Texas Lullaby (Texas Montgomery Mavericks Book 7) (4 page)

Ellery’s bottom lip quivered. “No, you didn’t,” she screamed. “I want my mommy.”

Lydia dropped to one knee. “Come here, Elle.” She pulled the crying child into her arms. “I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”

The little girl’s tears were like acid dripping directly onto Lydia’s heart.

“Hey,” Jason said from the doorway. “What’s going on back here?”

Ellery shoved out of Lydia’s arms and ran to Jason. Wrapping her arms around his knees, she said, “I wanna go home. I want my mommy.”

Lydia looked up into Jason’s eyes and then shut hers with a slow shake of her head.
This is too hard, Meredith. Why did you leave us?

Pushing herself to her feet, Lydia pressed her lips into a semblance of a smile. “Hey, you. I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”

Jason walked toward her, Ellery riding on his leg with each step. “Got done early. Thought I’d see how it was going.” He dropped his gaze down to Ellery and back up. “Where’s Annie?”

“Oh, crap. I don’t know. Elle, where’s Annie?”

“With Jasper.”

“And where’s Jasper?” Lydia asked.

“In the front yard.”

Her heart momentarily stopped. The front yard? The unfenced, open-to-the-street front yard?

“Shit.”

“That’s a naughty word,” Ellery announced. “You can’t say that.”

“Did you come in the front door?” Lydia asked as she hurried past Jason and Ellery. “Did you see them?”

“I did, and I didn’t see them anywhere.”

Holy hell. She hadn’t had her sister’s children for a week and she’d already lost one.

Lydia raced out the front door calling Annie’s name. The small yard was empty. “Maybe we should call the police,” she said.

Jason picked up Ellery and sat her in a rocking chair on the porch. “Do not move,” he said and followed Lydia down the steps. “No police yet. Let’s look for a minute.”

They walked around to the corners of the house calling Annie and Jasper, all the while keeping an eye on Ellery, who hadn’t moved from the chair.

“Have you been in the backyard yet?” Jason asked.

“No. Ellery said the front yard.”

“Little girls can get confused.”

“Maybe.” She bounded up the steps. “Stay with Elle. I’ll go look.”

She ran through her house like she was moving with weights tied to her ankles. Her heart slammed against her chest. Her lungs didn’t want to inflate. In the kitchen, she slid to a stop at the backdoor and jerked it open.

“Annie? Jasper?”

A
woof
came from the back corner of her yard. She raced out and through the fresh spring grass. In the far corner, Annie was curled up asleep, the big dog sitting beside her.

“Good boy,” she whispered to Jasper, stroking down his back. Tears of relief trickled down her face. “Good boy.”

She carried the sleeping child into the house.

“Where was she?” Jason asked. He and Ellery were standing in the kitchen.

“Backyard, not front. I’m going to let her sleep for now. I can always reheat the soup later.”

“Ms. Ellery and I will set the table for dinner, okay?”

Ellery nodded.

Lydia got Annie settled in her bed, sans shoes and dirty socks, but she elected to ignore the girl’s clothes for now. She pulled the sheet over Annie’s tiny body and whispered a prayer of thanks.

When she returned to the kitchen, she stood in the doorway observing the scene in front of her. Ellery stood on a chair beside Jason, who’d relit the burner and was stirring the pot of homemade chicken noodle soup.

“And so,” he was saying, “we never ever touch this stove without an adult being with you, okay? We wouldn’t want anything to ever happen to you.”

“Like what happened to Mommy and Daddy?”

Lydia’s heart cracked.

“Well, not like that,” Jason said. “But this fire can hurt you, and you’re too special a little girl for us to let anything bad ever happen to you.”

“Okay.”

“So tell me again. What are you not supposed to do?”

“Touch the stove.”

“That’s right. You hungry?”

Ellery nodded.

“Okay. Hop down and scoot the chair back to the table.” He turned around with the saucepan in his hand and noticed Lydia. “Hey, beautiful.” He lifted the pot higher. “I’ve got soup.”

“I’m starved,” she said. “You too, Elle?”

“Yes. I’m starved.”

Jason ladled soup into three bowls, two large and one small, while Lydia loaded the cheese bread onto a plate and into the microwave to heat.

After dinner, Ellery wanted Jason to give her a bath and then read her a story, which was fine with Lydia. She still had to feed Levi and bathe him. Annie woke up before Lydia had finished feeding Levi and wanted her dinner right then. Lydia gave Levi a cracker to bang on his high chair while she put some soup in a bowl. She set a couple of pieces of cheese toast beside it.

