Czytaj książkę: «Babies By The Busload»

One

Jack Remington was floating just on the edge of sleep. Light was coming in through the slats in the blinds. Morning. Time for the madness to begin again. He listened, but the only sound came from the black cat curled at the foot of his bed, purring like a small and very loud generator.

Slowly he forced his eyes to open and listened a little harder. Nope, no sign of the babies. They were either still asleep, which was highly unusual, or they’d knotted together sheets and escaped out their window in the dead of night. Since they were only eleven months old, it seemed a long shot.

“And yet, one can always hope,” he muttered to himself groggily, but he grimaced as he said the words, knowing he didn’t mean them.

His dark gaze traveled around the room and lingered for a reluctant moment on the picture sitting atop the chest of drawers across the room and he frowned, repressing the twinge of pain that always cut deep when he remembered his wife. Every time it happened, he vowed to put that picture away in a drawer somewhere. But somehow he couldn’t do it. Not yet.

For some reason that made him think of his new neighbor. Quite a contrast to his elegant Phoebe was Miss J. J. Jensen, with her neon string bikini and her hair plastered over her face. He grinned, thinking of the way she’d splashed about in the hot tub the day before. He had to admit she’d been a fetching sight. Nice breasts, from what he could see amid all that splashing—the sort of body that made a man think twice about this celibacy kick he’d been on for so long.

“Daddy?”

Annie was in the bedroom doorway that he always left open so as to hear every sound from the babies’ room. She peered at her father around two small fists that were rubbing the sand from her eyes.

“Daddy, the babies are still sleeping,” she whispered in a tone that could have jerked Rip van Winkle out of a sound sleep.

Propping up on one elbow, he put a finger to his lips to quiet her and then gave her a daddy-sized grin. She was the best antidote he knew of for stray thoughts about attractive women. When in doubt, he could always count on his little Annie to bring him back down to earth and remind him of what was important in his life.

“What do we always say, Annie-kins?” he asked.

She furled her young brow and thought hard. “Let sleeping babies lie?” she guessed correctly, her brown eyes huge.

He nodded, pleased with her, as always. Five years old and going on middle age, she had a natural wisdom that often stunned him.

“Come here and give me my morning bear hug, you little rascal,” he demanded tenderly, and she flew across the hardwood floor, her white nightgown billowing around her, her blond curls bouncing, and threw her arms around his neck, squeezing hard and giving him a pretend growl.

He laughed as she let go, giggling. “Best bear hug yet, Annie,” he told her. “You nearly took my head off.”

She smiled happily and turned to dash off again, but not before stopping to shake her finger at the dozing cat.

“Gregor, you are making a very big noise,” she whispered loudly to the startled animal. “Shh, you’ll wake up the babies.”

Gregor stretched out his front legs and yawned, and Annie went on her way. Jack chuckled, enjoying the sunny domestic scene, but his smile faded as his thoughts grew darker. This situation wasn’t really fair to Annie, and he was going to have to think about ways to remedy it. They were an odd little family, he and the triplets and five-year-old Annie. And then there was Marguerite.

Annie’s little feet made a pattern on the hallway floor as she returned, her eyes wider than ever. “Daddy, Marguerite is already up,” she announced breathlessly. “She’s cooking something.”

“Uh-oh.” Jack groaned. “What is it? Could you tell?”

Annie made a face. “I think it’s pancakes.”

“Oh.” He brightened. “Great. Her pancakes aren’t halfbad.”

Annie frowned, looking worried. “But Daddy…what if she puts those little blue balls in?”

He blinked at her. “Blueberries? They’re great.”

Her lip curled dramatically. “They’re yucky.”

He laughed shortly. “Don’t you tell her that. Remember, we love Marguerite’s cooking, no matter what. You got it?”

She nodded reluctantly. “I got it,” she echoed, her voice as sad as her eyes.

He sighed and lay back against the pillow for one last moment, his arms behind his head. Marguerite was in the kitchen. Now he was going to have to get up. What did you call it when the hired help made almost as many problems as she solved? A dilemma, at the very least.

He glanced down at his daughter. “Okay, I’m getting up. You go get dressed and we’ll meet in the kitchen, okay? And whatever it is that Marguerite’s cooking, we’re going to love it. Right?”

Annie made a face, her teeth on edge, and dashed off toward her own room to change. Jack willed his body to rise, and surprisingly, it did as he asked, but it creaked along the way.

“Getting to be an old man at thirty-five,” be muttered as he made his way to the shower. “Raising babies saps the strength right out of you.”

As if on cue, the first sounds from the babies’ room came wafting in through the doorway, and he hesitated, then opted for a quick shower before going to them. And quick it was. He barely lasted long enough for the drops to hit his skin before he was back out, toweling down and hurrying to reach the babies. For just a moment he had fleeting thoughts of the old days when he’d luxuriated in a warm shower, letting the stinging drops hit him for minutes at a time. Those days were gone. Now it was slapdash and make it faster. The babies called.

