The SEAL's Christmas Twins

by Laura Marie Altom

  Hattie felt near drowning. Was this real?

  Her mother quietly sobbed.

  Lyle helped his wife to her feet. “Let’s go. It’s clear we’re not needed.”

  Damn Melissa for doing this to their parents.

  “So wait—” Mason said once Lyle and Akna had gone. “Me and Hattie are supposed to drag Melissa’s kids from their grandparents, then camp out at Alec and Melissa’s house until we see the judge?”

  “That’s about the size of it. Any further questions?” Benton raised his considerable eyebrows.

  Oh—Hattie had plenty more she needed to know, but for the moment, the most pressing issue was how was she supposed to keep her sanity while playing house with stupid-handsome Mason?

  Chapter Three

  In the time they’d spent with Benton, the weather had turned from pretty lightly falling snow to downright blowing ugly. The trailer’s grated-steel stairs were snow-covered and treacherous. This time of year, on a clear, bright day they only had maybe ten hours of sun. During the two hours they’d been inside, darkness had settled in.

  Mason held out his hand to Hattie, who stood behind him. “Let me help.”

  “I’m fine!” she said above the wind.

  Ignoring her, he took firm hold of her arm. “You won’t make it five feet in those heels. Forget you live in Alaska?”

  When she struggled to escape him, common sense took over and he scooped her into his arms.

  “Put me down!”

  He did—once he’d reached her SUV. “There you go. I’ll follow you to your folks’. I’m assuming that’s where the twins currently reside?”

  “Not necessary. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Why are you being so stubborn?”

  She ignored him to fish through her purse for her keys, which she promptly dropped in the snow.

  They both knelt at the same time and ended up conking heads.

  “Ouch,” they said in unison, rubbing their noggins.

  Mason had to laugh. “This reminds me of that time I took you salmon fishing and you damn near knocked yourself out just leaving the boat’s cabin.”

  “I tripped and you know it.”

  “Yeah, yeah...” He found her keys, then pressed the remote. “Climb in. I’ll see you in a few.”

  “Mason...”

  Her dark, wary tone told him she’d prefer he stay away, but he’d never been one to shirk duty and didn’t plan on starting now. For whatever time he was legally charged with caring for Melissa’s kids, he would. Out of the memory of what they’d once shared, he owed her that much.

  The storm made it tough to see the road, but Mason was familiar enough with the route to his former in-laws’ he could’ve driven it blindfolded. He’d shared a lot of good times with Melissa and Hattie’s parents. This afternoon, like the day of Melissa’s funeral, wouldn’t be one.

  The back-and-forth drone of the wipers transported him to another snowy day. Weeks after his divorce had been finalized, he’d been fresh off the boat from a grueling two-month Yakutat king-crab season to find himself with his dad at the Juniper Inn’s Sunday brunch seated two tables down from newlyweds Melissa and Alec. As if that weren’t bad enough, Akna and Lyle were also in attendance. As long as he lived, he’d never forget their disapproving stare. Melissa’s betrayal—and Alec’s—had been hard enough to bear.

  His dad counseled to play it cool. Not to let them get beneath his skin. They weren’t worth it. But all through middle and high school, throughout his and Melissa’s two-year marriage, he’d loved Akna and Lyle. They were good people. It killed him to think for one second they blamed him for his marriage falling apart. Yes, he’d spent a lot of time away from home, but he was working for Melissa—them. Their future.

  Losing their baby hadn’t been anyone’s fault.

  He remembered a fire crackling in the inn’s too-fussy dining room. His chair had been too straight-backed and uptight. Even though the weather outside was bitterly cold, inside struck him as annoyingly hot. As long as he lived, he’d never forget the way the snow pelting the windows melted on contact, running in tearlike rivulets that reminded him of Melissa’s tears when she’d asked for a divorce.

  She’d claimed his distance had driven her to Alec—not physical distance, but emotional. She’d said the miscarriage changed him. Mason believed that a crock. She was the one who’d changed. His love had never once faltered.

