Reunited for the Holidays

“Ain’t that the truth?” Eunice agreed, giving her yarn ball a tug. “I raised my Charlie right along with our four boys. He was always tracking mud in on his shoes, forgetting to pick up his towel, turning up the TV volume until a girl couldn’t think.”

“I would have taken a broom to him,” Marjorie teased, marking her page and closing her inspirational romance novel. “My John doesn’t dare step one toe out of line.”

“Oh, yes, I saw it in his eyes when he visited yesterday.” Belle couldn’t help giving a little sigh. The dear lady’s room was across the hall from hers, and she’d spotted the wizened John arriving with a bouquet of flowers, a stack of new novels, and he’d stayed to share supper with her in the dining room. A sweeter couple never lived. Lifelong love, that had once been her dream, too...and no, she wasn’t going to let her heart flutter at the mention of his name.

“Speaking of guests, I saw Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome leave Belle’s room quite late last night.”

“Is that right?” Eunice gave her yarn another good yank. “So, there seems to be a lot Belle isn’t telling us. Look at her blush.”

“I’m not blushing. It’s the heat. I’m sitting in the direct sun.” Denial was always her first coping choice, along with a quick change of subject. “My children visited again last night, that’s all.”

“We noticed,” Eunice said, crocheting with lightning speed. “How could we not? Those two sets of twins?”

“They’re adorable.” Marjorie smiled, her hand resting on her book. “The girls are both so lovely, such nice, well-behaved young ladies.”

“And those boys, strapping and handsome.” Anna’s needles stilled. “What I can’t figure is how you managed with two sets of twins. One newborn is a handful. Up most of the night between feedings, diapers and colic. How did you handle twins? And twice?”

“It wasn’t easy, especially since I was sixteen at the time.” The confession came quietly, since she wasn’t sure how the older women would take her news. “Brian and I married and had the twin boys. The girls came two years later.”

“Double the blessings, double the hard work,” Eunice sympathized.

“And the stress. Child care is the most demanding work there is,” Marjorie piped in gently. “Four little ones all two years old or younger. I couldn’t have survived it. Stress would have done me in. Just proves you’re one special lady, Belle.”

“You are way too kind.” Belle’s chest knotted up as it always did, thinking of those years. Failure haunted her. She hadn’t been the wife and the mother she’d meant to be.

“Anyone can see you did a wonderful job,” Anna added lovingly.

“You three are the wonderful ones. No wonder we’ve become fast friends.” Belle felt a change in the air and turned toward the doorway where Brian stood. How long he’d been listening in was anyone’s guess.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” Brian tossed them a dazzling smile.

He looked better this morning. A good night’s sleep had done him wonders. He had more color in his face, and the dark circles were gone. The wind had tousled his dark hair, giving him a slightly rakish look, a reminder of the young man she’d fallen irrevocably in love with.

Not that she ever could again, she thought, wishing the other women in the room weren’t giving him a collective sigh of approval. Trying not to imagine what her new friends would be saying next, she spoke up before they could. “I thought you were going to take some time for yourself. Rest up. Regain your strength.”

“I’m tough. I don’t need to rest.” His easygoing humor rolled over her, just like in the old days.

But those days are long gone, she reminded herself stubbornly. Besides, as the kindly older ladies had reminded her, she wouldn’t want to go back. Their marriage hadn’t worked. End of story. She struggled to her feet. “I’m not sure what to do with you, Brian Wallace.”

“It’s too late to pretend you don’t know me.”

“Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind.” Before she could stand fully, he was at her side, his hand cradling her elbow, keeping her steady as he dragged her walker closer for her.

Her independent streak flared. It would be prudent to let him know straight off she didn’t need his help, now or ever. But that wasn’t fair to him. He was only trying to be courteous. Brian was simply being Brian.

“Thank you.” The words felt strangled. His nearness washed over her like sunshine—bright, refreshing and enlivening. Things she didn’t want to feel again, not when it came to Brian. She grasped the walker’s grips and shuffled forward, aware of him tall and straight at her side.

