Читать книгу Double Duty For The Cowboy - Brenda Harlen - Страница 12

Chapter Two

As Regan climbed the steps toward the front door of the modest two-story on Larrea Drive that had been her home since she married the deputy, she knew that she should be accustomed to surprises by now. Over the past eight months, her life had been a seemingly endless parade of unexpected news and events.

It had all started with the plus sign in the little window on the home pregnancy test. The second—and even bigger surprise—had come in the form of not one but two heartbeats on the screen at her ultrasound appointment. The third—and perhaps the biggest shock of all—Connor Neal’s unexpected marriage proposal, followed by her equally unexpected yes.

She hadn’t known him very well when they exchanged vows, and if she hadn’t been pregnant, she never would have said yes to his proposal. Of course, if she hadn’t been pregnant, he never would have proposed. And though marriage had required a lot of adjustments from both of them, Connor had proven himself to be a devoted husband.

He’d been attentive to her wants and needs, considerate of her roller-coaster emotions and indulgent of her various pregnancy cravings. He’d attended childbirth classes, painted the babies’ room, assembled their furniture and diligently researched car seat safety. And in the eight days that she’d spent in the hospital since their babies were born, he’d barely left her side.

But when she finally stepped inside the house, after fussing over the dog, whose whole back end was wagging with excitement as if she’d finally returned from eight weeks rather than only eight days away, she found another surprise.

The living room was filled with flowers and balloons and streamers. There was even a banner that read: Welcome Home Mommy, Piper & Poppy!

She looked at him, stunned. “When did you—”

“It wasn’t my doing,” he said, as he set the babies’ car seats down inside the doorway.

Baxter immediately came to investigate, which meant sniffing the tiny humans all over, but he dutifully backed off when Connor held up a hand.

“Then who...” The rest of her question was forgotten as Regan looked past the bouquets of pink and white balloons to see a familiar figure standing there. “Ohmygod... Brie.”

Her sister smiled through watery eyes. “Surprise!”

Before Regan could say anything else, Brielle’s arms were around her, hugging her tight. She held on, overwhelmed by so many emotions she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; she only knew that she was so glad and grateful her sister was home.

“Nobody told me you were coming,” she said, when she’d managed to clear her throat enough to speak. She looked at Connor then. “Why didn’t you tell me she was coming?” And back at Brielle again. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“When I spoke to you on the phone, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get any time off. But I needed to see you and your babies, so I decided that if I had to quit my job, I would.”

Regan gasped, horrified, because she knew how much her sister loved working as a kindergarten teacher at a prestigious private school in Brooklyn. “Tell me you didn’t quit your job.”

Brie laughed. “No need to worry. I’m due back in the classroom Monday morning.”

Which meant that they had less than four days together before her sister had to return to New York City. Four days was a short time, but it was more time than they’d had together in the seven years that had passed since Brielle moved away, and Regan would treasure every minute of it.

“Well, you’re here now,” she said.

“I’m here now,” her sister agreed. “And I asked the rest of the family, who have already seen the babies, to give us some one-on-one time—with your husband and Piper and Poppy, of course.” She moved closer to peek at the sleeping babies. “If they ever wake up.”

“They’ll be awake soon enough,” Connor said. “And you’ll have lots of time with them.”

“Promise?” Brie asked.

He chuckled. “Considering that neither of them has slept for more than three consecutive hours since they were born, I feel confident making that promise. But for now, I’m going to take them upstairs so that you and your sister can relax and catch up.”

Regan smiled her thanks as he exited the room with the babies, Baxter following closely on his heels, then she turned back to her sister. “When did you get in? Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“I got in a few hours ago, I had a sandwich on the plane and, since you asked, I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea to go with the cookies I picked up at The Daily Grind on the way from the airport, but I can make it.”

“You stopped for cookies?”

“I made Spencer stop for cookies,” Brie explained. “Because he picked me up from the airport. And because oatmeal chocolate chip are my favorite, too.”

“Now I really want a cookie,” Regan admitted. “But I no longer have the excuse of pregnancy cravings to indulge.”

“Nursing moms need extra calories, too,” her sister pointed out.

“In that case, what kind of tea do you want with your cookies?” she asked, already heading toward the kitchen.

Brie nudged her toward a chair at the table. “Your husband told you to relax.”

“Making tea is hardly a strenuous task,” Regan noted.

“Then it’s one I should be able to handle.” Her sister filled the electric kettle with water and plugged it in. “Where do you keep your mugs?”

“The cupboard beside the sink. Tea’s on the shelf above the mugs.”

