McCallum Quintuplets

by Kasey Michaels

  He made no move to get into bed. “What were you thinking?” he asked in a low voice, and she cursed the shadows, wishing she could see his eyes, see what he was thinking.

  She shrugged. “About…things,” she stammered, feeling more than a bit foolish. She was suddenly very embarrassed to be looking at her husband with such lust, at his lean and tanned body that belied his hours behind a desk.

  And he was near naked. “Things?”

  “Important things,” she blurted, wishing she’d had time to put on some makeup and wasn’t wearing an old T-shirt instead of a sexy nightgown.

  He came around the bed, standing directly over her, and she jerked her eyes up to meet his gaze. She loved him beyond words. Really loved him. And she almost forgot what it felt like being loved by him. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Sniffles, fever, diaper rash?”

  “What?” she asked, disoriented for a moment, then she shook her head. “Oh, no, no. Just fussiness. Grace thinks that Daniel might be starting to teethe, but I think he’s too young, and premature babies sort of lag behind the others.”

  He held up one hand. “Enough. If you weren’t thinking about the babies, then what? Are you feeling okay?”

  She looked at her hands pressed to her bare thighs. “I’m okay.” She bit her lip as she met his gaze again. “Oh, Adam, I was just…just…”

  He hunkered down in front of her, not touching her, and she ached to be touched by him. “Oh, baby, what is it?” he asked, his voice low and soft and just for her.

  Tears were there, coming from nowhere, stinging her eyes. “I don’t know.” She bit her lip hard to keep it steady, then blurted, “I miss you.”

  He was still for what seemed forever. His exhale was a rough rush of air around them. “I’m here,” he whispered in a slightly unsteady voice, then touched her. His fingers lightly brushed her cheek, sending a shock of awareness through her, making her take a short gasp. “Right here.”

  “We never…hardly…anymore, I mean…”

  “I know, love, I know.”

  “The babies, I love them so much, and there’s so much to do, and you and I…we…”

  “You need more help. You need to trust Grace and the others to be there, to care for them, and you need time.” His hand on her trembled. “God, we need time.”

  She ached for what had been between them at the first. “We’ll have time, when they’re older and okay. They’re so tiny and so fragile.”

  His touch was gone abruptly. But he stayed close. “Maggie, my love, we don’t know how much time we have, and if we can’t figure out how to have us in the middle of all of the baby stuff, I don’t know what to do.”

  It had seemed so simple to Maggie. Fall in love, get married, have children, live happily ever after. But it hadn’t been that way. The loving had been easy, and the marriage had been wonderfully perfect. The children had been the hard part. She’d never dreamed she wouldn’t just get pregnant, that they couldn’t just love each other and make a baby. There had been months of testing, treatments and anxious lovemaking—at the right times.

  Eventually, they’d had a miracle happen, fivefold. Grace, Douglas, Jackson, Julia and Daniel. And their lives had been changed more than she’d ever dreamed possible. Three months of going to the hospital four times a day, giving breast milk for the babies, holding them when she could or standing by their incubators. And Adam had been there with her all the time. Adam, as solid as a rock. Understanding that she was exhausted, that she was worried, that she had to get to the hospital first thing in the morning and go last thing at night. That she’d had nightmares about something happening to one of the babies.

  Then the quints had come home, and the days of the hospital had seemed serene and calm compared to the reality of fitting five little babies into their lives.

  “We can do it,” she managed to utter. “We’ll figure it out.”

  He exhaled. “Get more help and step back a bit. Take time to just be Maggie.”

  Maggie. Maggie loved this man. And Maggie was aching for this man. She looked right at him, and this time she touched him, barely cupping his chin with her fingers and feeling the slight bristle of a beard against her skin. “Maggie knows that all five little McCallums are asleep for the moment, and Grace is in the nursery, and…” She trailed her hand down to his bare shoulder, then lower to press her palm against his chest. She felt his heart beating, felt each breath he took. “You’re here, and I’m here.”

