Twins Under The Tree. Leigh Riker

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      She’d been crying ever since her friend Olivia, who’d heard the news from her husband, Sawyer, called. During the drive from her apartment building to the hospital, Jenna had sobbed at the wheel. Poor Amy. The friendship they’d nurtured as neighbors over the past months of her pregnancy had just ended abruptly, and Jenna would never see Amy again. Which seemed impossible.

      Sawyer touched her shoulder. “It’s a sad day, Jenna. I’ll leave you two to talk.” He said a few low words to Hadley Smith, who forced a brief smile. Then Sawyer swept from the room in a blur of dark hair and broad shoulders that, unlike Hadley, she imagined would willingly carry the weight of the world. She was surprised Hadley was still here.

      The consensus in town before Amy’s loss was that Hadley would flee as soon as the twins arrived. Now he was an unlikely single dad. But from what Jenna knew, largely from Amy, she couldn’t imagine this rough cowboy sticking around long enough to change diapers.

      The cold look in Hadley’s eyes, a penetrating steel blue, didn’t change her mind about him, not that she was normally given to judging other people. But even physically—with his powerful, athletic build—Hadley seemed too tall, too big and, most of all, too remote to be a daddy. Those traits reminded Jenna of her own father, who had either neglected her or unleashed his anger on her. According to Amy, Hadley had a temper, too. She refused to meet his stare.

      She knew what her friends in their Girls’ Night Out group called him. The Bad Boy of Barren. There were others in town who were attracted to his rugged good looks and that brown, nearly black hair, but Jenna couldn’t see past the picture Amy had painted of Hadley.

      “Well,” he said, “I know why you’re here. And you’re wasting your time.” His mouth had tightened. “My kids don’t need a stand-in mother.”

      “You mean a standby guardian,” Jenna corrected him. She’d never heard the term until a few months ago. “Amy asked me if I would be the twins’ guardian, and I said yes.” Because Jenna, who was unfailingly loyal, supported her friends. “But I never imagined anything terrible would actually happen to her.”

      “I didn’t expect Amy to die, either.”

      Jenna blinked. “I wish with all my heart she hadn’t. But you must have known about the court hearing to appoint me guardian.” The judge would have made it official for Jenna to take over custodial duties for the twins in case something happened to Amy, and Hadley also left them and disappeared.

      Heaven knew, Amy had wanted Hadley to love her as she loved him, a man who’d never wanted a family and claimed he couldn’t love anyone. She’d never stopped trying to change him, but she’d also never trusted that he wouldn’t abandon her, or in this case, their babies.

      “That hearing,” Jenna said, “was scheduled for next week.”

      “It won’t take place now. Which means you’re free and clear.” He gazed at the babies he held. “Our marriage was always shaky. By the time these little ones were born, I might have been somewhere else.” He paused. “That’s all changed now, though. To set your mind at ease, I mean to stay.”

      This wasn’t at all what Jenna had expected. She wouldn’t have to go through with the guardianship, which would have been difficult for her at best, and instead she could continue putting herself together again after her divorce. Nothing would ever again derail her the way her broken marriage had. No one, she told herself, including Hadley Smith.

      “Amy ever mention what names she picked out?” he suddenly asked.

      A couple of weeks ago, one night while Hadley was out, Amy had talked about her choices, and Jenna did recall several of them. “I remember Luke,” she said, “and Grace. Didn’t you know?”

      “I’m not a very good listener,” he admitted.

      Jenna took a few more steps into the room. “I’m sure she left her baby name book on the shelf in her living room. There should be a list tucked inside with the names she liked most starred.”

      “Grace,” he said, not looking at Jenna. “Luke. If you say that’s what she wanted, I don’t see why not. Lucas Smith is a good name for a guy, don’t you think?”

      “Yes,” she murmured, bending down and noting the babies’ fine features. They didn’t appear crumpled and wizened like many newborns’ faces, probably because they’d been cesarean deliveries. “And Grace sounds soft but strong,” she added.

      Maybe the only thing they could agree on. Hadley raised his head to study her, and she forced herself to hold his gaze.

      Jenna hesitated. She should turn away and go. Honoring her promise to Amy—not a legal issue now, but for Jenna, a moral one—would be equally difficult. Just as it was hard every time she walked into the Baby Things store on Main Street. The yearning she felt when she looked at the frilly miniature dresses and little shirts with adorable sports logos and cute short pants. They reminded her of her lifelong desire to have a family. Another of her shattered dreams.

      She resisted the urge to stroke one finger along the babies’ cheeks, to feel their soft skin, smooth and warm. In this town if someone she knew wasn’t getting married, they were having a baby—like her own sister not long ago. It didn’t seem fair that Hadley, who’d never wanted kids, now had two of them, these perfect little humans who had just been born. Jenna chided herself for the unkind thought.

      She stared at the twins and felt her heart break twice over. Jenna hadn’t forgotten her own childhood with a father who didn’t care. She knew firsthand how devastating that could be. Her father had fractured their family, and Jenna would not let that happen to anyone else. Her legal responsibility for these newborn babies was, as Hadley had said, void now. Yet with Amy gone, the children had no protection. Jenna had to set aside her own sadness for the sake of the twins.

      She mentally squared her shoulders. “Amy begged me to make sure the twins have a safe, stable environment—”

      “Something you think I can’t provide?”

      “I didn’t say that. But I made a promise to Amy, so this is what I’m going to do now. I’ll visit the babies every week to see how they’re doing. And if I think you’re not taking good care of them, I will hold you accountable. I’ll do everything in my power to bring the matter up with the court.”

      “So you could still become their standby guardian?” Hadley said. “I would never have signed off on that. I sure won’t now. Besides, you’d have to get in line behind Amy’s parents. I don’t envy you that.”

      Jenna swallowed. “Do they know about her passing?”

      He nodded. “We’ve never been on the best terms, but yeah, I called them. They’re on their way now.”

      “And I will do whatever needs to be done.” Brave words, when instead she felt torn, even frightened by her own decision. Still. It was necessary.

      Regardless of whether Hadley wanted her to be involved, now the twins were all that counted.

      Luke and Grace, she thought, aching to reach out and take them from Hadley, to hold them and feel their sweet weight in her embrace. No matter how painful this might prove for Jenna, whose arms would always be empty, she kept her promises.

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