Ten Acres and Twins (21 page)

If they could be cordial and polite and the perfect roommates by day—and down to earth about their nights—perhaps she could allow herself a little more time.

And it worked that way, for a while.

In the next couple of weeks, Abby devoted her days to the babies and the greenhouse. She started several rows of cut flowers for the holiday season, and watched the twins learn to stand alone and take their first supported steps.

Jack spent long hours in his office, but was always willing to lend a hand with babies and cleanup duties. And he kept a comfortable distance, most of the time. Although he joined Abby upstairs on many nights, he didn't ask for promises, and he didn't make any.

Sometimes she felt as if she had solved some sort of cosmic riddle—she had a roommate to ease her daytime burdens and a lover to add passion to her nights.

At other times, she was sure she was crazy.

One Friday morning in late October, Abby watched through the greenhouse window as Jack played with the twins in the side yard. He'd bundled them up in coats and hats, and sat them down under the big cottonwood tree.

Over and over again, he tossed leaves in the air above the twins' heads. The leaves drifted down, the babies cackled and Jack grinned at their pleasure before snatching another handful and flinging it upward.

Their circle of fun was tempting, but Abby forced herself to return to her chores, reminding herself of all the reasons it was necessary to stay away.

She was still working an hour later when Jack's arms wrapped around her waist from behind. Unwittingly, she sank back against him, and smiled when he moved her hair aside to kiss her neck. “Where are Rosie and Wyatt?” she asked.

“Sleeping. The fresh air must have worn them out.”

Abby didn't respond—she was too intent on the heady sensations he was rousing with his lips and hands.

“I just got a phone call from a client with an emergency,” he said. “I'll have to head to Kansas City late tomorrow morning and stay a couple of days. Come with me?”

Abby studied the mottled green foliage of a cyclamen, wishing she could say yes. Kansas City was where he lived that other life…the one he would return to in less than a year.

She didn't want him to go, now or ever, but she couldn't go with him, either. She had a farm to tend and deliveries to make. Most importantly, she had a pair of twins to raise, and a lot of convincing to do in order to be allowed that privilege. She had to remember.

“I can't,” she said.

“I'll hurry back.”

“Just do your job. Don't hurry.”

She turned in his embrace, unable to resist testing herself, and him, and the emotions she was more and more sure she recognized as true.

She didn't resist, either, when his hands finagled their way underneath her shirt to her very responsive breasts.

Within minutes, she was running through the house with him, to his room and his bed.

As he shut the door, he made some comment about stealing her T-shirt and underwear to pack in his suitcase, so he could at least smell her scent in his hotel room.

She felt her thighs turn to rubber, but she laughed anyway. Even without his touching her, she felt that delicious oblivion again.

She led him across the room, shedding her clothes on the way. She threw herself on his bed with a bounce, and watched as he stripped in front of her.

When he joined her, she lay beneath him, face-to-face, and kissed him so deeply she felt him shudder. Then, still keeping her eyes open, she accepted him inside her.

The intimacy was still potent. Her eyes filled with tears,
and she had to close them when she saw the matching wetness of his.

She wrapped her legs around his torso and felt him sink more deeply inside. He lingered there for a while, without moving, and she was happy to allow the respite.

Movement would start them toward the end. It would bring him closer to packing and leaving. She wasn't ready for that.

She'd never be ready for it. She knew that now.

After a while she felt his body pulsate, and she clamped her muscles tighter around him. He groaned and began to move, but she led this time, with whispered commands. She told him how fast to go, and when to pause, and how forcefully to continue.

He listened well and followed every instruction.

And between the two of them, their cadence led them to a shattering end that she knew would be unforgettable.

 

F
OR NEARLY AN HOUR
, Abby loitered in her parents' flower shop. She chatted with her dad and the customers, helped her mother arrange flowers, and kept her ears attuned for the twins, who had fallen asleep in their stroller and were still napping in the back room.

The naps were her excuse. She'd told everyone she wanted to let the babies enjoy a nice long snooze before she headed home. She hadn't frittered the time away in this manner for several years. She always had plenty to do.

But she'd finished her errands, and she wasn't ready to go home. She'd left the house before Jack was done packing for his business trip, and she wanted him to be long gone when she returned.

Even though he'd been respectful and quiet after yesterday afternoon, she knew she couldn't handle watching him leave. Her feelings were too conflicted to handle anything more than a simple goodbye.

She was glad he'd be gone a few days. Apparently, she needed time and space to figure things out.

She'd spent the morning finishing every chore she could generate away from the house. She delivered her flowers and cared for the twins and filled in the time.

But her thoughts had stalled on Jack.

After three hours of avoiding home, she thought it would be safe to return. She said goodbye to her parents and left the flower shop with the waking twins, congratulating herself all the way out to her truck for avoiding the subject of roommates with her dad.

