around in his skull like so much mumbo jumbo, and even Sawyer McCord’s comforting hand on his shoulder couldn’t make it real.
Hadley had stumbled from the waiting room down the brightly lit hallway in a daze, and he was still in it. Underneath the fog that had taken over his brain, though, something else kept demanding his attention, tapping at his memory and telling him to pay notice. Hadley just couldn’t remember what that was.
The nurse repeated her question, then said, “We have a small lounge you can use.” She gently took his arm and led him a short distance away to the open door of a room. “I’ll bring them to you.”
“No,” he began, heart in his throat. Even after the long months of waiting, he wasn’t ready; he’d told Amy often enough that he would never be ready, which had only led to yet another of their usual impasses.
But the nurse had already disappeared through the door across the way where Hadley was able to pick out the low murmur of voices among the other nurses. He saw one of them swipe at her eyes.
This was not the happy occasion it should have been—most of all, for Amy—but Hadley didn’t quite know how to grieve. They’d separated earlier in the year, but during one last night together they’d created two new lives. The news that she was pregnant had cut short their divorce proceedings.
He’d promised to stay with her until the babies were born, then they’d decide about the future.
The situation now seemed bizarre, and everything in Hadley’s life had been temporary. His whole approach to things was what he called the finger-in-the-dike method, plugging up one hole as it sprang a leak, then the next. He didn’t stay long anywhere he happened to land. He’d never had a home, a real family. What was he going to do now with the twins?
In the lounge, he sank onto the faux-leather couch, trembling inside. Trying to steady himself, Hadley looked down at his blue chambray shirt, faded jeans and scuffed boots. Even in their better moments, he was never the guy Amy had hoped he could become.
When the nurse stepped into the room again, he startled. “Baby Girl,” she announced, carrying two bundles, one on each arm, “and Baby Boy. Have you chosen names for them, Mr. Smith?”
“No,” he said, pulse stuttering in alarm. He’d left those choices, and most others, to Amy. He should have paid more attention.
He considered making another protest—what did he know about babies?—but the nurse transferred one twin, then the other, into his hastily outstretched arms. He could hardly have refused to take them; they would have ended up on the floor. Since the cover and the first mini cap were blue, he must be holding the boy. Next, in pink…the girl. “God, they’re small,” he muttered.
“Yes, but not preemies. They weighed in almost the same, remember, just over five pounds each. And healthy. Their Apgar scores were off the chart.” She smiled, looking misty-eyed. “Go ahead, you can touch them. They won’t break.”
Hadley wasn’t sure of that. He tried to repress the image, but he couldn’t help but note that the babies were no bigger than two sacks of potatoes, together maybe a quarter the weight of a good saddle.
He’d seen birth before…at least on the ranch. Give him a laboring cow to manage, let a newborn calf slide into his hands, and he knew exactly what to do. Its mama soon took over, and Hadley’s job was done. He’d once reminded Amy’s doctor of that, and Amy had chided him for comparing her to cattle. But he had no idea what to do with these two little babies.
He decided not to share this sum total of his experience with the nurse, who kept giving him weird looks anyway.
Saying, “I’ll leave you with them,” she vanished into the hall.
A fresh spurt of panic shot through him. What was he supposed to do? Even with his friends’ kids, he’d only watched, never taking part in the childcare.
“Wait,” he called after the nurse, but she didn’t hear him. She’d promised to come back soon, but how long would that be? Minutes? An hour? He sat rigid on the sofa, his head throbbing. Already his right arm ached from the slight, warm weight resting against it, and something niggled at the edges of his mind again, then flitted off. In his numbed state, what was he missing? Then the boy snuffled, and Hadley’s pulse lurched. Could he breathe all bound up like that?
With one finger Hadley nudged the blanket aside and saw a little face staring up at him, blue eyes wide and intent, the most focused look he’d ever seen. “Hey, pal,” Hadley murmured. He blinked but his focus had somehow quit for the second time that day; the first had been when he learned Amy hadn’t survived. The tiny girl’s cover slipped, and there she was, too.
Like her brother, the baby had Amy’s reddish-gold hair, and Hadley swore he could see Amy’s face. Her nose, her lips, her chin. Well, maybe his ears, but that was all he could see of himself in the little girl. Ah, Amy. She would never experience this awesome sight. He noisily cleared his throat. “Look at you, sweetie pie.”
She reached out her hand again, as she’d done earlier through the nursery window. A random motion or was she seeking him? When Hadley dared to touch her, she wound her impossibly small fingers around his and held on much tighter than he would expect from such a little mite, and his heart clenched. Her skin felt creamy and smooth. She smelled like…innocence. Her nails were perfect, translucent. An all-around miracle, as birth always was.
When Sawyer McCord suddenly appeared in the doorway in his white coat, Hadley couldn’t speak.
Sawyer’s dark blue gaze softened. “Nothing like it, is there?”
“Nothing,” Hadley managed to say. He didn’t suppose they meant the same thing.
Odd as it seemed, though, theirs was a shared experience. Sawyer and his wife, Olivia, had become the parents of a son only last spring. Hadley looked from one twin to the other, uncertain which seemed more vulnerable, sweeter.
Gazing at him, Sawyer had folded his arms as if he expected Hadley to try to shove the newborn twins at him, then run, the big tough cowboy who only wanted the open range and a horse of his own. He’d done bad stuff in his life, inherited bad genes, but… He gazed down at the squirming babies in his arms, and his whole being turned to mush. He hadn’t been a good husband, at least not the one Amy had wished for. He sure hadn’t wanted to have kids who might turn out like him. The one family member who’d relied on him years ago, Hadley had let down—to put it mildly.
If he wanted to live by the cowboy’s code of honor, which Hadley did, he needed to accept the consequences of his own actions now. Never mind his rocky, on-again, mostly off-again relationship with Amy. That was, sadly, over.
In a few short moments, he’d morphed from a possibly divorced man into a widower, then a father. And finally he knew what to do. This would be different from his marriage. These were Amy’s babies, always would be, but they were also his. What other choice was there? “Guess I’m a daddy now,” he told Sawyer.
Because no way would he let anyone else have them. Once before, he’d given up someone he should have cared for, and it wouldn’t happen again. Looked like he wasn’t going anywhere. For now.
That was when he glanced up and saw the woman standing frozen in the doorway. And at last Hadley remembered the other problem that had been circling, half-formed yet unreachable, through his head. Jenna Moran would have been his easy way out.
Instead,
