Home on the Ranch--The Colorado Cowboy's Triplets

by Laura Marie Altom

  Wait, what? Jed hadn’t been named guardian?

  He should have been happy about the fact, but oddly enough he felt somehow ripped off. Had Emily not trusted him to care for her girls? Had she not thought him capable of doing a good job? Considering how a few moments earlier, he’d damn near had a heart attack from the fear of becoming his nieces’ legal guardian, he now felt equally disappointed. Which made no sense.

  He was losing it.

  Correction—maybe he had already lost it?

  An hour later, the babies were again screaming, Baxter had left and Jed still sat sullenly at the kitchen table, while Camille prepped bottles.

  “What’s with the long face?” she asked. “I thought this was what you wanted? For your mom to get the girls?”

  “It was—is. But something about hearing it legally stated... I don’t know how to describe it. It kind of pissed me off.”

  “You’re acting crazy.” She set all three bottles on the table, then proceeded to fetch the babies from their swings. “You can’t have it both ways.”

  “I know. That’s what I mean.”

  “Trust me, once you’re back in sunny California, doing whatever it is that you SEALs do, you’ll be relieved to have this chapter behind you.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Of course I am.” She handed him Sallie, and then Callie.

  She took Allie, cradling her, fitting her pinkie into the infant’s palm. “Have you ever really looked at them? Their tiny perfection. These fingers...” she said in a soft, singsongy tone. “The itty-bitty nails. It won’t be too long till your grandma’s going to be a full-time manicurist, once you and your sisters discover nail polish.”

  “Why do you think she did it?”

  “Huh?” Camille looked up from her inspection of his niece.

  “Why didn’t Emily trust me to care for her girls?”

  “Are you listening to yourself?”

  “I mean it. I fully expected Baxter to name me guardian and I was steeling myself for it. But when he didn’t?” He scowled. “I’m not used to losing. I don’t like it—not one bit.”

  “Gee, that’s kind of how I’m feeling about you in this moment—not liking you one bit. How have you so easily forgotten your speech about not feeling capable of being a parent? You and Emily were close. Don’t you think she sensed that if, God forbid, something happened to her or Chase—let alone both—that your mom would be most capable of raising the girls?”

  “I need air.” He fanned himself.

  “Good for you, but in case you forgot, you still have two hungry babies in your arms.”

  He glanced at his hungry charges. “Damn.”

  “And that right there is why Emily had more faith in your mom...” She tickled Allie’s chubby tummy.

  “Thought you were on my side?”

  “I’m on the side of these three vulnerable infants. We’ve been over this ad nauseum. Neither of us are parent material. Don’t take it personally.” When Allie lost the bottle’s nipple, she broke into a wail. “Here you go, sweet baby...” Camille had the bottle back in place before Allie finished her last cry. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “You’re good with them—way better than me. Maybe Em should have left the girls with you?”

  “Right.” Camille laughed. “Because I’ve had such great experiences with kids in my past.”

  “What you went through on the job hardly counts.”

  “Really?” Eyebrows raised, she said, “Well, I was there, and I think it does. All of the infants in my charge are now deceased.” With a heavy sigh, she left the booth and kitchen, taking Allie with her.

  “Camille, come back!” He gazed at his companions. “You know what, ladies? “I think these last few days have taken their toll on Auntie Camille, too.”

  Deadpan expressions were their only response.

  “All right, well, let’s hurry up and finish eating so we can chase after her and see what she needs us to do to get back in her good graces. Agreed?”

  They stared as if he were a two-headed alien.

  “Did you know that as a SEAL, I’ve been trained to always have a contingency plan? As such, let’s take this show on the road. If Auntie Camille can feed your sister upstairs, we’ll do the same. It’ll be like a picnic.”

  Holding the girls extra close while holding their bottles steady, he took the stairs two at a time.

  “Cam?”

  No answer.

  He found her on the daybed in the sun-flooded nursery.

  “There you are.” He squeezed in alongside her. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You. You’re all over the map. This is serious, Jed. These girls lost both their parents, and till your mom gets here, we’re literally all they have left in the world. There’s no telling how long that will take, and until Barbara is home, I need you to step up and get serious. This isn’t a game.”

  “Trust me. More than anyone, I know.” A muscle ticked in his hardened jaw. “Did you forget I was the one having to call for an ambulance when Em collapsed? I had to say goodbye to her lifeless form. I get that this isn’t a game.”

  “Then why are you treating it like one?”

  “I wasn’t aware that I was?”

  “Your feelings regarding your nieces seem scattered when you need to be unflappable, for their sakes. One minute, you’re caring for them like a seasoned parenting pro, the next, I find you lying on the floor in front of a crib, looking like you’re about to cry harder than the girls.”

  “That was an isolated event. You’d have been near tears, too, had you heard them screaming as long as I did.”

  “I’m not saying I wouldn’t, but Jed, instead of caring for the girls like you already have one foot back on the beach, how about being fully here and committed for as long as it takes for your mom to come home? Instead of wishing yourself to be anywhere but here, how about enjoying this sacred time with three baby girls who desperately need your love and support?”

