The Cowboy's Twin Surprise

by Stephanie Dees

  “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  He paused with the door half-open, looked back and shot her a smile. “I’m really glad.”

  “Me, too.” She said it without thinking, but it was true. And the thought scared her.

  Because it meant she had something to lose.

  * * *

  Lacey had a death grip on Devin’s hand as they walked into the obstetrician’s office. He waited beside her, trying not to intervene as the receptionist tried to tell her that Dr. Lescale wasn’t taking new patients and Lacey patiently corrected her. When Devin saw Lacey’s fingers tremble as she finally picked up the pen to sign in, his hand landed at the small of her back and didn’t move until she was seated in the comfiest chair in the room.

  He took the chair next to Lacey, his knees sticking out at an awkward angle, his cane leaning against the table next to him. He felt conspicuous. And like a giant. Like a giant conspicuous guy who didn’t belong here.

  The urge to reach in his pocket for his NA chip was almost irresistible. It wasn’t a talisman, he knew that, but it was an object that grounded him. He reminded himself he belonged here. He was Lacey’s husband and the father of the babies she was carrying. Maybe their relationship hadn’t happened in the conventional way, but it was a fact: they were married.

  He took a deep breath and looked around the room. Really looked. He scratched his neck and caught the eye of a guy a few chairs down who was sitting next to an extremely pregnant woman who was periodically crying into a tissue. He looked away quickly.

  “Are you nervous?” Lacey’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

  “Me?” He waved away the concern. “Not at all. You?”

  Her brows drew together. “Not really. I guess I’ll be glad to know everything’s okay, though.”

  The door opened. “Lacey Cole?”

  Lacey stood, and Devin grabbed his cane, halfway out of his chair before the nurse held up her hand. “She’ll be right back. We’re just getting some info right now.”

  Another woman in baby blue scrubs came out and called a name, and the crying lady left. Her partner took a deep breath and stabbed his fingers through his hair. Devin gave the guy what he hoped was an empathetic look.

  “Pregnancy is nuts, you know?”

  Devin looked around for someone—anyone—else. Was the guy talking to him or talking to himself? To be safe, Devin nodded slightly.

  “That your wife?” The guy hooked a thumb toward the door to the back.

  So he was definitely talking to Devin. “Oh...uh...yeah. You?”

  “Yeah. We’d only been married a year when we found out she was pregnant. Goodbye, honeymoon, am I right?”

  Devin guessed that depended on your point of view but didn’t say anything.

  It didn’t seem to matter. The man kept talking. “I mean, she’s been literally crying for months. Sometimes I think I’m gonna need a life jacket in my own house. I don’t even know what she’s crying about. For real, I don’t think she knows what she’s crying about.”

  Devin closed his eyes and imagined that he was on a beach in Florida. Soft white sand, the warm sun and a cool breeze, the sound of the waves smoothing the shore.

  No one oversharing.

  “Right, man?”

  Devin opened his eyes. “Oh, uh, sure.”

  The door opened and the nurse looked at the hot pink sticky note attached to her finger. “Devin Cole? We’ve got a room available for your wife.”

  Devin was hobbling across the room before the nurse finished her sentence. He couldn’t get the image of that woman crying into a tissue out of his head. Was Lacey going to be like that? Had she just not hit that stage?

  He’d never seen a pregnant woman cry like that. Granted, he hadn’t been around that many.

  Or any.

  Walking through the door to the back room felt kind of like stepping into Narnia. It was freezing back here for one thing. And it was definitely a foreign land.

  The nurse stopped in front of a door, knocked slightly, then opened it without waiting. Lacey was sitting on the exam table in a paper gown, fingers gripping the edge and bare feet dangling. Her eyes were wide and shiny. A sheet covered her upper legs.

  She shrugged, with a sheepish sort of look on her face. “Here we are.”

  “Yep. Here we are.” Hot prickles formed on the back of Devin’s neck, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He was not supposed to be here. Mortals were not supposed to be in Narnia.

