Olivia sat on the couch with the tree lights on, her bootless feet curled up beneath her.
“Come, sit,” she said when he’d taken as long as he could to get his stuff together and still wasn’t ready to head out.
His time was up for good. He knew it. Knew what he had to do. Just had to find the guts to do it. Who knew the great Martin Wainwright, millionaire at twenty-two, eligible bachelor, was really a coward?
His hand brushed his thigh as he stepped slowly toward her and he felt the flash drive. Grabbing it like a man with a life raft, he said, “Wait. We should probably play this...”
And maybe, as they listened to Sam’s music, words would come to him. No, he had the words. What he needed was the courage.
Did he dare hope that a sixty-year-old self-professed father failure would have the ability to make music that could inspire weak men to greatness?
Grabbing the remote, Olivia turned on the home theater while he inserted the drive and came to sit beside her on the couch. Right beside her.
There was no more room for pretense between them.
She hit Play and a soft, melodic riff filled the room. Some kind of electric piano, not digitized, synthesized music, but notes that flowed from one to the other, sounding like sadness and hope all at once. There was no percussion, nothing to keep rhythm, just what he was assuming was Sam’s fingers on keys, until...there came a gurgle. And then another. In perfect rhythm.
“It’s our heartbeat song,” Olivia whispered, tears coming to her eyes.
Their heartbeat song.
It washed over him. Through him. Filling him.
Like a miracle from Santa Claus. Or a father’s gift from Sam.
“Liv?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you marry me, again?”
He felt her stiffen as she jerked toward him, her gaze studying his fiercely. “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered.
He didn’t break that look, didn’t need to. Didn’t want to.
“Oh, yes, I do,” he said, his certainty strengthened by the power he was letting back into his life. “I’m done running. Done staying so busy I don’t have time to grieve what’s missing. All I ever wanted was a family. I was so happy as a kid. And then, when I lost my parents, one after the other, when I was in college, I just kept telling myself I had to hold on because I had my own family ahead of me. Like the one I had with them. The day I met you, I knew, I just knew I’d found that family. And then...when we lost Lily... I didn’t know what to do. How to reach you in your grief. How to let you inside mine. And I lost you, too. Something died in me, and honestly, I was glad to have it gone.”
He wasn’t proud of himself. Was ashamed of what he’d become.
“Please, Liv, give us another chance. We’ve learned so much from our mistakes, let us gain from our own loss. We know to be emotionally honest with each other now. To turn to each other when we need comfort, rather than just trying to comfort the other or fix things. We need to be friends, partners, not just lovers... Please, help us learn to be those things.”
Lifting the remote, she turned the recording back on again, and said, “I’ve already given us the second chance. And of course, I’ll marry you again. It’s always been you, Martin.”
“It’s always been you, Liv, for me, too. I can change the world on my own, but I can’t find happiness without you.”
“We have no guarantees that the baby’s going to make it through gestation.”
“Fear lives here, Liv. It’s a fact of our lives. Because we know how badly life can hurt, and there are never guarantees that it won’t hurt us again. But if we’re fighting the fear together, a whole bunch of joy is going to live here, too.” He was finally getting it. His home life growing up had been nearly idyllic for him, but it couldn’t have been easy for his parents. And yet, there’d been so much joy. Not just for him, but for them, too. He’d felt it emanating off them. Had fed from their happiness.
Just as he and Liv and whatever children they had in their lives fed off from theirs.
Getting up, he went to his bag. Pulled out the small black velvet case he’d brought with him and handed it to her.
“I saw this and had to buy it for you,” he said. “Even when I was still running scared, I knew I had to find a way to open up to who we had to be.”
She opened the case. A tear dripped down on the exquisite gold, catching color from the Christmas lights.
“You’re the mother of our children, Liv. That’s a given. But what this pendant reminded me was that, without me, you wouldn’t be a mother. It reminds me that for every mother and child, there has to be a father, too. It’s a sacred gift. And it’s mine to accept, as long as I’m not a first-class idiot and throw it away. I’ve been an idiot long enough. I’ve run from the pain long enough. I don’t know what the future looks like in terms of lifestyle—not yet, anyway. I just know that all the traveling in the world couldn’t keep me from you. And I suspect the traveling was more of an excuse than a valid reason to stay away.”
“I love you, Martin. So, so much.”
“I love you, too. With my heart achingly wide open this time.”
Taking the remote he put the recording on repeat and took Liv into his arms. Kissing her with a brand-new passion, a deeper passion, born from the hope of forever.
The song played again.
And again.
Their Christmas heartbeat song.
Filling them with everything they needed to welcome their future.
Epilogue
A deep, strained groan filled the air. Followed by two encouraging voices.
“Breathe. That’s it, you’ve got this,” they said one after the other, over the other, with the other.