But as she buckled the babies into their car seats, she realized the air felt eerily still, and it was noticeably colder than it had been an hour before.

She glanced at the sky and her heart quickened. Ominous black clouds were stacking up on the horizon, and the atmosphere felt charged. A storm was blowing in.

As soon as she started the truck, she turned on the radio and listened to the weather report. The meteorologist warned of possible tornadoes, with high winds and hail inevitable. For the first time that day, she could only think of getting home with the twins.

She headed straight for the farm, but rain started falling before she'd gone halfway, and came down so heavily she could scarcely see the road five feet in front of the car. She drove as fast as she dared, wincing when a clap of thunder sounded seconds after a huge streak of lightning.

The storm was nearly on top of them.

When she pulled into the drive she discovered the garage door opener wouldn't work. The power was out. She'd have to carry the twins through the downpour.

Quickly, she unfastened them, picked them up and sprinted onto the porch without bothering to close the doors to the truck.

The house was dark without the benefit of lights, even in the afternoon. Still carrying the babies, she fumbled her way
upstairs to resupply the diaper bag, then looped it over her shoulder and crept back down. In the kitchen she set the twins on the floor while she grabbed a couple of bottles from the refrigerator and a fluorescent lantern from the pantry. Then she hoisted them again and headed out to the storm cellar. Raindrops hammered her skin as she walked three yards from the back door to the cellar door, and then she realized she'd have to put the twins down again to pull open the heavy panel.

Gently she sat them on the wet grass, yanking the door open and scooping them back up within seconds. She practically slid down the concrete steps, put the babies on the floor and switched on the lantern. Then she scurried up to shut the door behind her.

That was when she let herself get scared.

She stared at the door, near to tears. She'd never been frightened of storms, but being out here alone with the babies was terrifying.

She returned to pick them up, snuggling them close as she sat on the cellar's single concrete bench. Wyatt squirmed on her knee, fretful at being confined. She wished she'd brought along a couple of toys. At least Rosie seemed content to blow bubbles into the air and jabber in curiosity at the dim little room they inhabited.

It would be best for the babies if she acted as if this were just a strange new playroom, Abby decided. If she could just relax… She let loose a harsh, lonely chuckle when she realized she'd finally accomplished this afternoon's goal—she hadn't thought about Jack again, until just now.

A trickle ran down her chin. She ran her tongue over her lips, thinking it was rainwater. But it was salty. Warm. She must have gnawed a gash in her bottom lip.

Just then the cellar door crashed open and Abby screamed in alarm, causing both babies to whimper.

“A
BBY
,
THANK
G
OD
you're down here,” Jack yelled above the storm. “Is everyone all right?”

“We're fine,” she hollered. And she felt fine, now.

Dammit.

“Anything you need?” he called down.

Glistening streaks of rain fell around him, and before she'd had a chance to answer, a clap of thunder boomed through the open door. “Just get down here and shut that door!”

His form disappeared from the doorway, leaving a gaping view of the dark sky and allowing rain to invade their refuge. Then, just as quickly, he appeared again, clattering down the steps with a soggy computer box.

Abby frowned, wondering if he'd taken the time to pack up his system. As he set it on the cellar floor, however, the cries from inside divulged its contents.

He'd rescued the ducks.

Opening the top, he allowed them to flap out and voice their complaints. Nearly full grown now, they had learned to quack, and were doing so loudly.

Abby couldn't help grinning as Jack climbed the steps to pull the cellar door closed again. When he came back, he was smiling, too.

“I figured you wouldn't have taken the time to grab them,” he said as he sat beside her on the bench and took Wyatt from her arms.

She didn't feel the need to say a thing for a while. Everyone was together—drenched, but safe.

Jack pulled her against his side.

“You couldn't be finished already,” she said.

“No, the radio weatherman was talking about some potentially dangerous weather coming up through southwest Kansas, so I turned around. I made it back in thirty-two minutes, watching the storm all the way.”

She leaned away to peer into his eyes. “We're fine.”

“I know. But I needed to be here.” His eyes clung to hers, saying everything he didn't.

“Jack…” she began, shaking her head.

Wyatt's giggle interrupted.

The agitated ducks were waddling in circles around the perimeter of the cellar, still quacking.

Rosie joined in with a belly laugh, and with all of the pandemonium inside the cellar, the outside noise was obliterated.

Jack's arrival had taken them from cold, dark fright to loud, clamorous fun.

Abby and Jack laughed, too, unable to resist as the babies continued to chortle and the ducks continued their waddling symphony.

From some small corner, a cricket even added its chirp, sounding out above all else as if it had a microphone. Abby thought it odd that a cricket could be heard above the din, and then realized that the thunder had lessened.

The storm must have blown past.

