Patricia Johns - Her Triplets' Mistletoe Dad

It wasn’t that he wanted to hide their arrangement, exactly, but he did want a few minutes with Gabby alone to adjust, at least. They didn’t have their story straight yet, and Grace and Gabby were good friends. What they decided to tell people was going to matter, big-time.

The ranch manager’s house was a small affair with two floors, and it was located on the other side of the bunkhouse and canteen. The last woman to share this house with him had been Bonnie. Pregnant Bonnie, always knocking water glasses and towels off the counter with her belly. It drove her crazy, and the memory brought back the sad ache. They’d set up a nursery together, all decorated in yellow and green because they’d wanted to be surprised about the baby’s gender. When Bonnie and little Hazel Marie hadn’t come home with him, he’d shut the door on that nursery and hadn’t gone inside again.

Seth parked in his regular spot and waited for Gabby to park next to him. The next few minutes were spent getting the babies out of her car and unloading a few necessities. They carried the car seats into the kitchen, and he glanced back at Gabby to see her appraising the place.

“Grace saw you coming here,” Seth said. “How long until she drops by?”

“She texted me already.” Gabby lifted her cell phone with a small smile. “I told her I’d give her a call later on, but I can’t tell her until I’ve told my mom. You and Billy are pretty good friends. He’ll require some explanations, too.”

“Yeah.” Seth shrugged. “This is just the start.”

Gabby bent down to uncover the babies, and she smiled down at them. All three were sleeping. Right now, the least of his worries should be the explanations. He now had three infants in his home—and their mother.

“I’ve got two bedrooms upstairs,” Seth said. “I thought you might be okay sharing with the babies.”

He hadn’t shown her the upstairs when he brought her here for dinner a week ago and they’d come up with this idea. That had still felt like private space.

“Sure, that works.” Gabby nodded. “I need to be close by for those feedings, after all. Every two hours. Did I mention that?”

“Yeah, I think you did.” Energetic, fun-loving, free-spirited Gabby was a mom on bottle duty all night. Hadn’t she sworn she didn’t want kids once upon a time? Kids are great, so long as they belong to someone else. You and Bonnie should have ten, Seth. Now she was the mom, and his daughter was gone.

“Let me take that,” he said, removing the bouquet from her shoulder bag. He retrieved a vase from the cupboard under the sink and filled it with water. He used to do this for Bonnie when he brought her flowers. Every two weeks. That was one of the things a book advised about keeping a marriage strong—regular flowers. And he’d always been particular about maintaining his marriage. Thing was, marriage was a whole lot more complicated than he’d anticipated, and flowers every two weeks weren’t quite the magic answer he’d hoped for.

Seth put the bouquet into the vase and slid it onto the table. It felt right, having flowers in here again. And it also felt like a bit of a betrayal to Bonnie, too.

One of the babies opened his eyes and let out a whimper.

“It’s about that time.” Gabby reached for the diaper bag that sat next to the car seats. “Why don’t we feed them first, then get settled?”

She was already adjusting to the space, and Gabby hoisted the bag to the counter next to the fridge and pushed aside a fruit bowl. It shouldn’t irritate him—she lived here now, after all, but Seth liked things to stay the same, even if that was unrealistic. He and Bonnie had always had the fruit bowl just there because Seth would reach over from his spot at the kitchen table and grab a banana. His attachment to a fruit bowl’s position had nothing to do with being picky. It was linked to his grief. And maybe his irrational guilt over arranging Gabby’s flowers like that…

Gabby took out a can of formula powder, then went to the sink. In a few minutes she’d shaken up three bottles, then caught his gaze lingering on her. “What?”

He’d rather not start out with an argument. And he’d be wrong—it was only a fruit bowl.

“Nothing. Which baby do I feed?” he asked. This had been his idea, and he’d just have to get used to Gabby’s touch about the place. Still… He moved the baby bag and slid the fruit bowl back into its rightful place. There. That felt better.

Gabby unbuckled the first baby and scooped him up. She planted a kiss on his forehead, and the infant’s eyes opened and gazed up at her.

“This is Aiden,” she said. “You’ll know him because he’s a little bit smaller.”

She passed him to Seth, and he reached out awkwardly, his fingers splayed. It took a moment of careful adjustment to get the baby into his arms. The little guy barely weighed anything. His heart clenched, and he swallowed back a lump in his throat. He’d imagined doing this with his own daughter a thousand times before she was born, and he’d never gotten the chance.

“Hi, there…” Seth said, looking down into the squished little face. Aiden opened his eyes again and his mouth opened into a tiny O, nudging toward Seth’s shirt, a baby’s instinct for milk. It took him a few tries to get the bottle’s nipple into Aiden’s mouth, but once he did, the baby set to sucking.

“There,” Seth said, and he felt a rush of unexpected satisfaction.

Gabby was cuddling another baby close as he slurped hungrily at a bottle. With a foot, she rocked the third car seat.

“This here is Andy,” she said, looking down at the infant she was feeding. “Beau might hate a wet diaper, but he’s a little more patient for his bottle.”

Aiden stretched out a tiny arm—remarkably strong for such a little fellow. Their marriage might be a unique arrangement, but part of Seth’s willingness to help her had been because of these babies, and he looked down at the infant in wonder.

“I’ve fed calves, and a couple of newborn goats, but I’ve never fed a baby before,” he admitted.

“No?” Gabby wrinkled her nose. “Are you serious? I thought you used to babysit your cousins.”

“They weren’t babies,” he said, casting her an incredulous look. “And Ian is only four years younger than me. His sister was like five at the time. So they all fed themselves pretty efficiently.”

“Right. You just seem so much older than him.”

“Thanks.” He rolled his eyes.

“You know what I mean—you’re more mature. He’s always been a perpetual boy. I mean, he’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but…”

She was right about that. And Gabby would know—she’d dated Ian for a few months. In her defense, there weren’t a lot of single guys to choose from in Eagle’s Rest.

They were silent for a few beats, and Seth sobered, adjusting the baby in his arms.

“I was all set to figure out bottle feeding with my daughter,” he said quietly. “I never got the chance.”

When Seth looked over at her, he saw her eyes misting. She lifted her gaze to meet his, and her chin trembled ever so slightly. It was the mom in her reacting.

“I can’t imagine losing a child, Seth,” she said softly. “That’s a heartbreak I don’t think you’d ever recover from.”

“Yeah, it’s bad.”

Understatement of the year. Losing his wife was one kind of grief, but losing his infant daughter was another. It was an aching emptiness—a loss of a hundred things he’d never gotten to try. A pregnancy was different from a baby for the father, and while he’d felt his child squirm in Bonnie’s belly, he’d known that meeting the baby would make it all concrete. He’d be a dad in earnest then. When the doctors put her in his arms, she had suddenly become real…and so had the depth of his loss. All in that one moment. Because little Hazel Marie hadn’t survived the delivery, and his hello and goodbye had to happen all at once. He realized then it wasn’t the length of a life, but the depth of it, and his tiny daughter had sunk down into his soul.