The Cowboy's Twins

by Deb Kastner

  At the sound of Susie’s voice, every muscle in Jax’s body tightened to the point of pain, but the angry haze in his mind made him oblivious to it.

  This was so not happening. And if she thought she was going to waltz in and see the twins, she was highly mistaken.

  Faith, bless her courageous little heart, hadn’t budged from where she blocked the doorway. The set of her shoulders suggested she wasn’t taking this unwanted invasion any better than he was, but she was tough and determined and he was glad he had her fighting on his side—on his children’s side.

  Forcing himself to take a deep breath, he moved into the doorway behind Faith and laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  Calm. Cool. Collected.

  He’d been fervently praying to be able to forgive Susie for all of her thoughtless actions, but then the second he saw her face it all came rushing back—the humiliation, the pain of rejection. The grief caused by the death of a marriage. The shock when he’d suddenly discovered he was a father twice over and that his babies had been unfeelingly dumped on his front porch.

  Surprisingly, though, there was one key emotion missing from the equation. Susie no longer had the ability to break his heart. Not because it was already broken beyond repair, but because it had healed—and it no longer belonged to her. His love for her was truly in the past.

  “What are you doing here, Susie?” he demanded. “Circle M isn’t your home anymore.”

  He swept his gaze across his ex-wife. The long brown curls she’d once put so much stock into had lost their bounce and sheen. Her eyes were glassy and the pupils dilated to the point where her normally blue eyes appeared nearly black. Susie had always been slender, but now she looked skeletal. The woman who had always been so particular about her appearance was gone, replaced by a stranger Jax barely recognized.

  He narrowed his eyes on her. “You didn’t drive here on your own, did you?”

  She scowled and crossed her arms, the long orange sleeves of her shirt flopping over her wrists. “So what if I did?”

  So what?

  She was clearly on something, making driving a vehicle both dangerous and illegal.

  She scoffed. “If you must know, my boyfriend, Michael, drove me here. He prefers not to see you, so he’s waiting for me in the car.” Her scowl deepened. “Don’t judge, Jax. You have no idea how difficult it was for me to come here today.”

  Jax wondered if this Michael fellow was in any better condition to drive than Susie, but he didn’t ask. Maybe it was better not to know.

  “Come in.” Jax sighed and stepped aside, sliding his hand from Faith’s shoulder to her waist, keeping her close to his side. As much as he would have liked to believe he was somehow offering her comfort with the physical contact, he knew better.

  Faith was his rock.

  Jax gestured Susie to the armchair and guided Faith to the couch. He drew her down beside him and rested his arm over the back of the sofa after they sat. To his relief, Faith didn’t protest. She seemed to understand that he wanted Susie to know he’d moved on with his life—although probably not as far as Susie might interpret, given Faith’s presence and their body language toward each other.

  Susie gave Faith a pointed look. “Jax and I need to talk. Alone.”

  He stiffened and slid his arm firmly around Faith’s shoulders. “Faith stays. Anything you have to say to me you can say to both of us.”

  And to his mother, who was standing just out of sight in the space that separated the family room from the dining room. Jax had seen her when he’d turned around to let Susie in.

  He figured she would make her presence known if and when she wanted to, and in the meantime, she had as much a right to hear this conversation as anybody present.

  “Make it quick,” he said. “My brothers will be here in a few minutes for a family dinner.”

  “Oh! And how are Nick and Slade?” Susie’s voice was animated, sounding as if they were old friends engaged in small talk.

  He raised his brows. As if she cared.

  “Get to the point.” Maybe his voice was a little too abrupt, but what did she expect? He was coping the best he could, given the circumstances.

  “Okay.” Susie smoothed her palms on her jeans and pulled her mouth into a pout, an expression that used to work especially well on Jax. Now he felt nothing other than mild annoyance and the urge to roll his eyes.

