Wyoming Christmas Surprise

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.”