Surprise! Surprise!

by Tina Leonard

  “They’re just babies,” she said, her heart swelling with hope at the earnest tone in Sam’s voice.

  “They’re miracles,” he told her. “I don’t want to lose any of you.”

  Of course, she wanted to say that he couldn’t. But the truth was he had. “Mother says the second time’s the charm,” she whispered.

  “I’ve very rarely known Franny to be wrong,” he muttered, his head back against Maddie’s chest as he closed his eyes. “Or my mom. I guess mothers are a special breed. I’ll have to make a note of that.”

  Maddie was pretty sure he fell asleep then. Wiping away a tear, she gently stroked his hair.

  Actually, fathers were a very special breed themselves, particularly this one. Her heart heavy, she stared at the ceiling. “Make a note of this, Sam,” she whispered. “I’m so afraid of not being the woman you think I am.”

  She couldn’t stop thinking about those papers, which Sam had stuffed away in the kitchen somewhere. He didn’t trust her. He said he had to earn her trust back, when the truth was neither of them trusted the other.

  Martin and Vivi had fallen in love instantly. They trusted each other with innocent blindness. New-found love was miraculous that way.

  Just like babies.

  I miss that innocence.

  “GO SLOW. GO SLOW,” Sam reminded himself as he drove Martin and Vivi to the airport. He wasn’t thinking about driving, but about winning Maddie back. The agreement was signed. He owned Jardin. But he wanted Maddie, who was in the passenger seat beside him and as unattainable as if she were moving to France with his lawyer and the Frenchwoman. Caution, Stop, Heart Veering out of Control were the road signs of his heart. It was a problem.

  Problem solving was what successful businessmen were good at, right?

  “So, nothing more romantic than getting married in the city of love, eh, Sam?” Martin asked. “Maybe you and Maddie should come over and have a wedding redux after Vivi and I break in the city a little for you.”

  “Martin,” Sam growled. He didn’t dare look at Maddie.

  “They will come over when they are ready,” Vivi said. “I am looking forward to Maddie seeing what she is now the proud part-owner of.”

  Oops. Sam glanced at Maddie. Her blond brows elevated as she stared at him.

  “I’m not a part-owner of Jardin,” she said.

  Silence spread in the car, a long, drawn-out quiet that Sam spent privately cursing Vivi’s effusiveness. “Actually, you are,” he told Maddie. “I was going to tell you soon. Myself,” he called over his shoulder.

  “I am sorry, Sam,” Vivi murmured. “I had no idea.”

  Of course she hadn’t. His instructions to keep quiet about the matter had been to Martin.

  “I don’t understand,” Maddie said. Her lips were parted as she stared at him, and he wanted to kiss her, but he told himself he really couldn’t in traffic, and certainly not with the audience in the back seat.

  “Let me discuss it with you later.” He jerked his gaze away from Maddie and thumped the steering wheel. “Bad traffic today.”

  No one said anything to that. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, he saw Martin sneak a kiss from Vivi. Sam pulled his gaze away, sighing. Who would have ever thought this would have come from Maddie’s impromptu invitation? Vivi was clearly smitten, Martin was gaga and Maddie was…cool. “It’s hot,” Sam grumbled, not because he was, but complaining gave him a chance to vent. He reached over and flipped the air conditioner up a notch.

  Maddie caught his wrist in midair, forcing him to meet her gaze as they sat stranded at the stoplight. The question in her eyes was obvious. “Wouldn’t be any fun to own a winery without you,” he muttered under his breath. “You’re the one who made it possible. We’re in it together. But let’s talk about it when we’re alone.”

  “We were very alone last night, but you didn’t tell me.”

  “We were playing detective.”

  She frowned. “You had plenty of time to tell me.”

  “Yeah, well. I was enjoying searching through the lost-and-found.”

  She had a shiver just thinking about how thoroughly Sam had kissed her. Of course, he hadn’t paid a bit of attention to what she’d told him.

  “Did you?” he asked softly.

  “What?” She snapped out of her longing reverie.

