Married...With Twins!

by Jennifer Mikels

  The click of the door opening behind him made him look away from the X ray he’d been studying.

  Edwin poked in his head. “Luke, could you give me a minute?”

  In the past, Luke had done the unthinkable among most doctors, he’d made house calls. Turning down his wife’s grandfather at any time was inconceivable. “Sure, come on in.”

  “What did the lawyer tell you?” Edwin asked before closing the door behind him.

  “We have a fight ahead of us.”

  Edwin nodded his head as if prodding fate. “You’ll win.”

  Luke hoped he was right. “So what’s wrong?” he asked. He had checked with the doctor who’d given Edwin his last physical. He was in excellent health for a man of his age who’d had a heart bypass.

  “I have a problem.”

  Luke gestured toward a chair. With so much happening, could Val handle worry about her grandfather’s health, too? “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

  Edwin didn’t sit. “I’m wondering if I can live up to her expectations,” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in the manner of an anxious teenager facing his date’s father.

  It took a second before Luke comprehended what expectations Edwin was talking about. Somehow he managed to remain expressionless. “Her?”

  “Myrna,” he said as if Luke were a dolt for asking.

  “By expectations-you mean, sexually?”

  “Of course, I do.” Edwin scowled at him. “I’m old, not dead.”

  Luke stifled a grin. “Has she said she has expectations?”

  “She’s a young filly. Younger than me. I don’t think I could manage much more than once a day.”

  “Once a day?” Lucas barely restrained his own incredulity. “Edwin, you’re seventy-one years old. If you can manage once a day, you don’t need any help.”

  His eyes twinkled with a smile. “Then I’m normal?”

  “Better than.” Luke touched Edwin’s shoulder as they drifted toward the door. “But be responsible.”

  “Right-o.” He gave Luke a quick salute. “Safe sex.” Whistling, he shut the door behind him.

  Strolling up to the back door of the house, Val breathed in the scent of the late blooming flowers she’d planted the year before. With everything that ends, a newness begins. Sometimes it was so hard to remember that. When dinner was started, she dialed Jenny’s number. As she waited for Jenny to answer the phone, she opened cans of tomato paste and sauce.

  Val poured the red sauce into a pot while she talked with Jenny about her concern with Faith. “I’ll try calling her again,” she told Jenny.

  “Are you going back to the store?”

  “Tomorrow probably. No, maybe the next day,” she answered, remembering Cindy’s party.

  “Okay. Maybe I’ll see you there,” Jenny returned.

  Val balanced the receiver between her jaw and shoulder. “On what excuse?”

  “No excuse. I need to buy a gift for my cousin’s new baby. What are you going for?”

  Val told Jenny about the jumpers she’d seen. Through the screen door, she heard the sound of a car engine and stretched the telephone cord to look out the window. “I’ve got to go. Luke’s home.”

  “I always believed in second chances,” Jenny said encouragingly.

  “I’m becoming a believer in that, too,” Val admitted. With a quick goodbye, she set down the receiver. Except for the mess with Charlene, everything seemed perfect. But was it? she wondered, recalling how quiet Luke had been after the meeting with Harry.

  As the door behind her opened and closed, she turned to deliver a smile. “Hi. You’re home earlier than I expected.” She studied him closely, saw none of the recognizable fatigue in his eyes, but neither could she read his mood.

  “I left thinking you might want help with the twins. Where are they?” he asked, aware of no banging or singing or bickering.

  “With your mother.” Val moved toward him, needing to recapture closeness, and lovingly ran her fingers down the nape of his neck.

  One corner of his lips twitched before a slow smile formed. “For how long?”

  It seemed like another lifetime since they’d made love during the day. “They’re at your mother’s and won’t be back until later.” She closed her eyes as his lips caressed her collarbone. “I missed you today.”

  “Can you leave this for a while?” he murmured against her lips, indicating the food on the stove.

  “You have something else planned?”

  With deft fingers, he pulled down the zipper of her dress. “Something.”

