My Husband, My Babies, page 13
“To be honest, I really want eighteen, but that wouldn’t be fair to you. You’re young and beautiful and at some point you’ll want a real life—dating, a new husband, more kids. I understand that. And I can live with it, if I can have the early years with Tucker and Lara.”
There was something so sad about what he was saying Jenny wanted to cry, but he was acting very businesslike and she tried to do the same. “That’s all?”
He shook his head. “I also want to be named as their father, legally. We don’t need to broadcast it, but it’s the smart thing in case anything happens to you. I will always be their father, but I only expect you to stay with me five years.”
“What happens after that?”
“I’ll give you child support, and you can move back to Gold Creek. Maybe by then your writing will have taken off, but if not, you could probably teach again.”
“What about you?”
He showed his first sign of vulnerability. “I go back to the way my life was before this happened, except that I will have established a bond with my children. They’ll know me. And I won’t have missed out on the early years.”
Like I did with Josh. And with my own child that was never born. Jenny heard the unspoken words, and her heart melted. She knew this man better than he thought. His businesslike facade hid a very fragile heart.
“I think I can do this,” she said. “Although I’d like to think about the arrangement for a while before I sign anything. But even if I do it, you don’t have to make me heir to your ranch. Put the twins’ names on the deed.”
He smiled for the first time. “I trust you to pass my estate on to them when I’m gone. You’re not like my mother.”
“What does that mean?”
“When Clancy was dying, he instructed his lawyer to sell the ranch and put the money in a trust for me until my twenty-fifth birthday—he said I’d be smart enough by then. He knew if he left it to Diane, the whole thing would have been gone by the time I was old enough to vote. You, I trust.”
Jenny was honored, but saddened, too. “You know, Sam, I talked to your mother. She told me her version of what happened.”
He swung about sharply and reached for the key. “Good. Now you know both sides of the story, but I don’t want to discuss it.”
He started the car. “One more thing. I think we should tell Ida Jane today. About the babies.”
Jenny closed her mouth and sat back, arms crossed. At times, Sam could be even more bullheaded than his brother had been, but he was right about one thing—Ida Jane needed to know the truth.
“YOU AND SAM DID IT in a laboratory? That doesn’t sound very romantic.”
Ida Jane’s response to Jenny’s revelation almost made Sam burst out laughing. Jenny’s mouth dropped open but no words came out, so Sam said, “What’s worse is neither of us was even in the room at the time. But look what we have to show for it.” He held Lara up like a blue ribbon won at a fair.
Ida looked from Lara to Jenny, who was nursing Tucker in the armchair across the room, and grinned. “And you got two for the price of one.”
The elderly woman was sitting in her wheelchair, looking quite regal in her purple jogging suit and bright-white sneakers. Sam wasn’t certain Ida Jane understood the mechanics of what they’d just told her, but she didn’t seem particularly scandalized. However, she had yet to give her opinion of Sam’s five-year plan.
“So, what do you think about Jenny staying with me for five years?” he asked. “Is that unrealistic?”
Ida Jane took a breath. “If I were you, I’d just marry her and get it over with, but you young people have a different way of looking at things, I guess.”
Sam’s stomach did a little flip-flop. He’d purposely avoided using the M word in his contract. He would have offered to marry her in a heartbeat, but Jenny was still in love with Josh. You didn’t just turn that off when the person you loved died.
“That’s right,” Sam said, forcing a lightheartedness he didn’t feel. “We like to keep our options open. Jenny is free to do anything she wants, as long as she lives at the ranch so I can spend time with the twins.”
Ida Jane frowned. “For five years. But what happens then? Won’t it break your heart to give them up?”
Sam looked down at the child in his arms and couldn’t keep from flinching. “It won’t be easy,” he admitted, trying to keep his pain from showing in his voice. “But I want to do what’s right for Jenny and the twins. I suppose it’ll be like a divorce, but, at least, Jenny and I will be able to handle it amicably since we don’t… I mean…we won’t have a lot of baggage to throw at each other, like some people. We’re doing this for the good of the children.”
