A Dad for Her Twins (3 page)

“It isn't okay at all. Max would never have allowed you to handle this alone.” His voice tightened, dropped to a low growl. “I'm so sorry I wasn't here for you, Abby.”

“It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. It's just a problem I have to figure out.” She was glad their server brought their meals just then. Maybe eating would ease the strain that was building and help them both avoid awkward, useless moments of regret. She scrounged up a smile. “I haven't had a turkey dinner in aeons,” she said, licking rich gravy off her fork.

“Christmas wasn't that long ago.” Cade paused, lifted his head and stared at her. His pupils widened. “You didn't have Christmas dinner, did you?” He closed his eyes and groaned. “Oh, Abby.”

She'd made him feel guilty again. She knew because she carried her own load. But she didn't want Cade's guilt. So what did she want? Because Abby didn't want to explore that thought she set down her fork and reassured him.

“Actually I did have Christmas dinner, Cade. I've been volunteering at a kids' shelter and they served a lovely meal.” She chuckled. “But I didn't have much time to enjoy it.”

“Why?” Cade crunched on a pickle as he waited for her to explain.

“One of the kids ran away, so we went looking for her.” Abby liked the way Cade chewed slowly, appreciating the nuances of flavor in his food. “Searching took most of the day. By the time we found her, I was too tired to eat. Anyway, everything was cold.”

She picked up her fork and chose a square of dark meat. Fork midway to her mouth, she blinked and paused, suddenly uneasy under his scrutiny. “What?”

“Can I ask you something?” He waited for her nod, forehead furrowed, his left hand, the one lying on the table, clenching and unclenching. “You spoke of giving up Max's, er, your babies?”

Abby swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded.

“But—you can't!” he protested, his voice sounding loud in the almost-deserted dining room. His eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened into a grim line as he spoke in a lowered tone. “Abby, you cannot possibly be considering giving away Max's children!”

“Do you think I want to?” she gasped as tears welled. “These are my children, part of me.” She set down her fork, no longer hungry. Emotions rose through her like a tidal wave but she forced them back in the struggle to make him understand. “These children are the most precious thing in my life. I would do anything,
anything
—” she emphasized “—to give them the best life they can possibly have.”

“Then why in the world—”

“The best life,” she repeated softly through the tears filling her throat. “Max's children deserve that. But homelessness, lack of money, a life on the street—that is not the best life for them. Yet, at the moment, that's all I can offer them.” She shook her head. “No child deserves that. I have to at least consider foster care.”

“Lack of money?” he said, honing in on her words. “But won't Max's military benefits cover everything you need?”

“I haven't received any.”

“What?” Cade stared at her in disbelief. He shook his head. “Why?”

“The military says he never informed them he was married, never filled out the forms. He was also behind on paying his insurance premiums, probably because of the down payment we made on the house,” she said with a sad smile.

“But it's been months since—” Cade clamped his lips together.

“Since he died, I know.” She sighed. “I sent them a copy of our marriage license, but they say that until they are able to verify its authenticity or legality or something, I can't receive any funds. That's why I didn't have enough to pay the mortgage or power bills or...” Tears erupted in a flow Abby couldn't staunch. She bent her head and let them fall, ashamed of her weakness but utterly weary of fighting.

Cade fell silent. After she regained control, Abby peeked through her lashes and found him staring at her, his blue eyes brimming with anger or perhaps disbelief? When he opened his mouth, his voice emerged in a squeak of protest that Abby shushed by reaching across and grabbing his clenched fist.

“It's true,” she assured him.

“I know you're not lying, Abby.” He drew his hand away as if he didn't like her touching him. He leaned back and thought it over for several moments, then jerked his head in a nod. “It's just that I never heard of the military withholding benefits when...”

“Well, that's what they've done.” Abby sighed. “I think it might kill me to give up my babies, even for a short time,” she told him. “But I have to face the facts, and that's a choice I might have to make if I can't give them a home, food, safety. I have no intention of failing my children.”
As I did Max.

Cade studied her for several long minutes. She knew something had changed when his broad shoulders went back and determination welled up in his blue eyes. He reached across the table, his hand closing around hers, squeezing tightly. Abby could only stare at him as the rough calluses on his skin brushed hers and wonder what the rush of emotions across his handsome face meant.

Was Cade God's answer to her prayers?

“You have another choice, Abby,” he said in a clear, firm voice. “You can come to the ranch and stay until the babies are born. There's plenty of room. Mrs. Swanson, our housekeeper, will be on hand if you need anything. You won't have to lift a finger. You can rest and give the babies a rest, too. Stay as long as you need to get back on your feet.” His blue eyes locked with hers and held.

