Читать книгу Ten Acres And Twins - Kaitlyn Rice - Страница 7

JACK TOOK MEASURE of Abby’s expression as he walked down the courthouse steps toward her, trying to determine whether she was despondent or furious. She was probably both, and he could hardly blame her. None of this felt right, but it was what Brian and Paige had wanted.

Abby had a parent flanking each side. At first glance, Mike Briggs seemed as easygoing as usual. He stood next to his daughter with a big yellow diaper bag looped over his arm. Today, however, his mouth formed a bleak line across his face.

Faye was the only one of the three adults who offered a smile. She stood to Abby’s left, holding the twin in white ruffles—that must be Rosie.

Abby had Wyatt clutched tightly against her chest, and looked quite comfortable for a woman who’d been caring for those babies only a couple of weeks. Her lips were pressed against the boy’s forehead, and she was swaying from side to side. The tip of the braid she always wore appeared at one side of her waist, then the other like a pendulum, as if keeping track of how many floggings he deserved for taking the boy from her.

Jack paused on the steps to blow out a puff of pure frustration, before charging on down to the group. When he reached them, Abby handed the child over without a word. Her lips were pinched so tightly that a scattering of dimples embellished her chin.

He smiled at her, appealing silently for understanding, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her stormy eyes never abandoned the baby.

Turning his own attention to the boy in his arms, he looked down into the face of his brother’s child—and his responsibility for about the next eighteen years. Wyatt’s eyes were a muddy blue today—somewhere between the gray-blue of a newborn and whatever shade he’d wind up with eventually. They were wide and trusting. Innocent.

A fit of panic nearly overwhelmed Jack, but he squelched it, and put on a mask of bravado for the benefit of Abby and her parents. “Hi, Wyatt,” he crooned. “I’m Daddy Jack. I’m going to take good care of you.”

The baby stared back. He had grown considerably in five and a half months, but he was still so very…puny. His balled fist lurched wildly through the air, and his face scrunched into an odd contortion.

Nervously, Jack studied the way Faye was holding Rosie with the baby’s back against her chest, wrapped in her arms, and gently bouncing. Rosie seemed content with the situation, so Jack copied their stance. The change in position meant he couldn’t see Wyatt’s face, but since the boy hadn’t started screaming, he figured it was working.

Abby and her parents stood watching, placing the burden of goodbyes on him. Since he couldn’t offer a handshake, he offered a nod instead. “Faye and Mike, it’s been good to see you again,” he said. “Next time, let’s hope we meet under easier circumstances.”

“Of course, dear,” Faye said. “This has been terrible for all of us. I’m just glad your brother and Paige were so happy in the past year.”

Jack wasn’t sure whether he was pleased that his brother had grown into his marriage, or sad that the happiness had been so short-lived, so he didn’t respond.

Instead, he noted the way Abby had her arms wrapped against her stomach, and he smiled at her again, hoping to soothe her pain. “Abby, we need to talk about the farm,” he said. “May I call you?”

“I guess you’ll have to,” she answered.

Jack started toward his car, carting Wyatt in front of him like a sack of potatoes. He knew four pairs of eyes were probably boring into his back, but he’d gone a few yards before Abby spoke.

“Jack? Don’t you want his things?”

He stopped in his tracks and turned around. Of course. The baby’s things. He’d been so intent on looking capable that he’d forgotten Wyatt would need special food, and diapers. He’d need clothes and toys and…baby things.

“I have some of it in my truck,” Abby said, beginning to walk toward the other end of the parking lot.

As Jack followed her, he added idiocy to his growing pile of bad feelings. At least this one wasn’t new—she had a knack for making him feel foolish.

Maybe it was her no-nonsense manner. Maybe it was her sober expression. Whatever it was, it always seemed abundantly clear that she wouldn’t surrender to his most valiant efforts to charm.

But at least she was in the minority—most women surrendered plenty.

At fourteen, Jack had taken a wide-angled look at his future. As far as school was concerned, he’d been on a path to success. He was sure to graduate in the upper five percent, along with many of his pals in the computer club.

The only problem was that none of them had been surrounded by girls. He’d recognized the narrow perception most of his peer group had of intelligent males, and refused to accept it.

