One staff meeting and the receptionist’s birthday cake celebration later, Reed headed home. He almost drove to the house he’d rented and would need to find a new tenant for. It still hadn’t sunk in that the Barelli ranch was his, was home, and that when he arrived, he wouldn’t walk into an empty house. Norah would be there. Bella, Bea and Brody would be there. And tonight he was grateful for the company. Company that wouldn’t be leaving. That would definitely take some getting used to.
He pulled up at the ranch, glad to see Norah’s car. Inside he found her in the kitchen, the triplets in their big playpen near the window. Bella was chewing on a cloth book, Brody was banging on a soft toy piano and Bea was shaking a rattling puppy teether. The three looked quite happy and occupied.
“Something sure smells good,” he said, coming up behind Norah and peeking into the big pot on the stove. “Pot pies for the diner?”
“Meatballs and spaghetti for us,” she said. “I remember you mentioned you loved meatballs and spaghetti the night we met, so I figured it would be a good first dinner for us as—”
He smiled. “Official husband and wife.”
“Official husband and wife,” she repeated. She turned back to the pot, using a ladle to scoop out the meatballs and fragrant sauce into a big bowl. Was it Reed’s imagination or did she look a little sad?
“You okay?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. She picked up the pot of spaghetti and drained it into a colander over the sink, then added it to the bowl of meatballs and stirred it. Before he could say another word, the oven timer dinged and she took out heavenly smelling garlic bread.
“Well, can I at least help with anything?” he asked.
“Nope. The babies have eaten. Dinner is ready. The table is set. So let’s eat.”
She’d poured wine. There was ice water. A cloth napkin. He hadn’t been treated to this kind of dinner at home in a long, long time, maybe not since he’d last visited his grandmother just weeks before she’d died.
“This is nice. I could get used to this,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You will get used to it because I love to cook and, given everything you’re doing for me and the triplets, making dinner is the least I can do.”
But as they chatted about their days and the triplets and she filled him in on some upcoming events in town, Norah seemed to get sadder. And sadder. Something was wrong.
“Norah. This marriage is meant to be a true partnership. So if something is bothering you, and something clearly is, tell me. Let’s talk about it.”
She poked at her piece of garlic bread. “It’s silly.”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“It’s just that, there I was, cooking at the stove in this beautiful country kitchen, my dream kitchen, the triplets happily occupied in the playpen, and my husband comes home, except he’s not really my husband in the way I always thought it would go. I’m not complaining, Reed. I’m just saying this is weird. I always wanted something very different. Love, forever, growing old together on the porch. The works.”
“It’s not quite what I expected for myself, either,” he said, swirling a bite of spaghetti. “It’ll take some getting used to. But we’ll get to know each other and soon enough we’ll seem like any other old married couple.”
“Kind of backward to have to get to know your spouse.” She gave him a wistful smile and took a sip of wine.
“The triplets’ father—you wanted to marry him?”
Norah put down her fork as though the mention of him cost her her appetite. “I just don’t understand how someone could seem one way and truly be another way. I got him so wrong. I thought he was crazy about me. He was always talking about us and the future. But then the future presented itself in the form of my pregnancy and everything changed. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I told him I was pregnant. A combo of freaked out and horrified.”
“Sorry.”
“And now everything I wanted—the loving husband, the babies, a home for us—is right here and it’s all...”
He touched her hand. “Not like the old dreams.”
She lifted her chin and dug her fork into a meatball with gusto. “I’m being ridiculous. I’m sitting here moping over what isn’t and what wasn’t. My life is my life. Our deal is a good one. For both of us. And for those three over there,” she added, gesturing at the playpen. She focused on them for a moment and then turned back to him. “Okay, full speed ahead on the marriage partnership. My head is back in the game.”
The meatball fell off her fork and plopped back onto her plate, sending a splatter of sauce onto both of them—her cheek and his arm. They both laughed and then he reached out and dabbed away the sauce from her cheek as she did the same to his arm.
“Anytime you need to talk this through, just tell me,” he said. “And we’ll work it out.”
“You, too, you know.”
He nodded. “Me, too.”
As she pushed around spaghetti and twirled it but never quite ate any more, he realized she had the same funny pit in the middle of her stomach that he had in his, just maybe caused by a different emotion. She’d wanted something so much more—big passion, real romance, everlasting love—and had to settle for plain ole practical for a good reason. He’d planned on going it alone, never committing, but he had committed in a huge way, even if his heart wasn’t involved. He was responsible for this family of four. Family of five now, including him.
He wouldn’t let Norah down. Ever. But he knew he’d never be able to give her what she wanted in the deepest recesses of her heart.
Chapter Eight
There was no way Reed was getting any sleep tonight. Not with Norah down the hall, sleeping in who knew what. Maybe she slept naked, though he doubted she’d choose her birthday suit for her first night in her new home with her new partnership-husband. Twice he’d heard her get out of bed—the floor creaked a bit in that room—and go into the nursery. One of the babies had been fussing a bit and she sang a lullaby that almost had him drifting off. Almost. Norah had a beautiful voice.