“But I can't pay you,” she whispered.

“I don't want anything,” Cade said in a brisk but firm voice. He stopped, shook his head. “Actually I do,” he corrected himself. “I want you to wait until Max's children are born, to take some time before you make your decision about your future and theirs. Okay?”

Abby couldn't believe it. God had sent her a place to stay, to wait for her babies' arrival without fearing someone would hassle her about her bills, moving and everything else she'd been fighting. A little window of hope, that's what Cade was offering. All she had to do was accept.

And yet, there was something in the depths of his kindly eyes, something that tugged at one corner of his mouth—something that made her stomach tighten with worry.

“What aren't you saying, Cade?” she murmured.

Shutters flipped down over his eyes. He eased his hand from hers and leaned back, his big body tense.

“Come to the ranch, Abby. It's better if you see the way things are for yourself. Then you can decide whether or not you want to stay.” He lifted one eyebrow. “Okay?”

Abby sat silent, thinking. God had opened this door, she knew it.

Max had trusted Cade with his life.

Maybe she was being weak by accepting this opportunity. Max would have expected her to handle her life without revealing that he'd left her unprotected. If he'd known she was pregnant he wouldn't have left, but on the day she'd kissed him goodbye, the morning after she'd comforted him through a terrible nightmare, he went back to active duty in Afghanistan without knowing he was going to be a father. Neither of them had known what the future held.

She had no alternative but to accept Cade's offer, just until the babies were born. Then she'd get on with her life, alone except for her babies.

“I'm ready,” she told him. “Let's go to the Double L.”

Chapter Two

“Y
ou don't have to do this, Cade. I'll find another way. I'll figure out something.” Abby's voice broke through the silence that had reigned since they'd left the city behind. “There's no need for you to put yourself out like this.”

Abby's words drew Cade from his morose contemplation. He suddenly realized she thought his silence meant that he didn't want her at his home.

“What other solution do you have in mind?” He drove silently, waiting for her response with undiluted curiosity.

“I could sleep on my friend's couch while I think of the next step.” Those green eyes of hers squinted at him with defiance. “Isaiah 62:7 says, ‘Put God in remembrance of His promises.'”

“Uh, okay,” he said, clueless as to her meaning.

“It means that if I keep praying, I know that eventually He will give me an answer.”

“Until He does, maybe this is His answer—coming to my place, I mean.” Cade didn't actually believe that, but Abby's certainty that God would help her intrigued him. He'd never known anyone so confident in God.

“It's not His answer if it's going to put you out or make things difficult in your home.”

“Things are already difficult in my home.” The words burst out of him. As soon as they were said he wished he could retract them but, of course, Abby's curiosity was obviously pricked.

“What do you mean?” she asked with a frown.

How to explain? Cade tossed around several responses. There was no easy way to say this.

“I got leave from the military because my father had a stroke and couldn't run the ranch himself. In fact, he was on the verge of bankruptcy.” Cade licked his lips, mentally framing his explanation. “The day of Max's funeral, Dad had a second stroke. That's why I wasn't there.”

“I heard.” She blinked and nodded. “Go on.”

“The stroke not only paralyzed him and took away his speech, but it left him locked inside his anger.”

“Anyone would get frustrated in such a condition,” Abby murmured.

“Trust me, he was frustrated long before he had a stroke,” Cade muttered. “My father is a very angry man. He's been that way for as long as I can remember. It's my fault. He hates me.”

“That can't be true,” Abby gasped. “I'm sure your father doesn't hate you.”

A faint smile twisted Cade's lips. Max was the only other person he'd told his life story to and he'd shown the same reaction.

“He hates me because I killed my mother.” Why did the knowledge still hurt so much? “She died giving birth to me.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” Abby's hand touched his shoulder, then fluttered away. Her voice dropped. “But even so—it can't be true. You must have confused something. He probably got so caught up in his own pain and didn't know how—”

“No.” Cade heard the sharpness in his own voice, felt his jaw tighten. “You can't romanticize it, Abby. Even if he was decimated by grief, it's been over thirty years and his attitude toward me hasn't changed one iota. His anger and the way he took it out on me for my entire life is the reason I left home and joined the military.”

He swallowed the rest of what he wanted to say. His fingers gripped the steering wheel as he turned off the highway and into Buffalo Gap. It struck him that he'd received his wish. A woman now sat beside him. The rumor mill would be rampant with speculation.

Cade with a woman? He hasn't brought anyone to the Double L since that woman, Alice, and Ed chased her off pretty quick.

