Luke nodded, still dealing with his own grief for good friends.
“It’s good that Joe and Carrie considered all possibilities and had you and Valerie legally declared guardians if something happened to them.” Slowly she stirred sugar into her coffee now. “I’d hate to imagine them living with Joe’s cousin. Charlene Evans is nothing but a-”
“Easy, Mom,” he cut in before she got too keyed up.
“Well, she is.” Primly she lifted her chin a touch. “She’s too self-centered to care about anyone except herself, so it’s good she’s not involved.” She pursed her lips in the manner of someone struggling for silence.
Luke didn’t doubt she was mentally delivering a one-on-one to Charlene.
Taking a deep breath, she deliberately softened her voice to indicate her anger had ebbed. “What will you and Valerie do now?”
Luke raked his fingertips across the stubble on his jaw. He wanted to ease the conversation in another direction. Though it hadn’t been easy, somehow he and Val had managed to keep their troubled marriage a private matter from everyone except Val’s grandfather and Jenny Stevens. McCord, soon, he reminded himself. She’d be Jenny McCord next year. “Mom, it’s too early in the morning for questions.”
Both impatience and worry clouded her eyes. “Valerie isn’t still enthusiastic about moving to Dallas, is she?”
He raised his head slowly. Dumbfounded that she even knew about Val’s plans, he tried to veil his surprise.
“I’d hoped she’d changed her mind since she’d mentioned that before what happened-before you got the twins,” she said to clarify what she meant. “When Valerie mentioned she wanted to move, she also said she didn’t think you’d want to go.”
Luke picked up quickly on what had happened. His Wife had been preparing his mother for what seemed inevitable. Because of irrevocable differences, her son and his wife were divorcing. Obviously the conversation hadn’t reached that stage and his mother only believed they had a slight problem in their perfect marriage.
“I assured her you two would come to some agreement. Dallas is only thirty miles away.” She bounded to a stand to refill his coffee cup, and rambled on. “Why couldn’t you two live in Dallas, and you commute to New Hope? I mean, I understand your practice is here but-”
“She wants to go to Houston, not Dallas.” When Val had made the announcement, he’d been stunned. She’d known he wouldn’t budge from New Hope. He’d always said that he never planned to live anywhere else. From the first day they’d met over four years ago, he’d told her that after medical school he’d chosen to pass on big money positions and return to the town where he’d been born and raised.
“You’re moving and I’m not,” he’d said to her. “What now?”
Only one answer had made sense-divorce.
Then the phone had rung, shattering the silence between them. That phone call had changed everything. Shock had slammed at them when they’d learned Carrie and Joe had died. Suddenly they’d been of one mind for the first time in too long as they’d asked the same question. “Where are the twins?”
“You have the twins to consider now,” his mother said, cutting into his thoughts.
Luke raised his eyes to her as he took several sips of the steaming brew she’d set in front of him.
She pulled her chenille robe tighter before sitting again. As a kid, he’d sat like this with her early in the morning before he would head out to deliver newspapers. z“You and Val will apply for permanent guardianship, and eventually adopt them, won’t you?”
Luke stalled, not certain what was in the future. Quickly he offered an explanation to prevent a rash of questions. “There are a lot of things to think about.” Before she delved deeper, he drained the coffee in his cup, then pecked her cheek with a kiss. “Talk to you soon.”
He hadn’t been evasive with her. He honestly didn’t know what was going to happen.
Within minutes he pulled into the driveway at home. Having caught only snatches of sleep at the hospital, he wondered if he could grab a few hours in bed before the twins awakened. He opened the back door that led into the kitchen and walked into chaos.
Val stood with her back to him, straddling Traci’s high chair. “You have to sit or I can’t feed you.”
Stiffening, the little one yelled, waving her arms, and balked at sitting.
In her high chair, Brooke banged on the tray, her eyes darting to him. “Lu-cas. Me up.”
Startled, Val swung around. She hadn’t expected him home yet. In need of a shave, with his hair tousled from the wind, he carried the look of morning.