For just a moment, the image of his new neighbor spun into view again. She’d seemed to have plenty of time to wallow in her hot tub. He remembered when he’d been young like that, with every possible path still in front of him, and for a brief moment, he envied her.

But he quickly shoved the thought away. He couldn’t let stray impulses cloud his horizon. He’d made a commitment to these kids and he was going to keep it, even if everyone on earth seemed to think he was nuts.

“Give a couple of them up for adoption,” someone had actually suggested. “You can’t possibly take care of all four at once by yourself.”

“Send them home to your mother” was another refrain he often heard.

“Don’t they have child-care professionals who can come in and take over running the house and raising the kids so you won’t have to?” said another helpful soul.

He’d reacted to every such comment with good-natured humor on the outside, and outraged horror on the inside. These were his kids. They’d already lost a mother. There was no way they were going to have to be raised without a father—a one hundred percent, there-for-you-whenever-youneed-him father.

So, despite the attractions living right next door, there would be no lusting after beautiful neighbors. Indulging himself in that sort of thing would bring disaster, and he wasn’t going to do it, not even for a moment.

But the time for thought evaporated as his day began at its usual frantic pace. Marguerite’s voice was calling him, and so were the voices from the next room.

“Mister? Mister?” Marguerite shouted from the kitchen. “I got you food ready. It gonna get cold!”

He hopped on one foot as he wrestled with his slacks. “You’ll have to keep it warm for me, Marguerite,” he called. “The babies are awake.”

The banging of pans was her only answer, and he winced, but he went in to see his little ones. Three cribs lined one wall, three mobiles hung over them and three little children were each standing up and leaning on the railings, little fingers curled around the edge.

Three. It always gave him a beat of panic when he saw them like this, their sweet round faces gazing at him eagerly. They wanted so much, needed so much. How could anyone possibly minister to three at once? It was impossible. But somehow, he had to try.

He got to work quickly, swinging up the first baby and heading for the changing table. Annie arrived, dressed in jeans and a little red shirt, and pitched in as she always did. Jack spoke softly to each baby as he cleaned and changed and dressed him or her. Luckily they were usually good-natured in the morning, cooing and laughing while Annie amused them. Still, it was half an hour later before they were through. He hurried out to the kitchen with one baby under each arm, while Annie lugged the third one.

All seemed quiet on the cooking front. Marguerite was nowhere to be seen, but two plates of cold pancakes sat at nicely set places at the table, and three dishes of congealed oatmeal sat on the counter. Jack took in the situation at a glance and, knowing his hired help, plunked his two babies down in walkers and motioned for Annie to do the same with hers. He knew the babies were hungry, but they would have to wait. There were times when a man had to do what a man had to do.

“Sit down, quick,” he whispered to Annie. “We’ll eat and then feed the little ones.”

The babies had no problem with the order of things. They were gurgling with laughter and careening together in their walkers like little round bumper cars. Meanwhile, Jack poured syrup over his pancakes and said very loudly, “Wow, these are really good. Marguerite sure knows how to fix a good breakfast, doesn’t she, Annie?”

Annie sat on the edge of her chair and stared down at the plate before her. There were blueberries in the pancakes.

Jack saw her look and gave her an encouraging smile. “All together now,” he urged under his breath. “We love it!” he said aloud. “Don’t we, Annie?”

Annie mouthed the words but her heart wasn’t in it and rebellion brewed in her brown eyes. Still she managed to put a bite into her mouth by the time Marguerite reappeared, looking at them suspiciously, her green eyes darting a glance from one plate to another. Her blond hair was a little wild this morning and her thick, shapeless body was rendered even more lumplike by the plain housedress she wore. A woman of middle years, she had seemingly lost all interest in looking attractive.

“Marguerite, these are the best pancakes you’ve made yet,” Jack lied, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the babies attacking each other with the walkers. “Delicious.”

Marguerite’s face began to relax. “You really like?” she asked hopefully.

Jack nodded. “Great stuff,” he said with his mouth full.

Marguerite smiled. “Okay. I warm up this oatmeal for the babies, okay? Then I help you feed them.”

Jack felt the tension in his shoulders let go just a little bit. She wasn’t going to quit this morning at any rate.

“That would be wonderful,” he said with real conviction. He took another huge bite of the cold pancakes and she smiled more happily, dusting her hands against her white apron.

“Okay,” she said again, bustling about the stove. “Okay.”

Jack glanced at Annie. She was still chewing on her original bite, her face filled with tragedy. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but before he got the words out, one of the baby walkers crashed into another a little too hard and both babies began to shriek. He jumped up to take care of things, but something inside was beginning to feel the same rebellion he’d seen in Annie’s eyes. There was a part of him that would have jumped at the chance to run off with. say, the nicely proportioned neighbor he’d met the day before in her hot tub. Run off with her to some nice warm beach in the tropics and laze the day away.

But that wasn’t going to happen. He pulled his baby up into his arms and sighed, cuddling and comforting. No, that wasn’t going to happen for a long time. Maybe for eighteen years or so, the way things were going.