Nick go into the men’s room, I think you’d rather use the lad—”
Buzz and TJ hurled their bodies against the door in their haste to scramble into the other restroom and away from their father. Brenna caught the door before it swung back in her face and followed them into the empty room. Fortunately, everyone was on the dance floor, shaking their bodies and singing along with a classic Bob Seger song. Brenna hummed a few bars as the twins shucked their jackets and cummerbunds. TJ got his tie caught around his head, the bow planted in the middle of his forehead.
Laughing, Buzz dropped to his knees on the green-tiled floor and pointed at his brother. “You’re a girl. You’re a little sissy girl.”
TJ slammed his hands against his brother’s sodden shirtfront. “You’re a sissy girl.”
“You’re a sissy girl!”
“No one’s a sissy girl,” Brenna insisted as she turned on the water tap and reached for the paper towels that were folded in a basket on the Formica counter.
“You’re a girl.” The boys turned on her, as if her gender was a dirty word. TJ tugged the bow tie over his head, and Buzz rose to his feet.
“But I’m no sissy,” Brenna warned them as she cupped the flow from the faucet and sprayed water all over the twins.
They squealed but they didn’t run, catching water in their open mouths and letting it drip from their chins.
She stopped spraying them, in order to mop them up with wet and then dry towels. “At least you didn’t have punch.” She could just imagine the bright red stains on their clothes.
“Uncle Nick said it had nails in it.”
“Spikes,” Buzz corrected his brother. “Uncle Nick said someone put spikes in it.”
“Someone spiked the punch?” Brenna asked. Obviously the boys hadn’t had any, as their little bodies fairly hummed with energy from a pure caffeine high.
“Who’d put spikes in punch?” TJ asked, wrinkling his nose as Brenna wiped off his face.
“Rory,” she muttered. Since the boy had hit his teens, poor Mrs. McClintock had been struggling to keep her youngest on the straight and narrow. Even though Mary McClintock had been a single mom since her husband died, she had always had help from her other offspring. Especially Clayton, the eldest and most responsible of the McClintocks.
What about Josh—who did he have? His parents hadn’t bothered coming to his wedding, which Brenna felt should have taken priority over their anniversary, and while the twins called his best friend Uncle Nick, he wasn’t really their uncle. He certainly wasn’t maternal. The boys needed a mother.
Buzz shivered in his damp shirt. “I’m cold, Brenna.”
“You’re a sissy girl,” TJ accused his brother through quivering lips. He struggled to keep his teeth from chattering when gusts of cool air blew out of the vents above them.
Hunkering down beside the boys, Brenna wrapped an arm around each twin and pulled them close for a hug.
“Umm-hmm,” Buzz nodded, before he and TJ wriggled loose. “You smell good.”
“You’re really pretty, too,” TJ said, probably in competition with his twin for the better compliment. His sticky fingers tugged on a lock of her hair. “I like red. It’s my favorite color.”
TJ’s father had said it was his favorite color, too, which was why she’d chosen it for the flowers and the bridesmaids’ dresses.
“I wish you were going to be our new mommy,” the boy said, easily winning the compliment competition.
“We like you more than Molly,” Buzz agreed. “Why can’t you be our new mommy?”
“Uh…” she stammered, having no idea what to say. “Your daddy and I haven’t even known each other very long.”
“He doesn’t know Molly, either,” TJ pointed out.
They were so smart.
“But he doesn’t love me, honey.” And Brenna, growing up with parents who were as devoted to each other as they were to her, had vowed long ago to marry for nothing less than love.
“He doesn’t love Molly, either,” Buzz insisted.
“Honey, your dad wouldn’t have asked her to marry him if he didn’t love her.” Would he have? Or was he just as desperate to find a mother for his sons as they were? “Besides which, you guys don’t really know me.”
“We love you,” TJ declared.
Brenna blinked back tears of longing. She didn’t have to worry about just falling for Josh. She was falling for his sons, too.
BRENNA MOVED through the crowd, looking for Josh. If not for Nick just telling her he was still looking for the boys, she wouldn’t have sought him out. She would have gone on trying to avoid him. And his sons.
She found him near the bar, cornered by two of the town’s busiest bodies. Mrs. Hild, the organist, stood so close to him that the brim of her flower-trimmed hat poked into his chest. “It’s such a scandal.”
“A real scandal,” her cohort, Mrs. Carpenter, wholeheartedly agreed, patting her home-permed white curls. Her husband, the owner of Carpenter’s Hardware on Main Street, had the well-earned reputation of being the thriftiest man in town.
“I can’t believe Molly would run out like that on her own wedding.” The flowers wobbled as Mrs. Hild shook her head. “Now it’s the wedding-that-wasn’t.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Mrs. Carpenter agreed. “Molly has always been such a smart girl.”
“Nose always in a book,” Mrs. Hild added. “Read everything in the library. Heck, she just about lived in that library.”
“Makes no sense,” Mrs. Carpenter repeated, her eyes wide as she assessed Josh’s good looks.
“Can I borrow Dr. Towers?” Brenna asked, reaching between the older women to grasp Josh’s arm and pull him away. “Your children need you.”
“Such adorable little scamps,” Mrs. Carpenter murmured as Brenna led him from the bar.
“And their father.” Mrs. Hild’s loud sigh reached them. “He’s the spitting image of JFK junior. Such a handsome, handsome boy…”
“Molly McClintock must have lost her mind,” Mrs. Carpenter declared.
Brenna swallowed her agreement, along with a chuckle at the lasciviousness of the two women.
“Where are the boys? I’ve been looking all over for them,” Josh said, his eyes dark with concern for his children. He obviously didn’t care what Mrs. Hild, Mrs. Carpenter or anyone else said about him. Or he wouldn’t have shown up at his reception.
“Evidently you haven’t looked in the alley,” Brenna informed him. “Or the ladies’ room.”
He
