Читать книгу Wyoming Christmas Surprise - Melissa Senate - Страница 10
ОглавлениеAllie had been freshening her lipstick when someone knocked on the door. She’d glanced at the clock. Eleven fifty-six. She’d figured it was Elliot needing help with his tie. He always dressed for their dates in a sports jacket and tie—and the tie was always either crooked or the knot halfway down his shirt. She’d opened the door, expecting to see Elliot’s kind, pale face in the doorway.
But it wasn’t Elliot.
It was a ghost.
Theo. Wearing dark sunglasses and a black Stetson pulled down low. Even so, she recognized him. Knew it was him.
It can’t really be Theo, Allie thought numbly, her head spinning, her knees wobbly. I’m dreaming. I’m hallucinating.
“Theo,” she whispered. “Theo.”
He took off the hat and held it against his chest, then pocketed the sunglasses in his black leather jacket.
She gasped at how real he looked. Same thick dark hair, same intense green eyes, same scar along his chiseled jawline. Very tall at six foot two. Muscular, as always. Were ghosts muscular? Of course not.
You’re seeing things, she told herself, staring at him, aware her mouth was hanging open, as she reached out like a crazy person to touch him. He’s not here. He died almost two years ago.
His ghost had come to tell her not to marry Elliot Talley, a man she didn’t love “that way,” she figured. Or his ghost was here to give his blessing. One or the other.
“It’s me,” Theo said, reaching out a hand to touch the side of her face. “Oh, God, Allie. It is so good to see you. I have so much to tell you.”
The contact of his hand on her face was real. He was real.
“It’s so good to see me?” she sputtered. “What?” She shook her head again, sure he wouldn’t still be there. “I was at your funeral. You’re...”
He stepped inside the room and shut the door, then took both her hands and led her over to the two chairs by the mirror. She sat down right before her legs gave out. “I didn’t die that night, Allie. Obviously,” he added in a choked voice as he sat beside her. “But I had to make everyone think I did to protect you.”
She slowly shook her head again, trying to listen as he started saying something about the serial killer he and his team had been after for months. “He threatened—”
A knock on the door interrupted him.
“Um, Allie?” called the voice of Elliot Talley. Her fiancé. The man she was supposed to marry in two minutes. “I need to talk to you.”
She glanced at Theo, who moved against the wall. He put back on the dark sunglasses.
“Allie?” Elliot called out again with another knock. “I really have to talk to you.”
Well, Elliot, she thought as she stood up, legs like rubber, it’s kind of perfect timing, since I have to talk to you, too. Seems marrying you would make me a bigamist. There went her knees again, wobbling around.
She pulled open the door. Now it was Elliot who stood in the doorway, looking pale as the ghost she’d thought Theo was a minute ago. Elliot looked sick, his face a bit contorted in pain, one hand clutching his stomach.
“Allie. Oh, God, Allie. I can’t do this. I’m sorry,” Elliot said. “I thought I could do it, but I can’t. I’m sorry. One baby, sure. But—” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Maybe this is just cold feet and I’ll come to my senses later, but I don’t think so. I’m so sorry.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it, then turned and ran down the hall. Allie stared after him openmouthed until he pushed through the door of the town hall.
Well, she thought.
“That him, running through the parking lot?” Theo asked, gesturing out the window.
Allie walked over to the window, more aware of her husband standing beside her, the presence of him, than of her runaway groom, racing to his car in his tan suit. They watched as he got into his car and peeled out.
Allie sank back down onto a chair. She’d been so careful not to sit and wrinkle her outfit. Now she planned to ball this suit up and chuck it. Or give it to Goodwill.
Theo was alive? Theo was alive. Theo was alive.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t process.
“How did you even know to come here?” she asked, barely able to get the words out.
Because he’s been keeping tabs on you, she figured. It was the only thing that made sense. He couldn’t let her get married when she already had a husband—alive and well. So he’d rushed over to stop the wedding.
If anyone has any reason why these two should not be husband and wife, speak now or forever hold your peace.