Brie opened the cupboard and read the labels. “Spicy chai, pure peppermint, decaffeinated Earl Grey, honey lemon, country peach, blueberry burst, cranberry and orange, vanilla almond, apple and pear, and soothing chamomile.” She glanced at her sister. “That’s a lot of tea.”

“I was a coffee addict,” Regan confided. “The contents of that cupboard reflect my desperate effort to find something to take its place.”

“Anything come close?” her sister wondered.

She shook her head. “But I’m thinking the vanilla almond would probably go well with the cookies.”

“That works for me,” Brie said, setting the box and two mugs on the counter.

Connor walked into the kitchen then, a baby monitor in hand. “Baxter missed his morning w-a-l-k so I’m going to take him out now, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Regan assured him. “But why are you spelling?”

“Because you know how crazy he gets when I say the word.”

Regan did know. In fact, Connor didn’t even have to say the word; he only had to reach for the leash that hung on a hook by the door and Baxter went nuts—spinning in circles and yipping his excitement. But today the dog was nowhere to be found.

Brielle took a couple of steps back and peered up the staircase her brother-in-law had descended. “Is that first door the babies’ room?”

“It’s the master bedroom,” Connor said, following her gaze. “But we’ve got the babies’ bassinets set up in there for now.”

“He’s stretched out on the floor in front of the door,” Brie said to Regan, so that her sister didn’t have to get up to see what everyone else was seeing.

“And you were worried that he might be jealous of the babies,” Regan remarked to her husband.

“He was abandoned when I found him,” Connor explained. “So I had no idea if he’d ever been around kids or how he’d behaved with them if he had.”

“What kind of dog is he?” Brie asked.

“A mutt,” Connor said.

“A puggle,” Regan clarified. “Though Connor refuses to acknowledge he has a designer dog.”

“He has no papers, which makes him a mutt,” her husband insisted.

“A puggle is part pug, part...beagle?” Brie guessed.

Her sister nodded.

“That might explain why he’s already so protective of the babies,” Brie said. “Beagles are pack animals, and Piper and Poppy are now part of his pack.”

“Say that five times fast,” Regan teased. “And since when do you know so much about dogs?”

“I don’t,” her sister said. “But for a few months last year, I dated a vet who had a beagle. And a dachshund and a Great Dane.”

“That’s an eclectic assortment,” Connor noted.

“He had three cats, too.”

“Wait a minute,” Regan said. “I’m still stuck on the fact that you dated this guy for a few months and I never heard anything about him until right now.”

“Because there was nothing to tell,” her sister said.

“Baxter,” Connor called, obviously preferring to walk rather than hear about his sister-in-law’s dating exploits.

The dog obediently trotted down the stairs, though he hesitated at the bottom. His tail wagged when Connor held up the leash, but he turned his head to glance back at where the babies were sleeping.

“Piper and Poppy will be fine,” Connor promised. “Their mommy and Auntie Brie will be here if they need anything while we’re out.”

Of course, the dog probably didn’t understand what his master was saying, but he seemed reassured enough to let Connor hook the leash onto his collar.

“I won’t be too long,” Connor said, then reached across the counter to flip the switch on the kettle.

Brie looked at her sister. “How long were you going to let me wait for the water to boil before telling me that there was a switch?”

“Only a little while longer.”

Connor chuckled as he led Baxter to the door.

“So tell me when and how you met the hunky deputy,” Brie said, as she poured the finally boiling water into the mugs.

“I’ve known Connor since high school. He was a year ahead of me, but we were in the same math class because I accelerated through some of my courses.”

“I remember now,” Brie said. “He was a scrawny guy with a surly attitude who you tutored in calculus.”

She was grateful her sister didn’t refer to him as the bastard kid of “Faithless Faith”—a cruel nickname that had followed Connor’s mother to her grave. Regan had never met Faith Neal—later Faith Parrish—but she knew of her reputation.

In her later years, Faith had been a hardworking single mom devoted to her two sons, but people still remembered her as a wild teenager who’d snuck out after curfew, hung with a bad crowd and smoked cigarettes and more.

Some people believed she was desperately looking for the love she’d never known at home. Others were less charitable in their assessment and made her the punchline to a joke. If a man suffered any kind of setback, such as the loss of a job or the breakup of a relationship, others would encourage him to “Have Faith.” That advice was usually followed by raucous laughter and the rejoinder: “Everyone else in town has had her.”

“He sure did fill out nicely,” Brie remarked now. “Was it those broad shoulders that caught your eye? Or the sexy dent in his square chin? Because I’m guessing it wasn’t his kitchen decor.”

Regan reached into the bakery box for a cookie. “This room is an eyesore, isn’t it?”

“Or are white melamine cupboards with red plastic handles retro-chic?”

