For the Twins' Sake

by Melissa Senate

  Something shuttered inside him—what thing exactly, he didn’t know. A wall went up or a gate came crashing down.

  He didn’t want to talk about love. Or think about it. That wasn’t what this marriage was supposed to be about. Teamwork and partnership and knowing where they stood and what they wanted from life and the future. A solid family.

  “Sara, I—” He stopped talking, unsure what he wanted to say, what he felt.

  “You know what, Noah? I don’t think I’m flattering myself by saying that I think you do love me. And I mean love me in all the ways, every way, with every part of you. I think you always have, since we were teenagers. But you were scared then, and you’re scared now.”

  He didn’t like being told how he felt. At all. “Regardless,” he said, that wall or gate making his voice sound so...cold. “We tried having a real relationship. Remember what happened? I drove you away.”

  “You’re not that guy anymore. Everyone knows that. Especially me. And you know that.”

  Did he? He’d stepped up, yes. He’d changed his life. But wasn’t he the same Noah Dawson he always was? Wasn’t that guy who’d lost everything still inside him? Of course he was. Able to take over at any time.

  “Then I guess we’re going home,” he said. “Wedding’s off,” he called to the justice of the peace and walked back through the door, two more couples in the waiting area now staring at them. Both women were looking at Sara as though she’d been cruelly left at the altar.

  “She changed her mind,” he snapped. “Not me.” Oh God, now he was acting like a seven-year-old.

  He glanced at Sara, whose cheeks were red. Oh hell. He’d screwed this up.

  But he’d proposed something specific. She’d agreed. Then said no. Then said maybe. Then said yes. Then said no a few minutes ago.

  Love, the kind she was talking about, the kind she wanted, was not supposed to be part of the arrangement.

  And now you’re going to drive her away again, he chastised himself as she stalked out the door and down the steps. She barged through the door into the parking lot. He wasn’t even sure he’d find her waiting by his truck when he trailed after her.

  He hurried downstairs and out the door. She was there, arms crossed over her chest, steam practically coming out of her ears.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just got caught by surprise and let it get the better of me.”

  All that anger that had been on her face, in her body language? It turned to sadness. Defeat. “Same here, Noah. Same here.”

  What the hell was he going to do?

  * * *

  The new guests required all his attention, and he barely got to speak to Sara all afternoon. A few times they’d worked together, leading trail rides, supervising the petting zoo and going over the rules with the three sets of kids of varying ages, and pairing horses and riders. But they hadn’t been in a position to talk. He’d have to wait until tonight.

  And say what?

  He was walking the path back toward the main barn when he saw his sister up toward the farmhouse with Jacob, her boyfriend, if he could be called that. The father of her baby. Noah had only met him a couple times, but something about the guy irked him. Jacob was polite, seemed okay enough, but there was just something that Noah couldn’t put his finger on. And Daisy didn’t look happy when he saw them together. He got the feeling his sister was forcing something she didn’t feel.

  Relationships didn’t seem easy for anyone.

  A few minutes later, he saw the boyfriend driving down the gravel road toward the gates. Daisy was heading toward him. She looked upset.

  “Everything okay?” he asked her.

  “You know it’s not. This morning I expected to have a sister-in-law. Now I don’t.”

  He almost smiled. “I know you love Sara, Daize. And I tried. But she wants more than I can give.”

  She stared at him. “You’re lucky I’m not holding something. Because I’d bop you over the head with it. She wants more than you can give? Are you serious?”

  He turned away, hardly interested in talking about this with his sister. “I’ve got a lot going on. At first, I just wanted to protect my interest in Annabel. Then her twin brother got ahold of me, and I started feeling like a father to them both. So I came up with an idea that would keep me and Sara in one place, give us both what we need.”

  “A roommate?” Sara asked, scrunching up her face.

  “A partner,” he corrected. “Without all the nonsense.”

  She snorted. “The nonsense of love? That nonsense?”

  “How’s Jacob?” he asked. Then regretted it. His sister was just calling him on what seemed ridiculous, and he could see how it might look that way to someone who wasn’t him or Sara. They’d been through the wringer in different ways, and their needs were different. Daisy was six months pregnant and trying to make it work with her baby’s father. He got that too. “Sorry,” he said. “Been a long day. It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Jacob is fine, by the way,” she said. “We’re trying. I don’t know if it’s working, but we’re trying. The more time I spend with him, the less close I feel to him. How is that possible?”

  “You probably just have no chemistry or much in common. Except for the baby,” he added, eyeing her stomach. “I think it’s great that you’re both trying to make it work. But don’t force something that isn’t there.”

  “You are,” Daisy said.

  He stared at her, narrowing his eyes. “I am? How?”

  “Trying to marry a woman you don’t love,” Daisy said. “So I’m not sure you should be giving advice on this subject.”

  “Who says I don’t love Sara?” he asked, then froze. Of course he loved her. He knew that. But until he said the words out loud, he hadn’t admitted it to himself. Or anyone else.

  “Aha!” Daisy said, pointing at his chest. “I knew it. You are in love with Sara.”

