“You’ve been so good, Beau,” she crooned, tucking him into the crook of her arm. “Are you a hungry boy?”
Her voice was different when she talked to her children—softer, sweeter, more intimate somehow.
Aiden lifted his head again, and then he burped again, this time leaving a dribble of milk to soak into Seth’s shirt.
“Sorry,” Gabby said with a wince.
“No problem.”
“You don’t have to help with baby stuff, you know,” she said. “Just having us here is enough.”
“If you don’t want me to—” he started, then breathed a sigh. “Thing is, Gabs, I kind of want to. If I’m going to be your husband, I guess that makes me a dad to them…sort of. Right?”
“Do you want to be?” Gabby eyed him, and he couldn’t tell what she was feeling. But she was waiting for his answer, all of her body tensed. He’d learned a few things in his first marriage, like never to assume he knew what a woman was feeling. Honesty was probably the best call right now.
“Am I allowed to be a dad to them?” he asked cautiously.
“How long-term is this?” she asked.
“Uh…” He smiled hesitantly. “As long as we want it to be.”
“That’s not an answer, though.”
“I’m assuming we’re going to keep this going for as long as the boys need the insurance,” he said. “That’s on a purely practical level. As friends, though, we can stay married for the rest of our lives, if it suits us.”
“If it suits us…” She sucked in a breath. “Kids needs stability.”
“Yeah, I get it,” he said with a quick nod. And emotional connection and passionate promises gave at least the impression of stability. But he and Gabby weren’t there; they weren’t promising undying passion for a lifetime.
“I did grow up with a really great godfather,” Gabby said. “You know how much Uncle Ted meant to me. I was thinking maybe you could be like him… That way, if we do decide to end this after a while, it won’t be as traumatic for the boys, and you could stay in their lives in a meaningful way.”
Uncle Ted. That had been a weird setup with Gabby’s family—not that Seth had told her his real feelings there. Godparents mattered a lot in her family—more than in his, that was for sure.
“Okay, well…so I’ll be a godfather kind of figure. And I can help out with the bottles and stuff.”
When they got older he could teach them to ride a horse, and to fix a truck, and to use their manners. Maybe she was right, and being a godfather would be a longer-lasting relationship than a stepdad.
“Okay…” Gabby’s voice softened, and she met his gaze with a gentle smile. “We’ll just learn as we go.”
That seemed to be parenting in a nutshell, really—learning as you went along. Billy’s daughter had been dropped on his doorstep, and he came back to Eagle’s Rest to raise her before Seth and Bonnie had started trying for a baby. Watching his old friend adjust to fatherhood had taught him a thing or two—namely, that a whole lot of love made up for whatever limitations a dad might have. If Seth had had the chance to raise his own daughter, he’d have bumbled along, he was sure, but the chance to bumble and mess up and fix stuff—that was more precious than most people realized.
When the babies were fed, Gabby changed diapers again. Seth stood back and let her do that one on her own. He was easing into this, and a bottle was enough to stretch his skill set right now.
“I guess I should show you your room,” Seth said, when the babies were dressed once more.
“That would be great. They normally sleep after a bottle,” Gabby replied. “I’ve got the collapsible playpen in your truck—”
“There’s a crib,” he said, and he swallowed against a lump in his throat.
“Oh…” Understanding registered in her eyes. “Hazel’s?”
He nodded. “If that’s okay.”
“It’s perfect,” she said. “They’re small enough we can lay them down sidelong and they can all sleep together. For now, at least. That’s how they sleep in the playpen, anyway.”
Hazel’s crib… He hadn’t looked at it in a long time, and his chest tightened at the thought of it being put to use after all this time. But these boys needed a home and a bed, and it was better to have that nursery used than to leave it empty of life and filled with grief.
Seth cleared his throat. “Should I carry one of the babies?”
“Please. Here’s Beau.”
She passed the infant into his arms, and Seth looked down at the tiny face of yet a different boy who needed him. Seth was a dad. Sort of. That was how he was seeing himself right now. He might not be biologically linked, but he was here…and he was married to their mother. He gave the baby a little pat on the rump.
“Hey, Beau,” he murmured.
Beau was sleeping, pale eyelashes brushing his cheeks. Seth waited until Gabby had the remaining two babies in her arms, and then he led the way up the creaking stairs to the second floor.
“That’s my bedroom,” he said, nodding toward the closed door. “And this is…yours.”
It was hard to say that Hazel’s room belonged to Gabby and her sons now, but he opened the other door to reveal the nursery. It was spacious and bright, and there was a double bed pushed against the far wall. He’d come through the room and dusted all the surfaces, did some sweeping and generally tried to make it hospitable before he left to get married. Originally, this used to be the guest room, and he and Bonnie never did move that bed out. They’d figured it might be useful for feedings or something. But Gabby could use that bed, and the babies would share the crib until they could squeeze in another couple cribs.
Gabby stepped into the room ahead of him and looked around.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “So bright. I love it.”
He’d always liked that room, too, and he stepped forward to lower the side of the crib one-handed so she could put the babies into it. It took him a moment of fiddling—he wasn’t used to actually using any of this stuff, but before Hazel was born he’d familiarized himself with it all. He was nothing if not prepared—his life motto, for all it had worked out.
Gabby laid the boys carefully on the yellow-sheeted mattress. Andy stretched out tiny limbs and Aiden exhaled a comfortable sigh. Gabby took Beau from his arms and laid him next to his brothers. Beau and Aiden turned toward each other.
“They always do that,” Gabby whispered.
“I wonder why,” Seth said.
“They shared a womb.” Gabby shrugged. “They all did. I’m sure their relationship—the three of them—will be one we’ll never fully understand.”
“Yeah.”
We. That was the word she’d chosen, and it felt awkwardly endearing to be included like that. We.
Seth glanced around the nursery—at the owl decals on the walls, the rocking chair in the far corner holding a pile of knitted blankets he’d never actually put away—and he realized that it didn’t feel quite so sad anymore. It wasn’t that Hazel’s memory was gone from this room exactly, but perhaps her memory had some company in the form of triplet boys.
GABBY