“If the two of you are sharing guardianship of the girls and living together in this house, who’s to say you couldn’t have a partnership in other ways?”
That thought had been on Cora’s mind since their kiss. Somehow, though, the touch of his hand on hers in the kitchen the morning after he got up with Melody had caused an even stronger reaction. It conveyed not just pity or lust, but something deeper.
“Cora, seriously, you’re young,” Annie argued. “As much as I know you love the girls, you can’t focus your whole life around raising someone else’s kids.”
“I’ve been with them so much it’s like they’re mine. I don’t want them to forget their parents, ever, but this is more than a job to me.”
“Caring for them doesn’t mean you can’t have something of your own as well. I’d hate to see you go through life without doing anything just for you. You must have dreams for yourself.”
Cora used to. She’d wanted what every girl did. The dream man and family. But she wasn’t unhappy with what she’d gotten. She had the family, even if they weren’t fully hers. As for the man… William wasn’t the type she’d ever thought could catch her interest. He was too much like her father and the military men she’d known as a child.
But he wasn’t wholly like that either. He blew bubbles with kids in the backyard and held scared toddlers in the night.
Maybe she would call about the babysitting class and give him a chance to be her partner with the girls. And if that worked out, they might find a moment to try another kiss.
“Are we ready?” Cora pulled herself from her thoughts and surveyed the table, all set for lunch.
“To get mobbed by starving toddlers? I guess.” Annie grinned. “I’ll get them while you take this to Mr. Muscles.”
Cora hadn’t even noticed her friend had put together a plate of food for William. She usually made enough for him when she cooked, but he had never expected it. “I—”
“Cora, just take him the food.”
Fine. “I’ll be right back.” Cora picked up the plate and a glass of lemonade. It would take just a minute to drop it off in the office where William was likely to be. She could trust herself alone with him for that amount of time, right? She wouldn’t replay the feel of his hand on hers every second she was in his presence.
“No need to rush,” Annie said before heading to the living room to fetch the kids.
Eight
Being a SEAL had given William a sixth sense of sorts. When a mission was about to go sideways, he could feel it. As he made his way to a classroom on the hospital’s fourth floor, he felt the twitch that told him something was off. He checked the room numbers and did a quick scan of the people in his environment, starting with those closest to him and fanning out.
Nurses, doctors, various other people in scrubs, and about ten early-teen girls milled about. That was the source of the twitch, he recognized, and laughed at himself. The troop of fourteen-year-old girls were his classmates for the babysitting course. Until recently, he’d had little close contact with women. He was adjusting to three toddlers and one damned pretty housemate tolerably well, but most other women still twigged that “what’s wrong with this picture” sense in him.
“If you’re here for the babysitting course, come in and find a station.” A middle-aged woman with shoulder length blond hair and an easy smile waved the group of girls in. “You must be William,” she said when he followed the girls into the room.
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded. She had a pleasant demeanor, but one that commanded respect as well.
“I was expecting someone,” she studied him, “younger. Occasionally, a boy will take the class, so I assumed you would be a teenager. Are you a recent father? There’s a separate course for expecting parents.”
“My situation is different,” William said, wondering the best way to explain. Fortunately, the woman only nodded and turned to greet other students, so he continued into the room and found a station along the back wall. It was stocked with a pretend baby and other baby paraphernalia, some of which he recognized from the nursery at home.
“I’m Kelly Spicer. You can all call me Kelly,” she announced to the entire class, picking up a clipboard. “Let me check off who’s here and we’ll get started on your certification.”
After Kelly called off names, she held up a diaper. “Okay, everyone, we’re going to start with basic diapering, so get your supplies ready.”
William grabbed a diaper. This he could do. As he glanced around, he saw other students get out wipes and a tube of something. He moved those supplies on his own station to within reach as well to be prepared.
“Unfold the diaper,” Kelly instructed, demonstrating with one in the air. “Be careful with the tape. Don’t open it yet.” Too late, William winced. He tried to re-close the tape but caught the material of the diaper in its stickiness. He yanked at it, tearing the tape completely off the diaper.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath.
“You’ll need a new one,” Kelly said quietly, coming up next to him. “Don’t worry about it. Happens to everyone.”
William didn’t notice it happening to anyone else, but he did hear a giggle at his expense. He tried again, this time successfully getting the diaper open, despite its tendency to bunch up.
“Now, lift the baby,” Kelly instructed, “and slide the diaper underneath.”
He picked up the doll, holding it easily in one hand while he tried to flatten the diaper on the changing station with the other. He needed a third hand, he decided, as he used his entire forearm to keep the diaper open.
Kelly was back in front of his station. “What am I doing wrong?” he asked, not waiting for her critique.
“There’s no need to hold the baby up in the air. Just gently hold onto the child’s ankles and lift enough to push the diaper underneath.” She demonstrated as she spoke. “Like this. Now, you try it.”
