“Not on an empty stomach. Rose and I did a study, and that stuff can eat through stainless steel in three days, gospel truth.” She held up a hand in a pledge of honor.
He tossed the cup into the trash bin. “How about dinner? I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“That would be great. Taylor and the babies are all asleep, so it would be a good time to go. I’ll get Rose.”
He nodded, but she was already gone, a whirlwind of energy, shedding radiance on all who came into her orbit.
His heart pounded suddenly. The birthing had caused some strange twists in him that afternoon. He hadn’t realized it would be so emotional and affecting.
Right now, after the excitement of all that…okay, after the kiss that had seared him right down to the soles of his feet…well, he kept thinking of other things, things he hadn’t let himself think of in years.
Ally stuck her head in the door. The hall light turned her blond hair into a golden halo around her slender, oval face. She had “big” hair. Shoulder-length, it always looked tousled. Her cheeks were always pink. As if she’d just come in from some fun exercise in the outdoors. Or climbed out of bed. His body stirred hungrily.
For a second, he considered what it would be like to share the excitement of bringing a new life into the world with a beloved mate. And the excitement of creating that new life. Heat pounded through him. There in the birthing room, as he held the two babies, an image had flashed through his mind—of him and a woman and their children….
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes.” His voice was husky, sexy. He cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said again, more firmly this time.
Yeah, it was good that his mom would be with them.
He followed Ally along the corridor. He heard groans and pants emanating from a couple of rooms as they passed. The sounds took on a whole new meaning for him now that he knew exactly what they were. He still couldn’t believe his mother had deliberately set him up for the birthing scene. He intended to ask her about that.
“Rose? We’re ready,” Ally called softly to his mom, who was still in the room with Taylor. When Rose joined them, Ally whispered, “Let’s go by the nursery.”
Spence patiently accepted the women’s eagerness to peek at the twins once more before they left. At the nursery window, he saw the babies tucked into little plastic buckets on wheels, a bright light shining down on each one. Both kids wore a tiny stocking cap on their heads and slept peacefully in spite of the lamp.
“Ohhh,” Ally croaked, her voice breaking. “They are so beautiful.”
A hand closed around his arm. Ally leaned against him and looked up, her eyes glowing like a laser beamed through sapphires.
“Aren’t they just darling?” she crooned.
Spence squinted and tried to see what made them more beautiful than the other two babies, also under lights, in the nursery. “Well, uh, they are pretty cute.”
“Hannah looks like Taylor, I think,” she continued, pressing her nose to the glass. “Nicholas probably takes more after his father. What do you think?”
Spence thought women could see a lot more than men could when it came to these things. To him, they looked like…well…they looked like babies.
His mother gave a soft, feminine snort of laughter. “Don’t make him perjure himself, Ally.” She patted her son’s other arm. “Don’t worry. They’ll grow on you. Let’s go eat. I’m starved. How about the diner?”
They went across the street to Mom and Pop’s diner. He’d grown used to seeing medical staff, still wearing their white jackets, in there, or men in suits and women in fancy dresses with stethoscopes around their necks. The diner was a hangout for all the workers from the baby clinic, hospital and professional office building across the street. The food was about ten times better than anything they could get in the medical complex.
Ally sighed as she slid into a booth. Rose sat opposite her, taking up the middle of the banquette. After a second’s hesitation, Spence took the place beside his sister-in-law.
His warmth slid up her arm and down into her belly. She licked her lips. They tingled as if electricity was running lightly over them. The way it had during that impulsive kiss. She wished she hadn’t done that.
She noticed Spence carefully avoided touching her. A pang of irritation shot through her as the euphoria of the births gave way to weariness. They ordered and were silent until tall frosty glasses of raspberry tea were served.
“I’m dog-tired,” she stated.
“You’ve been working too hard,” Rose admonished. “You need to watch it now that you have two babies to care for. You’ll have to learn to pace yourself. Start with a good night’s sleep. It will probably be your last for the next few weeks. Or years.”
Ally laughed with her mom-in-law. “I’ve caught up on all my casework, including all the reports required by the city, county, state and federal agencies. Sometimes it seems I hardly have time for patients because of the forms I have to fill out.”
As a child psychologist who scheduled in as much pro bono work as she could, Ally had to admit she had a tendency to overextend herself at times.
“But now I have a whole two weeks off,” she continued. “After that, I’ll be working half-time until the twins are three months old and can go to the Family Care Center.”
She was aware that Spence had turned partially in the seat so that he could watch her as she talked. She suddenly felt self-conscious at his perusal. It was so odd to be…oh, nervous or something, around him, when they had once been best friends. She turned back to Rose.
“Did I tell you Taylor is going to come over to my office and help with the twins as much as she can? I’m going to insist that she let me pay her.”
“I’m not sure you should encourage that,” Spence spoke up, his brow furrowed into a thoughtful frown. “The courts have been very protective about returning adopted children to their birth parents the past few years.”
“Taylor and I have talked about it. I want her to have a place in the children’s lives. I think it’s important. The situations that work best result in the birth parent becoming a big sister to the kids and the adoptive parent being the mother.”
“If things work out according to plan,” Spence added with a cynical inflection. “What about the father?”
She glanced at Spence. His dark brown eyes with their tiny golden flecks delved into hers. “The father…the sperm donor,” she corrected, “has no place in this. He opted out when he listened to his folks and abandoned Taylor. They said she was a gold digger and had gotten pregnant to trap him into marriage. They tried to buy her off.”
“Did they succeed?”
“No, she refused their money. She was working here in the diner and overheard Rose and me talking about adoption. When I came in alone, she approached me about taking her baby. It was hard for her.”
Ally and Taylor had both shed tears when the nineteen-year-old had explained her plight. A lot of young women in her situation would have taken the money, had an abortion and gotten on with their lives. Ally could understand the stubborn pride that had caused Taylor to refuse the money.
Ally’s folks had been middle class, but they had died when she was eleven. She had gone from being a cherished only child to an undesired duty in her aunt’s life. The woman hadn’t wanted to deal with the needs of a youngster or spend any money on her, either. Ally had delivered papers and worked odd jobs to earn her own spending money. Oh, yes, she understood pride very well.
Like Taylor, she had also worked her way through school, taking the courses that led to an R.N. and college degree and finishing in three years. After that, she