“New baby brother or sister?” Sawyer asked.
“Brother. Half brother. My dad remarried. And before you ask, let’s just get it out of the way because I don’t want to talk about it. My mom is dead. She died three years ago in a car accident. Okay?”
“We have a lot in common. My mom died when I was young too. And my dad also had a baby when I was a kid. I was five when my half brother was born.”
Jake stared at Sawyer, his mouth slightly hanging open. “Really?”
“Yup,” Sawyer said, bouncing the ball and aiming—and missing.
Jake ran down the ball, which meant Sawyer had him on his side. “Try again,” he said, bouncing the ball to Sawyer.
Sawyer shot. And missed.
Jake’s brown eyes lit up with glee. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. I’m kind of amazed you taught me the secrets to getting it in when you can’t do it yourself.”
“The rules of making the shot apply to most things in life. Center yourself. Believe. Go for it.”
Jake shrugged.
“You and your stepmom close?” Sawyer asked, shooting again. And missing.
“I can’t stand her even if she’s nice most of the time. She’s always telling me what to do. So what if I want to eat a bag of Cheetos for dinner? Who cares? And then I argue back why I should be able to, and my dad gets mad. Oh yeah, living in my house is a lot of fun.”
His parents seemed to care about him. Jake was clearly lonely, feeling left out of his family because of the new baby, and didn’t seem to have friends. Other kids were in pairs or groups, but Jake had been sitting alone.
“Jake!” a voice called.
“Oh, great,” Jake muttered. “It’s my dad. We’ll have, like, five seconds together on the way to the car where my stepmother and the infant from hell are. And then I’ll be yelled at if I breathe too loud.”
Sawyer smiled. “Get along with your dad?”
“Sometimes. But all he cares about is stupid dumb Amy and stupid dumb Dylan the brat.”
Vince Russtower began walking over, then seemed to recognize Sawyer out of uniform and stopped dead in his tracks. He looked nervous as he approached. “Jake in trouble?”
“Why would I be in trouble?” Jake asked, frowning. “Why do you always think I’m doing something wrong?”
“Because you’re standing with the chief of police,” Vince told his son. “That’s why.”
Jake’s mouth fully dropped open. “You’re a cop? The top cop?”
“I am. Sawyer Wolfe.” He extended his hand, and Jake at first didn’t seem to know what to do with it, then reached out to shake it. Sawyer turned to Vince. “Vince Russtower, right?”
He caught the slight rise of the man’s eyebrow. “Yeah.” He had the feeling from Russtower’s expression that he didn’t want his son to know that his father had had dealings with the police before.
“Nice to meet you,” Sawyer said.
Vince’s shoulders relaxed. “You too.” He turned to Jake. “Ready? Where’s your backpack?”
Jake jogged over to the bleachers to get it.
“Nice kid,” Sawyer said. “I just started volunteering with the kids.”
Vince nodded, and Jake joined them again. Vince took the backpack on his own shoulder and said, “Well, Amy and Dylan are waiting, so let’s get going, Jake.”
“Thanks for practicing with me,” Jake said to Sawyer.
“I’ll be here every other weekday from five to six p.m.,” Sawyer said. “Catch you next time.”
They walked away, and when they reached the door, Jake turned back to look at Sawyer. Sawyer held up a hand and so did Jake, then they were gone.
He let out a breath. That kid reminded him a lot of himself.
Another boy was now sitting by himself on the floor, so Sawyer went over to him and asked if he wanted to shoot. The kid jumped up and said “Sure!” with a big smile.
And put one on Sawyer’s face too. Coming here had been a good idea, and he wished he’d done it long ago.
If he hadn’t made Maddie feel she couldn’t tell him about her own volunteer work with babies, he might have been inspired to offer himself to the community center kids’ group years ago. He might have wanted to give back in that way, too, but he’d been so rough with her dream, her fondest wish, that she didn’t even want to share with him that she was working with babies at the hospital.
