Surprise! Surprise!

by Tina Leonard

  “I do,” he assured her. “I also told him I didn’t want any more withdrawals made from my account.”

  Maddie lowered her head after staring into Sam’s eyes for a moment.

  “Well, I wish you felt differently, of course. But I certainly understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “And when I’m ready to have more children, I’ll have Dr. Abby help me select another appropriate donor. Of course, I doubt there’s a man alive who could give me better children than you, but I certainly—”

  “Maddie!” he bellowed. “You are not running a stud farm around here!”

  “Sam—”

  “This entire discussion infuriates me!” He glared at her. “Pardon me for having an adverse reaction to the idea of you blithely shopping for sperm!” He took a deep breath and glared at her again.

  “Well, I’m not planning to try to become pregnant for quite a while, anyway. So there’s no need to be upset.”

  “Until you leave one afternoon to go shopping. I won’t be thinking Neiman Marcus, I’m sure,” he grumbled.

  She put a hand on his arm, and instinctively he reached to take that hand in his. When she realized he’d done it out of habit, reacting comfortably as he had hundreds of times before, she stiffened, then relaxed. It felt right to let Sam hold her hand. Their marriage had been close and loving. He was a good man, even if he had a slick lawyer. “I’m going to take a shower. Our mothers say I need to relax.”

  “You definitely need to slow down. You keep me turning in circles.”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  “Don’t you?” He eyed her carefully. “Somehow I thought you were enjoying torturing me.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not torturing. Although the occasional good-humored teasing does bring to your eyes a fire I remember well.”

  He sank onto the bed, his shoulders slumped. “Just don’t let me find any lists lying around for a while, unless they’re for the grocery. Okay? And even then I’ll be doing the shopping for quite some time.”

  “Safer that way?” she asked with a smile.

  “I was thinking of your recovery, but yes, possibly it is safer if I know you’re tucked at home recuperating.”

  He was still holding her hand in his, and warmth spread through Maddie. But she wanted to make certain he understood the whole situation. “Sam, you know I want more children, don’t you? I mean, if heaven smiles on me with more babies, I would consider it a dream come true.”

  He looked up at her suddenly, his eyes full of the fire she loved. “Fine. Have four. Have ten. But just let me take a crack at getting you pregnant the old-fashioned way.”

  Chapter Three

  Sam had no idea why he offered. What was he saying? That he accepted that Maddie wouldn’t be his true wife, but a sexual relationship designed to create more children was fine with him? “I mean, if we were to have a real marriage, of course. I would be very vigilant with practicing.”

  She tipped her head to look up at him. “Practicing?”

  “Well, I couldn’t shoot out any arrows that hit the bull’s-eye before. Maybe I just needed more practice.”

  “One thing I can never say about you, Sam, is that you were unskilled and out of practice.”

  “I may be, after nine months.”

  She smiled hesitantly, her face taking on a glow that spoke of happiness. “That almost sounds like a confession.”

  “A confession of what?” He stared at her, confused. “Oh…you’re asking if I’ve been totally out of practice since our separation?”

  She turned away. “It’s really none of my business. I read more into your remark than I should have.”

  Yeah, but it had made her glow, and he liked that. Gently, he turned her to face him. “Yes, Maddie, it was a confession, even if I didn’t realize I was making one. There has been no other woman since you.”

  She stared into his eyes, searching. Maybe she was trying to see his feelings. Surely she didn’t have to look so hard. He leaned forward to drop a soft kiss against her forehead.

  “It shouldn’t make me so happy,” she said, her voice trembling as she leaned against his chest, her forehead resting at his throat. “It does, though. And that makes me so angry!”

  “Why?” He held her away from him a little so he could see her face.

  “I don’t want to love you anymore,” she said, sniffling. “I don’t want to sound mean, but it took my heart a long time to heal, Sam. Actually, it never has. It’s kind of hanging in my chest, a big, gaping wound that I don’t think will ever stop leaking sadness over our breakup. I just can’t go back there.”

