Merry Christmas, Babies

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “What were your brother and sisters’ names?”

  “Danny, Ellen and Grace.”

  He liked all three. “And Thomas? Who’s he? Your father?”

  She smiled again, a faraway look on her face. “Thomas—Dr. Fuller. He’s the doctor who made me what I am today. The one who provided so much more than medical care.”

  “I’d like to meet him someday.”

  Elise blinked. Looked startled, as though the idea had never crossed her mind.

  And why should it have? Until this moment it had never occurred to him, either.

  “That’d be a little difficult,” she said, unlocking her car. “He and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Arkansas.”

  Of course. That was where she’d said her family home had been.

  “Do you ever see them?”

  “Not since I moved here. They keep saying they’re going to come out for a visit. And I’ve thought about going back there, but I can never quite make myself do it.”

  He could understand that. Although they were people she loved, being back in the place where her entire family had perished might be too upsetting. And too strong a reminder of what she herself had been through.

  “So you talk to them often?” he asked.

  “At least once a month, lately, more.”

  “They know about the babies?”

  “They knew about the plan the second I realized I was seriously thinking about going through with it.”

  They really were close. Heat emanated from the blacktop, adding to the ninety-degree temperatures. It couldn’t be good for her to be standing out here. And he had to get back to work—Sam Watterson was waiting to go over a bid with him.

  Yet Joe didn’t want to leave her. There was so much more he wanted to know about this woman.

  “What was their reaction?” he asked just as she was about to climb into her car.

  “It’s hard to tell,” she told him, frowning. “They’re always so upbeat with me, you know, like playing cheerleader is their role in my life.”

  “Is that bad? Everyone needs a cheerleader.”

  Elise ran fingers through her short, windblown hair. “No, it’s not bad,” she said. “It’s just that I’d prefer honesty sometimes, you know? If it’s bad, tell me it’s bad so I can start dealing with it.”

  “You don’t think Thomas would tell you if he thought you were going to do something that could harm you?”

  He recognized the look that came to her eyes then. She usually got it when he scored a point. Of course, it was usually over some business plan they’d been concocting.

  “Of course he would.”

  “So what did he say about your carrying quadruplets?”

  “Besides the fact that my stomach is going to stretch beyond what I’d ever believe it could?”

  Joe hadn’t needed to hear that. The image was a little too intimate for him to handle. “Yeah,” he said, trying not to think about his earlier and completely embarrassing urge to kiss her.

  “He told me to follow my doctor’s orders, to take all my vitamins, and said that I can’t question the Lord’s timing. I wanted a big family and I’m getting one. Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

  “He said that?”

  “Not just like that, but basically.”

  Joe wasn’t sure if he liked this guy. Not that it was any of his business, but maybe hers was a case when the gift horse should be looked at. Carefully.

  Something else she’d said occurred to him, distracting him from thoughts and feelings that were far too complicated.

  “Why aren’t you taking the vitamins?

  “I am. Haven’t missed one.”

  “I’ve never seen them.”

  “They’re in my nightstand drawer.”

  Looking at him in puzzlement, she shook her head and said, “I have to get back.” She climbed in behind the wheel. “I’m meeting with Tamara again at one.”

  “Yeah.” Joe held the top of her door, meaning to close it. He had that meeting with Sam. “You want to have lunch first?” he heard himself say, though he had no idea why. It couldn’t be a good practice to get into, this resisting a return from personal to business.

  And no matter how it might look, there was no personal. Between him and Elise everything was business. Wasn’t it?

  “No, thanks, Joe,” she said, smiling her refusal. “I made oriental chicken salad for the staff when I got in this morning. I told Tamara to be sure and save me some.”

  And just like that, she’d become Elise Richardson, of Bennett and Richardson Professional Employee Organization—his business partner.

  As he followed her Corvette back to the office, Joe was relieved things had returned to normal.

  AWAKE AT TWO O’CLOCK the next morning, Elise lay in bed and prayed that the pizza she’d suggested she and Joe have for dinner so they could watch a movie while they ate—and avoid any awkward personal conversation—wasn’t suddenly going to come out the way it had gone in.

  She didn’t feel sick. But nothing else kept her awake these days. She was exhausted by bedtime and asleep almost before she shut her eyes.

  The only bodily urge she felt was the need to pee. She’d never had to get up in the night to do that. Not even as a kid.

  Kids. She had four of them. Two boys and two girls. Real and living and growing inside her.

  Elise turned over.

  She’d gained ten of the fifty pounds Dr. Braden was hoping for. They must all be resting on her bladder.

  Memories of her sister, Baby Grace, flashed through her mind. How warm she’d been the times Mama had let her hold her. The golden blond hair and big brown eyes, just like Mama’s. The rest of them had dark hair and lighter eyes like Daddy.

  She flipped around again, unable to find a comfortable position for her bladder. Samantha jumped down from the bed and joined Darin underneath it. Elise was going to have to get up and go to the bathroom.

  And she hated that Joe might hear her moving around and think she was getting sick again. How embarrassing to have him standing around listening to her pee. Or asking her if she was sick, to which she’d have to tell him what she was doing.

