The More Mavericks, the Merrier!

by Brenda Harlen

  “Please, Fallon,” he implored.

  And because she’d never been able to deny him anything he wanted, she nodded.

  But before they could go back to being “just friends,” she needed a little bit of time to pick up the pieces of her broken heart. “Okay,” she finally responded. “I’m going out of town for a few days, but we can talk when I get back.”

  He frowned at that. “You’re leaving town?”

  “Just for a few days,” she told him.

  “Because of this?”

  “No,” she denied. “This has been in the works for a while. In fact, I’ve already talked to Bella to ensure that the baby chain has you covered.”

  “You’re really going to abandon Henry, Jared and Katie,” he said, more of a statement than a question.

  “I’m not abandoning them,” she said gently. “And I’m not abandoning you, either.”

  Maybe she didn’t see it that way, but from where Jamie was standing, it certainly felt as if he was being abandoned.

  “When will you be back?” he demanded.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He wanted to ask her not to go, but he knew he had no right. Instead, he asked, “Where are you going?”

  She lifted herself onto her toes and touched her lips to his cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Then she turned, and he was left standing there, watching her walk away and wondering if he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life.

  * * *

  When Jamie headed back to the house after completing his morning chores, he found his sister had returned and was sitting at the kitchen table looking at sample wedding invitations while the babies played.

  He poured himself a mug of coffee and sat down across from Bella. “Fallon told me that she talked to you about her plans to go out of town.”

  She nodded. “Since school is on break for the holidays, Paige Traub is going to cover Fallon’s usual shifts, which will give the kids a chance to hang out with her son, Carter. And Cecelia Pritchett had to cancel her Thursday afternoon because she’s got an appointment in Kalispell, but Margot Crawford can fill in for her. The revised schedule is on the fridge.”

  He didn’t really care about the revised schedule. He wanted to know where Fallon had gone—and when she’d be back. But if he started asking his sister all kinds of questions, she’d figure out that he’d screwed things up with Fallon, and he wasn’t prepared to talk about it. Not until he’d figured out how he was going to fix it.

  So far, he didn’t have any ideas in that direction, and sitting around thinking about the mistakes he’d made would drive him crazy. Instead, he reached for the box of invitations Bella had set aside, deciding that he could distract himself by helping her.

  She snatched the box away from him. “Don’t you have stables to muck out or something?”

  “Already done,” he told her.

  “Fence to fix?”

  “Finished that last week.”

  “Then you obviously don’t need me to hang around here,” she said pushing her chair away from the table. “Which is good, because Hudson and I are going in to Kalispell to see about a cake for the wedding.”

  “Your wedding isn’t until June—won’t the cake be stale by then?”

  “Ha-ha.” She kissed his cheek. “Have a good day, big brother.”

  “Actually, I might head into the city today, too,” he decided impulsively.

  “For what?” she asked suspiciously.

  “To take HJK to the mall.”

  Bella’s brows drew together as she touched the back of her hand to his forehead, as if checking for a fever. “Are you ill?”

  He scowled at her. “No, I’m not ill.”

  “But it’s eight days before Christmas—and a Saturday—and you want to take three babies to a shopping mall in the city?”

  No, he didn’t really want to, but he remembered Fallon’s repeated urgings for him to have the kids’ first Christmas commemorated by a photo with Santa—and his repeated brush-offs.

  He lifted a shoulder. “Fallon seemed to think it was important for Henry, Jared and Katie to see Santa, and I thought she might like a picture of them with the big guy.”

  Bella opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, then apparently changed her mind and closed it again.

  “You don’t think I can handle an outing with my own children?” he challenged.

  “I’m sure you can handle it,” she finally said. “But I think you might benefit from an extra set of hands. Why don’t I go with you, then Hudson can pick me up at the mall and we’ll do our rounds of the bakeries afterward?”

  Which was her way of saying that she didn’t think he could handle a trip into the city with his own kids. And while his pride urged him to decline her offer, his rational mind reminded him that three babies were a handful on the best of days. “I don’t want you to change your plans on my account,” he said.

  “I’m not changing my plans, just adjusting the timeframe,” she told him.

  “In that case, I’d appreciate those extra hands.”

  “I guess we’d better get the babies washed up and changed for their big photo shoot.” She lifted Katie out of her high chair first. “And Jamie—”

  He glanced up as he unfastened the sticky buckle around Henry’s middle—evidence of the pancakes their aunt had made for them for breakfast earlier. “Yeah?”

  “This is a really great idea. Fallon will love it.”

  He sincerely hoped his sister was right.

  * * *

  It was not a great idea.

  In fact, it was a terrible idea.

  Jamie cruised around the parking lot looking for a vacant space. Anywhere. But it was as if every single resident of Kalispell had decided to come to the mall today—and many more from neighboring towns, too.

  “There,” Bella said, pointing toward a woman and her daughter, both loaded down with shopping bags, who were making their way across the parking lot.

