Marie Ferrarella - Twins On The Doorstep

“Boil a cloth,” Rosa instructed Jackson.

He looked at her in confusion. “And just how is that going to...?”

“When it is clean, we will dip a corner of the cloth into a cup of warm milk and the baby will suck on that.”

“Won’t that take a long time, feeding him that way?” Cole asked.

Rosa gave him what passed for a patient smile. “Just until one of you comes back from the general store in town with two baby bottles,” she replied. “Now go, go,” she urged them. “These babies are getting hungrier by the minute.”

“I’ll go to the general store,” Garrett volunteered, no doubt thinking that was the safest thing for him to do.

“I’ll make breakfast for the boys,” Jackson told his housekeeper, handing off the baby he’d been holding to Cole. “You stay here with Cole and the babies, and do what needs to be done.”

Rosa smiled at him patiently. “Yes, Mr. Jackson.”

* * *

THE PROCEDURE WAS slow and tedious, but, to Cole’s surprise, feeding the infants Rosa’s way seemed to satisfy them, at least for the time being.

“I think this one’s going to suck in the cloth,” he marveled, watching the infant in his arms going at the milk-soaked cloth he was bringing to its lips.

“Don’t forget to keep soaking the cloth,” Rosa prompted. “You don’t want it getting dry.”

“Right,” Cole murmured, taking the cloth he had wrapped around his index finger away from the infant’s mouth and dipping it into the milk he had standing in one of the coffee mugs.

“Mr. McCullough?” Rosa said.

Cole raised his eyes away from the infant he was attempting to feed. It was touch and go at the moment. “Yes?”

“You are sure you are not the father of these babies?” she asked in a low voice. Before he could say anything, she assured him, “It is just the two of us here right now. You can tell me.” She leaned her head in toward him and said in a low voice, “I will not tell anyone.”

“I’m sure, Rosa,” Cole said patiently.

And, for the most part, he was. There was just this tiny little inkling of doubt left, but he knew he was needlessly torturing himself. If there had been a baby—or babies—because of that one wondrous night, Stacy would have told him.

Wouldn’t she?

“Then why would someone leave them on your doorstep?” Rosa asked, dipping the edge of her cloth in the warm milk. “Why not with the sheriff or on the clinic’s doorstep?”

“I really don’t know, Rosa.” The next moment, he exclaimed, “Wow! I sure am glad this baby doesn’t have teeth yet. He’s got really strong lips for an infant.”

He carefully maneuvered his finger out of what appeared to be a steely rosebud mouth.

“She,” Rosa corrected.

He looked at the housekeeper, confused. “She?”

Rosa nodded her head.

He gazed at the infant. She was all bundled up in yellow. Both of the babies were. Yellow was neutral. It didn’t indicate either male or female. “How would you know that?”

Rosa smiled. “I have a gift,” she told him calmly.

His eyes narrowed just a little. “You unwrapped this one, didn’t you?”

The corner of Rosa’s eyes crinkled just a little more as she laughed. “Perhaps I did, a bit,” she admitted.

Rosa’s laugh was infectious and Cole caught himself laughing, as well. Doing so made him feel just a little better—at least, for now.

Chapter Two

Stacy Rowe was amazed.

She’d been born and raised in Forever, and a little more than eight months ago she would have said that it felt as if things never changed in this tiny town. And then Aunt Kate had whisked her away on that European vacation—insisted on it, really—saying that she wanted Stacy to open her eyes and see that there was a world beyond Forever.

And, more importantly, a world beyond Cole McCullough.

The second his name flashed across her mind, Stacy clenched her fists at her sides as if that would somehow chase away any and all thoughts of the tall Texan.

She wasn’t ready to think about Cole yet.

Cole was the reason that she’d left Forever eight months ago.

And he was the reason she almost hadn’t come back. She didn’t want to see him, not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Not after what had happened.

But she really didn’t have that much choice in the matter. Aunt Kate, that unbelievably hearty, dynamo of a woman, had suddenly become ill in Venice. Never one to complain, Aunt Kate had waved away all of Stacy’s voiced concerns—right up to the time she’d taken a turn for the worse and died before a flight home could be hastily arranged.

Aunt Kate’s death had complicated matters far beyond the immediate emotional component. Alone in a foreign country, Stacy had felt utterly stranded. Aunt Kate had always insisted on handling everything and it was easier than arguing with the woman, so she had let Aunt Kate do it.

It had taken every fiber of her being for Stacy to rally, pull herself together and do what needed to be done.

Per her aunt’s specified last wishes, she’d had her aunt’s body cremated and then she’d flown back to Forever with an urn filled with Aunt Kate’s ashes.

Stacy would rather have flown anywhere else, but in all honesty, she couldn’t afford to travel any longer or go anywhere except the town she’d always called home. Aunt Kate had been the one with all the money.

Her aunt had left her a little money in her will, but that, too, required a trip back to Forever. Olivia Santiago, along with her partner, Cash Taylor, ran the only law firm there. As Aunt Kate’s attorney and executor, Olivia had the only copy of her aunt’s will.

So, with a heavy heart and more than a little reluctance, Stacy had returned. Once back, she’d presented Olivia with a copy of her aunt’s death certificate.

And that was when she discovered that some things in Forever had changed. The house that she’d grown up in, the one that her mother had left to her when she died and where she and Aunt Kate had lived before they’d gone off to Europe, had burned down while they’d been away.

The other thing that had changed while she’d been gone was that Forever had finally gotten its first hotel up and running. What that meant was that at least she had a place to stay while she waited for Olivia to square things away for her when it came to the will.

This was her first week back and, hopefully, her last.

Getting up, Stacy got ready quickly, intending to go downstairs to get some much-needed coffee and eggs over easy. The hotel, still in its infancy, had just opened a small restaurant on its premises. She’d heard it was having some trouble with a faulty refrigerator, but supposedly that had been taken care of. She crossed her fingers.

Stacy got off the elevator and was crossing the lobby to get to the restaurant when she heard Elsie, the young woman behind the reception desk, let out a loud, bloodcurdling scream.

Hurrying over, Stacy put a comforting hand on the young girl’s shoulder and asked, “What’s wrong, Elsie? Can I help?”

Elsie didn’t appear to hear her or even be overly aware that anyone was standing next to her. Her attention was completely centered on the paper she was clutching.

“I did it!” Elsie cried, waving what looked like a letter in her hand. “I did it! I’m going to college!” she squealed.

Scurrying out from behind the desk, she threw her arms around Stacy, and then around Rebecca Ortiz, the hotel manager who had been drawn out of her office by the noise. “I’m going to college!” Elsie repeated, obviously beside herself with joy.

“Somewhere not too far away?” Rebecca asked, obviously doing her best to share the moment with the receptionist.

Elsie stopped abruptly and then happily grinned at the manager. “I’m going to be going to the University of Texas in Austin,” she told her small audience proudly.