  Elise sat up, threw off the sheet—the only covering she could stand on the hot August night in a house too old for central air conditioning. This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman in her own home. If she had to go, she had to go.

  CAREFUL TO TURN OFF the bathroom light before she opened the door when she was finished, Elise peered out into the darkened hallway. She’d really like a glass of milk. Did she dare risk the trip to the kitchen?

  No lights were on. She didn’t see any movement in the dining room. If Joe had gotten up, as he’d mentioned he’d done before when she’d been sick, he’d obviously gone back to bed.

  Coast clear, Elise felt like a kid sneaking down to see Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. She tiptoed down the short, carpeted hall in her thigh-length sleeveless cotton nightgown. Two weeks ago, she’d have made the same walk in camisole and panties.

  She didn’t even dare sleep in such immodest comfort these days.

  Rounding the corner, she took one last look toward his room. The door was open. But there was no sound coming from within—no rustling of covers, no movement.

  Elise breathed easier, now thinking almost exclusively of that glass of milk, and almost tripped over a dining-room chair that was pulled out from its usual place up to the table. Almost fell on the man sitting in the chair, slumped over the table, sound asleep.

  Or at least he was until Elise yelped. Awake instantly, Joe’s arms were around Elise before she’d even realized what was happening, before she could step back.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, getting to his feet.

  “Uh, nothing,” Elise mumbled against his chest. Her heart was pounding from the scare, her body doing all kinds of strange things as it lay pressed against his solid warmth.

  As soon as she’d steadied herself, she pushed away from him.

&
nbsp; But not before she’d felt evidence of his own obviously inadvertent physical reaction against her thighs.

  “I was just going for some milk,” she stammered, hurrying toward the kitchen.

  Please, God, let him be gone when I get back.

  Joe followed her to the kitchen. “I’d like some, too.”

  She grabbed another glass, splashed some milk into it—and some on the counter, too. Which she promptly wiped up with the cloth hanging over the faucet, hoping he hadn’t seen this evidence of her nervousness. She’d only turned on the small light over the sink. Things would be easy to miss.

  “You sure you’re okay?” he asked, taking the gallon jug from her to finish the job.

  “Yes, fine. No sickness for once.” She sipped her milk, leaning back against the far counter.

  “Guess those kids of yours are more discerning than you are.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He downed most of the contents of his glass in one gulp. “They understand the value of a good pizza.”

  “‘Good’ being the operative word.” Elise grinned at him, starting to relax a bit. Maybe she’d imagined Joe’s reaction. Maybe she’d made the whole thing up. Maybe what she’d felt was his hipbone. She hadn’t been with a man in so long, she could be excused for the mistake.

  Joe certainly didn’t seem to be anything other than his old self.

  “Freshly prepared to order Hawaiian pizza holds no resemblance to something you get frozen from a box,” she continued when he just raised a brow at her. “And it was hot and for dinner. Not cold, leftover, breakfast fare.”

  Milk gone, he set his glass on the counter, leaned against the sink, facing her, his arms crossed.

  “So what’s got you needing milk in the middle of the night?”

  Elise stopped just short of saying “nothing.” His tone was warm, caring. The night was long and dark. And this was Joe. Just Joe. Not that man she’d created in her mind in the dining room.

  He was her business partner. There to see that she got this project completed successfully so she could do her work at B&R.

  They’d been together for ten years and he’d never shown the least bit of interest in her as a woman.

  If that didn’t make him safe, she didn’t know what would.

  “Visions of my baby sister keep flashing through my mind,” she finally admitted, the words foreign-feeling as they escaped her.

  “Tell me about her.”

  “I don’t remember all that much. I know I was excited that she was a girl. Couldn’t wait for her to get home so I could help take care of her.”

  “Did you?”

  “Some. But mostly Mama gave the baby jobs to Ellen. She was four years older than me. The household chores fell to me.”

  “And that made you mad?”

  “Not really. I understood. Besides, I liked making dessert and that was one of the chores. I liked to iron back then, too, though that particular joy didn’t last long.”

  “I don’t like it, either. It’s a good thing the wrinkled look is in.”

  Elise chuckled. Then sobered, peering at him over the rim of her glass in the mostly moonlit room.

  “That’s why Grace and Ellen were in the same room the night of the fire,” she said softly. “Two of us girls had to share, and Mama decided it should be Grace and Ellen since it was Ellen’s job to watch over the baby.”

  His eyes darkened. “I’m sorry.”

  Elise put her empty glass on the counter. She meant to stop right there. She’d shared some of her memories—more than she ever had. It was enough. And yet… “I keep picturing what the fire must have done to her.” Her voice breaking over the words, Elise hugged her arms around her middle. “That sweet baby face, and hair, and tiny body. Did she suffer much? Or did it get her so quickly she never completely woke up? Never knew what hit her?”

  “Those are things you aren’t ever going to know,” Joe said. The caring in his voice seemed to wrap around her. Warming her. “The main thing is to know that she’s not suffering now. And if she did suffer then, you can bet there were angels there, too, helping her along, comforting her, gathering her up and taking her home.”

