by Tina Leonard
Donna slowly got onto her knees beside April so that she could take a better look at the babies. “You’ll be a wonderful mother now that you’ve let go of the past, too.” She touched her daughter’s hair with a trembling hand. “A word of caution, my sweet. The adoption process will be arduous.”
“Was it?” she asked Webb, who rustily got down on his knees to peer into Matthew’s carrier.
“It was,” he confirmed. “But it was worth every minute. Look what we got, after all.”
He took her hands in his, squeezing them for just a minute.
“Well, Webb,” Donna said to her husband as he sat on the opposite side of April. “We always prayed for grandchildren.”
The three of them looked at the carriers. Donna clasped her hands in delight. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but the day I saw you standing in the orphanage, April, I knew you’d be the best daughter a mother could ever have. Four grandbabies! I can’t wait to tell my church prayer group!”
CALEB FLEW OUT the door when he heard April’s car pull into the driveway. He pulled open her door, unable to wait for her to get out of the car. “I was so worried!”
“Why?” April smiled at him, a new emotion for him residing in her heart. “We just went for an outing.”
“That was some outing! It seemed you were gone for hours.”
And there was a different air about her, a seeming peacefulness he’d never seen before. He liked it; she wore contentment well. “You didn’t go see a masseur, did you?” he asked gruffly, unstrapping two of the baby carriers in the back seat.
“No.” April laughed, the sound carefree and joyful to his ears.
“Well, whatever you did you look like it did you a whole lot of good. Stand there for a second with the other two while I take these little guys inside. I don’t want you doing any more lifting than you’ve already done today.”
He carried Matthew and Craig inside out of the chilly breeze. Returning to the car, he lifted out Melissa and Chloe, whom April had already un-strapped. Silently, they both went inside the little house, and each began unbundling babies and putting them on a puffy quilt on the floor.
Awkwardly, he wondered if she’d go ahead and mention where she’d been. It was about to kill him! For a man as good at figuring things out as he liked to boast that he was, he had no idea where she had taken the quads. After an hour had passed after his return—and he’d talked to the captain a while—he’d called his sister to ask surreptitiously nosy questions.
Bri had had the nerve to laugh at him. “Are you going to make a habit of calling me every time April gives you the slip? I’m going to install caller ID if you are.”
He’d hung up, disgruntled, but only because Bri was the only one who would dare to call him on what he was doing—and then tease him about it. Deciding that he’d just have to wait, he had thrown himself onto the sofa, making certain his cell phone was on and nearby. Just in case.
“I went to see my old captain,” he said, deciding the onus was on him to put April’s concerns about him at rest. Where she’d been might forever be a mystery to him, but if she always returned looking that renewed, he’d let her go without question.
“You did?”
He sat up a little straighter, realizing he had her complete attention. “Yeah. I’m going to start doing an occasional case.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” She wrinkled her nose at him, and he thought she looked just like Matthew when she did it.
“Detective work. Nothing big.”
“It sounds big. It sounds like something you’d be very good at.”
Her praise felt great. “The captain seems to think so.”
“I think so, too. What did your dad say?”
“Congratulations. But he was very quiet, and when he’s like that, I know he’s trying to disguise his emotions. Dad had wanted me to go back to what he thought I was naturally good at for a long time.
I’d resisted his encouragement.”
“Well, you and I have something in common, then.” She folded a baby blanket and looked up at him. “I’ve been known to resist a little encouragement myself.”
“Did the babies enjoy the outing?”
“They slept mostly. But when they were awake, they were darlings. Totally.”
She smiled at the babies on the blanket beside her, and Caleb’s heart warmed like a sea in warm summer. He pulled her up into his lap, but she surprised him, straddling him instead of reclining against him.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you more,” she told him.
“I want you.”
It had to be him who said it, April knew. She would have waited forever to hear those words from this man, because it was so important that he want her, because of everything that came with her. “I want you more.”
“I have condoms,” he told her, “if you’re of a mind to tell the children we’re going to take a nap.”
“Condoms?” April looked down into his eyes from her perch in his lap.
“And champagne. I went by the store today because I agree with you, April. We should be celebrating.”
