“Why are they crying?” Wyatt asked in alarm several hours later. He and Adelaide carried both twins in the front door and set the carriers on the sofa.
Adelaide eased Jake out of the straps and hooded jacket and blanket confining him, and handed him to Wyatt to hold. “A lot of reasons.” Tossing her own coat aside, she bent to retrieve Jenny from her carrier, too. “They saw a lot of new faces tonight.”
No kidding, Wyatt thought. After the news had set in, everyone in the family had wanted to congratulate them and cuddle the twins. His mom had persuaded them to stay for an impromptu family dinner. He’d agreed as readily as Adelaide. Mostly because he hadn’t figured out how to be alone with her yet, under the startling new circumstances.
He wished he had one-thousandth of Adelaide’s ease as a parent.
Horses, he knew. Kids, not so much. He’d never had the golden touch with them. Well, except for his nephews Max and Braden. Those little tykes had taken right to him. Maybe because he bore a resemblance to their own daddies...
“Do you think they’re still hungry?” He and Jake edged closer to Adelaide and Jenny. His daughter hadn’t lessened her wailing, either. “Because they were fed and burped right before we left the ranch.” Less than thirty minutes ago. “Their diapers changed, too.”
Adelaide inclined her head, indicating he should follow suit. She carried Jenny up the stairs. “I think they’re just wound up and overtired.” They moved into the nursery. “Nothing a little walking the floor with them won’t cure. Unless...” Adelaide squinted at him thoughtfully. The crying was so loud now she had to practically shout to be heard. “You’d like to go on home now?”
Wyatt shook his head. He had responsibilities now. “I’ll stay until they are asleep,” he vowed firmly.
She pressed a kiss onto the top of Jenny’s head. He did the same with Jake.
“Your horses...?” she asked.
“Troy and Flint, my hired hands, have already taken care of them.”
Briefly, Adelaide looked disappointed. As if she’d been counting on his work to take him away from them. Heaven knew it wasn’t the first time she’d used an excuse to put distance between them. It stung, just the same.
He told himself her reaction was understandable. Had it not been for the babies they now shared, he would have been out the door hours ago, new dissolution papers filed.
Instead, he was here with the three of them, trying to make sense of what had happened. Figure out how the heck they were going to proceed on a practical level.
It was one thing to promise to care for the kids together.
Another to actually make the situation work.
Luckily, right now, all they had to concentrate on was easing the persistent crying of their children.
He watched as Adelaide shifted Jenny’s head onto her shoulder and tried somewhat awkwardly to do the same. While Jenny cuddled sweetly against Adelaide’s soft breast, her head resting against the slender slope of her mommy’s neck, Jake resisted doing the same. Recalcitrant, he arched his little spine, tilting the back of his neck against Wyatt’s gently supporting palm.
Wyatt was tempted to give up, hand his son over. But given the fact that Adelaide had her own hands full, and Jenny was finally starting to settle down, just a little...
Adelaide mouthed the words, “Move him up a little higher. So his head is...”
Wyatt tried. Little Jake arched again. Opened his mouth wider and the largest belch Wyatt had ever heard came out. Followed swiftly by a flood of curdled, really foul smelling sour milk. Like an erupting volcano, the messy goo went all over Wyatt’s shoulder, the front of his shirt, inside the collar, onto his neck. Trying not to get it on Jake, too—who was remarkably unscathed by the flood—Wyatt lifted his son slightly away from him, still holding him gently with both hands, and that’s when two things happened. Jenny finally fell sound asleep. And Jake spit up again, this time all over the rest of Jake’s shirt and pants.
Gently, Adelaide eased Jenny into her crib. The little darling slumbered on.
Wyatt expected Adelaide to reach for Jake, who, now that he’d emptied the contents of his tummy, was looking incredibly sleepy, too. Instead, she disappeared into the hall bath and came back, a damp washcloth in hand.
By then, Jake had put his head on the only other spit-up free zone of his daddy, Wyatt’s other shoulder. His eyes were drifting closed.
