Make Way For Babies!

“Rose? We’re ready,” Ally called softly to his mom, who was still in the room with Taylor. When Rose joined them, Ally whispered, “Let’s go by the nursery.”

Spence patiently accepted the women’s eagerness to peek at the twins once more before they left. At the nursery window, he saw the babies tucked into little plastic buckets on wheels, a bright light shining down on each one. Both kids wore a tiny stocking cap on their heads and slept peacefully in spite of the lamp.

“Ohhh,” Ally croaked, her voice breaking. “They are so beautiful.”

A hand closed around his arm. Ally leaned against him and looked up, her eyes glowing like a laser beamed through sapphires.

“Aren’t they just darling?” she crooned.

Spence squinted and tried to see what made them more beautiful than the other two babies, also under lights, in the nursery. “Well, uh, they are pretty cute.”

“Hannah looks like Taylor, I think,” she continued, pressing her nose to the glass. “Nicholas probably takes more after his father. What do you think?”

Spence thought women could see a lot more than men could when it came to these things. To him, they looked like…well…they looked like babies.

His mother gave a soft, feminine snort of laughter. “Don’t make him perjure himself, Ally.” She patted her son’s other arm. “Don’t worry. They’ll grow on you. Let’s go eat. I’m starved. How about the diner?”

They went across the street to Mom and Pop’s diner. He’d grown used to seeing medical staff, still wearing their white jackets, in there, or men in suits and women in fancy dresses with stethoscopes around their necks. The diner was a hangout for all the workers from the baby clinic, hospital and professional office building across the street. The food was about ten times better than anything they could get in the medical complex.

Ally sighed as she slid into a booth. Rose sat opposite her, taking up the middle of the banquette. After a second’s hesitation, Spence took the place beside his sister-in-law.

His warmth slid up her arm and down into her belly. She licked her lips. They tingled as if electricity was running lightly over them. The way it had during that impulsive kiss. She wished she hadn’t done that.

She noticed Spence carefully avoided touching her. A pang of irritation shot through her as the euphoria of the births gave way to weariness. They ordered and were silent until tall frosty glasses of raspberry tea were served.

“I’m dog-tired,” she stated.

“You’ve been working too hard,” Rose admonished. “You need to watch it now that you have two babies to care for. You’ll have to learn to pace yourself. Start with a good night’s sleep. It will probably be your last for the next few weeks. Or years.”

Ally laughed with her mom-in-law. “I’ve caught up on all my casework, including all the reports required by the city, county, state and federal agencies. Sometimes it seems I hardly have time for patients because of the forms I have to fill out.”

As a child psychologist who scheduled in as much pro bono work as she could, Ally had to admit she had a tendency to overextend herself at times.

“But now I have a whole two weeks off,” she continued. “After that, I’ll be working half-time until the twins are three months old and can go to the Family Care Center.”

She was aware that Spence had turned partially in the seat so that he could watch her as she talked. She suddenly felt self-conscious at his perusal. It was so odd to be…oh, nervous or something, around him, when they had once been best friends. She turned back to Rose.

“Did I tell you Taylor is going to come over to my office and help with the twins as much as she can? I’m going to insist that she let me pay her.”

“I’m not sure you should encourage that,” Spence spoke up, his brow furrowed into a thoughtful frown. “The courts have been very protective about returning adopted children to their birth parents the past few years.”

“Taylor and I have talked about it. I want her to have a place in the children’s lives. I think it’s important. The situations that work best result in the birth parent becoming a big sister to the kids and the adoptive parent being the mother.”

“If things work out according to plan,” Spence added with a cynical inflection. “What about the father?”

She glanced at Spence. His dark brown eyes with their tiny golden flecks delved into hers. “The father…the sperm donor,” she corrected, “has no place in this. He opted out when he listened to his folks and abandoned Taylor. They said she was a gold digger and had gotten pregnant to trap him into marriage. They tried to buy her off.”

“Did they succeed?”

