Twins under the tree a c.., p.15
Twins Under the Tree--A Clean Romance, page 15
Jenna leaned into him, her softness against his harder, work-honed body.
He had no intention of getting involved again, certainly not with the woman in his arms whose entire being mourned for her failed marriage and a family of her own. The twins were another reminder that she wouldn’t have one. And that he wasn’t the man she could trust not to hurt her again.
Hadley knew he should pull back, but... “I won’t deny the twins came as a surprise. Amy and I had tried for a while, but then our never-all-that-good relationship turned sour, for me at least, and I said we should stop. I sensed we weren’t going to make it. We separated, I filed for divorce. Then we slipped up and all at once I was about to become a father.” Hadley sighed. “Not the most natural part for me to play.”
“You’re not playing a part now. Luke and Grace are very real.”
He couldn’t help a smile. “I like to think they’re making a better man of me. Jenna, don’t let David get to you. You’re one of the finest people I’ve ever met—”
She sniffed. “High praise from the same person who didn’t need my ‘involvement’ when the twins were born.” Jenna eased slightly away to look up into his face. “Yes, as you once said, I’ve kept coming here, and I’ve wondered if I should. Am I doing me any favors?”
“I know this is pretty hard on you.”
“Making myself crazy whenever I drive out here to Clara’s? I should stay home, work to make Fantastic Designs successful. It’s the only future I can trust in. Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to make the cabin into Danielle’s getaway spot from Walter.”
His arms were still around her. “You think that’s partly why Danielle really comes?”
“I’m not a mind reader, but I went through some bad patches with David, so I recognize the signs. Walter Pearson hasn’t been here in weeks,” she pointed out. “He even skipped the twins’ birthday party.”
“Fine by me.” Hadley rocked her a little, enjoying their contact. Remembering the kisses they’d shared that night on the stairs outside this door. “I don’t know about the Pearsons—Amy always said they were close, devoted to each other—but why did you stay so long with David? A man who didn’t give you what you needed?” He didn’t mean babies like Luke and Gracie.
Again Jenna drew back a little. “I loved him then, I suppose, even when things were no longer going well. In that, Amy and I were similar—not that I’m comparing you to him.” Hadley thought she was. “I’ve always had a tendency to stick with a situation—and David offered me a life I’d never had before. Security, that beautiful home in a city I loved...a family eventually, I believed, that would be the opposite from my own childhood.”
“You were never inferior to him, Jenna. You know, when I was getting kicked from one foster home to another, I always assumed it was me. My folks didn’t want me, so—”
“That’s not true. You said yourself they weren’t in a position to take care of you, but they did try to see that someone would. I’m sure they hoped another situation would be better for you and your brother.”
“They were wrong,” he said, “for me, anyway. Don’t know what happened to him.” Hadley thought of the tattered photo in his wallet, ready for Hadley to torture himself again by looking at it. The way Jenna tormented herself by visiting his babies.
She gazed at him with what he hoped was understanding, not pity. “You told me about that one couple who were good to you other than Clara and her husband. Were there any foster places with people who made you feel included? Part of their family if not your birth one?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Clara and Cliff.” He gestured at the nursery. “This used to be ‘my’ room. Had a bunch of rodeo posters on that wall where Clara has hung these photo collages of the babies. My bed was under the window between where the twins’ cribs are now.”
“Clara made you feel welcome.”
“But it’s the bad places I remember.” And someday, again, he was going to have to take off, to escape. The question was how, with Luke and Gracie to consider now? What harm would he be doing by taking them with him? How could he think to leave them behind? And whether or not she liked his interest in her, there was Jenna.
Nevertheless. He should cut this cord before he got in any deeper with a woman who’d always stuck too long. Like Amy. Or was Jenna about to tell him she wouldn’t come to the ranch again? She might feel the twins’ birthday was the perfect time to end her visits, but Hadley already felt...abandoned. He didn’t appreciate the feeling any more than he had as a kid. There was no sense in prolonging the moment, though. “I appreciate what you’ve done for Luke and Gracie,” he began.