  “Why, Mrs. McCallum, are you trying to seduce me?” he asked, his voice rumbling against her hand from deep in his chest.

  “I think so. I’m a bit out of practice and this old T-shirt isn’t black lace…”

  “Then we’ll take care of that,” he said softly, and in an easy motion tugged at the cotton and slipped it off. “Better than black lace.”

  Adam loved Maggie. Simple, very simple. And in that moment, he’d never loved her more. There was no black lace, just a woman who was beautiful beyond words. A woman who had cut the long hair he’d loved so much into a shorter than short feathery cap, and he’d hidden his disappointment when she’d explained how much simpler it was with the babies to have short hair.

  But right then, she looked incredibly lovely. Her face was thinner, her eyes more pronounced from dark shadows that lingered there, her lips full and inviting. Her breasts were heavier, fuller, the nipples darker, and her waist wasn’t as narrow as it had been, her hips rounder, but she had never been sexier to him.

  He went closer, cupped the weight of her breasts in his hands and felt the response, the tightening of her nipples, a small shudder, then a sharp intake of air. All they had was now, and he wanted her. His body tightened with anticipation, and he slipped off his shorts before he eased her back on the huge bed, into the coolness of mussed linen until he was over her.

  It seemed an eternity since they’d been together because they both wanted it, because they both craved it. He felt her softness and her heat. His response was instantaneous and almost painful. Her arms were around his neck. Her hips lifted to him. There was no gradual building to this point. There was a raw urgency between them, a need that had been there for so long that Adam didn’t know when it had started.

  He felt her, tested her, then entered her, and in a flash of pleasure, he felt whole. As if he’d been broken and lost, then been healed and found. He moved in her, felt her rise to meet him with each thrust. Her legs were wrapped around his hips, keeping him in her. As he moved in her, the feelings flooded through him, filling him, overwhelming him, and for that moment in time, it was all right. Everything was all right.

  Until a cry pierced the softness around them, then another cry mingled with it, and when Maggie froze under him, he knew it was the beginning of the end.

  “Oh, the babies,” she whispered, motionless, and lowered her legs. He didn’t dare move, because if he did, he knew he’d take her, and he didn’t want it to be this way.

  “They’re okay. You said Grace is there,” he whispered, kissing her quickly and hard against her soft lips before he drew back. He prayed that she would accept it, that she’d stay right here.

  But when he saw her face in the shadows, he knew. He felt his heart sink. She eased away, whispering, “It’s Gracie and she’s been fussy all night, and maybe it is teeth.”

  How she knew the cries of one baby from another always stunned him. But right then, he didn’t care. She framed his face with both her hands. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m really sorry. I’ll…I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  He didn’t want her to go. He wanted to scream and force her to stay, but he rolled to one side and didn’t look as she got out of bed. His arms were empty and the air around him was cool, almost cold on the dampness on his skin. He looked at her as she grabbed the T-shirt and tugged it on. “I’ll just check,” she said, then climbed on the bed, and for an instant he thought she was teasing and wasn’t leaving.

  Until she was over him and kissing him quickly, then drawing
back. “Save my place.”

  “Let Grace do it,” he said before he could stop himself.

  “They need me, their mother,” she said, hesitating. “You know how I feel, that I want to be there for them…always.”

  He rolled away from her and sat on the side of the bed, with his back to her. His body ached with his need of her, and he didn’t do a thing to hide it. “And you’re going to make damn certain you’ll never be like your mother.”

  “That’s not fair,” she muttered from behind him. “She walked out on me long before I even understood. That’s over. I’m doing what I want to do, what I’ve always wanted to do, just love my babies.”

  “And you do. But you need help. You can’t do this all alone,” he said, twisting around, but she was going, halfway to the door.

  Then she was gone, the door closing behind her, and he was alone. Again. He reached over and flipped off the monitor, shutting off the cries, and he fell back on the bed.

