“We have a lot to catch up on,” he said. “I have a hell of a lot to make up for. But walking away from you was the hardest—the worst—thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“But you did it,” she whispered.
He walked over to her and took both her hands in his. “A serial killer made a direct threat against you. All I cared about was keeping you safe. With me—the one witness who could put him away—gone, he had no reason to go after you.”
She gasped. But then shook her head. She wanted to know everything and didn’t want to know anything. Or maybe just not now.
He closed his eyes for a moment and then walked toward the window, glancing out. “And, yeah, knowing how miserable I was making you, how I was failing as a husband, I thought the split-second decision I made to fake my death was the right one.”
There it was. He’d said it, the actual words. He’d faked his death. Fake, fake, fake.
“It was, at the time,” he added. “I’ll tell you all the gory details if you want to hear them, when you want to hear them. Including the call I got from the FBI agent and US marshal that McBruin was killed early this morning. But right now, I just want to be with you. And I want to see my children.”
The little faces of her quads floated into her mind. A calm came over her and she found she could breathe normally again. “Two look just like you. One looks like me. And one looks like the both of us. People always comment on it.”
His eyes lit up. “Boys? Girls?”
“Three boys and a girl,” she told him.
“I’m a father,” he whispered. She caught his shoulders slumping in defeat. If there was ever a move that wasn’t Theo Stark, that was it. Defeat wasn’t his thing. In fact, their rocky marriage, his admission of failing in that department, had to be a big part of what had allowed him to walk away and leave her behind. “All this time, I had four babies.” He shook his head, letting his face fall into his hands.
“They’re amazing,” she said. “Healthy, happy, wonderful little humans.”
His expression brightened and he managed something of a smile.
“Theo, where’ve you been all this time?” she asked.
“A cattle ranch in a remote part of Wyoming.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You were a cowboy?” Suddenly the clothing made sense.
He nodded. “I learned fast and worked hard. I can’t tell you the number of cowboys on that spread who were runaways from their lives in some form or another.”
“That’s sad, Theo.”
“I know. But I’ll tell you something. Hard, honest work makes a person think. Three quarters of those guys cleaned up their acts.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I guess you’re among them. You came home the minute you heard the serial killer was dead and that it was safe.” She looked out the window beyond him, then back at Theo. Her husband. “So I suppose you’ll get your job back.”
“I plan to, if they’ll have me after everything. If things go my way, though, I won’t start back at the PD until after New Year’s. I’d like to focus on us, Allie. On our family. I have four babies I haven’t met.”
She stared at him. “I didn’t expect you to say that. I figured you were just telling me you’re alive and then be off chasing the bad guys.”
He shook his head. “My priority right now is you. Us.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Before that night, you told me that maybe splitting up was what was best.”
“Maybe it was then. I feel like a different person now, Allie. I can’t explain it. I just know I died for you. Literally and figuratively. That told me how I felt about you, not that I needed to be told. I knew. I also knew I was a terrible husband and everything you never wanted. I was breaking your heart every day.”
“I remember,” she said. “So now what?”
“Now, if you’ll allow it, I’d like to come home. Start over.”
“It’s not going to be like it used to be,” she said. “My life is about a very serious schedule of taking care of four eleven-month-olds. And I work hard, too, Theo. My personal chef business really took off after—People hire me for all kinds of cooking gigs. If I’m not in the nursery, I’m in the kitchen.”
“And now I’ll be there to help out,” he said.
So he was just going to move back in? Step right back into their lives? That sounded crazy.
“Theo, we didn’t work before. You didn’t want to start a family. And now there are babies in the mix. Four babies. What makes you think you’re going to want this life now?”
“I just know I have a second chance, Allie. And I want to take it. I know I said I never wanted kids. But now that I have kids, that knocks that right out of the water.”
A second chance. Her own thoughts right before he’d knocked on the door came back to her: because she’d give anything for her old imperfect life back, a second chance.
“Staying out of obligation started to destroy our marriage,” she reminded him.
“I’m a father now. I take that responsibility seriously. I have eleven months to make up for, Allie. Not to mention the fact that you went through the pregnancy alone. Under terrible circumstances.”
He’d barely been able to handle having to be responsible to a wife waiting at home, worried sick about him as he volunteered for the most dangerous task forces to rid Wedlock Creek and surrounding towns of crime. Adding four babies to that? He wouldn’t last a week.
Maybe they both needed to see that, know that for sure, and then they could go back to their separate lives. Or maybe he’d surprise both of them. She was rooting for the latter.
She still loved Theo Stark with every bit of her heart. But she didn’t want their old marriage back or him to be unhappy out of obligation to her—and now to his children. So they’d give it a shot. See if he could really become a family man.
“I guess I’ll just go let the officiant know he can cross me off the list,” she said. “Then we’ll go home.”
He put the sunglasses and Stetson back on. “Home,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. “You have no idea how happy that word makes me.”
