A Montana Mavericks Christmas

by Susan Mallery

  In the middle of the night last night, Jeremy had awakened thinking about Brooke and Adam, and he’d known exactly what he was going to do—set up a trust fund for each of them. That way he’d feel as if he were securing their future. Leah couldn’t possibly object to that, could she? Teresa Nighthawk had done everything she could to secure Leah’s future. That’s why Leah was having so much difficulty letting go of an old dream and replacing it with a new one. Besides giving his children security, he wanted to give Brooke and Adam the freedom to do whatever they wanted with their lives. No matter what Leah said, he was going to do that.

  When he stepped outside his lawyer’s office, a chilling breeze blew across him and he snapped his sheepskin jacket closed. Turning in the direction of his Jeep parked on the street beyond the Whitehorn sheriff’s building, he saw Danielle Mitchell standing in front of the office, her auburn hair flying around her face in a blast of wind.

  He’d met Danielle and her husband Kyle after he’d moved to Whitehorn and opened his practice. They’d attended charity functions the hospital sponsored. When he’d brought Sara home after she’d escaped the kidnappers, he’d examined her and reassured Danielle over and over that with love and attention, her daughter would recover from the trauma of being kidnapped.

  But right now Danielle looked almost as upset as she had after her husband, Kyle, an FBI agent, had disappeared mysteriously two years ago. As Jeremy got closer, he noticed she was wiping a tear from her cheek. “Danielle, what’s wrong? Has something happened to Sara?”

  She shook her head and turned up the collar of her long, black coat. “Did you see the article in the Whitehorn Journal this morning?” she asked him.

  He’d brought in the paper but never looked at it. He’d been too intent on making an appointment with his lawyer. “No, I haven’t. What was in it?”

  “Some reporter was stupid enough to print everything he could find out about Sara and the kidnapping, and reminded the kidnappers that Sara’s the only one who can identify them. Now they know her name! I asked Sterling to call a man Kyle knew at the FBI. Luke Mason says he’ll look into protection for her. In the meantime Sterling insists we stay with him and Jessica. I know he’s doing everything he can, but I’m so afraid for Sara. We can’t stay with the McCallums indefinitely.”

  Her voice quivered and Jeremy felt sorry for her. Without Kyle by her side, she had the burden of this situation with Sara. “Do you want to go have a cup of coffee?”

  She hesitated a moment, but then responded, “I’d like that. If you’re sure you have time.”

  “I don’t have office hours until one. Do you want to go to the Hip Hop?”

  She nodded.

  Soup was heating on the stove when Leah tried to call the McCallums again. She hadn’t reached anyone there all day and it was almost five o’clock. The phone rang a few times, but then Jessica answered.

  “Hi, Jessica, it’s Leah. I saw the article in the paper today and was worried about Danielle and Sara.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it,” Jessica said, her anger evident. “Danielle is terribly upset. I convinced her and Sara to stay with us for a few more days. Sterling’s hoping that either something will break soon or Sara will start talking. I took the girls sledding this morning, then when Danielle came home, we went to a movie. We’re trying not to let Sara and Jenny see how worried we are. Hold on a minute and I’ll get Danielle.”

  In a few moments Danielle came to the phone. “Hi, Leah.” Her voice sounded as if she were purposely trying to be cheerful.

  “How are you holding up?” Leah asked.

  “Not as well as I’d like, but I’m determined to keep Sara safe whether the FBI protects her or not.” She told Leah that Sterling had called Luke Mason. “It’s just that on top of everything else, a few weeks ago I sent—”

  Leah waited as Danielle gathered her emotions once more.

  “I sent Kyle a letter in care of the FBI. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, but if he’s alive, I’ve got to put some order back in my life and Sara’s.”

  Not pressing her friend for more, Leah knew Danielle would talk if she needed to. “It’s good you have Jessica and Sterling.”

  “And you and Jeremy. I ran into him when he was coming out of Gil Brown’s office. He offered to buy me a cup of coffee and helped me settle down enough so that I didn’t come back here looking as worried as I felt.”

  “Gil Brown?” Leah knew he was a lawyer whose office was located practically next door to the sheriff’s office. Why was Jeremy seeing a lawyer? “Did Jeremy say why he was seeing Mr. Brown?”

  “No, he didn’t. I was so wrapped up in talking about Sara, I didn’t let the him get a word in edgewise.”

  Covering a ripple of worry that washed through her, Leah said casually, “Jeremy’s a good listener.”

  After Leah spoke with Danielle a few more minutes, telling her to call if there was anything she could do, she hung up. But her mind was racing. Why had Jeremy seen Gil Brown? Did it have something to do with yesterday and her reaction? Was he trying to find out what his rights were? To see if he could make her stay in Whitehorn? To take the children away from her if she didn’t stay?

  After all, he was well respected in this community—a doctor—and he had plenty of money. She, on the other hand, didn’t even have a viable job at the moment. But she did have that offer for an interview. If Jeremy did anything, anything at all, to try to take her children from her, she’d fight like she’d never fought before.

