A couple of hours later, Hayley had just finished clearing the big farmhouse table from lunch when two little girls blasted in from outside. They were all blond braids, blue eyes, and smiles, and if Hayley wasn’t mistaken, they were twins. Her throat felt tight as she realized they were just about the same age as Izzy’d been the last morning she’d seen her.
The girls stopped short when they saw her, tripping into each other and giggling. The one on the left elbowed her sister. “You ask her.”
The one on the right elbowed back. “No. You ask her.”
Hayley took a deep breath, then smiled and crouched down to their level.
Who were these little imps?
“Do you two have an important question?”
Both of them nodded, and Hayley was struck by how clearly they mirrored each other. She was also struck by the fact that each of them had no less than five stuffed animals crammed into their arms.
“Okay, I’m all ears. What’s your question?”
The twin on the left plucked a fluffy white stuffed kitten out of her arms and said, “Are you a vet?”
“I am, actually. Do you have a sick kitty?”
“Yes.” Her eyes were very solemn. “She has a tummy ache.”
“Uh-oh. Would you like me to check her out?”
She nodded quickly and handed the cat to Hayley. “Her name’s Snowball.”
Hayley gently pretended to examine the stuffed animal. “That is a perfect name for a white kitty. What’s your name?”
“Gracie.”
“Well, hi, Gracie. I’m Hayley.”
“We know.” Gracie smiled and pulled her sister forward. “This is Bryn. Her stuffies are sick, too.”
Hayley looked at the armload of fluff Bryn carried. “All of them?”
Another solemn nod.
“Oh, boy. Sounds like a case of the stuffie plague. This might call for an animal hospital.”
The girls looked at each other, eyes happy and wide.
Hayley felt a stab in her chest, remembering how she and Celia and Izzy had spent hours bandaging up their stuffed animals long ago. “Do you two have a little free time? Should we set one up?”
Both girls nodded gleefully, then followed Hayley to the kitchen, where they gathered dish towels and tissues and tape. “Hi, Ma!” they chorused as they scooted through her legs.
From the sink, Ma raised her eyebrows at Hayley. “You okay with them?”
“Sure, as long as it’s okay that they’re in here. Are they supposed to be anywhere else?”
Ma was silent for a second, then smiled. “Looks like they’re in just the right place.” She nodded her head toward the fridge. “Girls, there’s some ginger ale on the bottom shelf if you think it will help. Just taste it first to make sure it’s okay to give the animals.”
Gracie giggled. “Stuffies can’t drink ginger ale!”
“Well, then, I guess you’d better drink it yourself. Maybe with a pink cupcake?”
Bryn peered up over the countertop at Hayley’s sparkling cupcakes, then pulled down the biggest ones she could find on the tray. “Gracie! Look! Fairy cupcakes!”
As they bit into the birthday cupcakes, getting pink frosting on their noses, Hayley laughed. Thankful for another diversion to help the day pass, she motioned them back toward the great room. “Come on, you two. Let’s fix up these animals.”
Daniel crossed the wide front porch of the main lodge, stopping to peer in the screened window when he heard happy voices inside. Two of them belonged to Gracie and Bryn, but the third was decidedly a woman. One with red hair and gorgeous blue-green eyes, if he wasn’t mistaken.
Not that he’d been hoping to run into her this morning or anything. And not that he’d managed to find an excuse to stop by Whisper Creek when he didn’t really need to. You just never knew with colic, and as a responsible veterinarian, he’d needed to check once more on Apollo to make sure he was truly fine today.
Sure, Cole and Decker were capable of doing the same thing, but they were busy with the wedding and all. Yes, that’s why he was here, right?
It had nothing to do with Hayley.
And there she was, sitting on the floor of the great room, a collection of stuffed animals spread out around her on dish-towels. It looked like an epidemic of broken limbs had overtaken the girls’ toys, given the reams of tissue and tape wound around most of their legs—and a couple of heads.
He smiled as he remembered picking up the backpack from the door handle this morning, finding it chock-full of stuffed animals instead of snacks. “We just feel like bringing them today,” Gracie had claimed.
“Mm-hm,” Bryn had agreed. “Maybe in case we see Hayley.”
He’d startled at the mention of her name. “Hayley?”
How did they know about her?
Gracie had scowled. “She’s Kyla’s best friend, silly. She’s in the wedding, too. Kyla told us all about her. She said she’s a kitty vet.”
“And dogs,” Bryn had added. “But just small ones. So we brought some.”
“Because they’re sick.” Gracie had nodded.
“All right,” he’d sighed, not at all sure whether Hayley was ready to be bombarded by two animal-crazy seven-year-olds. He didn’t even know whether she liked kids, though Kyla must have told her about his girls. “You can bring them, but if Hayley’s busy, we’re going to leave her alone, okay?”
