His Plan for the Quintuplets

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Susannah sighed. “The trust he is managing for the kids.”

  “I thought that was abundant.”

  “It was. With the inheritance I received from Brett and Belinda, along with the money from the sale of my condo in Houston and my severance package from my job there, I had almost a million dollars when we saw each other five years ago. The frozen embryos were paid for, but there were storage fees and all the medical expenses that led up to the implantation.”

  “I bet that cost a pretty penny.”

  She nodded. “And then, on top of all that, the pregnancy, the multiple births, the extended stays in the hospital for all of the kids since they were underweight at birth, and the many pediatric visits after that. I had health insurance, but as you can imagine, co-pays and monthly premiums for six were steep. Going back to work was not possible, and I put them in preschool last year, so that was times five.”

  “I gather it’s dwindling faster than expected.”

  “By the time they are ready to be in full-day kindergarten, in two years, I’ll have just enough left to pay the very basic expenses until they are eighteen. There will be nothing left to pay for their college. And if there are any unexpected expenses that come up, like a sudden severe illness, or all five of them needing braces or glasses, then I could be in real trouble. Because I’m not really going to have any nest egg to rely upon.”

  “You still own the house outright?”

  She saw where he was going with this. The same place Bing had gone. “Yes. And I could do a reverse mortgage if I need to at some point, and start taking funds out on a monthly basis to continue to help pay expenses. But then I’ll be on a really slippery slope. And could easily end up flat broke unless I can do a lot more to supplement my living expenses now. Which means bringing in a lot more business and finding a lot more time in which to paint.”

  “Speaking of pet portraits... I might have some good news on that front.”

  She sensed what he was about to ask. “I told you. I can’t meet a mid-June deadline.”

  “Then what if we extend it by however much time you need?”

  Chapter Seven

  Gabe could see Susannah was tempted.

  “We’re still talking about an oversize above-the-sofa portrait,” she assumed.

  He nodded. “And a commission of ten thousand dollars, or more, depending on how much time it takes you to paint the gift.”

  She looked both angry and insulted. Turning her head, she looked out the window to check on the kids. They were playing happily on their swing set, with Daisy watching nearby. “Is this some kind of charity?”

  Gabe shook his head. “Far from it. You’d earn every penny.”

  She lifted her brow. “Gabe, the largest portrait I’ve done, which was of three Yorkies, was thirty-six by forty-eight inches and only went for a little over a thousand dollars.”

  “I imagine that was pretty straightforward, too. You had one photo you worked with?”

  She squared her shoulders, the action lifting the soft swell of her breasts. “Three, actually. They could never get the expressions they wanted on all three faces simultaneously, so we sort of photoshopped it all together to get the design, and I worked off that.”

  Noticing she’d finished her Popsicle, he got up to take the empty stick and wrapper and throw both in the trash, along with his. He brought the bottle of hand sanitizer over to her. “Well, you’d be doing something similar here, but you’d be working with all seven of my siblings, and me, and my mom, because now she knows about it, and she wants in on the excitement, too. Which is good because we need someone to comb through the old family photos and come up with pictures of us when we were all kids and correlate those with the ages of the dogs that we want to portray.”

  Susannah pumped the citrus-smelling liquid into her palm. “Meaning?”

  Gabe watched her rub it into her fingers, then did the same. “Every one of us gets to choose how old we want our dogs to be in the portrait. My three sisters are all leaning toward the puppy stage of their pets, whereas Noah wants to portray his Labrador retriever as a two-year-old, and Travis is all for seeing his dog depicted in the last year of his life, when he was half-lame with arthritis and having trouble seeing but still had this sense of regal dignity that is heartrending.”

  Her expression turned thoughtful. “Sounds really challenging.”

  “It will be. Believe me.” Gabe carried the bottle back to where he’d found it and stood, leaning against the counter. “Which is why you’ll earn every penny, and you might even go over our projected cost, just to get the design all laid out and a rough image painted. But we’re okay with that, because we’re splitting the cost nine ways, and we know how much this is going to mean to my dad.”

  She buried her face in her hands and moaned. “Now I’m worried about living up to expectations.”

  “Don’t be. I’ve seen your depictions of Daisy. They’re phenomenal. You really know how to capture the spirit of a canine. And think of what taking on a project like this could mean for future business. I mean, who knows, by the time the quintuplets are in school full-time, you could easily be making enough to live on, without dipping into the general welfare trust.”

  Susannah pursed her lips together, thinking. “That would be nice. Because then I could use what is left of the money in there for their college.”

  He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “You could use pictures of the work in advertising. We would all be glad to act as references.”

  Susannah shook her head in wonderment. “Wow.”

  “I know. You’re solving my problem. I’m solving yours.”

  * * *

  Susannah wished it were that easy. She reached for her phone and began to type notes into it. As excited as she was, she was also scared to death. “It’s going to take a lot of time for me to get this done,” she warned. She propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “Especially since the kids are off from preschool for the summer.”