And behind the litany, underneath it, surrounding it, filling the private, well-lit birthing room, with its couch and chairs and windows, were the soft sounds of an electric keyboard, and the gurgle-gurgle rhythm of Samantha Jane Wainwright’s heartbeat, recorded at their first ultrasound seven months ago.
“We have a head,” the doctor said. And, in the next second, held up a full, messy, breathing body.
“She’s here,” the woman beside the bed said, and then, frowning, moved to the doctor’s side and, as she professionally and quickly cut the umbilical cord, moved her gaze over every inch of the body that was squirming and starting to fuss. “Quick, get her to the warmer,” she said. “And weigh her...”
“She’s fine, Dr. Wainwright,” the doctor’s voice said. “You know we’ve got this, piece of cake. And I think you need to see to your husband. Now, Beth...”
The doctor continued talking and tended to his business with his patient.
Beth responded to him when necessary, but mostly she was wearing a serene smile as she looked at the couple holding each other, crying, as they stood, cheeks pressed together, watching as, just inches away from them, the nurse tended to their newborn daughter.
“Okay, who wants to hold her first?” the nurse asked minutes later, turning with a bundled blanket that had the most perfectly angelic, robust baby face showing.
“We do,” the couple said together, and, arms entwined on one side, reached with their others to support the baby between them.
With those simple words, and that gathering in of the tiny form, they became the family they’d always been meant to be.
* * *
Don’t miss previous books in the Parent Portal miniseries:
Having the Soldier’s Baby
A Baby Affair
Her Motherhood Wish
A Mother’s Secrets
The Child Who Changed Them
Their Second-Chance Baby
Ranch manager Annie McCade thought her twin niece and nephew could join her at the Angel View Ranch for Christmas with her absent employer being none the wiser. But when the ranch’s ow
ner, Tate Sheridan, shows up out of the blue, Annie’s plans are upended. Soon she finds herself helping Tate make a Christmas to remember for his grieving and fractured extended family.
Keep reading for a preview of New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne’s heartwarming Christmas romance,
Sleigh Bells Ring!
Sleigh Bells Ring
by RaeAnne Thayne
Chapter One
This was war. A relentless, merciless battle for survival.
Backed into a corner and taking fire from multiple fronts, Annelise McCade launched missiles as fast as she could manage against her enemies. She was outnumbered. They had teamed up to attack her with agile cunning and skill.
At least it was a nice day for battle. The snow the night before hadn’t been particularly substantial but it had still left everything white and sparkly and the massive ranchhouse behind her was solid and comforting in the December afternoon sunlight.
A projectile hit her square in the face, an icy splat against her skin that had her gasping.
At her instinctive reaction, giggles rang out across the snowy expanse.
She barely took time to wipe the cold muck off her cheek. “No fair, aiming for the face,” she called back. “That’s against the rules.”
“It was a accident,” her six-year-old nephew Henry admitted. “I didn’t mean to hit your face.”
“You’ll pay for that one.”
She scooped up several more balls as fast as she could manage and hurled them across the battlefield at Henry and his twin sister Alice.
“Do you give up?” she called.
“Never!”
Henry followed up his defiance by throwing a snowball back at her. His aim wasn’t exactly accurate—hence her still-dripping face—but it still hit her shoulder and made her wince.
“Never!” his twin sister Alice cried out. She had more of a lisp so her declaration sounded like “Nevoh.”
Alice threw with such force, the effort almost made her spin around like a discus thrower in the Olympics.
It was so good to hear them laughing. In the week since they had come to live with her temporarily, Annie had witnessed very little of this childish glee.
Not for the first time, she cursed her brother and the temper he had inherited from their father and grandfather. If not for that temper, compounded by the heavy drinking that had taken over his life since his wife’s death a year ago, Wes would be here with the twins right now, throwing snowballs in the cold sunshine.
Grief for all that these children had lost was like a tiny shard of ice permanently lodged against her heart. But at least they could put their pain aside for a few moments to have fun outside on a snowy December day.
She might not be the perfect temporary guardian but it had been a good idea to make them come outside after homework for a little exercise and fresh air.
She was doing her best, though she was wholly aware that she was only treading water.
For now, this moment, she decided she would focus on gratitude. The children were healthy, they all had a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs and their father should be back home with them in less than a month.
Things could be much, much worse.
“Time out,” Henry gasped out during a lull in the pitched battle. “We gotta make more snowballs.”
“Deal. Five-minute break, starting now.”
Annie pulled her glove off long enough to set the timer on her smart watch then ducked behind the large landscape boulder she was using as cover and scooped up several snowballs to add to her stash.
The sun would be going down in another hour and already the air had cooled several degrees. The air smelled like impending snow, though she knew only a dusting was forecast, at least until the following weekend.
She didn’t worry. Holly Creek, Wyoming, about an hour south of Jackson Hole in the beautiful Star Valley, almost always had a white Christmas.