Jack handed her Wyatt and went to look out. When he returned, he merely nodded. It was safe to go up.

And they were lucky, this time. The storm had involved gale force winds and driving rain, but no tornadoes.

She and Jack each carried a baby on a walk around the house, searching for damage. A major limb had been ripped from the cottonwood tree, and the ducks were cooing approval as they rested under the fallen branches.

Abby frowned into Jack's eyes, and he nodded. He seemed to understand that she'd want to check the orchard.

They jogged out there, with the twins laughing in innocent
glee at the bumpy ride. As they neared the first group of apples, they slowed. Abby's heart was heavy as she surveyed the jumble of limbs, leaves and fruit littering the ground.

The last crop of apples was wrecked, and some of the trees might not survive. Suddenly, the storm and its aftermath seemed appropriate.

For in that instant, she knew without a doubt what she had to do about Jack.

She'd let it all go too far, and there would be no use trying to return to a platonic relationship. Now that she'd experienced the all-encompassing power of their passion, she'd never be able to backpedal fast enough.

She knew that.

She also knew that he fancied himself in love with her. But she'd heard the same words, or similar ones, from the only other man she'd ever slept with. She couldn't risk her heart, or the welfare of an innocent little boy.

So it all had to end.

She wouldn't tell Jack now, as they stood outside among the ruinous tumult of the storm. That memory would be too surreal. She'd wait until later, when she and her world were more settled.

For now, she'd take care of this other, less daunting mess. Wordlessly, she continued along beside Jack to check the rest of the orchard. Many of the younger trees seemed undamaged, but a few older ones had major wounds.

“I need to make repairs,” she said in a trembling voice that had little to do with the storm's aftermath. “Can you watch the twins?”

“Absolutely.” Jack took Rosie from her arms. “You take as long as you need. I'm here.”

She started to walk toward a garden shed at the corner of the orchard, where she kept a stock of arborist's supplies that had been there since the days of Mr. Epelstein. But something compelled her to turn and wait until Jack had disappeared down the wooded path to the house.

It seemed important, his walk down that path. Everything would change as soon as she finished here, and followed that same path home.

At dusk, she came in to find that the power had been restored. Jack had bathed the twins and put them to bed.

He was waiting in the kitchen, but when he saw her damp hair and glum expression, he insisted that she head straight to the shower.

She didn't argue. She dreaded the things she had to say to him tonight, and she was so chilled she was trembling. She might as well allow herself the comfort of warm, dry clothes.

When she came back down, she was fully dressed and dry, but still shaking. Jack pulled her to the kitchen table and helped her to sit. Then he filled a couple of bowls from a soup pot and came back to join her.

The fact that all he'd done was open a can of clam chowder and heat it on the stove was irrelevant to Abby. The gesture itself broke her heart. He'd made dinner. He'd waited to share it with her.

They ate for a few minutes, and she answered his questions about orchard damage with stilted words and a quavering voice. She couldn't meet his eyes.

When the soup and the refuge of the moment had had time to calm her tremors, he lifted her chin with gentle fingers and waited until she did look at him.

He took his turn speaking then, in a strong and sure voice. He told her he realized he hadn't been clear enough about things. He said he loved her, and the twins, more than anything in his life.

He pulled a red velvet jeweler's box from his pocket and set it beside her soup bowl. He chuckled when he said he'd stopped on the way out of town this morning, just to buy her this ring. He said the past few weeks had been incredible—that they had given him the courage to try.

She started shaking again. “No,” she whispered, forcing the
box back into his hands without opening it. “I can't accept this, and you'll have to pack up and leave as soon as you can.”

He seemed disbelieving. “What? Abby, why?”

“This isn't working,” she said, shaking so hard that she knew he must be able to see her tremors. “I can't live with you anymore.”

He didn't say anything, but she could imagine his questions. She knew he deserved answers.

“I should never have gotten involved with another playboy.”

He smiled at that, and flipped open the box to look inside. “I'm not a playboy anymore. I've only wanted you since the day I moved in.”

She pretended interest in her soup and refused to look at him or the ring. “You're only intrigued because I'm a challenge,” she said. “Just like Tim.”

“I never met that damned ex-husband of yours, but he couldn't have loved you or he wouldn't have hurt you that way,” Jack said. “I won't do that.”

She heard the jeweler's box snap shut, and realized Jack had returned it to the table between them. “I can't risk it—I have the twins to consider,” she murmured.

“I want us all to be a family.”

“You think you do, but marriage would turn me into a wife, and wives are boring,” she said, looking up now. “After a few more months, or a year, or two years, you'd want to leave.”

He shook his head emphatically, but she ignored him. “It's better that you go now,” she insisted. “As soon as possible.”