Jenna arched an eyebrow. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“If you need to back off now...”
Jenna pulled completely away, and Hadley felt a sudden coolness at her lost warmth against him. Why was he missing her when she hadn’t yet left the house?
“I gave up a big part of myself for David,” she said. “I’ll never stick with something again that doesn’t nurture me. Amy and I used to talk about that. She was always so sure that you two could make your marriage work.”
“I wonder why we fought about money when Amy had that account at the bank with funds from her parents. Now I realize what her clinginess, the manipulation, even how often she said she loved me really meant. She knew her heart condition might end her life too soon. I think she even found fault with me in order to maintain control, so I’d try harder in our marriage, and at one point I did promise. Amy must have been desperately afraid that I’d leave her. But I’ll never regret that she gave me the twins. She and I worked out fine with them.”
“Yes, you did.”
For a minute she studied him. “And stepping away might be best for me now, but not for Luke and Grace. I don’t want to hurt anyone, Hadley, especially not the twins.” Jenna’s gaze faltered. “But are you telling me to go? If that’s what you want...”
He swallowed. “I agree that you’d be hurting them if you left.” Hurting me, too, yet he couldn’t say that. Letting anyone but the babies know he was vulnerable had never worked for Hadley. It had scared him so bad years ago to realize he needed Clara that he’d packed his gear and hit the road. Maybe Jenna didn’t have feelings for him now, as he’d thought she might after the Caldwell dinner, but he was used to that. With her, Hadley would keep his emotions to himself.
Then to his surprise, she said, “Luke and Grace have already lost their mother. They don’t need more loss. Neither do we. You know how that feels.”
Hadley’s pulse sent a little blip across his inner radar screen. “Jenna...”
He was halfway to confessing how he felt after all when she turned away, hiding her face. Jenna plucked at the edge of Gracie’s quilt that had poked through the crib bars.
“Hadley? Jenna?” Clara’s voice rose up the stairs. “Come see Grace!”
He would never know what Jenna might have said, but he could sense that she was torn, too—about the twins, if not him. Yeah, he liked her way too much for his own good.
* * *
IN THE LIVING ROOM, Jenna held Grace and pressed her forehead to the little girl’s, fighting tears. Grace had stood up, too! Everyone at the party except Clara and Danielle had left while she’d talked with Hadley upstairs, and Jenna was glad. This must be her day for falling apart again, as she’d done right after David moved out. But these at least were happy tears.
“Both standing in the same day,” she remarked to Clara and Danielle. Hadley’s twins did everything together, as if they were still sharing their mother’s womb, so taking their next step together in preparing to walk shouldn’t surprise her. The bond they had would last all their lives. But Jenna didn’t linger. Hadley had followed her downstairs, and taken his turn to celebrate Grace’s milestone, yet he stood back while Jenna said her goodbyes, then left the house.
What had happened between them in the nursery, where Jenna had glimpsed his vulnerability—which he’d tried to hide—and she had exposed her own? What must he think? She didn’t love David anymore. Had she used him as a shield to keep Hadley from getting close?
Without saying the exact words, he had asked her to keep coming to visit his babies. And they’d agreed about Luke and Grace, probably a temporary connection, but one she couldn’t deny.
Jenna didn’t go straight home. By the time she realized where she was headed, she was already in the driveway of her mother’s house, or rather the one she shared with Jack. It looked sparkling with new white paint. Even the clean flagstone path to the porch and the wooden sign beside the entry reading Hancock spoke of their relationship. Jenna had her hand poised on the bell when Wanda opened the door. “Didn’t expect you today, baby girl. Come on in and see what we’ve done here.”
Jenna followed her blindly through the house, admiring the furniture they’d bought and the warm colors on the walls. It was a stark contrast to the falling-down place where she’d grown up on that five-acre farm, crammed into a home no more welcoming than most of the foster ones Hadley had touched upon in their conversation. Perhaps she was more like him than she’d thought.
“This is beautiful, Mama.” She hugged her. “And you look wonderful.”