  “Back where?”

  “To the hopes and dreams,” she said softly. “It was too hard when we couldn’t work things out. I learned the true meaning of heartbreak when I couldn’t give you children.”

  “But I—”

  “I know you didn’t want them as badly as I did. But substitute the baby issue for a different issue, Sam, and maybe I’ll let you down again. I don’t have any confidence in myself as a wife.”

  “I was happy.”

  “But that was the only real big issue our marriage was even tested with. What if something bigger came along?”

  He wasn’t sure there was anything more momentous than not being able to get his wife pregnant when she wanted to be. “I think I see what you’re getting at. I felt the same way about not being able to give you something you desperately wanted. But just for the record, I didn’t have any complaints.”

  “No, you didn’t. It was all my fault. I was the one who wanted children, and that destroyed our marriage.” She sighed and pulled slowly from his arms. “I caused us pain.”

  “I have to shoulder my share of responsibility, Maddie. I shouldn’t have told you to choose between our marriage or the continual merry-go-round of fertility heartache. Those are words I can’t unsay, no matter how much I wish I could. Of course, I was expecting you to pick me.”

  Maddie shook her head. “If I’d been any other woman, I would have. That’s the whole problem. I’m selfish.”

  “You’re sweet, too. A man’s got to take the bitter with the sweet. Vinegar and sugar is probably a good recipe for something, isn’t it?”

  “Salad dressing.” She crossed her arms thoughtfully, before meeting his gaze. “Not much nutrition in that.”

  She was talking about nurturing their marriage. Sam nodded. “Guess nothing in life is perfect, Maddie. I like you just the way you are.”

  “Yes, but you’re a better person than me, Sam, really. You want to have a marriage again. You’d want to try to make a baby with me. All this because I didn’t tell you I was trying to conceive without you here. It isn’t right if you’re the one who always does the compromising.”

  “I’m just thinking what’s best. We’ve got two little babies to consider, and I want us to give them a good family. Two happy parents.”

  “You’ve given up France, and your wine company,” she pointed out. “You’d looked for the right deal for a long time.”

  “I think my life will be better in the long run if we merged Sam with Maddie in Texas. All I can think about right now is babies who need their father as well as their mother.”

  “It’s so uneven,” she murmured. “Like the new shutters on the house. They’re lopsided, Sam, but only because Mom and Dad didn’t agree on what was even. She’d say up a little, he’d say no, they should be down a little, and the house ended up a little off balance.” She gave him a pain-filled glance, her delicate brows drawn together. “A little here, a little there all adds up. Somehow I think we’d end right back at square one.”

  “You need some time to yourself,” Sam said softly, “and I think you said a shower might be relaxing. So I’m going out to visit with the extended family. Try to get some rest.”

  She nodded slightly, her lower lip quivering, her eyes big and haunted as she watched him close the door behind him.

  Outside, he
hesitated, thinking about what they were doing. About what they weren’t doing.

  She had never planned on him returning for good.

  He wished that didn’t bother him as much as it did.

  “IT’S NOT THAT WE DON’T want you here, Sam,” Sara Winston told her son as she walked him over to see her rented house. “We just aren’t set up for company. We’ve been spending all our time helping Maddie with her house. And in the final months of the pregnancy, she didn’t feel so well. In fact, she was housebound. Severn and I thought you’d want us here in Austin to help in any way we could.”

  “I’m hardly company.”

  She glanced away for an instant. “You know what I mean, surely. The only bed in this house is ours.”

  Hard to argue with that. He was their only child, so it wasn’t like they’d ever plan for extended visits from farflung children. Except him, and clearly they had neither planned for nor expected his return. That didn’t make him feel one bit better. “You could have mentioned that your new address was next door to my ex-wife. I thought you were retiring to the coast.”