Chapter Three
As Theo pulled the pickup into the driveway of Allie’s house—their house—he could see one of her sisters (he was pretty sure it was Lila) hanging a gold banner across the front door.
Congratulations, Newlyweds!
Oh, Lord.
“They’re here!” he heard Lila shout toward the house as she rushed back inside.
He stared up at the narrow old white Victorian, his heart skipping a beat. Over the past two years, he’d dreamed of this house, the small, cramped two-bedroom fixer-upper that had been perfect for him and Allie as young newlyweds. They’d grown out of it fast, but Allie had always been so nostalgic about the place and they’d begun to talk about adding on a room. Of course, Allie would start talking about it as a nursery and Theo would shut down, thinking of it as more a spare room that would simply give them more space, more breathing room. A man cave for him and a library for all her cookbooks and recipe files. They’d never gotten around to the addition.
A tree near the front door was festooned with a few wraps of white lights. Allie loved Christmas; he was surprised she hadn’t decked out the place with the usual holiday fervor. A few lights, a wreath on the front door. That was it.
“Oh, God, my sisters,” Allie said, her gaze on the gleaming, glittery banner. “I’d better prepare them,” she added, opening the truck door. “Wait here a sec, okay?”
He nodded and she got out of the truck and faced the porch.
Lila and Merry, two of the three MacDougal triplets, came rushing out of the house and started throwing what looked like rice up in the air.
“Congratulations to the bride and groom!” the sisters shouted in unison as rice dropped down all over Allie.
Who just
stood there, shaking her head. Her sisters were peering at her, frowning.
“Allie? What’s wrong?” Merry asked.
“I—” Allie began. “It—” she stuttered. “The—” Her shoulders slumped and she turned toward him with an I need help here expression.
Oh, hell, Theo thought, as he got out of the truck and took off his sunglasses.
Allie’s sisters stared at him, then at each other, then at Allie, then back at him.
“Theo?” Merry whispered, squinting at him.
“What?” Lila said, mouth hanging open.
“I have only good news,” Allie said to her sisters. “Theo, it turns out, is alive. And Elliot got cold feet. The timing couldn’t have been better all around, actually. I easily could have had two husbands right now.”
Merry crossed her arms over her chest. “We left you to get married and you come home with your dead husband. Explain yourself now.”
“Right now,” Lila seconded.
Allie brushed rice out of her hair. “There came a knock on the door that changed everything,” she said, glancing at him. “And there Theo was. Very much alive.”
Theo knew how much Allie loved her sisters—they were very close. But he also knew Allie and could tell she was exhausted and needed to sit down—lie down—and process everything.
“It’s a long story,” Allie said, “but has to do with the serial killer he’d been after. He had to fake his death to protect me. The psycho is dead now, so Theo was able to come home.”
Her sisters narrowed their eyes at Theo.
He nodded. “I can explain further. Later, I mean,” he added. “Once Allie and I have had a chance to talk.”
“Thanks for watching the babies,” Allie said to her sisters. “I’ll take it from here.” She gave her sisters the look, the one that meant please just go and don’t ask questions; I’ll tell you everything later. They knew that look.
Thanks for watching the babies. His children. His four children. Four precious little beings he’d never met, held, seen. His heart lurched and he turned to brace a hand on the hood of the pickup.
“I’ll get our purses,” Merry said, rushing inside and coming back out a moment later. “The babies are fast asleep at the moment, Allie. They’ve only been down for about ten minutes, so they should nap a good hour and a half.”
Allie thanked them, and the pair left, walking toward town, which was just a few blocks away. Last he knew, the sisters were roommates, sharing a condo right in the middle of Main Street. He could only imagine the conversation they were having right now.
Allie gave him something of a smile-nod and started up the three steps to the porch. The last time Theo had walked into this house, there’d been only the two of them. And he counted as only a half, since he had put only half of himself into his marriage, their home life, those last few months. The rest he’d given to his job.
As he walked in the front door, the familiarity of the place almost did him in. He’d missed this house more than he knew. He’d built a life here with Allie and everything in it was a reminder of who they were at various ages. Twenty-four. Twenty-seven. Twenty-nine.
He walked through the foyer and into the living room. It was exactly the same. Big overstuffed couches. The muted area rug. The white brick fireplace. A big bowl of apples was on the kitchen island, as always; Allie loved apples. Upstairs, the master bedroom, not much bigger than the other one, hadn’t changed, either. The gray-and-white paisley comforter. Allie’s perfume bottles in front of the big round mirror of her dressing table. And on the bedside table—his side—the police procedural novel he’d been reading was still there, right next to the lamp and alarm clock.
The book was still there.
Which told him that, fiancé or not, Allie hadn’t moved on. Not really.
His relief almost buckled his knees.
He turned around, and there she was, right behind him, biting her lip. He glanced down at her left hand. She wasn’t wearing her wedding rings—the ones he’d put on her finger. Instead, a different gold ring was on her ring finger.