  He ached physically from being so close to Maggie and being denied. He ached emotionally from feeling so isolated. It was there, that old desire and need. Something he’d tried to repress since Maggie had started to spot early in the pregnancy. Just holding her and loving her had been enough for a very long time, but it wasn’t now. He wanted more, and she wasn’t there to give it to him.

  He rolled onto his side, got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. The discomfort in his body was nothing compared to the discomfort in his soul, and when he stepped under the hot water in the shower, he shivered. He couldn’t be losing Maggie. He couldn’t be. But somewhere deep inside, he knew he was.

  Chapter Two

  Maggie hurried to the bedroom after helping Grace settle the baby, but Adam wasn’t there. She heard the shower and thought of going into the bathroom and climbing in with Adam. But she was so tired. She thought she’d lie down for a bit, wait for him to come back, then take up where they’d left off.

  So she climbed into bed, reached for his pillow to pull it to her chest. Hugging it, she listened to the running water. She closed her eyes and imagined him in the shower, the water streaming over him, and the idea of joining him was there again. The idea of touching his sleek body, of having him run his hands over her, was so tempting. She’d go in, she thought, she’d surprise him, and that was the last thought she had until morning. Someplace between her idea and the act of getting out of bed and doing it, she fell asleep. Then Grace was there, touching her shoulder.

  She squinted at the older woman who had the ability to look remarkably fresh even after a rough night, then twisted to see the clock, shocked that it read almost ten o’clock. She shoved herself to a sitting position, felt the empty spot beside her when she pressed her hand flat on the sheet to balance herself and knew Adam was long gone. “What’s happening?”

  “You’ve slept most of the morning away, sweetie, and I was starting to get worried.”

  She sat straighter, sleep falling away completely. “The babies—?”

  “They’re fine, just fine, but I was a bit worried when you slept through our morning course of cries and feeding.”

  “Oh, shoot, I’m sorry,” she said, scrambling to the side of the bed to sit up and rake her fingers through her hair. She’d never slept through the morning production before.

  “Oh, I’m not complaining. I think you needed the sleep, and Adam said not to wake you up.”

  “Adam? When…when did he leave?”

  “Early, maybe eight o’clock.”

  She’d slept through everything, and she was so angry at herself she could spit. “I guess I was really tired,” she muttered, standing to stretch and get her bearings. “I don’t know how I could have slept through the babies crying.”

  “They were unusually loud this morning. Must be teeth, the way I figure it. They aren’t usually so fussy.”

  “Maybe I need to turn the monitor up,” she said, turning to reach for the volume switch on the monitor by the light on the nightstand, then stopped. The red light wasn’t glowing. It wasn’t on. She reached for the button, pressed it in, and she could hear Louise in the nursery singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” in a painfully cheery voice.

  “How did it get turned off? I wouldn’t have—” She bit her lip as she remembered the way Adam hated the monitor and wanted her to turn it off. “Adam turned it off.”

  “And you needed the break,” Grace said, crossing her arms over the blue housedress she was wearing. “He’s a good man, Maggie.”

  Grace worshiped Adam. There was no way Maggie could say what she really thought right then. So, she settled for saying, “He’s sneaky,” then turned and looked for her robe. She shrugged on the white terry cloth and did up the belt. “Are the munchkins okay?”

  “I told you, they’re doing fine. I just came in to tell you I’m heading off home. Douglas needs some things, so I’ll be back tomorrow sometime. Meanwhile, Louise is here, and you know you can call me any time you need me, no matter what?”

  “Sure, and thanks for last night.”

  Grace glanced at the monitor, then at Maggie. “Thank your husband,” she said and, with a smile and a nod, left.

  “I’ll do that,” Maggie said, then sank down on the bed and reached for the phone. She dialed Adam’s private number, and it only rang once before he answered. “McCallum here.”

  “Well, McCallum, this is Mrs. McCallum.”

  “Good morning. Sleep well?”

  “Why wouldn’t I, when you turned off the monitor?”

