In picture after picture, the girls looked happy. Smiling for the camera, showing off their cute outfits, and somehow she’d gotten them to buy dissimilar clothes. He’d caved every time they pouted over not dressing alike and bought everything in triplicate.
Sarah was made of sterner stuff, it seemed.
And beautiful.
He tried to shove that thought aside as he rounded the last corner before stringing wire.
What was that all about? He’d known lots of beautiful women over the years. Lots of wonderful women.
Yet none called to him like her.
Was that because she was forbidden fruit? She was on the opposing team. She had a life in Seattle. A good life, he knew, because he’d done an internet search on her.
An eminent physician with a monster-sized education and the skill to operate on the tiniest babies. The very thought humbled him.
He was proud of his life. Proud of his career. He’d recently been promoted to detective, a job he loved. And now, more than ever, his parents needed all hands on deck.
A text came in just then. His mother sent a picture of his father in the state-of-the-art Seattle hospital. “Step by step!” read the caption, but the picture of Roy Calloway told more.
The stroke had aged him. He looked feeble, and the asymmetrical shape of his face indicated a slow recovery. If he recovered. He might be in top medical hands, but he’d suffered a major brain incident.
Renzo called his mother on video chat. If anything would help his dad recover, it would be to know things were plugging along at the ranch. “Hey, Mom and Dad. How’s it going?” he asked in a bright voice, as if they were lounging on a beach somewhere.
His mother’s excited voice came through loud and clear. “Honey, it’s Renzo! Look!” She must have held the phone up for his father to see.
“Lookin’ good, Dad!”
His father struggled to form words. None came. Renzo pretended that was all right and carried the conversation.
“I’m stringing fence right now.” He panned the phone camera out so they could see his location. “The upper field is filled with the older cows, and we’ve moved the heifers to the front field.” It was a maneuver his father did every year, to keep the first-time mothers closer to the barn. If one had a difficult birth, help was close at hand. “And it’s cold!” He grinned into the camera. “We miss you guys, but we’re getting on fine,” he assured them. “The girls are missing you like crazy, and I’ve registered the calves for the post-Thanksgiving auction. And I’ve booked the cattle trucks for transport.”
His father struggled to say something. Then to change expressions. Neither attempt worked and it broke Renzo’s heart to see him struggle with such simple things.
“Tell them we love them.” His mother’s voice wavered slightly. “We love them very much and we’ll see them soon. And tell them that Papa is getting better, a little bit at a time. And that he is very, very impatient,” she added. Renzo was pretty sure she was making a face at his father right then.
“Skype us tonight,” he told her. “Doesn’t have to be long, but they’ll be happier if they see you.”
“I will,” she promised. She changed the direction of her phone, but not before he saw the frustration on his father’s face.
The sight unnerved him.
It shouldn’t. He was a cop. He’d seen a lot worse. You didn’t serve on the force for nearly twenty years without coming across grim scenes, but this was his father. His mentor. A beloved example of all things good.
He had to shove back a lump in his throat to keep his own voice from choking up. That would be the last thing either parent should hear. “Gotta go. You two keep up the progress there. We’ll hold down the fort here. And we’re having Thanksgiving dinner at the house.”
“Did you invite Sarah?”
He had, somewhat reluctantly. Sharing childcare duties was one thing. Spending holidays together was a whole new level altogether, but he’d issued the invitation. “And her parents,” he told her. “Her dad is driving inland on Wednesday. She says he stuffs a mean turkey.”
“Renzo, that’s very kind of you.”
It didn’t feel kind. Kindness would be if he wanted to share this holiday with these outsiders. He didn’t, and yet he’d be 100 percent wrong not to have them spend the holiday in Golden Grove. He couldn’t do that.
“Are Kyle and Valerie coming?”
“They’re having dinner at her sister’s place.”
