Sweet Surrender with the Millionaire (16 page)

W
ILLOW
didn’t get her wedding-night baby, but exactly twelve months to the day they married, on a snowy Christmas Eve, their twin daughters made their appearance into the world.

Willow and Morgan hadn’t planned on a home birth—with it being twins and a first pregnancy they’d been advised a hospital confinement would be advisable—but the speed of the labour took everyone, including Willow, by surprise. Morgan ended up delivering the babies with Beth’s help as Beth, Peter and little David had been spending the day with them.

By the time the midwife reached the house after Morgan’s frantic telephone call, it was all over. Holly and Ivy were tucked up in bed with their mother having their first feed, the strains of the carol that featured their names filtering up from the kitchen below where an ecstatic Kitty was making everyone a cup of tea.

‘Goodness me.’ The midwife’s face was a picture as she stood surveying the happy scene. ‘And you say you only had your first pain a couple of hours ago? This isn’t how it’s normally done, believe me.’

‘Oh, I do,’ Beth said in heartfelt tones.

Morgan, who was sitting on the edge of the bed with his arm round Willow and one hand stroking the downy head of one of his daughters, smiled. ‘We’ve something of a reputation for doing things our own way,’ he murmured lazily. ‘Isn’t that right, sweetheart?’

Willow smiled back. He might have reverted to the cool, slightly laconic Morgan he liked to show the world, but a little while ago he’d been beside himself. It had certainly been a baptism of fire into parenthood. She’d had mild backache for the last twenty-four hours and had been slightly uncomfortable after lunch, but none of them had dreamed she was in labour. And now they had two daughters. She glanced down at the babies nestled against her and then looked at Morgan. The blue eyes were waiting for her and their expression touched her to the core.

Sometimes in the night he would reach for her to hold her close, not necessarily to make love but just to enfold her into him and feel her breathing and warm against him. She knew she was his world and every day she thanked God for what they had. And now they were parents and their love, like the amoeba, would metamorphose to embrace their family. And they had plans for the future, plans as yet they hadn’t shared with anyone else.

This house was so big and the grounds were wonderful, and although they wanted another child of their own in the future they had discussed adopting a couple—perhaps even more—of older children who had been placed in social care through no fault of their own. Children with health problems maybe, or who were disabled in some
way—children no one else wanted to adopt because it might be too much of a headache.

Morgan remembered so well how he had wanted a family and a home of his own when he had been growing up, how desperately he had tried to make his relatives love and keep him, how he had felt when eventually he had been moved on to the next place. And eventually he had stopped hoping or believing that anyone would ever want him, hiding behind toughness and autonomy and taking the world by the throat.

They had talked through the painful memories together, slowly bringing into the light the recollection of cold dark nights when a little boy had been curled up in a strange bed yet again, or standing apart from the family he happened to be with watching other children receiving gifts or sweets or a hug, and knowing there was none for him.

Their family would
be
a family, they were united on this, and their children would be loved and cared for regardless of whether they were theirs biologically or not. Kitty and Jim would be perfect grandparents and right on tap to help too, because they didn’t fool themselves things would always be easy or plain sailing. Not where damaged little people were concerned. But love could move mountains and break down the most carefully constructed barricades; it had smashed those around Morgan’s heart, hadn’t it? Her own too.

The babies had stopped suckling, and as Beth helped the midwife check them over in their little individual Moses baskets Willow reached up and touched Morgan’s cheek. ‘I love you so much,’ she whispered. ‘And I’m so blissfully happy.’

He brought her fingers to his lips, kissing each one. ‘I love you too. Thank you for our beautiful daughters.’

‘Pretty personalised Christmas gift, don’t you think?’

He smiled quizzically. ‘What are you going to do for next year? How on earth are you going to top this?’

She dimpled up at him, and as Kitty walked in with a tray whispered, ‘I’ll think of something.’

‘Now that, my love, I don’t doubt…’