Like Jenna, Wanda had gained a few pounds, and she carried herself straighter than she had years ago. Her hair was always freshly styled now, her clothes in brighter hues than the old-fashioned, drab housedresses she’d worn.
She searched Jenna’s eyes. “Are you ready to accept the fact that Jack and I will be fine together?”
Jenna didn’t answer except to kiss her mother’s cheek. Her previous warnings had fallen on deaf ears, and part of Jenna was still in the twins’ nursery, sharing those moments with Hadley that she didn’t understand, either. For a second, she’d thought he might send her packing, in the next that he might kiss her again—and that she’d welcome it.
Wanda must have seen her dilemma. She led Jenna down the steps from the three upstairs bedrooms and into the kitchen, which even in the old house had been the heart of her home. She pulled out a chair for Jenna, opened one cabinet door, then another and laughed. “I reach for everything as if I were still in that house Finn Donovan bought from me.” She no longer called it home. Her mother held up two mugs. “Coffee? I’m glad he and Annabelle are fixing up the place. Have you seen his barn? Your father would have been pea green with envy, not that he ever moved to tear down the old one.”
Jenna watched her fill the coffee maker, take cream from the fridge and a sugar bowl from another cupboard. “Shadow tells me you two have the bridal shower all set, twice as many people coming as I expected. She and I went shopping for my dress last month—I wish you had joined us—and Jack and I signed the contract for our wedding reception.”
Curiosity got the better of Jenna. “Where?”
“That new bed-and-breakfast in Farrier. Have you seen it?”
“No.” If Danielle had been able to stay there, Jenna wouldn’t have redone the cabin, or spent as much time near Hadley at Clara’s ranch.
“A restored Victorian, just beautiful,” her mother went on, pouring coffee. “The woman who runs it bought some antiques from Olivia who, as you know, has very good taste. I’d like your input about the dinner menu. The inn needs my final choices. The night of the wedding, Jack and I will stay in their bridal suite. Oh, Jenna, it’s all white lace and roses.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat that had been there since the twins’ birthday party. She couldn’t dampen Wanda’s enthusiasm when Jenna didn’t know which way to go herself. “Sounds lovely, Mama.”
As if she’d been given permission, Wanda shot up from her chair, hurried over to a drawer, then took out the menu she’d mentioned. She set it in front of Jenna. “Will you?”
“Of course.” She studied the menu, which kept blurring in front of her. “The, um, filet sounds fancy...chicken not as much, and there’s pheasant? But the cost...”
“Jack says we’re only doing this once. He wants to make the most of it.”
The words sank into Jenna’s soul. She recalled David’s comment about the new woman he was seeing.
She blinked her vision into focus. “I know you feel you’re doing the right thing, and I do realize Jack cares about you.” She would try to enjoy herself at the bridal shower. “Your wedding sounds perfect.” But then, didn’t all plans at first? “I just hope you don’t—” She couldn’t make herself say, end up as you did with Daddy, or I did with David. Only it wasn’t his face that appeared on the screen of her mind. It was Hadley’s.
Certainly she’d never imagined that she’d find someone else, fall in love, make another mistake... But would it be a mistake, as she’d accused her mother of making? Which of them was right?
As always, Wanda seemed to sense what she was thinking. She squeezed Jenna’s hand. “Don’t worry. Everything will work out. It always does.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AFTER JENNA LEFT, Hadley went down to the barn. Exhausted from their first birthday and after inching around the living room sofa, Luke and Gracie were napping. For once, they’d gone to sleep without a fuss. Maybe the more active and independent they became, the easier being a father would become. Ha, wasn’t that a nice daydream? Hadley didn’t believe in happy endings.
Not that he was still thinking—shouldn’t be—of Jenna. After hearing her talk about David again, he knew she was in no shape to follow through on any attraction she might feel to Hadley, who would be a bad bet anyway. The irony wasn’t lost on him—he might call himself the ranch foreman here, but he was a temporary guest again at Clara’s. He had the twins to take care of; he had nothing to offer Jenna.