  He scowled at her. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not looking for romance. I just want a partnership marriage with certain parameters so nothing gets messed up. There’s too much at stake.”

  “Mom once told me that no matter how bad things seemed at home between her and Dad, that marriage was a beautiful thing and I should know that I’d find my Mr. Right when I was ready and that marriage could be wonderful. I always felt bad because she didn’t seem to really believe that—she just wanted to put it in my head, make up for what we were growing up with, seeing every day.”

  Their father had cheated on their mother a bunch of times. He and Daisy had both heard the arguments, the tears, the I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again. Until the next time. And then his mother died, and his father was never quite the same. He still ran after women, but the loss had changed his father.

  “I didn’t need Mom and Dad’s example to tell me relationships don’t last. None of mine ever have. Including with Sara.”

  “You sabotaged that on purpose. Only you know why, Noah.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Noah Dean Dawson. You weren’t ready then in any way, shape or form. You got ready and you changed your life. To the point that I came back when I swore I’d never live here again. You showed me what you can do, who you are, and I came home to be part of this. And because I was scared myself and needed a place to go where I could relax, where there was someone I could count on. You.”

  Oh hell. Now she was getting him all mushy. “Of course you can count on me, Daisy. I’d never let you down.”

  “I know you won’t. And don’t let yourself down. That’s what you’ll be doing if you let fear hold you back. You’ve got to be in it to get anything in this world. You know that.”

  “I’m doing that with the ranch. There’s no way I’d blow the investment you all made in me. I’ve got enough riding on this place. I can’t take more risks, Daisy. Not when it com
es to Sara and the twins. I lose them, that’s it.”

  “Well, Sara wants something very different, so you’re going to lose her anyway. Kind of dopey of you not to try.”

  His phone pinged with a text. Saved, he thought. He pulled out the cell. His cowboy, Dylan. “Dylan needs me in the petting zoo. Runaway sheep.”

  “This conversation isn’t over,” Daisy said. “You and Sara both deserve better.”

  “Gotta run,” he said and headed in the opposite direction.

  Sisters, he thought. Good thing he had only one. His brothers liked to challenge him, but they didn’t stand around talking about relationships the way Daisy did.

  He headed over to the pasture beside the main barn, and between him and Dylan they got the runaway sheep back in his pen. He passed the petting zoo, stopping to watch his youngest guests, five-year-old Liam and his twin sister, Lyra, offer the little goats some pellets.

  That’ll be Annabel and Chance in just a few years, he thought, his heart close to bursting. He could just see them running around the ranch, playing with the farm animals, learning ranching by living here.

  And because of you, they might not be running around the ranch at all. In fact, they might be running around some other guy’s ranch, someone else their father.

  If he couldn’t give Sara what she wanted, she wasn’t going to stay.

  He couldn’t live with that either.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sara wasn’t sure why, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Katherine Palmer. The midwife. She’d pushed the woman out of her head since the day after the bombshell in the lawyer’s office, when Holton had assured her the midwife had retired, per calls he’d made to area hospitals and clinics and local OB practices she could be affiliated with and the Wyoming State Board of Nursing. Palmer’s license had expired last month and she hadn’t renewed it for the first time in thirty-seven years.

  Holton had wanted to file a claim against Katherine Palmer, but until Sara had spoken to the woman herself, she didn’t want him to do that. She knew what Willem had been capable of and could only guess what he’d threatened the midwife with. Once Sara had been assured the woman was retired and could never do anything remotely like what she’d done to Sara and Annabel again, she’d relaxed some and put Katherine Palmer out of her head until she was ready to confront her.

  For some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, the midwife had entered Sara’s mind on the drive home from the town hall, along with the few lines Willem had written about her in his letter. She suddenly wanted to talk to Katherine, to understand why she’d done something so heinous. How she could have done it. No matter what Willem had threatened her with. A person who’d devoted her career to bringing new life into the world for almost forty years?

  Sara sat on the couch in the foreman’s cabin, the twins in their swings, staring at the sparkly mobiles hanging high above them, trying to figure out why it suddenly felt like time to pay the woman a visit. Maybe Sara was simply in fight mode. Maybe what had happened at the town hall, coming so close to marrying under terms she couldn’t live by, had her ready to deal with everything that wasn’t right.

  She wasn’t sure what talking to the woman would accomplish, but it had been hanging over her head since she’d learned the news back in the lawyer’s office, and it felt like time to entirely put her past to rest.

  When she heard Noah’s key in the lock, she took a deep breath, preparing herself for anything. For him to say, Actually, I don’t love you, sorry. Or, Actually, I do, you’re right, but sorry, I can’t. Either way, she lost. She’d confront the midwife, get that off her to-do list and figure out what she was going to do next. This new Sara Mayhew didn’t leave things hanging. She might not exactly have her groove back, but she felt as if she was on her way.

  “Crazy day,” Noah said, coming into the living room. “Start, middle, finish and every moment in between. I wished I could have had just ten minutes to see you, talk to you.”

  “About what?” she asked. None too nicely.

  “Just to check in, I guess.”

