A Dad for Her Twins

“I sold my car a while ago, when I couldn’t fit behind the wheel anymore. I came here on the bus.” Her chin thrust up when he blinked at her in shock.

“But there aren’t any buses that come all the way out here! You must have walked miles.” He knew he was right when her green eyes suddenly swerved away from his. A spurt of anger bubbled inside him. “Should you be doing that, in your condition?”

“I’m pregnant, not disabled,” Abby said, her tone firm. “It’s good for me to walk.”

“But it’s so far and it’s cold out.” Cade clamped his lips together to stem his words when she shrank against the truck door. Arguing with her wouldn’t help. “You have to take care of yourself, Abby,” he said in softer tones. “Max would want that.”

“I’m fine, Cade. Truly. I just got a little chilled sitting there in the snow.” She laid her fingers on his arm and held them there until he looked at her. When she drew them away he felt somehow bereft. “I’m warm now. If you could drop me at the bus stop I’d appreciate it.” Her heart-shaped face with its dark widow’s peak looked forlorn.

Cade’s heart, hard and frozen cold inside him since Max’s death, thawed just the tiniest bit. He’d lost his best friend, but she had lost her husband, her life, her future.

“I’m not leaving you at a bus stop, Abby. I’ll take you home.”

“Oh.” She let out a pent-up breath, probably in relief. “Okay. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Taken aback by her lack of argument, he pulled into the circular road that took them out of the cemetery and back into the city. Before turning onto the main freeway, he paused. “I don’t remember your address,” he admitted in embarrassment.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” There was nothing in her tone to accuse him but Cade felt guilty anyway. “It will be easier if I direct you,” she murmured. And she did.

By the time Cade pulled up in front of her tiny white bungalow, the afternoon sky glowered a dark, burgeoning gray. Snowflakes seemed imminent. The sidewalk to the front door had been shoveled clear, but there was nothing else to show that anyone lived here, no welcoming light on the front porch, no snowman lovingly created on the snow-covered front lawn, no leftover Christmas decorations waiting for removal. The place looked as forlorn as Abby.

“Stay put until I come around and help you out,” he ordered. “It’s icy. I don’t want you to fall.”

“Wait!” Abby grabbed his arm, her fingers tight, forcing him to pause. “I can manage. There’s no need for you to fuss, Cade,” she said in an almost desperate tone.

“I insist.” He held her stormy gaze with his, refusing to back down.

“Fine,” she finally conceded. “You can help me to the door if you must.” Her green eyes narrowed. “But that’s all. I’m sure you have things to do. You don’t have to babysit me and I don’t want to bother you any more than I already have. Just to the door,” she repeated.

During his five-year stint in the military, Cade had risen up the ranks of the Canadian Special Forces unit quickly. Much of that was due to internal radar that told him when things weren’t right. At the moment his personal detection system was on high alert. Something was definitely wrong with Abby. Her body was tight with tension. Clearly she did not want him inside her home.

Why? Though Cade was loath to cause her more stress, he owed it to Max to find out.

It felt good to lift Abby out of the truck and support her over the slippery sidewalk to the front door. As he did, Cade considered and discarded a hundred reasons she might not want him here but found nothing that would explain her oddly unwelcoming manner. He waited as she fished in her pocket for her key, wondering if she’d change her mind about him coming in. But she did not open the door. Instead she turned to face him, blocking the entry.

“Thank you for your help, Cade. I appreciate you remembering Max today. And I really want to thank you for the ride home.” A tiny smile danced across her lips. “I was tired.”

Cade didn’t move. Abby’s eyebrow arched.

“I can’t leave until I make sure you get safely inside.” Though she tossed him a frustrated look, Cade didn’t budge. “Want me to open the door for you?”

“No, I don’t. Thank you.” Her green eyes blazed at him for a few seconds more. Then with a harrumph that expressed everything from exasperation to frustration, Abby stabbed the key into the lock and twisted it. “See? Everything is fine. I’m fine. Thank you.”

