Twins Under The Tree. Leigh Riker

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      HADLEY COULDN’T PUT it off any longer. Ever since that tragic day at the hospital he had been meaning to look through Amy’s belongings and tonight seemed good enough. He admitted he’d been avoiding the task. If he and the babies were going to stay on the ranch for a while, he shouldn’t keep stalling. He also wanted to take a look at the standby guardianship application Amy had filed. Even though the court hearing had never taken place, the situation with Jenna was still an issue. He didn’t buy that her only reason for spending time with Luke and Gracie was some promise she’d made to Amy. He’d caught the melting look on her face more than once when she was with them. Now that their mother was gone, could she have some legal claim to his babies? And had she been biding her time, hoping to catch him in some misdeed with the twins?

      “Clara, have you seen the bins with Amy’s stuff in them?” he asked after dinner.

      “I believe they’re in the attic,” she said.

      Being careful not to wake the twins, Hadley went upstairs, then sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of the walk-up area under the roof beams. He forced himself to open the first bin and rummage through Amy’s things. When he’d moved from their apartment, he hadn’t taken time to sort out what to toss and what to keep for Luke and Gracie someday. Disoriented by Amy’s shocking death, by his new obligations, he’d thrown everything into bins for later. From then on, he’d had his hands full just trying to be a good dad when good wasn’t in his nature.

      The first item he came across was the bifold program from Amy’s funeral at the local church. It was the same place where, at her insistence, they’d been married, and where she’d sometimes attended services on Sundays. Without him. Hadley had resisted most of her attempts to change him from a bad boy into a solid citizen, something he now regretted, just as he regretted not trying harder to love her. She’d deserved better from him.

      With a hard lump in his throat, Hadley skimmed the program, then the small picture of her at the top. “Way too soon,” he murmured, tracing a finger over her image as if he could touch her again. “Never mind all those fights we had. As you told me, there were good times, too, in the beginning. Not sure what would have happened to us if you were still here,” he said, “but we’ll never know, will we?”

      Now he was on his own, plowing through her belongings in Clara’s attic.

      “Hadley?” Her voice came from the bottom of the stairs.

      “I’m here still. Come up if you want.”

      To be truthful, he didn’t like doing this alone. Every piece of paper he touched, every sympathy card and article of clothing he’d saved, spoke to him. Amy’s favorite green sweater, which he couldn’t bring himself to touch, the one she’d knitted herself with the too-long sleeves that always made him smile for her effort. The baby books she’d bought because “I don’t know any more about this than you do.” The last birthday gift he’d given her, a certificate for a day at the spa in Farrier that she’d never gotten to use. Like the court order she’d never completed, which he wouldn’t have signed off on. As Jenna well knew.

      Clara laid a hand on his shoulder. “If this is too difficult for you, maybe I could find what you’re looking for.”

      “No,” he said, “I did my grieving.” Hadley had cried himself to sleep that first horrid night, something he’d never admit to anyone. Until then he hadn’t shed a tear since the first time his parents had dumped him and Dallas on child services and, later, when he’d watched his brother be taken away because of him. He’d cried about Amy, whose short life had been cut off so abruptly before she even saw their babies, cried for the mess he’d made of their relationship and for the twins he’d been left to care for—he, who would probably be the worst father any kid ever had, though he hadn’t been able to leave them with anyone else. Including Jenna Moran. “One of the worst parts,” he told Clara, “is Amy never knowing Luke and Gracie. Not watching them grow up, graduate from school, get married…”

      “But you will, Hadley. For her. I’m sure wherever she is she appreciates that.”

      His voice sounded hoarse. “At least they have the names she chose for them.”

      Clara’s hand gently stroked his shoulder, and he guessed she had trouble speaking, too.

      “I need to find some papers,” he told her. When Amy had mentioned the application for guardianship, Hadley had paid little attention except to give her a flat no. He wouldn’t agree to that. Now he wished he’d read everything. “I don’t understand all the double-talk legalese about standby guardianship, but I have to work out what all that means.”

      Clara hadn’t responded before his fingers closed over the manila file in which he remembered Amy putting some papers. Then she’d shut the file away in a drawer. When Hadley had packed up after she was gone, he hadn’t looked at it. Her death had still been too raw for him to face his own failure in that regard. He peered into the file now. It contained a few documents like their marriage license. “The guardianship stuff isn’t here.”

      Clara examined the papers in the file, too, but also came up empty. “Maybe Amy had a safe-deposit box somewhere.”

      Was that possible? Then why not store all the important papers there? He supposed there might be layers to Amy that he knew nothing about. As a minor example, Hadley could never reconcile their bank and credit card statements with the purchases she’d made, and whenever he questioned her she’d told him not to worry.