He could do better. He’d used his brains to figure out the most surefire method to win a lady’s attention, if not her heart, and a would-be nerd had turned into a masterful lothario.

Since then, most women had been only too happy to catch his interest. Abby was one of very few who’d been resistant. But she hadn’t always been. She’d consented to more than one dance at Brian and Paige’s wedding reception. She’d even laughed at a few jokes, until they’d talked their way into a squabble.

Now she didn’t seem to mind hurtling across the parking lot in front of him, and she didn’t try to make polite conversation. Once she reached a big blue pickup, she opened the passenger door and reached inside for a second diaper bag and a box of supplies. “If you’ll meet me at the farmhouse tomorrow morning, say around nine, we can get the rest of his things,” she said. “This is just a start.”

“Sure thing. Phenomenal. Thanks.”

Abby set the box on the pavement and looked pointedly at Wyatt. “Why don’t I hold him while you put these in your car? Then I’ll get his car seat and you can take it, too.”

Handing the baby back to her, he looped the diaper bag over a shoulder, picked up the box and strode to his car to stash both in the trunk.

Returning to Abby, he took Wyatt again, and thought about all the juggling involved in transporting a single infant. How had Abby thought she could handle two of them alone?

He was careful to hold Wyatt in the same face-out position, rocking him gently, and was surprised when the boy started to whimper. When Jack bounced harder, the bawling got louder. He cleared his throat. “Abby? Why is he crying?”

“You have a lot to learn, don’t you?” she said. “He may be hungry or wet. Try putting your fingertip in his mouth.”

Jack scowled. This was no time to make jokes.

Abby opened her eyes wide, set her hands on her hips and waited. She looked serious.

Frowning still, he stretched one hand across Wyatt’s chest so he could press a pinkie finger against the quivering lips. Wyatt immediately stopped sniveling and started sucking.

“Good,” Abby said. “Your finger should calm him until you can dig a binky out of the bag.”

“A binky?”

She chuckled. “A pacifier.”

Abby turned back to her truck, leaning across the back seat to disengage one of the car seats. She had the most delicious little tush, and the skirt she was wearing showcased it perfectly. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine what she’d look like without it.

Jack smothered a groan and looked away. The last thing he needed was to foster an attraction for Abby.

Keeping his finger in place, he lifted Wyatt onto his forearm and occupied himself with chuckling at the boy’s tiny vest and long brown curls. Abby had dressed him like a little man today, but from the looks of things, a trip to the barber would be in order before Wyatt’s first birthday.

Abby clunked the car seat down on the pavement and lifted Wyatt from his arms. “I’ll carry him to your car,” she said. “Installing a car seat takes both hands.”

Make that three to four hands, Jack thought a few minutes later as he fumbled with straps and buckles that seemed to make no sense.

It took one extra baby rotation before the seat was secure, but after Abby’s more practiced hands took over the chore, Wyatt was in the seat with a pacifier and she was heading back across the parking lot toward her parents.

Jack frowned as he sat in his car and watched her go. Her purposeful walk belied the reluctance she must have felt, and he knew she had to be upset.

He wished he could think of a better way. He glanced down at Wyatt, whose eyelids were droopy by now, and back out the window at Abby.

Her stride hadn’t faltered, but somehow, in a morning of mixed-up feelings, her walk made him smile. It wasn’t her speed or the lack of artificial sway, so much as the perfection of well-used legs and a sweet round bottom that couldn’t help but wiggle. That no-nonsense walk was as entrancing as any he’d seen.

That walk, and his reaction to seeing it, were the only right things about the morning. He kept grinning as he started his car. Quite unintentionally, Abby had graced him with a moment of pure delight.

“ABBY? IT’S ME,” Jack said, pleased that she had answered her phone. During the last call she had definitely sounded riled. He’d been afraid she would take the phone off the hook, and he needed her advice.

“Yes, Jack. What do you need?”

“I finally got this formula mixed and heated, and then the phone rang and I didn’t get Wyatt fed for thirty minutes. Do I have to start over completely?”

“Hang on,” she said with a long sigh. She spoke to someone in the background. The string of babbling that followed must be Rosie, playing. In his five hours with Wyatt, Jack had heard nothing but wailing.

