The Triplets' Cowboy Daddy. Patricia Johns

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СКАЧАТЬ that produced equestrian gear. She’d worked hard, put in overtime, but she’d never felt weariness quite like this. A work friend had told her that her twelve weeks of parental leave would be more work than the office, but she hadn’t believed it until now.

      Nora pulled open the side door and ambled out into the warm August sunshine.

      “Morning,” she called.

      “Mackenzie Granger dropped this by,” her mother said, pulling a collapsed stroller out of the bed of the truck. “She said she got the triplet stroller for the boys and the new baby, but hasn’t used it as much as she thought she would.”

      Nora couldn’t help the smile that came to her face. She’d been wondering how she’d ever leave the house again with three infants, but thank God for neighbors with twin toddlers and new babies.

      “I’ll have to call her and thank her,” Nora said. “And thank you for bringing it by.”

      Her mother carried the stroller over and together they unfolded it and snapped it into its open position. It was an umbrella stroller with three seats lined up side by side. It was perfect. Not too big, not too heavy, and she could transport all three babies at once.

      “I had an idea.” Dina shot Nora a smile. “Let’s load the babies into this and you can come pick the last of the strawberries with me.”

      They used to pick strawberries together every summer when Nora was young. They’d eat as they picked, and even with all the eating, they’d fill bucket after bucket. Dina would make jam with some of them, freeze a bunch more and then there would be fresh strawberries for everything from waffles to ice cream. Nora used to love strawberry-picking. Then she became a teenager, and she and her mother stopped getting along quite so well.

      Nora met her mother’s gaze, and she saw hope in Dina’s eyes—the flimsy, vulnerable kind of hope that wavered, ready to evaporate. Maybe her mother was thinking of those sweet days, too, when they used to laugh together and Dina would let Nora whip up some cream for the berries.

      “Yeah, okay,” Nora said.

      They transferred the babies to the stroller quickly enough, and the stroller rattled and jerked as Nora pushed it down the gravel road—the babies undisturbed. Maybe this was why Mack hadn’t used it much. The wheels were quite small, so every rock could be felt underneath them. But Nora had gotten them all outside, and that was a feat in itself.

      “So what are you going to do about the babies?” her mother asked as they walked.

      “Would it be crazy to raise them?” Nora asked.

      “Three infants on your own?” her mother asked.

      “Three infants, you and me.”

      Her mother didn’t answer right away, and sadness welled up inside Nora. It was crazy. And it was too much to ask of her mom right now. Maybe ever. Her mother reached over and put a hand on top of Nora’s on the stroller handle.

      “I’ve missed you,” Dina said quietly. “It’s nice to have you home.”

      It wasn’t an answer—not directly, at least—but it was clear enough. They were still on opposite sides, it seemed, even with the babies. But Nora had always been stubborn, and she wasn’t willing to let this go gracefully.

      “I came home because I thought you’d help me,” Nora pressed.

      “And I will. As much as I can.”

      They all had limits to what they could give, and Nora had taken on more than she could possibly handle on her own. The problem was that she was already falling in love with these little girls. With every bottle, every diaper change, every snuggle and coo and cry, her heart was becoming more and more entwined with theirs. But was keeping them the right choice?

      The strawberry patch was on the far side of the main house, and Nora parked the stroller in the shade of an apple tree then moved into the sunshine where Dina had the buckets waiting. Dina came back over to the stroller and squatted down in front of it. Sadness welled in her eyes as she looked at the sleeping infants.

      “I get it,” Dina said, glancing up at her daughter. “When I first held you, I fell in love, too. It couldn’t be helped.”

      “They’re sweet,” Nora said, a catch in her voice.

      “Adorable.” Her mother rose to her feet again and sighed. “Your dad would have—” Dina’s chin quivered and she turned away.

      “Dad would probably have hidden them,” Nora said bitterly. Mia had told her enough to be clear that Cliff had known about her existence, even if they’d never met. “He hid his daughter, why should his granddaughters be any different?”

      That secrecy—the whole other family—stabbed at a tender place in Nora’s heart. How was it possible for a man to have secrets that large and never let on? Didn’t he feel guilty about it? Didn’t something inside him jab just a little bit when he sat in church on Sunday? He had a reputation in this town, and this didn’t line up with the way people saw him. She hoped that he did feel guilt—the kind to keep him up at night—because this wasn’t just his private mistake; this had affected them all.

      “Let’s pick berries,” her mother said.

      But hidden or not, Nora’s father would have fallen in love with these baby girls, too. He’d probably cherished a secret love for the daughter he’d never met. And hidden that love. So many lies by omission...

      “Mom, if Dad had lived,” Nora said, grabbing an ice cream pail and squatting at the start of a row, “what would you have done? I mean if Mia had suddenly dropped on our doorstep and announced herself, what then?”

      “I’d have divorced him.” There was steel in Dina’s voice, and she grabbed a pail and crouched down next to Nora. They spread the leaves apart and began picking plump, red berries. “I had no idea he had someone else...”

      “Mia said he wasn’t in her life at all, though,” Nora said. “Maybe the affair wasn’t long-term.”

      Her mother shook her head. “I don’t care how long it was. When your husband sleeps with someone else, there is nothing casual about it. It’s no accident, either. He chose to do the one thing that would tear my heart in two. He chose it.”

      “Do you hate him now?”

      Her mother’s voice was quiet. “I do this morning.”

      The berries were plentiful, and they picked in silence for a few minutes. Nora’s mind was moving over her plans. If she kept these babies, she’d need help. She’d taken her twelve weeks of parental leave from her bookkeeping job, but when she went back to work again, she’d be paying for three children in day care. She couldn’t afford that...not on her middling salary, and certainly not as a single mom. Staying in Hope to raise the girls would be the smart choice, but she hadn’t taken her mother’s emotional state into the equation. She didn’t have her mother’s support in keeping the babies, and she didn’t have that little homestead where she could have set up house. She didn’t have a job here, either, besides the family ranch. So she’d come home, unsure what the next step should be, but certain that this was the place where she could make her decisions.

      They were halfway down СКАЧАТЬ