  “You look a little grim,” Lacey said.

  “No, it’s fine. This is great. Really.”

  Lacey laughed. “Whatever you say.”

  He scrunched his nose at her.

  The door flew wide. A petite woman wearing scrubs and a white coat strode in, stuck her hand under the sanitizer dispenser and turned to Lacey with a smile as she rubbed the gel on the surface of her hands. “I’m Dr. Lescale. Here’s what I know—you’re pregnant with twins, history of low blood pressure and fainting. And my friend Ash referred you to me.”

  “Right.” Lacey held out a hand. “Lacey Cole. And this is Devin.”

  The sound of his name with hers never failed to jar him. He leaned back against the wall, taking the weight off his ankle and trying to be invisible.

  The doctor looked at the computer monitor, scrolling and clicking. “Your vitals look good. Feeling okay?” At Lacey’s nod, she picked up what looked like a remote control and raised the table while simultaneously sliding out a footrest for Lacey. “Let’s see if we can hear those babies.”

  Devin shifted on his feet. He felt awkward but he knew it had to be nothing compared with how vulnerable Lacey was feeling. At least he had all his clothes on.

  When Dr. Lescale had Lacey settled, she pulled out a little machine with a wand at the end of it. After squirting some gel onto the end of it, she ran it over Lacey’s stomach.

  “You’re almost sixteen weeks along? You’re going to be really showing soon.”

  Dr. Lescale looked up at Devin. “Come here, Dad.”

  With a gulp he hoped wasn’t audible, he moved over to the doctor, who placed the wand in his hand and guided it into place.

  The doctor narrowed her eyes, listening. “Just...there.”

  With that, a whooshing sound, almost like the sound of a washing machine, filled the room. A big smile spread across Lacey’s face and her eyes filled.

  Dr. Lescale smiled, too. “Good strong heartbeat for Baby A. Now let’s find Baby B.”

  With a sure hand, the doctor guided the wand to just the right spot and the sound of another heartbeat filled the room.

  Without warning, a tear spilled down Devin’s cheek. He lifted his shoulder and rubbed it away. But as the sound continued, so did the tears, and the fact that he was going to be someone’s daddy became not some nebulous fact that he knew, but a genuine reality, right there under his hand.

  A tear splashed onto the paper cover of the exam table, and Dr. Lescale looked up with surprise. She immediately removed the wand and handed Lacey a tissue. “I’m just going to give you two a minute while I get some prenatal vitamins together for Lacey.”

  The door closed behind the doctor and Devin remained where he was, his hands spread wide on the exam table, letting it take his weight, his head bowed. He took a shuddering breath, dragging air into his lungs.

  The first touch of her hand was so soft he almost missed it. But again he felt it, the featherlight touch in his hair. He should open his eyes, say something funny, brush off the seriousness of the moment, but he couldn’t do it.

  He couldn’t pretend that his tightly leashed control hadn’t shattered the moment the first beat of his baby’s heart sounded in the room. He couldn’t pretend at all.

  Slowly he raised his head. Her fingers were still in his hair. Her eyes on his. “Dev,” she said hesitantl
y.

  He forced a smile. “I’m okay. I’m fine. Sorry I got emotional.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Pull away from me. They’re your babies, Devin. It’s okay to be a little overwhelmed when you hear their hearts beating for the first time.”

  He swallowed hard and tried to smile again and make a joke, but the smile was a quirk of one corner of his mouth, the laugh a choking swallow.

  Devin took a deep breath and straightened as the door to the hall opened and the doctor stuck her head in. Lacey’s hand fell back to her side.

  “I’ll meet you at the car.” Devin felt her sigh, but he couldn’t stay in that tiny room with the walls closing in. And he couldn’t put a name to the emotion, but it felt more threatening than the most dangerous bronc he’d ever faced in the arena.

