Patricia Johns - The Triplets' Cowboy Daddy

“Yes, tea would be nice.” Her tone was tight.

“Nora.” He turned on the rattling faucet to fill up the kettle. “I don’t know what you think I did, but I never asked for this house. And I never angled for it.”

“You didn’t turn it down, either.”

No, he hadn’t. He could have refused the inheritance, but it had been an answer to midnight prayers, a way to step out from under his past. Mr. Carpenter’s gift had made him feel more like family and less like the messed-up kid who needed a job. Mr. Carpenter had seen him differently, but he suspected Nora still saw him the same way she always had—a skinny kid who would do pretty much anything she asked to make her happy.

And as dumb as it was, he also saw her the same way he always had—the beautiful girl whom he wished could see past his flaws and down to his core. He was a man now—not a boy, and most certainly not a charity case. Nora was a reminder of a time he didn’t want to revisit—when he’d been in love with a girl who took what he had to offer and never once saw him as more than a buddy. It hadn’t been only her...he’d been an isolated kid looking for acceptance anywhere he could get it, and he didn’t like those memories. They were marinated in loneliness.

That wasn’t who he was anymore. Everything had changed around here. Including him.

Chapter Two

Easton heard the soft beep of an alarm go off through a fog of sleep, and he blinked his eyes open, glancing at the clock beside him. It was 3 a.m., and it wasn’t his alarm. The sound filtered through the wall from the bedroom next door. He had another hour before he had to be up for chores, and he was about to roll over when he heard the sound of footsteps going down the staircase.

Nora was up—though the babies were silent. It was strange to have her back...to have her here. She’d stayed away, made a life in the city where she had an office job of some sort. She would come back for a weekend home every now and then, but she’d spent her time with friends, cousins, aunts and uncles. Easton didn’t fit into any category—not anymore. He was an employee. He’d worked his shifts, managed the ranch hands and if he got so much as a passing wave from her, he’d be lucky.

Now she was in his home. Her presence seemed to be a constant reminder of his status around here—employee. Even this house—legally his—felt less like his own. There was something about Nora Carpenter that put him right back into his place. For a while he’d been able to forget about his status around here, believe he could be more, but with her back—

He wasn’t going to be able to sleep listening to the soft sounds of a woman moving around the house anyway. He swung his legs over the side of his bed, yawning. The footsteps came back up the narrow staircase again, and he rose to his feet, stretching as he did. He was in a white T-shirt and pajama bottoms, decent enough to see her. He crossed his bedroom and opened the door.

Nora stood in the hallway, three bottles of milk in her hands, and she froze at the sight of him. Her blond hair tumbled over her shoulders, and she stood there in a pair of pajamas—a tank top and pink, pin-striped cotton shorts.

She’s cute.

She always had been, and no matter how distant or uninterested she got, he’d never stopped noticing.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I was trying to be quiet.”

He hadn’t actually been prepared to see her like this—her milky skin glowing in the dim light from her open bedroom door, her luminous eyes fixed on him apologetically. She was stunning, just as she’d always been, but she was more womanly now—rounder, softer, more sure of herself. They should both be sleeping right now, oblivious to each other. That was safer by far.

“The babies aren’t crying,” he pointed out.

“I’m following the advice of the social worker who gave me the lowdown on caring for triplets. She said to feed them on a schedule. If I wait for them to wake up, we’ll have three crying babies.”

It made sense, actually. He’d never given infant care—let alone infant care for triplets—much thought before. He should leave her to it, go back to bed...maybe go downstairs and start breakfast if he really couldn’t sleep.

“Need a hand?” he asked.

Where had that come from? Childcare wasn’t his domain, and frankly, neither was Nora. He’d been through this before with her—he knew how it went. She batted her eyes in his general direction, he got attached, she waltzed off once her problems were solved, and he was left behind, wrung out. Letting her stay here was help enough. As was picking up the crib for the babies after he brought her to the house. He couldn’t be accused of callous indifference, but he also couldn’t go down that path again.

She smiled at his offer of help. “I wouldn’t turn it down.”

Well, that took care of that. He trailed after her into the bedroom. The crib sat on one side of the room, Nora’s rumpled bed on the other side. A window, cracked open, was between the two, and a cool night breeze curled through the room. The babies lay side by side along the mattress of the crib. Rosie and Riley looked pretty similar to his untrained eye, but he could pick out Bobbie. She was considerably bigger than the other two. But “big” was relative; they were all pretty tiny.

“I was hoping my mom would be able to help me with this stuff,” Nora said as she picked up the first baby and passed her to him along with a bottle. “That’s Rosie,” she added.

She proceeded to pick up the other two and brought them to her unmade bed, where she propped them both up against her pillow. She wiggled the bottle nipples between their lips.

“Time to eat,” she murmured.

The babies started to suck without any further prompting, and Easton looked down at the infant in his arms. He followed Nora’s lead, teasing the bottle into Rosie’s tiny mouth, and she immediately began to drink. It felt oddly satisfying.

“So this is how it’s done,” he said with a soft laugh.

“Apparently,” Nora replied.

They were both silent for a few moments, the only sound babies slurping. He leaned an elbow against the crib, watching the tiny bubbles move up the bottle and turn into froth at the top of the milk. He’d done this with calves on a regular basis, but never with a baby.

“I don’t blame your mom,” Easton said.

“Me, neither,” she replied quietly. “I just didn’t know where else to go. When you feel lost, you find your mom.”

Easton had never had that pleasure. His mom had abandoned them, and his dad...well, his dad could barely keep his own life together, let alone help Easton.

“Sorry...” She winced. “I forgot.”

Yeah, yeah, his pathetic excuse for a family. Poor Easton. He was tired of that—the pity, the charitable thoughts. Be thankful for what you have, because someone else thinks you’re lucky. It was a deep thought for the privileged as they considered how bad they could truly have it, before they breathed a sigh of relief that they still retained their good fortune.

“So why didn’t you come back more often?” Easton asked, changing the subject.

“I was busy.” She shot him a sidelong look. “Why?”

“It just seems to me that two weekends a year isn’t much time with your family.”

“We talked on the phone. What’s it to you?”

He’d struck a nerve there, but she had a point. Who was he to lecture her about family bonds? He didn’t have any of his own that counted for much. Besides, his complaint wasn’t really about how much time she spent with her family. He’d missed her, too. His life kept going in Hope, Montana, and hers had moved on in the wider world. He resented her for that—for forgetting him.