“Oh, Caleb,” she murmured, sinking into his out-stretched arms. “I feel like it’s the Fourth of July in February.”
“Not New Year’s all over again?” he asked, pulling her down on top of him on the sofa so that he could touch her hair, her face, her breasts.
“No,” she said against his lips. “We’ve both moved forward, and that calls for a hotter, more in tense holiday.”
“Firecrackers work for me.” With great speed, he pulled her sweater over her head and undid her jeans.
“I’m thinking Roman candles in February is perfect.” Stripping off his jeans and pushing them down over his hips, she worked them off him until he was as nude as she was.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, taking hold of the blanket over the back of the sofa. “Too bad I have to cover you, but I don’t want you cold, and I don’t want to shock the children.”
“The children appear too ready to sleep to care about watching us,” April said, sighing as Caleb’s mouth closed over her breast. She reached between his legs, massaging him, already wanting him.
“I’ve got to get the condoms,” he said, splashing cold water on the shooting emotions inside her. “I don’t want to take any chances on getting you pregnant.”
It was so hard to stop the magic she was feeling, but she had to be honest with Caleb. He’d gone to the captain as she had suggested. He was making an honest attempt to put the past behind him.
Only she held the key to knowing if it ever truly would be. Sitting up, she wrapped the blanket around her as she stared down at him. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
She had to. No easy way to put it, either.
“Can it wait? It’ll only take me a second to jog down the hall, babe. I promise it’s going to be worth the wait.”
She smiled and shook her head. “You’ve been so good to me, and to Jenny, and to the children.” Her breath came deep from inside her as she pulled up courage. “It involves our marriage. The question of whether we want it to be a permanent marriage. There’s only one thing I think we have to work out between us.” She hesitated, but only for a second. “I know how you feel about having a child with me, Caleb.”
The look on his face was not forthcoming. Instinctively, he had an idea where she was going with this.
“April, I would give you anything. I would do anything for you. It’s not you. I don’t want to have a child of my own with anyone.”
Her secret forced her to probe the conversation more deeply. “Caleb, could you at least consider it?”
He shook his head.
“I think it’s probably no secret to anyone that I’ve always wanted—”
His back went straight as he jumped up from the sofa and began putting on his clothes with unyielding haste. “What you want I cannot give you. I cannot give anyone. I will not do to anyone.�
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She frowned. “Caleb, please. You’re not leaving any room for—”
But she’d pushed him too far, far past his breaking point. “No. The answer is no today, it will be no tomorrow, it will always be no. I thought you accepted me the way I was, the way I accepted you, April, past hurt and all. I can’t really explain the depth of why I feel the way I do, but it’s me, it’s etched in my soul, dug in like damaged cells, and I’m never going to be any man but the one I said I was in the beginning. Like Jenny, there are some things a person only marginally heals from, and this is something I cannot do. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” He took a deep breath, his face hard, his body nearly rigid from the assault of her plea. “And now, I’m leaving.”
Chapter Twenty
“Please don’t leave like this,” April told Caleb as he tossed his things into a duffel bag.
It wasn’t that he wanted to, but there was too much fear in him. He’d fallen in love with her—and it scared the hell out of him. She had needs he could not fulfill, needs she had a right to have fulfilled by someone. Not him. “I’m sorry.”
She started to sob, wrenching his heart in two. “You care about me. I know you do.”
True. That was, precisely, the problem. He’d meant to alleviate her needs, take care of her and the children. He’d never meant to start needing her the way he knew he did. And he’d meant to only give to her—but this, what he knew she really wanted, he could not give. He saw it in her face every time she held the adorable quads; he knew the depth of love in her soul. “I do. But I just can’t get you pregnant, April. I could be responsible for you and the babies, because we thought it was short-term. And then it was a question of long-term, and that seemed possible, and maybe even right. But you’re safe now,” he said, his voice pleading for her to understand what even he could not explain. “I’ll always be around to help you with all of this, just not in a husband capacity.”
“I think I’m pregnant,” she said hoarsely, her face torn with the agony of finally revealing her secret.
His whole being stilled in the act of jumping off the emotional cliff he’d been heading for. “What?”
