Word had spread that Detective Reed Barelli, who’d become de facto father to the Ingalls triplets by virtue of marrying their mother at the Wedlock Creek chapel with its Legend of the Multiples, would be a guest speaker at tonight’s zero-to-six-month multiples class. There were more men than women this time, several first-timers to the class who practically threw checks at Norah. At this rate, she’d be raking it in as a teacher.
She hadn’t even meant to invite him to speak—especially not as a condition of her keeping the ranch. The sole condition, no less. But it had been the best she could come up with, just standing there, not knowing what to say, how to keep him, how to get him to open up the way she had and accept the beautiful thing he was being offered: love. She did want him to be a speaker in her class, and it would get them working together, so that was good. She couldn’t try to get through to him if they were constantly apart now that he’d moved out.
They hadn’t spent much time together in three days.
He’d come to the ranch to see the triplets every day since their return from Las Vegas. He’d help feed them, then read to them, play with them. Blow raspberries and do upsie-downsies. And then he’d leave, taking Norah’s heart with him.
Now here he was, sitting in the chair beside her desk with his stack of handouts, looking so good she could scream.
“Welcome, everyone! As you may have heard through the grapevine, tonight we have a guest speaker. Detective Reed Barelli. When Reed and I got married, he became the instant father of three seven-month-old teething babies. Was he scared of them? Nope. Did he actually want to help take care of them? Yes. Reed had never spent much time around babies and yet he was a natural with my triplets. Why?”
She looked at Reed and almost didn’t want to say why. Because it proved he could pick and choose. The triplets. But not her.
She bit back the strangled sob that rose up from deep within and lifted her chin. She turned back toward the class. “Because he wanted to be. That is the key. He wanted to be there for them. And so he was. And dads, caregivers, dads-to-be, grandfathers, that’s all you have to know. That you want to be there for them. So, without further ado, here is Detective Reed Barelli.”
He stood, turned to her and smiled, then addressed the class. “That was some introduction. Thank you, Norah.”
She managed a smile and then sat on the other side of the desk.
“Norah is absolutely right. I did want to be there for the triplets. And so I was. But don’t think I had a clue of how to take care of one baby, let alone three. I know how to change a diaper—I think anyone can figure that out. But the basics, including diapers and burping and sleep schedules and naps? All that, you’ll learn here. What you won’t learn here, or hell, maybe you will because I’m talking about it, is that taking care of babies will tell you who you are. Someone who steps up or someone who sits out. Be the guy who steps up.”
A bunch of women stood and applauded, as did a few guys.
“Is it as easy as you make it sound?” Tom McFill asked. “My wife is expecting twins. I’ve never even held a baby before.”
“The first time you do,” Reed said, “everything will change. That worry you feel, that maybe you won’t know what you’re doing? It’ll dissipate under the weight of another feeling—a surge of protection so strong that you won’t know what hit you. All you’ll know is that you’re doing what needs to be done, operating by instinct and common sense, Googling what you don’t know, asking a grandmother. So it’s as hard and as easy as I’m making it sound.”
A half hour later Norah took over, giving tutorials on feeding multiples, bathing multiples and how to handle sleep time. Then there was the ole gem: what if both babies, or three or four, all woke up in the middle of the night, crying and wet and hungry. She covered that, watching her students taking copious notes.
Finally the class was over. Everyone crowded around Reed, asking him questions. By the time the last student left and they were packing up to go, it was a half hour past the end of the class.
“You were a big hit,” she said. “I knew I called this one right.”
“I’m happy to help out. I knew more than I thought on the subject. I’d stayed up late last night doing research, but I didn’t need to use a quarter of it.”
“You had hands-on training.”
“I miss living with them,” he said, and she could tell he hadn’t meant to say that.
She smiled and let it go. “Most people would think you’re crazy.”
“I guess I am.”
Want more, she shouted telepathically. Insist on more! You did it with the babies, now do it with me. Hot sex every night, fool! But of course she couldn’t say any of that. “Well, I’d better get over to the diner to pick up the triplets.”
“They’re open for another half hour, right? I could sure go for some beef pot pie.”
She stared at him. Why was he prolonging the two of them being together? Because he wanted to be with her? Because he really did love the triplets and wanted to see them?