  Tears filled her eyes as she stared at him. She couldn’t believe he’d said that. Since when did Joe believe in angels?

  She’d known him for fifteen years—spirituality had never once come up.

  “Thank you,” she whispered when she could. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me about that night.”

  Such a simple thing. Baby Grace had been tended by angels that night. You’d think she’d have thought of it herself.

  But no, it was Joe, her business partner, who found a way to unlock her heart.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AT BREAKFAST THE NEXT morning, Joe did his best to think about business. With the new vendor list they were compiling—and an HR department to flesh out—they had a lot to talk about. So what if it was Saturday, his sacred day to play. Times weren’t normal.

  She’d invited him to join her for an omelet and fruit when he’d passed through the kitchen in shorts and a T-shirt on his way out to his car. It’d seemed churlish to refuse. His canoe could wait.

  “Tamara was thrilled with the HR proposal,” Elise said, eating slowly. “She had some great ideas and believes that, for now, she’ll have no problem handling things herself.”

  She looked more beautiful than usual, he thought. Softer, maybe. Her hair and makeup were as impeccable as usual. She might have worn the lightweight blouse and skirt to work. He felt like he was on a date with a new and very intriguing woman.

  Which was wrong.

  Absolutely wrong.

  She was his business partner. His friend of fifteen years. She bossed him around a lot. She hated frozen pizza for breakfast.

  She was having four babies.

  That was the deal-breaker for him.

  “Does it feel different now that you know the gender of the babies?” The seemingly random question wasn’t out of the blue. He’d been going at this all wrong—forcing himself to think only about business. What he had to do was focus on those kids—they’d knock this crazy attraction nonsense out cold.

  “Yeah.” Her lips were moist as she took another small bite of omelet, chewed. Joe watched her neck as she swallowed, wondering if it had gotten slimmer, longer, more vulnerable-looking with her pregnancy. “It seems more real.”

  To him, too. He’d just have to concentrate on that. Until fear of the changes the babies would bring to her life made him worry about her future with B&R. Then he’d concentrate on canoeing.

  “I wonder if they’re identical.”

  He stopped with a bite of grapefruit halfway to his mouth. “Four babies from the same egg?”

  “No, two. I could be having two sets of identical twins.”

  “Is that common?”

  “It’s not uncommon, but there’s more chance that they’re fraternal.”

  “Could there be one set of identical twins and one set of fraternal?”

  “Yep.”

  Kind of mind-boggling, all the possibilities. The dangers, risks, responsibilities…

  “I’m off,” he said, jumping up to dump the rest of his breakfast down the garbage disposal. “If you need anything lifted or moved, leave it and I’ll do it tomorrow.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket.

  She was still at the table, eating, watching him. Her gray eyes were larger than he remembered, translucent and mysterious. Why did he so badly want to know the secrets they held?

  “Don’t wait dinner for me,” he added, and walked swiftly to the door.

  His Lexus was two miles down the road before he took an easy breath.

  ON SUNDAY, EIGHT DAYS LATER, Elise was waiting for Joe in the family room when he came in the door from his basketball game.

  “I hate to ask, but do you have an hour or so to go with me to look at a stroller?” They’d been pretty good at avoiding each other all week,
and the few times they’d had dinner, had talked only about work or the changes the babies were going to make in her home life. “It’s a used one on sale for seven hundred dollars,” she continued, speaking of the stroller she’d found advertised in the paper that morning. “It’s the first one for four I’ve found in the state and I’ll have to take it today if I want it.”

  She was rambling and couldn’t seem to stop. He looked so damned good standing there in a muscle shirt that showed more chest hair than it covered, while she’d had to let out the drawstring on the cotton capri pants she was wearing. “I’m not sure I can fit it into the Corvette, and it’s going to be too heavy for me to lift.” She stared at his shoes. “I’m sure the couple selling it will help me there, though.”

  “I’ll take you.”

  “I can order one new, that they’d deliver, but I’m looking at twelve to fifteen hundred if I do that, and—”

  “Elise.” Joe put a finger on her lips. “I’m happy to go. Do I have time to shower first?”

  Lips tingling from that touch, Elise nodded. And sat on the family room sofa to wait for him. Samantha was there. She could pet her. And it was the room in the house farthest from the bathroom where her business partner would be standing naked under running water.

  “YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO do some serious training if you’re ever going to push that thing.” Joe’s words, though teasing, struck fear in Elise’s heart. They were standing in the driveway of the home of Merle and Abby Hudson, in Alto, Michigan.

  “It’s not that bad,” Merle, a hefty man, said. “We had four kids under the age of five and Abby did just fine.”

  Elise looked at Abby, who was about twice her size, then eyed the two sets of side-by-side seats. “Did you ever try one that had four seats in tandem?” she asked the friendly woman.

  “Once.” Abby laughed. “We rented one when we visited my mother. The thing was so long I couldn’t steer it right, couldn’t hold open a door and push through at the same time, and while I could see kids three and four, I had no idea what one and two were doing.”