“Ah.” That’s all she said, but it was enough. She knew her sons well. Kyle and Valerie had missed a lot of family dinners over the past two years, ever since Kyle and Roy had disagreed about increasing the herd size. Kyle wanted to go bigger. Bigger meant a larger end-of-year paycheck, and for a ranch supporting two families, that would be wise.
But Roy resisted, insisting he couldn’t handle the extra work. He didn’t tell Kyle directly, but the message was clear. Roy was shouldering enough of the work as it was. No way did he want more.
Since then they’d worked together, but not with the closeness they’d once shared. The rift between them had widened as time went on. But it was their fight, Renzo had decided. He had enough on his plate with work and the girls. Only now he was thrust in the middle of it all, not by choice, but necessity.
He put away his phone, and by the time he’d strung the wire it was dark.
He’d seen Sarah, her mother and the girls return nearly two hours ago, and there was still no sign of Kyle. He’d left Renzo holding the reins again, much like he’d been doing with Dad. But Renzo would have to report back to work after Christmas, and there would be no backup for the ranch if Kyle didn’t put his best foot forward.
What would happen then?
He headed toward the house, bone-tired. He shrugged out of his jacket and coveralls in the enclosed porch adjacent to the laundry room, set the washer going and stepped inside the kitchen.
“Surprise!” All three girls—in matching outfits—were waiting for him in the well-lit room.
Amazing smells hit him, a blend of fresh yeast and fragrant soup.
The girls piled on him, despite the fact that he had been working outdoors all day, and when he met Sarah’s honey-toned eyes over their heads, he couldn’t help but smile.
When she smiled back, his heart clenched again. Clearly it wasn’t about to listen to his stern commands.
He stood. All three girls hung on, half-dangling from his arms. “Smells great in here.”
“We made soup!” crowed Chloe.
“Like in the book we love, only without the stone because the stone wasn’t the important part,” Naomi explained. “It was all about sharing, Renzo! Everybody sharing something they had.”
The girls loved the classic kids’ story about a hungry stranger who broached his idea of stone soup. It was a book his mother read to them often.
“Like potatoes or corn or other stuff,” Kristi cut in. “They were so nice, and then everybody had food to eat and they loved it so much!”
“They said your mother read them that story,” Sarah explained.
“How did you have time to make soup?” he asked. “It smells amazing, Sarah.”
She blushed just enough to let him know that his words touched her. “Mom started it but she had to drive back to the coast for the night, so I finished it up myself. With firm advice via modern technology,” she added, indicating her rose-gold phone sitting on the counter.
He inhaled fully and smiled. “Is that fresh bread I smell?”
“Now that would be extreme,” she replied. “Frozen rolls from the grocery, but they smell marvelous, don’t they?”
“Perfect,” he told her, and he wasn’t just talking about the soup and rolls any longer.
She studied him for a few seconds before dropping her gaze to the girls.
“We love you, Renzo!”
<
br /> “Yeah, thank you for working so hard on the cows. When do those long trucks come?” asked Chloe. “Then the big babies can leave and we’ll get ready for little ones.”
“Right after Thanksgiving,” he told her. “I’ve got it all set up.”
“I will miss them so much.” Kristi stared up at him. “I don’t want them to go far away and then people buy them and eat them. They’re our cows, Renzo. Not anyone else’s.”
Oh, man.
He crouched down and faced her. “But if folks like eating meat,” he offered reasonably, “someone’s got to grow the meat. And isn’t it nice that we take such good care of them, Kristi?”
“I think it’s nice that we take good care of everything,” she scolded him. “We take good care of Mittens and MoMo but we’re not going to eat them.”
Mittens and MoMo were their two barn cats. “Well, some farms grow potatoes. Or corn. Or wheat to make flour. We grow beef.”
“It makes me sad,” she whispered, giant tears filling her hazel eyes. “So sad, Renzo.” She tucked her sweet face against his knit shirt and stayed there to hide her tears. He held her, wishing Sarah hadn’t witnessed this. Would she use it in her plea for custody? That living on a beef ranch wasn’t conducive to the girls’ emotional well-being?
