The Triplets' Cowboy Daddy

He couldn’t very well leave them like that, and seeing those little squished faces all wet with tears, tiny tongues quivering with the intensity of their sobs, made him want to do something. He didn’t know how to soothe an infant, but he could pick one up. He bent and scooped up the baby closest—Riley, he thought. But he could be wrong. He tipped her forward onto his chest and patted her back.

“Hey, there...” he murmured, looking down at her. She didn’t look any happier, and he followed Nora’s example and bounced himself up and down a couple of times to see if that improved the situation.

Nada.

He hadn’t meant to start singing, but a tune came into his head in the same rhythm of his movement—a song he hadn’t heard in a long, long time. Brahms’s “Lullaby.” He hummed it at first, and Riley stopped her hiccoughy sobs and listened, so he started to sing softly.

“Lullaby and good-night, hush my darling is sleeping.

On his sheets, white as cream, and his head full of dreams.

Lullaby and good-night...”

The baby lay her face against his chest and heaved in some shaky breaths. It was working—she liked the song...

He looked up to see Nora staring at him, an odd look on her face. She looked almost soothed, herself.

“I have an idea,” she said, pointing to the couch in the living room. “Go sit there.”

He did as she asked and sank into the couch. She deposited Bobbie next to her sister on his chest, and Bobbie had a similar reaction as Riley had, calming, blinking, listening as he sang. It was unexpectedly comfortable—the weight off his feet, two babies on his chest. Rosie still wailed from the kitchen, but when Nora scooped her up, she calmed down a little, and when Nora sank onto the cushion next to him, Rosie seemed to be lulled into quiet, too.

He sang the only verse he knew of that song a few times and the babies’ eyes drooped heavier and heavier until they fell asleep, exhausted from their crying.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Nora said softly.

“You never asked.” He shot her a smile. “You know that cowboys sing. It soothes the herd.”

“But they don’t all sing well,” she countered.

He chuckled softly. “I break it out when absolutely necessary.”

There was an awful lot she didn’t know about him. He knew more about her—she’d opened up with him. He knew that she hated sappy songs but loved sappy books, that her first horse had been her best friend and that her dad had been her hero. She’d talked and talked... But as he sat here with her, the babies breathing in a gentle rhythm, he wished he’d said more back then. She’d taken more than she’d given, but that hadn’t been her fault. He’d given and given, and never asked for anything in return. Ever. Maybe he should have asked.

“I heard that song on TV years ago,” he said. “I was maybe ten or eleven. I thought it was so beautiful that I nearly cried. So I tried to remember the words to it but could only remember the one verse. I imagined that one day my mother would come back and sing that song to me.”

“Did you ever hear from her?” Nora asked quietly.

He shook his head. “Nope.”

His mother left when he was eight, and he didn’t have a solid memory of her. He knew what she looked like from the pictures, a woman with curly hair and glasses, one crooked tooth in the front that made her smile look impish. Those photos replaced his memories of her somehow—maybe because he’d spent more time with the pictures than the woman herself. His father had destroyed the other photos. “She left us,” he used to say. “Don’t even bother trying to remember her. She sure isn’t thinking about us.”

Easton couldn’t trust his memories of her. He’d made up so many stories about her, so many situations that had never really happened, that he almost believed them. In his imagination, she was gentle and soft, and she stroked his hair away from his face. In his imagination, she loved him so devoutly that she’d never leave. When he lay in his bed at night, his dad drinking in front of the TV, he used to close his eyes and pretend that his mother was sitting on the edge of his bed, asking about his day. He’d imagined that well into his teen years...longer than he should have needed it.

“Do you know why she left?” Nora asked.

“She and Dad both drank a lot. They fought pretty viciously. I don’t know. She left a note that just said that she’d had enough. She was leaving, and we shouldn’t try to find her.”

“But she didn’t take you with her,” Nora pointed out.

Easton had questioned that over the years. If life was such hell here in Hope, why wouldn’t she take her little boy along? Why would she leave him like that? She’d walked out, and he’d been left with an alcoholic father who could barely function. It was selfish. If she hadn’t loved Dad, he could understand that. But why hadn’t she loved him?