Ida gave him a look that called him a liar, but she didn’t say the word out loud.
Sam was grateful, because they both knew he was one. His fancy legal contract was a sham—in every way that counted. He might have agreed to five years on paper, but in his heart he wanted much more. Ida Jane was a sharp old gal. She’d no doubt guessed Sam’s ultimate goal was to get Jenny to fall in love with him, or, at the very least, to marry him and provide their children with a stable, loving home.
Sam was no fool. He accepted that Jenny would never love him the way she did his brother. First love was too special, too perfect to compete with. Sam knew he could never take Josh’s place.
Lara made a cooing sound, startling Sam. The babies seemed to change every time he looked. She waved her tiny fist and he gave her his finger to grab. Her grip amazed him, as did the way her gaze seemed focused on his lips when he spoke her name.
“Hello, Lara, love. Are you ready for lunch?”
He pressed a kiss on her knuckles. She blinked twice as if surprised by the movement. “Do you want Ida to give her a bottle, Jen? Or does she get the other side?”
He’d gotten over his embarrassment about helping with breast-feeding. Once Jenny and Lara had worked out the kinks in their nursing relationship, the little girl seemed to enjoy the time and nourishment her mother gave her as much as her brother did.
“There’s a bottle in the bag,” Jenny said. “She won’t mind if Ida Jane feeds her.”
After placing the baby on Ida’s lap, Sam found the plastic bottle and handed it to the older woman. He watched his daughter suckle in bliss, her hand gripping the slick fabric of Ida’s jogging suit.
“Well, since everyone is busy here, I’ll go find that doctor and see if he plans to sign your get-out-of-jail-free card.” He draped a receiving blanket over the arm of Ida’s wheelchair then left.
His gaze met Jenny’s as he walked past. Her smile seemed slightly troubled, but he hoped a private chat with her great-aunt would help ease her mind. At least Ida hadn’t accused him of trying to steal his brother’s family—the way his mother would have if she’d been privy to the agreement.
Thankfully, Diane would be gone for two months. Her parting words to Jenny had been, “We’ll be back in time for Christmas…maybe even Thanksgiving. Take good care of those babies.”
Sam paused in the hallway, trying to remember which way to turn. He hated the sounds and smells of hospitals. He hated seeing people confined to beds. An image of Josh wheezing for each breath made his knees wobble and he touched the wall until the moment passed.
The Hospice nurses had warned him to expect a full year of mourning. They were wrong. Sam would mourn his brother for the rest of his life, but Sam also knew that he couldn’t live in the past. He had to move on. For Tucker and Lara who needed a father. And for Jenny, too.
Even if his grand scheme didn’t work out, Sam planned to make the next five years as happy as possible for Jenny. She deserved nothing less.
TUCKER HAD FINISHED nursing a full minute before Sam left the room, but Jenny had waited to move until he was gone. It was difficult listening to him talk so dispassionately about their living arrangements. True, theirs was a passion-free relationship, but there was something so one-sided about his proposal, it made her want to cry. He was doing all the giving, she, the taking. It was almost as though he didn’t think he deserved anyone to love him.
He was offering her his life, but only long enough to bond with his children. The whole concept boggled her mind. And there were so many questions she needed to ask. Will we be roommates, relatives or what? And what would happen once Ida Jane was back on her feet? If Ida returned to town to live, wouldn’t that make Sam and Jenny’s living arrangement look suspicious—even if they were just friends? They were friends, weren’t they?
“What do you think, Auntie? Am I crazy to say yes? Or would it be more crazy to say no?”
Jenny rebuttoned her blouse, stood and walked to her aunt’s bed to change Tucker’s diaper. He liked nothing better than to fill up on one end and discharge on the other. She laid him down then fished in the bag for a disposable diaper. He’d just moved into a bigger size; Lara still had a couple of pounds to go.
As she worked the snaps on the crotch of his sleeper, she looked at her aunt. “I’m serious, Auntie, I need your advice. Should I sign Sam’s papers?”
