Jason just stood there, unsure of what to do.
“He won’t bite,” Holly said.
Jason took the infant under the arms and he quieted instantly. He looked so tiny and fragile wrapped in Jason’s big hands, his blue eyes wide. And he hardly weighed anything.
“This little complainer is Marshall,” she said, lifting him from the other crib. She propped him on her shoulder and patted his back, which did nothing to stop his wailing. He must have been the feistier of the two.
“Marshall was our grandfather’s name,” Jason told her.
Holly turned to him, saw the way he was holding her son and smiled. “You know, he won’t break.”
“I’ve never held a child this small,” Jason admitted, feeling completely out of his element. In business he’d dealt with some of the most powerful people in the country, yet he had no idea what to do with this tiny, harmless human being. “He looks so fragile. What if I drop him?”
“You won’t,” she said, and he hoped her confidence wasn’t misplaced.
Noting the way Holly held Marshall over her shoulder, he set Devon against his chest, placing one hand under his diapered behind and the other on his back to steady him. But he realized as Devon lifted his little head off Jason’s shoulder to stare at him, blue eyes wide and inquisitive, he wasn’t as fragile as he looked.
Jason watched Holly as she laid Marshall, who was still howling, on the changing table and deftly changed his diaper, cooing and talking to him in a quiet, soothing voice, her smile so full of love and affection Jason kind of wished she would smile at him that way.
She’s your sister-in-law, he reminded himself. But damn, she was pretty. In an unspoiled, wholesome way.
Women, as he saw it, were split between two categories. There were the ones who wanted the traditional life of marriage and babies, and those who balked at the mention of commitment. He preferred the latter. For some people, marriage and family just weren’t in the cards.
Holly turned to Jason, held out her son and said, “Switch.”
It was an awkward handover, and Marshall hollered the entire time Jason held him. It was hard not to take it personally.
“Would you like to help me feed them?”
“I don’t know how.”
“There’s nothing to it,” she assured him with a smile. After all she had been through, the fact that she still could smile was remarkable.
Feeling completely out of his element, Jason sat on the couch while his nephew sucked hungrily on a bottle and stared up at him.
Although not by choice, children had never been a part of his life plan, so he usually did what he could to avoid them. But if he was going to be a good uncle, he supposed he should at least try to learn to care for them. If, God forbid, something were to happen to Holly, they would be his sole responsibility. And then, if something were to happen to him, if his illness were to return, who would take them?
The idea was both humbling and terrifying.
This was the absolute last place he had expected to end up when he’d left home today.
Their bottoms dry and their bellies full, the boys fell sound sleep, and Jason helped her put them in their cribs.
“How often do you have to do that?” he asked Holly as she stood at the sink rinsing the empty bottles.
“Every three hours. Sometimes more, sometimes less. They’ve never slept more than a four-hour stretch.”
That would be an average of eight times a day. Two babies, all by herself.
He had a sudden newfound respect for single mothers.
“How do you manage it alone?”
Her tone nonchalant, she said, “I’ve learned to multitask.”
He had the feeling it was a bit more complicated than that. How was she supposed to get a job with the boys to care for? Day care, he supposed. Call him old-fashioned, but he wanted to see his nephews raised by their mother, the way he and his brother had been raised by theirs. He had nothing but fond memories of his early childhood. Life had been close to perfect back then.
Until it hadn’t been anymore.
She finished the bottles and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Thanks for the help.”
“Anytime,” he said, and he meant it. “In fact, I’ll be back in the city next week and I was hoping I could spend some time with the boys.”
“You don’t live in New York?”
“After our father died I moved upstate.” The lake house had been in their family for generations and had been his favorite retreat as a child.
“Jeremy used to talk about us moving upstate, getting a house in a small town. A fixer-upper that we could make ours. With a big yard and a swing set for the boys. I can’t help thinking that was probably a lie, too.”
Sadly, it probably was. Jeremy had preferred the anonymity of living in a big city. Not to mention the ease with which he could support his drug habit. Something told Jason that wouldn’t have changed.
Jason always had been the one who’d strived for a slower-paced lifestyle. Ten years of working for his father had landed him on the business fast track, but his heart had never really been in it. Only after his father’s death had he started living the life he’d wanted.
“You and the boys should come and visit me,” he told her, surprised and hopeful when her eyes lit.
“I’d like that. But are you sure you have the space? I don’t want to put you out.”
At first he thought she was joking, and then he remembered that she knew virtually nothing about their family. Or their finances. Maybe for right now it would be better if he didn’t bring up the fact that her sons stood to inherit millions someday. It might be too much to take all in one night. And though Jeremy had been disinherited years ago, he would see that Holly and the boys were well cared for.
“I have space,” he assured her. Maybe once he got her there, once she saw how much room he had and how good life would be there for them, he could convince her to stay, giving him the chance to right the last wrong his brother would ever commit. He owed it to his nephews.
And to himself.
Jason sat at the bar of The Trapper Tavern, the town watering hole, nursing an imported beer with his best friend and attorney Lewis Pennington.
“Are you sure you can trust her?” Lewis asked him after he explained the situation with his sister-in-law and nephews. “I don’t have to tell you the sort of people with whom your brother kept company. She could be conning you.”
Jason didn’t think so. “Lewis, she was so freaked out she actually fainted when she saw me, and she seemed to genuinely have no clue who Jeremy really was.”
“Or she’s as good an actor as your brother.”
“Or she’s an innocent victim.”
“With your flesh and blood involved, is that a chance you really want to take?”
Of course not. The day his brother died was the day the twins’ happiness and well-being had become Jason’s responsibility. “That’s why, when she’s here, I’m going to ask her to stay with me. Until she’s back on her feet financially.”
He’d left Holly his phone number and told her to call if she needed anything. She’d called the next morning sounding tired and exasperated, asking to take him up on his offer