  “Find anything you’d lost?” he asked under his breath.

  They were hunting, but not finding much. And she couldn’t take it lightly. “Trust is hard to find again. I think you should have discussed your decision with me.”

  Vivi and Martin were exchanging love talk and obviously weren’t tuned in to her and Sam anymore, so Maddie released Sam’s hand and stared out the opposite window.

  “I wanted it to be a surprise,” he told her.

  “It is that.” She wondered why being part-owner of Jardin made her uncomfortable.

  Maybe Sam’s right. He’s trying to share his life with me, and I’m too scared to do the same.

  “Here we are at the airport,” he said.

  The sound of a motorcycle roaring up alongside them made everybody turn. Joey tapped on Maddie’s window.

  “Joey!” she exclaimed, letting her window down. “What are you doing here?”

  “Our folks took Henry to the hospital. He had a high fever and was sick to his stomach for so long they decided he better go.”

  Henry, the baby who never wanted to eat.

  “Oh, no!” She jumped out of the car, instantly reaching for the helmet Joey handed her.

  Somehow, she remembered to wave goodbye to Vivi and Martin. Her fingers clenched Joey’s sides as the motorcycle roared away from the curb, and she thought she heard Sam’s voice call something to her, but her heart was frozen with fear for her baby and she couldn’t think.

  She just hung on.

  Sam pulled up beside them at the exit booth. “Come on,” he said to Maddie. “We do this together.”

  SAM COULDN’T HELP thinking as he stared through the nursery window at his tiny son that the tubes sticking into him had to be painful.

  Emergency surgery for an underdeveloped small intestine. Sam closed his eyes, running the same thought through his mind over and over. Please let him be all right. Please let him be all right.

  Maddie touched his arm. “Sam?”

  Opening his eyes, he stared at the unmoving infant. “Yes?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Why couldn’t he look at her? The pain stayed inside him, in a place where only he could examine it. He didn’t answer for a moment. The little arms and legs in the clear plastic bassinet held his entire attention.

  “Sam?” Maddie asked again. “You said we’d do this together,” she murmured.

  That was before, when he thought he had everything to gain and nothing else to lose. Henry was so soft and defenseless. How could he not protect his son? They wouldn’t even let him in to see him very often. When Sam did go in, it was all he could do not to cry.

  Maddie cried. She had the pediatric nurse, Katie Topper, comforting her, and Dr. Abby. Dr. Mitchell Maitland stopped by every once in a while to check on her.

  Sam opted for the strong, silent demeanor while everyone comforted his wife. He let them comfort her, so he could keep from crying himself. My poor son. I thought all I had to do was come back to Texas and everyone would live happily ever after. “I can’t stand the thought of losing him,” he whispered.

  Maddie leaned her head against his shoulder. “Oh, Sam.”

  “Twins seemed like one too many at first. Now I know that losing one would be…losing too much.”

  Maddie didn’t say anything to that, but she squeezed his arm. He was probably making her sad, but he didn’t mean to. The tiny head in the bassinet moved slightly, and Sam willed his strength to his son. Fight, Henry. Fight.

  “I’M WORRIED ABOUT SAM,” Maddie told Franny and Sara. “All he does is stand and look in that window.”

  She could hardly bear the heartbroken look
on her handsome husband’s face. His remoteness frightened her. “I’ve never known him to keep everything locked inside like this.”

  Sara shook her head. “He’s always tended to get quiet when he’s upset.”

  “He’s worried about his son,” Franny said, her tone thoughtful. “Nothing like worrying about a child to really take the taste out of your grits.”

  Sam had been quiet when they’d separated too. Courteous, formal, quiet. Then he’d left for France and she’d never heard from him again.

  Maddie wrapped her arms around herself. The feeling of aloneness was startling.

  If she was feeling it this badly, Sam was, too. She went to stand beside him again. “Sam,” she whispered.

  “Yes?”

  He might as well have been speaking to someone he didn’t know. “Sam, you weren’t here when the babies were born, but they looked an awful lot like this.”