  Jed wanted to be mad at her for the scathing speech, but how could he when every word she’d spoken was true?

  * * *

  Two weeks passed, and with no sign of Jed’s mother, Camille would have expected him to grow more antsy about returning to his military life. But if anything, he seemed to have embraced his current role with abandon.

  She’d watched the girls while he’d made Emily’s cremation arrangements. Her memorial service wouldn’t be held till Barbara returned. A weaker man might have cracked under the pressure of being an instant parent while still mourning his sister and brother-in-law’s deaths. But he still held strong.

  Maybe too strong?

  As if his SEAL commander had issued an infant care instruction manual, he’d become as proficient at diaper duty as he was with bath time and making bottles. The one thing missing was heart. As silly as it seemed, she wanted him to stop the mechanics of caring for his nieces in lieu of appreciating them for the miracle they were. For the living memory of Emily and Chase and all the loved ones they’d lost before.

  She longed to see him blowing raspberries on tummies and singing off-key lullabies at bedtime. Why didn’t he stare in awe at their perfection during feeding times, when she grew more enamored with the trio with each passing day?

  “Got everything?” He peeked into the canvas sack she’d been filling for that afternoon’s outing to her grandfather’s mine. Since the weather had finally fallen into a warmer pattern, most afternoons they’d taken to picnicking either with the horses or up one of the dozen or so trails that both Chase’s and Jed’s fathers had long-ago cut into the land.

  Her grandfather hadn’t ended up moving in with them, but to make her life easier, he had started riding his mule, Earl, to dinner at Jed’s. Seemed strange, calling Ch
ase and Emily’s place his, but legally that was the case.

  “I think we have it all,” she said. “The only way we’ll know for sure is if we get there and discover we need something we don’t have.” Since her grandfather seemed to get a kick out of spending time with the girls, she thought it might be fun to go on a bigger adventure than their norm, as the mine was a pretty good hike from where they’d leave the SUV.

  “True.” Jed hefted the bag over his right shoulder. “Ready for me to start loading the girls?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He’d been different since her scolding about his take on the whole custody issue. Cool, but in an ultra-polite way.

  She hated it.

  The emotional distance between them.

  Had her harsh words created it? If so, how could she regret speaking what had needed to be said? His lousy attitude only proved her belief that she wasn’t cut out for relationships.

  Nothing good lasted.

  A lesson her job experience had driven home by the cruelest of means.

  All gear loaded, with Jed at the wheel, the five of them set off for the mine. The winding mountain road was beyond treacherous, with drop-offs so steep she closed her eyes during switchback turns.

  Allie whimpered, starting a chain reaction of complaints that necessitated George Strait joining their journey.

  Higher and higher they traveled, until popping out above the tree line. A few slow and bumpy miles later had Jed turning off onto the even bumpier trail leading to her grandfather’s mine.

  Jed parked the SUV next to Gramps’s old Ford pickup, then killed the engine. The sudden silence startled the girls into a screaming frenzy.

  Jed groaned. “It never ends.”

  “Shush. I swear, you’re a bigger baby than all of them combined.” She’d meant it as a joke—mostly—but it hadn’t landed.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” She opened her door and stepped out onto the gravel. “Sorry I said anything.” But she wasn’t sorry. Maybe she’d been too direct with him previously, but ever since learning his sister hadn’t wanted him to be her daughters’ surrogate father, he hadn’t been the same. How could he resent a decision he’d claimed to want?

  Unless deep down, that hadn’t been what he’d wanted at all?

  A babbling brook ran alongside a rickety wooden picnic table her grandfather had built when she’d been a little girl.

  Earl grazed ten yards up the hill on a patch of clover.

  At this altitude, the sky seemed bluer. The sun shone brightly enough for Camille to hold her hand to her forehead, shading her eyes.

  “No...” Jed climbed out and slammed his door, rounding the SUV’s front to face her. “You brought it up, so explain what you meant.”

  She said with a sigh, “Drop it before my grandfather comes down. I don’t want him to hear us argue.”

  “It’s better than the silent treatment I usually get.”

  “Oh—that’s rich, coming from you.”

  “Good God almighty...” Her grandfather shouted from high up on the trail leading to his mine’s entrance. “You two make more noise than all three of those little ones put together.”

  Camille pressed her lips together.

  Jed did the same.

  Oddly enough, the babies had stopped crying.

  “Thought you were comin’ to bring me food, not aggravation.” Gramps followed the trail down faster than he should have, scattering rocks and pebbles. He wore his antique tin gold pan as a sun hat.

  “Ollie, mind watching the girls while I take your granddaughter up to the mine for a private talk?” Jed ran his hand over his hair, which was starting to grow out.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “Gramps, let’s just eat.”

  Her grandfather said, “Why would I want to break bread with two folks who should have been married ten years back, but didn’t, yet still fuss like an old married couple?”