While she’d been daydreaming, he’d moved closer. “You stay down. And you sit down,” he said firmly to Traci, plunking her into the high chair. Quickly, he fastened the strap. “I didn’t expect them up yet,” he admitted to Val.
Val stifled amusement. He’d be in for a rude awakening tomorrow then, when he learned dawn was their wake-up time. “They get up very early.”
What Luke thought was humor in her voice made him turn his head. She seemed different to him. Brighter in spirit, her smiles coming easily, like they used to. Or was she just making the best of this situation?
“Me up,” Brooke insisted again.
“Traci up,” her sister echoed.
Over her shoulder, Val sent him a now-you’re-infor-it look.
“Why don’t I read a book while we wait for breakfast,” he suggested.
Val gladly relinquished the task of quieting them and busied herself getting their breakfast.
“Hat. Cat in hat,” Brooke yelled.
Traci shook her head adamantly. “Big Bird book.”
“The hat book now and-” He paused as Traci’s face squinched up in preparation to wail. “And the Big Bird book when you’re done eating.”
Traci’s features relaxed. She blew out a breath, thrusting out her lower lip. Since silence reigned, he viewed the pout as acceptance and rummaged in a box in the kitchen corner for the books. “You didn’t get them settled in yet?”
“It’s taking more time than I expected.” Val didn’t mention that bedlam had prevailed last night before bedtime while she’d searched in cartons for Brooke’s teddy bear and Traci’s doll.
Luke frowned into the carton of books. He should have been home with her. Was she thinking he was never near when she needed him?
“Lu-cas read.” Brooke patted his shoulder to grab his attention.
Guilt closing in on him, he looked down to concentrate on the pages of the book, but that wasn’t easy. Nothing made sense suddenly. They were ready to divorce, yet he was as aware of his wife now as he’d been when they were first married. Slanting a look in her direction, he watched her reach for the cereal. The silky material of her short robe clung to her hips. Then the hem raised, exposing a shapely thigh. A shimmer of heat slowly inching down him, Luke leaned back in his chair. Spending time with her-pretending-was going to be harder than he’d expected.
While he rattled the last of the tongue-twister rhymes, Val set a bowl of cereal and a spoon in front of each twin. With her closeness, he nearly fingered her hair. Whether it was crazy or not, he found himself thinking about touching her.
Relaxed, Val grabbed her first sip of coffee since awakening and lounged against the counter. She could handle moments like this with Luke, she told herself. For the twins’ sake, they would pretend…. A quick, familiar grin curved his lips, nearly undoing her. That he was looking at the twins didn’t seem to matter. Something fluttered inside her.
“If you can deal with this alone for a little while, I thought I’d go to the hardware store,” he said, dropping the books back into the carton.
It took her a moment to concentrate on what he was saying. Was he really offering to spend time doing odd jobs? “Aren’t you going into the office later this morning?”
“No. Besides dead bolts on the doors, what do you want done?” Out of natural reflex, he stared expectantly at her. A trait learned as a husband. There were t
imes when her decisions outranked his, like now.
Val had planned to call Pete Armstrong who, for a minimal fee, would have done the safety proofing of the house. With Luke’s offer, she didn’t have the heart to suggest that to him now. But Mr. Handyman, he wasn’t. “I thought locks for the cabinets, including special ones for the medicine cabinets, and those shields for the sockets.”
“Do you want a gate of some sort for the bedroom to keep them from wandering all over the place?” His voice trailed off and his gaze shifted toward Traci.
Bent to the side, she was happily watching cereal plop from her spoon onto the floor.
“Traci, no.” Val dashed for the paper towel roll, then dropped to her knees to mop up the mess.
“Don’t you think you should-?” Luke shut up as she snapped a fiery look at him. After he moved the cereal out of Traci’s reach and took the spoon from her, he snatched a wad of the toweling to join Val on the floor. “I’ll take those,” he said about the soggy paper towels in her hand.
“Thanks.” She wasn’t angry about the mess. Her problem was him. She supposed she’d simply have to get used to having him around so much. Feeling less irritable, she searched for conversation. “Will you have time to childproof everything today?”
