The Maverick's Holiday Surprise. Karen Rose Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ it on his face and hear it in his voice. Yet he never gave up on the ranch, and he never stopped putting the babies first. He always gave them every ounce of love and caring in his heart, even if that meant he didn’t have much of a life anymore.

      She’d never regret quitting college and moving back in here with him. She loved helping him take care of the triplets. She loved being around the babies. But it was also painful. She so wanted to be a mother, but she knew she might never be able to have kids. Just how fair or right was that?

      “What are you thinking about?” Jamie asked her. As a close sibling, he always could read her moods.

      Her past played through her mind like a mocking newsreel. She could never forget about it, even though she tried. So she answered him truthfully.

      “I’m thinking about how wild I was as a teenager.”

      “You were dealing with our parents’ deaths.”

      “So were you, but you didn’t jump off the deep end.”

      “Our grandparents didn’t want us. I pretended I didn’t care. I put my energy into sports. But you—” He shook his head. “You were younger. You needed Grandma’s arms around you. You needed them to want you. They didn’t. That’s why we were separated from the others.”

      Bella sighed. Their sisters Dana and Liza had been younger, more adoptable, and had been sent to a group home for that purpose. Their brothers Luke, Daniel and Bailey had been over eighteen and had been turned out on their own.

      “Don’t you ever wonder where they all are?” Bella asked.

      “Sure I do. But the fact remains that you and I haven’t left Rust Creek Falls. Our siblings could find us if they wanted to. They obviously don’t want to. Case closed.”

      Bella understood Jamie’s attitude. After all, they’d been rejected by their grandparents. They didn’t need sibling rejection on top of that.

      “Sometimes I don’t understand how you help me like you do,” Jamie said, looking troubled.

      “I’m your sister.”

      “Yes, but...”

      She knew what he was getting at. They rarely talked about it, but today seemed like a day for stepping back into the past.

      “I think she’s finally asleep,” he said, rising from the recliner and carrying Katie into the nursery. There he settled her into the crib and looked down on her with so much love Bella wanted to cry.

      Then he turned back to her. “When you got pregnant, I didn’t know what to do to help you. After you lost your baby and possibly the chance ever to have another one, I didn’t know what to do then either. I don’t know how Grandma and Gramps kept everything that happened to you a secret, but they did. Grandma died so soon after you lost your baby, and Gramps blamed you. And me. But keeping the secret about your miscarriage wasn’t good for any of us...especially you. You couldn’t talk about what happened. You couldn’t express your grief.”

      “Jamie,” she warned weakly, not wanting to delve into any of those feelings.

      “I feel like you’re still grieving sometimes when you look at the triplets,” he explained.

      “You’re wrong about that. I love being around Katie and Henry and Jared. They fill my life with happy times.”

      “I know sharing the triplets with you isn’t the same as your having your own kids, but I want you to know I appreciate everything you do to help me and to take care of them. And even if you love being around them because they’re your niece and nephews, don’t you mind being around the babies and kids at the day care center? Isn’t it just downright hard?”

      “Actually, it’s not,” she assured him. “I think the day care center has been my saving grace. Your triplets and the kids there...they fill me with joy. I don’t have time to be sad.”

      Jamie suddenly gave her a huge hug, and she leaned into him, grateful to have her brother. In that moment, she thought about having more, too—about having a man to love, a relationship, a life outside the day care center and Jamie’s triplets. She thought about Hudson. She’d been attracted to him from the first moment she’d seen him. But she’d also realized what kind of man he was. He had a reputation, and she knew he wouldn’t stay no matter what kind of electricity was flowing between them now. She shouldn’t get involved...couldn’t get involved. Besides, she had nothing to give somebody like Hudson. He had experienced the world.

      And she was just a small-town girl who couldn’t have kids.

      * * *

      Late Monday morning Hudson sat in his office much too aware of Bella at her desk in the reception area beyond. She really was an expert at handling the children. This morning he’d noticed the way she put her hand on a child’s shoulder, or gave him a hug. Her smile when she was with the kids was absolutely radiant. Yes, it was safe to say there was a lot about the woman that intrigued him.

      As if his thoughts had beckoned her, she stood and approached his office. He invited her inside.

      “I set up a meeting for you with the holiday pageant director, Eileen Bennet, next Wednesday afternoon,” she told him.

      Every year the local elementary school put on a Christmas pageant, and this year they wanted the day care babies to get involved. “The pageant isn’t that far off. I hope she doesn’t have anything too complicated in mind.”

      “If she knows babies, she won’t,” Bella said with a smile. She filled him in on what she knew, then turned to go. She’d almost reached the door of his office when he asked, “What did you do before you managed the day care center?”

      He’d heard the gossip that she’d quit college to help her brother, but he didn’t know that for a fact.

      “I was in college—my second year.”

      He must have looked puzzled because she added, “I worked after I graduated from high school to save money for college.”

      “What did you do?”

      “Mostly I waitressed. Lots of long shifts so I could sock the tips away. Four years of that, and I applied for and received a grant from a women’s foundation. I enrolled at Montana State University.”

      “What was your major?”

      “Business administration. I eventually wanted to focus on public affairs and learn strategies for helping small towns survive. Maybe that’s a pipe dream, but if someone doesn’t inject life into a place like Rust Creek Falls, it could become a ghost town. That was especially true after the flood.”

      “So your college courses gave you managerial skills that come into play here.”

      “I guess you could say that. I don’t know when I’ll be able to complete my degree. Working here will help me save the money to do it. But I plan to stick around Rust Creek Falls as long as Jamie needs me.”

      Bella’s eyes sparkled with her dedication to her brother, as well as with the dreams that she still envisioned. More than anything, Hudson wanted to stand up and go over to her. He longed to brush her bangs across her forehead. Even СКАЧАТЬ