Ten Acres and Twins (4 page)

When Wyatt started sobbing again after the game, Jack fed him—brilliantly, this time. He had the baby fed and burped within a half hour, without a single snag. Then he changed a dirty diaper, congratulating himself on that, too. It had been his first poopy diaper, and he managed it without needing a bit of advice.

He called Abby only one more time that night.

“Hullo, Jack. What is it?” she asked tiredly, after just one ring.

“How'd you know it was me?”

“Are you kidding? You've called at least once every hour for the past six. I was wondering where you'd gone.”

“Oh.”

“Well, what is it?”

Abby had worked her magic again: he felt foolish. He considered hanging up, but he still needed to know the answer to his question. “How do I take a shower?”

She giggled. “Now you're kidding, right?”

“No, I'm not,” he said. “What do I do with Wyatt?”

“It's eleven o'clock. He's not asleep yet?”

“No.”

After another exaggerated sigh, she said, “Is there a separate place in your hotel room for him to sleep?”

“Yes, we're in a suite.”

“Go pull a mattress off the bed and put Wyatt in the middle of it on his back. Stack pillows on every side. Then—and this is the most important part—leave the room.”

It sounded too easy. “Won't he cry?”

“For a while, but if he's quiet within a few minutes, you've made it,” she said in a whisper-soft voice that sounded sweet for the first time today. “Then you can go take a shower.”

“Good,” he said, grateful for her kindness. He'd been through enough already.

“And Jack?”

“Yes?”

“I'm going to bed. Babies wake up at night. You check their diaper, see if they're hungry. You can do that. Don't call me again unless it's an emergency.”

 

S
EVEN HOURS LATER
, Jack stirred from a light snooze when Wyatt starting moving around. The arm of the hotel room sofa was rock hard, making deep sleep out of the question. But Wyatt had been quiet and comfortable, belly down against his uncle's chest, with a blanket tucked snugly around him.

Jack had tried Abby's suggestion. He had tried hard. But it
had been impossible to listen to Wyatt shriek for longer than a minute or two. For all he knew, the child had fallen off the mattress and rolled across the floor. Or maybe the little guy missed his family. Jack couldn't discount that possibility.

Besides, he had the other hotel guests to consider.

So he'd slept on the sofa with Wyatt nestled on his chest. The arrangement had worked wonders for the baby.

Jack himself hadn't slept more than an hour or two.

All those wakeful hours had afforded him plenty of thinking time, and he'd started to come to some conclusions. For one thing, taking care of an infant was a laborious chore— Wyatt seemed to need constant attention.

Where had Jack gotten the impression that babies slept most of the time? So far, Wyatt had cried more than he'd slept. Or so it seemed.

If he took the baby back to Kansas City, he could try working from home so he could tend to Wyatt. He imagined a day broken into scattered segments of trying to feed, change and pacify a baby, while his clients cooled their heels on the other end of the phone line. And Jack had no idea what he'd do when he had to go on a business trip.

In any case, his company would probably fail.

If he hired round-the-clock care, he could spend time with his nephew whenever he wasn't working. Then he'd have a definite hand in the boy's upbringing.

Of course, Jack would have to slow down his social life to a snail's pace. The ladies would have to visit him at home, or see him a lot less often.

But when it came right down to it, he didn't have many options. His working hours were unpredictable, and he didn't have a kindly old aunt nearby to help when he needed it.

Although there were three women he dated regularly, none seemed as if they would want to take on the chore.

He knew for certain that Paula, the woman he'd known the longest, would revolt at being asked to help with an infant.

She might close her eyes to his playboy ways, but she
wouldn't tolerate a child. She often said that having children was what other women did when they didn't have the imagination to create an exciting life for themselves.

There was something else that was bothering him, too, and it was the most important aspect of his dilemma. The twins were all that was left of the family Brian had loved. Jack shouldn't tear them apart, especially not after they'd just lost their parents. They deserved to grow up knowing one another. At the very least, they deserved to spend time together as siblings. He shouldn't take that away from them.