  “Thought so.” Again, none too nicely. “I’ve made a decision,” she said.

  He paled, and she was struck by two things. One: that she knew him well enough to know he thought she was talking about leaving. And two: that it would truly tear him apart if she did leave.

  But not enough to blast through the wall he’d erected where she was concerned. So that they could have a real relationship. Start a real future together.

  He stood beside the coffee table, waiting. Looking...nervous.

  “I’m going to see the midwife,” she said. She expected him to relax since she wasn’t talking about leaving at all, but he seemed more anxious, actually.

  “Really? Why all of a sudden? Not that I don’t think you should talk to her—I do. But just curious about why right now.”

  “Taking care of business,” she said. “I need to close that chapter. And I need to hear why she did what she did. I need closure.”

  “I’m not sure she’s the closure you’re really after,” he said.

  She scowled. “Meaning? That I’m deflecting being upset about you? Yes, I’m upset about you. And us. But I’m done running away and seeking safety, Noah. Life is about risk. Being a parent is about risk. Love is about risk. I’ve avoided dealing with the midwife. But I’m going to face her.”

  He grimaced. “I’m coming with you whether you want me to or not.”

  “Good, because I do want you to,” she said.

  His entire body relaxed, and he sat down beside her, running a finger down each baby’s cheek in their swings before turning his attention back to her. “And after you speak to her? Then what?”

  “Then I move on mentally and emotionally from what Willem attempted to do. I have my children—both of them. I close that part of my life so that I can start a new one. One in which I’m not scared or looking for anyone to take care of me.”

  “Sara, I—”

  She was done with Sara, I... followed by either silence or Noah trying to explain himself. Unless he could say the words she needed to hear to marry him, any discussion of marriage was over.

  “You know what?” she said, her eyes widening as something occurred to her. “I thought that feeling safe in the world was what I wanted and that I needed to give up other important values to have it for myself and the twins. But what I really want is to feel safe in the world at my own hands, Noah. Stand on my own two feet. I will never make another deal about my security, because I can support my children myself. It might not be easy, and as a single parent, my paycheck isn’t going to stretch so far, but I’ve done the math, and I’ll be fine if I’m careful. And I have been.”

  He stared at her, hard, and she knew his mind was churning, but she had no idea what he was thinking.

  “You’ve always impressed the hell out of me,” he said. “I understand. And I admire you.”

  That was all well and good. And if she were honest with herself, she’d admit he’d touched her deeply with that. But what she wanted, really wanted, was his love.

  * * *

  According to an online search, Katherine Palmer lived at 132-B Harris Road in Wellington, the town Sara had moved to when she’d accepted Willem’s proposal. A quick map check showed Harris Road was near the center of town.

  She decided to just show up, not call. If the woman wasn’t home, Sara would simply wait until she turned up. It was kind of nutty, but the entire situation was insane, so there was no right way to go about it. Noah was unsettled about the whole thing but agreed that alerting Katherine that she wanted to talk to her might make the woman flee, and Sara would never get answers.

  Because Wellington was an hour way, they’d decided to leave at eight this morning so they could be back by ten thirty or eleven at the latest, figuring they’d spend an hour or so with Katherine. Mrs. Pic
kles would babysit since Daisy needed to be on the job.

  She was quiet on the way there, and she was grateful that Noah didn’t try to fill the silence with conversation. He seemed to know she needed to just sit with her thoughts. She couldn’t begin to explain how she felt at the moment anyway.

  When Noah pulled up in front of an apartment complex, Sara could see 132 was the middle of three identical rows of garden apartments in a U shape around a green. In the driveway for apartment B, there was a small dumpster and a pod truck—as if someone was moving out.

  “Maybe we got here just in time,” Sara said. “Maybe she’s moving.” She sucked in a breath. “Let’s knock.”

  They got out of his truck and headed to the front door. A small silver car was parked in front of the dumpster, so it looked like someone was home. Sara found herself unable to lift her arm to ring the bell. Her stomach churned, and she closed her eyes for a second. She squeezed Noah’s hand, and he squeezed it back with an encouraging look at her. She was so damned grateful he was here, that he’d insisted on coming, because she wasn’t sure if she would have asked him to otherwise, despite wanting him with her. Some things she could do alone. Some things she didn’t want to. This was a didn’t want to.

  “Okay,” she said under her breath and rang the bell.

  She could hear footsteps. Sara’s heart sped up. Katherine Palmer was about to open the door.

  But the woman who appeared in the doorway was in her early thirties at most. The midwife was sixty-five years old. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  Was this Katherine’s daughter? she wondered. There was a definite resemblance. Similar auburn hair and hazel eyes, a similar fine-boned face.

  “I’m looking for Katherine Palmer,” Sara said. “My name is Sara. I was a patient of hers. Her last patient, actually.”

  “Oh,” the woman said softly. “I’m sorry to tell you, but my mother passed away three days ago.”

  Sara turned to Noah, her throat closing up, her legs feeling like rubber. Of all the scenarios that had gone through her head the past several hours, this wasn’t one of them.