Annie was generally a good-humored child. Most of the times when she acted out, she was following Ellery’s lead. Now, she climbed onto a chair and ate her soup while Lydia finished feeding Levi a mixture of peas and carrots, some pureed fruit and pureed turkey. He’d already drunk four ounces of formula before dinner. At this rate, the kid would be eating her out of house and home by the time he was three.

“You done eating?” she said to Annie, who nodded.

“You want to take a bath with Levi tonight?”

Annie nodded.

Thank goodness.

Annie joined Ellery, who was already in the tub under Jason’s supervision. When she set Levi in the tub with his sisters, he promptly peed, which set the girls into fits of giggles. Jason’s expression made her start laughing.

“It’s okay, big guy,” she said to Levi. “Everybody pees, isn’t that right, Uncle Jason?”

“Yeah, but not in my bathwater.”

The girls thought that was funny too.

Lydia opened the drain and ran a supply of fresh water into the tub. It didn’t take long since there hadn’t been much to start with.

Levi loved the water and gurgled and splashed with joy.

Ellery and Annie played with a couple of boats and fish she’d picked up at their house. They dunked the boats and made the fish swim in the water.

Lydia blew out a long breath. Jason’s large hand covered the area between her shoulder blades, the comfortable touch making her want to be absorbed into the warmth. Her sister would miss all this. She would never see her babies grow to school age children and then teens––heaven help her––and finally adulthood. It was so unfair.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he whispered into her ear.

She ventured a quick glance away from the kids over her shoulder into the eyes of the man she loved so much. “What’s that?”

“That you can’t wait to get me alone.”

She chuckled and turned her gaze back on the children. “Yeah. How did you know?”

He kissed her neck. “A man just knows these things.”

And that made her laugh.

Chapter Four

As the weeks passed, Lydia struggled to get a grasp on her time-management skills, and as soon as she had, or thought she had, one of the kids would do something that would throw a monkey wrench into the schedule.

She’d quickly discovered there was no way for her to return to work yet. The children were too fragile to be left with strangers, when in reality, she was little more than a stranger to them too.

Many nights, Jason came over to help with dinner and bedtime. By the time dinner, playtime, baths and storytelling were done and all three children were in bed, Lydia wanted nothing more than to climb between the sheets herself. The idea of sex was the furthest thing from her mind. She could probably lie there while Jason did all the work, but there was no way to work up any enthusiasm for participation on her part. He swore he didn’t mind, but he’d joked––or claimed he was joking––that this was why he hadn’t wanted children.

She was on her third week of trying to learn how to juggle all the balls, such as folding clean clothes during the twins’ thirty-minute nap, when her cell chimed. Stretching across the mound of clothes, she looked at the caller id. A lifesaver. Caroline Graham-Montgomery. A real adult to talk to.

“Hi, Caroline.”

“How are you doing?” her partner asked. “How are the children?”

“We’re all hanging tough for now. This is going to be an adjustment for all of us.”

“Ellery and Annie are only about a year ahead of Austin and Britney. I can imagine what you’re going through. Obstinate, bossy and whiney, and at the same time, so cute you think your heart is going to bust. Right?”

“Yes. Exactly. Some days I’m pretty sure the girls hate me.” She said that expecting Caroline to offer up some soothing words. Instead, Caroline burst out laughing.

“Yeah, they probably do, or think they do at that exact moment. Don’t worry. They forget pretty quickly.”

“But your kids aren’t like that,” Lydia protested.

That made Caroline snicker noisily. “Wrong. My two are just like that. Britney announced last night that I was mean and she didn’t like me anymore. She only loved her daddy. And then she climbed into his lap.”

“That’s horrible,” Lydia said with a gasp. “What did Travis say?”

“He told her that if she wanted cowgirl boots, she’d better be nice to her mother because he had no intention of going shopping.”

Lydia chuckled. “And?”

“And Miss Priss decided I wasn’t the horrible ogre she said I was. But she still marched out of the kitchen and went to her bedroom to play.”

“Did you follow her?”

“Shoot, no. If I give in to her threats and blackmail at this age, I can only imagine what a horrible teen she’ll grow in to. I know Travis and I can afford to give our kids anything they want, but that’s not going to happen. They can’t act in any fashion they please. I know they’re only two, but I think consistency is the key to raising them right, or that’s what Travis and I have decided. I’m not trying to tell you what to do with yours. Not at all.”

“Slow down, Caroline. I’d appreciate any advice you have to share. I mean, we both went through the same human growth and development classes and learned all the theories about raising children, but holy moly, theory and practice are so different, you know?”

Caroline laughed. “I do. To change the subject, have you and Jason talked about resetting your wedding date?”