He did as she’d directed, and it worked. He got the diaper under the doll. “Fold the front over the child and attach the tapes from the back to the front. Not so tight,” she said when he cinched the diaper up. “There, you’ve got it.”
No, he didn’t. The diaper was lopsided at the top and gapped around the doll’s legs. That didn’t seem right. It had been a long time since he was behind the learning curve on anything, and he wasn’t happy about it. He didn’t fail, so he tried again with another diaper. On the fourth one, he felt he’d mastered the skill…mostly. He looked up and every set of eyes in the room was on him.
What could he do? He smiled affably and said, “Thanks for waiting for me, but I do have a question. How is this going to be different with bigger kids? Mine are older.”
“We’ll talk about that next,” Kelly answered and went into an explanation.
William wanted to take notes of what she said, but no one else was, so he concentrated on committing her advice about changing toddlers to memory. She made it sound more challenging than dealing with a little one, and he gained more respect for Cora, who seemed to effortlessly get the girls changed and in bed every night.
“Are we good with diapering? Because now, we need to talk about basic baby care. For instance, what’s the best way to burp a baby after a bottle?”
“You put it on your shoulder and rub its back.” A skinny teenager to his left answered.
“That’s right. Make sure it is a rub, not a pound.” She showed them what she meant and encouraged the students to try.
Since William hadn’t seen any sign of bottles in the Lawrence house, he figured he was okay on that one, but he put the doll to his shoulder anyhow. Being a team player was important in his book.
“Moving on.” From under a station, Kelly pulled out a plastic tub, the size of a small laundry basket. “How should you check to see if a baby’s bath water is the right temperature? William, what do you think?”
“Use a thermometer?” That seemed like a logical answer.
Kelly smiled at him, and he heard a few giggles. “
You could do that, but the simplest way is to test it by dipping in your wrist. The water should feel just warm, never hot. Next question. Say you’re giving a baby a bath and your phone that you left in the next room rings. How long can you safely be gone?”
William sneaked a look around, hoping someone else was going to field this one. His inclination was that he could grab the phone and be back in the bathroom in a matter of seconds.
“Never,” three voices chorused together.
“Very good,” Kelly praised them, making William grateful he’d kept his mouth shut. But…really? Never? Not even for a half minute? “Babies can drown in less than an inch of water,” Kelly continued. “You can never trust they’ll be okay.”
That’s it. William yanked a notebook and pen out of his pocket. He didn’t care that no one else was taking notes. The heck with looking cool. There was a lot of information here that he needed to remember, and he had a short amount of time to learn it if Cora was going to let him help with the girls. No wonder she looked exhausted at the end of every evening if she had to remember all of this all the time.
He opened the notebook to a fresh page and wrote bath time at the top.
“I’m new to this, as you can tell,” he addressed the instructor. “Would you tell me everything I need to know about giving three-year-olds a bath?”
“Do you have more than one?” Kelly enquired with interest and a raised an eyebrow.
“Triplets,” he answered to gasps and a series of oohs and aahs. “Cora takes care of them, but I want to be able to help her more,” he said, his pen poised over the paper.
For the next few hours, he took notes under headings including feeding, TV time, playtime, safety, CPR, and routines. He passed the infant and toddler CPR tests on the first try and successfully saved the dummy from choking. In the process, he started to understand why Cora did certain things such as slice grapes in half and limit the kids’ screen time. It all made sense to him when he had the facts.
He looked over his notes while other participants packed up at the end of the session. Although Ben Albright from Alert Security had taken his spot for the day, William was anxious to return to the house. He’d checked in during a break and all was well, but he didn’t like leaving Cora and the girls for this long. Before he left the class, though, he wanted every scrap of information he could get.
“I have one more question about schedules,” he asked, returning to a point Kelly had reviewed. “You said it was good for babies to have a routine. Is that true of toddlers as well?”
“Even more so,” Kelly said. “Kids thrive on routine, and it makes things easier on their parents as well. Your wife must have a schedule for your girls. I can’t imagine managing triplets without one.”
“Cora’s not my wife,” he said before thinking better of it. All eyes turned on him once again. Now he had to explain the situation or try to. “We sort of share guardianship of the triplets. My role is to take care of safety and Cora sees to…she sees to everything else. She wanted me to take this class so I could…let’s just say I’m new to dealing with kids.”
Kelly walked closer to his station so they could speak privately. “Guardianship? What about their parents?” He shook his head, deciding it was better not to reveal too many details. “Oh, I’m sorry. I think I understand. This isn’t a traditional situation.”
“No,” he said. That was putting it mildly. He was glad he didn’t have to explain how he was thrust into the position of being a protector for children he’d never met until two weeks ago. In that short timeframe, he’d come to care about the girls, more than he’d thought himself capable of, which was part of the reason he’d spent the day absorbing knowledge about raising kids.
The other reason was more complicated. Cora needed him, even if she didn’t want to admit it. In the time he’d been at the house, the only thing he’d seen Cora do for herself was read, and that was only for a few minutes here and there. How did she expect to continue functioning like that until the girls were old enough to be self-sufficient—which, according to Kelly, wouldn’t be for years?