  There was no answer. Maddie thought maybe she’d found the right approach.

  “They had tubes then, too, which were always hard for me to look at. Even though they supposedly were healthy and weighed a normal amount for twins, I was scared to death. They appeared weak and helpless, a lot like Henry does now.”

  Sam shook his head. Then he wiped at his cheek. Maddie silently put her hand in her husband’s and didn’t say another word.

  “I DON’T THINK THIS IS going so well,” Franny confided to Sara. “Sam doesn’t say a word to Maddie. He’s like a giant block of granite that never moves from that spot.”

  “He’s going to make himself ill,” Sara concurred. “Both Severn and I have tried to talk to him, but I’m beginning to wonder if he’s in shock.”

  “Two days is a long time to go incommunicado.” Franny frowned. “Maddie is beside herself. Not only does she worry about Henry, she’s worried about Sam. Frankly, I’m worried about her.”

  “This can’t be healthy for either one of them.”

  Franny heard the distress in Sara’s voice. She took her friend’s hand in her own, patting it. They clung to each other for a moment, seeking strength.

  “A marriage is built on sharing. Shared strength, shared happiness, shared sadness,” Sara said. “But you can’t make two people turn to each other.”

  “I think you’re right,” Franny agreed sadly. “I wish we could help somehow, but this is something Maddie and Sam are going to have to work out between themselves.”

  Sara nodded. “The funny thing is, I have a feeling Henry is going to be just fine. It’s Maddie and Sam who are in need of healing right now.” She sighed unhappily. “I had such high hopes, Franny. I just knew that this time they’d work it all out.”

  “Second time’s the charm,” Franny said softly. “I hoped it was, anyway.”

  “It’s terrible to have to stand by and watch your child suffer. Sam and Maddie are watching Henry, and we’re watching Sam and Maddie.”

  Franny shook her head. Sam might as well have been back in France, because he sure wasn’t where anyone could reach him.

  Not even Maddie.

  Chapter Nine

  One week later, Maddie had to face the fact that everything she and Sam had argued about had been trivial. Nothing mattered except having a happy, healthy family.

  Henry was back home, eating more normally than he had.

  But Sam had moved next door with his parents. He slept on the couch during the day, coming over at night to sit up with the babies. Maddie was getting a lot of rest, but her heart was shattered.

  He barely spoke to anyone. It was as if he’d appointed himself the guardian of her and the children, a quiet protector of the night.

  It was week four in the twins’ lives—and ground zero in her marriage.

  And that’s when she knew she’d harbored a dream that, this time, Sam wanted her enough to stick out the good times and the bad. The pain and the pleasure.

  It broke her heart.

  “Have you tried talking to him?” Franny asked her daughter.

  “Yes.” Sam had ceased communicating the moment he saw his tiny son with needles in him, out of the reach of Sam’s sheltering arms. “I’ve even tried not talking to him, so he could have some space.”

  Franny scratched her mop of iron-gray, scattered curls. “The man is suffering.”

  “I know.” Maddie put some baby clothes in the washer. “Sometimes when I wake up in the night, I can hear him pacing overhead in the nursery. I think he just stands there and stares at those babies. Like maybe he’s afraid they’re going to stop breathing or something.”

  “I can understand that.” Franny reached for some miniature baby booties, matching them expertly and rolling them into pairs. “To receive something you wanted desperately, when you didn’t even know it was possible, is a miracle. To have it snatched away almost as unexpectedly would be very traumatic.”

  Maddie set down the detergent. “I never thought of it that way.”

  “I didn’t, either, until you mentioned he paces the floor at night.” Franny shrugged. “His sons are awfully delicate, Maddie, if you think about it. Sam’s had no experience with younger siblings, or babies in general. He doesn’t know that the twins look just like other babies. I’ll bet he is worried out of his skull over them.”

  Maddie’s heart lightened at the possible explanation. “You could be right.”