“Yeah...” He didn’t have anything else to say to that. It was a fact—she’d left him behind.

“Do you remember her?” she asked.

“Not much,” he admitted. “My dad dumped her stuff out into a pile and burned it. I guess that was cathartic for him. I managed to sneak off with one of her shirts—some discarded thing she didn’t feel like bringing with her, I guess. I kept it under my mattress. It smelled like her cigarettes. I have that still.”

“Why didn’t I know about this?” Nora murmured.

A better question was, why had he told her now? Nora came from a loving home with parents who both adored her. Her family ran the ranch very successfully, and she’d had a bright future. He’d had none of those things, and yet he was still willing to be there for her, give her whatever support she needed. Why? Because he’d been in love with her, and maybe deep down he was afraid that if she knew the mess inside him, it would turn her off him.

“That’s not how we worked, you and I,” he said after a moment.

“Meaning I was self-involved.” She winced. “I’m sorry. I must have been.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. You were used to happier days than I was. You were more easily disappointed.”

“I wish I’d been a better friend,” she said.

But it wasn’t friendship that would have soothed his teenage soul. If she’d been a more attentive friend, it might have made it harder. He might have actually held out hope that she’d see more in him. But being six inches shorter with a face full of acne had taken care of that.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

Easton needed to be careful, though, because not much had changed. She was still the heir to the ranch he worked, she was still the much loved daughter of the owner and she still needed his emotional support right now...except he wasn’t so naive this time around. He knew how this ended. Nora would pull things together and she’d step out into that bright future of hers, leaving him right where he’d always been—on the ranch. She’d walk away again, and she wouldn’t think to look back.

“You have the magic touch with the babies,” she said, easing herself forward to stand up. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” What else was he supposed to do when three tiny girls had taken over his home? She walked toward the stairs with Bobbie in her arms.

“Why didn’t you call your mom when the babies wouldn’t stop crying?” he asked, and she looked back.

“Because she isn’t really on board with this. Getting my mom’s help isn’t as great a solution as I thought. If I’m going to raise these girls, I’ll have to figure out a way to do it on my own.”

He’d suspected as much. While she’d probably pitch in, it was a bit much to expect Dina to joyfully embrace raising her late husband’s other family.

“I’ll get them back up to the crib,” she said. “I’ll be back.”

And she disappeared from the room. He wasn’t a long-term solution, either. He never had been, not in her eyes, and he wasn’t about to make the same mistake he’d made as a teen. He didn’t cross oceans for someone who wouldn’t jump a puddle for him. Not anymore.

Chapter Four (#u09a3d2a5-e1ff-5434-96df-6a7029a661ba)

That night Nora had managed to feed the babies without waking Easton, and when she got up again for their 6 a.m. feeding, Easton was gone, leaving behind percolated coffee cooling on the stove while he did his chores. She’d gone back to bed—her theory had been right and exhaustion made sleep possible—and when she opened her eyes at eight and got dressed, she’d found another pot of coffee freshly percolated on the stove. He’d been back, it seemed. And he’d be back for this pot, too, but she took a cup of coffee anyway—she desperately needed the caffeine kick.

The house felt more familiar without Easton around, and she stood in the kitchen, soaking in the rays of sunlight that slanted through the kitchen window, warming her toes. She sipped the coffee from a mug that said Save a Cow, Eat a Vegetarian. That was a sample of Easton’s humor, apparently. She let her gaze flow over the details of this kitchen that she’d always loved...like the curtains that she’d sewn as a kid with the flying bluebird–patterned fabric. She’d made them in home ec, and she’d been so proud of them, despite the wandering hemline and the fact that one side was shorter than the other.

He kept those.

It was strange, because Easton hadn’t kept much else of the original decor—not that she could blame him. The furniture and kitchenware had all been castoffs from the main house. Anything of value—sentimental or otherwise—had been distributed amongst the extended family when Great-Granny passed away. Easton’s furniture was all new, and the kitchen had gleaming pots and pans. The dishes in the cupboard were a simple set of four of each dish, but they had obviously been recently purchased except for a few well-worn mugs like the one she was using now. There had been some renovations, too—fresh paint, some added built-in benches in the mudroom. He’d taken pride in this place.