“He’s been waiting for his bottle for thirty minutes?” Abby asked abruptly. She sounded as if she was right there beside him. He could picture her with her hands on her hips and that preachy look on her face. “What’s he doing?”

“Lying on the floor, sucking on a pacifier.”

“For thirty minutes? What did you do with the bottle?”

She made a tsk-ing sound, which was totally unnecessary.

There was no possible way for Jack to feel any more inept than he already did.

“It’s on the counter, in the kitchenette.”

“For Pete’s sake, feed the kid. Why didn’t you do it while you were talking on the phone?”

“Sometimes I need to get on my laptop to figure out how to solve a client’s problem. I needed my hands free.”

“Jack, wake up. You’re a parent now,” she said, her tone implying exactly how dim she thought he was.

“You may have to call a client back now and then.”

After hanging up, Jack retrieved the bottle from the kitchen and settled down with Wyatt on the hotel sofa. He popped the pacifier out of the baby’s mouth and watched in horror as the tiny back stiffened and the tinier mouth opened wide to shriek.

Frantically, he stuck the bottle in. And relaxed. Once that first taste of formula hit Wyatt’s tongue, he quieted quickly. “That’s my boy,” Jack said, feeling as if he’d conquered a major obstacle.

He was going to get this baby business down and get back to Kansas City. Back to his life. Things would go much better there—he’d have his speakerphone, his main computer and his girlfriends to ask for advice. They might not know as much as Abby, but they’d never make him feel unfit, either.

Under the circumstances, Abby’s snappy attitude made sense, but he was certainly not dim. He loved a challenge. He could make this work.

Wasn’t he the same guy who’d managed to finish high school a full year early? In spite of having little help from a mother who was busy running through boyfriends.

Jack had to keep Brian occupied and fed on many nights, and he’d still been able to attend college, keep a string of girlfriends happy and start his own business. He could learn to care for a person too young to walk or talk.

Besides, for all practical purposes he’d already raised a boy. Although Brian had been older by the time he had taken over the chore, Jack knew that if he could just persevere until Wyatt was about school age, the job would be old hat.

The most important thing, he thought, was a desire to do the job well. Motivation was half the battle with anything.

He could always deal with the guilt later.

But a few minutes after Wyatt finished the bottle, he started fussing again. Jack changed a diaper that was only slightly wet, but the baby kept screaming. Jack couldn’t figure out why. He’d have to call Abby again.

“Hullo?”

“Abby, he’s been crying for fifteen minutes straight,” he hollered above the noise.

“Did you feed him?”

“Yes,” he said in horror, thinking there must have been something terribly wrong with the formula. “He drank the whole bottle.”

“Did you burp him?”

“Oh…uh, no. I didn’t. Hang on, I’m picking him up. Talk me through it,” he implored. “Talk loud.”

He held Wyatt out in front of him, hoping against hope the child simply needed burping. The baby howled as if a pin was sticking in his belly, but these diapers had Velcro. That formula must have been spoiled.

Next time, his client would wait.

Abby described the burping position she found most effective, and several others to try if that one didn’t work. Within a few minutes, the tiny boy had produced three burps that could vie for a record with Jack’s beer guzzling buddies. All of the sudden, Wyatt was gurgling and waving his fists in the air contentedly.

Once again Jack thanked Abby for her help and hung up.

After that, the Kimball men had a fairly decent evening. Jack found a soft blue blanket in the diaper bag and spread it on the floor. He let the baby kick around on that while he ate a room service dinner.

Later, they took in the end of a baseball game together. Wyatt hadn’t actually developed a fondness for sports yet, but if Jack sat on the floor beside him and spoke animatedly about the wisdom or folly of each play, the baby seemed happy to respond to the conversation.

When Wyatt started sobbing again after the game, Jack fed him—brilliantly, this time. He had the baby fed and burped within a half hour, without a single snag. Then he changed a dirty diaper, congratulating himself on that, too. It had been his first poopy diaper, and he managed it without needing a bit of advice.

He called Abby only one more time that night.

“Hullo, Jack. What is it?” she asked tiredly, after just one ring.

“How’d you know it was me?”

“Are you kidding? You’ve called at least once every hour for the past six. I was wondering where you’d gone.”

“Oh.”

“Well, what is it?”