Maybe she had moved on. Maybe she just hadn’t gotten around to putting the book on the bookshelf in the living room. Hell, maybe she was reading it. Maybe she slept on that side now. Nearer the door. For convenience.
“The babies are in the spare bedroom?” he asked.
“It’s not the spare room anymore,” she said with something of a smile. “It’s the nursery.”
He nodded. “The nursery.”
Across the hallway he stepped toward the closed door. He put his hand on the doorknob and gently twisted it, pushing the door open and peering in. Low music was playing: a lullaby, he was pretty sure. The room was dark, black-out shades on the two windows. Four white cribs, each with a chalkboard with the baby’s name in colored chalk hanging across the outer bars, were against the walls. He stepped across the big round blue rug of yellow stars and stood in front of one of the cribs. He closed his eyes for a second and then opened them. Olivia, read the chalkboard. A baby, his daughter, lay sleeping on her back in purple footie pajamas, one hand thrown up by her head in almost a fist. Her lips quirked.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered.
“That’s Olivia,” Allie said. “On the left is Ethan.”
He moved to the crib on the left and looked in. Ethan lay on his stomach, facing away, but then he turned his head and was now facing Theo. He had Theo’s dark hair, as Olivia did.
“And across the room are Tyler and Henry,” she said.
He moved to Tyler’s crib. He also had dark hair, but there was something in his little face that was all Allie. Henry had the same dark hair, but it was harder to tell whom he looked more like, especially with his eyes closed.
“Four babies,” he said, looking at the cribs, at the tidy room. “How have you done this on your own?”
“Well, this afternoon is a good example of how. I didn’t give them lunch. Geraldine—you remember her from next door?—babysat and fed them lunch while Merry and Lila were at the town hall with me for a bit, then my sisters relieved her and put them down for their nap. Easy-peasy when you have a lot of help.”
“You can’t have help every minute of every day, though,” he said.
“No. And there have been hard moments, hard hours, hard days. But no matter what—the lack of time, privacy, inability to pee in peace, drink a cup of coffee while it’s hot, lack of sleep, staying up for hours with a sick baby only to have two or three sick at the same time, the screeching in the supermarket... I could go on. No matter what, I have them. They’re the reward, you know?”
He did know. “I always felt that way about you, Allie. No matter how hard things got those last few months here. You were still my wife. We were still the Starks.”
She almost gasped, and he wasn’t sure if she was touched or shocked or what. Part of him felt as though he knew her inside out. But he’d lost two years. And now he felt he didn’t know her at all. She’d “buried” her husband. She’d raised quadruplet babies on her own for a year. She was obviously strong in ways he hadn’t been here to witness.
Was she still his wife? Could they pick up where they’d left off—even if things between them had been rocky? Or given how troubled their marriage had been then and all the time that had passed—not to mention the big lie of his death—was it just too late for them?
He sure hoped not.
“I wish I could hold them,” he said. “I want to pick them all up and tell them their dad is here, that I’m home.” He stared down at Tyler, running a light hand along his back, covered in his green pajamas with tiny cartoon dinosaurs. This was his baby. His child.
“Oliva, Ethan, Henry, Tyler,” he said. “I don’t think they’re named after anyone in our families. Did you just like the names?”
“They’re named for you,” she said. “In the order
they were born.”
“Named after me?” he repeated.
“The first initial,” she said.
Tyler, Henry, Ethan, Olivia. T. H. E. O. He stared at her, so touched he could barely breathe, let alone speak.
“I had so many names and nothing sounded right or felt right. My parents. Your parents. Our grandparents. Aunts, uncles. I’d settle on a name, but it just wouldn’t stick for some reason. And then I thought, there are four letters in Theo and four of them. And that was that.”
He reached for her hand, and she let him hold hers for a moment. “I won’t let you down again, Allie. Or them.”
She stared at him but didn’t say anything. Finally, she said, “I could use a cup of coffee. You?”
He nodded and followed her out of the nursery and back downstairs. In the kitchen, she brewed coffee and he was about to get out the mugs when he realized he couldn’t just go poking around in her cabinets. For almost two years, this had been her house. Not his. Not theirs. Hers.
“You tell me, Allie, how you want this to go. I mean, are you comfortable with me moving back in? Do you want some time?”
She got out the mugs. And the cream and sugar. “This is your house, too.”
“It hasn’t been for a long time, though. I want to be here. I want our second chance.”
She turned and looked at him. “Me, too.”
Their relationship would have to be different because everything had changed; they were parents. That realization settled something in his gut, gave him hope. They had something—four very special somethings—concrete to spur them on to make their marriage work.
“So I live here again?” he asked.
She smiled and nodded and poured the coffee. “It’s going to be awkward for a few days, I’m sure. We have a lot to catch up on. Things between us weren’t good two years ago, though.”
“I know. My fault.”
She shook her head. “There were two people in this marriage with expectations. Not just one.” She sat at the kitchen table and wrapped her hands around the mug. Theo sat across from her.
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