Now was the time for joy. She and Taylor had discussed the situation. She still wanted the babies, even though there were two and she was alone now. Taylor still wanted her to have them. The nineteen-year-old college student felt the children needed the secure home that Ally could afford and she couldn’t. Both agreed Rose McBride would make a wonderful, doting grandmother, and Taylor could see the twins as often as her studies and workload would allow.
So it would all work out fine. She mentally crossed her fingers. She knew what happened to best-laid plans.
“Okay, here comes another one,” Dr. Davis said.
Ally concentrated on Taylor and her breathing. At her left shoulder, Rose breathed with them, and across the bed, Spence unconsciously did, too.
Maryanne directed them. “Keep pushing. Okay, it’s crowning.”
Ally looked to see what this meant. She gulped and swallowed hard as she saw the very top of a head appear, a ridge running down the middle where the skull plates slid past each other so the baby could squeeze out. Her heart contracted in a mixture of excitement and deep emotion.
She glanced at Spence. He looked uneasy but stoic. For a moment, she was flooded with tenderness toward him. That was odd, but she was glad Rose had, for whatever strange reason, insisted he join them. Welcoming a new generation into the world was a momentous event for a family.
“Okay, once more,” Claire said cheerfully. “You’re doing wonderfully, Taylor.”
“Thank you,” Taylor said politely.
Ally met Spence’s eyes and grinned. He gave her a searching glance. She sensed questions in him, but there wasn’t time to ask what they were. “The baby,” she said. “Here it comes.”
The entire head appeared. Claire efficiently cleared its nose and mouth. “One last big one, I think,” she murmured after they’d rested a bit.
“Ohh,” Ally and Rose and Taylor all chorused together when the baby was born, sliding smoothly into the doctor’s waiting hands with one more push.
“Is the little darling here already?” another nurse crooned, bustling into the room, a baby blanket in hand. “Ah, a sweetheart of a girl,” she said.
Ally recognized the woman as one of the pediatric nurses, Nell Hastings. A calm, gray-haired woman in her fifties, she took care of newborns with an ease that was guaranteed to soothe young parents. She dried the baby and wrapped her in another blanket, then proceeded to weigh and measure the child.
“Five pounds, seven ounces,” she announced. “A very nice size for twins.”
“No rest for the weary,” Claire said to Taylor with an encouraging smile. “Ready for number two?”
Taylor barely had time to say yes before the contraction started and didn’t let up. The team panted and pushed along with the mother. Nicholas came into the world as smoothly as his sister. He took one glance around the crowded room and howled. Startled, Hannah joined in.
“They’re here,” Ally said, tears starting in her eyes. “Taylor, they’re here.”
She and Taylor hugged and cried and kissed each other’s cheeks while the nurse put wristbands on the infants, then weighed and measured the second one. “This big fellow is six pounds. I’m impressed,” she told them.
Feeling a hand caressing her hair, Ally raised her head. Spence gave her an encouraging smile. His eyes looked a little misty, too.
“Oh, Spence, aren’t they the most beautiful babies you ever saw?” she said.
He nodded and continued to stroke her hair in the gentlest manner.
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, all cautious thoughts fleeing in this moment of jubilation. She loved him. She loved Taylor. And Rose and Claire. Even the crabby nurse. And especially the twins, Hannah and Nicholas.
Sniffing, she drew back and pulled her emotions into order. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to drown you two.” She wiped tears off Spence’s shirt and Taylor’s forehead, then blotted Taylor’s face with a washcloth. “You did just great,” she assured the young woman.
“Did I?” Taylor said shakily. She looked from Ally to Spence to Rose. “Thanks for being here. It was just like having a real family—” She stopped as her lips trembled.
Rose patted her arm. “We are a real family, and you’re a special part of it. Thank you for this wonderful gift.”
“You’ll want pictures before I take them to the warmers,” the baby nurse said. She handed one infant to Ally. The other she plopped in Spence’s arms. “Here, Daddy.”
Ally couldn’t help but laugh as Spence reacted in typical surprised-bachelor horror. The child could have been a bomb ready to detonate instead of his nephew.
“I’m not the father,” he hastily corrected. He carefully held the baby out in both hands. The nurse ignored his desperate expression.
“He’s the uncle,” Ally explained.
Rose grabbed a camera from her purse. “Hold Nicholas in the crook of your arm, Spence, the way Ally has Hannah.”
Ally grinned when he looked worried and gingerly held the baby as directed. Rose snapped pictures like mad.
“Now Taylor with the babies,” Ally requested. “Spence, put your hand over Taylor’s on that side.” She did the same and leaned close. “Lean down, Spence. And smile. This is a happy event.”
After they had taken every possible combination of photo for the babies’ album, the kind nurse whisked the little ones off to the warmer. Taylor yawned.
Ally was aware that Spence had played his part gallantly…after he got over the shock of being in on the birthing. She felt an enormous sense of pride about the whole event and everyone’s part in it.
However, she was a tad embarrassed about the emotional kiss she’d plastered on him when he had caressed her in that gentle way. Poor bachelor uncle. This would be a day he wouldn’t soon forget. Rose had some explaining to do to her handsome, and single, son.
Spence remained in the waiting room while the babies were bathed and put in a warmer—he imagined something like a chicken incubator with dozens of babies tucked into their little individual pockets. Ally had gone with the baby nurse to help with the twins while his mom stayed with Taylor.
In the nearby nurses’ station, he heard two student nurses discussing someone. Rachel—another nurse, he surmised—was pregnant and due to deliver soon. They speculated on possible candidates for the father and mentioned Dr. Reid.
Spence was surprised. Dennis Reid was chief of staff at the clinic and sometimes a pain in the neck for Rose in her role as administrator. The man was nearly fifty, a tad old to be getting a woman pregnant out of wedlock.
He wondered if there was a paternity case in the offing, and knew he wasn’t going to handle it if there was. His specialty was ranching cases, not personal problems. He and Johnny were contract attorneys.
He sipped the bitter coffee from the machine. Ugh. It was hard to take on an empty stomach. As if by way of a gentle reminder, his stomach growled.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said.
Ally bustled into the room. “Hi. Talking to yourself? Better watch it. That’s the second sign of senility.”
“What’s the first?” he asked, falling into her teasing mood, even as it made him remember days gone by.
“I forget,” she said, then burst into laughter.
Listening to her husky voice with its intriguing little breaks, he laughed, too. She had always had the ability to make him feel better. When she was in an exuberant mood, as she was now, she was prone to laugh and tease unmercifully.
But she had also listened