But he couldn't just give the boy up, either. That would be letting himself down, as well as Brian.

Jack needed to talk to Abby.

 

O
NE OF THE BABIES
was crying.

Abby woke up, stumbled off the couch and headed for the bedroom to see which one needed her. By the time she'd crossed the threshold, she remembered. Jack had taken Wyatt.

It had required all the self-control she could muster to help that man through his troubles yesterday, when all she'd wanted was to go over there and bring Wyatt home.

Lifting Rosie off the mattress, she hummed softly. The baby began to quiet immediately, but Abby knew she was probably hungry. It was six o'clock, about the time the babies usually woke up.

Trudging into the kitchen to pull a bottle from the refrigerator, Abby warmed it, then wandered back to her rocker with both baby and bottle. She settled in for a while, watching Rosie drink.

Yesterday's events kept replaying in her head like a nightmare. Jack had really taken Wyatt. And then he had called her all day long, reminding her constantly that his knowledge of babies could fit on the wing of an aphid.

She wondered how Wyatt had slept last night, or whether
he had slept at all. A brutal stab of longing pierced through her heart, starting her tears falling again.

She let them flow, reassuring Rosie that crying was healthy and healing. The sweet girl looked at Abby as if she understood the pain, seeming oddly wise—until she reached up with chubby fingers and clenched Abby's nose.

Abby's responding chuckle caused Rosie to smile back and kick her feet in happiness. And for all her innocence, she provided a wealth of comfort.

After Rosie had been fed, burped, bathed and dressed, Abby let her play on the floor with a bowl of plastic fish while she gathered some things in a diaper bag.

Yesterday had proved that she couldn't wait for serendipity to solve her problems. Jack had no business trying to fit a sweet little boy into his self-absorbed lifestyle. Paige wouldn't have wanted that, no matter what the will said, and now it was up to Abby to make sure it didn't happen. Somehow.

She wanted nothing more than to raise both twins together, on the farm in the country. After all, that was a modified version of her lifelong dream.

Ever since she was a young girl, a country life was what she had envisioned for herself. She'd wanted to marry some dark-haired, faceless man, raise a yardful of kids and animals, and grow flowers.

Many of the childhood games of “let's pretend” she had played with her sister had revolved around that theme.

After her divorce, Abby realized her fairy tale would never include the dark-haired man. She'd made a foolish choice once, and she didn't trust herself to try again. But she'd never forgotten the rest of the fantasy.

Her sister had been more successful in starting down all the right paths, but she was gone now. It was only fitting that Abby should carry on pursuing their shared hopes.

If only she could convince Jack to give up Wyatt.

A few minutes later, she drove down the long dirt lane to the eighty-year-old-house she'd loved most of her life. Jack's
silver two-seater sports car was parked haphazardly in the drive, with his familiar blue cap resting on its hood. He'd beaten her here.

She parked behind him and hopped out to pull Rosie from the back seat. A whistle sounded, and she whirled around to find Jack watching from beside a massive white column of the wraparound wooden porch.

His hair was as unruly as ever, and he looked as if he hadn't shaved today. The dark stubble turned his eyes impossibly blue, and a loden-green sport shirt showed off his wide chest. He looked handsome in a homey sort of way. In fact, his relaxed approach to grooming only sparked her interest more.

He looked as if he'd just rolled out of bed.

“You make that look easy,” he said.

“What?”

“Getting her in and out of that seat. It took me a long time to figure out those straps again after I got Wyatt to the hotel yesterday.”

“Where is he?” she asked, just now realizing that Jack wasn't carrying him.

He pointed to his car. Whether from overprotectiveness, or a complete lack of trust, Abby was peering through the car window within seconds.

Wyatt was in his car seat, sound asleep. The cracked window provided adequate ventilation, and the morning air was comfortable for early August. The boy was in no danger, but still…

“How long have you left him in there?”

“Less than two minutes,” Jack said. “He was asleep when we got here, so I came up to look around on the porch.”