The idea of taking on a wedding right now was more than Lydia could handle. Plus, her life was so different than the last time Jason had asked her to marry him. She wasn’t so carefree and unencumbered now. She was carrying the exact baggage Jason didn’t want.

“Nope. No discussions. Right now, I can’t even think about it.”

“I totally get it. I remember bringing the twins home. I’m glad Travis was here to help. Don’t hesitate to call if I can do anything.”

“Well, since you asked…”

“Shoot. What do you need?”

“At some point, I need to come back to work. I need to talk to adults. I need to not cut anyone’s food but my own.”

Caroline laughed again. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know how to juggle all my balls. How do you do it all?”

“Are you kidding? I don’t do it all, as you say. I have Travis and Mrs. Webster to help. Jackie comes over the minute I call. In fact, Jackie and Lane have been taking Austin and Britney one weekend a month so Travis and I can be alone.”

Lydia sighed. “Sounds wonderful.”

“Oh, you bet. I get to sleep until eight or nine on Saturday and Sunday.”

Lydia chuckled. “I bet his parents imagine wild weekend sex for you two.”

“Personally, I don’t care what they think we’re doing over here on those weekends. Wild orgies. Sex swings. Who cares? All I know is I don’t have to wipe a butt that isn’t mine for two whole days.”

Lydia howled with laughter and then quieted quickly when she remembered the sleeping kids. “That’s hysterical.”

“What I’m trying to say is that I am in the same boat as you except I have help with rowing. Don’t try to row and steer all by yourself. You have lots of friends who would love to give you a hand. All you have to do is tell us what you need.”

“I guess I need someone to help with the children so I can go back to the office. I haven’t figured out how to take on-call yet, and I hate I’m leaving you in such a lurch there.”

“It’s been quiet, so that hasn’t been a problem. Bringing on Paige as a nurse practitioner was one of the smartest decisions you ever made. I mean, I realize she’s married to my husband’s brother, so I might be a little prejudiced, but she’s smart as a whip and the patients love her. She’s taken night call for me a few times. You know a lot of those after-hour calls are medication refills or medical questions or things that don’t constitute an emergency. We’re covering for you for now, but I admit, I’m looking forward to having you back in the office.”

“You’re lucky to have Mrs. Webster to keep Austin and Britney so you could go back to work.”

“And don’t forget Jackie and Lane for backup.”

“Right. Like I said, you’re a lucky duck. I need a Mrs. Webster in my life.”

“I talked to your parents at the funeral. Have you thought about asking them to move to Texas? It might be a win-win for all of you. Your mom could give you some time off and give you a chance to keep a closer eye on them at the same time.”

“I know and I’ve thought about it. But—”

“But you want to do this without their help.”

“I want to do it without
requiring
their help. Mom would push herself too hard. Dad is still not back to tip-top shape and won’t be for a while. Every time I talk to her, I tell her how great things are going. She’s got enough to worry about without my adding to her plate.”

“So we need to find you a babysitter, right?”

“Daytime, for now, if you and Paige can continue with the night calls.”

“I’ll make some calls and get back to you.”

“Thanks, Caroline. I wasn’t kidding when I told Travis I was so glad he married you for my benefit.”

Her friend laughed.

“I’m hungry.” Ellery stood in the door rubbing her eyes.

“Me too,” Echo Annie said.

Lydia glanced at the clock. Almost four. “I gotta go, Caroline. Thanks again.”

“Don’t forget to call if you need anything. I mean it.”

“Thanks.” Lydia dropped her phone on the pile of unfolded clothes and turned to the girls. “How about I make you some triangle sandwiches?”

Lydia had fond memories of growing up eating sandwiches with Meredith that their mother had cut into shapes. Neither she nor Meredith cared what was between the bread. It had been the various shapes that had drawn them in.

She got the girls set up with their individual plates of tiny peanut butter sandwiches on the floor in front of a movie and went to check on Levi. He was waking up when she entered. When he saw her, his face lit up with a bright smile. Her heart swelled so large she was sure it would explode.

“Hey, Little Man. You’re awake. I bet your college tuition that your diaper is wet or dirty. Want to take that bet?”

He laughed and clapped his hands. It didn’t matter what she said to him. It was all in her tone, and apparently this kid believed her to be the best thing ever. If only the other two did.

And, yes, his college tuition was safe since he knew better than to take her bet. She put on a fresh diaper, shirt and shorts and carried him to the living room where his sisters were both enthralled with
The Little Mermaid
movie running and didn’t notice when Jasper snuck a sandwich triangle off a plate. The dog looked up at her with a goofy open-mouth smile. Oh well, the girls would be hungrier at dinner.

