it true?” Beth asked after a couple of moments.
Ellie felt, rather than saw, her mother’s feet still.
“Sloan did come to my office,” Ellie said. But she hadn’t been as heartless as Chelsea Markum had painted her. Had she?
“And you refused to help him?” Megan asked quietly.
Looking up at her mother, Ellie wondered if this was the time when Megan would actually show her disappointment in her next-to-youngest daughter.
“I told him he could bring the babies to Beth until he could find a sitter.”
“If all he needed was a baby-sitter, why’d he come to you?” Beth asked.
Ellie’s gaze bounced between her mother and her twin. How could she help them understand what she didn’t really understand herself? “He said he needed me, that he didn’t so much want someone to watch the babies, but wanted to learn how to look after them himself. That’s not something you have someone teach you,” she said, looking at her mother beseechingly. “It’s just something you do.”
“Unless you don’t know how,” Megan said softly. But her eyes were filled with compassion, not blame. “Looking after children came naturally to you, sweetie, but you’ve been around babies all your life. And grew up with brothers and sisters. What kind of example did Sloan have?”
None. Unless you could call a womanizing absentee father and an alcoholic mother role models.
Beth hugged her knees up to her chest, facing the couch where Ellie still sat. “He’s got one hell of a lot of nerve coming to you,” she said.
Ellie wanted to think so. She sat on the edge of the couch, her hands clasped between her knees.
“And yet, who more natural for him to come to than the only person who’d ever taken the time to get to know the boy inside the man?” Megan said. “Especially a woman who’s a natural with children.”
“I haven’t held a baby in more than ten years,” Ellie said. And then remembered. At least, not until a couple of nights ago. But one night of baby holding didn’t count.
“Caring for children is not something you forget,” Megan said gently.
“You think I should have told him I’d help?” Ellie asked, feeling like a little girl again, not wanting to disappoint her mother.
“Not necessarily,” Megan replied, surprising her. “I’m just not sure I understand why you didn’t.”
“Because the jerk broke her heart!” Beth jumped up and faced her mother.
“They were friends, Beth. It’s not his fault Ellie fell so deeply in love with him.”
“That’s ancient history.” Ellie stood, too. She wasn’t going to have them all feeling sorry for her again.
“Then why’d you say no?” Megan asked again.
“I don’t have time.”
The excuse embarrassed Ellie even as she said it. She was busy, yes, but if no one else knew that she kept herself busy on purpose, Megan did. Her mother knew how much extra work, over and above her duties, Ellie had been doing at the clinic.
Moving toward the bedroom half of the suite, Megan pulled down her comforter and fluffed the pillows on her side of the bed. “Life’s short, El,” she said.
Ellie’s gaze wandered over to the side of the bed that had remained undisturbed every single night since her father’s death. It was almost as though the empty space offered some kind of comfort to her widowed mother, a testimony to the man who still owned the empty places in Megan’s heart.
“You think I should help him,” Ellie said.
“I don’t,” Beth protested. “At least, not if you don’t want to.”
“I think you should do what you feel is right, Ellie. Just make sure you know what it is you really feel.”
Her mother made it sound so easy.
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