  Tilting her head back, she gave his mouth freedom to explore her throat. “Such subtlety.” As she tugged his shirttail from his pants, he gave her no time to take a breath. His lips on hers, he tangled his fingers in her hair. Desire came quickly as if the need had been there for hours. With unsteady fingers, she tugged at the buttons on his shirt. Gliding her hands across his stomach muscles, she felt a desperateness for him pulling at her. When his hand raced over her, she briefly opened her eyes. The stove seemed to stare back at her. “Not here,” she said on a quick breath.

  “What?” His breath was hot against her bare shoulder.

  “Not here,” she repeated. “The door isn’t locked.”

  It took effort to slow down. Filled with her taste, he buried his face in her hair for a second before he slid an arm under her knees. The walk to the bedroom would kill him. He was sure of that. “We should have bought a single level house.” Beneath his lips, he felt her smile while he climbed the stairs.

  They practically fell onto the bed. Hurrying each other, he pulled clothes from her. She yanked them from him. All she’d brought into his life was with him again. Tenderness. Excitement. Heat.

  With hands as restless as his, Val skimmed the warm dampness of his flesh. For a little while, she could forget everything except the waves of sensation he promised with every touch, with every kiss, with every gentle stroke of his tongue. He caressed. He beckoned. Wild with need, she melted.

  Fire spread through her. She heard him muttering something while she sought every inch of him and tasted the saltiness of his skin.

  As if torn from his throat, her name slipped from his lips. Urgent, hungry now, he pinned her beneath him.

  Val opened her eyes and stared into the face of her husband. Late afternoon sunlight streamed into the room, slanting shadows across the smooth planes and rough bristle of his jaw. Her hands ran over him, caressing the taut muscles of his shoulders and back and buttocks.

  On a soft moan, she arched against him, then called his name. With the honesty of emotion that had bound them for four years, he slipped into her. Flesh warmed flesh. Impatience urged them. Together again, they surrendered to the pulsing needs whirling them into a mindless world. And she lost herself-in his eyes filled with the darkness and warmth of passion-in the heat-in the fullness of him.

  Breathless, she sighed and strained to draw him deeper. Swift and demanding, waves of sensation lapped over her. She gasped to keep pace. They moved as one, with and against each other, harsh and unsteady breaths dueting, and she clung as she’d wanted to during every moment they’d been apart. Then with a breathy whisper, she floated with him, drifting, letting the stunning pleasure wash over her.

  Languidly Val caressed the muscular flesh of Luke’s hip before dragging herself from the bed. It had taken effort to leave his side, but choices didn’t exist. In jeans and a T-shirt, she hurried from the bathroom. At the bedroom doorway, she gave him one last look to see him tugging on jeans.

  Val flew down the steps. The tangy smell of the sauce bubbling in a saucepan permeated the air and drifted to her. She barely rescued it in time. “We almost didn’t have dinner,” she said with a laugh, plopping lasagna noodles into a pot of boiling water when Luke wandered in. Sighing, she stilled as he came up behind her and gently splayed his fingers over her belly. During those moments upstairs, she understood him. They were one, so much a part of
each other that she wondered how they’d ever separated. “This could be dangerous,” she murmured in response to him nuzzling her neck.

  He wasn’t ready to let her go, not now-not ever, he realized in that moment. “Remember the first meal you cooked?” he asked, gliding his tongue across skin that rivaled the softness of velvet.

  Sensation clouded her mind. “A towel on the stove caught on fire.”

  “Yeah, and while we put out the fire, you burned the dinner.” With the remembrance, humor flowed over him. “It was a great night.”

  Val had thought so, too. They’d sat in the bedroom away from the rest of the smoke-filled rooms. “Great meal.”

  Like then, her scent, her taste, her softness were all he could think about. “Cereal,” he answered thickly.

  “In bed.” Val bit back a sigh as his lips traced a path downward. “We spilled it.”

  “And made love on the rug.” One more time, he kissed the side of her neck.