Abby had worked her magic again: he felt foolish. He considered hanging up, but he still needed to know the answer to his question. “How do I take a shower?”

She giggled. “Now you’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not,” he said. “What do I do with Wyatt?”

“It’s eleven o’clock. He’s not asleep yet?”

“No.”

After another exaggerated sigh, she said, “Is there a separate place in your hotel room for him to sleep?”

“Yes, we’re in a suite.”

“Go pull a mattress off the bed and put Wyatt in the middle of it on his back. Stack pillows on every side. Then—and this is the most important part—leave the room.”

It sounded too easy. “Won’t he cry?”

“For a while, but if he’s quiet within a few minutes, you’ve made it,” she said in a whisper-soft voice that sounded sweet for the first time today. “Then you can go take a shower.”

“Good,” he said, grateful for her kindness. He’d been through enough already.

“And Jack?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to bed. Babies wake up at night. You check their diaper, see if they’re hungry. You can do that. Don’t call me again unless it’s an emergency.”

SEVEN HOURS LATER, Jack stirred from a light snooze when Wyatt starting moving around. The arm of the hotel room sofa was rock hard, making deep sleep out of the question. But Wyatt had been quiet and comfortable, belly down against his uncle’s chest, with a blanket tucked snugly around him.

Jack had tried Abby’s suggestion. He had tried hard. But it had been impossible to listen to Wyatt shriek for longer than a minute or two. For all he knew, the child had fallen off the mattress and rolled across the floor. Or maybe the little guy missed his family. Jack couldn’t discount that possibility.

Besides, he had the other hotel guests to consider.

So he’d slept on the sofa with Wyatt nestled on his chest. The arrangement had worked wonders for the baby.

Jack himself hadn’t slept more than an hour or two.

All those wakeful hours had afforded him plenty of thinking time, and he’d started to come to some conclusions. For one thing, taking care of an infant was a laborious chore— Wyatt seemed to need constant attention.

Where had Jack gotten the impression that babies slept most of the time? So far, Wyatt had cried more than he’d slept. Or so it seemed.

If he took the baby back to Kansas City, he could try working from home so he could tend to Wyatt. He imagined a day broken into scattered segments of trying to feed, change and pacify a baby, while his clients cooled their heels on the other end of the phone line. And Jack had no idea what he’d do when he had to go on a business trip.

In any case, his company would probably fail.

If he hired round-the-clock care, he could spend time with his nephew whenever he wasn’t working. Then he’d have a definite hand in the boy’s upbringing.

Of course, Jack would have to slow down his social life to a snail’s pace. The ladies would have to visit him at home, or see him a lot less often.

But when it came right down to it, he didn’t have many options. His working hours were unpredictable, and he didn’t have a kindly old aunt nearby to help when he needed it.

Although there were three women he dated regularly, none seemed as if they would want to take on the chore.

He knew for certain that Paula, the woman he’d known the longest, would revolt at being asked to help with an infant.

She might close her eyes to his playboy ways, but she wouldn’t tolerate a child. She often said that having children was what other women did when they didn’t have the imagination to create an exciting life for themselves.

There was something else that was bothering him, too, and it was the most important aspect of his dilemma. The twins were all that was left of the family Brian had loved. Jack shouldn’t tear them apart, especially not after they’d just lost their parents. They deserved to grow up knowing one another. At the very least, they deserved to spend time together as siblings. He shouldn’t take that away from them.

But he couldn’t just give the boy up, either. That would be letting himself down, as well as Brian.

Jack needed to talk to Abby.

ONE OF THE BABIES was crying.

Abby woke up, stumbled off the couch and headed for the bedroom to see which one needed her. By the time she’d crossed the threshold, she remembered. Jack had taken Wyatt.

It had required all the self-control she could muster to help that man through his troubles yesterday, when all she’d wanted was to go over there and bring Wyatt home.

Lifting Rosie off the mattress, she hummed softly. The baby began to quiet immediately, but Abby knew she was probably hungry. It was six o’clock, about the time the babies usually woke up.

Trudging into the kitchen to pull a bottle from the refrigerator, Abby warmed it, then wandered back to her rocker with both baby and bottle. She settled in for a while, watching Rosie drink.