If he could convince Cora to institute a schedule, establish a routine, both the kids and Cora would benefit. Creating a timetable was something logical that played to his strengths and military experience. It was where he could make a meaningful contribution to how the household functioned.
He hoped Cora would accept his assistance, and they could be more like a modern family with each adult taking on part of the responsibility for the kids. He flipped his notebook shut as a little voice in his head reminded him that they weren’t a family, traditional, modern, or otherwise. They weren’t even close unless living under the same roof qualified as such.
These weren’t his children, and Cora wasn’t his wife. His presence in their lives was so he could do his job and advance in his career with Alert Security. But that side of the situation would benefit from more organization, too. A strategy and a schedule would improve his ability to keep them safe, make Cora’s life easier, and deter the unexpected. As far as he was concerned, it would be a win-win-win.
Yet, he had a hollow sensation in his stomach when he recognized that they would never be a family. He wasn’t sure if he was capable of that type of commitment, and this wasn’t a situation in which he would find out.
Nine
William’s temporary replacement, Ben, walked into the kitchen while Cora searched in the cabinets for a healthy afternoon snack. Cora liked Ben. He seemed professional and efficient, and she had felt safe with him there…but it wasn’t the same as having William around.
“Royce is on his way back,” Ben said, holding up his phone. “I’ll stay until he gets here.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Part of the service provided,” Ben responded.
Somewhere in the past two weeks, she had stopped thinking of William as doing a job. She knew his vigilance on security issues was constant as he watched monitors and prowled the perimeter of the property. Nevertheless, she’d started to think of him differently. He was part of the household now.
“Would you like a snack?” Cora offered.
“No, ma’am. I’m going to check the exterior one last time before Royce gets here.” Ben ducked out the doors onto the terrace, leaving her alone with the triplets.
“William will be home soon,” she said, which she hoped would brighten their moods.
“Why did he have to go?” Paige asked again. All three of them had asked some version of the question during the day. Their way of asking had gotten increasingly whiny—which, she supposed, had to do with the fact that none of them had napped. Led by Paige, all three had flatly refused without William in the house. Cora had given up and let them watch Frozen for the umpteenth time.
Their clear attachment to William—and their reaction to him being gone for just a day—confirmed her fears. They were already too invested in having William around. That was going to be a problem when he left, as he inevitably would. It almost made her want to take a step back and push for him to be even less involved with the girls…but that wouldn’t change what they already felt. They’d still want to spend time with him—and they were sneaky enough to find ways around her. And how could she stand in the way of them spending time with someone who made them happy? They deserved joy in their life. They deserved a male adult to fill the void their father had left behind. They deserved…well, they deserved to be part of a real family again. But since she couldn’t give them that, time with her and William would have to do.
“I told you. He’s trying to learn more about taking care of you. He wants to be a helper.” It was a simplified version of the truth. After Cora registered him for the babysitting class, she’d had misgivings. How could she expect a man with his training and experience to want to learn about child rearing? He’d surprised her by being excited to attend the course.
“Are we trouble?” This from Melody, the happy and easy-going triplet.
“Not at all.
You’re perfect.” Cora kissed the girl on the forehead and caught all three of them to her for a group hug. “I love you all.” It was true, and she tried to say it to them as often as she could. They needed to know they were loved and cherished, even if they had no actual family in their lives. She would be their family, and William was proving himself a vital part of the household, too.
And it wasn’t only the girls who felt that. She couldn’t get William out of her mind. His touch, his kiss, the sexy way he looked first thing in the morning when he came in from his first check of the outside. He was on her mind in ways no man had ever been before. Not that there had been a lot of men in her life, she acknowledged. Just one college boyfriend had been serious. In retrospect, her attraction to Jason was nothing more than proximity and youthful lust.
What she felt for William was different—more mature, more meaningful. She was interested, even curious about him and his past.
“Should we make William a snack?” she asked the girls. Keeping busy would fill the remaining time until he got home. “I’ll bet he’ll be hungry after all that learning.”
“I’m hungry,” Haley said quietly.
“We’ll make enough for everyone.” Cora had a moment of inspiration and pulled apples from the refrigerator, along with peanut butter, granola, and, after a second’s thought, chocolate chips from the cabinet. “How about apple sandwiches?”
Cora took the supplies to the table so the triplets could help. Once they were in their booster seats, she set up an assembly line. First, she cored the apples and cut them into rings. She passed the rings to Melody, who had the best fine motor control, to spread peanut butter on the rings. Paige and Haley added a generous amount of granola and chocolate chips. They finished the “sandwiches” by putting two rings together and arranging them on a platter.
“Perfect,” Cora declared, pleased with their work just as she heard the front door open. “I think he’s home.”
“I’ll get him.” Paige hopped down.
The SEAL’s Unexpected Triplets Page 6
