Texas Lullaby (Texas Montgomery Mavericks Book 7) (3 page)

The young gal working in the store had flirted with him the entire time the girls had been picking out new suits. Once they were paid for, the store clerk volunteered to help Annie and Ellery get dressed for swimming. Jason gladly took her up on her offer as his arms were full of a wiggling Levi.

The hotel advertised a small, indoor kiddie pool, one of the reasons he’d chosen this place. The girls giggled and pranced and twisted around like they had ants in their pants as they all walked down to the pool area. The kiddie pool was maybe six inches deep where the kids walked in and might have been two or two-and-a-half feet at its deepest, but that was about it, thank goodness. He pulled a lounge chair closer and let the girls wade in the water. Within seconds, they were laughing and splashing each other.

Levi pushed against Jason’s chest, wanting down. He didn’t have a suit for the baby. Heck, he didn’t have one for himself. He hadn’t even thought about Levi wanting in the water.

The baby began crying…loudly. Jason knew Levi wasn’t hungry and his diaper wasn’t dirty. The only thing he might want is the water.

Jason sighed, pulled Levi’s shirt over his head and took off his shorts, leaving him dressed only in his diaper. He put a towel on the concrete where the pool was the shallowest. He sat on the towel and sat Levi in the water, whose diaper quickly sucked up water and doubled in size. Levi gurgled and splashed, a glob of drool dripping from his toothless grin.

“Uncle Jason,” Ellery said. “You should come in too.”

Jason chuckled. “I forgot my swim suit. I can’t.”

“Levi doesn’t have on one,” Annie said.

Oh, yeah. Jason could picture his explanation to the cop who would arrest him for getting into a kiddie pool wearing only his briefs. “But officer, Levi didn’t have on pants either.”

“That’s true,” he said. “But I like sitting here watching you guys play.”

The girls lay in the water, practiced swimming like someone named Ariel, whoever that was, and had a floating contest. Levi, on the other hand, loved hitting the water with his palms, effectively throwing water droplets on Jason. Before long, Jason’s shirt was fairly damp. He didn’t mind. In fact, he was getting quite a kick out of watching them play.

He checked his phone for the time and to see if he’d missed a call from Lydia. Almost five p.m. and no call. That made him a little nervous. Sure she was fine, he nonetheless would have appreciated her checking in. He didn’t know how long to let the girls swim or what to do about dinner.

At close to six, the girls were wearing down. He’d taken Levi out of the pool and gotten him redressed without getting squirted. A real accomplishment, in Jason’s opinion.

“Uncle Jason. I’m hungry,” Ellery said.

“Me too,” Annie echoed.

“Me three,” Jason answered, which made the girls giggle. “How about we go back to the room, get cleaned up, and I’ll have dinner delivered to the room.”

“What are we eating?” Ellery asked. “I want chicken.”

“Me too,” Annie echoed.

“I think we can do that. Get on out of the pool and let’s get you wrapped up in the towels.”

Damn, he was tired. The kids were cute and funny, but they were energy vampires.

Back in the room, he ran a tub of water and put both girls in there, along with a tired and cranky Levi. He let the girls play a little while he took a wash cloth to Levi and then got him out. Keeping an eye on the twins in the tub, Jason put Levi in a fresh diaper and his pajamas and then sat him in the portable crib the hotel had supplied.

“Be right back, buddy,” he said.

Levi began to cry.

“Yeah. I know how you feel,” he whispered and handed the baby a bottle, which Levi tipped up immediately and began sucking.

Back in the bathroom, he did a cursory bathing of the girls and got them out and dressed in their pajamas. He settled them on the bed with a movie and called room service. Then he collapsed into a chair. Where was Lydia?

The sound of the door lock popping jerked him awake. Good Lord, he’d fallen asleep in the chair. He quickly ran his gaze around the room. The twins were still engrossed in the movie. Levi had finished his bottle and was now standing in the crib watching his sisters.

