The Baby Twins (Babies & Bachelors USA)

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Help yourself to the amenities.” The man gestured toward an island of modern equipment—computer, phone, fax, copier—in what was otherwise an outdated shed.

  “Hang tight over here for a few minutes,” Brady said, guiding Steph to a seating area featuring a commercial coffeemaker spitting out heavenly smelling brew. Dark paneled walls provided the perfect background for sagging black sofas and a magazine rack filled with an array of aviation magazines guaranteed to send his companion into a nice, deep slumber. “I’m going to check weather and file a flight plan.”

  “Okeydoke.” Her smile was off. Like she wasn’t only sleepy, but a smidge pharmacologically toasted.

  He found a Good Housekeeping and put it in her hands. “Need anything? Something to drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He poured black coffee into a china mug, dropped a quarter into the Honor Jar, and then sat at the computer desk to fill out an online flight plan and check the weather.

  Finished, he asked Steph, “You going to be all right if I head outside to help with the tie-downs?”

  Eyes closed with her chin drooping, she nodded.

  If this had been a date, he’d take her napping to be a bad sign, but knowing her history and the struggle she faced with flying, he knew she needed the calming medication.

  The sun lied. Even though it was a bright day, cold had settled into the bowl-shaped valley Stephanie called her home. Ramming icy fingers into his coat pockets, he spent a few minutes chatting with the fueler, finalized his gas purchase, and then grabbed his fuel strainer before starting his preflight check. Looking over his inherited Beechcraft Baron 58 never got old. High-gloss white with royal-blue, gold and red accents, she was a sight to behold. Brady missed his uncle Fred but every time he flew, he hoped the old guy was upstairs loving the ride every bit as much as him.

  Checking the engine and the nose, Brady wished Steph were with him. It might be useful to her to understand that with proper precautions, flying was as safe—hell, in many ways safer—than climbing in her family car.

  Finished, he headed back inside for his passenger.

  “Ready?” he asked, giving her shoulder a gentle nudge.

  “Mmm…” Her yawn and sleepy stretch was topped off by a drowsy smile. “How long was I out?”

  “Only long enough to miss out on all of the work.”

  “Cool.”

  “Lucky thing I’m not charging you for this trip or that attitude would have you paying double.”

  “Sorry. Maybe on the return trip, I’ll have more energy.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Although…” He pulled a TransGlobal ball cap he’d picked up at his last training review from his coat pocket. “I was planning on giving you this as a party favor, but now—”

  “Ooh!” Suddenly awake, she snatched it from him. “Michael always tried winning me one of those but he was much better at piloting than raffling. Thanks.” Loosening the Velcro at the back of the cap, she fit it to her head, and pulled her ponytail out of the back. “I’m good to go.”

  She sure was. With the exception of his beautiful little girl, his plane had never had a better-looking fare.

  “IS THAT NORMAL?” STEPHANIE asked about three minutes into their flight. She’d made it through crawling into the cockpit alongside him, survived the terror of leaving the ground, having headphones clamp her head like a vise, and seriously having to pee, only to now grip the arms of her seat tight enough that she was pretty sure she’d leave finger imprints in the fancy leather seats.

  “Perfectly.” Through the headset, his voice sounded different—infinitely more in control. A good thing. She was in major need of a calming influence! “On a crisp fall day like this, the lower layer of air is bumpier. We’re going through the mixing layer. After that, I promise the ride will smooth out.”

  “If you say so….”

  Trying to focus on anything other than the fact that she was hurtling through the sky, by the minute getting farther from her babies, she focused on the plane’s swanky decor. Cherry trim and built-in side tables along with navy carpet provided a sumptuous foundation for all of the fawn-colored leather upholstery.

  “This is supersweet,” she noted, angling on her seat as much as her seat belt allowed. “So remind me again how you came to have it? I mean, not to get personal, but—”

  He was forced to cut her off by talking with someone on the radio. Another man, who spouted lots of Alpha/Bravo/Charlie-type lingo that sounded about as foreign to her as one of her more complex phyllo-dough recipes might’ve been to him. He finished, and his sideways grin stole her breath. “Before we were so rudely interrupted you were saying?”