“Even after all that's happened?” he asked, his eyes blazing as hot as blue fire. “In our bedrooms? That afternoon in the cellar? Even at the car dealership, I know you felt the same connection I did. Can't you trust it?”

“No.”

He picked up the box. “You're turning down my proposal?”

“Yes.”

He laughed, but the sound was hollow. “I'm sure you won't believe this, but I've never told any other woman I loved her. Never, Abby. And I've never neglected to use a condom before, either.”

She clamped her teeth so hard against her bottom lip that she tasted blood again. Then she shrugged. She'd known she was taking a risk; she would handle the responsibility, if necessary.

He studied her face and shook his head.

Then he stood and shoved the box into his jeans pocket.

“I'll need to call a mover,” he said. “But I'll find a way to get Wyatt and me out of here tomorrow…if that's what you want.”

“No.” She stood, too, and put a hand on his arm to stop him from leaving.

Wordlessly, he stared across at her.

“I want Wyatt,” she whispered.

He raised his eyebrows. “What, Abby?”

“Wyatt needs to stay here,” she said as she withdrew her hand. “Brian asked you to take custody because he thought you two had missed a father figure growing up.”

“That's right.”

“But the real problem was a lack of stability, not the lack of a father. Your mom's lifestyle wasn't very stable, was it?”

“Probably not,” he admitted.

“Wyatt's childhood would be just as miserable with all of those inappropriate women circulating in and out of his life.”

“Inappropriate women?”

Abby smiled sadly. “Don't you realize? Every woman you date has some strange personality flaw that allows you to keep your distance.”

He scowled. “Everyone has flaws, Abby, and I didn't keep my distance from you.”

She ignored him. “I can provide a stable life for both twins. Please, leave Wyatt here.”

“I wish it were that easy,” he said. “But I love both of those babies, too. And, for whatever reason, my brother asked me to raise Wyatt.”

“Wouldn't it be better for everyone if you just visited often, like a favorite uncle?”

Jack's narrowed eyes pierced hers as he shook his head, just once, from left to right. “I can't become my dad.” He let his gaze fall down to some spot on the table and said, “All things considered, Wyatt will be fine with me. At least I have a healthy attitude toward the opposite sex.”

A healthy attitude?
She frowned.

“If you never learn to trust a man, you'll wind up becoming the hermit you seem to think you are now,” he said. “Would that be a healthy thing for a boy to experience?”

She recognized the truth, and couldn't answer.

Jack ran a palm along his jawline. “I'll start packing tonight. Will you gather Wyatt's things?”

She nodded.

He left to head down the hall toward his rooms, and she remained in the kitchen trying to think, but not able to think at all.

She felt as if she'd passed beyond heartache to numbness—just as she had on the night of her sister's death.

Except this time her wounds were self-inflicted.

Abby took the soup bowls to the sink and ran water over them. As she opened a cabinet to gather half of the baby bottles and set them out on the countertop, she was very aware that her composure was superficial—as if she were a puppet on a string. She knew she'd remember every detail about tonight.

After she'd boxed up every downstairs toy and blanket, every spoon and dish and hat that she thought Wyatt might need, she stacked them in the front foyer and tiptoed past Jack's closed bedroom door on her way back to the kitchen.

She stared out at the greenhouse plants, running through a mental list of all the places in the house where Wyatt's things were stored.

There was just the nursery left, but she'd have to pack those things in the morning, after the twins were awake.

When she remembered the box of infant clothes in the cellar, she knew it was right that Jack should take those, too. He'd be the one to guide Wyatt into adulthood. He'd be the one to tell stories about babyhood's sweet memories.

She also knew she could trust him to handle that gently and well. During the past few months she'd seen Jack deal with enough people to know that he was full of integrity and kindness, as well as charm.

The boy would grow up strong, sturdy and caring under Jack's tutelage. He'd miss growing up in the same house as his sister, but he'd benefit from his bond with a good man.

Before Jack left, she would talk to him about keeping the twins in close contact. Perhaps they could grow up like cousins, or the children of amicably divorced parents. They needed every opportunity to be close to one another.

She knew Jack would agree.

She dragged the box up the cellar steps and set it in the middle of the living room floor. As the clock ticked toward midnight, she knelt beside the carton and meticulously separated blue from pink, and his from hers. She made separate stacks of neatly folded clothes all around her on the floor.

When the box was empty, she began to put Wyatt's things back inside, and noticed the edge of a pink envelope sticking out from under the bottom flap.

Frowning, she tugged at it. The scent of roses drifted up and caught her by surprise. Paige must have put the envelope in here.

Abby cried out when she turned it over. In her sister's round lettering, the envelope was addressed to the lawyer's office. There was a stamp, carefully placed, but no cancellation marks. The letter must have gotten lost in this box. Paige probably never knew she hadn't sent it.