My Heart Can't Tell You No (79 page)

Authors: M.K. Heffner

APRIL 1985

“I—I . . . .” Maddie stammered.

“Honeymoon,” the man murmured, shaking his head, then looked back at Joe. “
Rest
tonight. That much is
doctor’s
orders
. After tonight—use your own judgment—just be careful!” He looked at them thoughtfully, then turned to leave. “And ya better be imaginative while you’re at it too—that cast is too big to be . . . just be careful.”

Joe watched him leave, then looked up at Maddie, seeing the pink in her cheeks. “I think we can manage that.”

“I think it would be better to concentrate on being careful before you concentrate on being imaginative.”

“I’ll have no trouble concentrating on both.”

“Somehow I didn’t think
you
would.” She bent to kiss him. “He called you
Dad
.”

“I heard him.”

“Well,
Dad
, are you ready to go home and start a life as my husband and your sons’ father?”

He didn’t need to answer.

EPILOGUE

April 14, 1985

K
athleen Sarah McNier burst into the world during the morning hours of April 14, 1985, just as her father was lifting off from Scranton with an emergency transfer back to their local hospital. The swiftness of Maddie’s labor and delivery surprised everyone, including Tom who had to take Maddie to the hospital. Her swiftly accelerating groans almost immediately turned to thundering exclamations that would have turned a truck driver’s ears crimson. The baby was coming so fast that Tom knew he had to go to the hospital in town rather than chancing the extra fifteen miles to the hospital where the men worked.

The fact that Joe McNier was nearly one hundred miles to the north didn’t slow little Katie in the least. In fact, Tom believed that was why she came so quickly, being born on her uncle’s front seat in the hospital parking lot. He said that, if it had been anyone else driving her mother to the hospital that day, she would have waited and not messed up anyone else’s upholstery. But even with no one else there to do it, Tom had heroically delivered the new baby, so skillfully, in fact, that he had even impressed the attending ER nurse. Then, after placing the newborn on her mother’s stomach—Tom being Tom—realized what he had just done, began to feel woozy, and fell into the arms of that same blonde nurse. That seemed to have caught the girl’s heart, because, before he left the hospital, she gave Tom her telephone number.

At seven pounds even, Katie looked almost miniature compared to her cousin, Tyler Baker, who had arrived the month before and weighed in at eight pounds, four ounces, but Maddie swore the size had to be wrong. She felt as if she had passed a fifteen-pound bowling ball, rather than the little angel she held in her arms.

Joe had decided on the name shortly after his stay in the hospital a few months before. He took his mother’s name and added it to Maddie’s mother’s name; just as Jack and Sarah had done when they named
their
daughter. Kathleen Sarah McNier would be the perfect combination of both women in her father’s eyes.

By the time Maddie was stitched, cleaned and put in a fresh hospital bed, Sarah had arrived with Jack, both eager to see their newest grandchild. Within another hour Joe was rushing through the door, his eyes searching out Maddie first; then, after reassurance that she was sore but fine, he let his gaze move to his in-laws and his daughter. The only surprise he felt when he looked at his new daughter was that she was as he had always pictured her; mostly her mother in appearance with a few traces of himself perhaps. He couldn’t have been more delighted.

April 20, 1985

Maddie and the baby had been home for nearly two days by the time the weekend arrived. The house was filled with all five McNier children as well as Sarah and Tom. It seemed that since the baby’s arrival and the coinciding new romance for Tom, he considered Katie his little Irish leprechaun.

By noon, they also had the addition of the Kersetter boys from down the road.

“Hello, Matthew,” Maddie said as she saw him watching her from the kitchen doorway. “Did you come up to see the baby?”

“No, Ma’am,” he answered quietly, watching as she gingerly made her way toward him. “Are you all right, Mrs. McNier?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Wouldn’t you like to come in with us and see her? It looks like your brother is getting all her attention already,” Maddie coaxed, allowing him to follow her into the room. She moved to sit between Joe’s legs as he leaned back in a chair and watched his brother-in-law holding the baby on the couch.

“Matt, come look!” Kyle sighed as he gazed down at the new child.

“No.” Matt moved to sit on the floor next to Ollie and Jackie who were building a parking lot for their miniature cars. “Later.”

“She’s really pretty, Mrs. McNier,” Kyle beamed over at Maddie.

“She looks like Maddie,” Felicia told him from where she sat with Robby and helped him with his coloring book. “We think she’s beautiful.”

“Aren’t you gonna take a look?” Tom asked the dark-haired child who was inspecting the cars his friends were working with.

“No,” Matthew Kerstetter answered him, petting the puppy asleep on the floor.

“Why not?” Tom asked.

“Because. It made Mrs. McNier walk funny. What would I want to look at it for?” Matt answered.

“Well, you’d walk funny too if you had something the size of a watermelon come out of your . . . ,” Tom started.

“Thomas!” Sarah warned as she entered the living room from the kitchen.

“ . . . bellybutton,” Tom finished, looking at his mother with a smile.

“She’s not as big as a watermelon,” Ollie laughed at Tom.

“Is that how she came out?” Kyle asked Tom with wide eyes. “That would hurt!”

“See.” Tom looked back at the reluctant boy on the floor. “Ya can’t blame this little thing for just wanting to come out.”

“But how did she get in there? That’s what I want to know.” Kyle looked at Tom earnestly.

Tom stood up with the child and laid her in the bassinet near him. “Kyle, you’re gonna have to ask Joe about that. He’s got a lot more experience at how to put them in there than I do.”

“How’d she get in there, Mr. McNier?” Kyle turned to look at Joe.

“My daddy pulled my mommy’s shirt up one day and said, ‘Let’s make a baby.’ And then he spit her in,” Robby explained to the older boy, making Felicia laugh at him. “Just like this!”

“Don’t you dare spit in this house!” Maddie warned as she watched her youngest son rolling saliva in his mouth.

“Well, Lew said!” Robby told her.

“Well, that’s my cue to leave,” Tom said as he moved toward the door.

“Where ya going?” Robby asked his uncle as he followed.

“I gotta go and get ready.”

“Get ready for what?” Robby was already climbing up over Tom’s legs and into his arms.

“He’s got a date,” Felicia sang as she grinned at him.

“What’s a date?” Robby asked.

“He’s got a girlfriend,” Felicia chanted with amusement. “He’s gonna take her to a movie and kiss her.”

“
Eww
!” Robby looked from his sister to his uncle. “Are you, Tom? You’re not are ya?”

“I am if I’m lucky,” he murmured.

Joe and Maddie watched as, one by one, their children followed Tom through the door, the older ones teasing him as they followed him up toward the Baker house. Maddie followed too, and stood in the doorway gazing out after them before glancing back at her husband. He was smiling back at her, a smile she hadn’t seen leave his face since the birth of his newest child. He complained that she had him smiling like a damn idiot most of the time these days.

“Mrs. McNier says babies are gifts,” Kyle whispered to his brother, who finally moved to stand next to him and looked in at Katie. “Isn’t she pretty?”

Matt didn’t answer right away. Instead, his gaze moved over the lovely vision before him as he slowly reached into the bassinet. He touched his finger to the softness of her cheek, then moved it to the small fullness of her lips, almost immediately getting a response from the child as she turned toward the warmth of his caress. “She’s beautiful.”

Maddie watched Joe’s eyes slowly turn to the boys; his smile evaporating as he looked at them.

“Oh, Lew,” Sarah breathed, as she watched. “Not again.”

THE
END

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My Heart Can’t Tell You No