Walking into the house, the first thing he saw was Cole, pacing the floor with what looked like a doll wrapped up in a blanket in his arms. Connor blinked and realized he was looking at an infant, not a doll.
At least, he assumed it was an infant. He’d heard that these days they had realistic-looking dolls that did everything except chop wood and herd cattle, so it could still be a doll.
He took a closer look.
It wasn’t a doll.
“You know, I could have used a hand today,” Connor said, shrugging out of his jacket and letting it fall over the back of the easy chair as he walked past it.
“I’m really sorry about that,” Cole said. “But something came up.” He nodded at the infant in his arms, then raised his eyes to look at his brother again. “Or maybe I should say two somethings came up.”
That was when Connor noticed that Cole wasn’t alone in the living room. There was a young woman sitting on the sofa.
Stacy Rowe.
She was back—and she was holding another infant in her arms.
Stacy turned around just then to look at him and she smiled in acknowledgment.
“Stacy.” Remembering that he was still wearing his hat, Connor took it off as a sign of respect. “I didn’t know that you were back in town,” he told her. “How are you?”
Rather than answer Connor’s question with the all-encompassing word fine, because she wasn’t really fine, Stacy told Cole’s older brother, “I’m well, thank you for asking, Connor.”
Connor recalled his brother’s phone call earlier today, saying something about finding babies on his doorstep. Because he always took the simpler route if it was opened to him, Connor put two and two together and asked, “Are they yours?” nodding toward the infant she was holding.
Again, rather than give Connor a direct yes or no answer, Stacy replied, “Cole found them on his doorstep today.”
Suppressing a weary sigh, he turned his attention back to his brother. “So you still don’t know who the mother is,” Connor concluded, remembering what his brother had said earlier when he’d called.
Cole shook his head. “No one’s come forward to claim them,” he said. “The sheriff’s going to see what he can find out, and Joe Lone Wolf’s going to do a little poking around on the reservation just in case they belong to one of the women there.”
Connor filled in the blanks. A desperate young girl finding herself pregnant and alone, taking the only avenue she felt was open to her. It wasn’t that unusual a scenario. Still, he hoped that wasn’t the case.
“You told Miss Joan about the babies, right?” Connor asked, thinking, the way everyone else in the area did, that if anyone would know who the babies’ mother was, it was Miss Joan.
“Right,” Cole answered. “She told me that she’d let me know if she heard any talk about someone having recently given birth to twins.”
Connor paused beside Stacy, his mind going a mile a minute as he looked at the infant in her arms.
“I think we still have Cassidy’s old crib in the attic,” he said. “We took it down while Devon and the baby were here, but I took it apart and put it back up in the attic. Looks like we need to bring it back down again.”
Stacy knew that Connor was nothing if not kindhearted. All the McCulloughs were. But taking in two extra children—infants at that—was an imposition. She was surprised that he didn’t balk at the idea. “So it’s okay if they stay here?” she asked.
“They got anyplace else to go?” Connor asked her matter-of-factly.
“No.”
“Then I guess that settles that question. They can stay here until their parents turn up or something else can be arranged.” Connor turned toward his brother. “Cole, I’m dead tired. Help me bring that crib down. We’ll put it together so these kids can have something softer to sleep in than that basket you’ve got over there.” He nodded at the wicker basket that was on the floor near the oversize coffee table.
For a second, Cole looked as if he was at a loss as to what to do with the infant in his arms. Spying the basket his brother had just referred to, he placed Mike in it. He brought it back around and put the basket next to Stacy’s feet.
“Okay,” he told Connor. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
THEY FOUND THE crib more or less where Connor had put it. It was in four pieces, not counting the springs and the mattress that would eventually rest on the springs once the four sides of the crib were joined together.
It took them three trips each to bring down all the pieces.
Working together, with some slight supervision coming from Rita, who had decided to check on the babies, Connor and Cole put the crib together rather quickly, considering that some of the hardware was missing.
Cole didn’t believe in just throwing things together and he wasn’t satisfied until he’d tested the crib for sturdiness.
“That looks really strong,” Stacy told them once Cole and his brother were finished and had stepped back from their project.
“It would have to be,” Cole said. “Cassidy was the last one to use it on a long-term basis and she was always hard on her things—furniture, clothes, you name it.”
“She’d shake those bars until she finally found a way to climb out,” Connor said, smiling and remembering. “And then she’d make a break for it whenever she could. Dad talked about tying her up for the night. The rest of us knew he was kidding, but that made her even more determined to climb out.”
“I’m surprised the crib wasn’t in pieces,” Stacy commented. “I guess they made things to last twenty-three years ago.”
“Our dad made this crib,” Connor told her. “Our mother told me that he made it just before I was born and all four of us slept in it until we outgrew it—which, in Cassidy’s case, was pretty quick.”
He looked at the infant she was still holding. It had fallen asleep in her arms. “I think because these babies are on the small side, they can both fit in the crib together,” he remarked.
