Married...With Twins!

by Jennifer Mikels

  Charlene’s smile turned deadly on Val, then she cast a quick glance at the girls. “You’ll get used to Auntie Charlene,” she assured them.

  Her meaning was clear.

  “We’ll be seeing each other again, Valerie.”

  When the screen door slammed shut behind her, Val dropped to her knees to hug the girls. She’d heard the vague threat in Charlene’s words. Fear pumping through her, she took several deep breaths, worried she’d frighten the twins if she didn’t calm down.

  “Bad lady?” Brooke asked.

  Val fought the urge to say yes. “No, sweetheart. She’s not a bad lady.”

  “Me no like.”

  Traci shook her head. “Traci no like.”

  Don’t panic, Val told herself. She and Luke were the twins’ godparents, were chosen by Joe and Carrie to raise their daughters.

  “Vali?”

  Hearing the distress in Traci’s voice, Val forced a smile and nuzzled her neck. “Where did you get that mustache?” she teased at the milk outlining the little one’s lips.

  With Traci’s grin, Val kissed her, then hugged both of them longer than they might have liked.

  “Can I get one of those, too?”

  Both girls swung grins toward Irene standing at the back door, her arms open to them.

  They dashed to her with their tale. “Bad lady,” Traci insisted with an arm curled around Irene’s neck. Nestled on the other side of her, Brooke nodded her head in confirmation.

  Not wanting them to dwell on the visit, Val directed them back toward the television. The graham cracker she gave them worked wonders at distracting them from more thoughts about Charlene.

  Val expected Irene to pounce on her the moment she returned to the kitchen. What she wasn’t prepared for was Luke’s scowl.

  “Who scared them?” he asked, indicating his mother had told him about the girls’ reaction to a visitor.

  “Yes, who’s the bad lady?” Irene said heatedly. “The woman doing the home study?”

  “We haven’t seen her yet,” Val answered. Puzzled, she looked at Luke. “I thought you were going to the office.”

  “I changed my mind.” One call on his cellular phone to another colleague had handled that situation. He wanted to know about this one. “Who the hell scared them?” he asked impatiently.

  “Charlene Dawson,” Val said, a lot steadier than she felt.

  Irene gasped, indicating imagined fears had popped into her mind.

  Only one thing mattered in Luke’s mind. “What did she say?”

  It didn’t help that he sounded anxious. She had to be mistaken. Luke was described by everyone as a man to have around during a moment of crisis. She couldn’t even recall a lapse in that strength when Kelly had died. Stalwart, unwavering, he’d revealed toughness and courage. The strong, silent type, people had murmured about him after the funeral. Trying to quiet nerves, she poured them coffee and relayed what had transpired during Charlene’s visit.

  “Like hell she will.” Luke wanted the twins. Even two years ago when Joe had approached him about naming him and Val guardians, if ever needed, Luke had felt no hesitation.

  “That’s absurd.” Irene held her spoon but didn’t stir the sugar she’d dropped into her cup. “She has no legal rights to them.”

  Val drew a hard breath. God, she hoped she was worrying unnecessarily. She prayed that was true.

  Irene finished stirring the sugar in her coffee. “It would have been better if you’d been home, Lucas.”

  Luke said nothing. What was the point? Again, he hadn’t been near when Val had needed him.

  As the girls popped into the room for another graham cracker, Val told them no. “You can have a banana.”

  “I’ll get it.” Irene reached for the fruit bowl. “Valerie, don’t worry,” she said, peeling the banana and splitting it for the girls.

  But she would, Luke knew. She would smile for others and fret every minute that she was alone. With a glance at the clock, he started for the door. He didn’t plan to leave anything to chance this time. It was enough that Val had lost one child. If she had to lose two more…. He shoved the thought aside, unwilling to consider the possibility.

  “Where are you going?” The question came out in unison from both women.

  “To see Harry,” he called back from the door. “We’re not losing them.”

  “Oh, dear.” Irene sat unbelievably still. “He wouldn’t see a lawyer if he wasn’t worried.”