“No, she refused their money. She was working here in the diner and overheard Rose and me talking about adoption. When I came in alone, she approached me about taking her baby. It was hard for her.”

Ally and Taylor had both shed tears when the nineteen-year-old had explained her plight. A lot of young women in her situation would have taken the money, had an abortion and gotten on with their lives. Ally could understand the stubborn pride that had caused Taylor to refuse the money.

Ally’s folks had been middle class, but they had died when she was eleven. She had gone from being a cherished only child to an undesired duty in her aunt’s life. The woman hadn’t wanted to deal with the needs of a youngster or spend any money on her, either. Ally had delivered papers and worked odd jobs to earn her own spending money. Oh, yes, she understood pride very well.

Like Taylor, she had also worked her way through school, taking the courses that led to an R.N. and college degree and finishing in three years. After that, she had gone to night school while working full-time as a nurse at the hospital. With her Ph.D. in psychology, she had opened her own practice.

And she had married Jack McBride, Rose’s oldest son, brother to Spence, who had been her best friend during the lonely years of living with her aunt down the road from the friendly McBride family. Sometimes she wondered if she had married Jack because she had wanted Rose for a mother.

Or maybe because of the loneliness.

Spence had made it clear they could never be anything but friends. Her college years had been divided between work and study. Lonely years. Until Jack had started to show interest in her.

Actually, he’d swept her off her feet, an action that was totally out of character for him, as she had learned during their years of marriage.

She sighed, thinking of that young girl who had wanted…had truly expected…the moon and stars and all the magic life had to offer. She wondered what had happened to that girl, then realized she knew the answer.

She’d had to grow up.

For the rest of the evening nostalgia gripped her in a vague cloud of yearning and regret. After saying goodnight to Rose and Spence, she returned to the hospital for one more peek at the twins and to chat with Taylor before visiting hours ended. Driving home, she tried to throw off the haunting emotion, but it was no use. As she turned out the light and settled into the queen-size bed, she realized she felt sorry for the girl she had once been—the one who had dared to dream.

And the birth of the twins had stirred those dreams once again.

Chapter Two

Ally threw the sheet off and sprang up as if someone had dumped a load of hot coals on the bed. She had so much to do! If everything had gone well during the night, she could bring the twins home this afternoon. She would have them to herself at last.

The qualms that coursed through her were natural. All new moms felt unsure and apprehensive about the responsibility of caring for babies. Rose would help if she needed her. She only had to call.

The sadness descended unexpectedly. In her heart, she realized, she still wanted all the things she’d once dreamed of—a husband who would share life with her, who would be there for her as she would be there for him, who would be a loving father to their children. That dream wasn’t to be.

But the one about having her own family was about to come true in a big way. Twins were double trouble! Laughing, she jumped out of bed.

She dashed through her morning chores, then, taking her coffee with her, strolled through the house. She and Jack had bought the two-bedroom cottage from her aunt for the acreage that went with it.

They had planned to remodel the house before having kids. They’d wanted to put in a garden and fence off a section for a pony. Somehow the years had slipped by without their doing any of it. As Spence had mentioned, plans didn’t always work out.

When she and Jack had married, she’d thought she would never be lonely again. At first, she hadn’t, but somehow things had changed. Jack had become increasingly jealous of her work and her involvement with her patients after she finished her studies and set up the office.

And of his younger brother whenever Spence joined the family for holiday meals and such.

She’d had to be very careful not to mention the past adventures she and Spence had shared. She had made sure she was never alone with Spence at the family gatherings and had been careful not to tease or even talk to him very much.

Later, when she didn’t conceive, Jack had become angry, as if she’d withheld a child on purpose. Their marriage had fallen upon rocky times. He had started working later and later. Last year, she’d even wondered if there was another woman. Then he had died, working alone one night, trying to finish a job by moving lumber with an old forklift.

Something had gone wrong and the stack of lumber had cascaded down on him. The doctor said he hadn’t suffered. A blow to the head had killed him at once.

Small comfort in that.