Cade had never felt less certain that everything was fine. Maybe it was rude and pushy, but this was necessary. He reached past her and twisted the door handle while he nudged his booted toe against the door. Abby made a squeak of protest and grabbed for the doorknob. But it was too late.

“Abby?” He let his gaze travel twice around the empty interior before returning to her face. “Where’s your furniture? Where’s...anything?”

“I’m—er—moving,” she stammered. With a sigh she stepped inside and urged him in, too, before shutting out the cold air. “This place is too big for me. I’m moving out today.” Her chin thrust upward. Her voice grew defensive. “I’ve decided to make some changes.”

“Now?” Cade gaped at her in disbelief. “Three months before your due date?” He shook his head. “I can’t believe that. What’s really going on, Abby?”

She turned away from him to remove her coat and toss it over a packing box. He wondered why, since the room was quite chilly. Confused and troubled, he waited for her answer, stunned when her narrow shoulders began to tremble. Her muffled sob broke the silence and made him feel like a bully.

“You need to sit down and relax,” he said with concern. But where could she sit? There was no furniture, nothing but a derelict wooden chair that looked as if the slightest whoosh of air would send it toppling over.

“I’m fine,” she whispered. But she wasn’t and they both knew it.

With his gut chiding him for not getting here sooner, and at a loss to know what to do now that he was, Cade gently laid his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.

“I just want to help, Abby. Please, tell me how.” He waited. When she didn’t respond he softened his voice. “I couldn’t help Max,” he murmured, his breath catching on the name. “I will always regret that. Please let me help you.”

Abby edged away from him, moved behind the kitchen counter and leaned one hip against it. In that moment her mask of control slid away and he saw fear vie with sadness.

“I’ve lost the house,” she whispered. “Our dear little house, the one Max and I bought together, the one we had such dreams for—I’ve lost it.”

“Lost it?” Cade frowned. “What happened? Why didn’t you come to me?” he demanded, aghast.

Abby’s head lifted. She pulled her hair free of the hair band, tossed back the muss of curls that now framed her face and glared at him.

“Come to you?” Her green eyes avoided his. “You dutifully phone me every so often like a good friend of Max’s would, and that is wonderful.” Her chin thrust out. “But even if I could have found you, I didn’t want to bother you.”

“So you wouldn’t have called me no matter what.” He blinked. “Why?”

“Because I’m managing, or at least, I thought I was.” Her chin dropped and so did her voice. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.”

The pathos combined with a lack of expression in her words told Cade he needed to act.

“Do you have any coffee—or tea?” he revised, thinking that in her condition she probably didn’t drink coffee. “Or have you packed everything?”

“I used up the last of the groceries. Everything I own is in those two boxes over there.” Abby pointed. “That’s what’s left of my life.” She looked around. “I sold the rest because I needed the money.”

Cade knew how that felt. He’d come home to find the ranch hugely in debt because of his father’s mismanagement. Only recently had he begun to crawl out. But how had Abby gotten in that condition? A second later he decided it didn’t matter. The petite woman with the bowed shoulders and exhausted face touched a spot deep inside his heart. There was no way he could leave her to manage on her own.

“Tell me what happened so I can help,” he coaxed softly.

“You can’t. The bank has foreclosed on the house. If I’m not gone by six today, they have a sheriff coming who will come forcibly move me out.” Her breath snagged but she regrouped and finished, saying, “I’ve done everything I can to make things work. But they don’t work.”

“Abby.” Someone else needed him. He wanted to turn and run away from the responsibility but then he looked at her, and her amazing green eyes clutched onto his heart and refused to let go. How could he leave her alone?

“I’m homeless, Cade.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t have a home for Max’s babies. I may have to give them up.”

Though a whisper, the words echoed around the empty room. Cade stared at her in disbelief, everything in him protesting.

“You can’t,” he finally sputtered.

“I might have no choice.”

Something flickered in the depths of Abby’s amazing eyes. Hope? In him? “A friend of mine will let me camp on her couch but she’s no better off than me and I can’t stay there long. She’s moving, too.”