  And now she was, too, Val discerned, because Luke had shown an inkling of uneasiness about Charlene’s intentions. From the time her husband had died, Irene had depended on Luke’s calm strength and confident optimism during crises. Val offered words meant to soothe. “He believes in prevention, remember?” she said lightly.

  Irene managed a weak smile. “Oh, yes, that’s right. But what if…”

  “No, we’re not going to do that,” Val insisted to ease Irene’s anxiousness.

  For the next ten minutes Val directed their conversation toward the big wedding of the year between Michael Russo and Michelle Parker.

  “It should be lovely,” Irene agreed, finishing her coffee. “Do you want me to stay until Luke returns?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Val repeated three times before Irene backed out of the driveway. Of course, she wasn’t. All her certainty slithered away like a retreating snake. In dire need of activity to keep from thinking about Charlene’s words, she took the girls outside to the sandbox, and helped them make cakes of sand. There were a dozen other things she could be doing. At the moment, though, she needed to be with them.

  After a light lunch and naptime, Val and the twins fingerpainted and had a tea party. They had an early dinner, then Val gave them their baths, which they finished before Luke arrived home.

  “Harry was in Dallas. I waited for him,” he said in explanation for his lateness. “What’s her problem?” he asked about Traci. On the floor, she stared into space as if thinking hard. By her down turned mouth, wrinkled brow and pushed-out lower lip, she gave the impression nothing was right in the world.

  Though Brooke had shoveled in her share of dinner, Traci had merely picked at the meal. “She wanted pizza.”

  “Persistent. Didn’t she want it for breakfast, too?”

  Nodding, Val drummed up a smile. “I didn’t know how late you’d be, but I kept dinner warm for you.”

  “Thanks.” He noted the broccoli cheese soup and the stuffed pork chops, both favorites of his.

  Though anxious to know what Harry had said, Val deliberately didn’t ask, deciding to wait until after she’d tucked the girls into bed.

  Alone in the kitchen, Luke read the evening newspaper while he ate dinner. He finished as the girls came in and delivered good-night kisses. The silence around him, the aloneness, had never bothered him before. Because of emergencies, he’d often found himself eating late at night after Val had gone to bed. But now was different. He was getting used to giggles and noise and spills.

  Washing up his dish and silverware, he sensed the ties binding him and Val and the twins. Though they’d been together only a short time, they were becoming a part of each other-a family.

  Picking up his coffee, he strolled into his den and gave the room a once-over. He needed to move another table and small bookcase. A floor lamp that was likely to topple on one of the girls had to go, too.

  “What did Harry say?” Val asked the moment she entered the room.

  Luke heard a trace of anxiety in her voice. “He’ll work to get the court hearing scheduled as soon as possible.”

  Can Charlene get them? Val struggled against that one thought. “What did he say about Charlene?” she asked instead.

  “He thought he’d have heard about her intentions if she was serious.”

  Her veiled threat hadn’t sounded flippant to Val. But she knew now that she had to believe the girls were with them for good. Whatever she did, she couldn’t let doubts grab hold.

  Looking to keep busy
, she made a mental list-more storage space for toys, paint for the walls and brightcolored fabric for curtains. Bending over the toy box, she strained to push it across the floor to a corner.

  “I’ll do that.” Lifting the toy box, Luke glanced sideways at her. She actually looked calm to him. “Where do you want this?”

  “Over there.” Val indicated a corner.

  “I noticed earlier the clothes hanging on doorknobs.” He snatched up the lamp. “If you need more closet space, I could get one of those wardrobe units from the hardware store.”

  Like her, he’d obviously decided to focus energy on getting the girls settled in so they felt this was their home. “Actually, I found a place for the extra clothes.” Val decided not to tell him what he learned soon enough when he opened his bulging closet.

  As he left for the garage, Val rounded the desk to answer the phone. With most of the furniture in the garage, the girls should have plenty of space for playing. That was the last coherent thought Val believed she had. She listened to the caller and thought she returned polite responses that made sense. She knew that she’d kept her voice steady, but before she ended the call, she’d braced her legs against the arm of the sofa.