Ida Jane seemed intent on feeding Lara, who was happily batting the bottle with her fist. She liked to slug Jenny, too, when she was nursing. “Sam’s taking me home today.”
Jenny’s heart made a funny, fluttering sensation. There was something odd in Ida’s singsong tone, as if her mind was somewhere else. “By home you mean the Rocking M, right?” Jenny asked, trying to keep her alarm from showing.
Ida nodded as if hearing something Jenny hadn’t intended. “I used to live there, you know. Before Daddy lost it in a poker game. Gambling is a terrible vice.”
Jenny braced herself for the “horrors of gambling” lecture. She’d heard it a million times.
Instead, Ida sighed and said, “But what in life isn’t a gamble? Sometimes, you just have to do what feels right, regardless of the risk.”
Jenny watched her gently brush one gnarled finger against Lara’s plump cheek. “If you hadn’t taken a chance, we wouldn’t have this little gal, would we?”
Jenny couldn’t argue with that logic. She wouldn’t trade Lara and Tucker for anything. Even another fifty years with Josh? a voice in her head asked. The answer that flitted through her mind left her a little shaken.
“Life has a strange way of working out the way it’s supposed to,” Ida Jane said. “Did I ever tell you about the night you and your sisters were born?”
“Your friends still talk about it like it happened yesterday,” Jenny said.
“It was a big deal to this little town. A terrible tragedy—two lovely young people killed in a senseless car wreck, and at the same time, three precious little miracles were born. You spent twelve days in the hospital, then you and Andi came to live with me. Poor little Kristin didn’t join us for nearly a month. We almost lost her, but the doctors and nurses never gave up.”
Jenny smiled. Kris had always loved that part of the story.
“I became a mother at age fifty-four,” Ida said, her tone bemused. “An unmarried spinster. A dried-up shell of a woman, and I suddenly got my dream come true, three times over.”
She shook her head, obviously musing over fate’s little trick. “Some gifts are too wonderful to question, Jenny girl. But you know deep in your heart, they come with a price.” Her eyes filled with tears. “My poor Lori. She and Mick should have been the ones to raise you. That’s the natural order of things. But it was probably best they went together. They were so much in love.”
Jenny heard the sadness in her aunt’s voice and hastily finished diapering Tucker, who fussed a little because he much preferred being naked.
“I’m so glad you’re coming to the ranch with me.”
Ida looked confused. “To my daddy’s ranch?”
Tears welled up in Jenny’s eyes. She didn’t understand Ida’s sudden slips in clarity and it scared her.
“The Rocking M was your family’s ranch, but it belongs to Sam now. Some of Sam’s workers are moving your things out there today, remember?”
Ida looked unperturbed. She lifted Lara to her shoulder and burped her with efficiency. “Sam’s a good man, and he’ll be a good father to these little tykes. Josh knew that.”
Jenny knew it too, but she was still nervous about signing Sam’s papers. Why?
She didn’t get a chance to raise the question aloud because Sam entered a minute later with a nurse in tow.
“All set, Ida Jane. Just need your John Hancock on the bottom line and we’re out of here.”
“Good,” Ida said, motioning him to her. She signed the three sheets of paper, then the nurse left.
“I’ll pull the van around to the front. What do you want me to carry out, Jen?” Sam asked.
For some reason, his voice sounded very much like Josh’s. Either that or Josh’s voice was fading from Jenny’s memory. The possibility robbed her of her ability to speak.
“My suitcase is right by the door,” Ida Jane said. “We’ll be ready as soon as Jenny finishes changing the baby.”
Jenny felt Sam’s gaze on her, but she didn’t look up. She couldn’t. Not when Josh was out of touch.
Once Sam was gone, Jenny glanced at Ida. Her great-aunt smiled. “Don’t fret, child. The people we love are obliged to stay around as long as we need them, but they have a journey to make, too, you know.”
“They do?”
Ida Jane nodded. “We all do.” She sighed. “I’ll be getting on with mine, too, pretty soon. But not before I see each of you happily settled.”