  On autopilot, back in the present, he parked his dad’s old pickup in front of Akna and Lyle’s house.

  Though the temperature had dropped to the teens, his palms were sweating. Countless dangerous SEAL missions had left him less keyed up.

  Hattie pulled into her parents’ driveway ahead of him. She now teetered on their front-porch steps. What’d gotten into her? The Hattie he remembered struck him as a practical, no-frills girl who knew better than to wear high-heel boots in a snowstorm. But then, that girl had also been a tomboy, doe-eyed dreamer who’d preferred the company of her dogs over most people. It saddened him to realize he no longer knew the striking woman she’d grown into. They might as well be strangers.

  She damn near tripped, so he hastened his pace to a jog.

  “Slow it down.” He took her arm. “You act like this is somewhere you want to be.”

  Wrenching her arm free, she grasped the railing instead of him. “Where else would I be? This is my family. Used to be yours.”

  He snorted.

  At seventeen, he and Hattie had helped Lyle build this porch over a warm summer weekend. Melissa had sat in a lawn chair, supervising. Over ten years later, the wood groaned beneath their footfalls. Bitter wind whistled through the towering conifers that had given the town its name.

  The front door popped open. Lyle ushered his daughter inside. “Hurry, it’s cold. Your mom and I were just wondering what took so—” He eyed Mason. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Nice to see you, too.” Mason trailed after Hattie, easing past her father. In the tiled entry, he brushed snow from his hair.

  Hattie bustled with the busy work of removing her coat, then taking his.

  Took about two seconds for Mason to assess his surroundings well enough to realize he’d stumbled deep into enemy territory.

  Akna sat on one end of the sofa holding an infant wrapped in a pink blanket. Sophie Reynolds—a buxom busybody he remembered as being a neighbor and clerk down at Shamrock’s Emporium—held another pink bundle in a recliner. Despite a cheery fire, the room struck Mason as devoid of warmth. As if the loss of their child had sucked the life from Hattie’s parents.

  Unsure what to say or even what to do with his hands, Mason crossed his arms. “Brutal out there.”

  Akna flashed a hollow-eyed stare briefly in his direction, before asking her daughter, “I suppose you’re here for the girls?”

  “Mom...” Hattie leaned against the wall while unzipping one boot, then the other. “Honestly? You probably need some rest. And it’s not like you can’t see the twins as often as you like.”

  Sophie noted, “A body can never see too much of their grandbabies.”

  Mason didn’t miss Hattie’s narrow-eyed stare in Sophie’s direction.

  While Mason stood rooted in the entryway, Hattie joined her mother on the sofa, taking the baby into her arms. Her tender reverence reminded him that Alec had been the one who’d ultimately given Melissa her most cherished desire. Part of him felt seized by childish, irrational jealousy over his once best friend filling his wife’s need for babies. But then the grown-up in him took over, reminding Mason the point was moot, considering both parties were dead.

  “It’s not the same, and you know it.” Akna angled on the sofa, facing her daughter and granddaughter. “Right, Sophie?”

  Sophie nodded. “Amen.”

 
Akna said, “Your sister betrayed me.” By rote, she made the sign of the cross on her chest. The official family religion had always been an odd pairing of old Inuit ways blended with Lyle’s Catholicism. A gold-framed photo of the Pope hung alongside Melissa’s and Hattie’s high school graduation pictures.

  “Oh, stop. Melissa loved you very much.” Hattie’s voice cracked, causing Mason to shift uncomfortably. As much as he’d told himself he hated Melissa, wanted her to hurt as badly as she’d hurt him, he’d never wanted this. Hattie regained her composure. She’d always been the stronger of the two sisters.

  “Obviously, not enough. And how could she have ignored Alec’s parents? When your father called to tell them the news, poor Cindy had a breakdown. Taylor’s got them on the first flight out in the morning so she can see her doctor.”

  “Such a shame,” Sophie murmured.