  The rest of the day passed slowly as Leah talked and sang to the twins, fed them, played with their fingers and toes, rocked them and loved them. All the while her mind was on Jeremy’s visit to the lawyer. She didn’t have the money to hire an attorney. If he wanted to take Brooke and Adam away from her, what could she do except run?

  Away from the man she loved?

  If he was planning a strategy with a lawyer, he couldn’t possibly have feelings for her.

  There was only one thing she could do—confront him about it, try to catch him by surprise so she could learn what he was planning. She couldn’t believe how deep the hurt went when she thought about it, how very much she’d come to care about him…to love him. But one-sided love wasn’t enough…never enough to make a marriage succeed.

  She’d never known much about marriage, never seen it working until she’d come back to the res with her mother. There were successful marriages all around her. Sterling and Jessica had been through so much together and had held fast. Then there was Bessie and Joe, Sam Brightwater and Julia, with their new baby, Jackson and Maggie, Kane and his wife Moriah. All of these couples had been through fire of one sort or another and had come out strong, loving each other in a way any passerby could see. That’s the kind of marriage Leah wanted—the kind of marriage that lasted forever.

  Every day since the twins had been born, Jeremy had either called or stopped in. Each minute ticked by on an inner clock as Leah waited, wondered and worried. Because of the holiday, he had office hours this afternoon and then he’d have evening rounds at the hospital.

  After Brooke and Adam were settled for the evening, Leah wished she could concentrate on something, anything but the questions that grew bigger and bolder with each passing hour. Finally she settled down at the kitchen table with a vest she was beading. Her mother had taught her the craft years before, but Leah had only taken it up again since she’d been back on the res. It was a black velvet vest and she was beading it in white and shades of blue. It was almost finished, but even her intense concentration couldn’t put her fears to rest, and she finally turned on the radio to have something to distract her.

  She recognized the sound of Jeremy’s Jeep as he pulled up outside. Then she heard the door closing and, finally, his boots on the porch. Taking a few calming breaths, she anticipated his knock and eventually it came. Carefully laying the vest on the table, she went to answer the door.

  He was smiling. “Sorry I’m so late.” He held u
p a bag in his hand. “I stopped at the Hip Hop and asked Janie to box up tonight’s special. I don’t even know what it is, but I can share it with you if you’d like.”

  Her stomach was tied in knots. “I’ve already eaten.”

  Coming inside, he dropped the bag on the coffee table and snapped open his coat, shrugged it off, and laid it on the back of the chair. “Did Brooke and Adam have a fussy spell tonight?”

  “For about an hour, then they settled down fairly easily. Jeremy…”

  He sat on the sofa and was ready to open up the bag when he looked at her. “Is something wrong?”

  Her hands were sweaty and she stuck them into the pockets of her denim skirt for a moment. He was acting so normal, as if this were any other night. But what she knew or thought she knew wouldn’t let her treat it that way. She couldn’t make casual conversation as if nothing had changed. “I spoke with Danielle earlier.”

  “Oh…the article in the Journal. I wish that reporter would lose his job, but the bottom line is, the story probably sold a lot of papers. I guess she told you we had coffee together. I haven’t seen her this unhinged since…well, since Kyle disappeared.”

  There was only one way to do this and that was to jump right into it. “Danielle told me she saw you coming out of Gil Brown’s office.”

  Jeremy took a plastic container out of the bag. “Yes, she did.”

  “Why were you there?” Leah asked.

  His hands stilled on the box. “Why do you think I was there?”

  “I don’t know. I can only guess one reason. Were you looking into what your rights are? Do you plan to take the twins away from me?” She had to know exactly what was on his mind, and the only way to do that was to lay her worst fear out there for him to see.

  But instead of giving her an answer, he stood. “That’s what you’ve been thinking? That I stopped at Brown’s office to look into taking Brooke and Adam away from you?”

  There was a mixture of anger and incredulity in his tone that confused her. “If I won’t let you give them everything you want, if I do plan on moving away—”

  “For God’s sake, don’t you know me at all?” His voice was deep and angry.

  “I thought I did, but when Danielle told me, I couldn’t help thinking—”

  Again he cut her off. “Damn it, Leah! No, I don’t want you to leave. Yes, I want to be a father to my children. Sure, I want to give them everything I can give them—and that is why I was at Gil Brown’s office.”

  Her heart started beating so rapidly she could hardly catch her breath. “Then you are planning something.”

  “Yes, I’m planning something.” His voice went very low but was so vehement she could practically feel the vibration of it. “I instructed Brown to set up trust funds for Brooke and Adam.”

  It took almost a minute for his words to sink in. “Trust funds?”

  “Yes, trust funds. For college, for trips abroad, for trade school, for whatever Brooke and Adam are going to need in their lives.”

  “Oh, Jeremy,” she said softly, her voice quivering as guilt for her doubts overtook her.

  “How could you possibly think I would connive to take them away from you?”

  “You seem to love them as much as I do.” It was the only excuse she could think of.