“Well, I’m not sad because I love it when the babies get born and Grandpa and Uncle Kyle fall in the mud and they carry babies up to the barn and they are so big and tall and strong like cowboys on TV,” Chloe declared. “The big calves aren’t fun anymore. I won’t miss them at all.”
“I might. A little,” said Naomi. “But I’m glad they stopped bawling. Aren’t you?” she asked Sarah.
She nodded, but there was no mistaking the sympathy in Sarah’s gaze when she looked down at Kristi in his arms. “Yes. I’ve never heard that sound before. There aren’t any beef ranches in the city. So hearing them cry was different. And sad,” she added.
Great.
She’d probably been gathering all kinds of information she could use against his parents when the time came, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nor would he, he realized as he stood up, still holding Kristi. She and her mother had been good for the girls, and he wouldn’t have been able to help Kyle without them.
When they eventually left, reckoning would come. He’d have to work. Kyle would have to muster up on the ranch and who was going to watch the girls? He could switch to afternoon shifts and hire a nanny. Kyle would be busy on the ranch, and Valerie worked in Wenatchee.
“You look tired.” Sarah made the observation softly as Kristi wriggled to be put down. “The girls already ate. Can I offer you some soup? And rolls?”
“Give me ten?” He motioned down the hall. “I need to clean up.”
“Of course. We’ll do pajamas and teeth, right, ladies?” She smiled at the triplets and raised her arm. “Ready. Set. Go!”
They raced off. No argument. No fuss. No whining. “How did you do that?” He didn’t mean for it to sound like a grumble, but it did.
She tapped the watch. “Competition. And they’re not sure enough of me to give me a hard time over everything. Mom says when kids are confident in your love, they’re self-assured enough to misbehave, so the girls are still on their best behavior with me.”
“We’ve seen that before. And also the opposite, where kids we’ve fostered have been really bad to test the boundaries. See if my parents would give up.”
“And did they?”
He nodded. “Twice. There was little choice, because the kids were doing dangerous things and needed a higher level of care. It crushed my mom to make that decision because her practical side is often at war with her emotional side. But in the end I think we all learned that we can only do our best.”
“A hard lesson learned.”
Compassion thickened her words. He thought about her job and winced. “I expect you’ve had your share of successes and failures, Sarah. Spending so much time in the NICU taught me a lot. We came home with three beautiful babies. Some folks experienced a very different outcome.”
“I can’t save them all,” she told him as the clatter of kids’ feet pattered over their heads. “But we save so many more than we used to, and I cling to that. And my faith,” she added softly. “It helps.”
“It sure does.” He jutted his chin toward the spare room at the back of the house. “I’ll be back soon.” By the time he’d cleaned up and gotten changed, the girls were in matching pajamas, they’d each picked a book, and their faces and hands were scrubbed clean. “Mama Gina would approve,” he told them.
His laptop buzzed and a picture of his mother flashed on the screen. “Hey. Look who’s calling. Come here, girls.” He answered the call and settled the laptop onto the living room table. “Hey, Mom. How’s it going? How’s Dad doing?”
Instantly the girls clamored to talk as they gathered around the small couch. “Mama Gina! We love you! We miss you this much!”
“Even more than that,” declared Chloe, never to be outdone. “Like this much!” And she stretched her arms out as far as she possibly could.
“Can you come home and make cookies?” asked Naomi sweetly. “We’ll help.”
“No, Nomi, she’s got to stay with Papa, you know that.” Chloe went into instant boss mode. “We’ll make cookies when Papa is better.”
“Oh, my girls.” Gina smiled into the camera. “I miss you so much. Papa is sleeping but he misses you, too. He needs lots and lots of rest right now.”
“He can have my bed,” offered Kristi. “I don’t mind.”
“Oh, sweetness, thank you. I’ll tell him that,” Gina promised. “Look at all of you. You look marvelous. And are those new pajamas?”
“With Christmas trees on them,” crowed Naomi. “And pretty decorations.”
