The Rancher's Christmas Baby

“I’ll have to check with Teddy, but I think he’s pretty flexible. In any case, I can do it.”

One of the volunteers set up a boom box. Christmas music filled the sanctuary, adding to the festive mood.

“You two still trying to have a baby?” Susie asked, obviously referencing the scene at the hospital the day before. “’Cause if you are, I’ve heard being around babies helps stimulate all those maternal hormones and feelings.”

“Susie!” Rebecca chided.

“It’s true.” Susie chuckled. “Haven’t you heard how people who’ve never been able to conceive, adopt a child, and then boom—they’re pregnant?”

“I don’t think Amy’s situation is the same,” Rebecca said, glaring at the four months pregnant Susie.

“Well, whatever her situation is, I’ve never seen her looking happier,” Susie commented. She leaned close. “What is going on with you two, anyway?”

Amy flushed.

“Are you and Teddy…?” Susie persisted.

In love? The unspoken words hung in the air. Amy wanted to say no, out of habit, but she knew that wasn’t true any longer. Not after last night. The truth was their passionate lovemaking had shown her a side of Teddy that she hadn’t ever allowed herself to see. He was hot. She wanted him. She might even be falling in love with him. And he with her…?

Susie’s jaw dropped open. “Oh, my gosh.” She looked at Rebecca, still in total shock. “I think they’re…”

“Stop!” Amy held up a hand. “You both need to slow down with your observations and assumptions.” They all did. The last thing Amy wanted was her romantic desires to ruin what she and Teddy had. “Teddy and I are taking it one step at a time.” It was the only prudent thing to do. “If I look happy tonight it’s because it is finally beginning to feel like Christmas to me.”

The best Christmas, in fact, that Amy had ever had.

TEDDY HAD BARELY CLEARED HIS pickup truck when his triplet brothers, Trevor and Tyler, approached.

“We need to talk.”

Given a couple of the text messages he had been receiving throughout the day, Teddy had an idea what this was about. “No, we don’t.” Anxious to see Amy after a day spent apart, he strode toward the chapel doors—only to be cut off by Amy’s brother, Jeremy.

“Yeah, I think we do,” Jeremy said.

Teddy exhaled and stopped where he was in the parking lot.

“We all heard what happened yesterday at the hospital,” Trevor said, as if he were the authority on marital relations, just because he had been the first of the triplets to tie the knot.

“We’re not sure what part of the baby-making process you are having trouble with,” Tyler added, with a smidgen of the soothing manner he used as a large-animal vet.

“But in any case—” Jeremy reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and withdrew a white envelope “—I brought you the handout I give the patients in my medical practice on how to optimize the chances of getting pregnant.”

“Assuming you’ve got the basics down pat,” Trevor teased, with a knowing wink.

“If you need help with those…” Tyler added, chuckling.

“Well, at your age…” Jeremy shook his head as if it were a lost cause, if that was the case.

Teddy shot them all a droll look. “Very funny, guys.”

“Seriously, stress is not good for making babies,” Trevor said.

“You want success, you’ve got to be all romantic,” Tyler added.

Jeremy nodded, with a physician’s sage attitude. “Show her that you really care.”

Teddy held up a hand. “You guys don’t need to worry.”

Trevor scoffed. “That scene yesterday says otherwise.”

“Amy and I worked it all out,” Teddy countered.

Three sets of male eyebrows raised.

“And that’s all I’m going to say,” Teddy added firmly, folding up the handout and putting it in the back pocket of his jeans.

There was a long, skeptical silence.

Then three slow grins.

The light of recognition in their eyes.

Trevor was the first to slap him on the back. “If this means what I think it means—that you and Amy are in a real marriage—way to go!”

“Congratulations, dude!” Tyler shook his hand.

Jeremy nodded his approval. “I’ve always said Amy needed to stop being so frivolously romantic and go for the real thing. Apparently, she’s found it.”

“Thanks, guys,” Teddy said. He only hoped he and Amy didn’t lose what they had found the previous night. Their success in the baby-making department had been so unexpected. Amy could be skittish, especially when she was feeling overemotional. He looked all three men straight in the eye. “I really want this to work out.” And for the first time since he and Amy had said their vows, he felt like they had a chance.

“WHAT WERE YOU AND JEREMY and your brothers talking about in the parking lot?” Amy asked when they got home.

Teddy took in the anxious look on Amy’s face. “How’d you hear about that?” he asked, hanging up their coats. More important, what had she heard? He didn’t want her upset or embarrassed in any way. To that end, he was prepared to do whatever had to be done.

“I went out to see if you had arrived yet, and I saw them laughing and smiling and slapping you on the back. It seemed like a guys-only kind of moment, so I went back inside. And then I got drafted to wash the soot off the stained-glass windows, so I got caught up in that.”

Teddy knelt to light the fire he’d built in the hearth.

“So back to my question about what was going on out there…?”

“Oh, yeah. Our brothers. They’re all happy we’re married and going to have a family. Naturally, they were full of ‘advice’ on how to achieve that.”

Amy looked like she wanted to sink through the floor. “You didn’t tell them…we…”

“C’mon, Amy,” Teddy countered gruffly. “You know me better than that. I’ve never been one to kiss and tell.” Although, their brothers had all quickly surmised as much, he recalled ruefully.

“But…” he reached into his back pocket, glad for the opportunity to move the conversation along, to something much more important to both of them. “Jeremy did give me a copy of the handout he gives his family-practice patients who are trying to have a baby.”

Amy cast a look at the laundry room, where clothes took up every available inch of floor. With a slight frown, she closed the door, then went to the fridge and opened it up. “What does it say?”