Then again, did mayors officiating even say that at town hall weddings? She wasn’t sure.
I object! she imagined Theo calling out, rushing in at the last possible second. Turns out I’m not dead!
She was losing her mind. Obviously. Her dead husband, whose funeral she had attended, was sitting right beside her, and she was out of her mind. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think.
Did the entire police department know the truth? Had they been informing him what was going on in her life? Was that why he’d turned up here at the last possible second?
No, she realized suddenly.
No one was keeping tabs on her for him. She knew that with certainty. Because even if he was able to leave her, to stay “buried” for two years, there was no way he would have stayed away if he’d known about the quadruplets. She knew next to nothing about what had led Theo to fake his death, but she knew him.
Oh, God. He didn’t know he was a father. He had no idea.
Her brain was moving a mile a minute—so many questions, assumptions. And then her mind just shut down and filled with static and, inexplicably, the wedding march. She heard it playing over and over. Her brain on overload.
She shook her head again, trying to make some sense of this. Theo was here. Alive.
He pulled something from the pocket of his jacket, a folded-up piece of newspaper. He unfolded it and pointed.
Ah. It was the wedding announcement her sisters had insisted on placing, since Allie had said no to anything wedding-ish. She’d relented on the announcement mostly to quash the whispers she still heard in the supermarket and at the baby/toddler play center: There’s that poor widow with the quadruplets! Look, she has two different sneakers on and Cheerios in her hair. She’d figured that literally alerting the media to her impending nuptials would stop the pity.
She could imagine what people would be whispering now. Turns out her husband wasn’t dead after all, and she had no idea! That poor not-a-widow!
Theo looked down at the floor for a moment, then back up at her. “You know that truck stop diner on the freeway about ten minutes out of town?”
Of course she knew it. They’d gotten gas there a zillion times over their five years together. Early on in their marriage, when they’d stay up all night just talking, they’d go to the twenty-four-hour diner at two thirty in the morning for omelets and home fries, gazing at each other like lovesick dopes. It was just a greasy spoon, but they made amazing chocolate milkshakes and the Starks had gone at least twice a week. Of course, that was years ago. Before, before, before.
“Well, I stopped in to fill up the truck,” he said, “and then I figured I’d have a few cups of coffee to prepare myself, to figure out what I was going to say, how I was going to just knock on your door and tell you I was alive. I’d gone over all that in my mind during the five-hour drive to Wedlock Creek, but as I got so close, everything went out of my head. All I could think about was the look that would be on your face. How I’d lied and betrayed you. I could barely move from the booth. Until I saw the wedding announcement.”
She stood up and moved to the window. “If you say you did it to protect me, I believe you, Theo.”
But something was poking at her—at her heart, at her gut. That maybe he’d been relieved to walk away from her, from their rocky marriage.
“When I saw the announcement,” he added, “I rushed here as fast as I could.”
“Turns out you could have finished your coffee,” she said, then walked over to the window and stared out. A huge Christmas tree decorated the town green in the yard, colored lights and tinsel wrapped around it.
She turned back to him, half expecting him to be gone, this all just a dream. He was so damned good-looking. And wearing clothes she’d never seen before, clothes the Theo Stark she’d known would never have chosen. Cowboy boots, for one. Theo had liked expensive and very comfortable Italian black leather boots for winter. And these worn, faded jeans that looked so incredibly sexy on his long, muscular frame? Theo liked dark clothing—black pants, black button-down shirt. The black leather jacket was more him, though this one had a rugged look she wouldn’t think he’d have gone for. The sunglasses he’d been wearing, though—pure Theo.
Where have you been all this time? she wanted to ask. Why didn’t you get in touch, somehow, someway?
But she couldn’t form words. She could only stare at him, drink him in, as questions crowded her head.
She suddenly realized he was frowning now and it snapped her back to attention.
“Allie,” he said. “What did your fiancé mean about the baby? ‘One baby, sure.’ What was that about?”
