Micah (22 page)

“
I’m telling you right
now,” she’d been telling Keys. “You’d be better off with me killing
you for my dinner than one of my brothers. I don’t think they’d be
so nice about it. Or my husband. He’s sort of protective of
me.”

She’d turned to him then and smiled.
Micah wanted to tear the man’s throat out. Kill him where he was,
but he looked around the room at the other men there; two cops that
he knew were wolf, a bailiff that he thought was a day walker, as
well as the judge who was a cat himself. A tiger. Any one of them
could have taken him, killed Keys for what he’d done, but they’d
let her do it. Why, he wondered still, and asked her about it when
they were driving to the hospital.

“
Because, my dear husband,
I had it under control. And they could see it.” She held his hand
as they moved through the traffic. “This baby…are you as scared as
I am?”

“
Terrified. I haven’t a
clue what to do with one.” He smiled when she laughed. “Okay, I do
know what to do with them in the general sense, but not if it gets
sick.”

“
Your grandparents said
they’d come and stay with us a couple of days. I was wondering if
you think you could ask them to stay for longer. Like until the kid
is out of college.” They both laughed. “We also have to think of
something to call her besides it.”

“
I did what you asked. And
my grandmother’s name is Katherine. My mom’s middle name is Anne.
What was yours?” She told him. “Okay, so we have Katherine Anne on
my side and Alexis Grace on yours. Wow, now how do we
choose?”

“
We don’t. I got it.” He
glanced at her as he pulled into the parking lot. He checked again
to make sure they had all the bags and stuff they were going to
need…or so his mom told him. “Katherine Alexis Grace Anne Bentley.
It’s a mouthful, but she might be our only one if we screw this up,
so we can make them all happy. And I think calling her Anne for
short will thrill your mom, too.”

He loved it. In fact the more he said
it to himself, the more he realized she was right. Not about the
screwing up part, because he figured if they got too far gone in
what they were messing up with, someone would step in and smack
them upside the head. At least he hoped so.

The baby was in the nursery, and
instead of being taken to her the way that they thought, the doctor
and Joey asked them to come to the office. Micah had a feeling that
they were going to get told someone had already figured out that
they weren’t right for the job of raising little Anne.

“
The mother passed away
just as we delivered the baby by Cesarean. There is no one to come
forward for her or the child. The reason that we’re in here…well,
we wanted to tell you that we made a mistake.” Reggie wrapped her
arms around him and he held her. Micah wanted to cry himself, but
held Reggie while she cried softly. “I’m sorry, I’m not doing this
well. The baby is yours…it’s just that…we didn’t count on…we had
no—”

“
They are twins. Not a
single little girl. Two of them.” Both he and Reggie turned to Joey
as he spoke. “The second child is smaller but healthy. After the
accident that killed her family, they were more focused on just the
mother and didn’t check to see about the child. Or in this case,
children. The doc here said that she was under her sister, and even
though there had been daily checks on her, no one guessed there
were two.”

“
Okay.” He looked down at
Reggie. “We don’t have to give her all the names now. We can split
them between the two of them.”

“
You’re not mad?” Micah
looked at the doctor when he sounded so relieved. “We didn’t want
to split them up, you see. They seemed to…it’s almost as if they
know they’re the only family they have left. We’ve had to…I know
that they’re only a few hours old, but we’ve had to put them in the
same bed so that they’d stop crying.”

“
Why on earth would you
think we’d take…? Well, you don’t know us, so I guess that’s okay.”
The doctor nodded at Reggie, and Micah hugged her to him. “Do you
think we can see them? I mean…please? Can we see
our…daughters?”

They were taken to a room that had a
chair and a smallish love seat in it. Micah wasn’t sure about the
love seat, and he wasn’t going to take the rocker. Those suckers
scared the shit out of him, especially one like this one. It looked
like it was made from matchsticks and his big body would snap it if
he tried. But Reggie sat in it and he smiled at her.

“
I should have asked you
first.” He had no idea what she was talking about and told her.
“About taking them both. I should have asked you if it was what you
wanted. Hell, Micah, I don’t know what we’re going to do with one
of them, much less two.”

“
Me neither. But I’m glad
you did it. We could no more separate them than we could me and any
of my brothers. Though some days it’s tempting.” He peeked out of
the room and down the hall where the nursery was. Joey was there
with a nurse, flirting no doubt, and he saw his mom coming toward
them as soon as the elevator opened. He told Reggie.

After telling her what was going on,
she sat on the little couch. His mom didn’t say anything for a few
minutes, but he could see she was happy. They had yet to tell her
the names, but he knew she’d be pleased about that too. He wasn’t
even sure yet how they were going to divide the names now. But when
he looked down the hall again, two nurses were coming toward them
with little bassinets. He felt his hands soak in sweat.

The first one contained a small pink
bump. He supposed that was a horrible way to describe the first
meeting with his child, but he couldn’t see anything for all the
pink. The blanket, the hat it had on, and the little fuzzy thing
next to her were all pink. When the baby started to fuss, he found
himself reaching into the crib and picking her up before he could
think he didn’t have a clue what the hell he was doing.

Then he looked into her
eyes.

Micah couldn’t have looked away if he
had a gun to his head. She was, simply put, the most beautiful
creature he’d ever seen. Her dark eyes were staring up at him as if
she knew that she had to make a good first impression. To him it
wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been screaming her head off, he was
still going to take her. But Christ, she was wonderful. He glanced
over at Reggie to tell her what he felt when he noticed she was
holding the other little girl.

Sitting on the sofa now, he perched on
the edge while he looked at the baby that Reggie held. It was then
that he realized they were identical. He asked the nurse, who was
hovering around them.