Yesterday’s events kept replaying in her head like a nightmare. Jack had really taken Wyatt. And then he had called her all day long, reminding her constantly that his knowledge of babies could fit on the wing of an aphid.

She wondered how Wyatt had slept last night, or whether he had slept at all. A brutal stab of longing pierced through her heart, starting her tears falling again.

She let them flow, reassuring Rosie that crying was healthy and healing. The sweet girl looked at Abby as if she understood the pain, seeming oddly wise—until she reached up with chubby fingers and clenched Abby’s nose.

Abby’s responding chuckle caused Rosie to smile back and kick her feet in happiness. And for all her innocence, she provided a wealth of comfort.

After Rosie had been fed, burped, bathed and dressed, Abby let her play on the floor with a bowl of plastic fish while she gathered some things in a diaper bag.

Yesterday had proved that she couldn’t wait for serendipity to solve her problems. Jack had no business trying to fit a sweet little boy into his self-absorbed lifestyle. Paige wouldn’t have wanted that, no matter what the will said, and now it was up to Abby to make sure it didn’t happen. Somehow.

She wanted nothing more than to raise both twins together, on the farm in the country. After all, that was a modified version of her lifelong dream.

Ever since she was a young girl, a country life was what she had envisioned for herself. She’d wanted to marry some dark-haired, faceless man, raise a yardful of kids and animals, and grow flowers.

Many of the childhood games of “let’s pretend” she had played with her sister had revolved around that theme.

After her divorce, Abby realized her fairy tale would never include the dark-haired man. She’d made a foolish choice once, and she didn’t trust herself to try again. But she’d never forgotten the rest of the fantasy.

Her sister had been more successful in starting down all the right paths, but she was gone now. It was only fitting that Abby should carry on pursuing their shared hopes.

If only she could convince Jack to give up Wyatt.

A few minutes later, she drove down the long dirt lane to the eighty-year-old-house she’d loved most of her life. Jack’s silver two-seater sports car was parked haphazardly in the drive, with his familiar blue cap resting on its hood. He’d beaten her here.

She parked behind him and hopped out to pull Rosie from the back seat. A whistle sounded, and she whirled around to find Jack watching from beside a massive white column of the wraparound wooden porch.

His hair was as unruly as ever, and he looked as if he hadn’t shaved today. The dark stubble turned his eyes impossibly blue, and a loden-green sport shirt showed off his wide chest. He looked handsome in a homey sort of way. In fact, his relaxed approach to grooming only sparked her interest more.

He looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed.

“You make that look easy,” he said.

“What?”

“Getting her in and out of that seat. It took me a long time to figure out those straps again after I got Wyatt to the hotel yesterday.”

“Where is he?” she asked, just now realizing that Jack wasn’t carrying him.

He pointed to his car. Whether from overprotectiveness, or a complete lack of trust, Abby was peering through the car window within seconds.

Wyatt was in his car seat, sound asleep. The cracked window provided adequate ventilation, and the morning air was comfortable for early August. The boy was in no danger, but still…

“How long have you left him in there?”

“Less than two minutes,” Jack said. “He was asleep when we got here, so I came up to look around on the porch.”

Abby squinted at him, wondering if he was being truthful. After yesterday, she wouldn’t be surprised if Wyatt had been left much longer. Jack might be some guru computer consultant, but he knew nothing about babies.

“Go ahead, touch the hood of the car,” he said with a raised brow. “It’s probably still warm.”

“That’s not necessary.” She sniffed and carried Rosie onto the porch. Once there, Abby foraged through her purse with one hand, searching for the door key.

“Let me help,” Jack offered, holding his arms out.

Reluctantly, Abby handed the baby over just long enough to locate her keys. Neither he nor Rosie seemed to mind the exchange. He smiled sweetly into the baby girl’s face, provoking a sweeter smile from Rosie, and a string of syllables that sounded something like, “Bibibibi deek?”

Ignoring Jack’s chuckled response, Abby opened the door and stepped inside. Subdued light from an overhead window set off the foyer’s original wood flooring, and somehow the house smelled fresh, despite the fact that it had been closed up most of the past two weeks.

Maybe it was an illusion—she’d always felt welcome when she walked through this doorway—but now just being here put her at ease. As if she’d come home.