  Really? Camille crossed her arms, sending her grandfather a dirty look.

  “Go on,” Gramps said. “I’ll keep an eye on the kiddos.”

  “Thanks.” Jed gestured for Camille to go first.

  “Who wants to learn how to pan for gold?” After opening the SUV’s rear door, her grandfather removed his gold pan to wave it about. His jig elicited excited shrieks from the back seat crew.

  “What was that?” Jed nodded toward the girls. “Have you ever heard that noise?”

  “It’s a new one for me. Apparently, Gramps is a baby whisperer.”

  “Guess so.”

  Up and up Camille and Jed climbed on the well-worn trail, until reaching the mine, which her grandfather had shored with railroad ties. He’d worked it for as long as she could remember, riding Earl every day.

  “We’re here. What do you have to say that couldn’t be said in front of Gramps?”

  Camille braced her hands on her hips. She wouldn’t usually snap at him like this, but honestly, she was sick and tired of his standoffish nature lately. “What’s your problem? Before Baxter read Emily’s will, I felt like the two of us were in this together, but ever since then, you’ve been an ass.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Look...” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Whatever’s going on with me is complicated.”

  “Try explaining. If there’s anyone you can talk to, you should know whatever you need to say is safe with me.”

  He sat on the hand-hewn log bench just outside the mine.

  Cool air swished through the entrance, creating as much of a breeze as a fan. It smelled dank and musty and made her shiver.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded. Interesting how even in the heat of an argument, Jed held concern for her. She loved that about him. No matter what, he’d always have her back. But that didn’t mean he’d have her heart. Things between them had grown way too complicated for that. They hadn’t so much as napped in the same room since that night when she’d awakened in his arms. “Let’s get this over with. I don’t trust the girls with poor Gramps.”

  Her joke earned a faint smile.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but here goes...” He shifted, crossing one leg than the other, as if he was incapable of finding comfort. “You’re right, this has everything to do with the will. No way did I ever see myself becoming a dad to triplets, but then the two of us were working together and it shocked me when we made a pretty great team. And there was a part of me that thought about how things used to be between us—how we talked about having kids, and how I wanted a boy to hunt and fish with and you wanted a girl to teach your grandmother’s recipes to, and play dress-up, and for a hot minute, I could so clearly see us in those roles. But then I regained my sanity and realized you have your life and I have mine.”

  She couldn’t have said why, but tears stung Camille’s eyes. There was so much she wanted—needed—to say, but it was so uncharacteristic for Jed to open up like this, she didn’t want to stop him.

  “I said I wanted Emily to have entrusted her daughters’ care to our mom, but then when that’s exactly what happened, I was pissed. I wanted to know what was so wrong with me that she wouldn’t have wanted them raised by me. Even worse, her message from beyond the grave made me feel like she’d not just gutted me once by practically dying in my arms, but twice by making it public knowledge that she doesn’t think I’m capable of taking care of her girls. But I am. These past couple weeks, I’ve more than proved I can handle anything, from the worst diaper accident to laundry to bath time, and anything else three babies could ever throw my way.”

  “Oh, Jed...” Dropping to the bench, Camille wrapped her arms around him, needing him to know he was right, but also wrong. He would hate what she had to say, but he needed to hear it. “Yes, when it comes to the girls’ physi
cal care, you’re incredible—but like the soldier you are. You care for them with an almost robotic precision that’s extraordinary, but also a smidge cold.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It’s a valid observation.” She forged onward. “Do you love them? Your nieces?”

  “Of course.” On his feet, he strode away from her. “How could you even ask something like that?”

  “Sorry. But before we get any deeper, I needed to know.”

  “You sit there all high and mighty, preaching about me being cold with my own flesh and blood, when you quit a job you fought for because of growing too attached to kids who weren’t even alive.”

  “That was a low blow—even for you.” She wiped hot, silent tears with the backs of her hands. She’d demand he take the cruel words back, but how could she when what he said was right?

  “I’ve been abandoned all my life. My dad, my grandmother—”

  “I know how that feels, Jed—”

  “My brother-in-law and sister. Now, even my nieces are being taken from me. Everyone I love leaves.”

  Camille had no comeback for that.

  “Even you...”

  “Point of fact.” She raised her chin. “You left me.”

  “That’s bullshit. I asked you to come with me and you wouldn’t.”

  “What life would I have had? Hanging around on a series of navy bases? Commiserating with other wives who were pining for their husbands, too? You know exactly why I didn’t go. I owed it to myself to finish college and pursue a career I thought would heal old wounds from my dad’s murder.”

  “You’ve said yourself that the only thing your detective career did was make you feel more hopeless about what happened to your dad. Did you ever regret choosing your career over me?”

  “You got married six weeks after we mutually called it quits! Who does that? Even if I did have regrets back then, what was I supposed to do, track you down when you were with someone else? It makes no sense.”

  “If you loved me, it makes all the sense in the world.”

  “Okay—then let’s flip that around. If you still loved me, why didn’t you come for me?”