Again Cade pretended he didn't see the curious stares. He drove stoically through the small town.

Cade didn't get involved in Buffalo Gap. He didn't have time for it. The constant mental battles with his father left him beaten and worn down, as did the challenge of constantly avoiding another misstep that would take the ranch to financial ruin. He didn't have time to socialize with the townsfolk.

Max had told him once that women could sense the anger festering inside him and so they steered clear of him. Cade now knew that was true. In his life he thought he'd loved only two women and both of them had dumped him after a visit to the ranch. Cade had blamed his father's anger and rudeness, but he knew the truth; he simply wasn't the kind of man women cared for. He lacked the softness that having a mother would have given him. Now Cade no longer wanted the complication of romance in his already uncomfortable world.

But with sudden awareness, he now realized that to expect Abby to endure the simmering discontent of his father was a bad idea. She said she had a little more than three months to go before the twins were due; three months in which she should be pampered and soothed to prepare for delivery. Cade was no expert on human birth, of course, but he'd helped deliver hundreds of calves and about the same number of colts, and he knew giving birth was hard work for any mom.

“Cade?” The softly voiced query drew his attention to Abby. “I don't have to stay on your ranch. I could go to my friend's or a shelter, if that would be better for you. I don't want to cause you problems.”

“You can't stay in a shelter. Max would never have allowed it and neither will I.” Admiration for her pluck drove off the brooding that always enveloped him when he thought of his father. Cade focused instead on the small woman in the opposite seat.

“But I need to prepare you for what you'll find. And I want to ask you to, as much as possible, avoid my father. He's very unhappy with the way I've been managing the ranch and with the decisions I've made. He refuses to work at his physiotherapy. He often won't eat the meals our housekeeper, Mrs. Swanson, prepares. He deliberately knocks things over and bangs his cane against anything to express his anger.”

“Oh, the poor man.” Abby's eyes welled with tears. For some reason that made Cade very angry.

“He's not a poor man. He's unhappy, as he's always been, and he's trying to make everyone else feel the same.” Cade had to force his fingers to relax on the steering wheel as he drove the gravel road toward the ranch. “I have only one rule for your stay on the Double L, Abby. You must avoid my father. I won't risk anything happening to you or to Max's babies.”

Abby's eyes widened before she turned to look out the window. Cade hated the worry he'd glimpsed there, but he was issuing the warning for her sake.

“Maybe I should go somewhere else—” she began.

“I've made you afraid.” He cut off whatever else she'd been going to say, mentally stewing over his lack of subtlety. “Don't be afraid, Abby. Physically, you will be perfectly safe at the ranch.” He used the gentlest voice he could muster but mostly Cade was out of touch with gentleness.

“But you said—”

“My father has never deliberately physically harmed Mrs. Swanson or me. He uses words instead.” Cade pushed ahead with his confession. “His negative state can be very depressing. I don't want you to be depressed or unhappy. For that reason I want you to avoid him, as much for your sake as for his.”

Cade pulled up in front of the big white farmhouse that had been home for his entire life. He switched off the truck. Then he turned to look at Abby. She returned his stare, her clear gaze direct and unflinching. Her hands smoothed over her bulging stomach in a protective shield before she spoke.

“I'm here as your guest, Cade. I'll do whatever you ask. I don't want to cause any problems for you or your father.” She smiled and Cade noticed the faint trace of dimples in her cheeks. “I'll try not to be a bother to anyone.”

“You could never be that, Abby. Just be advised. Don't expect a nice, kindly old man. He's not.”

Clearly she didn't believe him. Abby was sweet and good, everything he'd missed from life, everything he craved but couldn't have. He tore his thoughts away from that thinking and turned his attention to the front window. His father sat there, watching. Cade knew the time for talking was past.

“Welcome to the Double L, Abby.” He climbed out of his truck, walked around to the other side and opened her door. “I'll introduce you to my father and Mrs. Swanson. Then you can settle in.”

“Thank you.” She held out her hand so he could help her down, letting out a tiny squeal of surprise when he simply lifted her and set her on her feet on the snowy pebbled driveway. Her cheeks grew warm when she noticed surprise on the housekeeper's face where she stood in the open doorway. His father was there now, too, his usual scowl deepening in disapproval.

Cade's fingers curved around Abby's arm. He knew she could feel the tension rippling through his body. Absently he noticed that his boots crunching on the stones made the only sound in the crisp winter air.

“Come in, the pair of you.” Mrs. Swanson's round face beamed. She pulled his father's wheelchair backward. Cade urged Abby forward so he could close the door behind them.