  Shaking her head to clear it of a humming awareness that had nothing to do with the engine’s drone, she regrouped. “I was just saying that knowing how little Michael made, unless you’ve taken up running cargo a little more pricey than passengers, this is out of your league.”

  “My uncle left it to me. Remember? I thought I told you?”

  “You probably did,” she said with a flustered smile. “If so, tell me again, because it obviously didn’t sink in.”

  He fiddled with some switches and knobs and then checked a couple of gauges. “My uncle was our family’s black sheep. Much to Grandma Rose’s dismay, he never even married—just cohabitated, as she called it—with an Anchorage burlesque dancer named Frieda.”

  “As in Anchorage, Alaska?”

  “That’d be the one,” he said, checking the radar screen. “So anyway, he dropped out of high school and headed up there when he was seventeen. Filed for a mining claim and hit it big. The rest is history. He died just last year, and believe me, no one was more surprised than me when I got a certified letter informing me that I was now the proud owner of my very own slice of Heaven. When I picked her up, I even got to meet Frieda.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Bawdy. Mountains of red hair and big boobs. And the most wicked-fun personality I’d run across in years. We still keep in touch.”

  “Cool.”

  “That your official word of the day?”

  “Maybe.” She yawned. “Michael would’ve loved this. He always talked about one day having his own plane. He looked so good in his TransGlobal uniform. Lots of ladies tried catching him, but he always came home to me.” Eyelids fluttering with invisible weight, she added, “I could never come close to loving another man as much as him.”

  Chapter Seven

  How much did it suck that here Brady sat at a blaring kiddie concert with some blond-haired, blue-eyed Romeo crooning to his daughter and four of her closest friends, and all he could think about was how irked he still was by Stephanie’s earlier comment?

  While she danced along with the girls, he glowered, glad for the stadium’s dark. Yes, to have even let the innocent statement register on his radar was idiotic. He and Steph were friends. He’d only brought her out here as a favor to his old buddy who wouldn’t have wanted his wife forever crippled by a fear of flying.

  His conscience snorted. Yeah, right. How much of his invitation had had to do with chivalry and how much with a certain kiss?

  Arms tightly folded, he feigned interest in the teen his daughter and her friends squealed over.

  “What’s wrong?” Steph shouted above an excruciating lead guitar solo.

  “Headache,” he only half lied.

  “Want aspirin?” She’d already reached for her purse.

  He shook his head. “Let’s get out of here for a minute. Maybe get a hot dog.”

  She nodded.

  To his daughter, he explained the plan.

  To which she shouted, “Geesh, Dad, if you want to make out, couldn’t you wait until after the show?”

  Vowing to deal with Lola’s mouth later, he grabbed Steph’s hand and led her up narrow stairs heading out of the arena.

  “Better?” she asked once distance had somewhat subdued the noise.

  He nodded. “I can’t believe how much these ticke
ts set me back. It’s like I paid to be tortured.”

  “Lola and her friends are clearly enthralled. Trust me,” she assured, “your money was well spent. She’ll always remember this night.”

  Smelling food, he asked, “Hungry? We were in such a rush to pick up Lola and crew from the airport that we didn’t get dinner.”

  “True. I’ve been wondering if you’d ever get around to feeding me.”

  They bantered over mustard-slathered hot dogs, Cokes and popcorn. And when that was done, they went back to the concession booth for soft-serve ice cream cones. At arena prices, the meal no doubt cost more than a night out at some swanky steak place, but damned if he hadn’t enjoyed himself more. His earlier funk had been replaced by an inexplicable sense of contented ness. As though at least for the next thirty minutes, or so, all was good in his life.

  “Not to sound patronizing,” he said upon finishing his cone, “but you did great today. Your nerves hardly showed at all.”

  Dredging the pink tip of her tongue around the base of her treat, she took a long time to answer. “This might sound out there, but the whole time we were in the air, I felt like Michael was with me. Assuring me everything would be all right.”