  “Well, then, if we’re not going to talk, I’d like to see the babies now.” The cavalier way she referred to her children made him sick, and even worse was the way she shifted her gaze to Faith. “Why don’t you be a dear and go get them for me?”

  “No.” He wasn’t going to beat around the bush with this, and he wasn’t about to give in to her demands. “You are in no condition to see the twins right now.”

  He was torn. In a perfect world, the twins would be raised by both a mother and a father, and neither parent would ever have to be separated from them. But he had to do what was best for his babies. Even were Susie not as high as a kite, she was still the woman who had had the gall to dump Rose and Violet on his doorstep. He couldn’t trust her to be someone whom the twins could count on, and he wouldn’t risk hurting them by letting her back into their lives. Not when there was every chance she’d just let them down again.

  He suddenly wished Faith was the twins’ mother. She would never put her own needs above the girls’, and under her gentle guidance his babies would each grow up to become a strong, independent woman, as Faith was.

  He didn’t even realize he was squeezing her shoulders until she cleared her throat and glanced up at Jax, her gaze silently asking him if it was okay for her to speak.

  Of course she should speak her mind. He nodded briefly.

  “Honestly, Susie,” Faith began, “I think you lost your rights to Rose and Violet the moment you left them on Jax’s front porch and walked away.”

  “Who? And who cares what you think, anyway?” Susie crossed her arms and glared at Faith.

  “I care,” Jax assured both ladies. “As for the nicknames, we didn’t know the twins’ names when you left them with us. If you recall, you didn’t even bother to include that information. I tried repeatedly to get a hold of you, but you refused to pick up your phone or reply to any of my messages. So we nicknamed them Rose and Violet. They are a good fit for their individual personalities.”

  “We?” Susie glared at Faith, but Faith didn’t respond in kind. She kept her spine erect and her chin high. Jax could feel the tension in her shoulders, but it didn’t show on her face.

  “You let some woman nickname our babies? Their names,” Susie informed them, “are Elaine and Patricia.”

  “Fine. Elaine and Patricia. Good to know. Birth certificates would be nice.” So now he knew the twins’ legal names. But he was still going to call the girls Rose and Violet. He couldn’t and wouldn’t change that now. Their names wouldn’t change, and neither would their living situation.

  “What is your plan?” Faith asked. “For after you see the babies, I mean?”

  Susie shrugged. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I guess Michael and I will take them back to our place.”

  “I see,” Faith said drily. “You have cribs? Diapers? Formula? You’ve babyproofed your home?”

  Susie looked unsure of herself. “Well, no. We live in a trailer, but it can’t be that hard to—”

  “You need plug protectors for every outlet.” Jax pushed his advantage. “All of your medicine—” he emphasized the word “—has to be locked away.”

  “All of your cabinets and drawers need child locks,” Faith added.

  “They’re only tiny babies. They can’t even crawl yet,” she argued. “Why would I need child locks?”

  Jax wondered if she still pictured the children as she’d left them. Didn’t she reali
ze how much they’d grown in the two months he’d had them? “They can roll over,” Jax said proudly, feeling the accomplishment just as strongly as if he’d done it himself. “I do tummy time with them every day, and they are really strong. They can even sit up with help.”

  “Tummy what?”

  Jax wasn’t about to go into all the details of child rearing—or any of them, for that matter—because he’d already decided it wasn’t in his children’s best interest to have Susie in their lives. Not until she’d cleaned up her own life. If that ever happened.

  “Did you not read any baby books during your pregnancy?” Faith asked in astonishment.

  Susie snorted. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t want to be pregnant in the first place. So no, I did not read any baby books.”

  * * *

  The pained expression that crossed Jax’s face nearly ripped Faith’s heart out. He might have been caught completely unaware on the day he found the twins left on his doorstep, but from the very first second, he’d loved those girls with every part of his heart and soul. For him to hear that Susie had never wanted them in the first place...