  She angled a lazy-looking grin up at him. “We had fun.”

  “That we did.” Before heat rushed through him again, he let his hands slip off of her, and he pivoted toward the refrigerator.

  Warm and content, she understood now what he’d been doing since he’d arrived home. He was striving for normalcy despite the threat that promised to snatch away the happiness they’d found. Val sprinkled basil on top of the cheese, then capped the spice bottle. “How was the rest of your day?”

  He thought about Edwin’s visit. “Unique. What about yours?” he asked while tucking his shirt into his pants.

  With a look over her shoulder, she cracked a smile. “Not as much fun. But interesting.”

  “I expect that it was,” he said while washing his hands to tear at lettuce.

  Val stretched for a casserole dish on a top shelf. “They’re so different. The twins, I mean. Traci is always moving while Brooke is so quiet-sometimes,” she added because the little one was a typical two year old.

  Luke paused in slicing a tomato. “Night and day maybe. But if they want something like a cookie, they’re of one mind.”

  Were they, too? Val wondered because they’d been dodging discussion about their visit to Harry’s office. She began layering the noodles, sauce and cheese into the casserole dish. “I don’t think Charlene’s lawyer could learn that we nearly separated, do you?” she asked softly, unable to keep inside any longer what had bothered her ever since they’d left Harry’s office.

  He’d heard a wistfulness in her voice. She was scared. He knew he was reading the emotion accurately, and wanted to tell her that they’d be all right this time, but a judge with no idea what the twins meant to them would make a decision. And how could he convince her everything would go their way when he wasn’t sure himself?

  At his silence, Val cast a worried glance at him. He kept staring ahead, his chiseled features so tense they almost looked as if they were carved from stone. “No one knew but Jenny and Gramps, and they wouldn’t say anything to anyone,” she said.

  He still said nothing, making Val more nervous.

  Don’t go strong and silent on me, she wanted to yell. “What aren’t you saying? Do you feel that you don’t want to bother with what we’ll have to go through to get them?”

  Luke’s gaze cut to her. That he’d heightened her worry came through clearly. He swore at himself before answering. “I want them,” he assured her. Questions still clouded her eyes. She needed more, an explanation, he realized. It had been so long since he’d shared thoughts with her. “Ever since we left Harry’s office, I’ve thought how a custody battle might affect the twins, especially if it drags out. It doesn’t matter about us, but they don’t need that.”

  Val felt the weakened link in their marriage tightening. His desires, his worries, were as important as her own. Was he finally realizing that if they didn’t really talk to each other, no amount of passion would bind them? “We’ll protect them,” she said, feeling more confident since she knew now they were of one mind about the twins.

  While she placed the casserole in the oven, Luke concentrated on rinsing the lettuce. Protecting someone else from hurt wasn’t easy. Who knew that better than he? Because so much uncertainty shadowed them, he put his arms around Val. He wanted to give her his strength. He needed to feel her softness. “I know what you want,” he whispered against her hair. “I’d give it to you if I could. I’d give you anything you wanted.”

  With a few words, he nearly stirred the tears she’d resisted all day whenever she considered losing the twins. On a deep breath, she vowed she wouldn’t fall apart. She’d given in to her sadness once before and had learned it didn’t help.

  “We’ll have them with us,” he said even as he carried doubts within. What else could he say? All he could do was be near for her, prove to her what he’d failed at before. When she needed him, he’d be there for her.

  “We’re home,” a voice, definitely his mother’s, sang out from the vicinity of the front door.

  Tilting back her head, Val looked up at him. She saw the strength in his face that she felt in the arms holding her, and she wished she could give him an assurance that she really wasn’t the woman he’d married. She’d gotten stronger. She’d had to. “Don’t worry so about me,” she whispered.

  But he did. He’d lost her before. He didn’t want to again.

  Chapter Ten

  Beneath a hearty wind, a branch of the tree outside the bedroom window tapped against the glass. A gray morning sky threatened a drizzle before noon. With thoughts of reading the morning newspaper before the twins awoke, Luke headed for the bedroom doorway. Even before he reached it, he heard giggling and what distinctively sounded like a chorus of “Whee!”