  Like a raging flash flood, Brady’s jealousy over his old pal roared back. Irrational. Downright stupid. But there all the same.

  “We had such a great marriage. Michael was crazy about one day becoming a father. I never even got to tell him that we were expecting.” Her blue eyes filled with tears. “Sorry. You’ve shown me the kind of good time I only used to share with him, which is great, but for some reason it’s bringing back memories I’d thought were safely locked away.”

  “We’re, ah, cool.” He’d striven for a carefree tone. The kind of casual, hip attitude a guy hanging out with his best friend’s girl would naturally adopt. “Thought cool was my word,” she teased with the cutest little crease between her eyes.

  “My bad.” Hands flattened into a makeshift serving platter, he passed it back to her. “It’s all yours.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Extending her small hand toward him, she asked, “Ready to head back in?”

  No. But hand in hand they entered the arena. Lucky for him, he still had an hour in the dark left to brood about the forbidden thrill of sliding his fingers between hers.

  “SHE’S REALLY PRETTY.” Lola padded into his office a little after 2:00 a.m. Her pink lamb pj’s weren’t anywhere near as cute as her crazy hair.

  “What’re you doing up?” Swiveling his desk chair to better see her, he abandoned his mindless game of spider solitaire.

  “Couldn’t sleep. Jenny snores—loud.”

  He chuckled. “Sorry.”

  She plopped cross-legged onto the thickly carpeted floor. “It’s okay.”

  Right after the concert, they’d dropped Steph off at her hotel, and then ran the rest of the girls back to his place. He would’ve lectured Lola on the merits of a good night’s sleep, but when his eyes wouldn’t shut, either, he could hardly blame the kid. “Want some hot chocolate?”

  She nodded.

  In the kitchen, they worked as a team, assembling milk, sugar and cocoa the way they had since she’d first learned to stand and her favorite kitchen toy had been a big, plastic spoon. Somewhere in her cluttered room at Clarissa’s, she still had it—bite marks and all.

  “Did you guys go make out when you left the show?”

  “No,” he said, more than a little miffed that she even knew what the phrase meant. “Not that it’s any of your business, but we got hot dogs and talked about boring stuff like what we think our girls will be when they grow up.”

  “What’d you tell her I want to be?”

  “What else?” He fished in the fridge for the spray bottle of whipped cream. “A drama queen.”

  “That’s so not true.” She pretended to be offended, but her barely hidden smile told him that a part of her was proud that he’d noticed her dramatic tendencies. Little did she know he also worried about them! “You know I want to be an Olympic gymnast.”

  “Yes,” he acknowledged with a ruffle to her hair, “I do know, but it’s always more fun to tease.”

  She stuck out her tongue. “I think Mom’s gonna be super jealous.”

  “’Bout what?” He measured milk before dumping it into a saucepan.

  “Duh. Stephanie.” Hands on her hips, she gave him the you’re-such-a-dork look she usually reserved for when he asked questions about one of her gymnastic routines. “That’s the only reason you brought her all the way out here, right? So Mom could see some other girl likes you and then she’d be so jealous she’ll want you back?”

  “SHE DIDN’T,” STEPHANIE SAID the next morning over a bayside breakfast of cream cheese–slathered bagels and steaming, legendary Seattle coffee. Aside from Brady’s confession that his daughter considered her the ultimate jealousy bait, the morning was breathtaking. She wasn’t sure which body of water they currently strolled around, but the combination of salty air, ringing mast lines and the occasional slap of a wave against the boardwalk and marina docks made for a heady overall experience. Toss in Brady’s pleasant company and it had been an all-around great morning.

  “Oh, yes, she did. Just thought I’d warn you as to why she was giving you all of those squinty-eyed glares.”

  “Truthfully,” she said with a laugh, “I thought she had something in her eye.”