He wished he could change so much about the past. But at least he could work on the future.
And the now.
Chapter Ten
While Max still napped, Maddie held Shane in her arms in his soft green pajamas and showed him the Christmas tree by the window in the living room. “Ooh, look at all the sparkly white lights and the pretty silver star. And these are our ornaments. See the M for Max and S for Shane? Okay, fine, it’s really M for Maddie and S for Sawyer, but now we get to share initials! And there’s the Woodstock ornament your uncle Sawyer gave me for Christmas when we were thirteen—”
She remembered that! She waited a beat for more to come, but nothing did. She simply had remembered when she’d gotten the ornament and from whom, but there was no accompanying images in her mind. Too bad. She wanted to remember her childhood, which sounded pretty wonderful.
She was moving around the tree to show Shane the hand-painted little globe ornament with a photo of Moose on it when she recalled something else. She saw herself sitting in a cozy room on a tan velvet sofa, Sawyer sitting beside her, leaning back while she sat forward. A middle-aged woman she didn’t recognize sitting in an ornate chair across from them.
You do have a choice, Maddie, the woman said. You could accept that Sawyer doesn’t want children, something he has always stated and has not wavered on. Or you could not accept it and hope, as you have been, that he will eventually change his mind.
She must be remembering an appointment with the marriage counselor. Beyond the woman were two arched windows, snow falling gently. It was only December, so this appointment had to be recent.
But both are impossible choices, Maddie said. I can’t bear the former and the latter is killing me.
The counselor looked at her, then at Sawyer, then back at Maddie. Another choice is leaving the marriage.
Maddie gasped. I don’t want to leave Sawyer. I don’t want a divorce. I love him!
Then maybe you need to accept that you’re not going to have children, the counselor said.
But why does he get to make that choice for me? If he can make that choice for me, I should be able to make the choice for him—that we’re having a baby, end of story.
He’s the one saying no, that’s why.
So I’m supposed to stay in this marriage and what? Resent him? Watch my sister live my dream?
Sawyer, the counselor said. Would you like to say something?
Maddie looked at him. He was tense, his expression grim.
I don’t want to lose my wife. But I don’t want children.
Broken record! Maddie heard herself scream.
Sawyer dropped his head in his hands.
Maybe you should think about a separation, the counselor said. To see what it feels like.
What the hell? Sawyer snapped, bolting up and storming out.
The memory faded to nothing. She wasn’t in the counselor’s office anymore. She didn’t see herself rushing after Sawyer. But he’d told her what happened afterward.
That was clearly right before the accident. She closed her eyes, cradling Shane gently in her arms, grateful to have this precious little being to hold. The memory she’d just had felt so strange out of context, on its own, without the before. She did have the after, though.
She’d felt her frustration on that sofa. Her disappointment and anger. Her helplessness in her own life. She’d hated how she’d felt in that office, like she was jumping out of h
er skin, unable to direct her own life, unable to make her dream come true because of the roadblock called her husband.
Whom she loved. Maddie knew in that snatch of memory that she’d never considered leaving Sawyer, that she didn’t want a baby more than she wanted to be with her husband. Therein lies the damned rub, she thought, shaking her head.
“I’m glad I don’t remember it all,” she whispered to Shane. “Sounds really hard. No—it sounds impossible.”
Shane gazed up at her with his slate-blue eyes, bow lip quirking like Billy Idol’s, which made her smile. The lip quirked again, and she full-out laughed. What would we do without you and your brother? she thought, kissing his sweet little head. The two Wolfe boys had brought joy and purpose and direction to her life since the accident—and hopefully showed Sawyer another side of himself.
She heard Sawyer’s key in the lock. She came into the entryway with Shane as Sawyer was taking off his down jacket, his impressive body never failing to catch her off guard and take her attention and breath for a moment.
