Sure enough, ten minutes later, both children were dozing on the sofa. He glanced at his watch. It was after nine. Tricia had officially been in labor nearly seven hours, and probably longer than that, unofficially. How much longer?
He leaned his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes, wishing he’d brought some paperwork with him to pass the time. The moment he closed his eyes, he pictured Devin again, cool and competent in the delivery room.
It was another snapshot for the collection he was saving in his mind. He added to the one of her vibrant and alive out in the pine forest. Sweetly solicitous to her elderly friends at the hot spring. Bright with excitement during the light parade on the lake. Warm and deliciously responsive as she kissed him...
His father’s voice interrupted the internal slide show just at the best part.
“You’re a good father, son.”
He tensed, then deliberately forced his shoulders to relax.
“Doesn’t feel like it, most of the time,” he admitted. He loved his kids but he wasn’t sure he was doing any of this right. He had a hard time staying consistent with rules. He yelled at them sometimes when he was at the end of his rope. He didn’t know how to ease their heartache over their mother, especially when he had come to despise her in recent years.
“Take it from someone who wasn’t. A good father, I mean. You’ve got the stuff.” Stan gave a smile that was tinged with emotion. “Not many men are strong enough to step up and do what it takes in your circumstances. I know I wasn’t.”
At his father’s low words, Cole gazed at him. This was the closest Stan had ever come to admitting he might have been wrong to walk away from his kids.
“Those two are lucky to have you,” Stan went on, his voice gruff.
He was the lucky one. His children gave his life meaning and purpose.
“We have each other,” he said.
“As it should be,” Stan said with a nod. He was quiet for a long while. When he finally spoke, his voice was subdued. “I wanted to tell you, I’m leaving Evergreen Springs.”
Cole gazed at his father. He’d been expecting that announcement for some time. Instead of the relief he might have expected, he was startled to realize he mostly felt sad.
“I’ll probably wait a few days to see how things shake out with Tricia and Sean and the babies,” Stan went on, “then I’ll get out of your hair. I guess I’ll go back to Denver. I’ve still got my house there sitting empty. I’m sure you’ll be glad to see the last of me.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised. That’s what you do, isn’t it? You leave.”
Stan sighed. “I guess I deserve that. I don’t want to leave this time. I’ve got nothing in Denver anymore. I never did, really. But I don’t want to stay here when my presence is making you so unhappy, son.”
Now the anger started to simmer. “Don’t make this about me. It’s about you. It’s always about you.”
He saw his father’s hands tighten on his thighs. Stanford gazed at the sleeping children, then back at him. “When I found out about Sharla’s accident, I thought maybe this was my chance to help you. To finally be there for you like I should have been when you and Tricia were young. I suppose I hoped we could find some kind of peace after all these years, but I can see now I’m only making things harder for you. That’s not what I wanted at all. I’m sorry. For everything.”
The low, emotional apology seemed to yank his feet right out from under him. Cole felt as if he’d just been dropped hard off a bronc.
If he didn’t know better, he would swear his father was genuinely contrite.
Was he? Or was this only another manipulation?
Given the hard road you have traveled yourself, why can’t you accept that someone else might just be trying to climb over rubble left from the choices he’s made?
He heard Devin’s voice in his head. Was she right? Was Stan really just trying to find some way to atone for the choices he had made, trying to build some connection now in an effort to help Cole and his children?
As if he had conjured her, she suddenly appeared in the doorway of the waiting room. She had lines of fatigue around her mouth and her eyes drooped with exhaustion. Still, her soft loveliness took his breath away.
“Oh. You’re both here.” She mustered a smile.
He rose anxiously and saw his father do the same.
“How is she?” he asked.
“And the twins. How are they?” Stan added his voice.
“Everyone is doing wonderfully. The babies are on the small side, as we expected. Five pounds eight ounces for the girl and five pounds six for her brother, but other than that, they’re perfect in every way.”
His father whispered a heartfelt prayer of thanks and Cole had to agree.
“Can we see her?” Cole asked. He included his father in the plural pronoun, a big step for him.
“For a few moments tonight. You can come back tomorrow and stay all you’d like but she’s very tired and needs to rest. Oh, and I would ask you to go in one at a time.”
He wanted to kiss her—not romantically, though he wanted that, too, but out of gratitude for her care of his sister. He had treated her poorly when she didn’t deserve it. Of all the things he regretted in his life, that was near the top.
“I can stay with the children, if you’d like.”
“Thanks.” The word seemed wholly inadequate but he didn’t trust himself now to say more.
When he headed for his sister’s room, he found the door open. Inside Tricia was holding one baby and Sean in the chair next to her bed was holding the other. They wore identical expressions, both looking stunned and overwhelmed and completely besotted at becoming parents of twins.
Tricia beamed at him and stroked a finger down the baby’s cheek. “Look what I did. Isn’t it amazing?”
He laughed a little and stepped forward to the bedside to kiss her cheek.