“Boss?” Leading Trouble down the aisle, Cory said, “Finished replacing that latch on Mr. Robert’s stall. Figured I’d ride out to check the herd before dark.”
“Sure, saddle up.” But the gelding, having been in the paddock most of the day, was covered in mud. “Horse needs some heavy grooming before you set off. Seems he had his own fun today rolling around. Celebrating the twins’ birthday.”
“I envy him his good mood.”
Hadley took a closer look at Cory. His hair stuck up at the crown, and his eyes held a defeated expression. Hadley hazarded a guess. “Thought you had a good time at the party yourself, but someone got the best of you today. Girl trouble again?”
“Hard to have any kind of trouble when she won’t see me. I’m working on that,” he said.
Hadley helped fasten the horse in the crossties opposite Cory. “What’s her beef?” He almost welcomed listening to someone else’s problems. Why had he felt so downcast watching Jenna drive away?
“Not her, it’s her father.” Cory ticked off some points. “Doesn’t like my looks, my general...lack of ambition. Bottom line, he doesn’t like me. Called me shiftless, and she’s taken that to heart.” Which Hadley guessed was only part of the story.
“Where does he get that impression of you, Cory?” Hadley hadn’t seen any of that. The boy came to work on time, put in a full day, never complained. The only negative thing he’d ever heard from Cory was on the subject of his would-be girlfriend.
“He always thought—thinks—I’m a loser. Now she won’t even answer my texts.” Cory swiped a brush along the gelding’s off side. “I like this job, but—no offense—I got bigger ideas for my future. Don’t know what I can do to convince Willow of that, though, meaning really her dad. I’ve even shown her my prize buckles from rodeo... I mean, I was somebody then, a rising star, they said.” With a glance at Hadley, who was brushing the horse’s near side, he picked up a currycomb. “Maybe I should give up.”
“Persistence pays,” Hadley said, though with Jenna he should probably quit the field before he even considered trying to create something more with her. He knew better than to believe in that. “Did you say Willow? Willow Bodine?”
Cory drew the comb through some matted hair. “You’ve heard of her?”
“Sure, and her father can be tough. I worked for him once. Briefly.”
For a moment, Cory didn’t respond. The color deepened in his face, and Hadley had the impression he wished he hadn’t spoken Willow’s name. “Makes no never mind,” he said at last. “Once a woman decides... I sure wish those two had seen me ride in Vegas that last year, though. I was in my element then, almost got into the top five before the final night, and man, I had me some pretty rides. I did better than Dallas.”
Hadley’s brush stopped sweeping a path through the caked mud. “Dallas? That’s a moniker, all right. Sure suits a cowboy.”
“Stage name, maybe, but he was a heck of a rider. Hated competing against him, but I tried not to let that get to me. I lived by the old saying that a rodeo cowboy really competes against himself, not anyone else. Still, we toured a while together, went to the Saturday night dances...” He trailed off. “That was before I met Willow. I’m not a cheating man.”
“Was your friend Dallas from Texas? Like you?”
“Naw, from ‘everywhere,’ he always said. Ol’ Dallas didn’t talk much about his beginnings or his kin. He stuck to business mostly. But when we roomed together, he’d take out that guitar of his and sit there strumming a tune he made up. Told me once he had some notion of going pro after his rodeo days were over...recording an album. Country, he used to play.”
Hadley dropped the brush, hoping his thoughts didn’t show on his face. It couldn’t be... “He still riding?”
“Not unless he got over his injuries.” Above the horse’s back, Cory held Hadley’s gaze. “Dallas got thrown halfway across the ring in Lubbock one night not too long ago as if he were some kid’s stuffed teddy bear, then stomped into the ground. According to reports, they carried him off straight to an ambulance.” Cory shook his head. “Last I heard, he was still on the disabled list. I’ve been meaning to get in touch, check on how he’s doing, but his career’s a subject I’m not sure how to approach—like Willow now. Plus, the only number I had for him is out of service.” He paused. “We didn’t exactly part as friends, so I guess my motivation has been low.”