She got one of Levi’s bottles out of the refrigerator and his greedy little hands reached for it. As he pulled the nipple into his mouth, she felt the tug deep in her gut.

Thank you, Meredith, for trusting me with your children. Thank you for showing me what I would have missed if I had married Jason.

* * * * *

Jason hung up the telephone after a long conversation with the Hardys’ probate lawyer. Thankfully, Meredith and Jim had been responsible enough to have wills prepared during Meredith’s pregnancy with Levi.

About two weeks after the funeral, Jason had brought in Lydia’s mail and found a letter from Samuel Wood, Esq. When he’d shown it to her, she’d been standing in the kitchen, Levi hanging off her hip, her hair in a disheveled knot that had begun on the top of her head but was seriously listing over to one side, a streak of what he suspected was Levi’s spit up from breakfast or lunch staining the back of her shirt, and bags under her eyes that could have been mistaken for shipping trunks.

“Do you want me to follow up on this?” he’d asked.

“God, yes,” she’d said. “Please.”

He and the Kansas attorney had played phone tag for a couple of days until they’d finally made an appointment to speak on Saturday, when both of their offices would be quiet. The Hardys had provided well for the children. There were million-dollar life-insurance policies for both of them. At Jim and Meredith’s ages, those had probably been easy to secure. The odds had been in the insurance company’s favor of not having to pay those. Now, that two million would certainly help with the expense of raising the children and paying for any college they wanted to attend.

Lydia had been appointed as executor of the estate as well as guardian for any minor children, meaning Ellery, Annie and Levi. The Hardys had another couple who’d agreed to raise the children in the event Lydia couldn’t. He suspected she wasn’t aware of that. He made a note to send a private investigator to check out this other couple before he mentioned them to Lydia. Depending on the PI’s report, they may or may not be a viable option for Lydia to consider.

Their house in Wichita was in an up and coming neighborhood where sales were quick. The house had a mortgage, but if the information Wood had provided was accurate––and Jason had no reason to think otherwise––the house should sell for more than the outstanding balance, depositing another nice nest egg into the children’s account.

There was a stipulation that Lydia could have anything from the house and a request that Meredith’s wedding rings be held for the children, should any of them want them.

Wood had done an excellent job with the will. Jason could find nothing that’d been forgotten or mishandled. The next step was to empty the house and get it ready to sell, unless Lydia had other plans for it. He couldn’t imagine that she would want to move to Wichita and live in it. That seemed far-fetched. Selling it would be the logical step.

However, since the children had come to live with her, she’d changed. She wasn’t nearly as predictable as she’d been, not that he was complaining, because he wasn’t. It was just that she’d always been the consummate professional. He’d never seen her as the nurturing sort, but this new role of mother to three orphans had opened up a new side to her, a maternal element he hadn’t realized existed in her.

He also realized, even if she hadn’t yet, that she needed help. He’d been looking for an opening to broach that subject with her, but so far, it hadn’t happened. She hadn’t had a minute away from the children since she’d taken them in. And that needed to change also.

He placed a few calls and put some plans into action. Then he stood and pulled his keys from his pocket. Today, he would have to make an opening for that discussion.

The first thing he noticed when he pulled into her drive was that grass had begun growing and needed to be cut. The weeds in her flower beds seemed to have sprung up overnight. He looked down at his khaki shorts and nice polo shirt. He was not dressed for yard work. Maybe tomorrow.

The sound of a children’s movie seeped through the door. He smiled and knocked.

“I’ll get it,” a little voice said.

“Don’t open that door,” Lydia yelled. “That’s dangerous.”

The door flew open and Ellery and Annie stood there. “Uncle Jason,” they both cried.

“I told you not to open the door,” Lydia said, marching up behind them.

“But it’s Uncle Jason,” Ellery explained.

“But you didn’t know that, did you?”

Ellery’s face took on a stubborn expression before she held up her arms for Jason to pick her up. Annie did the same. He lifted both girls into his arms, one on each side of his body. Jasper had followed the family to the door and was now on the porch butting Jason for a scratch.

“Good afternoon, princesses. Have you both been good today?”

Both girls nodded in the affirmative.

“Actually, we’ve had a nice day,” Lydia said. “Come on in. Jasper, come on.”

The dog wandered into the front yard and lifted his leg on the only tree out there. As soon as Lydia called his name again, he bounded up the stairs and into the house.

Jason carried both girls into the living room and set them back on their feet. There were two spotlessly clean plates on the floor.

“Looks like I missed snack time.”

Ellery and Annie looked at their plates and then Ellery narrowed her eyes at Jasper. “Jasper ate my sandwich.”

“Mine too,” Annie said.