Adelaide wiped the curdled milk from her son’s face. “Want me to take him?” Adelaide murmured softly.
Wyatt shook his head, feeling incredibly proud and relieved he had done what just a few minutes ago had seemed impossible—nearly put his wildly upset son to sleep. “I’ve got this,” he said.
And to his surprise, he did.
Adelaide had seen new dads cuddling babies. But nothing had ever affected her the way the sight of Wyatt, so tenderly cradling their son, did.
Aware she was near tears that if started would not stop, she turned away. She went into the bathroom, grabbed the lone towel off the rack and returned just as Wyatt was easing Jake into his crib. Her son slept on, looking incredibly peaceful and unscathed.
Wyatt, on the other hand, was a mess.
He looked like he’d been hit by a massive eruption of spoiled milk. He had a little bit in the edges of his hair, along his nape. He smelled even worse. She handed over the towel and another damp washcloth. He dabbed ineffectually, smearing spit-up into the terry cloth rather than removing it from his shirt.
She knew exactly how he felt. “I don’t suppose you have any clean clothes in your pickup truck.”
He shook his head regretfully.
Adelaide winced. She had nothing that would fit, and even worse, the smell of the sour milk was clearly making them both feel ill. “Experience has taught me the best way to clean up is just get in the shower. If you want to do that and toss the clothes out to me, I’ll put them in the wash. An hour and fifteen minutes—you’ll be good as new.”
For a second, she thought he would argue.
A deep breath had him wincing in disgust and simply saying a gruff, “Thanks.” He disappeared into the hall bath.
Twenty seconds later, the door eased open. The clothes, soiled towel and washcloth were handed out. Adelaide took them and disappeared down the stairs.
Luckily, the denim shirt, jeans, black boxer briefs and heavy wool socks could all go in one load. The snowy-white T-shirt and towel would have to go in another. Trying hard not to breathe in the stench, she pretreated the stains, added a detergent that was formulated for baby laundry and switched on the machine. Then she went to thoroughly wash her hands.
Wondering what she was going to give Wyatt to wear, which was maybe something she should have figured out before she had him strip down to nothing, Adelaide started back up the stairs.
Then went back down to get a fleece-lined navy lap blanket from the back of her sofa.
Halfway to the second floor of her cottage she realized two things. First, the shower had stopped. And second, in her urgency to get the river of baby vomit off him, she had neglected to give Wyatt something even more important.
A towel.
She hurried all the faster, reaching the upstairs hall and rounding the corner. Wyatt, never one to stand around waiting to be rescued, had quietly begun his own search for the linen closet. Never mind he was dripping wet and smelling of her lavender shampoo, from head to toe, his only clothing a pale pink washcloth that had already been in the shower, held like a fig leaf over his privates.
The ridiculousness of the scene, the sheer unpredictability of their situation, coupled with the sight of all those sleek, satiny muscles beneath the whorls of hair covering his tall body, had her catching her breath.
Memories flashed.
Laughter bubbled up in her chest.
He grinned, too—sheepishly now. But blissfully, kept his hand, and the washcloth, modestly in place.
That, too, hit her, hard.
The laughter came out.
Wilder now.
Uncontrollable.
Then, just as swiftly, turned into loud, wrenching sobs.
The kind that could wake her babies.
Tears streaming down her face, hand pressed against her mouth, smothering the increasingly hysterical sounds, Adelaide stumbled into the master bedroom.
The next thing she knew Wyatt’s hands were on her shoulders. Warm. Soothing. He was spinning her around, pulling her close, wrapping his arms around her, holding her tight. And still she cried, and laughed, and cried some more. Her emotions spinning as out of control as her life.
She lifted her head, opened her mouth to jerk in a breath. And then his lips were on hers, drawing her in, and she was as lost in him as she had ever been.
His emotions just as out of control as Adelaide’s, Wyatt folded the woman who had once been so much a part of his life, even closer. She was soft and vulnerable, feisty and sweet, and when it came to any sort of reconstituted relationship between them, stubbornly resistant as all get out. Yet when he held her in his arms, kissed her with such fierce abandon, she was all yearning, malleable woman. And right now he wanted her that way.