“Connor’s saving up to renovate.”

“Saving up?” Brie echoed, sounding amused. “I guess that means he didn’t marry you for your money.”

“He married me because I was pregnant,” Regan told her. Because when a bride gave birth six months after the ring was put on her finger, what was the point in pretending otherwise?

“Well, if you had to get knocked up, at least it was by a guy who was willing to do the right thing.”

“Hmm,” Regan murmured in apparent agreement.

Brie broke off a piece of cookie. “I would have come home for your wedding, if you’d asked.”

“We eloped in Reno,” Regan told her.

“Doesn’t that count as a wedding?”

She shook her head. “Weddings take time to plan, and I didn’t want to be waddling down the aisle.”

“I’m sure you didn’t waddle,” her sister said loyally.

“I showed you my belly when we Facetimed, so you know I was huge. I was waddling before the end of my fifth month.”

“Well, you were carrying two babies,” Brie acknowledged. She chewed on another bite of cookie before she asked, “What did the folks think about your elopement?”

“They were surprisingly supportive. Or maybe just grateful that their second and third grandchildren wouldn’t be born out of wedlock.”

Their first was Spencer’s daughter, but he hadn’t even known about Dani’s existence until her mother was killed in an accident. He’d given up his career on the rodeo circuit to assume custody, then moved back to Haven with his little girl and fallen in love with Kenzie Atkins, who had been Brielle’s BFF in high school.

“They were a lot less happy to learn that I was pregnant,” Regan confided to her sister now. “Dad’s exact words were, ‘And you were supposed to be the smart one.’”

Brie winced. “That’s harsh. Although it’s true that you’re the smart one.”

“They don’t let dummies into Columbia,” Regan pointed out.

“True,” her sister said again. “But no one I met at Columbia is as smart as you.” She selected another cookie from the box. “What did Mom say?”

“You know Mom,” Regan said. “Always practical and looking for the solution to a problem.”

Brie’s expression darkened. “Because a baby is a problem to be solved and not a miracle to be celebrated.”

“I like to think they were happy about the babies but concerned about my status in town as an unwed mother,” Regan said, though even she wasn’t convinced it was true. “You know how people here like to gossip.”

“And then Connor stepped up to ensure the legitimacy of his babies and all was right in the world?” Brie asked, her tone dubious.

“Well, Dad was happy that Connor had done the right thing—at least, from his perspective. Mom made no secret of the fact that she thinks Connor and I aren’t well-suited.”

“How about you?” Brie asked. “Are you happy with the way everything turned out?”

“I never thought I could be this happy,” Regan responded sincerely. Not that her marriage was perfect, but she was confident that she’d made the right choice for her babies—and hopeful that it would prove to be the right choice for her and her husband, too.

“I’m glad.”

It was the tone rather than the words that tripped Regan’s radar. “So why don’t you sound glad?” she asked her sister.

Brie shrugged. “I guess I’m just thinking about the fact that everyone around me seems to be having babies,” she explained. “Two of my colleagues are off on mat leave right now, a third is due at the end of the summer and another just announced that she’s expecting.”

“That’s a lot of babies. But still, you’re a little young for your biological clock to be ticking already,” Regan noted.

“I’m not in any rush,” Brie said. “But I do hope that someday I’ll have everything you’ve got—a husband who loves me and the babies we’ve made together. Although I’d be happier if they came one at a time.”

Regan managed a smile, despite the tug of longing in her own heart—and the twinge of guilt that she wasn’t being completely honest with her sister. “I have no doubt that your time will come.”

“Maybe. But until then, I’ll be happy to dote on your beautiful babies.”

“You’d be able to dote a lot more if you didn’t live twenty-five hundred miles away,” she felt compelled to point out.

“I know,” her sister acknowledged. “I love New York, my job, my coworkers and all the kids. And I have a great apartment that I share with wonderful friends. But there are times when I miss being here. When I miss you and Kenzie and—well, I miss you and Kenzie.”

Regan’s smile came more easily this time. “So come home,” she urged.

Brie shook her head. “There’s one elementary school in Haven and it already has a kindergarten teacher.”

“That’s what’s holding you back?” Regan asked skeptically. “A lack of job opportunities?”

“It’s a valid consideration,” her sister said. Then, when she heard a sound emanate from the monitor, “Is that one of my nieces that I hear now?”

Regan chuckled, even as her breasts instinctively responded to the sound of the infant stirring. “You know, most people don’t celebrate the sound of a baby crying,” she remarked.

“But doting aunts are always happy to help with snuggles and cuddles.”

“And diaper changes?”

“Whatever you need,” Brie promised.