  He sauntered closer, filling up the space, making her all the more sensually aware of him. “I’m off, too.”

  She speared him with a testy glance. “So you’re, what? Offering to find me a babysitter, or two or three, too?”

  He shook his head, his eyes drifting slowly over her face, before returning to her eyes. “Actually, I’m offering to be the babysitter a few hours a day so you can work. You already paint in the afternoons when they nap. So if I’m here a few more hours after that, that would double your time. If you did that five days a week, you could be done with the project by summer’s end. Or possibly early fall.”

  For a guy who regularly avoided his own family, it boggled her mind why he was offering to spend quite a lot of time with hers.

  “You’d prefer it to be summer’s end, though.”

  He nodded, admitting this was so. “For selfish reasons. So I could be here to see Dad receive it before I have to go back overseas. But if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine.” He braced his hands on the counter on either side of him. “The important thing is he get a gift that is as special as he is, and this will definitely meet that requirement.”

  “Where are you going next?”

  “Africa or Indonesia.”

  Not sure why it mattered to her, just knowing that it did, she asked, “For how long?”

  He gestured noncommittally. “It could be as long as a year, or as short as three to six weeks. Depending on what kind of medical crisis situation they are dealing with.”

  Curious, she asked, “Do you ever get tired of moving around so much?”

  He exhaled and kept a poker face. “It comes with the territory.”

  Feeling a little irritated she had revealed so much of the private details of her life to him and he had revealed so little of his to her, she chided softly, “That’s not an answer.”

>   His gaze narrowed. “Up till now, no.”

  She studied the newly sober expression on his face. “What’s changed?”

  For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he frowned and admitted, with surprising candor, “Something about Cade getting hurt...having his whole career as a major leaguer in jeopardy...and me not even finding out about it until weeks after he’d had his surgery, was sort of a wake-up call. I need to be more connected to the other Lockharts than I have been.”

  She drew a breath, thinking of all she wished she still had. “Family’s important,” she murmured.

  “Sorry.” He straightened and sent her a deeply apologetic look. “Didn’t mean to bring up your loss.”

  Susannah tried not to think how masculine and sexy Gabe looked in the sunlight pouring in through the abundant windows of her kitchen. “I think it all worked out the way it was supposed to in the grand scheme of things.” She conjured up a mental picture of heaven above that comforted her and contrasted to what she witnessed now on earth. “Brett and Belinda are together and are watching over their kids, even now. In the meantime, I have them, and as a consequence have the family I always wanted and never thought I’d have. So...”

  “So fate works in mysterious ways,” Gabe said softly, understanding.

  Susannah met his eyes. “Yes.”

  Deciding she’d sat and rested her ankle long enough, she moved to get to her feet. Gabe was at her side immediately to help her. She stumbled a little as she rose to her full height. He continued to focus all his energy on helping her, and that focus was wreaking all sorts of havoc inside her. “Where do you want to go now?” he asked, tightening his grasp on her waist.

  Nowhere but your arms, Susannah thought wistfully.

  As if he could read her mind, he looked down at her and smiled. Not just any smile, but one of pure gallantry and masculine need. Tingling all over, she said, “Doc...”

  His sexy smile widened as he pulled her flush against him. “Yes, princess?”

  She caught her breath as his lips captured hers, inundating her with the heat and strength and taste of him. Filling her heart and soul with everything she had ever yearned for. Everything she had been denied. She kissed him back and melted against him, her insides fluttering even as she struggled to keep her feelings in check. And still, over and over his tongue plunged into her mouth, stroking and arousing, kissing her hotly, ardently, until she wreathed her arms about his neck, pressed her body up against his and kissed him back with absolutely nothing held in reserve. Until there was nothing but need and yearning and unbridled desire. And that was when a door opened, and the kids burst in.

  “Mommy and Mr. Gabe are kissing!” Abigail shouted.

  “Yeah!” Gretchen enthused. “Maybe now they’ll get married!”

  * * *

  “Are they always like that?” Gabe asked, minutes later, when she was packing up the cowboy cookies she and the kids had baked the evening before for him to take to his parents.

  Her cheeks still flushed with embarrassment, Susannah said, “You mean aggressively matchmaking?”

  Somehow Gabe didn’t mind it when he was the target. If it were anyone else, though. The plumber, the electrician, Bing...

  He was definitely not on board with that.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She sighed. “It started last spring. Mother’s Day was coming up. They were talking about that at school. And their friend Chloe, from preschool, was part of the wedding of her dad, Jack McCabe, and Bess Monroe. So, brides and grooms and happily-ever-afters are on their minds these days.”

  “You think they’d like to have a dad?”

  “In a perfect world?” she returned skeptically. “Of course they would. But we don’t always get what we want—they know that, too. In the meantime, all things considered, I’m doing pretty good on my own.”

  “You’re a great mom,” he said, glancing into the living room where they were now all working together to build a play village in the middle of the floor. “They’re great kids.”