Not laughing and crying as if her world were splintering apart. Not angry and confused at the unexpected twist their lives had taken. And definitely not as furious as he had been since the last time they’d spent a night together, just under a year ago. When she had finally gotten the courage to make love with him. And then left him again anyway.
He didn’t ever want her to feel as gut-punched as he had, when he had discovered she had chosen to have a baby with an anonymous donor rather than risk having a family with him.
Only to find out what he had wanted all along had come true anyway.
The undeniable fact was that after all this time he still wanted her, wanted this. Wanted the chances they’d never had. Most of all, he wanted to take advantage of the gifts they had been given. The kids. And through them, another chance, this time to get it right...
He’d half expected her to offer some resistance, even if it was only token. He ran a hand down her spine, pressing his hardness into the softness of her body.
She moaned at the onslaught of pleasure engulfing them both. Lifting his mouth from hers, he strung kisses along her jaw, her nape, the open vee of her blouse.
Lifting her arms to wreathe his shoulders, she pressed against him and kissed him back with a wildness beyond his most erotic dreams. Went up on tiptoe, her hands sliding down his spine, lower, lower still.
His body throbbing, he felt her end the kiss and then watched her step back. Damn if she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Pink cheeks still wet with tears, dark eyes glowing, she sucked in an impatient breath and shimmied her skirt down her thighs. Toed off her suede flats and stripped off her tights.
He caught her hand before she could remove her blouse, undo the clasp of her bra. “Let me.”
Her breath stalled. Holding her arms akimbo, she said softly, her eyes still holding his. “If you insist...”
Oh, he insisted all right.
Her blouse went the way of her skirt, and her skin felt soft and silky beneath his fingers.
Whole body thrumming with need, he undid the clasp and eased her ivory bra down her arms. Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, taut and round, the nipples rosy and erect. She wore matching panties that were slung low across her hips.
He hooked his thumbs into either side of them and tugged them down. Past the damp curls, her sleek thighs, past her knees. She gasped as he lowered her to the edge of the bed, parted her knees with his hands and buried his face in her sweet warm softness.
“Wyatt...” She caught his head in her hands, quivering now.
“Shhh.” He found his way to the feminine heart of her. “Busy here.”
She laughed softly. Shakily, as if on the verge of a new flood of tears.
Determined to help her find the release she sought, he dropped butterfly kisses, slow and deliberate.
She shuddered again but did not resist as he ran his thumb along the feminine seam, coaxing her to let all her worries, all her inhibitions float away, to open for him even more. She whimpered low in her throat and gave him full rein. He suckled the silky nub and stroked inside her, fluttering his tongue, until she caught his head in her hands and let her thighs fall even farther apart.
She quivered as he cupped her bottom with both hands, lifted her farther back on the mussed sheets of her bed. Pausing only long enough to grab the condom he carried in his wallet, he covered her and penetrated her slowly. She closed around him like a wet, hot sheath, her entire body shivering with need.
Feeling a little like the conqueror who had just captured the fair maiden of his dreams, he kissed her again, slowly tenderly, even as she draped her arms and legs around him and arched up to meet him. Her response, as true and unashamed as he always hoped it would be, he plunged and withdrew, aware of every soft whimper of desire, every wish, every need.
Until there was no more holding back for either of them.
She came apart in his hands. He free-fell right after her. Together they spiraled into ecstasy, and then slowly, breathlessly returned to the most magnificent peace Wyatt had ever known.
For long moments they held each other tightly, still shuddering, breathing hard. Loving the warmth and softness of her, he rolled so he was on his back. Stroking one hand through her hair, he held her nearer still.
Finally she lifted her head, and her hand came to rest in the region of his heart, even as a wry smile curved her kiss-swollen lips.
“So,” she whispered with unexpected playfulness. Ready to do what she always did, which was downplay the import and strength of their connection. “Is this part of our conscious uncoupling, too?”