Jack followed her inside, with Rosie prattling happily in his arms. “Why don’t I get Wyatt and put him in his crib?” Abby offered. “It’s still set up in the nursery.”

Without waiting for a response, she jogged back outside and lifted Wyatt from the car seat, cuddling him close as she returned.

Jack had disappeared into the house with Rosie, so she headed upstairs to the nursery. She put Wyatt into his own crib and backed quietly away.

At the doorway, she switched on the baby monitor and took the receiver with her. She found Jack and Rosie in the kitchen, looking out the French doors into the greenhouse Abby and Paige had built last year.

Jack was speaking gently to the child, holding her up so she could see out. As soon as Abby walked into the room, he turned and said, “The flowers are thriving out there. Have you been keeping them up?” He shifted Rosie to his other arm, already seeming adept at holding a baby.

Abby’s heart fell; she’d been counting on his complete and continuing discomfort with kids.

She put the receiver on the table and went to claim her little girl. “I have,” she admitted. “I had been helping Paige start a commercial cut-flower business, and I couldn’t let it all go.”

“Didn’t your family know the man who owned this place?”

“Mr. Apple Man,” she began, and paused to chuckle at herself for the mistake. “That’s what Paige and I called him when we were growing up, because of the orchards. Actually, his name is Larry Epelstein. When he got too old to run the place, he offered to sell it to us, cheap. He wanted to be sure someone got in here who would take care of his trees.”

“Everyone in your family has a green thumb, don’t they?”

“Guess so,” Abby answered, gnawing at her lip as she looked out at the colorful melange of flowers.

She’d need to water them today, and some of the varieties would need deadheading. She hadn’t found the energy to get the blooms to market lately. If things didn’t improve anytime soon, perhaps she never would.

Jack touched her arm. “Since we’re both here, why don’t we talk now?”

Still staring out into the greenhouse, she considered why it felt as if he held her very life in his hands. He seemed to hold a balance of power here. He had Wyatt, and the land the orchards were situated on. She knew Rosie and the house were every bit as valuable, but there was one difference.

Abby wanted what he had.

Pretending a courage she didn’t feel, she wandered over to the antique oak table that dominated the middle of the kitchen. “Guess now’s as good a time as any,” she said as she slid into a chair with Rosie on her lap.

Jack sat across from her, and actually smiled when Rosie started fussing. “Well!” he said. “It’s good to know that you can make yours cry, too.”

Abby swallowed a bristling retort and forced herself to smile back. “She probably just wants to play,” she said. “There’s an activity center in the nursery. I’ll sneak up and get it.”

She plopped the crying baby back into Jack’s arms and grinned at his swift change of expression. Now he looked close to tears.

She ran back up to the nursery, reminding herself all the way of how much more effective she’d be if she kept her cool.

After she lugged the toy back down to the kitchen and put Rosie into the seat, her sobbing stopped. But the knowledge that she and Jack were assured a few minutes of peace did little to calm Abby’s nerves.

“Okay,” she said, tugging at the neck of her T-shirt as she sat down again. “Where should we start?”

“I did a lot of thinking last night,” he said as he frowned at his hands, which were folded on the table. “We need to work out a way to keep the twins together.”

Abby felt a rush of relief so profound that she hopped up to kiss him. It was nothing more than a hasty smack on the cheek, but as soon as she did it she realized her mistake.

His beard scraped against her lips, making them feel soft and pouty. And he smelled incredible. Manly, like some bracing man’s soap, or like ocean air. She hadn’t experienced that sort of smell in a long, long time.

A deep, urgent response walloped her so powerfully that she immediately closed her eyes and collapsed back into her chair. When she opened them again, she realized he was checking out her chest.

Apparently, her kiss had affected him, too. Or perhaps he was always ready for an opportunity to check out a female body. Even Abby’s.

She crossed her arms in front of her. “Sorry,” she said. “You caught me by surprise.”

His crinkle-eyed gaze floated leisurely up to her face.

“Hey, don’t ever apologize for kissing me,” he said. Then he cleared his throat. “I just don’t know how to do it.”

“Um, do what, exactly?”

“Keep them together.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, sweeping her gaze to the precious baby girl she’d managed to forget for an instant.