Her limitations frustrated her. As grateful as she was to have survived a head injury and resulting coma, she wanted to ride her horse, jog at her usual breakneck speed and keep up with things at the ranch. Worse, she hated being vulnerable around Brian when she needed to be strong.

“Don’t they make the cutest couple?” Eunice cooed.

“The cutest,” Marjorie agreed, opening her book.

“They look like they belong together,” Anna sighed as her knitting needles began clacking again.

She lumbered across the room as fast as possible. Was Brian upset also by that last comment? The two of them used to belong together.

Used to. Not anymore. That was something that would never change.

“I spent most of the morning on the phone.” He pitched his voice low, so it wouldn’t carry in the busy hallway. “The marshal who handled you—”

“Tommy Hatfield.” Fondness swept through her. Tommy had been good to her and her children, a rock when she’d feared for their lives. “How is he?”

“Retired. When I couldn’t reach him at his office, I tried his home phone.”

“They gave you that information?”

“No, I already had it. Did you think I would let you go without a single worry? Without making sure I knew the man who was taking you and the kids into protective custody?” A muscle jumped along his jaw, betraying his quiet words.

“I never gave it any thought.”

“You had a lot on your mind at the time.” His tone was kind as he matched his gait to her halting one. Kind was one adjective that had always described Brian. Committed was another. “Before he took you, I grilled that man. I had to make sure he’d done every possible thing to keep the three of you out of harm’s way. I couldn’t rest until I was certain of it.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You weren’t supposed to.”

It shamed her. At the time she’d been convinced Brian had fallen out of love with her so thoroughly, he didn’t care one iota for her. She should have considered his feelings more, the ones that may have lurked out of sight behind his unemotional exterior.

Maybe, she admitted, she should have voiced her concern and her caring for him more during their troubled marriage. It was too late to fix it, so she swallowed, concentrating on trudging forward, blind to where they were going.

“Tommy’s wife gave me his cell number, and I caught him out fishing.” Brian stopped to pull out a chair for her. “He sounded pretty surprised to hear from me. He didn’t know anything new about your case, so he has to get back to me.”

“So, more waiting.” She plunked into the offered chair, hardly noticing the dining room echoing around her. The vacant tables, the sounds of the staff hard at work in the kitchen, the rustle of Brian’s clothes as he drew out a chair and sat beside her, facing her, so close she could see the threads of bronze in the melted-chocolate color of his irises.

That kindness she read there hadn’t changed. He was still such a good man. Caring and compassionate. She hoped he’d found happiness in his life. Their failed marriage had been only half his fault.

“What do we tell the kids?” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

“All of it. If my argument with Jack taught me anything, it’s that lies can destroy a family.”

“That’s right...you’d mentioned that you’d gotten into an intense confrontation with Jack before you fell off your horse.”

“He wanted to know who his father was, once and for all, and he was furious when I refused to tell him.” She couldn’t remember the argument or even hitting the ground. The details of that day were fuzzy to nonexistent, but it hadn’t been the first argument they’d had on the subject. She leaned back in the chair. “Don’t think I’d forgotten you or forgot the father Jack and Violet should have had.”

He swallowed hard, nodded once, obviously unable to answer. Guilt and sadness moved across his face.

Interesting. Yet again she was reminded that the Brian Wallace she’d once known hadn’t been one to show feelings at all, even in the heat of an argument. But now... She could detect a flicker of raw emotion in his eyes.

“There has always been a huge gaping hole in my life. In our lives.” His confusion sounded gruff, a father who’d been forced to walk away from two of his children. “It tore me apart.”

“Me, too.” Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away, refusing to let them fall. Brian spotted them and leaned in to lay his hand against her cheek. One tear rolled across her skin and into the cup of his palm. The pain she felt, the wrenching agony of the hole in her life where he, Maddie and Grayson should have been, eased. “I never stopped missing them.”

“Me, either. I can get to know Violet and Jack, although I keep wanting to call them by their original names, before the marshal changed them. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

“It took me a long time to get used to it, too,” she admitted softly. “As important as it was at the time, I kept slipping up. Violet was just a baby, so she adjusted to her name easier, but Jack kept stubbornly insisting he was Tanner. We had to make a game of it.”