“I think I’m pregnant. I’m not certain, but there’s a possibility. I’ve got an appointment at Maitland tomorrow for accurate testing.” This time the words were a hushed confession. She wiped her eyes, staring at him.
So helpless. And so sweet.
And so deeply embedded in him.
Coward if he jumped now; thief if he ran with her heart; bastard if he deserted her.
April would be such an awesome mother to his child. She’d already proved herself as a mother, so Madonna-like.
And yet so fragile.
“We need you,” she said.
His mind blew into darkness, the impact tearing a crater in his soul.
Of course he’d been drawn to the gentle mother in her. She was, in so many ways, a frame for the delicate mother he’d never known.
There was too much pain swimming in his head. So he sat down, tugged her into his lap, and, burying his face in her hair, burst into tears he’d never before allowed himself to cry.
“I know what I’ve been doing,” he said finally as she silently wiped his tears away from his eyes with her fingertips. Her loving action was the final push to break down his wall of reserve. “I haven’t been honest. I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you.”
“Oh, Caleb,” she said, her panic beginning to recede. His gaze was so clear, so honest, that she knew for the first time she was seeing the real him. All of him.
“I do love you,” he told her.
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
“I think I was taking the easy way out. We’d get married on a pretense. I knew in my heart Jenny couldn’t handle the children, it was too much for her after losing her husband. She wanted you to have them, and then, so did I.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “But I have to admit that I must have been trying to create a family without…”
April touched his face with her hand. “Endangering me?”
He stared into her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I admit my mom dying when I was born is a fact that has haunted me. Badly. It’s not very brave, is it?”
“I think you’re a hero,” she said softly. “I love you more, as of this moment.” Then she tapped her finger against his lips in a gentle rebuke. “But, Caleb, if I am pregnant, can I just remind you of one thing?”
He nodded slowly.
“I am a nurse. I can take care of myself. Good care of myself. That’s something you can’t do for me.”
She felt a ripple go through him. “I know. And I know it will be all right. But I’ll still be scared.”
Then he smiled at her, and she knew he had made peace with his past. “You can pace in the waiting room.”
“I’ll be right there in the delivery room with you. You should know that by now!”
It was true. He had been with her through some of the hardest, darkest moments. “I know. And I love you for it.”
“And I love you, Nurse Sullivan-McCallum. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to insist upon moving you and all these children into a bigger castle. With many bedrooms, and many bathrooms, and many phone outlets for the teen years. It won’t be quite a dollhouse, but I give you my word that you can decorate it any way you please. Pink flowers, teacup wallpaper in the kitchen, I don’t care. Five children! And I was the guy who said I wouldn’t have any. Bri is going to tease me unmercifully.” He groaned, but his face was happy. “Let’s start looking for the perfect house, just the right thing for us—and our growing family.”
“That’s fine,” she said with a smile, drawing his head to hers for a kiss. “I was scared, too. I’m not anymore, Mr. Troubleshooter. And I’m ready to make that move with you.”
“FALSE ALARM,” April told Caleb as she snuggled up against him later that evening.
With the reading lamp on, Caleb was lying in her bed, bare-chested above a white sheet, as if he’d always done this before. He’d been circling real-estate ads in the newspaper, but he dropped the paper at her announcement, and sat up straight. “Really?”
“Really.” And then she laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I used a cop term, and you didn’t even notice.”
“Because it elicited the same kind of relief I’d always felt whenever I heard false alarm.”
“But you seemed so surprised. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were disappointed, Caleb.”
He thought about that a moment, realizing he’d been ready for whatever had come to them. That was the difference between then, and now.
He was ready.
Taking April in his arms, he said, “Nah. Hearing you talk cop to me turned me on, babe. I suggest we practice babymaking often and see where that takes us. Stat.”
She moaned underneath him, her need for him thrilling him. “Very funny, Caleb. A medical term. I got it.”
“I’m so glad,” he whispered, taking her with him, “I’m so glad that I’ve got you, to have and to hold. Forever.”
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Tina Leonard for her contribution to the MAITLAND MATERNITY: TRIPLETS, QUADS & QUINTS series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5850-5
QUADRUPLETS ON THE DOORSTEP
Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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