They’d nodded in happy agreement, but when he’d stopped the truck in the Whisper Creek yard, they’d both jumped out and fled up to the main lodge to find her before he could stop them.
And now they were giggling up a storm, having apparently talked Hayley into a role-playing game where she was a pink puppy. A minute later, a stuffed animal race had them all scrambling, with the girls hopping on one leg while Hayley frog-jumped. But then the three of them leaped forward at the same time, and chaos ensued. First Bryn tripped, then Gracie toppled forward, and as Daniel cringed, his two girls got completely tangled with Hayley and all three of them went crashing to the floor.
Before he could wrangle the door open to be sure they were all right, a fit of giggles erupted from the pig pile. Only this time it wasn’t Gracie or Bryn doing the giggling. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was Hayley.
“So that happened,” her muffled voice came from somewhere under the girls. “And now we’re gonna need some more of those casts.”
As he reached for the door handle to go in and help untangle them, he felt a warm hand on his arm. “I wouldn’t just yet,” Ma smiled. “She’s doing just fine with them.”
“You sure? Sounds like she might need medical care.”
Ma hooked his arm and led him back down the porch stairs toward his truck. “I think Hayley’s getting a big ol’ dose of just the right medicine with those two. She’s fine. You go do what you need to do, and if I think she needs a break, I’ll have the girls help me in the kitchen.”
“But—” Daniel looked back toward the lodge.
“Don’t you have a tux to go pick up in town?”
“I do, but I was planning to take them with me. You have enough going on around here today.”
“We don’t have anything going on here that won’t be better with your two angels around, so off you go. Come back after you get done in town, and I’ll give ’em back to you then.” She raised her eyebrows. “Admit it. This is better than the alternative. If they’re here, they’re not with your mother-in-law, right?”
“Good point.”
“Not for me to judge, but I guess if I was as fired up as she says she is about these grandbabies, I might find more time to be with them while I was visiting, instead of shopping.” She waved him into his truck. “Now, you go. Don’t worry about a thing here.”
On his way into town, Daniel kept shaking his head and smiling, remembering the scene in the lodge. Since Katie’s death, the girls had had a tough time attaching to adults other than him, and yet they’d apparently glommed right onto Hayley like they’d known her forever. Watching her with the girls, he had to admit she had a way with kids.
He wondered whether she wanted her own someday.
Then wondered why he was wondering.
Later that afternoon, Hayley and the girls were in the meadow working on the wedding decorations when Gracie tugged on Hayley’s shirt. “Hayley, can we see your funny dress?”
“My funny dress?” Hayley finished tying a big bow on the last white rental chair in the row. Ma had sent the three of them out with acres of ribbon, a big pair of scissors, and instructions not to return until all of the chairs on the ends of the rows were bedecked.
“For the wedding. Daddy said you had to wear a funny-looking dress.”
Oh, re-eally. News traveled fast around here if even the Whisper Creek guests and their kids knew about her upcoming wardrobe issues.
“Well, Kyla’s having a special kind of wedding because we’re here in the mountains and everything. So she picked a special…mountain kind of dress for her bridesmaids.”
“Can you show us?”
“I would, but it’s all packed in a bag in my cabin so it doesn’t get dirty. I’m not allowed to unzip the bag until tomorrow morning.”
“Who not allowed you?” Bryn’s eyes were wide, like she couldn’t believe an adult had been given such a directive.
“Kyla did, but it’s really okay. I have kind of a bad habit of losing things, so she was trying to help.”
“Do you have to wear a special hat?”
“Thank goodness, no. But maybe I should do my hair in braids on top of my head! What do you think?” Hayley twisted her hair and pulled it up on top of her head, posing like a model.
“Exquisite,” came a deep voice directly behind her. She spun quickly, almost losing her balance as she let her curls flop back around her shoulders.
“Daniel! Hi!” She felt her cheeks blaze. Oh, jeez. “I didn’t see you.”
“Figured that. Thought they’d fired you from crafts?” He grinned, then leaned over to look at Bryn and Gracie. “Hi, girls. You keeping Hayley busy?”
Hayley turned back toward the girls and pointed. “This is Gracie, and this is Bryn. We’re the official chair bow-tiers for the wedding. And yes, I was finally fired from crafts, the fact that I’m carrying scissors notwithstanding.”
“Silly Hayley.” Gracie grinned. “You don’t have to introduce us! This is Daddy!”
Hayley watched as they leaped for him, all of the colors of the meadow spinning into a strange kaleidoscope as their voices went hollow.
Then her voice came out all scratchy and soft.
“Daddy?”