  Chapter Six

  Lacey opened the passenger-side door and slid into the seat. Devin handed her a white paper bag that smelled suspiciously like french fries. She sent him a look out of the corner of her eye and opened the bag. Pulling out a few and shoving them in her mouth, she asked, “How did you know I was starving?”

  “I’m the one who cooks breakfast, remember? I know you didn’t eat.” He handed her a milkshake. “I also seem to remember you once told me that fries without a milkshake are ‘just another root vegetable.’”

  “Oh, you are the best.” She took the lid off the milkshake, grabbed another handful of fries and dipped them, closing her eyes as she savored her favorite post-rodeo indulgence. “Whoever built a fast-food place next to an OB’s office was a genius.”

  Devin put the truck in gear and drove toward the farm. She finished her fries in silence, brushed the salt from her fingers and crumpled up the bag. “So. Are we going to talk about what happened in there?”

  He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Nope.”

  Lacey thought for a minute and then shrugged. “Okay.”

  He looked at her then—an incredulous, disbelieving look.

  “I mean it, Devin. You can have your feelings without talking about them. I have feelings all the time that I keep to myself.”

  His eyebrows slammed together. “Like what?”

  She sat back against the seat and looked out the window so he wouldn’t see her smile. “Like I’m not going to tell you.”

  He sighed and stared out the windshield as he drove, both hands on the steering wheel. Three long minutes ticked by in silence before he said, “I was distracted when I came into the exam room, wondering when you were going to start with the nonstop crying, and then I heard the heartbeat and it was...” His voice choked again. “It was so real, you know? That there’s a baby—our baby—two of them. It was a little overwhelming is all.”

  Lacey considered being smug that she’d gotten him to talk about his feelings, but what he’d said was so right on target that she just smiled.

  He growled. “Happy?”

  “Yeah.” She laughed.

  A few seconds later, she said quietly, “When I first found out I was pregnant, I was kind of mad about it, like, of course that would happen to me, but then I heard their heartbeats... And all of a sudden, I was their mother. And it didn’t matter how it happened. They were mine.” She glanced over at him. “It rocked my world.”

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t even take his eyes off the road, but he reached over and laced his fingers with hers.

  She stared at their hands, wanting to deny that her stoic facade was cracking. She didn’t want to feel anything for him. He’d broken her heart.

  They’d spent so much time together in the past. Hours in barns at various arenas around the country. Hours on the road. She’d told him everything. And apparently he’d remembered it, like he remembered that she only really liked french fries dipped in chocolate milkshake.

  How could she not have noticed that in all the time they’d spent together, he’d told her almost nothing? She drew in a breath and bolstered her resolve. He’d skipped out when things had gotten serious in the exam room because that was what Devin did. And despite his tears, despite the fact that they were tied together by their babies, she wasn’t going to fall for him. She couldn’t... Because if she couldn’t trust her own heart, what could she trust?

  In her mind, she heard her daddy’s voice and could almost feel his finger tapping her forehead. “You trust your head, punkin’. Not your heart. Your heart will go after that brass ring every time. Your head will tell you if you have what it takes to make it.”

  She had to trust her brain and approach her relationship with Devin the same way she would the barrels, with mental toughness. In the ring, if she let emotion—or nerves, or fear, or worry—ruin her concentration, she lost her edge. Her horse, Magpie, was sensitive to Lacey’s tiniest change in attitude and she depended on Lacey to be relaxed and focused and confident.

  She’d learned that lesson from the time she was old enough to get on a horse and trot around the practice ring. Mind over matter.

  In the back of Lacey’s mind, though, she knew that no matter how much her dad told her to use her brain, it wasn’t intellect that kept her chasing cans. It was passion. And instinct...and heart.

  The truck bounced over a rut. Devin winced. “Sorry.”

  When Lacey looked up, she realized she had no idea where they were. She’d been so deep in thought that she hadn’t noticed Devin had passed Triple Creek Ranch.

  “Where are we?”