“Everything okay today?” he asked, closing the closet door. “C’mere you little rascal,” he added, reaching for Shane.
He adored the babies. If he didn’t, he would give the baby a brief smile and walk right past them into a kitchen for a drink or the living room to relax. But he wanted to hold Shane. Yup, the twins had gotten to him.
Because they’re not his? Not here to stay?
Something occurred to her just then. If Cole never came back for his children, and the babies were here to stay, was Sawyer able to handle that notion better because they weren’t his children? They were his nephews. She frowned, turning that over in her mind.
“Everything was great.” She handed the baby to him, her jumble of thoughts obliterated by the loving way Sawyer gently cradled Shane in his arms, careful of his neck, giving him a kiss on his fuzzy head. “Although I did have a vivid memory of that final counseling session. It ended with you storming out. I remembered a very long stretch of the conversation, including the counselor suggesting the separation. Then I was back to being blank.”
He looked at her, his smile fading. “That session was brutal. On both of us.”
“But necessary, I think,” she said. “The counselor laid out the facts.”
“And we didn’t know what to do with them.”
Exactly, Maddie thought. “Which is why the counselor went nuclear with the separation suggestion. To get us to take another step forward instead of remaining stagnant. But I guess time ended up standing still in a different way once I lost my memory.”
He nodded and seemed uncomfortable. “Max sleeping?”
Yup. Uncomfortable. Enough to change the subject. “Yeah. He’ll probably wake up any minute. Then we can feed them.”
“Why don’t you go relax,” he said. “I’ve got the twins. You had them alone all day.”
I don’t want to relax. I want to spend time with you. But Sawyer seemed to want some space between them when they’d had space from each other the past several hours.
Then again, she wouldn’t mind a hot soothing bath where she could think. And not about the fact that Sawyer seemed to be trying to avoid her right now.
The doorbell rang, and Maddie turned around on the stairwell and went to answer it, since Sawyer had the baby in his arms.
She opened the door and gasped.
Cole Wolfe stood on the porch.
* * *
At Maddie’s gasp, Sawyer turned around to find his brother standing in the doorway, his gaze on the baby in Sawyer’s arms.
His instinct was to turn and protect Shane, but he fought it. “Cole.”
“Can I come in?” Cole asked, digging his hands in his pockets. He wore the black leather jacket he’d had for years, and a thin plaid scarf around his neck. His jeans were worn at the knees and scuffed with dirt. Sawyer would put money on his brother having a job as a ranch hand.
“Of course,” Maddie said, gesturing for him to enter and closing the door behind him.
All Sawyer had wanted yesterday and over the past several days was for Cole to call or text, or for him and Maddie to find the guy. Suddenly he was here, in the flesh, and Sawyer wanted him gone.
Why?
Because you don’t trust him—and not with the twins, who are reliant on dependable people to have their every need met. That’s why. Made sense to Sawyer. So then why had he been trying to find Cole? To talk to him about what? To find out what? There was no way he could imagine Cole walking out of this house with Shane and Max; the guy was completely unprepared to care for them.
Yet you couldn’t stop staring at your phone, waiting for him to call or text—and return, he knew.
What exactly did you want to happen? Do you want to happen?
Here he was again, off-kilter, unsure of what was going on inside him.
“Which one is that?” Cole asked, and if Sawyer wasn’t mistaken, his brother’s eyes brimmed with tears. Cole dropped his head and closed his eyes. “I don’t even know which baby that is. And he’s my son. I’m so pathetic.”
“Cole, honey,” Maddie said, “if we didn’t always put Shane in green and Max in blue, we wouldn’t be able to tell them apart so easily either. Old trick my experienced-with-twins mom taught us.”
“Shane has slightly sharper features than Max,” Sawyer said.
Cole nodded and craned his neck to peer at the baby.
Oh, hell. Sawyer walked closer to his brother. “He’s a good baby. A little more demanding than Max, but a champion napper and snuggler. He likes being held.”
