie made him feel? Love, anger, desire, admiration—they all mixed together when he thought about her.
Unfortunately, right now anger was high on his emotional thermometer.
“Dr. Mitchell Maitland called one day to discuss a new, experimental procedure he thought might work well considering my age, and our history,” Maddie told him.
Her cheeks pinkened a bit, but Sam told himself to ignore that particular trait he’d always found charming.
“I’m sure it’s not too hard for you to understand that I leaped at the chance. And when I learned the procedure had been successful and that I was expecting, I didn’t want you to come rushing back to America just because I was pregnant.”
“Rushing back! We tried for five years to have children! Damn right I would have rushed back.”
Maddie shook her head. “But what if it had just been another disappointment?” She lowered her gaze. “I couldn’t tell you, Sam. I just couldn’t.”
He could feel his wife’s pain. He’d felt it for months himself. The worst part was wanting a child—and wondering if he was the reason it wouldn’t happen.
He reached to tip her chin up with a finger. “I would have wanted to be with you.”
“I know. But anything could have happened, Sam, anything! And I…”
Her words drifted away, but her meaning did not. Sam took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Maddie,” he said. “I should have called you. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to France.” He hesitated, knowing that wasn’t even the beginning of what needed to be said. “We should never have separated. I think these babies are a sign we should have stayed together.”
“I don’t know,” Maddie murmured. “I kind of think we needed some time apart.”
Sam grunted, reaching into a bassinet. The baby boy looking out at him had his blue eyes but Maddie’s hair color, the fiery hue of sunshine-dappled maple wood. When he touched the tiny fisted hand, the baby wrapped its fingers tightly around his, surprising him. A fierce protectiveness rushed into Sam’s chest. “I’m not leaving you again.”
“Sam.” Maddie’s tone forced him to look at her. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but…I don’t want to be the way we were.”
He didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Married?”
She nodded. “I mean, I know that technically we are, because we never actually filed with the court for divorce, but we did live apart for nine months. I feel like we aren’t married anymore.”
He held up a palm. “Don’t say divorce to me right now.”
“I’m not. But I don’t want us to live together, either.”
Shock filled him. “These are my children! You’re my wife! Where else would I live?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes filled with pain. “You’re welcome to come by as often as you like, of course.”
He stared at her, disbelieving. “When were you going to tell me about the babies, Maddie? If your brother hadn’t called me, would I ever have known?”
“Yes!” Her face was stricken. “I would have told you. I meant to tell you.”
“I should have been there. For you. For them.” He glanced at the babies, their little heads poking out of matching blue T-shirts. “For all of us,” he murmured.
They were chubby-cheeked infants, blissful in their innocence. One had gone to sleep quite contentedly. The other sleepily blinked his eyes at his new world, which wasn’t quite in focus.
Surprise, surprise.
And now Sam and Maddie had what they’d always wanted. Actually, had what they’d wanted times two.
But she didn’t want him. Or their marriage.
Okay. Three was a crowd, but four made a family.
He was going to romance her socks off until she clearly saw that Mommy needed Daddy, babies needed Daddy—and a wife needed her husband by her side.
To love, honor and cherish, for better, for worse.
“MARTIN, LISTEN.” Sam rolled his eyes as he stared at the ceiling. Talking to his lawyer required having a better handle on the chaos that had become his life; his grip had slipped disastrously. “I know you didn’t know I was planning on having children. The point is, I have them, and I need you to draw up a will that includes them.”
“I heard you, Sam. And as your lawyer, I have to advise that you have appropriate tests run before you assume Maddie is correct about your paternity,” Martin insisted. “Don’t get your butt in a sling just because you’ve let the guilt squeeze be applied to your heart. Think with your wallet.”
“My wallet pays your salary,” Sam reminded him.
“And I earn my salary by protecting your interests,” Martin retorted. “I’ll do anything you instruct me to do, Sam. And you know how much I like Maddie. It damn near killed me to have to think about drawing up divorce papers. You know that! She’s like everybody’s kid sister.”
“Not mine.”
“Okay, half the male population sees her in a kid-sister light. The other half would kill for just five minutes to kiss the lace of her underwear.”
“I will assume you are in the first category, unless you want your head removed from your shoulders,” Sam said dryly.
“Definitely, buddy,” Martin answered hastily. “But that’s what I mean. I hated to see you lose her, especially when I know there are multitudes of clowns just waiting for a babe like her. But now I’m telling you to cover your bases. Not that Maddie’s lying. What if the test tubes got scrambled in the lab or something?”
“What are you saying? That my kids could have problems and I shouldn’t provide for them?”
“I’m saying don’t you want to know for certain that this Maitland clinic got your genes mixed with Maddie’s before you take the serious step of changing your will?”
Sam digested that for a moment. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t really matter to me, Martin. Maddie and I talked about adopting kids at one point, anyway. The process was long and arduous, and we didn’t make it through many of the steps before…” Before he’d snapped under the pressure of not being able to give his wife what she wanted. And now she’s done it, without me. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. What difference would adopted children or my test-tube results make? She loves them. And so will I. “Why should I have tests to establish paternity? Just to find out those aren’t my babies? Call me a dreamer, Martin. I don’t want to find out they’re not mine. I’d rather assume I’m just chock-full of egg-seeking, healthy, tough, indestructible sperm. Do you mind?”
Martin sighed. “You know, your ego is skewed. Most men would need to know that their money wasn’t being used to take care of another man’s progeny. You? You just want to get Maddie back.”
“I want to believe I can have progeny,” Sam growled. “Ego cost me my wife. Smart men learn from their mistakes.”
“I know,” said Martin. “That’s why I keep you on as a client, even though you don’t listen to a word I say. You’re a good man, and a lawyer ought to have one good client who isn’t looking for a loophole.”
Sam frowned. “Speaking of loopholes…”
“Oh, boy,” Martin said. “Don’t make me cry, Sam.”
“I may not be the hero you think I am. Get out the tissues. I haven’t been feeling very heroic lately.” Mainly, he felt like he’d let his sons down by not being present at their birth. I shouldn’t have left Maddie to her own devices. I let my pride overrule my heart.
“I’ve known you since high school. It’s tough to suffer any illusions about a guy who used a jock strap as a slingshot in the locker to defend me from the A-string army. I became a lawyer to protect you from any and all litigation your bad humor got you into from that day forward.”