  “Akna, I’m sorry about all this.” Mason left the entry to join them. “Which is why—soon as possible—I’ll sign over my rights to Hattie. What you all do from there is your business.”

  “Hattie,” Akna asked, “with the time you spend at the bar, do you even feel capable of raising twins?”

  Hattie shrugged before tracing the back of her finger along her sleeping niece’s cheek. “If this is what Melissa wanted, I feel honor bound to at least try.”

  Lyle ran his hands through his hair and sighed. “A few weeks ago, Melissa and the girls rode along with me while I covered for one of my delivery guys.” A former bush pilot, Lyle now owned a grocery distribution center that served many nearby small communities. “Looking back, she acted jumpy. She mentioned not having been sleeping. Didn’t think much of it at the time—chalked it up to her being a new mom. She talked a lot about wanting Hattie to be the girls’ godmother, and that if something ever happened to her, she wanted them raised young.”

  “What does that even mean?” Akna asked through the tissue she’d held to her nose.

  “Ask me, this is all unnatural,” Sophie said. “The girls should be with their grandparents who love them.”

  Hattie ignored the neighbor and forced a deep breath. “Mom, no offense to you and Dad, but Melissa brought up the godmother thing with me, too. At the time, I told her she was talking crazy, but she said she wanted the girls raised by someone young. I guess her friend Bess was taken in by her grandmother, then lost her, which is how she ended up in foster care until she turned eighteen. Melissa didn’t want that for her girls.”

  “We’d never let that happen,” Lyle said.

  Hattie took her niece from Akna’s arms. “Look, I know this is a shock for everyone—me, too—but if this is what Melissa wanted—”

  Her mother interjected, “What about our wishes?”

  Lyle sat beside his wife, taking her hand. “Honey, what we want doesn’t matter. All we can do is support Hattie as best we can.”

  “I would be calling a lawyer,” Sophie said.

  “Sophie,” Hattie said, “please, stay out of this family matter. And, Mom, I don’t mean to be harsh, but you’re acting petty.” Standing, Hattie cupped her hand to the infant’s head. Hattie’s brown eyes narrowed the way they always had when she dug in her heels to fight for what she wanted. “Why can’t we raise the twins together? As of now, Mason and I might have legal custody, but what does that really even mean? I’ll move into Melissa and Alec’s, which is—what?—three miles from you? You used to watch the girls all the time for Melissa and Alec. Won’t you do the same now for me? Vivian and Vanessa will be raised in the only home they’ve known, by people they love. I fail to see how this isn’t the best all-around solution—especially since Mason already agreed to take himself out of the equation.”

  “It isn’t the best,” Sophie said, “because grandparents are best. You’ve never been around little ones. How will you even know what to do?”

  While Sophie, in her infinite wisdom, rattled on, Mason was unprepared for the personal sting he felt at Hattie’s speech. Did she have to make him sound so heartless and uncaring? But what else could he do? He had no stake in these little lives. Prior to their parents’ funeral, he’d never even seen the girls. If he had his way, he’d be on a return flight to Virginia first thing in the morning.

  Akna had been silently crying, but her pain now turned to uncontrollable sobbing. “Wh-why did this h-happen?”

  Lyle slipped his arm around her.

  Sophie closed her eyes in prayer.

  Mason felt emotionally detached from the scene, as if he were watching a movie. What was he doing here? This was no longer his life.

  Sophie abruptly stood. The once-sleeping infant she’d cradled was startled by the sudden movement and whimpered.

  “Here, Mr. Mom.” She thrust the baby into his arms. “You think yourself an expert, take over.”

  Mason didn’t even know which baby he held, let alone what to do when her fitful protest turned into a full-blown wail.

  * * *

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Hattie held Vanessa with her right arm, struggling to unlock her sister and brother-in-law’s former home. Mason stood behind her with Vivian, who hadn’t stopped crying since leaving her grandparents.

  “She always like this?” Mason set the bulging diaper bag on the porch.

  “Usually, they’re both easygoing, but it’s been a rough couple days—for everyone.”