Because he missed her the way she missed him?
“I have to warn you,” she said as they headed out. “My family might interrogate you about the state of our marriage. Demand to know when we’re patching things up. If we will, I should say.”
“Well, we can’t say what we don’t know. That goes for suspects and us.”
Humph. All he had to do was say he’d be the one. The father and the husband. It was that easy!
On the way to their cars, she called her mom to let her know she and Reed would be stopping in for beef pot pies so they’d be ready when they arrived. Then she got in her car and Reed got in his. The whole time he trailed her in his SUV to the Pie Diner, she was so aware of him behind her.
The diner was still pretty busy at eight thirty-five. Norah’s mom waved them over to the counter.
“Norah, look who’s here!”
Norah stared at the man sitting at the counter, a vegetable pot pie and lemonade in front of him. She gasped as recognition hit. “Harrison? Omigod, Harrison Atwood?” He stood and smiled and she threw her arms around him. Her high school sweetheart who’d joined the army and ended up on the east coast and they’d lost contact.
“Harrison is divorced,” Norah’s mom said. “Turns out his wife didn’t want children and he’s hoping for a house full. He told me all about it.”
Norah turned beet red. “Mom, I’m sure Harrison doesn’t want the entire restaurant knowing his business.”
Harrison smiled. “I don’t mind at all. The more people know I’m in the market for a wife and children, the better. You have to say what you want if you hope to get it, right?”
Norah’s mother smiled at Norah and Reed, then looked back at Harrison. “I was just telling Harrison how things didn’t work out between the two of you and that you’re available again. The two of you could catch up. High school sweethearts always have such memories to talk over.”
Can my face get any redder? Norah wondered, shooting daggers at her busybody mother. What was she trying to do?
Get her settled down, that was what. First Reed and now a man she hadn’t seen in ten years.
Norah glanced at Reed, who seemed very stiff. He was stealing glances at Harrison every now and then.
Harrison had been a cute seventeen-year-old, tall and gangly, but now he was taller and more muscular, attractive, with sandy-brown hair and blue eyes and a dimple in his left cheek. She’d liked him then, but she’d recognized even then that she hadn’t been in love. To the point that she’d kept putting him off about losing their virginity. She’d wanted her first time to be with a man she was madly in love with. Of course, she’d thought she was madly in love with a rodeo champ, but he’d taken her virginity and had not given her anything in return. She’d thought she was done with bull riders and then, wham, she’d fallen for the triplets’ father. Maybe she’d never learn.
“Harrison is a chef. He studied in Paris,” Aunt Cheyenne said. “He’s going to give us a lesson in French cooking. Isn’t that wonderful? You two must have so much in common,” she added, wagging a finger between Norah and Harrison.
“Well, I’d better get going,” Reed said, stepping back. “I have cases to go over. Nice to see you all.”
“But, Reed, your pot pie just came out of the oven,” Norah’s mother said. “I’ll just go grab it.”
Norah watched him give Harrison the side-eye before he said, “I’ll come with you. I want to say good-night to the triplets.”
“They are so beautiful,” Harrison said with so much reverence in his voice that Norah couldn’t help the little burst of pride in her chest. Harrison sure was being kind.
Reed narrowed his gaze on the man, scowled and disappeared into the kitchen behind her mother.
And then Aunt Cheyenne winked at Norah and smiled. Oh no. Absolutely not. She knew what was going on here. Her mother and aunt realized they had Norah’s old boyfriend captive at the counter and had been waiting for Norah and Reed to come in so they could make Reed jealous! Or, at least, that was how it looked.
Sneaky devils.
But they knew Reed wasn’t in love with her and didn’t want a future with her. So what was the point? Reed would probably push her with Harrison, tell her to see if there was anything to rekindle.
But as cute and nice as Harrison was, he wasn’t Reed Barelli. No one else could be.
Every forkful of the pot pie felt as if it weighed ten pounds in his hand. Reed sat on his couch, his lonely dinner tray on the coffee table, a rerun of the baseball game on the TV as a distraction from his thoughts.
Which were centered on where Norah was right now. Probably on a walking date with Harrison, he said in his mind in a singsong voice. High school sweethearts would have a lot to catch up on. A lot to say. Memories. Good ones. There were probably a lot of firsts between them.