He glanced at the clock: 2:12 a.m. He heard a faint cry. Then it grew louder. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was Brody. He waited a heartbeat for the telltale creak of the master bedroom floor, but it didn’t come. Only another cry did.
Reed got out of bed, making sure he was in more than his underwear. Check. A T-shirt and sweats. He headed to the nursery and gently pushed the door open wider. One frustrated, red-faced little one was sitting up in his crib, one fist around the bar.
“Hey there, little guy,” Reed said in his lowest voice to make sure he wouldn’t wake Brody’s sisters. “What’s going on? What’s with the racket?”
Brody scrunched up his face in fury that Reed wasn’t picking him up fast enough. His mouth opened to let loose a wail, but Reed snatched him up and, as always, the sturdy little weight of him felt like pure joy in his arms. Brody wore light cotton footie pajamas and one sniff told Reed he was in the all clear for a middle-of-the night, heavy-duty diaper change. He brought the baby over to the changing table and took off the wet diaper, gave Brody a sprinkle of cornstarch, then put on a new diaper like a pro. All the while, Brody looked at him with those huge slate-blue eyes.
Reed picked him up and held him against his chest, walking around the nursery while slightly rocking the little guy. Brody’s eyes would flutter closed, then slowly open as if making sure Reed hadn’t slipped him inside his crib and left. This went on four more times, so Reed sat in the rocker and Brody let out the sigh of all sighs and closed his eyes, his lips quirking and then settling.
“Guess that means you’re comfortable, then,” Reed whispered. He waited a few seconds, then stood, but the baby opened his eyes. Reed almost laughed. “Busted. You caught me.” Reed sat back down, figuring he might be there awhile. Maybe all night. “Want to hear a story?”
&nbs
p; Brody didn’t make a peep in response, but Reed took that for a yes anyway.
“Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Beed Rabelli. That’s not me, by the way.”
Did Brody believe him? Probably not. But it made the story easier to tell.
“Well, this little kid, Beed, did everything to try to win his father’s approval. His father’s interest. But no matter what Beed did, pretending to be interested in things he really didn’t even like, his father barely paid attention to him. He only came around every now and then as it was. But one day, Beed’s dad never came around again and Beed started getting postcards from far-off places.”
Brody moved his arm up higher by his ear and Reed smiled at how impossibly adorable the baby was. And what a good listener.
“So one day, Beed and his friend David Dirk were riding bikes and exploring the woods and they got to talking about how even though they pretty much had the same type of not-there dad, it didn’t mean their dads didn’t love them or care about them. Their dads were just...free spirits who had to follow the road in their souls. Or something like that. Anyway, Brody, I just want you to know that your father is like that and that’s why he’s not here. I don’t want you to spend one minute wondering why he doesn’t care about you, because I’m sure he does. He’s just following that road that took him far away from here and—”
Reed stopped talking. Where the hell was this coming from? Why was he saying anything of this to Brody?
Because he cared about this little dude, that was why. And it was important to know because at some level it was very likely true.
He heard a sniffle and glanced toward Bea’s and Bella’s cribs. They were both fast asleep. He heard the sound again and realized it was coming from outside. Reed put Brody gently back inside his crib, and booyah—the baby did not open those eyes again. Either Reed had bored him to sleep or a story worked like it always had since time began.
He tiptoed out to investigate the sound of the sniffle. Was Norah so upset about her lost dreams that she was crying in the middle of the night?
He froze at the sight of her standing to the left of the nursery door, tears in her eyes.
“Norah? What’s wrong?”
She grabbed him, her hands on the sides of his face, and pulled him close, laying one hell of a kiss on him. Damn, she smelled so good and her skin was so soft. Everything inside him was on fire. He backed her up against the wall and pressed against her, deepening the kiss, his hands roaming her neck, into her hair, down along her waist. He wanted to touch her everywhere.
“So you’re not upset,” he whispered against her ear, then trailed kisses along her beautiful neck.
“I was touched enough that you’d gotten up at a baby crying,” she said. “And then as I was about to walk in, I heard you talking to Brody and couldn’t help eavesdropping. I can’t tell you how anxious I’ve been about the questions that would be coming my way someday, maybe at age three or four. ‘Where’s my father? Why doesn’t Daddy live with us? Why doesn’t Daddy ever see us? Doesn’t he care about us?’”
Norah wiped under her eyes and leaned the front of her luscious body against Reed’s. “I had no idea what I would say, how I could possibly make it okay for them. And one 2:00 a.m. diaper change later, you’ve settled it.”
“Eh, I didn’t say anything I hadn’t worked out over the past twenty-nine years.”
She smiled and touched his face, and he leaned his cheek against it. Then he moved in for another kiss, hoping reality and the night-light in the hallway wouldn’t ruin the moment and make her run for her room.
She didn’t. She kissed him back, her hands on his chest, around his neck, in his hair. He angled them down the hall toward his room and they fell backward onto his bed, the feel of her underneath him, every part of her against him, almost too much to bear.
He slid his hands under her T-shirt and pulled it over her head, then tugged off his own shirt and flung it behind him. He lay on top of her, kissing her neck, her shoulder, between her luscious breasts.