  So much was happening at once. Sensing Luke’s return, she raised her gaze from the carpet. “The phone call was from a home study worker.” She’d been honest with him before about the twins. She was scared even before Charlene had dropped her bombshell. So much depended on them making the right impression. “We’re going to be checked out.”

  Luke caught the quick flash of distress in her face before she turned away to stare out the window.

  Val battled demons of uncertainty. Looking up, she saw the night sky was clouded with the promise of rain. It seemed as if so much was unpredictable in their lives suddenly.

  Vulnerable. She looked so vulnerable that Luke wanted to take her into his arms. Instead he crossed to the settee, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Though he’d kept himself in shape lifting weights, he’d need an extra pair of arms to carry the settee to the garage.

  “I’ll help,” Val said, sidestepping dollhouse furniture. She weaved a path around a stuffed lion and a white fluffy bunny to take a position on the opposite side of the settee. “It might be a problem for us to pull off this charade in front of someone so experienced at seeing through people,” she said as they negotiated their way through the doorway. With a little maneuvering around corners, they set the settee down in the garage.

  His brows bunched with a frown. “We might have another problem.”

  Val preceded him into the kitchen. “What problem?” With his silence, she stopped and looked back. He was so near that he plowed into her. Her head jerked up as he pulled her close. Unsure if he’d grabbed her intentionally or to steady her, she gave him a quick, strained laugh. Whatever the reason, a longing rose within her as he lightly fingered the short strands of her hair. “What problem?” she barely managed to ask again.

  He couldn’t let her go. In a slow, seductive move, Luke ran his other hand down her spine. Against his chest, her heartbeat quickened. Closer to her than he’d been in months, he felt need spike through him. “I no longer have a bed,” he said, bringing his mouth a hairbreadth from hers. “You know what that means.”

  She knew that lovemaking would really complicate everything. “It means that you sleep on the sofa in the living room,” she countered, a touch breathless.

  “Think again,” he said with steely softness.

  When his eyes flicked to her mouth, all the warnings she’d give herself later eluded her. With a hand at the back of her neck, he held her still. The instant his mouth closed over hers, she felt all the excitement again. No man except him had ever made her feel so much, so quickly. She hadn’t forgotten his taste or the feel of his arms around her. Though the kiss was gentle, the pressure proved deep enough to spring alive everything that had been buried within her for months.

  A soft moan escaped from her throat. He wasn’t just any man. He was the one she’d pledged to love forever. And with one kiss, she tasted a promise and a demand for what had been. Time ticked away some-where, but for her, it stopped. An ache gnawed at her that was familiar, too familiar. As his mouth twisted across hers, she tried to reason. Instead she savored.

  Feelings swarmed her. Sensation rose and intensified. Her senses heightened as she floated on the scent of his after-shave, obeyed the play of his tongue, seducing and inviting her own.

  As if measuring them, she moved her hands across his shoulders. Muscles shifted beneath his shirt, and she remembered all that had been. Everything was with her again, even the yearning for him, for the texture of his damp skin beneath her touch.

  Luke hadn’t been sure how she’d react-fire or ice. He only knew he needed her taste. It was sweet, so damn sweet. And the heat of her willing mouth was more than he’d expected. He caught her tighter to him as memories flooded him of an intimate moment, of her face cast in the moonlight when she’d leaned close to him, of her warmth engulfing him, of her sighs and whispered words of love. He’d known her love, couldn’t forget the tenderness or the heat of it. It was burned into his memory just as his need for her was burrowed so deeply into him that he knew no other woman would ever touch him in quite the same way.

  He hadn’t known how much he longed for her, or how hard it would be to let her go. Pulling back, he was pleased to see her eyes barely opened, to feel her fingers tight on his arms. “I’m sleeping in our bed.”

  Her breath ragged, Val fought for steadiness. He’d spoken with such quietness that she knew he’d meant it. “Fine.” She struggled to look in control. Was that possible with her face flushed and her lips swollen from his kiss? “You stay on your side of the bed, and I’ll stay on mine.”