Jenny smiled. She’d heard that line before. “No wonder our lives are a mess. We want you to live forever.”
Ida shook her finger at Jenny threateningly. “Don’t say such a thing. We all have to go sometime. Besides, you girls are making progress.”
“We are?”
Ida nodded. She turned her head to gaze out the window. “You’re leading the way, Jenny. Just like always. All you need is a little time.”
Time. Jenny wished it were that simple. If time’s all it takes, then I’m in luck. I’m about to sign up for five years. Maybe by then, I’ll have a clue.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JENNY WASN’T SURE if she’d actually heard Tucker’s cry or just anticipated it. In the two and a half weeks that she’d been living at the ranch, she and Sam had discussed the merit of letting him cry himself back to sleep as a way to eliminate the middle-of-the-night feeding, but in all honesty, neither of them could do it. Jenny really cherished the peaceful interlude with her son.
She was out of bed at the first muted whimper. She shrugged on her heavy robe—November had brought with it a couple of light showers and even some frost. Shoving her feet into her alpaca slippers, she dashed through the bathroom to the nursery. Two strategically placed night-lights guided her way.
In the shadows, the white clouds of Sam’s painted-sky ceiling looked like friendly angels smiling down on her. After picking up Tucker—who blinked at her and smiled with such Joshlike charm her eyes misted—Jenny peeked into the hallway. It surprised her that Sam wasn’t on the scene. He often beat her to the punch, sometimes delivering Tucker to her in bed so she didn’t have to get up.
Sam was hands down a gracious host. If Jenny still felt a little tentative about their relationship, she could place none of the fault on Sam’s shoulders. He was a perfect gentleman every evening and spent most daylight hours either in the fields or in his office.
That first Sunday after she’d moved in, he’d invited Jenny’s sisters to a barbecue, which he’d prepared. During dessert, he explained, line by line, his five-year plan, as Jenny had come to think of it.
After what Jenny thought amounted to very little discussion, Kristin and Andi had endorsed Sam’s plan. Ida Jane gave her blessing by nodding off in the lawn chaise.
The following morning Sam had escorted Jenny to his lawyer’s office to sign the papers. They then stopped by the bank to add her signature card to Sam’s checking and savings accounts.
“You’ll need to buy things for the house, for the kids, for whatever,” he’d told her. “Think of this as a job, if you like.”
A job with very long hours, Jenny thought, smiling at her little son. But one I wouldn’t change for anything. She yawned, then after waiting a minute to see if Sam would appear, she strolled to her room and sat down in the padded rocking chair in the alcove. She kept the curtains open at all times to enjoy the panoramic view.
Tucker fussed impatiently.
“I know. I know. Mommy’s slow tonight.” She fumbled with her robe and the buttons of her gown. “It’s because your daddy’s still asleep, and I’m not quite awake.”
Somewhere along the way, Sam had become the twins’ daddy. Jenny wasn’t conscious of making the switch in her mind; it had just happened. And although still a bit conflicted, Jenny accepted it. There would be time to tell the twins about Josh’s role in their lives.
And he was never far from her mind. Or Sam’s, either, it would seem. Just that morning, Sam had strolled into the breakfast nook where Jenny and Greta were experimenting with the twins’ first taste of solid foods—mashed ripe banana.
Sam had pulled up a chair and watched with rapt attention, applauding when Lara successfully swallowed a tiny dollop, but Jenny had sensed he was distracted. A few minutes later, after each baby was finishing off the meal with a bottle, Jenny asked what was on his mind.
“The school called yesterday and asked if I could put together something outlining the goals and requirements for the Josh O’Neal scholarship. I prepared a rough draft and I’d like your feedback.”
Sam’s rough draft would have put most finished products to shame. He’d scanned a photo of Josh standing at Glacier Point with Half Dome in the background and had incorporated it into text that summed up Josh’s philosophy of life: “Respect nature as the gift it is and work toward lessening man’s impact on the environment.” In addition, Sam had attached a list of the donations that had been received to date, including a ten-thousand-dollar gift from the Rocking M Ranch.