“
No, not identical.
They’re a lot alike but their blood type is different. The one
you’re holding, Mrs. Bentley, is A-positive, and the other is
AB-positive.” Like that mattered to him, he thought. “They’re going
to need to be fed soon. If you’d like for me to take
them—”

He and Reggie said no at the same
time. “We’d like to do it, please. I mean, we’re going to have to
get used to it anyway, and now is as good a time as
any.”

The nurse appeared unsure, then looked
at his mom. She nodded once and the nurses, both of them, left.
Reggie handed his mom the baby she had. His mom looked like a pro,
switching sides like she’d…well, he supposed, she had done it a
million times before.

“
We have names. Just
not…we’ll have to name them before we leave, they said, but we
just…one of them will be called Katherine Alexis and the other
Grace Anne. What do you think?” His mom looked at him, then back at
Reggie when she continued. “We don’t have to name them after you
and Grandma. We just thought if we fuc…screwed this up, we’d only
get one shot at being a parent and we’d hit you all.”

“
And had there only been
one little girl, what would she have been called? All of those
names?” Reggie nodded. “I see. So these children were going to be
named for us no matter what. Let me ask, the Alexis would be your
mom?”

“
Yes. Her name was Alexis
and my grandmother’s was Grace, too. The Anne is after you. Grandma
on my side didn’t have…are you pissed?” Micah watched her flush
with embarrassment. “I’m only asking because for the life of me, I
can’t figure you out. Do you or don’t you want them to be named for
you?”

“
I’m glad you can’t.
That’s the plan. And I do. Very much so love the names. I just…I’m
actually trying to get my ducks in a row before I cry like a little
baby. And so you know, if Micah, my husband, and I had had a little
girl, she would have been called Grace Anne. I’m…I’m honored, if
you want to know the truth.”

Reggie looked at him, and he smiled,
handing her his little bundle. When they were both holding the
children, his mom and his wife, he pulled out his phone and took
their picture. Then he took one of them holding them with their
faces showing. He sent it to his grandparents and brothers. This
time he just simply put their names, not tagging either
child.

The response was nearly the same.
“Bring them home.”

Chapter 13

Reggie held Anne with the bottle just
like Gracie had told her. It wasn’t working. The baby seemed to
know it too…or she hated her. This was the third time she’d tried
feeding Anne, and each time it had ended with them both in tears.
The child hated her. When Micah came into the room with Alexis
sleeping soundly on his shoulder, she wanted to throw something at
him.

“
You should know that she
burped like she meant to. Grandda and I were going to record it
next time for you.” He sat down with her and stared at the baby.
“Still not taking to it, huh?”

“
She hates me.” The tears
started before she could stop them, and she wanted to hand Anne to
him and leave the room. “I guess you’re going to be the one feeding
her from now on.”

“
You’ll get it.” She asked
him if he was willing to let his child starve to find out. “No, and
neither will you. You just have to figure it out together. I didn’t
get it right the first time either.”

“
You’re an ass.” Reggie
groaned when Grandma came into the room. “I’m screwing this up for
her. She’s going to be too thin and it’ll be all my
fault.”

“
Nonsense. You just need
to relax.” Grandma sat next to her, and Reggie started to turn the
baby over to her. “No, the two of you need to work this out. Let’s
try a pillow.”

The pillow was put under her elbow,
and she held the baby that way. That didn’t work if the screams
coming from Anne were any indication. But Grandma still wouldn’t
take her. In frustration Reggie turned her to her other arm to get
up, and Anne stopped screaming like she’d put a rag in her
mouth.

“
What is it? Did I hurt
her?” She started to change the baby back to check when her lower
lip quivered. Reggie held her in her left arm and put the bottle
near her little lips, and was giddy when she took it. As Anne
watched Reggie, and Reggie watched her, she had a feeling the kid
had been trying to tell her this all along. She looked at Grandma
when she laughed.

“
They’re not identical
twins, but mirror twins.” She asked her what that meant as Anne’s
little eyes slowly closed. “They’re a right and left to each other.
Now that I think about it, Micah always holds Alexis on his right.
Of course, you holding Anne on your left would be correct. I’m
betting that she’s left handed as well.”

“
And she was fussy about
that?” Grandma nodded. “I don’t know about this. Is everything
going to be this hard to figure out?”

“
Oh no.” Reggie was
relieved until Grandma stood up and walked to the door, turning at
that last second. “It’s going to get a great deal
harder.”

When she left the room, Reggie looked
at Micah. “Your grandmother is a sadist. I’m warning you now,
because I’m betting when they start to walk and talk, she’s going
to be right there whispering things in their ears to scare the shit
out of us with.”

“
Grandda too. I caught him
this morning telling Anne there that if she threw up on me when I
was ready to go to work, he’d give her a pony. A frigging pony.” He
shook his head. “We need to get this figured out so they can go
back to living with Mom before it’s too late for us.”

The baby was asleep in her arms now,
puckering her tiny little lips every once in a while as if she were
still drinking. Reggie ran her finger gently over her soft cheek
and then lifted her hand to her mouth to kiss. She kept watching
her as she talked to Micah.

“
It’s really horrible how
they were left without a family before they even knew what one was.
To have lost both parents in such a way.” The car accident had been
about three weeks ago. The man driving their car, the father of the
babies, had been hit in the side—T-boned, Garth had told her—and
was killed instantly. The grandparents—the mother’s mom and his
dad—had been in the back seat, and had died as well as they were
tossed about in the car when it was hit twice more before coming to
rest in a ditch. The mother had been brought to the hospital,
seemingly all right until about an hour later. Then she’d fallen
into a coma. It was discovered that she’d had a brain hemorrhage
that no one had seen. She never woke from the coma and had been
declared brain dead two days before Grandma and Grandpa had come to
talk to them about the baby.