“Mrs. Swanson, Dad, this is Abby McDonald. She's my friend Max's wife. You remember Max? He used to visit when we had leave.” Cade's voice tightened. He paused, then resumed speaking, this time in a firmer tone. “Abby's going to be staying with us for a while.”

“It's very nice to meet you.” Abby stepped forward, hand outstretched. It was obvious that she remembered too late that Cade had said his father was partially paralyzed. Both his hands lay in his lap. Abby bent, covered his fingers with hers and gently squeezed, smiling in spite of his fierce glare. Then she moved to the woman who stood next to Mr. Lebret's chair. “Finally I meet the legendary Mrs. Swanson. Max talked a lot about your amazing apple pies.”

“Ah, the dear, dear lad.” Mrs. Swanson's faint Scottish brogue died away as she sniffed. “'Tis sorry for your loss I am. Max was a good man. He'd wrap me in those gigantic arms of his and swing me around till I was dizzy.”

“Me, too,” Abby whispered with a watery smile.

“I think Cade brought him here to fatten him up. Never saw a man who could eat like your Max did and not gain an ounce.” She slid an arm around Abby's waist and urged her forward. “Come, my dear. You've had a long drive. It's tea you'll be wanting to revive you.”

“Tea would be lovely. Thank you.”

Cade almost laughed aloud at the expression on Abby's face. She looked as though she was being swept along by a tidal wave.

“But I can make tea myself,” Abby protested. “I don't want to be a bother. You don't have to wait on me.”

“'Twould be my pleasure to care for Mr. Max's wife and her wee bairn,” Mrs. Swanson assured her, patting Abby's stomach gently.

“Bairns,” she corrected. “I'm having twins.”

“Well, glory be!” Mrs. Swanson chuckled again, then urged her forward.

Abby glanced back once, just in time, Cade knew, to see the word his father scrawled with a fat felt marker across a pad of paper lying on his lap.

No!

There was no subtlety in the stark, one-word comment. Cade met Abby's gaze, saw the question in her eyes. He shook his head once firmly, then smiled, a tight, controlled twist of his lips. Anger tightened his shoulders. He spoke in a careful tone.

“You go with Mrs. Swanson, Abby. Dad and I will join you in the kitchen for tea in a minute.” When she hesitated, he nodded at her as if to reassure her.

After a second check of Cade's face, Abby gave in. Judging by her expression, she understood he didn't want her to overhear his discussion with his father. A wave of sympathy rolled through her vivid green eyes before she walked back to him, stood on her tiptoes and murmured for his ears alone, “Max always said you were the most caring man he'd ever known. He told me stories of how you encouraged and praised the men in your unit.” She touched his arm, squeezed. “Now I've witnessed your kindness for myself. You don't have to shield me, Cade. I'm tough. I'll be fine.”

“Thank you for understanding.” Cade felt the warmth of her smile touch his cold heart, but as she and Mrs. Swanson left the room, the warmth faded. He chose his words carefully, using a measured voice to explain Abby's situation to his father, leaving out the worst details and making generalizations that would save her embarrassment.

“She will stay for as long as she needs to. I owe Max that.”

His father glared at him, then shoved his pen in his shirt pocket.

Cade pushed his dad's chair into the kitchen. As they drank Mrs. Swanson's tea he thought how perfectly Abby fit in. It would be nice to have a friend like her. But when Abby teared up as she answered Mrs. Swanson's questions about Max, Cade snapped back to reality. It was clear Abby wasn't nearly over mourning his death.

Cade was pretty sure Abby wouldn't want a friendship with him, not when he should have been there to protect her husband.

* * *

Nothing was going the way Cade hoped. As they sat around the dinner table, he appreciated Abby's valiant efforts to make the meal enjoyable. She told them amusing stories, complimented Mrs. Swanson on everything she served and asked him questions about the ranch.

But through it all, his father sat at the head of the table, grim-faced, his fists clumping on the table when he was displeased, fingers clenching around his black felt marker to scroll a series of angry commands across his writing pad.

Cade was utterly embarrassed and deeply ashamed of his parent by the time the meal was finished. He could hardly wait for Mrs. Swanson to push his father's chair to the television room so he could apologize to Abby for his father's behavior.

“I'm so sorry,” he said when they were alone in the dining room. “I expected him to fuss about having you here, but—” He shook his head. “I've never seen him as full of rage as he seemed tonight. I apologize for his making you feel unwelcome. If you'd rather leave—”

“Stop apologizing for something you can't change, Cade.” The twinkle in Abby's green eyes surprised him as much as the smile twitching at the corner of her lips. “Anyway, I think tonight was good for him.”