A bronze-colored long-haired dog preceded Lydia into the room.

“Jasper,” both girls shouted and jumped off the bed.

“We missed you,” Ellery said, her arms wrapped around the dog’s neck.

“Yeah. Missed you,” Annie repeated.

“Hi,” Lydia said as she pushed three large suitcases through the door.

“Hi, yourself,” Jason said and heaved himself out of the chair. “I was getting worried.”

“Sorry. It took a little longer than I thought it would. The girls do okay?”

“We went swimming,” Ellery announced.

“You did?”

Both girls nodded.

“Yeah,” Annie said. “Uncle Jason bought us new bathing suits.”

Then with that announcement, both girls ran to the bathroom and came back carrying the wet swimwear.

“Wow,” Lydia said. “Those are cute.”

“Yeah, and he let us swim in the deep end.”

Lydia’s eyes flew open wide and she snapped her head from the twins to Jason. “The deep end?”

“Yeah,” he said, a grin threatening to break out as he teased her. “The deepest end of the pool.”

She glared at him. “How deep was the deepest end of the pool?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe two feet. Could have been as deep as two and a half.”

She smiled, and it was so good to see that on her face after the terrible weekend. “I see.” She looked at the twins. “Very daring.”

They nodded.

“Okay then, go put your bathing suits back in the bathroom and let’s talk about dinner.”

To the girls’ utter delight, Jasper followed them into the bathroom. In a minute, the sound of a dog drinking from the toilet echoed into the room.

“Just tell me the water was clean,” Lydia said with a sigh.

“Freshly flushed. I promise.”

A knock at the door had Lydia spinning around.

“I’ve got it,” Jason said. “We ordered chicken fingers for dinner.”

“Yay,” the girls shouted.

The headache that’d been threatening to break out all day finally pushed through and Jason flinched at the noise. Lydia must have seen his expression, because she hurried over to the girls to quiet them down and then to pick up Levi who’d started crying.

Between the two of them, they got the girls fed and into bed over their whiny objections. Levi, who was turning out to be an easy baby––thank God––ate and fell asleep almost immediately. Jasper climbed onto the bed with the girls, curled up and went to sleep. It was close to nine when the room finally fell quiet.

Jason took Lydia’s hand and led her into the small living room area of the suite. They both collapsed on the sofa.

“I was getting worried about you,” he said

“Afraid I’d run off and leave you with the kids?” she asked with a smile.

“Nope. I’ve seen you with them. You’re a natural mother.”

Her face flushed. “No, I’m not. I’ll never be able to replace Meredith.”

“Then don’t try. Just be you, and they’ll love you.”

She shrugged. “Thank you for taking care of them this afternoon. Without them underfoot, the packing went pretty fast.”

He put his arm around her. “How are you doing? It’s been a hell of a couple of days.”

“Not so good. I miss my sister.” She twisted on the seat until she was facing him. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” Her eyes grew shiny with tears. “I can’t do this,” she whispered.

“Yes, you can. You’re strong and brave. Your sister knew you would love her kids as much as she did. She trusted you.”

Tears rolled down her face. “I want to curl up in a corner and stay there until this nightmare is over.”

“I know,” he said and pulled her snuggly against him. “I know.” He kissed the top of her head. “Just take it a day at a time. And if that’s too much, an hour at a time. You’ll come out on the other side, just like they will. You’ll see.”

She sniffed and settled her head on his chest. His shirt grew wet with her tears, but that was okay. She could lean on him. He loved her.

He could give her the support she needed…for now.

Chapter Three

Late the next day, an exhausted Lydia, Jason, three kids and one very large dog pulled into the drive at Lydia’s house. Never had her own place looked so good. Except, now that she studied her cozy little abode, how in the world would she, Annie, Ellery, Levi and one very large, very hairy dog fit into her two-bedroom, one-bath home? At least the backyard was fenced for Jasper. Thank goodness for small wins.