“Amazing,” he agreed. The word came out raspy from his raw throat and he had to clear it a couple of times. “They’re beautiful. Just beautiful.”
Right now they looked like a couple of little squashed eggplants, but they were hers, which made them beautiful.
“This is Jack and this one is Emma.”
Emma had been their mother’s name. He had wanted to name Jazmyn that but Sharla had refused, calling it too old-fashioned. It all worked out, as those things tended to do. Right now, he couldn’t picture his daughter as anything but Jaz, but Emma seemed perfect for this little dear.
“You did good, kid.”
“I know.” She beamed. Right now in the exhausted euphoria following birth, she seemed completely different from the anxious woman she had appeared even yesterday. “Thanks. But I had help. Devin was amazing, wasn’t she, Sean?”
Hollister nodded. “We were both nervous wrecks. Completely mental, but she was so calm throughout the entire thing. She’s a darling.”
She was. Absolutely. He nodded as his throat felt raw all over again. Emotions washed over him, sweetly tender. He stared at the couple and their children as the truth seemed to kick him right in the gut, harder than a feisty mule.
Devin was a darling. She was his darling.
He loved her.
He closed his eyes, wondering how in the world this whole thing had spun so completely out of his control. He was in love with Dr. Devin Shaw. He loved her courage and her kindness, her intelligence and her compassion.
Everything.
Instead of treating her with the tenderness that seemed to be washing into every corner of his heart, he had been crude and harsh to her, had done everything he could to push her away.
“Are you okay?” Tricia asked him.
“Yeah,” he lied. He wasn’t okay by a long shot. “I’m just so proud of you. You’re going to be a terrific mom,
Trish.”
The little boy in her arms yawned hugely and she traced his cheek again with her finger. “You know, I think I am.”
Still reeling from the shock, he nodded to both of them. “I’ll get out of your way. Devin said you need your rest.”
“Thank you for staying to the end.”
“It’s not the end. It’s the beginning. Anyway, we’re family. That’s what we do.” He leaned in and kissed her again. When he rose, he gave Sean a hard stare. To his credit, the man returned his look with a steady one of his own.
Cole wasn’t sure he was ready to forgive him for whatever he had done to hurt Tricia but since she apparently had put it behind them, he could do nothing less. Jack and Emma needed their father, plain and simple. If Sean was willing to step up and do the job, as Stan had talked about, Cole figured he owed it to his sister to ease the man’s way.
“If you need a place to crash while you’re in town, we can probably find room at the ranch,” he said to his brother-in-law.
Surprise flickered in the man’s gaze briefly, then was gone. “Thanks, mate. I don’t want to leave Patricia or the babies tonight, so I’ll probably try to sleep a bit here, but perhaps I could bunk for a few hours at your place tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
“Dr. Shaw said we can probably leave the hospital day after tomorrow,” he went on, “but I doubt any of us will be up to the flight for a few more days after that. I’m sure I can persuade Aidan to fly us home to California with him and Eliza and Maddie after New Year’s. Would it be all right if we stayed with you until then?”
“You know you can.”
It was Christmas Eve, he suddenly remembered. What a perfect time for new life and new beginnings—other than in a few years when the twins would probably hate that their birthday might always get a little lost in the holiday craziness.
He still needed to go home, get the kids to bed and do the whole Santa thing, something Tricia and Sean would be dealing with all too soon.
“I need to go but I’m afraid Jazmyn and Ty will never forgive me if I don’t let them see the babies before we go. If it’s all right, I’ll just bring the kids to the doorway and they can say good-night and merry Christmas.”
“Absolutely.” Tricia smiled.
“Oh, and Dad’s out in the waiting room. I guess I should have warned you. He wants to come in.”
She blinked in surprise. “He’s been waiting the whole time?”
“The last hour or so. Want me to send him back or are you too tired for a visitor?”
“You can send him back for a few minutes, I suppose.”
“I’ll do that.” He paused. “Merry Christmas, sis.”
She gave him a wobbly, joy-filled smile. “The best Christmas ever.”
He was glad she thought so. Right now he was having a tough time feeling in the holiday mood when it seemed as if his life has just been shaken like a snow globe.
Both kids were awake when he returned to the waiting room. To his dismay, Devin was still there. At the sight of her, his heart seemed to expand like the Grinch’s and he wondered how the hell he hadn’t figured out his feelings before now.
When he was with her, he felt different. Better.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” she said. The words were light but for some reason, her features were closed and she didn’t meet his gaze.
“Absolutely,” he said. “You did great, Doc.”
Her mouth twisted into what might have passed for a smile to someone else but he knew it wasn’t.
Something was wrong and somehow he sensed it was more than her completely justifiable anger at him for his paltry effort to push her away the other day. This was something else. She seemed jittery and anxious, very unlike herself.
Keeping half his attention on her, he spoke to his father. “Tricia said you can go back if you want.”
