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.
She had thought, with the coming of the babies, they would have a focus in their marriage. As a psychologist, she knew how foolish it was to hope children would solve a troubled marriage, but they’d had no real problems, no crises of faith or broken vows.
Just a slow drifting apart…
Sadness trailed after her as she went into the guest bedroom. She had used it as a home office, but it would have to be the nursery until the addition on the house was completed.
Twin bassinets stood next to the wall. One was trimmed in blue, the other in yellow. They had known one baby was a boy, but hadn’t been able to tell for sure about Hannah from the sonograms.
After checking the supplies of diapers, nightshirts, day outfits and bottles, which she’d done a hundred times already, she went to the door at the end of the hallway.
Two bedrooms and a bath were being added for the twins so each could have a room. The carpenter hadn’t proceeded as quickly as she would have liked. The inside work remained to be done, although the outside was finished.
Baseboards were stacked in one room, paint cans in the other. She and Rose had made curtains, which still needed to be hemmed after the rods were put up. None of that could be done until the walls and trim were finished.
She returned to the kitchen. Where was the carpenter she had hired? He was supposed to be there at seven. He liked to start early, what with the heat of summer and all, he’d told her. So where was he?
She sat at the table and debated calling his home. He got peeved if she pestered him or asked too many questions.
Men and their fragile egos.
She called the hospital and found out Taylor and the twins were doing fine. Taylor reported she was leaving the hospital with a friend soon and thanked Ally again for being with her.
After hanging up, Ally sat and stared out the window at the orchard that separated the cottage from the McBride house where Rose lived.
Spence had a neat apartment in a new building about a mile from them. She’d been there once when Rose had thrown a welcome-back dinner for him at the place.
A sigh worked its way out of her. She felt melancholy today for some reason. As if she was suffering from the postpartum depression new mothers often got.
Her thoughts drifted. She mused on her nine years of marriage and on being a widow for almost eight months. At thirty-two, she felt no wiser than she had at twenty-two, when she’d married Jack.
Or at eighteen when she’d thought friendship would grow into love. She smiled and felt her lips tremble.
Memories. Sometimes they could weave a cloud around the heart and make a person ache for what might have been. How young she’d been at eighteen on the night of their high-school graduation….
Spence, the most popular guy in class, had broken up with a cheerleader, who was the most popular girl. The cheerleader had gone to the graduation dance with the star quarterback to get back at him. He’d dropped by Ally’s house, knowing she hadn’t planned on going to the dance.
She’d had few dates in high school. With delivering newspapers and baby-sitting jobs, plus working toward a nursing scholarship, she’d had very little time for extracurricular activities, and no money to buy a fancy dress.
Spence had asked her to go for a drive. She’d gone willingly. They had always been there for each other from the moment she’d come to live with her aunt. The day she arrived, he’d stopped by to see what was happening, and he’d immediately pitched in and helped carry her things inside and store them in the little sewing room that would become her bedroom for the next seven years. He’d even let her ride his new bike. They had become fast friends.
Sometimes that seemed strange to her, as if they’d been kindred souls, even as children. She’d never been as close to another person, before or since.
On that long-ago graduation night, he’d driven out to a hiking trail that started next to the river and wound up into the mountains. To her surprise he’d had one bottle of champagne in a cooler in the back of his car. She’d laughed when she realized she was sharing a treat he’d planned for the homecoming queen, and had teased him about it.
They had talked seriously then, about the college he would attend and law school, both back east, then about her scholarship, which had come through. She’d admitted she would be glad to leave her aunt’s home.
“I’m going to have my own place someday,” she’d bragged.
And here she was, back in her aunt’s old house. But now it was hers…hers and the twins. For the split second between one heartbeat and another, she wondered what life would have been like if Spence had been her husband, if the twins had been their babies….
When Spence had opened the bottle of champagne, he’d proposed a toast.
“To friendship. To the future. To us.” She had echoed his words and raised the glass to her lips.
“Wait,” he’d said. He had hooked his arm through hers. Arms linked, they had sipped the magic elixir.
It had been sweet and romantic. When the moon rose over the mountain peak and laid a sparkling trail on the swift flowing river, he had leaned over and kissed her. Full on the lips. Mouth open. Tongue gently asking for entry between her surprised lips.
Then came the rush. A wild, swift, painful release of pleasure that had made her gasp.
He had deepened the kiss at that moment, taking advantage of her momentary start to delve inside and claim her mouth for his own