“Are Momma and Daddy here?” Ellery asked.

The question was a direct hit to Lydia’s solar plexus. She drew in a deep breath and turned around in the passenger seat until she could see the girls.

“No. Remember I told you that your momma and daddy had gone to heaven to live with the angels?”

Ellery looked at her mulishly. “I don’t want them to go live in heaven. I want them to live with us.” Her bottom lip stuck out in a pout.

“Me too,” Annie said, her mouth striking the same pose.

Me three
, Lydia thought. “I know, sweetheart.”

Both girls started crying, which woke Levi and got him on a crying jag.

She cut her gaze to Jason, who was watching her. He lifted one eyebrow in question and she shrugged.

This was too hard. How was she ever going to do this?

She forced herself to open the passenger door. “Come on. Let’s go inside and get ready for bed.”

“I don’t wanna go to bed,” Ellery wailed.

“Me neither,” Annie echoed.

Drawing in a deep breath, Lydia climbed out of the car. Jason did the same on the other side.

“Can you get Levi? I’ll get the girls.”

“No,” Ellery said obstinately. “I want Uncle Jason. I don’t want you.”

“Me too,” Annie said.

“I’ve got them, Lydia. You get Levi and the dog.”

By the time she got Jasper leashed up and Levi unbuckled from his seat, Jason and the girls had disappeared into her house.

As Jasper pulled her toward the porch, she tightened her hold on Levi and let her mind run through their sleeping options. For tonight, the girls could sleep either with her in her bed or she’d have to make a pallet of blankets on the floor. The second bedroom was where she kept her recliner, a desk and a desktop computer, not to mention the stacks of medical journals she swore she would read one day. She’d need to get a couple of twin beds for there. That solved the future sleeping arrangements for the girls, but where was she going to put Levi? She needed another bedroom. And probably another bathroom.

When she’d bought this house, she’d thought it a temporary stop before she married Jason and moved into his large, five bedroom, thirty-six hundred square foot house. She’d once asked him why he had such a huge house when he didn’t want children. He’d replied that he’d gotten a steal of a deal on it, something just too good to pass up.

At first she hadn’t believed him, sure that his protest of not ever wanting children was a ploy by a single guy to keep women at arm’s length. But over the years they’d been together, he’d never once wavered, and they’d had plenty of heated discussions on the subject.

The bedrooms at his house now held his office, a personal gym, a guest room and a storage room. He certainly hadn’t had any trouble converting those extra bedrooms into usable space.

House hunting wasn’t, or hadn’t been, high on her to-do list. She might need to readjust her priorities.

Her home had been pretty much a mess when she’d left for Gainesville last Friday. She dreaded facing it. However, she walked into a spotless living room, not a dust bunny in sight. She also noticed her furniture had been rearranged. Her first thought was that someone had broken in, but why would thieves redecorate?

She frowned and turned in the circle, effectively wrapping Jasper’s lead around her knees.

“Here. Stop turning,” Jason said. “Give me Jasper and I’ll turn him loose in the backyard.”

“Okay.” She did, but she was still confused.

“Aunt Lydia. Come see,” Ellery said, grabbing hold of Lydia’s pant leg.

“Come see what?”

“Our new beds.”

New beds? She followed a skipping Ellery down the short hall to her office. The office was gone. The desk, computer, chair and all the magazines had disappeared. In their place were two adorable twin beds with frilly pink bedspreads. A matching curtain framed the only window in the room.

“What does this say?” Annie asked, holding up a white envelope.

“I don’t know. Let’s see.”

“Here,” Jason said, walking up beside her. “Give me Levi.”

She happily passed the sweaty and heavy baby over and took the mysterious envelope to open. It was addressed to Ellery and Annie Hardy. Inside was a brightly colored card.

Welcome to your new home
, it proclaimed in big letters.

The inside was signed by every person in Jason’s family. At least she was pretty sure everyone had signed it, but she’d have to wait until the tears in her eyes subsided to be able to read the writing clearly.