“I can picture it. Grayson cried and cried for you. Night after night, day after day. Being alone when he’d been with his twin every hour of the day and night didn’t help. He cried for Tanner—I mean, Jack—too.”

“I wondered.” She gazed upon his face, the one she knew so well. The memory of him had stayed with her more than she’d realized. “I ached for them every night and day. They were my children.”

“Being separated from them was torture. It would have been easier to reach in and cut out my heart. I knew you felt the same way.” Understanding shone in his eyes. He’d walked in those shoes, too.

Maybe dealing with Brian won’t be so bad, she thought. He’d been hurt, too. God willing, maybe the hurting was over. “I really think we can go on from here. We can be civil, right?”

“Right. For the children’s sake.” He moved away as if they’d never been close, as if they were just two people sitting together, side by side in a big empty room. The clunk and clatter from the kitchen echoed loudly. “We keep them safe, we work together to make sure the past doesn’t harm them and once this is over, I’ll be on my way.”

“Back to Fort Worth?”

“That’s where my life is.” His home, his practice, his church, his friends. “I’ll be back for the weddings, of course. But don’t worry, Belle, you won’t have to deal with me for long.”

“That’s not what I was worrying about.” For an instant, a hint of vulnerability softened her Cupid’s-bow mouth, and in the brush of sunlight tumbling through the wide windows, she looked bronzed, the highlights in her auburn hair gleaming like rare silk, and a flashback from the past roared through him—the image of Belle sitting in the rocking chair, one newborn cradled in each arm, serene and glowing with a new mother’s love. Affection he’d thought was long dead whispered in his heart, just ashes of what was, he rationalized. That’s all it could be. His love for her had died long ago, but his caring for her hadn’t.

That caring was what motivated him now. He launched off his chair and held out his hand. “Let’s check you out of here and get you a real meal.”

“What does that mean? A homemade meal?”

“Sure, in some restaurant. We’ll find one.”

“I’ll text my housekeeper, Lupita, and have the kids bring a meal from the ranch. A big picnic lunch for all of us.” She eased off her chair, her left leg weak. At least she allowed him to help. “We can eat it in the sunroom, although it’s strange to think it’s December. I still look outside and expect it to be hot, sunny July.”

“A lot of time passed while you were sleeping.”

“And a lot of things changed. Like the fact that our kids are suddenly all madly in love. I just wish I had been here to see them find their perfect soul mates.” Her chin hiked up, full of grit. “And did I mention I’m going stir-crazy in here? What I need is to be outside beneath the big blue Texas sky, and I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will be.” Tenderness gathered behind his sternum, but surely it wasn’t tenderness, it only felt that way. It had to be worry for what the kids had gone through, seeing her fall off her horse, expecting her to get up and praying for her to be fine but she wasn’t. The rush to the hospital, the terror in the waiting room, the fear and anguish at her bedside praying for her to come back to them.

Thank You, Lord, he prayed automatically, as if caring about Belle was second nature. Once it had been. Now, she was the mother of their children, nothing more. It made him sad. He waited while she tapped away at the phone she drew from her pocket, her auburn hair tumbling forward to curtain her face. When she was done he tucked the chairs into place beneath the table and waited for her to amble into the aisle.

“I know the girls were planning to keep me company for lunch anyway,” Belle explained. “I told her to bring the boys along. We’ll tell them over the meal.”

“I know that look.” The furrow across her forehead. “You’re worried about how they are going to take this.”

“I’ve spent twenty-five years second-guessing my decision.” She halted, her pearled teeth digging into her lush bottom lip. Vulnerability carved into her face, showing every bit of the gentle girl with the big heart he’d fallen in love with once. “Their safety wasn’t the only reason I didn’t tell them the truth. I was afraid they would hate me for separating us. For not letting you and the other half of the twins come with us.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Belle.” It cut him in two to think back upon that unhappy time. “We both made that decision, remember? We agreed to stay apart. It was for the best.”