“I’ll have time.” Last night he’d thought long and hard about a lot of things, including his role in the failure of their marriage. He’d let her down too much already.
“If you can’t do it all today, tomorrow-” As he reached for the wet paper towels in her hand, his fingers brushed hers. Her breath hitched, pleasure bubbling up within her so quickly she had no time to block it.
“I’ll have time today,” Luke insisted, answering with a casualness that took effort.
“Good.” Val masked emotion with a reminder. It was normal to still feel twinges of desire. Whatever old emotions were stirring would level off.
On his way to the door, Luke tossed the soaked paper into the wastebasket. “I shouldn’t take too long at the hardware store.” Not expecting a response from her, he fished the car keys from the pocket of his Levi’s. The announcement he’d put off since arriving home was long overdue. Stopping at the door, he faced her. “I’m taking a few days off.”
“What?” She wasn’t sure that was a good idea. Pretending was one thing. Being together too much might cause some difficult moments.
“I traded duty in the emergency room at the hospital. And I talked to Fred Henderson about seeing patients I had appointments with at the office this week.”
Val sensed by the hint of amusement in his eyes that she looked the way she felt-stunned. “Why are you doing this?”
Why was he? To help? To ease some old feelings he’d never totally gotten rid of? He answered as honestly as he could. “This is as new to you as it is to me. And we need to get them settled in.”
She stood, staring after him, and feeling confused. An eternity had passed since they’d worked hard together toward a goal.
* * *
Throughout the morning, though the twins behaved, they were a handful to keep an eye on. Carrying a clean set of sheets, Val entered the master bedroom. Quickly she stripped the bed and, gathering the sheets, dumped them into the clothes hamper. Merrily, Traci was jumping on the mattress. Spotting Val, she romped through the blanket and bedspread that were heaped at a corner as if they were her private tunnel.
Amused, Val lifted her off and set her on the floor. Her back to the door, she heard the pitter-patter of feet and swung around to see Brooke barreling onto the bed and rolling herself in the blanket. Val grabbed her. With Brooke in her arms, she turned back to Traci. Across the hall now, in their room, she was tearing her way through the small stuffed animals in a carton and flinging them into the hallway.
With a small shake of her head, Val snatched Traci in her other arm. Sitting both girls against the wall, she pointed her finger at them. “Don’t move until I tell you.”
Identical faces with sparkling eyes appealed to her. Marshmallow, Val mused. Scooping up both of them, she fell back on the bed and was rewarded with the sound of their laughter as they bounced on the mattress.
By 11:30 she’d finished making the beds and vacuuming. Phone calls from friends slowed Val’s progress at making lunch. She thanked them all for their offers to help her and gave assurances she had everything under control. Of course, she didn’t.
“Lu-cas, Lu-cas,” Brooke yelled, barreling through the kitchen when she heard the sound of a car door slamming. The moment he stepped in, she lunged at him and clung to his denim-clad leg.
A bag cradled in one arm, he ran his other hand over the crown of silky blond hair. “What are you and Traci doing?”
“Nutin’.” She flashed a saintly smile that only a two year old could get away with.
“Nutin’, huh?” He responded to her need for affection and dropped to her level to pull her into his arms. “You’ve been good?”
Her head bobbed dramatically. As she smacked a kiss on his cheek, he set the bag on the floor. Like a welcoming signal, Traci leapt at him. Luke caught her in his other arm and cuddled her, too.
Val felt her heart squeeze and turned away from the sight of the three of them hugging. Somewhere deep inside him still existed all the tenderness and warmth that had seemed to disappear during the past months. Yet she’d lost touch with that man, with what he felt, what he was worried or pleased about. She hadn’t known that man since the day their daughter had died, since the day he’d drawn inside himself, shutting her out.
She looked up from the vegetables she was chopping to stir-fry for lunch and saw two blond toddlers trailing him out of the room.
Half an hour later, Val finished carting the rest of the stuffed animals to a cabinet in the twins’ bedroom and glanced at the clock. Engrossed in what she’d been doing, she’d nearly forgotten lunch.