“And ribbons!” added Kristi. “Aunt Sarah and her mom took us shopping and it was so much fun,” she went on. “We bought everything. Well, like, almost everything,” she corrected herself. “Renzo was busy with cows and stuff, but when our shoes didn’t fit, Aunt Sarah said ‘Hop in the car, girls. We must go shopping!’”
“Oh, tell her thank you.” Sincerity laced his mother’s voice. “I knew your sneakers were getting tight, but I hadn’t had a chance to buy them yet.”
“You tell her, Mama Gina! She’s right here! Aunt Sarah!” Kristi jumped off the couch, crossed to the kitchen and grabbed Sarah’s hand. “Come see Mama Gina, okay? She wants to say thank you!”
“Yes, come over! Come over!” Naomi joined in the chorus. Only Chloe seemed to be aware of a quiet, underlying tension, but when Sarah moved forward, Chloe planted a peaceful look on her pretty face.
Sarah took a spot behind the couch.
Renzo moved over to the left, leaving Sarah and the girls to talk with his mother, and as Gina thanked Sarah for taking the girls shopping, he caught sight of the miniaturized image on the screen. Three blond girls and the blond woman.
They fit.
The girls looked enough like Sarah to be her own children, and for a moment it seemed like it was meant to be. And then Naomi got emotional. “I miss you.” She swiped two tiny fists to her eyes as she stared at his mother’s image on the computer screen. “I miss you so much, and Papa, too, but mostly I miss you and wish you could be here with us. It makes me so sad every day.”
Her confession became instantly contagious.
Kristi’s chin thrust out and her lips trembled. “Me, too,” she whispered, as if it was hard to talk. “Every morning I think you’ll be here but you never are and I just want you with us. All the time, Mama G.”
Even Chloe had a hard time remaining stoic. “I miss you, too,” she said softly, but then she caught hold of herself. “But I want Papa to get well, and you know Renzo is so good to us!” She threw her arms wide. “And he’s good to the cows, too,” she added. “And maybe he won’t
even have to go back to work again. Like ever.”
He cleared his throat on purpose.
She darted a guilty look up at him.
“Well, the county will insist on me coming back to work after Christmas,” he drawled, teasing. “But that’s weeks away and we’re doing fine, aren’t we, girls?” He indicated Sarah with a hooked thumb. “Having Sarah and her mother here has been a huge help,” he added, then said the words he didn’t want to say. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”
He felt Sarah turn toward him, but he kept his eyes on his mother. Gina Calloway was a smart woman. She’d understand the depth behind his words, that Sarah was good for the kids.
“The Lord provides,” Gina told them roundly. “In His way, He makes things known. He sends us what we don’t even know we need. He blessed us with you, Sarah. Why else would you have shown up that day? At that hour? We owe you a great deal,” she stated, then started blowing kisses into the camera. “I love you, girls. Sleep well and be good for Aunt Sarah and Renzo, all right?”
The girls promised to be good with lots of emotion in their voices, and when he reached out to disconnect the call, Chloe caught his hand. She didn’t say a word, but watched the screen until Gina’s image disappeared. And then she sighed.
He wasn’t about to send them to bed on that note. “One more story,” he told them as he took a funny favorite off the nearby bookshelf. “And then bed, my sweet girls.”
Sarah glanced at the cooling rolls and the pot of soup, but she didn’t push. Soothing the girls took precedence over food right now.
She took a seat opposite the couch while he read the story with all the humor he could muster, until the girls’ giggles filled the room.
Yes, the girls missed his parents, but he’d been a big part of their lives from the beginning. They trusted him to keep them safe. Little did they know he might have no say in the matter, after all.
Chapter Seven
Sarah burned the applesauce, singed the crust of the frozen pumpkin pie and managed to fill the house with smoke twice the morning before Thanksgiving, making her wish Lindsay hadn’t needed to grab some holiday groceries.
Finding Her Christmas Family Page 7