Annie’s phone timer went off just as she finished a perfectly formed snowball. “Okay. Time’s up,” she called. Without standing up, she launched a snowball to where she knew the twins would be.
An instant later, she heard a deep grunt that definitely did not sound like Henry or Alice.
Annie winced. Levi Moran, the ranch manager, or his grizzled old ranchhand Bill Shaw must have wandered across the battlefield in the middle of a ceasefire without knowing he was about to get blasted.
“Sorry,” she called, rising to her feet. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
She saw a male figure approach, wearing sunglasses. The sun reflecting off the new snow was hitting his face and she couldn’t instantly identify him.
“No doubt,” he said, wiping snow off his face with his sleeve.
She frowned. This was definitely not Levi or Bill.
He stepped closer and Annie felt as if an entire avalanche of snow had just crumbled away from the mountain and buried her.
She knew this man, though it had been nearly two decades since Annie had seen him in person.
It couldn’t be anyone else.
Dark hair, lean, gorgeous features. Beneath those sunglasses, she knew she would find blue eyes the color of Bear Lake in summertime.
The unsuspecting man she had just pummeled with a completely unprovoked snowball attack had to be Tate Sheridan.
Her de facto boss.
The twins had fallen uncharacteristically silent, wary of a tall, unsmiling stranger. Henry, she saw, had moved closer to his twin sister and slipped his hand in hers.
Annie’s mind whirled trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
Tate Sheridan. Here. After all this time.
She shouldn’t be completely shocked, she supposed. It was his family’s house, after all. For many years when her father was the ranch manager, the Sheridans had trekked here annually from the Bay Area several times a year for the Christmas season, as well as most summers.
His younger sister had been her very best friend in the world, until tragedy and pain and life circumstances had separated them.
She had wondered when she agreed to take the job if she would see Tate again. She hadn’t truly expected to. She had worked here for nearly a year and he hadn’t once come to his grandfather’s Wyoming vacation ranch.
How humiliating, that he would show up when she was in the middle of a snowball fight with her niece and nephew—who had no business being there in the first place!
“What are you doing here?” she burst out, then winced. She wanted to drag the words back. It was his family’s property. He had every right to be there.
“I might ask the same of you. Along with a few more obvious questions, I suppose. Who are you and why are you having a snowball fight in the middle of my property?”
“You don’t know who I am?”
Of course he wouldn’t, she realized. And while she thought of him often, especially over the past year while living at Angel’s View once more, he had probably not given her a moment’s thought.
“Should I?”
It was stupid to feel a little hurt.
“Annelise McCade. My dad was Scott McCade.”
He lifted his sunglasses, giving her an intense look. A moment later, she saw recognition flood his features.
“Little Annie McCade. Wow. You’re still here, after all this time?”
She frowned. He didn’t have to make it sound like she was a lump of mold growing in the back of the refrigerator. She had lived a full life in the nearly two decades since she had seen Tate in person.
She had moved away to California with her mother, struggling through the painful transition of being a new girl in a new school. She had graduated from college and found success in her chosen field. She had even been planning marriage a year ago, to a man she hardly even thought about anymore.
�
��Not really still here as much as here again. I’ve been away for a long time but moved back a year ago. Wallace...your grandfather hired me to be the caretaker of Angel’s View.”
She saw pain darken his expression momentarily, a pain she certainly shared. Even after two months, she still expected her phone to ring and Wallace Sheridan to be on the other end of the line, calling for an update on the ranch he loved.
The rest of the world had lost a compelling business figure with a brilliant mind and a keen insight into human nature.
Annie had lost a friend.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said softly.
“Thank you.” His voice was gruff and he looked away, his gaze landing on the twins, who were watching their interaction with unusual solemnity.
“Are these yours?” He gestured to the children and Annie was aware of a complex mix of emotions, both protectiveness and guilt.
The children shouldn’t be here. She had never asked permission from anyone in the Sheridan family to have the children move into the caretakers’ apartment with her.
She deeply regretted the omission now. While it was a feeble defense, she hadn’t really known whom to ask. No one in the Sheridan organization seemed to be paying the slightest attention to any of the goings on at a horse ranch in western Wyoming that represented only a small portion of the vast family empire.
Annie knew she was in the wrong here. No matter what uproar might have been happening during Wallace’s illness and subsequent death, she should have applied to someone for permission to bring the twins to live with her here.
Instead, she had simply assumed it shouldn’t be a problem since it was only a temporary situation and the children would be back with their father after the first of the year with no one in the family knowing they had been here at all.
“This is my niece and nephew. Wes’s children.”
Tate and Wes were similar in age, she remembered, and had been friends once upon a time, just as Annelise had been close to Tate’s younger sister Brianna. The McCades lived on the ranch year round while the Sheridan children only visited a few times a year, but somehow they had all managed to have a warm, close bond and could always pick up where they left off when the Sheridans came back to the ranch.
Her Christmas Future Page 20