Ten Acres And Twins

“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.