  “Did I do that?”

  “You know you did, and I wish you hadn’t. You know I need to have it on. I can’t just turn it off like that.”

  “After last night, I think you should.”

  “The babies were only up twice last night,” she said.

  “It only took one time to—” He took a deep breath, and she could hear him exhale roughly. “Sure ruined it for me.”

  “I told you to wait for me.”

  “I was in the shower, and when I got out you were sound asleep.”

  “I’m sorry.” She felt heat in her face at the memory of what she’d wanted to do but had obviously been too tired to do. “I heard you and I thought I’d wait for you.”

  His voice lowered to an intimate level. “You could have come in to get me so I knew you were there.”

  “You could have woken me,” she countered.

  “You were too tired. And I have to get back to work.”

  “I’ll see you tonight?”

  “I guess so, if the babies sleep and you don’t.” Before she could say anything to that, he added, “Have a good day and kiss the babies for me.”

  The line clicked, then buzzed. She looked at the phone, slowly hung it up and whispered, “I love you.”

  ADAM STAYED at the office until almost eleven o’clock and was ready to leave when the guard from the front desk called and told him he had a visitor. For a minute he thought it was Maggie coming to get him. He’d called earlier and spoken to Louise. Maggie had been busy rocking Jackson, so he’d left a message not to wait up for him, that he’d be late. Then he’d hung up and dug into work, anything to make him forget for a while how disjointed his life felt lately.

  “Your father’s on his way up,” the man said on the phone.

  “Thanks,” Adam murmured and hung up, shocked that the old man would be anywhere near the business section of the city at this time of night. He was usually at his mansion, as far from here as he could get.

  Adam sank back in his swivel chair in the beige-on-beige office, pushed the stack of papers away and waited. He knew his dad didn’t just visit. There was something going on.

  Jackson McCallum barely knocked on the outer door before striding into the office. Adam saw a fit man of fifty-eight, dressed conservatively in a dark suit that set off his thick gray hair. A man who had lost himself in his work when Adam’s mother, Emily, had died, he was a different man now. Work was still there, but he was also a doting granddad to Caleb’
s quads, celebrating the finalized adoption of the babies, and then there was Brianna’s triplets. The man had a full life, never seeming to take a moment to breathe, but he seemed happier then he’d ever been before.

  Adam stood as the older man came into the room. As always, he wasn’t quite sure how to react to his dad’s presence. The softening in his father hadn’t extended to him exactly. What should he do, shake his hand? Smile and nod? Hug him? No. He did the usual, by simply saying, “Dad? Good to see you.”

  Jackson nodded, crossed to the desk and looked at Adam. “I thought you’d be here.” He glanced around the cluttered office, then his hazel eyes met Adam’s gaze. “I’m afraid I was a bad teacher,” he said on a sigh as he sank down in one of two leather chairs that faced the desk.

  Adam took his seat and leaned back. “How so?”

  “You don’t know when to work and when to go home,” Jackson said, looking decidedly grim as he spoke. “Took me years to figure that one out.”

  “I’m busy,” Adam murmured, not willing to go home to an empty bed and a wife so exhausted she couldn’t think straight. “Lots to do.”

  Jackson and Adam had never been really close. In fact, Adam had probably been closer to Douglas, Grace’s husband, who’d worked as Jackson’s chauffeur for years until his retirement a few years ago, but he’d always known his father was there. That he was proud of him in his own way. But Adam always thought his father had never stopped grieving for his mother, that grief had occupied most of his mind and soul. When his father spoke again, he realized how much the older man cared and how much he understood what was going on with his son.

  Jackson looked around the office, shook his head when he glanced at the wall clock, then looked right at Adam and said, “You’ve got no right being here. You’re losing her.”

  Adam was shocked by his father’s words, but he didn’t have to ask, “Who?” or “What do you mean?” He wasn’t going to give any defense for being here and not at home. His father knew what he was doing. “I don’t want to do that,” he admitted.