“What’s an armar?”
“A fancy cabinet,” his dad said, ruffling Sean’s hair then tickling Margo’s feet. Margo jerked. Sean stumbled but caught himself.
“Don’t drop her!” Alex yelled.
“Everybody out of the kitchen,” his mom said, but Margo and Sean were already on their way out.
“They’re fine,” Deacon said. “Dad can supervise.”
His mom pointed over her shoulder with a wooden spoon. “It’s in the garage.”
“Where’s it going?”
“Our bedroom. Your dad hurt his back last week. I don’t want him touching it.”
“Got it.” Deacon and Will went to check out what they were up against.
“Nice,” Will said, putting a hand on the solid dark wood.
“Yeah.” He gave it a push to test the weight. “I guess lay it on its side—if we can get it through the door, then maybe stand it up and slide it.”
His brother-in-law nodded, patting the side of the furniture. “Sounds like a plan.”
The door into the house opened and closed, and Alex joined them. “You guys need my help, or you think you can handle it?”
“We got it,” Will told her.
“Mom said make sure you get a towel under it. She doesn’t want the floor scratched.”
Deacon was just about to say they were way ahead of her when she stepped up to him and punched him in the arm. “I can’t believe you!”
“What did I do?”
“When are you going to tell me what’s going on? I’m their aunt! Don’t you think that’s something you should tell me?”
“I’ll go get that towel.” Will fled inside.
“I was going to tell you. Besides, you knew anyway.”
Alex huffed. Evidently, knowing and him telling her were not the same thing.
“And what the hell? She had your babies and didn’t even tell you? I can’t believe Mom’s okay with this. So what’s the deal? Are you two together? Is she going to move here?”
“No. I don’t know. And maybe this is why I didn’t tell you.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? They’re your babies, too. She can’t keep them away from you.”
Deacon closed his eyes briefly and took a breath. “Just stop, okay? It’s not that simple.”
“Are you saying she doesn’t want to be with you?”
“I don’t know! Okay?” He rubbed a hand over his face. That’s what had him in knots. He missed her. God, he wanted to see her. Touch her. See the babies. See her with the babies.
A fierce wave of protectiveness struck him. “We’re taking it slow. Letting it sink in. She spent nine months thinking I was married. I just found out I have two sons. Just…let me handle it. Okay?”
“Better keep it down unless you want to explain where babies come from,” Will said, joining them and hooking a thumb back toward the open door to the kitchen.
Alex pounced. “What are you going to tell the girls? They have brothers.”
“Yeah. I get that, but they’re three. I’m not getting into where babies come from and how did I get to be their daddy. No way. Not yet. I need some time to figure out how to say it.” As if there wasn’t enough to figure out.
“Is she a good mother? Is she stable?”
“A very good mother.” The kind of mother he’d want for his girls. “She thought I was married.”
“Because she saw a picture on the internet? Give me a break.”
“Have you seen the picture?” Without waiting for her to answer, he pulled it up on his phone. “Read the bottom. I’m not surprised she thought what she did.”
Will took the phone from Deacon. “Huh. She does have a certain look on her face.”
Alex snatched the phone from his hand. “Let me see—She’s looking at the dog! Not him!”
“The dog that’s not in the picture,” Deacon pointed out.
“Only because the stupid photographer cut him out.” Alex huffed and handed his phone back.
“Well, the real idiot was whoever captioned it. Put yourself in her shoes. Me leaving. Then that.” And she’d been hurt before. However much she’d tried to shrug it off, she’d been hurt and unsure. He put his cell in his pocket, and with Will on the other side, they lowered the armoire.
“Fine,” Alex said, watching them work. “So now what? You’re just supposed to visit? Pay child support? What?”
“Alex,” he said with as much patience as he could muster.
His sister threw her hands up, making a sound that made him think he knew exactly where Margo got it.
“We’re working here.”
“And I’m supervising. Mom said.”
He and Will maneuvered the armoire onto the towel, sliding it to the bedroom door before tilting it on its side.
“Watch the top,” Alex said.
They got the armoire through the doorway and into the bedroom. His mom joined them to direct the positioning.
Deacon’s phone buzzed. His tech, sending a postsurgical update. Not Clare, who’d texted him that morning saying that Parker had a terrible night and was stuffy and she was trying to get him in to the doctor. He didn’t like that. He hated Clare going alone with two babies to the doctor. He knew what that was like. The diaper bag, two car seats. Plus she’d most likely have to take Patrick, who shouldn’t be going to that house of germs.
“Something wrong?” Alex asked.
“No.” He sighed.
“Was that her?”
“Her name’s Clare, and no. I was hoping it would be. She was taking Parker to the doctor. I’ve been waiting to hear from her.” He’d been waiting to hear from her since eleven this morning.
That changed his sister’s tune. “Is he okay?”
She might be a pain in the ass, but she was the best aunt ever. He wanted his sons to have that like his girls did. “Probably. She thought Parker was stuffy.” Frustrated, he picked up his phone and shot off another text to Clare. “Why the hell is she not answering me?”