  She nodded, still seeming a little irked about the kiss.

  Though she hadn’t been irked when it had been in progress, he thought to himself. Only when they had been found out...

  Aware he was going to have to be a lot more careful about when and where he put the moves on her, he cleared his throat. “Listen, about my offer to babysit while you worked on the portrait. I was serious.”

  “I know you were, but I can’t possibly accept that, and especially not on a regular basis. Not to worry, though.” She handed him the plastic-wrapped platter of cookies to take to his folks with a brisk, professional smile. “I’ll figure it out.”

  * * *

  “Was that Gabe I saw dropping by again this afternoon?” Millie asked the following Friday evening, after Susannah had put the quintuplets to bed.

  Their home across the street had the perfect view of the comings and goings in her house.

  Glad to be off the crutches, and finally have her ankle back to normal, Susannah bustled about, tidying up with her usual speed. “He brought me more photos for the project I’m doing for his family.”

  The older woman unzipped the dress she’d worn on her and Mike’s very first date from its garment bag, where it had been hanging for the last couple of months.

  She got out the simple black jersey, with the scoop neck, cap sleeves and flounced skirt, and held it up to her with a sigh.

  It had become her mission to get into it for the big night, and once every week she came over to Susannah’s to try it on again in secret. See just how far away from fitting into it she actually was.

  Millie slipped into the powder room. Spoke softly, through the crack in the door. “Couldn’t he have just scanned them into a computer and emailed them, or brought them all at once?”

  That’s what you would think, Susannah thought as she continued folding that day’s laundry. Especially since she had been kind of putting him in the deep freeze since that last kiss. “He says he likes to do things the old-fashioned way.”

  Millie came back out, barefoot, her dress gaping open in the back. She turned so Susannah could zip. “I gather you don’t believe him.”

  Susannah recited what she had been telling herself. “I think he’s just bored. And maybe a little lonely.”

  Millie frowned. “How is that possible with his family in Laramie?”

  Susannah got the zipper up only an inch before it came to a dead stop. “Well, everyone is busy with their own work, and Cade is working hard with his personal trainer and physical therapist or going out with the number of hot women who keep driving in from Dallas to see him.”

  Millie reached around behind her and felt the progress. She frowned. “Couldn’t Cade fix him up, then, if it was just female company he craved?”

  “Probably not, since most of them are apparently vying for the role of famous major league ballplayer’s wife.”

  Still frowning, Millie slipped back into the bathroom, where Susannah could hear her turning this way and that, to get a glimpse in the mirror. “Gabe said that?”

  “Not in so many words, but it’s clear what he thinks—that the women who are chasing after Cade now will not be chasing after him if he doesn’t make a full recovery from his pitching injury.”

  Millie’s voice was muffled as the dress came back over her head. “That doesn’t sound nice.”

  “It’s not. Which is why Gabe isn’t interested in spending any time with any of them.”

  “Why is Cade, then?”

  “Probably because he’s bored, and he likes having a beautiful woman on his arm. Apparently, the social part of his life is pretty superficial. To the point it really annoys Gabe.”

  “Who, as a Physicians Without Borders doc, is used to a more serious existence.” Millie came back out, the dress back on the hanger.r />
  “One where he is constantly helping people. I think being here for the summer and not working is harder on him than he anticipated.”

  Millie put the dress back in the garment bag. “Hence his chasing you.”

  Susannah blushed, aware it felt like more than that. Even though the logical side of her insisted it probably wasn’t. “He’s not really chasing me.”

  Although there had been those kisses...kisses she still couldn’t seem to forget...

  Millie lifted a brow. “Looks like it to me.”

  “Only because he’s not currently romantically involved with anyone, and neither am I. He’s also enamored of the idea of the quintuplets. And they are certainly enamored of him.”

  Millie hung the black garment bag back in Susannah’s front hall closet. “You could kick him out or not invite him in whenever he shows up unannounced.”

  Susannah sorted socks, matching them pair by pair, then turning the cuffs down so they would stay together. “I could, except that I accepted an advance and signed a contract for the portrait I’m doing for his family. So I feel obligated to let him drop by and check on any sketches I’ve done thus far, get his feedback.”

  Millie picked up her iced zero-calorie sassafras tea. “Which he happily gives.”

  “Usually right before he gets involved with helping the quintuplets build a fort or put together a Lego creation.”

  Millie’s eyes lit up. “So you like having him around, too.”

  Too much, actually. Susannah shrugged. “I mean, it’s all fine now, but if he keeps this up and the kids get used to having him around a lot, and then for whatever reason he stopped dropping by on a daily basis, they would probably be a little upset by his sudden absence.” As would I. “So I worry about that.”

  Millie pitched in to help with the pajamas. “Is that all you’re concerned about?”

  Susannah paused. “It’s complicated.”

  Millie’s glance turned maternal, reminding Susannah that she was the closest thing to a mother she had these days. “How so?”