  “Yeah.”

  She finally got the key turned and opened the door on a house cold and dark and lonely enough to have been a tomb. When Melissa and Alec had been alive, the A-frame log cabin glowed with warmth and laughter. Her sister had been a wonderful cook and she’d always had something delicious baking or bubbling in one of her cast-iron pots.

  The storm had passed and the two-story living room featured a glass wall looking out on all of Treehorn Valley and Mount Kneely beyond. Moonlight reflecting off the snow cast a frosty bluish pallor over what Hattie knew to be warm-toned pine furniture upholstered in a vibrant red-orange and yellow inukshuk pattern.

  “Cold in here.” Mason closed the door with his foot. “Think the furnace is out?”

  “Probably. It’s a wood-burning system with propane backup. The temperature’s been so mild, Alec probably didn’t have it going for the season yet.”

  “Is it downstairs?”

  She nodded, wandering through the open space, turning on lamps and overhead lights.

  “I’ll check it out, but in the meantime, what do you want me to do with this one?” He nodded at still-sniffling and red-eyed Vivian.

  “I’ll take her.” Melissa kept a playpen in the warmest kitchen corner. Hattie set Vanessa in it, then took Vivian. Since the air was cold enough to see her breath, she kept the girls’ outerwear on while she made a fire in the living room’s river-stone hearth.

  Being in her sister’s home without Melissa unnerved her. Hattie normally occupied the one-bedroom efficiency apartment above her waterfront bar. It was small, cramped and cozy. Just the way she liked it. This space was too large for her taste. Though beautifully decorated in what she supposed was the classic Alaskan hunting lodge look, featuring an antler chandelier and an oil painting of snowcapped Mount Kneely over the mantel, this was her sister’s dream house—not hers. Hattie thrived among clutter.

  The house shuddered when the sleeping furnace lumbered awake.

  A few minutes later when warm air flowed through the vents, gratitude swelled in Hattie for Mason handling at least that issue. She would’ve eventually gotten the unit started, but having one less worry was welcome.

  Vivian fussed, reaching for her hat.

  “I know, sweetie, it’s annoying, but until it warms up in here, let’s keep it on, okay?” Hattie knelt before the playpen, patting the infant’s back.

  Mason’s boots clomped on the hardwood stairs. “Alec has enough wood to last the week, so as long as on
e of us remembers to feed the beast, we’ll at least be warm for the time being. Before winter sets in, though, I’ll have to stockpile a legit supply. I’ll make a fire up here, too.”

  “Already did, but it probably needs stoking.”

  Both babies were back to fussing. Were they hungry?

  Hands to her throbbing forehead, Hattie wished she’d taken more than a casual interest in her nieces. Playing with them had been a much higher priority than an activity as mundane as meals. Hattie knew Melissa had breastfed, supplemented by formula, but the exact powder-to-water ratio escaped her.

  “Since I’m over here, handling man work,” Mason said from the hearth, “how about you do something about the kids’ racket?”

  “Love to, but it’s gonna take a sec to get the formula mixed.”

  By the time Hattie finished, dancing firelight banished the living room’s dark corners, but did little to ease the pain in her heart.

  Both babies still fussed, which only made her fumble more. At the bar, she thrived under the chaotic pressure of a busy Friday or Saturday night. This was different.

  “Need help?” Behind her, Mason hovered. His radiated heat further unnerved her. The situation was already beyond horrible. Tossing her old high school crush into the mix only made matters worse. And here she’d thought Melissa and Mason’s wedding had been hard? This was a thousand times tougher.

  “Sure.” She managed to swallow past the emotional brick lodged in her throat. “You take Vanessa and a bottle and I’ll grab Vivian.”

  In front of the playpen, he scratched his head. “Love to do just that, only I don’t have a clue which one is Vanessa.”

  “You’ll learn. Although there are still times I’m not sure, Vanessa typically has a more laid-back disposition. Vivian has no trouble letting you know she’s displeased.”