“It says welcome to your new home,” she said. “It’s from Jason’s mom and dad, his brothers and sister, his cousins and his uncle and aunt.” She looked at Jason. “I believe your family might have done a little home remodel while we were gone.”

“Seems like,” he agreed. “It’s very pretty,” he said to the girls. “I love it. Don’t you?”

“Yay,” they both said.

“I can’t believe they did this,” Lydia muttered. “I’m so…”

“Hey,” he said. “My family adores you. Of course they’d do anything to help.”

“Still…this is…wow. I’ll write every one of them thank-you notes. I’ll owe free medical care to them all for the rest of my life.”

He chuckled. “We already get free medical services.”

“Whatever. You know what I mean.”

Knowing that the hours in the car combined with spilled food meant the girls had to have baths before bed, Lydia said, “Why don’t we find the bathroom so you two can take a bath? Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

“I don’t want to take a bath,” Ellery stated flatly. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Me neither,” said Annie and assumed the same defiant stance.

“Are you kidding?” Jason asked, widening his eyes as though surprised. “I can’t imagine that Ariel would turn down a chance to get wet, can you?”

“No,” they each replied slowly.

“So why would you?” he asked.

The girls looked at each other and it appeared some form of nonverbal communication passed between them.

“Okay,” Ellery said. “But I want you to bathe me. Not her.”

“Me too,” said Annie.

Jason passed Levi to Lydia. “Seems I’ve been ordered into service.”

She smiled, but her heart was breaking from the girls’ words. They didn’t want her. They wanted Jason. They didn’t like her.

Battling against another round of useless tears, she brightened her fake smile. “Great. Get to work then.”

The three of them marched down the hall with Levi and her following. Jason got the water filling the tub while the girls undressed, only helping them when required. Ellery and Annie climbed into her tub and sat.

“Okay, this time I want to see some washing behind those ears. I’m pretty sure I can see french-fry dust and catsup back there,” Jason said, sounding stern but making the girls giggle.

Lydia turned her back and rolled her eyes. She watched him help the girls wash while she gave Levi a sponge bath in the large bathroom sink.

How could this man not want children? He was a natural with them, unlike her, who was floundering and making mistakes at every turn.

“I need to set up Levi’s Pack ’n Play so he has somewhere to sleep tonight.”

She’d found a portable crib slash playpen in Levi’s room and added it to the pile of clothes and diapers she’d packed.

“Can’t believe the folks wouldn’t have thought of something for him too,” Jason said.

“Yeah. You’re probably right. You okay in here?”

“Absolutely. We’re good, right, girls?”

“Yes,” they answered.

Since she’d already discovered that her office had been converted to a bedroom for the twins, she headed to her room wondering if there were changes there also. Sure enough, there was a new crib erected in the corner where there had been a dirty clothes hamper. As she’d found in the living room, her bedroom was spotless. Even the fan above her bed shone with its freshly cleaned blades.

She put Levi in the crib with a pacifier and waited the sixty seconds it took for him to fall asleep. Man, she envied him. Some nights it took her hours to shut down her brain and drop off. Since Friday, her sleep had been comprised mostly of short naps with bad dreams.

The giggles of two little girls and the booming laughter of a grown man resounded down the hall. She hurried toward the sound, needing the break from her gloom.

The next day, she took the girls and Levi to her office to show them off and make sure the staff was aware that she wouldn’t be in the rest of the week. The rest of the week? As she’d spoken the words, the reality of how much her world had changed hit her again. What would she do with the children while she was at work? And what about the nights and weekends of being on-call? Who would take care of them if she had to go rushing into the night?

She thought about asking her parents to move to Texas to help her, but they were in their seventies. As her father’s recent heart issues had reinforced, neither of them were in the best of health. Besides, they’d done their job raising Meredith and her. It wasn’t right to ask them to take on raising another set of young children.