“Are you going to leave it right here in the middle of the living room?” Stacy asked skeptically. “Wouldn’t everyone, including the twins, be better off if the crib was in that back bedroom that’s down here?”
Connor thought the matter over for a moment. “You might have a point. But the other two times we’ve made use of it this last year, there was always someone to sleep in the same room as the baby. First Devon, and then Cassidy slept in the room with the baby she rescued.”
“Well, how about Cole?” Stacy suggested, a smile curving the corners of her mouth for the first time that day as she turned to look at him. “After all, he was the one who found them.”
Cole was far from sold on the idea. “Well, I—” he began to demur.
“Are you going to tell me that a man can’t do something a woman can do?” Stacy asked. She was clearly challenging him and he knew it.
“Not can’t,” Cole stressed. “But in this case, a woman could do it better.” A way out occurred to him. “Stacy, didn’t you say you had nowhere to stay?”
“No, I said I was staying at the hotel,” Stacy corrected.
“Because you had no place to stay,” Cole reminded her. He brought up an obvious point. “Your house burned down while you were away so when you came back, you didn’t have a place to live.”
“I know all that,” she said impatiently. She didn’t need him to bring up the obvious. She was still having a hard time dealing with that loss as well as the loss of her aunt.
“Instead of staying at the hotel, why don’t you stay here?” Connor asked.
She didn’t want to stay here because she didn’t want to set herself up for any more pain than she’d already gone through. The memory of the way she’d felt over eight months ago, when she’d left Forever, was still fresh enough to not just make her wary, but mak
e her want to keep away from Cole as much as she possibly could.
And how’s that working out for you? Stacy mocked herself.
Out loud, she said, “I appreciate the offer, Connor, but I have a job at the hotel. I just got hired today to take over the reception desk.”
“We could really use your help here,” Connor told her. “And I’d take it as a personal favor if you pitched in,” he added.
She felt herself wavering and struggled to remain steadfast. “But I can’t just leave Rebecca high and dry like that. I’ve already postponed starting my job for one day because of the babies—well, I didn’t exactly postpone it, Miss Joan told me that she would do it for me.” Coming from Miss Joan, it had sounded more like an order than an offer.
“You seem to have a knack for these babies,” Connor said, playing on her sympathies. “And in the grand scheme of things, taking care of infants is a lot more important than working a reception desk at a hotel that only has a moderate amount of business most of the months of the year.
“Of course, I can’t tell you what to do, but since Cole seems to have brought these lost little souls here, and I have the ranch to run while Cole works both here and at the Healing Ranch, I would really take it as a personal favor if you could help out at least part of the time,” he stressed. “In exchange, you can stay here for as long as you’d like. You can have your own bedroom and Rita will help with the—they are twins, aren’t they?” he asked.
“Dr. Dan seemed to think so when we had them checked out at the clinic,” Cole told his brother.
That was good enough for Connor. “Twins it is. And Rita can help you take care of them until we get home at night.”
Stacy felt as if she was being hemmed in. “I would love to help,” she began, “but—”
“You already made plans and your mind is made up,” Connor guessed. Resigned, he nodded. “I understand. I have no intentions of forcing you to do something you don’t want to do.” He took a breath. “I didn’t see another car out front besides Cole’s when I came home so I’m assuming you came over here with him. He’ll take you back,” Connor told her.
She rolled it over in her mind. “Yes, he will,” Stacy said as she stood up. “He’ll take me back so I can explain to Rebecca in person why I won’t be able to take the job after all, and so I can pack my things,” she added. “I’m going to need a few changes of clothing myself if I’m going to be staying here—for a while.”
Connor beamed and took both of her hands in his. “I can’t thank you enough,” he told Stacy.
Looking up at him, Stacy smiled. “Maybe I should be the one thanking you,” she said. “I’d forgotten what it’s like here in Forever—with people going the extra mile for each other, even when they don’t have to.”
“I can’t pay you much, but—” Connor began.
She stopped him before he got any further. “No, it’s all right. I’m sure this is just going to be temporary—and Aunt Kate did leave me a little in her will, so I’m not exactly hurting for money yet.” She could see he was about to protest and she knew what he was going to say. “I took the job at the hotel mainly to keep busy, not because I was destitute.”
Connor seemed to hardly hear the second half of her statement.
“My lord, I forgot all about your aunt’s passing.” Sympathy flashed through his eyes. “I am really sorry to hear about that. Your aunt was a fine lady.”
Stacy nodded. “Aunt Kate had a good life. And she got to see Europe the way she always wanted to,” she pointed out.
The import of her own words hit her for the first time. Until just now, she had thought of the last eight months as her aunt rescuing her and taking her away from her source of pain, but now she realized that she had actually rendered a service to her aunt, as well. For as long as she could remember, Aunt Kate had always talked about traveling someday. By giving her aunt a reason to take her away, she had inadvertently provided that “someday” for Aunt Kate to finally see Europe.