“Yes, but will they understand?” For all her strength and bravado, Belle’s world had revolved around her children. Clearly that was as true as it had ever been.

“We’ll do our best to make them understand.”

“Maybe now is a good time to tell you something else. The twins received Bibles from an anonymous person while I was in my coma. There were notes inside asking for forgiveness. There was no explanation and I can’t help but wonder if it could be from him?”

“I’ll find out. I promise you.” He reached out to cover her hand, wanting to comfort her and reassure her, but hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea.

As if she agreed, she gave his outstretched hand a worried look, straightened her shoulders and moved forward. “I think I need to lie down for a while.”

“Fine.” He stayed planted where he stood in the corridor, watching her progress along the tiled floor, hurrying away from him. Tall, lean, graceful, even with a limp. It wasn’t longing he felt—his affection for Belle was in the past—but he couldn’t put his finger on what emotion tugged at him. Perhaps he would always want to make things better for Belle, always want to make her happy.

Not that he’d ever been able to do so. Shoulders braced, he headed for the nurses’ station. He had a few questions for Belle’s doctors.

* * *

“...Lord bless us and keep us. Amen.” Belle finished the blessing, trying to keep her voice from wobbling with nerves. Thankful for her faith that sustained her and for her family, united and happy, she opened her eyes and gave Violet’s hand one last squeeze before releasing it.

For a minute it was like seeing double—two identical sons and two identical daughters seated in wicker chairs around a patio table watching her every move. No doubt for signs of weakness. They worried over her health too much. She was a Texas girl, born and bred. She was tough, she was resilient and she’d defeat the last effects of her head injury in no time. She hated that they were troubled. Worse, she hated the crinkle of concern carved into Brian’s handsome face. Movie-star handsome, she might add. Honest piercing brown eyes, exquisite cheekbones and the strongly angled jaw that maturity had only improved.

Now, why exactly was she noticing? Probably because it was better than the difficult story she was about to tell. Anxiety fluttered in her stomach, making the appetizing meal Lupita had packed for them look like a very bad idea indeed. Her midsection rolled, and her hunger tanked. The secret had lived inside her for so many years. She’d avoided this moment for more than one reason, for more reasons than she’d admitted to Brian. What if telling the truth brought more pain?

“Do you want me to start, Belle?” Brian couldn’t be kinder as he searched her face across the length of table. Behind him a Christmas garland slung across the doorway into the sunroom. “I’d like to.”

“You didn’t mention that earlier.” Her words were light and meant that way, but she couldn’t help feeling annoyed. It was her story to tell, she was the one who’d torn this family apart long ago. Hadn’t that been how she’d spent the past hour in her room, practicing what she would say and how she would say it? Fearing all the while the twins wouldn’t understand. That they would resent her for disrupting their childhoods and separating them for over two decades. Each twin had grown up alone because of her.

“If you want to go first, then go.” Brian nodded absently, and Carter slipped a pulled pork sandwich onto his plate. Brian’s entire focus zeroed in on her. “Let me take the blame.”

“But you aren’t at fault.” His steadfast tone almost made her believe it.

“You weren’t the one who saw—” She stopped herself, seeing it happen all over again.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Jack leaned forward in his chair. “What did you see?”

“Yeah...what’s this all about?” Grayson asked.

“Mom, you look upset.” Violet took her hand again and squeezed.

“The doctor said you aren’t supposed to be stressed.” Maddie frowned, taking her other hand. “Dad, what’s got her so worked up?”

Belle shook her head. See how the man made her crazy? He’d always stirred her up, messed with her normally logical mind and turned everything on end. It wasn’t that they were arguing, exactly. She laughed at herself. Some things never changed. “Fine, Brian, you go first.”

Across the table, the man arched one brow as if to ask if she was sure. She nodded, nerves prickling. This looked important to him. She wanted to be the one to tell the truth, the truth her children had been asking about for a long time. Brian hadn’t been there, he hadn’t been involved, but she wanted peace between them. Leave the arguments and the fighting in the past where it belonged. As if he could see all that in her eyes, he drew in a breath, straightened his spine and looked around the table at each child, now an adult, the sadness in his gaze strong enough to dilute the shining sun.