Alex sighed. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but I saw what you went through before—”
“It isn’t like that. Not even close.” Clare was nothing like his daughters’ mother. That was how he thought of Natalie, when he thought of her at all. Not by name. Just the woman who’d given birth to them and walked away without a backward glance.
They’d dated such a short time, then it had been long months of contention and arguments and him worrying and her blowing him off. He’d barely known her. He realized his family could say the same about him and Clare. But they’d be wrong.
Chapter 22
AFTER A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, two hours at the pediatrician, and an hour of that in a room the size of a shoebox, Clare’s nerves were more than a little frayed. But good news, Parker showed no signs of infection. Bad news, there was no clear-cut answer for the all-night crying. Babies cry, the doctor had said.
Well, thanks for that tip.
After that, she’d had to go to the market for a few staples. It was late in the afternoon when she sat down to nurse—just Patrick, as Parker now slept soundly. She’d decided he officially had his days and nights mixed up, but as long as he was sleeping at all, she would take it. One mommy, one hungry baby. Better odds.
She called Jess to fill her in on the doctor visit then called Nicole for advice and support. Poor Nicole was as sympathetic as she could be, but with four kids under ten running around in the background, she could never talk more than two minutes at a time. She had good advice, but she’d never dealt with twins.
Her cell rang, and when she saw it was Deacon, she remembered she hadn’t called him back. Shoot. He’d called once while she was at the doctor and again when she was buying enough coffee to survive an apocalypse. She regretted telling him she was taking Parker to the doctor. He’d want to know all about it, and she felt like an idiot.
“Hey,” she said, answering.
“Hey. I’ve been trying to get you all day.”
“Yeah. Sorry. It’s been a little crazy.”
“I was worried,” he said, his tone scolding enough to make her prickle.
“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t have time to make a lot of phone calls. My babies were—”
“Our babies.”
Yes. Right. But she was here, and he was there, and she was here going on three hours sleep. “It was fine. Everyone is A-okay.” But she wasn’t as good at this mother thing as she’d thought she would be.
Her body ached and her nipples were cracked. Her eyes burned from the lack of sleep, and she was afraid she was very close to crying. She thought of all the calls she’d made. Deacon should have been the first, but…
“I’m sorry,” he said before she could. “I was just worried. About Parker and about you.”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, too.” She hit the highlights for Deacon. How the doctor had been less than sympathetic, the nurses rushed. And now that she knew Parker wasn’t sick, she worried both babies would get sick, and it would be her fault for exposing them.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted, swallowing past the lump of parental guilt in her throat.
Instantly, she regretted saying that to him of all people. She didn’t want him thinking she was incompetent.
She half expected Deacon to give her advice on night crying, not that she didn’t need it, or maybe question her more on the babies’ health, on why exactly she’d thought she needed to take him in.
“You know, a couple of weeks ago, I took the girls to Target after work,” Deacon said. “Just to pick up a few essentials, paper towels, cat food. That kind of thing.”
She put Deacon on speaker and closed her eyes.
“I’d had this flash earlier of my dad taking us kids to the grocery store and how much fun it was. Anyway, it was just going to be a quick in and out. I already had chicken marinating to throw in the oven, even had some broccoli, which when I can get them to eat it—or anything green—makes me feel like father of the year.
“So we’re up and down the aisles, getting way more than I’d planned. The girls are climbing out of the cart, so I let them walk, help push. Thinking they’re so big and being so good, and I have this flashing fantasy of them old enough to drive and going to the store for their old man. Then the phone rings, a call from work, and I take that. I’m listening, keeping an eye on the girls as they stockpile boxes of fruit chews.”
“A man of many talents,” she said.
“Yeah, well, not too talented because at some point, I finished the call, turned around to get cat food, and looked back and they both had a mouth full of raw cookie dough. I didn’t even see them put it in the cart! I yelled, made them spit it out. Margo did so in my hand. Maci on the floor. And then they’re screaming—crying at first then mad as cats because I tell them we’re not going to have cookies, they know better, yada yada…sounding just like my dad, then it comes back to me that this is how many of my childhood trips to the grocery went, which just makes me feel old and tired.”
Clare smiled to herself and listened, oddly soothed by the story of struggle and by Deacon’s voice.
“So I put them in the cart and head for the front, ignoring the stares at the man with screaming twins, and God, one of them is loud, but the two of them is more…it’s like exponential.”
“Great. I’ll look forward to that.”
“I get to the register, fumble the jumbo bag of cat food, which explodes across the floor.”
“Oh, my gosh.” She couldn’t help but laugh.
“It stopped the tantrum cold, but I was fried, so I left. Just left the cart, the cat food, and everything else. I did apologize on my way out for the destruction of aisle nine and anything else they might have gotten to without me knowing. Then I hit McDonald’s, not because I thought they deserved a treat, but because I knew it would satisfy and settle them, and I just needed some quiet.”
Clare looked at Patrick in her arms, as quiet as a mouse, and his brother, sleeping like an angel nearby, and felt better about her situation. She wasn’t doing so bad.