  His mother adjusted her pearls. “Maddie told us this house had come up for rent, and Severn suggested we take a short lease to see how we liked the area. We weren’t certain, you know, if Maddie would get tired of having us around. To tell you the truth, Sam, it’s so much nicer being close to her. Otherwise we would be spending our time in hotels or hauling up and down the highway to visit. This way we avoid a great many sleepless nights and purposeless worrying from not knowing what was happening here. And we’ve had the time of our lives getting to know Maddie and the Bradys better. In fact, your father is seriously considering purchasing the house for our permanent retirement residence.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me.”

  “Maddie didn’t want us to, and we agreed, Sam. You can be angry if you like, but we did what we thought was best for you and Maddie.”

  “Unfortunately, there is no Maddie and me.”

  “Certainly there is. They’re named Henry and Hayden, and that’s all your father and I care about. We didn’t choose sides. We chose to live near our grandchildren and their mother.”

  He kissed his mother on the cheek. “Thanks for looking after Maddie.”

  “You should be next door with the children, anyway. Not over here with us.”

  That wasn’t the way Maddie wanted it, and he’d decided to do things her way—for now. “It’s all going to work out, Mom. I’ll see you later.”

  He left the house, intending to go back to Maddie’s.

  “Sam!”

  He straightened at the carrying sound of Franny Brady’s voice. “Yes, Franny?”

  She gestured from the porch of what had last been the Reefers’ house. “Let me hug your neck, Sam. You haven’t given me a proper greeting.”

  “Let me make up for that at once.” He sprang up onto the porch and gave her a sound, grateful hug.

  “Now, you bad boy. You come inside and tell your old mother-in-law what was so pressing in France that you had to run off and leave us all in the lurch.” She went inside the comfortable one-story dwelling, leaving him to follow.

  “Maddie and I agreed to separate,” he began in self-defense as she pointed him to a chair in her mahogany-paneled kitchen. “She wanted it just as much as I did.”

  Franny put a paper plate on the table in front of him, loading it up with brownies and butterscotch cookies, then thumped down a glass of tea beside his plate. She stared at him from under iron-gray curls tumbling over her broad, lined forehead. Franny was from sturdy farm stock and didn’t tolerate guff in anyone. Her daughter had inherited a great deal of her head-on attitude. “You knew when you married my daughter that she wasn’t like any other woman. You always said that. Said she was original. That you wouldn’t find another like her if you hunted the world over. So, how’s the hunting?”

  “I haven’t been hunting. Maddie is Maddie. One of a kind. But Franny, I couldn’t give her what she wanted, and it was difficult.”

  Franny’s face softened. “I understand how hard that must be for you, Sam. But I think you jumped the gun. And damn it, I hate to lose the only man I’m positive I could stand for a son-in-law. Truly.”

  That touched him. He’d gotten along very well with Franny and Virgil—once they’d accepted him. They hadn’t thought he’d be happy with their daughter, suggesting that perhaps his family was too embedded in the Silk-Stocking Row for him to know a thing of quality when he saw it. He’d known it, however. Maddie would sparkle no matter where she was, and growing up on a hundred-acre cotton farm hadn’t affected her brilliance. “I can’t change the fact that we separated. Can’t turn back the clock.”

  “No. But it would be best for everyone if you cease this disastrous living arrangement here and now. The two of you belong together. And I hope you’ll remember my advice and not get all hotheaded when you discover Maddie decided to return to using her maiden name.” Franny shook her head. “I sure wish you the best of luck, Sam, but quite frankly, I fear you stayed away too long.”

  MADDIE NEARLY HAD heart failure when the door to her bedroom was flung open. She instinctively tightened her hold on the baby she was nursing. “Did it ever occur to you to knock?”

  “I just had a conversation with your mother.”

  She frowned at her tall, way too handsome ex. “I’m trying to relax so I can breast-feed. I can’t deal with family angst right now.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his gaze suddenly fixated on the contented newborn at her breast. Plainly uncomfortable, he diverted his gaze, fastening it to the lamb-and-lion picture on the opposite wall. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Not necessary. Just please don’t barge in. This is the only place in the house I can be alone. I’m having trouble letting down.”