“I’m not ready to give up my place in Kansas City,” he explained. “It’s a phenomenal town home, near the heart of the business district. Many of my clients have offices nearby.”

“Are you planning to leave Wyatt here?” she asked.

Perhaps her hopes were coming true. If he would sell her the land, too, her dreams would be tied up with a tidy bow.

“No,” he said, dashing her hopes abruptly. “I’ll stay a year as Brian requested. If you run the orchard, the proceeds can go back into the farm. Next fall, we can talk about a fair price for the land, and a way to keep Wyatt and Rosie in contact. Things might be easier by then.”

“Maybe.”

Jack ran a hand along his whiskery jaw, staring out at the greenhouse. “I could sublet the town home….”

Abby listened as he thought out loud. Since he was moving things in her direction on his own, she decided to let him ramble on before she butted in. Maybe he’d realize he should just leave Wyatt here with her. Forever.

“…and find a place around here. You know of anyplace?”

She thought of the land surrounding the farm. There was a cattle ranch on one side and a wheat farm on the other. She shook her head. “There’s nothing to rent out here.”

Wyatt’s howl exploded into the room, causing Jack to jump out of his seat. “Hot damn—” he began, then glanced at Rosie. “Hot dang, what is that racket?”

Abby clicked off the receiver. “Just the baby monitor.”

He stared at the device. “Why is it so loud?”

Abby was already headed for the stairs. “A bad habit,” she hollered back. “This house is so big I’m afraid I won’t hear them, so I turn it up full blast.”

Wyatt quieted almost immediately when Abby picked him up.

She used one of Rosie’s diapers to change him, and then carried him back downstairs, thinking all the way.

She loved this baby. She wanted to be near him every single day and night. She’d do anything to achieve that goal.

Anything.

When she got back to the kitchen, she handed Wyatt to Jack, then lifted Rosie out of the bouncer and laid her belly-down on the floor. “This is when a high chair would come in handy,” she said. “Paige was thinking about getting one, but the babies only started eating solid food a few weeks ago.”

A frown creased Jack’s forehead. “Is Wyatt hungry?”

“No, but one baby could sit in a high chair with a couple of toys while the other took a turn in the activity center.” Abby took Wyatt and deposited him in the toy’s seat. “It’s just another source of amusement for the twins.”

Wyatt immediately started bouncing and batting at colorful knobs. “You were just ready to play, weren’t you?” she crooned.

Opening a cabinet drawer, she pulled out a couple of toys and tossed them in front of Rosie, who propped herself up on sturdy arms to grab a set of plastic keys.

When she dropped them, they produced a clacking sound that must have pleased her, because she snagged them right back up and began hitting them repeatedly against the terracotta tiles.

“If I can find a big enough apartment, I could run my business from there,” Jack said as Abby returned to the table. “There’s bound to be something suitable in town.”

“Or we could both move in here,” Abby suggested, wondering even as she said it if she was completely insane. “This house has plenty of room for an office, and we could switch off duties so we’d both have time to work.”

“You mean we’d live together as roommates?” Jack asked.

“Of course,” she said, trying with all her might to make the suggestion seem like no big deal. Even though it was. A big deal.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he murmured, staring at her with a bemused expression. “I could set up my office here easily enough, but don’t you work at a flower shop?”

“My parents own a flower shop in town,” she corrected. “I work at a garden supply warehouse, but I was thinking of quitting, anyway. I could pay my share of the bills with the profits from the cut-flower business.”

“Hmm,” he said, pushing out his bottom lip and toying with the whiskers underneath. “I like this idea more and more. The babies would have both of us around for a year and by the end of that time they’d be easier to manage.”

“Um-hmm,” Abby said, worrying about the idea more and more. Could she and Jack actually live here, together?

He might not know her from a garden of weeds, but she was painfully aware of his vitality. Always.

She also knew he led a pretty active social life. Would he want to bring his women here? She began to imagine a revolving door of various women, coming in and out of the farmhouse and cooing at the babies before they vanished into Jack’s room to coo some more.

“Sounds cozy,” he said, breaking into her angst.

“Doesn’t it, though?” She feigned composure, but her alarm grew exponentially as her idea hurtled from impetuous to barely conceivable to likely. And remained, all the while, quite impossible.