The funerals were scheduled for Thursday. She and her parents decided that the children were too young to understand what was happening at the funeral and made the decision to not bring them. Magda Montgomery, Jason’s cousin-in-law, volunteered to sit with the children at Lydia’s home and Lydia grabbed that lifeline.

Magda arrived early, about nine a.m. The funerals weren’t until one.

“Magda,” Lydia said as she opened the door in response to Magda’s knock. “You’re early.”

“I know, but I thought it might be a good idea if I spent some time with the girls before you left, so they’d know I was an okay person.”

Lydia blinked. “Of course. What a good idea. I should have thought of it myself.”

“Plus,” Magda continued, “with me here, you can get dressed without a lot of interruptions.”

“Thank you again. You’re so thoughtful.”

Magda smiled. “I want to tell you again how very sorry I am about your sister and her husband. If she was as wonderful a person as you, then she was special indeed.”

Lydia teared up. “She was so much more than I can ever hope to be. So funny. So smart. And you can’t believe how organized she is.”

She is
. As she’d uttered the phrase, reality gave her a solid punch in the gut. Her sister was, not is.

She shut her eyes and drew in a stuttered breath. A pair of arms encircled her.

“You’ll be okay,” Magda whispered in Lydia’s ear. “Whatever you need, all you have to do is ask.”

“Thank you,” Lydia whispered back.

The twins took to Magda like a long-lost friend. The three of them sat cross-legged on the floor of the girls’ room and played dolls. Lydia felt comfortable that she could leave and the girls wouldn’t miss her.

She met her parents at the B&B where they were staying. Her parents had aged a decade since Friday. The creases in her mother’s face were deeper and more pronounced than Lydia could remember. Her father’s shoulders were slumped as though carrying five tons on each side. Until that moment, she’d let the idea of having them move to Texas from Florida continue to float to the top of her options. But one glance effectively erased that.

A black limo from the funeral home picked them up thirty minutes before the start of the service. Her father was recovering from his stent so her help was required getting both of them into the backseat of the limo. She’d asked Jason to meet her at the mortuary, not wanting her parents to feel pressure to put on a good front for him. She realized now it wouldn’t have mattered if he was with them or not. Her parents were walking shells of their former selves.

As sad as Lydia had thought herself before, the magnitude of her grief was endless as she sat through the funeral and then rode behind the hearses to the cemetery. Jason’s mother had picked out a couple of beautiful plots under a spreading oak tree. Lydia might have given cremation more serious thought had it not been for the children. They needed a place to help them remember their parents, except for Levi. He would never know how wonderful his mother and father were. How excited they’d been when he was born. And the memory of Meredith and Jim would fade for the twins too, replaced by more recent events in their lives.

And that made her sad.

I’ll bring them to visit
, she promised Meredith as she watched the casket being lowered into the ground. She would regale the kids with stories of growing up with their mom and all the funny things she’d done. They would remember their mother, even if the memories were the ones Lydia gave them.

When the funeral was in the rearview mirror, Lydia sent her parents’ home to Florida. Her dad needed to recover and see a doctor down there about the other stents he would require. Her mother needed to be with the group of women friends she had. Both of her parents had excellent emotional support systems around them in Florida. In Texas, they would look to her to provide that support, and frankly, she didn’t have any left to give.

Friday evening, she was standing in the kitchen heating soup and cheese toast for dinner when Ellery can busting into the room.

“Guess who’s here? Uncle Jason,” she said before Lydia could venture a guess.

“Where is he?”

“Levi was crying so he went to see what was wrong.”

Lydia turned off the flame under the soup and jerked the cookie sheet with the cheese bread from the oven.

“Why didn’t you come get me when Levi started crying?”

Ellery shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You know I can’t hear him when I’m back here.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I told you that when I’m in the kitchen, I can’t hear Levi.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.” She felt foolish arguing with a three-year-old, but Ellery and Annie had to learn to listen to her.