  “Relaxing?”

  “Letting down milk.”

  “Oh.” He moved his gaze to a large potted palm in the corner.

  She closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of the warm, sleepy baby in her arms. “Are you bothered by the breast-feeding?”

  “I’m not sure what I am. Trying to give you some privacy, I think.” He stared down at his hands. “I’d like to help, though.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He shrugged big shoulders, the white polo shirt he wore flexing over a broad back. “Help somehow. Hold the baby. Do something. To be honest, I’m having trouble letting down myself.”

  They weren’t talking about milk now. “In what way?”

  “I guess even though those are my children, I don’t feel bonded to them in any way. Connected.”

  She could see the frown of concentration even with his face in profile. “You weren’t here, so you didn’t see me pregnant. And you haven’t really held them. Go ahead, Sam. Pick Henry up.”

  “Where is he?” He looked around, finally spying the baby between two king-size pillows on a towel on the lace-covered bed.

  The small baby lay on his stomach, sucking his fist gently, eyes blinking. “I don’t think I should pick him up. I might hurt him.”

  “You won’t.” Maddie smiled. “It’s the only way to bond. You have to touch them, hold them, smell them. Change diapers.”

  She stood, handing Hayden to Sam before he realized what she was doing. He was too busy trying to figure out how to settle the tiny baby in his arms to sneak a look at her breasts, and Maddie thought it an excellent sign that he was concentrating. Silently, she picked up Henry and settled him to feed.

  Apparently Sam developed the knack of holding a baby with lightning speed because his gaze immediately focused on the infant latching on to her nipple. Rats. Now she was uncomfortable.

  “Your breasts are so swollen. Do they hurt?”

  “A little,” she admitted. “Though I think I won’t be in as much pain if you look away.”

  He did, but she could see his eyes were still wide with amazement. The tingling between her legs warned her that she was st
ill very aware of Sam as a man, not as her ex. She insisted to herself the physical sensation was only her body reacting to the baby suckling her nipple. Abby told me that breast-feeding would cause my uterus to contract. That’s all it is.

  “I like holding him,” Sam said, his voice rich with pleasure.

  Unexpected tears popped into Maddie’s eyes. Would miracles never cease?

  “You’re kind of…sweet,” he murmured. “I mean, I think you need a diaper change, little fella, ’cause I’m pretty sure that’s not baby powder I smell, but hey, a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do, right?”

  He held the baby to his chest, gazing down into the small, open eyes. “I think someone should clean your bottom, which is going to be a little cruel since you’ve had your nice warm mother comforting you with those big breasts, treatment to put any right-thinking male into a seriously relaxed trance. A wipe down to the backside won’t be near as nice, but then you can get right back inside your cozy little blanket. Quite the life of luxury, eh, little man?”

  Maddie’s lips parted as Sam oh-so-carefully laid the baby on the bed.

  “How do I do this?”

  Her eyes widened. “Can you?” She’d expected him to hand the baby to her.

  “Is there a huge difference for babies?” Sam asked. “Except less space to cover?”

  “I guess not. The washcloths are stacked on the bathroom counter. Go in there and warm one up, and grab a diaper, too.”

  “Okay.” He went into the master bath. “Whoa! Who installed the ugly woman spitting water? That’s frightening!”

  Maddie grinned. “Our mothers.”

  “Ugh!”

  “It’s supposed to be soothing. They put it in there to give me an illusion of tranquility. Your mom read that the sound of water bubbling or gurgling was supposed to be calming, so my mom bought the fountain, and together they worked on it.”

  “I’m sure they had the best of intentions.” He brought the warmed cloth out, and carefully peeled off the tiny diaper. “I didn’t hear any bubbling or gurgling. Just spitting. And I’ve got to tell you, that’s not a remarkably serene sound effect.”