“I’ll do that.” He rose and went to Devin. “Thank you, my dear, for helping her through this. We’ll never forget what you’ve done.”
“You’re w-welcome.” She mustered another fake-looking smile as Stanford gave her a quick hug but Cole didn’t miss the way she was quick to extricate herself.
“I need to...” Her voice trailed off and she gestured blindly toward the hall. “I’ve got to go. Merry Christmas. All of you.”
“Try to get to sleep or Santa won’t c-come,” she said to the children, then she smiled at everyone except him and hurried from the room.
“What’s wrong with her? What did you say to her?” he demanded of Stan.
“Nothing!” Stan frowned after her. “Everything was fine until just a minute ago. Ty gave her a big hug and told her merry Christmas and he loved her. After that, she just sort of shut down.”
“Did I do something bad?” Ty asked, distress on his little features.
Cole kissed the top of his son’s head. “Not at all, son.”
I did.
Despite the mistakes he had made, he sensed this was about more than him being an ass to her.
“Dad. I need to go talk to her. I hate to ask but can you... Do you mind hanging out with the kids for a few more moments?”
Stanford stared at him, eyes shocked. Like Cole, he must have realized the significance of Cole’s request. He was trusting him with his children without anyone else there for a buffer. Somehow it felt as if they had both turned a corner.
“Of course,” Stan said quickly. “Of course. Take your time. We’ll be fine. Talk to Dr. Shaw.”
It truly was a night for new beginnings and second chances.
Some part of him would always struggle to understand the choice his father had made after their mother died. It wasn’t the one he would have made, but holding on to that old pain wasn’t the answer. He couldn’t rob his children of the chance to have one more person in their lives to love them.
He wasn’t sure which way Devin had gone but was lucky enough to run into the labor and delivery nurse who had been helping Tricia.
“I’m looking for Dr. Shaw. Have you seen her?”
“Oh. You just missed her,” Sylvie said. “There’s a rooftop patio garden and we all go there sometimes to hang out or decompress. She said she needed some fresh air, so I think that’s where she was heading.”
“Do I need a code or a key card or anything?”
“No. It should be open.”
“Thanks.”
He took the elevator up a level and followed her instructions toward the patio, hoping she was right and Devin had truly come this way.
What would he say to her? He had no idea. He just couldn’t bear the thought of her in pain, especially if he had caused it.
As he came off the elevator, he spotted a figure clad in green scrubs slipping through a door, just where the nurse had told him she was going.
He followed her and discovered she was in an outdoor courtyard of sorts, protected on three sides by the building and open on the other to the lake and the Redemption Mountains. With heavy wrought-iron chairs and tables, it looked as if it had been created as a place of contemplation and reflection, a quiet corner with a beautiful view.
Though it was cold, it wasn’t bitterly so, probably because it was protected from a crosswind. It also looked as if some sort of heating system of the hospital vented here, which warmed the air somewhat.
Still, Devin only wore thin scrubs. He moved closer to her and saw she was trembling.
“Are you crazy? It’s Christmas Eve, it’s snowing and you don’t have a coat.”
She turned at his voice. Her features were a pale blur in the moonlight, her eyes huge and stark. In her eyes, he saw shock and dismay at the sight of him, before she quickly averted her face.
“Go away,” she ordered roughly.
He ignored her. What else could
he do?
He was wearing a sweater, which he quickly pulled off. “Here. Wear this. It’s not much but at least it’s better than what you have on.”
“I don’t want your sweater.” She didn’t take it from him, stubborn woman, so he moved closer and wrapped it around her shoulders. They were trembling, he realized.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t be nice to me now,” she said, her voice hushed and small. She still wouldn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. Give it back.”
His dry tone elicited a tiny, strangled laugh. She turned slightly, just enough for him to see the tears trickling down her cheeks.
At the sight, his chest ached and his throat felt raw and tight. “Devin,” he murmured.
He couldn’t stand it. He had no choice. He opened his arms and wrapped them around her. She stood rigid for just a moment before she sagged against him and let out a little sob. She didn’t put her arms around him, but she didn’t pull away, either.
Her slim frame trembled but he didn’t think it was from the cold. “What is it? I can’t help unless you tell me what’s wrong.”
“Please. I’m okay. Sometimes it just hits me, that’s all. I just...need a minute.”
“What hits you?”
She was quiet, her cheek pressed to his chest, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer for a long moment. When she did speak, her voice sounded tattered and tired.
“I was fine through the delivery. I was great even afterward, after things were cleaned up and the pediatrician brought the babies back all weighed and bundled up like little burritos. I was even fine when Tricia had me hold both of the babies so Sean could take a picture of me with them. I held it together, just like I always do. Then, when Ty hugged me a few minutes ago and told me he loved me, I just...lost it.”
She wept silently and Cole could do nothing but hold her, baffled. A few stray snowflakes drifted down and under other circumstances, this would have been beautiful, with the moonlight on the water and the snow-covered mountains in the background. He barely noticed, unable to bear her distress.
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