“Twenty-five years ago your mother and I divorced. We’d married young while we were still in high school, and this may come as a shock to you but we had to get married. That was my fault, and mine alone. This was before both Belle and I were Christians.”

Brian’s sincerity rumbled in deep, low notes. “I won’t lie to you, it was tough being married that young. We had school to finish, and then your mother chose to drop out when the boys were born. That wasn’t an easy sacrifice. I almost did, too, because juggling full-time work was too much, but your mother encouraged me to hang in there.”

“You had dreams, Brian.” It hurt to remember the young man he’d been, the integrity that had always been a part of him. Insisting he had to marry her, struggling as hard as he knew how to be a good husband to her and a proud father. Why did it hurt to remember the good as much as it did the bad? “You’d always wanted to be a doctor since you were a little boy.”

“Yes, but I didn’t want it to cost me my other dreams.” He swallowed hard, telling her something she’d never guessed. Maybe being a father and a husband had been dreams of his, too.

And not something he’d been forced into. Tears burned behind her eyes and she blinked hard, refusing to let them fall, refusing to let him see.

“But it was too much. We couldn’t make our marriage work. I’m sorry.” Brian’s baritone dipped. “Your mother and I tried as hard as we knew how. We both gave it everything we had. Everything.”

“We did.” The wrenching fights, the tears after, the knowledge that they were failing at the single most important job in their lives—as married parents of their beloved double set of twins. Stubborn tears filled her eyes, but she held Brian’s gaze through the blur of them. No way could she let him take the sole blame for this. “I was the one who asked you to leave, Brian. I was the one who quit on you. I just couldn’t take you so unhappy, and then it happened.”

“I know.” Although he was at the other end of the table, his compassion bridged the distance between them. “I thought the same thing. I always figured we’d find our way back to each other and then—”

“The Witness Protection Program.” The words tumbled off her tongue. “If I hadn’t left the doctor’s office at that exact moment, then we never would have left.”

“It’s not your fault, Belle. It’s the way things happened, that’s all.” Brian sounded as if he had no doubt. “I never blamed you for that. I admired you for having the strength and the guts to testify.”

“You d-did?” She hated how her voice wobbled, betraying her. Lord help her, because Brian’s opinion of her still mattered. She hadn’t realized how much.

“Uh, Mom,” Jack spoke, surprising her. She blinked, realizing she’d forgotten she and Brian were not alone, that they were being watched like leads in a Broadway play, their audience enthralled. “Did you say the Witness Protection Program?”

“Yes.” The words felt torn out of her. “That’s why we left your father, Maddie and Grayson behind. The three of us were taken into protective custody. We were never meant to meet again.”

Chapter Four

“You mean we were in witness protection all this time?”

“But why?”

“How did that happen?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

The questions erupted all at once, echoing around the sunroom and bouncing off the glass ceiling, but the regal and lovely woman across the table held his attention like no other. Belle sat tall and strong, folded her slim hands and let the questions roll over her. Gratitude shone quietly in the dark depths of her unguarded eyes. For an instant he saw both the woman he’d loved—the young Isabella full of life and spirit—and this newer Belle, seasoned and confident. Both intrigued him. Both touched him.

“We were sworn not to tell.” He spoke above the chaos of questions from their children, his gaze never wavering from Belle’s.

The twins fell silent, although the room echoed with their frustrations and curiosity.

“It was the only way,” he assured them. “Your mother witnessed a murder. She had Violet in her arms and Jack in a stroller. They were all in terrible danger. The thought of anything happening to you two—”

He stopped before his voice could break and betray him, his walls went up and he shut down the emotion before it surfaced. Just like he always did, he realized. Force of habit and one habit he had to break.

He gritted his teeth, took down his defenses and felt the terror of that long-ago time. “All I could think about was that man or his fellow drug dealers coming to gun you down, little Laurel and Tanner and my Isabella.”

“Dad, that had to have been horrible to go through.” Grayson patted him on the shoulder, the beloved son he’d had the privilege to raise. “Not knowing if they would ever be safe.”