how she…we learned about you.”
Amanda began twisting and turning on the couch like an eel. Almost immediately she registered her displeasure about something. Eric didn’t have a clue what.
“There’s another bottle in the bag,” Laura said. “Mandy’s has a blue top. Can you feed her?”
Panic spiked him in the chest. “Uh, sure, I guess.”
He found the bottle, gave it a little shake as he had seen Laura do, then stuck it in Amanda’s mouth. She started sucking eagerly.
“It would be better if you picked Mandy up and held her while you were feeding her. Cuddling is important to an infant’s emotional and intellectual development.”
“Right.” His brow tightened into a frown. It looked so easy when Laura held and fed Rebecca. In contrast, he didn’t know quite where or what to grab on to, and it irritated him that Laura sounded like a baby-care expert.
“You do this for a living?” he asked. “Taking care of babies.”
“Bigger babies.” She smiled slightly. “They can cry louder. I’m a high school history and government teacher.”
“Oh.” Adjusting his position, Eric picked up the baby, bottle and all, cradling her in his arm. She looked up at him with big blue eyes, trusting him as though he could walk on water.
God, did he dare believe these two babies were really related to him? That they were family? That he had a legitimate claim to be their father and raise them?
“What makes you so sure these records you’re talking about weren’t forged or something.”
“Have you always been this much of a skeptic? Or is it that babies make you that nervous?”
“Come on, you waltz into my life with some crazy story about a sister I never knew I had? Wouldn’t you have some doubts, too?” Less than a year ago a woman had shown up at his brother Walker’s house with a baby in tow and claiming to be his new housekeeper. A totally phony story, which had worked out well in the end, he admitted. “A desperate woman looking to find a decent home for her baby can come up with a very convincing lie.”
She leveled him a look that would make most men back off in a hurry. “I personally guarantee if you don’t want to raise Rebecca and Amanda for any reason at all, they will always have a good home—with me.”
The intensity of her words brought him up short. This woman was not fooling around. “You want to adopt the twins?”
“With all my heart.” A fine sheen of tears appeared in her eyes, but she didn’t let them spill over.
“Then why did you bother to track me down? I never would have known otherwise.”
“Because I promised Amy I would.”
That simple truth, stated with such conviction, had more power than anything else she could have said. She wanted to be the twins’ mother. She loved them. Eric was standing in her way. And still she had kept her word to a dead woman—her foster sister.
Removing the bottle from Rebecca’s mouth, she lifted the baby to her shoulder again, rubbing her cheek against the infant’s blond, fuzzy little head and patting her back.
Assuming the twins were related to Eric, did he have any right to take them away from a woman who so obviously loved them even if it had been their mother’s wish that he raise the pair? What the hell had made her—or him—think he was qualified for the job?
Rebecca gave a very unladylike burp, and milk drooled down her chin.
“I brought along the box of records and snapshots Amy discovered. It’s in the back of my truck.” She laid the baby back down on the couch and wiped the dribble from her lips with the edge of the blanket. “If you’ll watch the twins, I’ll go get it. Some of the pictures are of you and your mother.”
That news drove the air from his lungs. He had nothing of his mother except memories. Some good, some bad. All of which he had tried to repress because the very last memory was of her abandoning him.
LAURA MANAGED to get outside before her chin began to wobble again. She didn’t want Eric to see how strongly his interrogation had upset her. It had taken all of her courage to come here to fulfill Amy’s wishes. She didn’t appreciate being treated like a common criminal. Given a choice, she’d be happy if he decided he wasn’t related to the twins, didn’t want them around.
But her damn conscience demanded she give him all the information she had before he made up his mind about what he wanted to do.
Sometimes being honest really stank!
Grabbing her slender briefcase from the front seat, she went around to the back of the truck and lifted the hatchback. Her suitcase, baby paraphernalia and a crib filled the back of the SUV. Tucked to one side was a shoe box from a discount store that had long since gone out of business. She took that and a small quilt, carrying them inside.
She found him gazing at the babies but couldn’t quite read his expression. It was softer than when he looked at her, more relaxed with at least a trace of awe.
Please don’t take my babies away from me.
He looked up at her.
“This is the box with the snapshots and Amy’s birth certificate. You’ll note the similarity of your mother’s name and hers.”
Eric held the box in his lap unopened for longer than necessary while Laura busied herself by spreading the quilt on the floor and laying the twins down one at a time. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was in the box. For the most part, he’d put his childhood behind him. He’d grown up. Whatever faults his mother had had, he didn’t dwell on them now.
He didn’t want to reopen wounds he’d spent most of his life trying to heal.
One of the babies made a singsong sound, and he realized he had to see whatever Pandora had in mind for him.
The snapshots didn’t appear to be in any particular order. A young blond girl in a ponytail standing in front of a pickup truck. The twins’ mother, his half sister? A younger version of her on a tricycle. He felt no recognition, no connection.
He picked up the birth certificate and examined it. Amy Maria Thorne, mother listed as Millicent Karen Thorne.
Eric swallowed the tightness in his throat. His mother must have finally found some guy to marry her. She’d been listed Millicent Karen Johnson on his birth certificate. Unmarried.
And then she’d abused and neglected her daughter—just as she had neglected and allowed a hamfisted man to abuse him.
He caught his breath at the next snapshot, he and his mother standing in front of a roller-coaster ride. He’d been maybe seven or eight at the time.
“I remember this.” His voice sounded rusty, his throat was dry. “We’d gone to a county fair. It was the first time I’d ever ridden a roller coaster and some guy with a camera…”
His throat shut down entirely. He couldn’t speak, and it felt like someone had tightened