  Since she’d abandoned them, it wasn’t a huge stretch for Faith to believe it, but she knew it had to hurt Jax. For his babies’ own mother to treat them with such a blasé attitude was beyond the pale for any man.

  “I was going to give them up for adoption to some needy couple like you see in the movies,” she said, sounding completely juvenile and at the same time self-righteous, as if someone ought to crown her for her thoughtfulness and charity. How far was that from the truth? “But then after I had them I thought it might be kind of fun to be a mom. So I kept them instead.”

  “But you didn’t keep them,” Jax reminded her, his jaw clamped so tight he was speaking through his clenched teeth. “You left them on my front porch. What happened, Susie? Motherhood wasn’t all you thought it would be? Did it become too inconvenient for you? Were the kids cramping your style?”

  His tone was laced with sarcasm, but Faith couldn’t blame him for that. His muscles were pulsing, tightening in on themselves, like a cougar ready to spring on its prey.

  She laid a gentle hand on his knee, reminding him of her support—and that it wouldn’t do any good to argue with Susie. Not in her current state. He appeared to understand her unspoken gesture, taking a deep breath and covering her hand with his own.

  “The first day was okay, but after that it got bad. Michael didn’t like all the noise. He was complaining constantly, and he wasn’t helping me at all. I didn’t see why I had to do everything. I figured you have your whole family to help you out.”

  “And he does,” Alice said, suddenly deciding to make her presence known. Faith hadn’t actually seen her up to now but had assumed she was somewhere just out of sight, listening in on the conversation. “Those precious girls have us, and they have Faith.”

  Faith’s heart welled. She’d never been included in a family before. When she was growing up, it had just been her and her dad, and he’d never taken much interest in her. She’d spent enough time with Keith’s son to fall in love with him, but Keith himself had never introduced her to his parents, which she now realized should have been a glaring neon sign to her that something was not right—much like the one Susie was holding up now.

  Parts of Susie’s story didn’t add up. “Wait. So you want to take the babies back, right? But you said you’re still with Michael.”

  She shrugged. “I am.”

  “Then what do you imagine is going to be different this time around?” Faith’s patience was wearing thin, and she was struggling to keep a grasp on her temper. The last thing Jax needed now was for her to come unglued on him.

  “The babies are older, right? Like Jax said. Almost sitting up and all that? They won’t bawl like they did at first. They’ll be easier to take care of.”

  “I’ve got news for you.” Jax scoffed. “Babies cry. Even three-month-olds. That’s one of the primary ways they communicate.”

  “Oh.” Susie pursed her lips.

  Jax blew out a breath. His hand slipped underneath Faith’s, palm to palm, and he linked his fingers through hers. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Susie, I’ve got to be honest with you, and you need to be honest with yourself. You’re in no condition to care for the twins. You need some time to figure out your own life. Get yourself clean.”

  “But I want to see the babies now. Tonight.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” Jax was firm but gentle. Faith admired his self-control. She wasn’t sure she would have behaved as well as he was doing. “Not in your present condition. I’m not trying to be unreasonable, but I don’t want the children to see you this way.”

  “They’re just babies!” Susie wailed, loud enough to wake the babies.

  “Nevertheless, this is nonnegotiable.”

  “I have rights.”

  “I don’t think you do. You gave up your rights the moment you abandoned your children. Your current lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to a family. Take a look at yourself. Think about Michael. You two don’t want to be burdened with children. I, on the other hand, have a quiet lifestyle and my family’s support. The girls need to stay with me. Please don’t try to fight me on this.”

  Faith had to admit Susie looked legitimately crestfallen, the way a child would if her ice cream fell out of her cone and landed on the hot sidewalk. In that moment, she genuinely felt sorry for Susie, who’d somehow strayed far from the path of her youth. Faith prayed she’d find God’s redeeming grace.

  But Faith was firmly with Jax where the welfare of the babies was concerned. Susie was in no way a fit mother. Not now, possibly not ever.