  “I wish,” he grumbled, before taking another bite of bagel. He had a smidge of cream cheese in the corner of his mouth and instinctively, as she might’ve with Michael, she reached up to wipe it away. In the process, she caught a hint of his breath. Coffee and cream cheese and that little something extra she already recognized as him. Unfortunately, since Brady wasn’t her husband, instead of allowing her to preen him, he flinched.

  “Sorry,” she said, immediately retreating to her own personal space.

  “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to… You know.”

  She nodded, making a mental note to keep her hands to herself. Being with Brady should be comfortable, but in the same way she would be with any friend. Bumbling through the awkward next few seconds, she said, “Anyway, I’m trying not to leap to conclusions about Lola, but is that why you brought me here? In the hopes of making Clarissa jealous? If so, because we’re just friends, that’s all right—I mean, it’s not, but—”

  Hand on her forearm, he stopped her cold. “I invited you to my hometown to help get you over your fear of flying, and because I’ve really missed having a friend from the old days. You know, back before everything in my life went to hell.”

  “Not everything,” she said, sipping her brew and trying to ignore a delicious tingle where his fingers brushed her skin. Was that how it was? He was allowed to touch her, but not the other way around? Or was she overanalyzing his every move because she hadn’t been around a man in nearly two years? “Overall,” she licked suddenly dry lips, “don’t you think you and Lola are growing stronger by the day?”

  “I thought so,” he admitted, “but hearing her say that about you makes me wonder if all this time I’ve been fooling myself. What if all of my warm-fuzzies about our new and improved relationship are one-sided?”

  “I’m not going to say it isn’t possible.” Walking again, she tried not focusing so much on her awareness of Brady, but the heady rush of exploring somewhere new. “For what it matters,” she said as they passed a guy hosing down his boat, “as a fellow parent, though my girls aren’t anywhere near the stage Lola is, I think the fact that you were willing to up and move back to Seattle was a bold step in the right direction. As for her whole make-mom-jealous scheme, relax. It’ll blow over.” Just like my urge to comfort you with a big hug.

  Brady’s knitted eyebrows told a different story.

  “THANK YOU.”

  “Sure.” After returning Stephanie safe and sound and still somewhat sedated to Valley View, Brady climbed out of the airport courtesy
vehicle to gather her things and walk her to her front door.

  The return flight had been uneventful, leading him to wonder why she’d ever panicked to such a degree.

  “Want to come in for a minute? You’ve got to be beat.”

  “True,” he said. A nap would be great, but it was already getting dark and he still had a long night ahead of him in flying home. “But I should be getting back.”

  “Michael always tried resting between flights.” Though she wore a heavy woolen sweater, she crossed her arms, rubbing herself to ward off the cold.

  “A good policy.” But Brady had heard enough about his old friend to last him a good, long while. The last thing he wanted to do was chill in the guy’s home. Especially since he’d spent a long afternoon musing about how much it sucked being stuck at nine thousand feet for over fifteen hundred nautical miles alongside a sleep ing beauty no doubt dreaming of a man other than him. “But I’ve got things to do back home.”

  Lightning cracked the western sky.

  “That came in faster than I’d expected.” Cramming his hands in his jeans pockets, he was itching to get a hold of a weather report.

  A light sprinkle started to fall, making the already nippy autumn air downright frigid.

  Jogging to the front door, Steph shouted over her shoulder, “Mother Nature’s trying to tell you something…”

  “You’re probably right,” he said as the cold rain fell harder.

  Her home was as welcoming as her shop. Small, but cozy with sunny-yellow walls, honey-toned hardwood floors and the kind of feminine, frilly touches he wouldn’t have thought Michael would’ve gone for. An overstuffed floral sofa and love seat nicely blended with a maple china cabinet crammed full of china collectibles. A redbrick fireplace was flanked by built-in bookshelves. An assortment of paperbacks, hardcover novels and even magazines were crammed haphazardly amongst framed photos—mostly featuring Michael or the babies. On the mantel sat a wooden flag case Brady presumed Stephanie had been given at Michael’s memorial service. His formal Air National Guard portrait sat alongside it.