“When I held them in the hospital, one at a time,” Cole said, “I kept being afraid I’d drop them on their heads.”
Sawyer nodded. “I get it. They do seem pretty fragile, but they’re hardy little guys.” He eyed Cole, suspicion clawing at him. Why was he here? To see the twins? Make sure they were all right, because he cared? To take them?
About that last one: over Sawyer’s dead body.
Thing was, as the chief of police, no one knew better than Sawyer that Cole had every right to walk right out of here with the twins.
“Would you like to hold him?” Maddie asked Cole.
“I don’t know,” Cole said, shifting from foot to foot. “I don’t think so. I’m just—I don’t know what I am.”
“Well, why don’t you start by explaining why you’re here,” Sawyer said.
Maddie shot him a look. Dial it down.
Cole stared at Shane in Sawyer’s arms. “Because they’re here.” Again, tears shone in his eyes, and Sawyer felt his guard both go down and back up. Up and down, down and up. Just like his relationship with Cole over the years.
“What do you want to happen, Cole?” Sawyer asked. “Be honest.”
Cole dropped down onto the bottom step, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know.” He let out a breath, his eyes closed. “I have children. I made children. That baby you’re holding is my son. Ever since I left them here, I kept saying that in my head—my sons, my sons. And those words never sounded remotely possible.”
Maddie reached out a hand to Cole’s shoulder. “I can understand how you feel.”
“Who abandons their own kids?” Cole asked, his voice broken. “The worst of the worst. My dad, for example.”
Sawyer felt that one straight to the heart. Cripes, this is complicated. On so many levels.
“You didn’t abandon them,” Maddie said, sitting beside him on the step. “You brought them here, where you knew they’d be well taken care of until you got your head together.”
Cole looked at her. “You were always way too nice, Maddie.”
That was true. And not just where Cole was concerned.
“I got a job as a ranch hand at the Johannsen place. Just me and another guy and the family. I muck out stalls and they’re teaching me
other stuff, like grooming. Stuff I’m very interested in. When I got that job, I felt like I had a chance, you know? Like I’m where I belong and can make a place.”
Sawyer might have congratulated himself for being right about the job on a ranch if he wasn’t so stuck on what Cole had just said. “A place for...?” Sawyer prompted. Maddie shot him another look. Give him some breathing room. But Sawyer needed to know what his brother was planning. “You can’t mean raising infants in a bunkhouse? Who’s going to watch them while you’re mucking out stalls?”
“I just mean...” Cole’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what I mean.”
“Well, how about this, Cole?” Maddie said, sliding a glance at Sawyer before focusing on his brother. “Why don’t you visit with Shane and Max right now for a bit, and then you’ll head back to the ranch and you’ll come here tomorrow for dinner. How does that sound for an immediate plan?”
Cole perked up some. “Sounds good. What time tomorrow?”
“Let’s say seven. Good, Sawyer?”
Sawyer nodded. He supposed. A brief visit tonight, dinner tomorrow. Small steps. That actually sounded just right. A cry came from the living room, and they all turned toward the sound.
“There’s our cue to go get Max,” Sawyer said.
Cole and Maddie stood and they all headed into the living room. Maddie went to the bassinet across from the Christmas tree and scooped out Max, who was flailing his skinny little arm.
“Is he sick?” Cole asked, worry in his eyes.
“Probably just hungry,” Sawyer said. “Or wet. Or lonely. Or wants to be vertical.”
“Or all the above,” Maddie said. “Sawyer, why don’t you let Cole hold Shane while you change Max. I’ll go make their bottles.”
Cole bit his lip and took a step back. “Sure I won’t drop him?”
“Just don’t,” Sawyer said. “Keep your attention on him and you’ll do fine.”
Maddie sent him a smile as she went into the kitchen.
“How do I take him?” Cole asked, stepping closer.
A Wyoming Christmas to Remember Page 12