Abby squinted at him, wondering if he was being truthful. After yesterday, she wouldn't be surprised if Wyatt had been left much longer. Jack might be some guru computer consultant, but he knew nothing about babies.

“Go ahead, touch the hood of the car,” he said with a raised brow. “It's probably still warm.”

“That's not necessary.” She sniffed and carried Rosie onto the porch. Once there, Abby foraged through her purse with one hand, searching for the door key.

“Let me help,” Jack offered, holding his arms out.

Reluctantly, Abby handed the baby over just long enough to locate her keys. Neither he nor Rosie seemed to mind the exchange. He smiled sweetly into the baby girl's face, provoking a sweeter smile from Rosie, and a string of syllables that sounded something like, “Bibibibi deek?”

Ignoring Jack's chuckled response, Abby opened the door and stepped inside. Subdued light from an overhead window set off the foyer's original wood flooring, and somehow the house smelled fresh, despite the fact that it had been closed up most of the past two weeks.

Maybe it was an illusion—she'd always felt welcome when she walked through this doorway—but now just being here put her at ease. As if she'd come home.

Jack followed her inside, with Rosie prattling happily in his arms. “Why don't I get Wyatt and put him in his crib?” Abby offered. “It's still set up in the nursery.”

Without waiting for a response, she jogged back outside and lifted Wyatt from the car seat, cuddling him close as she returned.

Jack had disappeared into the house with Rosie, so she headed upstairs to the nursery. She put Wyatt into his own crib and backed quietly away.

At the doorway, she switched on the baby monitor and took the receiver with her. She found Jack and Rosie in the kitchen, looking out the French doors into the greenhouse Abby and Paige had built last year.

Jack was speaking gently to the child, holding her up so she could see out. As soon as Abby walked into the room, he turned and said, “The flowers are thriving out there. Have you
been keeping them up?” He shifted Rosie to his other arm, already seeming adept at holding a baby.

Abby's heart fell; she'd been counting on his complete and continuing discomfort with kids.

She put the receiver on the table and went to claim her little girl. “I have,” she admitted. “I had been helping Paige start a commercial cut-flower business, and I couldn't let it all go.”

“Didn't your family know the man who owned this place?”

“Mr. Apple Man,” she began, and paused to chuckle at herself for the mistake. “That's what Paige and I called him when we were growing up, because of the orchards. Actually, his name is Larry Epelstein. When he got too old to run the place, he offered to sell it to us, cheap. He wanted to be sure someone got in here who would take care of his trees.”

“Everyone in your family has a green thumb, don't they?”

“Guess so,” Abby answered, gnawing at her lip as she looked out at the colorful melange of flowers.

She'd need to water them today, and some of the varieties would need deadheading. She hadn't found the energy to get the blooms to market lately. If things didn't improve anytime soon, perhaps she never would.

Jack touched her arm. “Since we're both here, why don't we talk now?”

Still staring out into the greenhouse, she considered why it felt as if he held her very life in his hands. He seemed to hold a balance of power here. He had Wyatt, and the land the orchards were situated on. She knew Rosie and the house were every bit as valuable, but there was one difference.

Abby wanted what he had.

Pretending a courage she didn't feel, she wandered over to the antique oak table that dominated the middle of the kitchen. “Guess now's as good a time as any,” she said as she slid into a chair with Rosie on her lap.

Jack sat across from her, and actually smiled when Rosie
started fussing. “Well!” he said. “It's good to know that you can make yours cry, too.”

Abby swallowed a bristling retort and forced herself to smile back. “She probably just wants to play,” she said. “There's an activity center in the nursery. I'll sneak up and get it.”

She plopped the crying baby back into Jack's arms and grinned at his swift change of expression. Now he looked close to tears.

She ran back up to the nursery, reminding herself all the way of how much more effective she'd be if she kept her cool.

After she lugged the toy back down to the kitchen and put Rosie into the seat, her sobbing stopped. But the knowledge that she and Jack were assured a few minutes of peace did little to calm Abby's nerves.