  “If and when you clean up your life, I’ll be happy to meet together—just the two of us—and reevaluate how you might fit into the girls’ lives. But even then, you have to realize that you’ll need to make many changes to accommodate the twins, and I’ll have to be sure you’re making a permanent commitment to them. No disappearing for months at a time and then suddenly reappearing, deciding you want to play mommy again. It’s not fair to the girls for their emotions to be jerked around like that, and I’ll not allow it.”

  Faith’s heart turned over. Big, strong Jax at his best, protecting his two little sweethearts, who had become his world. He’d learned how to feed them, change them, wash them and rock them to sleep, but the most important thing of all—loving them—he hadn’t had to learn. He’d done it from the start.

  Clearly there was nothing left to say to Susie, so Jax stood and pulled Faith to her feet, keeping hold of her hand. Susie also stood and stepped in front of Jax, gazing up at him with a mixture of sadness, resentment and contempt in her expression.

  Her brow lowered and she lifted a hand, tracing her finger down the scar on Jax’s face.

  He shuddered. Faith tightened her grip on his hand.

  Susie still has the power to get to him.

  Of course she did. He’d been married to her for years, and it hadn’t been his decision to split with her. His heart was probably breaking all over again, and looking at his miserable expression, Faith’s heart broke for him.

  She cared for Jax, probably a great deal more than she should, and she didn’t like seeing him hurt.

  “I think it’s time for you to leave now.” Faith’s voice held an edge to it, and her proverbial claws sprang out. She’d had enough of that woman for one evening.

  Susie’s gaze flashed to her and she scoffed. “Excuse me?”

  She might still have some influence over Jax, but if Susie thought she was going to intimidate Faith, she had another thing coming.

  Susie turned back to Jax. “Honestly, I don’t know how your little girlfriend here can even stand to look at you.”

  Jax looked as if he’d been slapped.
Faith couldn’t believe the woman could be so intentionally hurtful. She grabbed Susie’s elbow and none too gently turned her toward the door.

  “Go. Now,” she demanded.

  Susie tried to jerk her arm away, but Faith held it tight until they reached the door. She was just reaching for the handle when the door opened from the outside, nearly plowing both women down.

  Nick, Slade, his wife, Laney, and their toddler, Brody, barreled in the door, talking and laughing, their arms laden with food.

  Nick and Slade froze in shocked silence when they realized Susie was in the room.

  “What’s she doing here?” Nick growled.

  Faith waited a moment for Jax to respond, but he didn’t appear to be able to find his voice.

  “Susie was just leaving,” Faith informed them, ushering her through the open doorway and watching until she and Michael drove out of sight.

  When Faith turned around, she realized everyone’s eyes were on her. Heat flared to her cheeks. She had no right to tell anyone to come or go. This wasn’t her house, nor was it even her fight.

  Suddenly the room burst into spontaneous applause.

  “Well done,” Slade cheered. “Way to put Susie in her place.”

  The protective gleam that Faith had so often seen in Jax’s eyes was now reflected in his brothers’ expressions, and she decided she liked them very much.

  “I don’t know,” she said, dropping her gaze. She really hadn’t done anything special.

  “I do.” Jax’s usually clear voice was husky.

  The monitor crackled to life with the sound of hungry, babbling babies. Jax and Faith looked at each other and laughed, the tension broken.

  “Shall we?” Jax smiled and offered his arm to her. Her heart inflated and her stomach felt giddy.

  Laney cleared her throat, and the room burst into action. Chatter resumed as Jax’s brothers moved into the dining room with their offerings for the party.

  Jax and Faith walked in companionable silence to the nursery Alice had set up in her spare room.

  Faith was lost in her thoughts—or rather, her feelings. She was trying to contain the quivering that came after an adrenaline rush. She was greatly relieved that the whole ordeal was over—for tonight, at least. She was sad that it would never really be over for Jax and the children. And—