  He paused in the middle of the lane, then crawled along behind them, putting his indicator on as a sign to other drivers that their parking spot—wherever it might be—was his.

  It took the woman forever to load up her parcels, get into the car, and buckle her seatbelt. Then God only knows what she was doing, because she sure as hell didn’t hurry to leave. Maybe she was fiddling with the radio, maybe she was programming a GPS or making a phone call. It took her two full minutes to finally decide to put her vehicle into Reverse and ease out of her narrow space.

  As Jamie unfolded the triple stroller, Bella started to unbuckle the babies from their car seats so they could be loaded into their wheeled carriage and buckled up again. He was definitely grateful for her extra set of hands.

  Thankfully Santa had a lot more patience than Jamie did.

  Bella occupied the kids, who were now hungry and cranky, while he stood beside one of the elves to select from the digital images on the computer screen. Jamie was hungry and cranky by now, too, and tempted to walk away without a picture because none of them was the perfect shot he’d wanted for Fallon.

  On the other hand, the one with Jared smiling at the camera was pretty good—even if Katie was looking in the opposite direction. But none of them was screaming and there were no tears and they were all wearing the cute little outfits she’d bought for them.

  Okay, he’d forgotten Katie’s shoes, so she was wearing her snow boots on her feet, and there was a wet spot on Jared’s vest, where he’d spit up while they were waiting in line, and Henry’s cowlick refused to be flattened. So it wasn’t a perfect picture, but it perfectly captured his kids and he was confident that Fallon would love it.

  When the picture had been finally printed and Bella had helped him pick a suitable frame, they wen
t to the food court to get some French fries for the kids to nibble on while they waited for Hudson, who’d got caught in a meeting in Rust Creek Falls.

  “So what kind of cake do you want?” Jamie asked his sister, when they’d found a vacant table and had finally sat down.

  She smiled at him. “It’s enough that you’re going to walk me down the aisle—you don’t have to pretend to be interested in any of the other details.”

  “My interest in cake is not a pretense,” he told her.

  “I’m thinking three or four layers, each one a different flavor—and yes, one will be chocolate.”

  “I want my piece cut from that layer.”

  “I’ll make sure of it,” she promised.

  “So you’re really going to marry this guy?”

  She nodded. “I want to spend every day of the rest of my life with Hudson.”

  Jamie nibbled on a fry before he asked, “How did you do it?”

  “What did I do?”

  “Let yourself fall in love again.”

  His sister smiled. “I didn’t ‘let’ myself fall in love,” she told him. “I did, finally, let go of all the heartache from my past, and then the falling in love just happened.”

  “I don’t think I can let go,” he said. “And I feel like an idiot admitting that to you, because you’ve experienced as much heartache as I have.”

  “I’m not saying it was easy, but it was necessary,” Bella said gently.

  “Everyone I’ve ever loved has gone away.” He heard the depth of emotion in his voice, and was shocked by its intensity.

  “I’m still here,” his sister said, as she put her hand over his. “And Fallon will be back in a few days.”

  “Where is she?” he asked again.

  “It doesn’t matter where she is now. What matters is that she’ll be back.”

  He wasn’t convinced, but he let that topic drop. Instead, he brought up another subject that had been bothering him of late. “Do you ever think about Gramps?”

  “Not if I can help it,” she admitted.

  “You don’t think we abandoned him?”

  Bella frowned. “Really? You can actually ask that question after everything he did? He made his choices long before either of us was even born when he turned his only daughter—our mother—out of her home because she was pregnant.”

  “I know. But then Mom and Dad got married, and they had a great life together,” he pointed out.

  “Until they died,” his sister said bluntly, bitterly.

  He nodded, a silent acknowledgment that the car accident that had taken the lives of Rob and Lauren Stockton had significantly altered the lives of their seven children, as well.

  Bella’s cell buzzed and she glanced at the screen. “Hudson’s here—and he’s illegally parked so I’ve gotta run.”

  Jamie nodded.

  She gave him a brief hug, then dropped quick kisses on the top of each of the babies’ heads as she made her way past them.

  “Chocolate,” Jamie reminded her.

  She responded with a nod and a grin before she disappeared into the crowd.

  * * *

  By the time he pulled into the driveway of The Short Hills Ranch and parked in front of the house, he was exhausted. Physically, from wrestling the kids in and out of their stroller, and emotionally, as a result of the conversation he’d had with his sister afterward. Of course, as soon as he turned off the ignition, all three children—who had slept in their car seats all the way from Kalispell to Rust Creek Falls—woke up, and now they were eager to play.

  Since they were already bundled into their snowsuits, he decided to let them roll around in the snow for a while, opening the house to let Andy and Molly come outside to play with them.

  Babies need fresh air and exercise.

  His mother’s voice, from so long ago, echoed in the back of his mind.

  Apparently Fallon subscribed to the same idea, because he’d often seen her outside with HJK. Even when they were infants, she’d put them in their carrier or stroller or sleigh—depending on the weather—to ensure they had some outdoor time.

