The More Mavericks, The Merrier!. Brenda Harlen

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      “On the other hand, Fallon does work at Country Kids,” he pointed out. “And they offer a discount for more than one child.”

      “Just Us Kids does, too,” she told him, as she took the platter of bacon and toast out of the oven and set it on the table. “Plus, I’m pretty sure I can wrangle a family discount for you.”

      “I’m not looking for anything full-time,” he told her, snagging a piece of bacon as soon as she turned her back.

      “Of course not,” Bella agreed, tearing a slice of toast into pieces for Henry, Jared and Katie to chew on. “Half days would be a better introduction for them. Any change in daily routine is an adjustment for a child, although the triplets do have something of an advantage in that they’re accustomed to being cared for by different people.”

      Because they’d never had the benefit of a mother and a father to tend to their day-to-day needs, Jamie lamented silently. “That’s an advantage?”

      She winced. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

      “I know,” he confirmed.

      “So...half days,” she said, attempting to refocus their conversation as she set a plate of eggs in front of him. “Mornings?”

      He nodded as he picked up his fork to dig into his breakfast. “But not every day.”

      Bella sighed as she scooped smaller portions of egg into three bowls on the counter to cool off for a few minutes before she gave them to the babies. “Part-time only a few days a week isn’t going to be very helpful to you when you’re juggling so much,” she pointed out. “You leave the house at the crack of dawn every morning, then you come back to have lunch with your kids, then you head back out to work and drop whatever you’re doing to come back to check on them again in the afternoon.”

      “And yet I still feel guilty about relying on other people to care for them during so much of the time that they’re awake,” he admitted, adding a couple slices of thick, buttered toast to his plate.

      She sat down with her own breakfast. “You’ll feel less guilty when they’re in day care—and less inclined to interrupt your day to check on them.”

      “Three days a week,” he decided.

      “Four,” she countered, reaching out to snag a couple of pieces of bacon before he emptied the platter.

      He scowled. “They’re only ten months old.”

      “And I’ll be at the day care every minute that they are,” Bella assured him.

      “I don’t know,” he hedged.

      She didn’t press any further as she finished her own breakfast, then gave the babies their eggs.

      Jamie had just pushed his own plate aside when a brisk knock sounded on the back door, then Fallon O’Reilly walked into the room without waiting for an invitation.

      He didn’t mind. Fallon had been a friend of both him and his sister since childhood and one of the first women to volunteer for the baby chain. She was also one of the most regular, and expediency had required that they dispense with the usual protocols months earlier.

      “Good morning,” Fallon greeted Jamie and Bella, her tone and her smile confirming that she believed it to be true. Then she turned to the babies, lavishly kissing each of their cheeks, making them giggle.

      The sound filled his heart with joy and he looked at Fallon with sincere gratitude. She was so great with the babies—so natural and easy. She seemed to love them as he’d hoped their mother would have done, but Paula had never had the chance to be the mother he’d believed she could be—dying only hours after their babies were born by emergency C-section.

      “I brought blueberry muffins.” Fallon set a plastic container in the middle of the table, then moved across the kitchen to retrieve a mug from the cupboard. She brought it and the carafe to the table, offering refills to Jamie and Bella.

      But Bella shook her head. “I should be getting into work.”

      Jamie picked up his mug and stood. “And I need to get out to the barn and check on Daisy. Brooks said she could foal any day now.”

      Fallon frowned at both of them. “Why are you racing off? It’s barely seven-thirty.”

      “Hudson wants to expand Just Us Kids to offer a newborn group and I promised to help him review the applications and set up the interviews,” Bella told her.

      “And I’ve already had breakfast,” Jamie said.

      Fallon looked from sister to brother and back again, her eyes narrowing. “This is about the coffee cake I made for the Fourth of July potluck, isn’t it?”

      Jamie and Bella exchanged a look.

      Fallon huffed out an exasperated breath as she lifted the lid off the container. “I misread the recipe,” she explained, selecting a muffin and peeling the paper off of the bottom half. “Once. And no one in this town will let me forget it.”

      “Because you served the cake at the potluck.”

      “Three years ago. And it wasn’t really that bad,” Fallon defended.

      “You used two tablespoons of baking powder instead of two teaspoons,” Bella reminded her, settling back in her chair. “The cake was tough and chewy.”

      “And tasted like metal,” Jamie chimed in.

      Color filled Fallon’s cheeks as she tore a piece off the muffin. “Okay, it was bad,” she acknowledged, as she popped the morsel into her mouth. “But these are delicious.”

      Jamie sat down again and reached into the container—because even after eating a full breakfast, there was room for a muffin. Bella continued to look dubious.

      “I brought something else, too,” Fallon said, as she broke up the bottom of the muffin into pieces and set them onto each of the babies’ trays.

      Henry, Jared and Kate showed no hesitation, gleefully stuffing the pieces into their mouths.

      “What?” Jamie asked, nibbling tentatively on the muffin.

      Fallon hesitated, not wanting to overstep. But she’d spent a lot of time with this man and his children over the past ten months, and although she understood that he was still grieving the loss of his wife, he needed to start to look forward instead of back—for the sake of his babies if no one else.

      So she pulled the paper out of her pocket and unfolded it, then slid it across the table for Jamie to read.

      He gave it a cursory—almost curious—glance, then looked away to focus his attention on the muffin that he suddenly couldn’t shove into his mouth fast enough.

      Bella leaned forward to peer at the words on the page.

      “It’s Henry, Jared and Katie’s first Christmas,” Fallon reminded Jamie gently, sliding the paper closer to him. “And I want to help you make it the best Christmas ever for them.”

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