  “I don’t seem to. I do love them as much as you do, and that’s why I would never take them away from you. They need you, probably more than they could ever need me. Don’t you think I know that?” He sounded furious and frustrated and altogether disgusted with her.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  He stared at her for a few moments. “You obviously don’t know how to trust, either.” Picking up his jacket from the chair, he headed for the bedroom. After he looked in on Brooke and Adam, he crossed to the door. “I thought we at least had basic trust between us, Leah, but I guess I was wrong.” He nodded to the coffee table. “Toss that out if you don’t want it. I’ve lost my appetite.”

  Before she could even think of a way to apologize to him, he’d left and closed the door behind him.

  She stared at the plastic container, then sank into the armchair, her chest tight, tears only a blink away. What could she do to make this up to him? How could she ever convince him to give her another chance to trust him?

  Oh, Mom, she prayed, just what do I do now?

  Five

  After being up with both twins at three in the morning and then again at six, Leah dozed off once she got them settled again. Brooke awakened her at ten, and it was too late to get ready for church. She went about their usual morning routine, thinking all the while about Jeremy. And she kept thinking about him throughout the day until that evening when he called. His voice was cool and polite as he inquired about the twins, and Leah felt as if he didn’t really want to talk to her.

  She needed to apologize to him, but she couldn’t do it over the phone, not when he was putting up such a wall between them. She had an appointment with George McGruder in the morning to check the twins’ weight and make sure everything was okay in the absence of the pediatrician who had first seen them. Leah knew Dr. McGruder’s office was in the same complex as Jeremy’s. Maybe afterward she would stop by and see Jeremy and tell him how very sorry she was for doubting him.

  Bessie offered to drive Leah and the babies on Monday morning, insisting she had errands she could run while Leah and the twins were with the doctor. It was as if Bessie was determined to take Teresa Nighthawk’s place in Leah’s life, and Leah was grateful.

  Dr. McGruder pronounced both babies happy, healthy and growing. Afterward, Leah put the twins in a double carrier made of soft leather that fit across her chest so she could keep the babies close to her. They could feel the warmth of her body and seemed content. As she picked up the diaper bag and walked down the hall toward Jeremy’s suite of offices, she was anxious about seeing him. Her mouth went dry as she opened the door into his waiting room.

  Once inside, Leah looked around with dismay. There were four patients waiting, and Leah knew Jeremy would be too busy to see her now. As she was about to turn to leave, a nurse opened the door that lead to the examining rooms and spotted her.

  Mary Jansen, a woman in her fifties, smiled at Leah as she called the next patient inside. The man passed through the door and Mary called out, “Second door on the right,” before she turned her attention back to Leah. “Would you like to see Dr. Winters?”

  Mary had helped Jeremy at the clinic on the res. “I don’t want to bother him if he’s busy,” Leah said. She also didn’t want to have a rushed conversation with him, and they couldn’t do more than that with this many people waiting.

  “Are the babies sleeping?” Mary asked, sounding hopeful that they weren’t. The look in her eyes said Jeremy must have told her about the twins or she’d heard about them via the Whitehorn grapevine.

  Leah crossed to her, knowing Mary was a kind woman, hoping she wouldn’t judge.

  With a tender expression, Mary looked down at the twins. “Which is Brooke and which is Adam?”

  Leah had dressed Brooke in a green terry jumpsuit and Adam in a yellow one. After she introduced Mary to both of them, the nurse cooed over the infants. Then she commented, “It’s so great Jeremy has somebody to care about again. When his wife and child died, he was devastated. Now all he talks about are Brooke and Adam.”

  There was no doubt that the twins meant a lot to Jeremy. But one question still plagued Leah. Were she and the babies simply replacements for the wife and unborn child that he had lost? Did she mean anything to him separate from their twins? She knew this wasn’t the place to talk to Jeremy. She needed to be alone with him, to apologize and to have her questions answered. Making an excuse to Mary, she quickly left the office.

  That evening, Leah was washing her supper dishes when there was a knock on the door. She quickly dried her hands, went to the door and opened it.

  Jeremy stood there, his expression neutral, his gaze unreadable.

&nbs
p; “Come in,” she said, stepping back.

  After he crossed the threshold, he took off his gloves and stuffed them into his jacket pocket. “Mary told me you came to the office this morning. Why did you leave without seeing me?”

  Suddenly faced with Jeremy in person, Leah couldn’t remember anything she’d wanted to say. “I had an appointment with Dr. McGruder and thought I’d stop in. But your waiting room was full and I—I was afraid the babies would get too fussy.”

  Unsnapping his jacket, Jeremy shrugged it off and tossed it over the arm of a chair. “And why did you stop in?”

  He was standing in front of her, dressed in suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His tie was slightly askew, and she longed for the freedom to tug it off altogether. Being a new mother hadn’t dimmed her attraction to him one iota. “I came to ask you to forgive me for doubting you. I’m sorry, Jeremy.”

  At first she didn’t think he was going to accept her apology, but then some of the rigidity went out of his stance.

  “I would never try to take the twins away from you. I came from a divorced household, spending part of the year with my mother, part of it with my father. It was unsettling, unstable, and difficult to create bonds that lasted, especially with other children. I wouldn’t do that to my son and daughter. They need a stable base with you, Leah. But I intend to be just as much a part of their lives.”