  And there she was again—not just on his mind but in his heart. Of course, she’d been a steady presence in his life for a lot of years, so maybe it was inevitable that he would think about her, about how it had felt to hold her, kiss her, love her.

  And he did love her, but he’d been too much of a coward to admit his feelings to her. It was hard enough acknowledging the truth to himself, and his brief marriage had taught him that love wasn’t a magical cure-all. Because he had loved Paula, but he’d made a lot of mistakes in their relationship.

  He wasn’t just afraid of making another mistake with Fallon. He was afraid of losing her forever. Ironically, it was that fear that had caused him to push her away.

  But he trusted that she would be back. Not just because Bella had said so, and not even because Fallon had promised that she wouldn’t abandon him, but because his heart told him that it was true.

  And this time, he was going to listen to his heart.

  * * *

  Fallon had told him that she’d be gone a few days.

  A few days wasn’t so long—or so Jamie tried to convince himself.

  But a few days without any word from Fallon felt like an eternity. On the fourth day, he stopped by her parents’ ranch.

  “Jamie—hi.” Fallon’s mother’s greeting was pleasant enough, though she was obviously surprised to see him.

  “Hi, Mrs. O’Reilly. Is Fallon here?”

  “No, she isn’t,” Maureen said. “Didn’t she tell you that she was going away?”

  “She did,” he confirmed. “But I thought she would be home by now.”

  “When I talked to her this morning, she was still in Oregon.”

  Oregon? “What’s she doing there?” he wondered aloud.

  “A personal errand,” Fallon’s mother said, a response that sounded deliberately vague to him.

  But Jamie took solace in the fact that she didn’t seem concerned about her daughter’s whereabouts. “Did she say when she’d be back?”

  Maureen rubbed her hands briskly up and down her arms to warm them. “It seems silly to have a conversation standing on the porch in this cold weather,” she said. “Did you want to come in for a cup of coffee?”

  “Coffee sounds good,” he told her.

  She moved away from the door so that he could enter. As soon as he stepped inside, a wriggling bundle of gold fur pounced on his boot and attacked the laces.

  “Leave it, Duchess,” Maureen admonished.

  But Jamie only chuckled as he crouched to give the pup a scratch. “There’s no doubt she’s related to mine,” he said. “They like to chew on anything they can sink their teeth into.”

  “She needs a close eye at this stage, but she’s been a wonderful addition to the family.”

  “I was happy to hear that Brooks found good homes for all of the pups—and so quickly.”

  “I can’t bear to think what might have happened if you hadn’t found them,” Maureen said, making her way to the kitchen with Duchess trotting along happily at her heels.

  She took two mugs from a cupboard and filled them both with steaming brew from the carafe. “Is your sister watching your little ones this morning?”

  “Yes. She was taking them to the day care, so that they could see what it’s all about before they show up for their first day.”

  “Fallon mentioned that they were going to be starting at Just Us Kids soon,” Maureen said. “Cream or sugar?”

  He shook his head. “Black works for me.”

  She handed him one of the mugs and doctored the other for herself. He waited to sit until she had done so.

  “This must be a bitterswe
et time for you,” Maureen noted, not unkindly. “The triplets’ first Christmas—and your first without your wife.”

  “I thought it would be,” he agreed. “But I’m trying to focus on the good stuff, on making this holiday a memorable one for the kids. Of course, Fallon has been a big part of that.”

  “She loves the holidays—and children—so she’d want to do everything possible to help make this Christmas special for them.”

  “It’s not just the holidays, though,” he admitted. “I don’t think I would have made it through the past ten months without Fallon.”

  “I know she’s spent a lot of time with your children, but one of the greatest benefits of living in a close community like Rust Creek Falls is that neighbors always do step up to help neighbors. If Fallon hadn’t been there, someone else would have been.”

  “I’m getting the impression you wish someone else had been,” he noted.

  “My youngest daughter sometimes gives too much of herself with little regard for what it may cost her,” she confided.

  Jamie suspected she wasn’t just referring to Fallon’s help with Henry, Jared and Katie.

  “She’s an incredible woman,” he said sincerely. “And I think, for a long time, our friendship prevented me from appreciating how truly incredible.”

  “Are you telling me that you do now?” Maureen asked him.

  He nodded. “I don’t just appreciate her—I’m in love with her.”

  “Oh.” For a moment, Fallon’s mother seemed at a loss for words. Then her lips curved, just a little, into the same half smile he’d seen countless times on her daughter’s face. “I have to admit, this is surprising, but not unwelcome, news.”

  “I hope Fallon feels the same way when I tell her,” he said worriedly.

  “You haven’t told her?”

  “By the time I realized how I felt, she was probably halfway to Oregon,” he admitted.

  “Well, she’ll be back before Saturday,” Maureen assured him. “Because it’s Paddy’s and my thirtieth anniversary on Christmas Eve and there’s no way she’d miss that.”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” he agreed.

  “We’re hosting an open house to celebrate—and I know Fallon would be happy to have you and your family join us.”