With the rice steaming, she searched the first floor, then climbed the stairs. Hearing voices in one of the bathrooms, she slowed her stride.
“Whatsat?” Brooke asked, peering over Luke’s arm.
Luke clamped a hand over the screwdriver before Brooke’s fingers closed over it. “A screwdriver.”
“Scewdiver,” Traci said in his ear, draping herself over his back and strangleholding him with her arms. “Traci do it.”
“No, I’ll do it,” Luke informed her.
While the girls badgered him with questions, he never missed a beat. He kept working, his voice calm as he answered each one.
Peering down at his hands, Traci pressed her cheek against his. “Why?”
“Because it should be locked.”
“Why?” Brooke asked now, bending forward over his arm again to get a better view of what he was doing.
Val decided to rescue him. “Is anyone hungry?”
“Hungry,” the girls responded in unison.
Holding out a hand toward the twins, Val enticed them with a job. “We have to set the table.” As they charged for her legs, she braced herself for the jolt. “Will you be done here in a few minutes?” she asked Luke.
“Go ahead and start without me.”
Despite his intent to keep working and avoid the cozy lunch, he joined them a few minutes later. Spills and childish chatter kept the moments free of these silences between Val and him that he wanted to avoid.
After a lively half-hour of lunchtime chatter, he resumed the job of covering wall sockets in his den. From the vicinity of a bathroom upstairs, wails resounded through the rooms. What now? he wondered. Choosing a nail to hook up the venetian blind cord, he grabbed a hammer.
As he whacked at the nail, he heard footsteps and looked away. Bent over, Val was digging into a toy box. For no more than a second, his attention strayed to her, but that was all the time needed. A sharp pain burst through the tip of his finger. “Dammit!” Wincing, he looked down at the fingernail he’d struck.
“Uh-oh,” two voices rang out from behind him. Frowns in place, the girls cornered him. Brooke wagged a finger wh
ile her mirror image shook her head disapprovingly. “Bad.”
“Yes, very bad,” he muttered. Still the recipient of two disapproving looks, he delivered a final whack at the intended object.
Staring up at him, Brooke tipped her head. “Owee?”
“No. No, ow-ee. Why don’t you two go play?”
Brooke shook her head. “No ow-ee,” she told her sister before whipping around and racing ahead of Traci toward the door. “Want ball.”
“No!” Traci yelled, dashing after her.
Staring at him from her bent-over position, Val thought he’d shown amazing self-control with the girls so near. “Are you all right?”
Hardly. How could he be? Her scooped-neck T-shirt still bellowed to offer him a seductive view of the lace on her bra and the swell of breasts above it. “Fine,” he grumbled, as distracted as before. Idly his gaze traveled over her. “Did you have another crisis in the bathroom?”
“Yes.” A little breathless, she straightened and told herself that she was imagining the provocative once-over. “It was about the toilet,” she answered, more steady when he looked away to raise the cord on the blinds to a hook that little hands couldn’t reach.
Leaning back, Luke smiled wryly, baffled because he would swear he’d heard screams, signaling tears. “What about it?”
“They both wanted the job of flushing it.” Determined to stop acting like a fool, she eyed a spot for the toy box then hustled across the room for a tape measure.
If he didn’t know better, Luke would have said she was moving with nervous energy. But why would she be nervous? With a shake of his head, he packed up the toolbox. He was proving to be his own worst enemy.
“It’s too quiet, isn’t it?” she asked, making him aware that she’d paused in stretching out the tape measure.
“I’ll check,” he volunteered. It might be smart not to be alone with her too much. Whatever yearnings he felt weren’t part of the agreement.
From the bottom of the stairs, he looked up and saw Traci in the hallway running toward the steps. Luke waited at the bottom one. Head down, she clung to the railing and cautiously descended the six steps. As her small foot met the last step, she bumped into him. Her head jerked up. Blue eyes shot him a look of innocence that he didn’t believe. “What have you been doing?” he asked, lifting her into his arms.
Married...With Twins! Page 3