  “And if you consider the fact that he might think what happened to Henry was the result of something he did wrong, and he didn’t know it, wouldn’t that make it all the more upsetting?” She folded some diapers in two, and reached for receiving blankets. “It wasn’t like he could say, ‘oh, we’ve been feeding this baby wrong,’ or ‘I didn’t do this right, so I’ll have to be more careful in the future.’ He couldn’t see what was wrong with the baby nor can he take any precautions that something like that doesn’t happen again.”

  “It’s out of his control.”

  “Right.”

  Maddie nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. But,” she said, drawing a deep breath, “I had this idea that we would work through problems together.”

  Franny clasped her weathered hands. “Maybe that’s asking too much of any marriage sometimes. Perhaps that’s putting Sam up on some high pedestal, in a position where he can’t live up to your expectations.”

  “Do you think so?” Maddie stared at her mother, who shrugged.

  “Everyone grieves and worries and celebrates differently, I’d say. Sam’s frozen right now. He’s in pain. I don’t think he meant to shut you out, but I reckon this time maybe it’s better to just understand that he’s coping the best he can.”

  “You’re right. I’ve been thinking of myself.”

  “No.” Franny touched her daughter’s hair with loving fingers. “You spend more time thinking about him than you realize. And your babies. Sometimes we just have to rethink matters, and then the answer comes out differently.”

  Maddie smiled and took her mother’s hand. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Franny squeezed her fingers. “Your turn is coming one day, my dear. Mothers spend a lot of time thinking about their children. But then they’re older, and suddenly, a bandage on the knee just isn’t the answer anymore.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “It’s all going to work out fine.” Franny smiled. “You’re a lovely daughter, and my son-in-law is a good man. A mother couldn’t hope for more than that.”

  THAT NIGHT, when Sam’s pacing began, Maddie put on a cotton bathrobe that reached her knees. She warmed up some tea in the kitchen and took it upstairs. Without saying a word, she set it on a coffee table, then squeezed his arm as he stared down at the wrapped bundles in the baby cribs. He didn’t respond.

  She went back downstairs to bed.

  The next night when the pacing began, she did the same thing. This time, Sam patted her hand when she touched his arm. He didn’t say anything, and neither did Maddie. After a moment, she went back to bed.

  When she awakened the next morning, he was gone, of cour
se, and the grandmothers were upstairs in the nursery. “Good morning,” Maddie said. “I’m beginning to feel like a princess.”

  “You won’t believe this,” Sara told her with shining eyes, “but this morning when we arrived, Sam was fast asleep on the couch!”

  That was a good sign. “I didn’t drug his tea, I promise.”

  Franny swiftly diapered Hayden. “Sam’s going to come around. We just have to be patient with the man.”

  Sara sat down in a rocker with Henry. “I appreciate you being so patient with my son, Franny. To tell you the truth, I was starting to get a bit embarrassed.”

  “No need,” Franny said. “Family pulls together.” She met her daughter’s eyes, and Maddie nodded.

  It wasn’t the way Maddie had pictured it, but pulling together was so much better than pulling apart. Sam was afraid for his children, and needed to be reassured. He wanted an eye kept on them twenty-four hours a day.

  There was a way both goals—reassuring Sam and monitoring the babies—could be accomplished. “I’ve got an idea,” she suddenly said. “If you think the grandfathers wouldn’t mind running an errand for me.”

  SAM STARED AT the new camera monitor in the nursery. It wasn’t like any he had ever seen. This was more than an audio monitor.

  There was a note attached. “To Daddy, Love, Henry and Hayden,” he read. But the words were written in Maddie’s delicate hand. He sighed, deeply touched that she would give him a gift in the babies’ names.

  He knew he’d neglected his wife. That was the last thing he wanted. All through his silence, when he couldn’t move, could barely think, he’d been aware of her gentle, caring presence.

  It was as if she understood he could only concentrate on the overwhelming fear and panic over his ill child. As if she knew he had to make his own way back.

  He tucked a blanket around each infant carefully, felt each small forehead, before brushing a kiss there. The babies felt warm, alive.