  “Red Hill Farm. There’s an equine therapy program here. The lady who runs it has a horse she wants me to take a look at.” He pulled to a stop by a huge white antebellum house. A handful of little children were playing in a fenced area in the backyard. A woman with one long red braid over her shoulder and a baby in a sling across her chest walked out of the barn.

  She met them mid-driveway, one hand holding the baby in place, the other outstretched to shake Devin’s hand. Her eyes widened as a particularly shrill shriek split the air. “Sorry about the noise. Preschool is out for the week, so they’re all here.”

  “No worries.” His hand on Lacey’s back, Devin introduced her to Jordan Sheehan, whose face lit up.

  “Lacey Jenkins. Wow, it’s a pleasure. I’ve seen you ride—you’re amazing.”

  “Thanks.” Lacey smiled. “So let me see if I’ve got this right... You’re married to the pediatrician and you have...a lot of kids.”

  Jordan looked confused for a moment before she cracked up laughing. “We have two kids. Levi—the one sliding like a maniac over there—is almost five. And this little peanut here is Essie. She’s two months old. The rest of the kids are my sister’s. She and her husband are foster parents.”

  “Oh, wow. I’m only having two and it seems overwhelming. I can’t imagine.”

  “Congratulations!” Jordan grinned. “I get it. But trust me, you get used to the noise level.”

  Devin walked toward the covered arena where a beautiful red-and-white paint mare was circling. He rested his arms on the top of the fence. “So what’s her story?”

  Jordan sighed. “She’s a one-owner horse. Sweet as buttercream frosting. Her elderly owner was put into a nursing home recently and the children thought it would be great to donate Dolly to our program.”

  “Seems reasonable.”

  “She’s so gentle. We all thought she would be a good fit...until we got her near the kids. She’s terrified of them.”

  Devin dug a sugar cube out of his pocket, stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The mare’s head came up and she trotted closer, drawn to the sugar. As she approached the fence, one of the kids on the playground yelled. Dolly wheeled immediately, speeding to the opposite end of the arena, ears pinned back.

  “Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.” The baby whimpered, and Jordan jiggled her.

  “I hate that it’s not going to work out for yo
u to use her in therapy.” Devin picked up his cane from where he’d leaned it against the fence. “Mind if I take a closer look, ride her a little bit?”

  “Not at all. Let me just take the baby over to the nanny.”

  “I’ll hold her,” Lacey volunteered.

  “If you’re sure, that would be great. Mrs. Matthews has her hands full today.” A few seconds later, Jordan placed her baby girl in Lacey’s arms. “Just yell if you need anything. Ready, Devin?”

  With her heart in her throat, Lacey looked into the little-bitty face. Essie’s skin was almost translucent, auburn lashes fanning out over her cheek. Her tiny little rosebud mouth worked in her sleep, as if she were dreaming of her next meal.

  Lacey drew in a shaky breath and walked across the yard, easing into a swing under the wide branches of an oak tree. She thought she’d understood what it meant that she was about to have a baby—two babies—but holding this sweet girl made her realize... She had no idea what she was getting into.

  Rocking gently, baby Essie tucked safely in her arms, she glanced at the gate as Devin rode out on Dolly. He took her into a simple figure eight, concentrating on the shape, letting her know he was leading. Every time she’d get a little distracted by the noise of the kids, he’d redirect her to the pattern they were walking.

  He was so sensitive to every flick of the horse’s ears, every twitch of her shoulder. And he calmed her effortlessly. Lacey had seen him do it a thousand times.

  She admired him so much. She was also confused by him, her emotions all over the place when it came to their relationship. And the little bundle in her arms reminded her just how high the stakes were.

  * * *

  Hours later, finally back at Triple Creek, Devin had Dolly firmly ensconced in a stall in the barn nearest the pasture where Reggie was spending his retirement. She’d be able to hear the other horse and smell him but not see him. He suspected that part of the problem with Dolly’s behavior was that she’d been the only horse her owner had. She was spoiled... And she was sad.