  The urge to crush her to him was too fierce. Luke stepped back. She’d made it sound so simple.

  He already knew that it wouldn’t work for him.

  Chapter Five

  Of course it didn’t work.

  A shift of her leg under the sheet, and Val brushed against his. “You’re on my side.”

  His back to her, Luke sensed a long night ahead of them. “I’m bigger.”

  Miffed about a situation she knew could get out of hand, she turned her back on him and wiggled closer to the edge of the mattress. “You’re hogging the sheet,” she said, unable to shed a testy mood.

  Besides the irritation in her voice, he heard her punch her pillow. “You’re going to fall off the bed.”

  “I won’t.” But it was impossible to find a comfortable spot. That could only be found in the middle of the bed. And she wasn’t going there. Trying to curl deeper in the covers, she gave a hard yank on them. “Will you give me some of the sheet?”

  Luke released his grip on it and the light comforter, lifting his hands in the air. With her one swift pull, what remained on him was enough to cover his one leg and arm. In the darkness, he stared at the back of her head. “Don’t snore,” he said to rile her more because he was bothered, in a different way, with her sweet scent teasing him.

  An indignant tone that would have done a princess proud edged her voice. “I don’t. You do.”

  “Never.”

  “Always. Oh, go to sleep.” Val clamped her lips shut, clung to the mattress and closed her eyes. A long time passed before she went to sleep.

  By morning they were rump to rump. Eyes closed, she felt him stir, sprawling. For a second, his arm pressed into the small spot between her shoulder blades. Then, in a gesture so familiar she ached with the memories it aroused, he turned, draping a taut muscular arm around her waist and a strong leg over hers. Val listened to his steady, even breaths of sleep, felt them caressing the nape of her neck.

  Keeping her eyes shut, she lay perfectly still, too aware of the hand resting beneath the curve of her breast. Softly he snored, and for a moment, one that was longer than wise, she remained in his embrace with his face buried in the curve of her neck.

  Staring down at
the arm on her, with a fingertip she grazed the soft, dark hair on his forearm. How easy it would be to stay in his arms, to snuggle into him, to trace the flat, hard plane of his stomach. And what a mistake that might be. Nothing had changed. Intimacy and closeness weren’t synonymous.

  So he’d kissed her, and he’d smiled a few times. He still hadn’t let her past the wall he’d erected since Kelly died. In slow motion to not wake him, she inched to the edge of the mattress. Thank God, he was still asleep.

  Luke opened one eye. Instead of something soft and lacy, she wore a sleep shirt with Garfield on the front of it. The heavier cloth didn’t stop him from visualizing the softness of her breasts, the angles of her hips, the slimness of her legs. They were burned in his memory.

  Now feet from the bed, she snatched up her robe. Silently he cursed and turned his face into her pillow. Her scent washed over him. One kiss had reminded him of the first one. He’d never known such obsession for any woman’s taste before-so much need for another person.

  Intelligent, caring, sensitive, she had distracted him from everything in a way no one else could. She eased his mind when he would come home tired and discouraged because his knowledge and medicine had failed one of his patients. She’d been all he ever wanted.

  Feeling sixteen and frustrated again, he pushed himself from the bed and shimmied into his jeans. And he faced a truth. He could feed himself nonsense about accepting the divorce plans, but a slip of paper wouldn’t dissolve what he felt for her.

  He’d only agreed to the divorce because he hadn’t known how to reach his wife, hadn’t seen any future for them, wasn’t sure if she might still want him. But everything was different now. The warm, loving woman he’d married was back, and he wanted her. And one kiss had revealed that her feelings for him weren’t dead.

  He entered the bathroom with a reminder to lock the door. For longer than usual, he stayed under the water in the shower. It was a bunch of bull that cold showers helped calm male libidos. Nothing would help.

  Over the next week, Val believed things worked well between her and Luke. Sort of. The problem stemmed from her, not him. More often than she wanted to admit, she found herself longing for the time when she could sit with him late at night to share some silly but remarkable feat one of the girls had accomplished that day.