“I let them eat in the car because I just wanted one night of no cleanup, and there was no way we were going inside because it had an indoor play place, and I have a phobia of those.”
“They are pretty gross.”
“Right. So I passed back their food and let them have at it even knowing I’d likely have to take apart their car seats to get rid of the honey mustard spills and crushed fries unless I just let it dry there, which I admit I’ve done before.”
“Wait. They come apart?”
“They do. The seat cover, the straps—everything. So when someone blows out their diaper, and trust me, they will, make notes so you can get it all back together.”
“Are you trying to make me feel better or worse?”
“Better. So then I drove around until they were asleep, carried them inside to bed, and ate Doritos and iced animal cookies for dinner. The ones I hide from the girls.”
Clare laughed and put Patrick to her shoulder.
“I ate them all.”
“Deacon,” she said, trying to sound empathetic as she stifled a laugh. “Do you need more?”
“No. I’m good right now, thanks. The point is…” He laughed softly, and the low murmur of it rolled through her. “I forgot the point.”
“It doesn’t matter. Thanks for that.” For the first time since he’d come back into her life, she felt that tug of friendship and comfort that she’d felt with him the first night they’d met. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier.”
“It’s okay,” he said softly, but she didn’t miss the sigh that followed. “What are you doing for Halloween?”
“Um, I hadn’t really thought about it. Giving out candy maybe. I don’t really know how many trick-or-treaters there are around here.”
“What if the girls and I came down? We could dress up the boys, go trick-or-treating.”
“Oh… I don’t know…”
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
It might be fun, and it was a holiday. The boys’ first. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding relieved she’d agreed. It made her feel good, that he’d thought she might say no. That gave her, however small, some measure of control.
When they hung up, she carried Patrick to the nursery, a smile on her face.
* * *
CLARE WALKED THE AISLES of the party store filled exclusively with everything Halloween. Jess pushed the double stroller, and Clare followed with a shopping cart.
“Oh, my gosh! Remember when Connor gave us all a heart attack wearing that mask?”
Jess pointed to a hockey mask. “I don’t know why we were so scared of this. He wore it to practice every day.”
“Because,” Jess said sharply. “He’d just made us watch the movie. ‘Ha ha ha, kill kill kill,’” she whispered the terrifying movie line.
“Good times.” Clare peeked at the boys. They were sleeping. Car rides did that.
“Look!” Jess picked up knee-high white boots. “We wore these in fourth grade.”
They’d been hippies that year. And so it continued, up and down the aisles, reminiscing and reliving their childhood in past Halloweens.
“What about this?” Jess picked up a gauzy ghost.
“I don’t know. Too scary, I think.”
“You’ve said that about everything. All you have so far is candy and streamers.”
“That’s because I think they’ll like candy and streamers. They’re only three. I don’t want to scare them.”
“I can’t believe he’s coming again, bringing his kids.”
Jess had heard all about Deacon’s shocking arrival, and she wasn’t a fan.
“Well, he wants time with the babies. I can’t blame him for that. And he doesn’t want to leave the girls. He still feels guilty for not being there when Maci was sick.”
“He did look for you, so I guess that’s something.”
“I know.”
“And?”
“And maybe it was about me in the beginning, but it’s not now. It can’t be.” Clare kept walking. “I’m a mom. I have to think about what’s best for the boys. And his girls. They’re in this, too.”
“The whole situation is a little weird,” Jess said. “It’s like you know him, but you don’t.”
“We talk. We text.” Every day. Many times a day, actually.” They’d fallen into a rhythm after he’d talked her off the ledge with his Target story. She took out her phone and snapped a picture of Parker and sent it to Deacon.
“What are you doing now?”
“Showing Deacon this face Parker makes when he’s about to poop.”
Jess raised an eyebrow at her. “Very couple like.”
Clare tried to ignore that. Because they weren’t a couple.
“Okay, you have to get this.” Jess held up a furry black spider twice the size of her head.
Deacon texted back. Definitely up to something. Are you wearing a costume? I promised the girls I would.
Clare laughed.
“What?” Jess turned.
“Deacon promised the girls he would wear a costume.” She texted him back.
“Ooh. Tell him to be Superman. With tights.”
The thought of Deacon in tights made her smile. “Oh, will you grab two of those plastic pumpkins with the handles? I told Deacon I would get some for the girls so he doesn’t have to pack them.”
“Definitely sounds like a couple,” Jess muttered and went to fetch the pumpkins.
BY FOUR O’CLOCK ON Halloween day, Clare was a strung-out mess. She’d already burned two batches of little weenies wrapped in croissants. She’d worried the chili was bland and added more cayenne pepper then had a brain fart and added more. Now she was worried it was way too spicy for Margo and Maci. At least the decorations were up. Orange and black crepe paper crisscrossed the living room thanks to Jess. She’d added the spider web with a plastic spider to the sliding-glass door herself.
Parker slept soundly, but Patrick couldn’t settle, and she walked around patting his back, trying to remember what she was supposed to be doing. Jess got there at five with the chicken nuggets she’d offered to pick up on her way.
Love At Last Page 17