Everything happened for a reason, Stacy remembered her mother used to say. She supposed that, in this case, she had ultimately done good for her aunt by letting the woman whisk her away from Forever.
“All right then,” Connor was saying. “Cole, why don’t you take Stacy back to the hotel so she can collect her things and make her peace with Rebecca? Meanwhile,” he went on, turning toward the twins, who were now comfortably nestled in the crib he and Cole had put together, “I’ll wash the dust off and roll up my sleeves so I can take care of these two until you get back.”
“Dinner will be ready in another hour, hour and a half,” Rita called out to Cole and Stacy, as if on cue, despite the fact that she wasn’t in the room. “Make sure you are back from the town by then, Mr. Cole. Miss Stacy,” she added pointedly.
From the housekeeper’s tone of voice, Stacy got the impression that it wasn’t a suggestion on the woman’s part—it was an order.
Taking her arm, Cole guided Stacy out the door and then to his truck.
Seated, she eyed him quizzically as Cole got in on the driver’s side.
“I think we’d better get a move on if we’re going to be back in time,” he told her, starting up his truck.
She buckled up. “You make it sound like Rita rules the roost around here.”
Cole laughed under his breath. “Let’s just say I’ve learned not to make her unhappy. Connor’s her boss, but as for the rest of us, I think, given her age, she kind of sees us like her kids. Trust me, staying on the right side of that lady has its advantages,” he told her with feeling.
“The rest of you,” Stacy repeated. Aware that things might have changed while she’d been gone, she was trying to get a handle on the way things were. “Then Cody and Cassidy still live on the ranch?”
“Not anymore,” he told her. “But they come by often enough, along with their spouses and the kids.”
“Spouses,” she echoed as if she was having trouble absorbing the word and what it meant, at least in one case. “You mean that Cassidy got married?”
He saw the stunned expression on her face. He’d felt the same way at the time.
“That’s right. You weren’t here for that.” Cole grinned broadly, relishing being able to reveal the details to her. “And you’re never going to guess who she married.”
Stacy had no idea who her friend had married. But she was fairly certain about one thing. “Well, I know she didn’t marry Will Laredo,” Stacy began.
The grin on Cole’s face widened, stopped her dead.
“Wrong.”
Stacy’s eyes widened. She looked at him, stunned. “You’re kidding.”
Enjoying this, Cole shook his head.
“Cassidy married Will? Really? But those two couldn’t be in the same room without verbally slicing each other to ribbons,” Stacy recalled.
Cole laughed. “I think they got over that.”
Stacy looked at him, allowing herself to really look. She’d forgotten how much she’d missed seeing that grin and hearing that laugh.
These last months, Stacy had tried with all her heart to put that behind her. But she’d been in town less than two days and it was flooding back with a vengeance.
If she had a lick of sense, she’d run for the hills the first opportunity she had, Stacy told herself.
Somehow, she had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen.
Chapter Nine
Cole pulled his truck into the near-empty parking lot and turned off his engine. “I can wait in the truck if you’d rather talk to Rebecca alone,” he offered.
Was he saying he didn’t want to go in with her, afraid that people might get the idea that they were back together again? Or was there something else going on? Stacy decided to treat the matter lightly for the time being.
“Is that your way of
getting out of carrying down my suitcases?” she asked.
“No, I can still bring those down to the truck. I just thought you’d feel less awkward talking to Rebecca if I wasn’t standing right there.”
Cole appeared slightly insulted, she thought. If she was going to cast any sort of aspersions in him, she wouldn’t waste her breath doing it about something so trivial. Everyone knew the man was the total opposite of lazy.
“I was only kidding about the suitcases,” she said. “And as for feeling awkward with you there, talking to Rebecca has nothing to do with it.”
Cole cut through the rhetoric and got to the heart of her meaning. “In other words, you’d feel awkward with me around no matter what.”
Stacy was not in the mood for an argument and waved away his words. “I’ll work it out,” she said.
They were in the parking lot behind the hotel—Cole had driven more quickly than she’d anticipated—and rather than go round and round about this latest point with him, Stacy just got out of the truck. Without the twins to focus on or having anyone else to serve as a buffer between them, the feeling of awkwardness when they were near each other had returned—in spades.
Closing her door, Stacy told him, “Come inside or stay in the truck. It’s all the same to me.”
He didn’t even have to think about it. “Then I’ll come in,” Cole responded. He got out and closed the door behind him.
They found Rebecca behind the reception desk, typing on the computer’s keyboard. Looking up, the moment she saw Stacy, Rebecca’s face dissolved into a wreath of smiles. “I didn’t think I’d see you until tomorrow morning,” the woman said. She started to come around the desk.
“About that—” Stacy began.
Rebecca stopped where she was. “Wait, I know that tone of voice. You’ve changed your mind.” It wasn’t a question.
Stacy wished she didn’t feel guilty. Taking the job had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, at best, but that didn’t make letting the older woman down any easier.
“Something’s come up,” Stacy began, trying to edge her way into the explanation.
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