And then he felt her shift. Just slightly. The equivalent of a bitten lower lip. A hesitation.
He pulled back and looked at her. “Too fast?”
“Way too fast,” she said. “Not that I’m not enjoying it. Not that I didn’t start it.”
He laughed. “That was hot. Trust me.”
Her smile faded. “You’ve made it very clear what this marriage is, Reed. ‘Friends with benefits’ when we’re married is too weird. Even for us. I think we need to keep some very clear boundaries.”
She turned away from him and quickly put her T-shirt back on. He did the same.
“An emotional moment, the middle of the night, then there’s me, still probably highly hormonal. Of course I jumped your bones.”
She’s trying to save face. Let her. “Believe me, if you hadn’t kissed me, I would have kissed you first.”
“Oh,” she said, a bit of a smile back on her pretty face. “I guess we know where we stand, then. We’re foolishly attracted to each other on a purely physical level, and we went with the moment, then wised up. We’ll just keep our hands to ourselves from now on. So that this partnership has a fighting chance.”
She was right. If they screwed this up with great sex, that could lead to who knew what, like other expectations, and suddenly she would be throwing annulment papers at him, all his plans to stand by her and the triplets would fall to pot. And so would this ranch—home.
He nodded. Twice to convince himself of just how right she was. “We both know where romance leads. Trouble. Heartache. Ruin.”
“Well, at least the mystery is gone. You’ve seen my boobs.”
He had to laugh. But he sobered up real fast when he realized the mystery was hardly gone. He had yet to truly touch her.
* * *
“So if I let what happens happen and then we realize it’s a bad idea, what does that mean?” Norah asked Shelby the next morning as they sat at a corner table for two in Coffee Talk, their favorite place to catch up in Wedlock Creek. Their huge strollers against the wall behind them, triplets asleep and Shelby’s toddler sons drifting off after a morning running around the playground, the sisters shared a huge slice of delicious crumbly coffee cake. Of course they’d never have pie anywhere but at their own family restaurant.
“Ooh, so something happened?” Shelby asked, sipping her iced mocha.
“In the middle of the night last night, I thought I heard one of the babies crying, but when I went to the nursery, Reed was sitting in the rocker with Brody in his arms, telling him a story about himself and relating it to Brody. I stood there in tears, Shel. This is going to sound crazy, but in that moment, my heart cracked open.”
Shelby’s mouth dropped open. “You’re falling in love!”
“Oh God, I think I am. I was so touched and so hormonal that I threw myself at him. But then I realized what an idiot I was being and put the kibosh on that.”
“What? Why?”
“Shelby, he’s made it crystal clear he married me for his ranch. And because he feels some kind of chivalrous duty toward me, as if annulling our marriage means he’s walking away from his responsibilities. He’s not responsible for us!”
“He feels he is,” Shelby said. “The man’s a police officer. Serve and protect. It’s what he does.”
Maybe that was a good reminder that Reed was operating on a different level—the cop level, the responsibility level. His father had walked away from him and his mother, the triplets’ father had walked away from them and Norah, and Reed couldn’t abide that, couldn’t stand it. So he was stepping in. Attracted to her physically or not, Reed’s feelings where she was concerned weren’t of the romantic variety. He was trying to right wrongs.
“Um, excuse me?” a woman asked as she approached the table.
“Hi,” Norah said. “Can we help you?”
“I noticed your triplets,” she said, looking at Bella, Bea and Brody, who were all conked out in their stroller wedged up against the wall. “So it’s true? If you get married at the Wedlock Creek chapel, you’ll have multiples?”
“I didn’t get married at the chapel and still had triplets,” Norah said.
“And I did get married at the chapel and had one baby,” Shelby said, “but ended up with twins, sort of.” At the woman’s puzzled expression, she added, “It’s a long story.”
Norah took a sip of her iced coffee. “Well, the legend does say if you marry at the chapel you’ll have multiples in some way, shape or form. Are you hoping for a houseful of babies all at the same time?” she asked the woman.
“My fiancé is a twin and so we have a good chance of having twins ourselves, but he wants to increase our luck. I just figure the legend is just that—a silly rumor.”
“No way,” Shelby said. “Last year alone, there were five multiple births—two sets of triplets and three twins. The year before, four sets of twins and one set of triplets. The year before that, one set of quadruplets and two sets of twins. And that’s just in Wedlock Creek.”
The woman paled. She truly seemed to lose color. “Oh. So the legend is actually true?”
“Well, as true as a legend can be,” Shelby said. “But this town is full of multiples. We can both personally attest to that.”
“Um, is that a bad thing?” Norah asked gently.
“Well, twins just seem like a lot,” the woman said. “One seems like a lot. I want to be a mother, but two at once? I don’t know. I don’t think I want to help our chances, you know?”
Norah smiled. “Then you definitely don’t want to marry at the Wedlock Creek chapel.” She upped her chin out the window. “See that woman? Pregnant with triplets. All boys!”
Detective Barelli's Legendary Triplets Page 9