  At the end of the hallway, Val stood outside the twins’ bedroom. Short, pale blue shorts snugly gripped her hips and showed off enough leg to make him wish they were still in bed. “Are they awake?” he asked, strolling closer.

  “Have a look.” She released a low, husky laugh and swept an arm toward the room.

  Sitting in her crib, Traci was tossing shredded bits of tissue in the air. From her bed, Brooke gleefully watched the papers flying upward and then descending to the carpet.

  “Obviously it snowed in here this morning,” Val whispered laughingly.

  Luke shifted his hand to the sharp angle of her hip. “I never liked shoveling snow.”

  Turning, Val placed her hands against his chest. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

  “You’re a mother.”

  Her heart swelled with the unexpected words. She was a mother now. At one time she’d thought that would never happen.

  “Mothers know everything, don’t they?” he teased.

  Val tipped her chin up. “Everything,” she returned, giving him a quick kiss before entering the room to play maid.

  Despite his words, he followed her in to help. An idea had been forming before Val had gotten out of bed. Willing to do the cleanup alone, she nudged Luke out the door with her request.

  The twins were ready, dressed and fed by the time he returned with helmets and carrier seats for Val’s and his bikes.

  Impatiently waiting beside Luke, Traci shifted from one foot to the other. “Big bike,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling when Luke lifted her to the seat on the back of his bicycle.

  “Yep.” Over her head, Luke saw pleasure flash in Val’s eyes that she’d surprised the twins with their plan for a bike ride. “You get one when you get bigger.”

  “Me, too?” Brooke asked from her perch in a seat behind Val.

  “Both of you do.” Straddling her bike, Val squinted for a second up at the sky and the sun slipping behind a cloud. “Are we ready?”

  Luke’s eyes narrowed in her direction. “Check. It looks as if she unsnapped her helmet.”

  Val swung around with a few words to Brooke about not touching it. “Now we’re ready,” she said, looking at Luke. She noticed he was double-checking Traci’s helmet, too. It was so typical of h
im. He took his car in early for oil changes and to have tires rotated. He stopped for gasoline when the gauge teetered at the halfway mark. He was a man who believed in preventive safety and good sense.

  When she’d been in her last trimester of pregnancy, he’d take over the housecleaning and laundry, doing everything conceivable to safeguard the baby’s and her health. Despite all those precautions, he hadn’t been able to do enough.

  “We’re ready,” he said.

  Val tossed her head back to banish more sad thoughts from sneaking in. It was a day for fun. With a nod, they began pumping up a hill. Glancing up again, she eyed the sky darkening with pewter-colored clouds. “If it rains, remember this was your idea.”

  Grinning, Luke signaled her to turn right. “It was your idea.”

  “Not if it rains,” she bantered back.

  “It wouldn’t dare,” he said with snide amusement. “Tonight’s Cindy’s party. Doesn’t she pray to the sun god or something on the morning of her parties?”

  Val aimed a smile at him as they coasted down the hill. Cindy had had perfect weather at last year’s party. Everything had seemed perfect to Val then. She’d been enjoying the knowledge that she was pregnant. She’d just begun to show, and friends had greeted them with mommy and daddy jokes.

  “Vali, go faster,” Brooke said from behind her, cutting into her thoughts.

  She pumped faster for a moment. What was wrong with her today? Why was she drawing up so much of the past suddenly? All that mattered was the present. She was with her husband and two little girls who’d won her heart from the first moment she’d seen them. Was the possibility of losing them drudging up old memories? No preagonizing today, she railed herself while braking for a curve. What good was there in worrying about the future, about possibilities that were far too painful?

  With Luke’s glance toward her, she saw a warmth in his eyes that had nothing to do with passion. We’re going to be all right, she decided. All of us.

  Luke left for his office within half an hour after they returned home.