“Well, at least I was right about that part,” she said. “You really don’t know.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “Know what?”
That we’re both getting the surprise of a lifetime today, Theo. You’re not only alive—but the father of baby quadruplets!
She reached inside the top of her jacket and pulled out the gold locket her sisters had given her, flicked it open and held it out to him.
He stepped closer and squinted at the little picture.
He looked back up at her. “Four babies. Quadruplets? Who are they?”
She clicked shut the locket and dropped it back under the jacket. “They’re your children, Theo.”
* * *
Allie watched Theo take a step back, shock on his handsome face. As she thought, he really and truly hadn’t known. Allie was surprised someone hadn’t kept tabs on her for him. Then again, she had no idea how these things worked—law enforcement officials faking their deaths for protective reasons. But Allie was well acquainted with every nuance of Theo Stark’s face and features. He’d had no idea he was a father.
Maybe—very likely—Theo had told his contact not to update him on Allie and her life. She’d bet anything that was the case.
“What?” he said, staring at her, his eyes full of disbelief. “What?”
She nodded. “I found out I was pregnant a couple days before you—” What? Not died. Walked away. For almost two years.
“Oh, Allie,” he said, shaking his head. He stepped toward her, and she could tell he wanted to pull her into his arms, but this time it was she who took a step back. “I’m a father?” he added in a tone she’d never heard before. A mixture of fear and wonderment.
“The night you were—The night of the explosion,” she said, “I’d planned to tell you I was pregnant.”
She’d never forget how she’d felt when the pink plus sign had appeared in the tiny window on the pregnancy test. That maybe a baby would save their five-year marriage. Then the sinking heart when she knew full well a baby shouldn’t and couldn’t save a marriage. They’d have to do that on their own and they’d failed miserably for the past year. So she’d kept the news to herself as long as she could, until she’d been bursting with it. But Theo hadn’t come home at all that night she’d been determined to tell him, to sit him down and demand they work out a plan to save their marriage. Because of the baby. In spite of the baby.
There were four babies. And then no marriage to save.
“You were pregnant,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
“With quadruplets,” she said. “Boy, did you dodge a bullet. Literally.” Ha ha, she thought miserably and then burst into tears, her hands flying up to cover her face.
He pulled her into his arms and she let him, her stiff muscles releasing against him.
For months after his “death,” she’d wished she could feel his arms around her. Despite how worried she’d always been about him, Theo had always made her feel so safe. Even at the end, when their marriage was falling apart, he’d hold her and she’d believe all over again. They’d be okay. They’d work it out.
“Why didn’t you call me? Text me? Something, anything?” she said. “How could you have let me think you were dead when you weren’t? How?” Tears streamed down her face. If she had raccoon tracks, it was fine with her. She’d earned them. She pulled away from him and grabbed tissues from the box on the table.
The look on his face pierced right through her. “I couldn’t risk it, Allie. I can’t tell you how many times I held a prepaid cell in my hands, burning with need to hear your voice, to tell you. But I couldn’t.”
She took a breath and dabbed under her eyes with the tissue.
“We have a lot to catch up on,” he said. “I have a hell of a lot to make up for. But walking away from you was the hardest—the worst—thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“But you did it,” she whispered.
He walked over to her and took both her hands in his. “A serial killer made a direct threat against you. All I cared about was keeping you safe. With me—the one witness who could put him away—gone, he had no reason to go after you.”
She gasped. But then shook her head. She wanted to know everything and didn’t want to know anything. Or maybe just not now.
He closed his eyes for a moment and then walked toward the window, glancing out. “And, yeah, knowing how miserable I was making you, how I was failing as a husband, I thought the split-second decision I made to fake my death was the right one.”
There it was. He’d said it, the actual words. He’d faked his death. Fake, fake, fake.
“It was, at the time,” he added. “I’ll tell you all the gory details if you want to hear them, when you want to hear them. Including the call I got from the FBI agent and US marshal that McBruin was killed early this morning. But right now, I just want to be with you. And I want to see my children.”