Reed wanted to throw up. Or punch something.
Just like that, this high school sweetheart, this French chef, would waltz in and take Reed’s almost life. His wife, his triplets. His former ranch, which was now Norah’s. A woman who wanted love and romance and a father for her babies might be drawn to the known—and the high school sweetheart fit that bill. Plus, they had that cooking thing in common. They might even be at the ranch now, Harrison standing behind Norah at the stove, his arms around her as he showed her how to Frenchify a pot pie. You couldn’t and shouldn’t! Pot pies were perfect as they were, dammit.
Grr. He took a swig of his soda and clunked it down on the coffee table. What the hell was going on here? He was jealous? Was this what this was?
Yes. He was jealous. He didn’t want Norah kissing this guy. Sleeping with this guy. Frenchifying pot pies with this guy.
He flung down his fork and headed out, huffing into his SUV. He drove out to the ranch, just to check. And there was an unfamiliar car! With New York plates!
Hadn’t Norah’s mother said Harrison had lived on the east coast?
He was losing her right now. And he had let it happen.
This is what you want, dolt. You want her to find everything in one man. A father for her triplets. A husband for herself. Love. Romance. Happiness. Forever. You don’t want that. So let her go. Let her have what she always dreamed of.
His heart now weighing a thousand pounds, he turned the SUV around and headed back to his rental house, where nothing awaited him but a cold pot pie and a big, empty bed.
“Upsie-what?” Harrison said, wrinkling his nose in the living room of the Barelli ranch. Correction. The Ingalls ranch. The Norah Ingalls ranch.
Norah frowned. “Upsie-downsie,” she repeated. “You lift her up, say ‘Upsie’ in your best baby-talk voice, then lower her with a ‘downsie’!”
They were sitting on the rug, the triplets in their Exersaucers, Bella raising her hands for a round of upsie-downsie. But Harrison just stared at Bella, shot her a fake smile and then turned away. Guess not everyone liked to play upsie-downsie.
Bella’s face started to scrunch up. And turn red. Which meant any second she was about to let loose with a wail. “Waaaah!” she cried, lifting her arms up again.
“Now, Bea, be a good girl for Uncle Harrison,” he said. “Get it, Bea should be a good girl. LOL,” he added to no one in particular.
First of all, that was Bella. And did he just LOL at his own unfunny “joke”? Norah sighed. No wonder she hadn’t fallen in love with Harrison Atwood in high school. Back then, cute had a lot to do with why she’d liked him. But as a grown-up, cute meant absolutely nothing. Even if a man looked like Reed Barelli.
“I’d love to take you out to a French place I know over in Brewer,” he said. “It’s not exactly Michelin-starred, but come on, in Wyoming, what is? I’m surprised you stuck around this little town. I always thought you’d move to LA, open a restaurant.”
“What would give you that idea?” she asked.
“You used to talk a lot about your big dreams. Wanting to open Pie Diners all across the country. You wanted your family to have your own cooking show on the Food Network. Pot pie cookbooks on the New York Times bestseller list.”
Huh. She’d forgotten all that. She did used to talk about opening Pie Diners across Wyoming, maybe even in bordering states. But life had always been busy enough. And full enough. Especially when she’d gotten pregnant and then when the triplets came.
“Guess your life didn’t pan out the way you wanted,” Harrison said. “Sorry about that.”
Would it be wrong to pick up one of the big foam alphabet blocks and conk him over the head with it?
“My life turned out pretty great,” she said. I might not have the man I love, but I have the whole world in my children, my family, my job and my little town.
“No need to get defensive,” he said. “Jeez.”
God, she didn’t like this man.
Luckily, just then, Brody let loose with a diaper explosion, and Harrison pinched his nostrils closed. “Oh boy. Something stinks. I guess this is my cue to leave. LOL, right?”
“It was good to see you again, Harrison. Have a great rest of your life.”
He frowned and nodded. “Bye.” He made the mistake of removing his hand from his nose, got a whiff of the air de Brody and immediately pinched his nostrils closed again.
She couldn’t help laughing. “Buh-bye,” she said as he got into his car.
She closed the door, her smile fading fast. She had a diaper to change. And a detective to fantasize about.