The little faces of her quads floated into her mind. A calm came over her and she found she could breathe normally again. “Two look just like you. One looks like me. And one looks like the both of us. People always comment on it.”
His eyes lit up. “Boys? Girls?”
“Three boys and a girl,” she told him.
“I’m a father,” he whispered. She caught his shoulders slumping in defeat. If there was ever a move that wasn’t Theo Stark, that was it. Defeat wasn’t his thing. In fact, their rocky marriage, his admission of failing in that department, had to be a big part of what had allowed him to walk away and leave her behind. “All this time, I had four babies.” He shook his head, letting his face fall into his hands.
“They’re amazing,” she said. “Healthy, happy, wonderful little humans.”
His expression brightened and he managed something of a smile.
“Theo, where’ve you been all this time?” she asked.
“A cattle ranch in a remote part of Wyoming.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You were a cowboy?” Suddenly the clothing made sense.
He nodded. “I learned fast and worked hard. I can’t tell you the number of cowboys on that spread who were runaways from their lives in some form or another.”
“That’s sad, Theo.”
“I know. But I’ll tell you something. Hard, honest work makes a person think. Three quarters of those guys cleaned up their acts.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I guess you’re among them. You came home the minute you heard the serial killer was dead and that it was safe.” She looked out the window beyond him, then back at Theo. Her husband. “So I suppose you’ll get your job back.”
“I plan to, if they’ll have me after everything. If things go my way, though, I won’t start back at the PD until after New Year’s. I’d like to focus on us, Allie. On our family. I have four babies I haven’t met.”
She stared at him. “I didn’t expect you to say that. I figured you were just telling me you’re alive and then be off chasing the bad guys.”
He shook his head. “My priority right now is you. Us.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Before that night, you told me that maybe splitting up was what was best.”
“Maybe it was then. I feel like a different person now, Allie. I can’t explain it. I just know I died for you. Literally and figuratively. That told me how I felt about you, not that I needed to be told. I knew. I also knew I was a terrible husband and everything you never wanted. I was breaking your heart every day.”
“I remember,” she said. “So now what?”
“Now, if you’ll allow it, I’d like to come home. Start over.”
“It’s not going to be like it used to be,” she said. “My life is about a very serious schedule of taking care of four eleven-month-olds. And I work hard, too, Theo. My personal chef business really took off after—People hire me for all kinds of cooking gigs. If I’m not in the nursery, I’m in the kitchen.”
“And now I’ll be there to help out,” he said.
So he was just going to move back in? Step right back into their lives? That sounded crazy.
“Theo, we didn’t work before. You didn’t want to start a family. And now there are babies in the mix. Four babies. What makes you think you’re going to want this life now?”
“I just know I have a second chance, Allie. And I want to take it. I know I said I never wanted kids. But now that I have kids, that knocks that right out of the water.”
A second chance. Her own thoughts right before he’d knocked on the door came back to her: because she’d give anything for her old imperfect life back, a second chance.
“Staying out of obligation started to destroy our marriage,” she reminded him.
“I’m a father now. I take that responsibility seriously. I have eleven months to make up for, Allie. Not to mention the fact that you went through the pregnancy alone. Under terrible circumstances.”
He’d barely been able to handle having to be responsible to a wife waiting at home, worried sick about him as he volunteered for the most dangerous task forces to rid Wedlock Creek and surrounding towns of crime. Adding four babies to that? He wouldn’t last a week.
Maybe they both needed to see that, know that for sure, and then they could go back to their separate lives. Or maybe he’d surprise both of them. She was rooting for the latter.
She still loved Theo Stark with every bit of her heart. But she didn’t want their old marriage back or him to be unhappy out of obligation to her—and now to his children. So they’d give it a shot. See if he could really become a family man.
“I guess I’ll just go let the officiant know he can cross me off the list,” she said. “Then we’ll go home.”
He put the sunglasses and Stetson back on. “Home,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. “You have no idea how happy that word makes me.”
