Kitabı oxu: «Ooh Baby, Baby Part 3»

Chapter Eleven

Travis Stockwell slouched over the counter and fiddled with a limp French fry, using it to draw designs in the ketchup that flooded one side of his plate. He remembered that Peggy didn’t like ketchup on her French fries. She ate the danged things dry. A man just couldn’t have serious feelings about a woman who didn’t know how to eat French fries.

Worst part was that she’d probably raise those babies to eat French fries wrong, too. That’d be a real shame, especially for T.J. The little wrangler needed someone to teach him real-man stuff, like how to whack the ketchup bottle with a flat palm instead of a fist so the contents wouldn’t glug out all at once. And then there was the fine art of chomping down a burger in four bites or less. None of this nibbling around the edge stuff. Girls nibbled. Men gobbled. Belching was optional.

It wasn’t that Peggy wouldn’t be a good mother to those babies. She was a wonderful mama. The best. Patient and tender, all cooey and kissy. And the bravest woman he’d ever met. Peggy had given birth to twins in the back of his taxi during one of the worst storms Colorado had ever experienced, and she never complained once. Travis didn’t have a doubt in the world that those sweet babies would be well-loved and happy. It’s just that there were girl manners and boy manners, and Travis hated the idea that T.J. would grow up not knowing the difference.

Travis pushed away his plate, eyeing his own half-eaten burger with disdain. It looked, well, it looked nibbled. Pitiful, just pitiful. Ordinarily he was a three-bite-man and proud of it. Tonight his stomach wasn’t up to the challenge.

Maybe it was the peculiar sense of apprehension that had been plaguing him. He’d had trouble concentrating, had even missed a turnoff and found himself heading toward Nebraska. It had taken an extra hour to backtrack. Now he’d be lucky if he made it to Cheyenne by morning.

Travis took a final gulp of cold coffee, then tossed a two-buck tip on the counter and went to the diner’s cash register to pay his bill. The cashier greeted him with a lukewarm smile, waiting while he eyed the array of gum and mints displayed in the glass counter case.

“Got any pumpkin seeds?” he asked, handing over a twenty.

She accepted the currency and gave the display a disinterested glance. “We’ve got sunflower seeds.”

“I don’t want sunflower seeds.”

“We’ve got gum.”

“I don’t want gum. I want pumpkin seeds.”

She plopped his change on the counter. “Well, cowboy, you can’t have ’em if we don’t got ‘em. How about a breath mint?”

He narrowed his eyes. “How about some antacids?” he said loudly enough to startle some patrons that had just entered the establishment. “I could use ’em about now.”

The patrons did a U-turn and left.

Travis barely noticed, nor did he pay attention to the infuriated cashier’s dark scowl. He was completely overwhelmed by a soft buzz in his skull and the chill skittering down his spine. He shifted, glanced over his shoulder, saw nothing but his own reflection in the diner’s glass door.

Then he felt it again, a whispered uneasiness, unfocused but intensely compelling. His shoulder tingled as if touched. And he could have sworn he heard someone call his name.

* * *

“Why did you leave me, Daddy?”

“I had to.”

“Didn’t you love me anymore?”

“I loved you.”

“Then why did you go away?”

“I thought you’d be better off.”

His face was blurred, features obscured by a cloudy vapor. But Peggy could hear his voice and knew without doubt who he was. “But I cried, Daddy, and so did Mommy. We were so sad without you.”

“I know.” The vapor grew thicker, more opaque. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry….”

“Daddy?” As Peggy reached out, empty mist swirled around her fingers. “Daddy, please come back. I’ll be a good girl, I promise. I promise, Daddy.”

A wail emanated from beyond the cloudy wall, a cranky, frightened sound that pierced her very soul. She clawed forward, only to find herself lost in the mist. The cry intensified, more desperate now, more terrified. She had to find the source. She had to.

She had to.

* * *

Travis pulled up to the curb, letting his truck idle a moment before turning off the ignition. He didn’t have a clue why he was here, or what he was going to do. All he knew is that he’d left the diner heading south, back toward Grand Springs. Now he was parked in front of Peggy’s duplex, wondering why the kitchen light was on at three o’clock in the morning.

At the risk of once again finding himself staring down the business end of a police revolver, he exited the truck and went to have a look-see. Of course, the twins couldn’t tell time, and he knew their hungry little bellies didn’t much care if the sun was up or not. Still, he couldn’t shake the sensation that he really ought to check things out.

He considered peeking in the back window, a notion quickly discarded when he remembered how frightened Peggy had been the last time he’d slunk around her house like some kind of perverted peeper. Instead, he strode up the front walk. By the time he reached the porch, he could hear the twins crying. He listened a moment, waiting for the change in pitch or intensity that confirmed they were being tended. The cries continued unabated, desperate, choking little wails that went straight through his heart.

“Peggy?” He tapped on the door, waited, then pounded it with his fist. “Peggy, it’s Travis. Open the door.”

Nothing. No lilting voice, no flurry of footsteps. Only silence.

A quick twist of the knob confirmed that the door was locked, so he sprinted around back, rushed through the gate and found the kitchen door locked, too. In a sickening rush of déjà vu, he took a step back, booted it open and dashed inside.

What he saw nearly stopped his heart. “Oh, God. Peggy.” He knelt beside her crumpled form, frantically massaging her chalky cheeks. “Peggy, honey, wake up. You’ve got to wake up, honey, you’ve got to.”

She moaned. He nearly wept with relief. At least she was alive.

“Babies,” she murmured, rolling her head. “My babies.”

“They’re fine, honey, just fine.” At least, he hoped they were. “I’ll, ah, be right back.”

Travis sprinted down the hallway, into the nursery where both babies were still wailing. He skidded to Ginny’s crib. The pathetic little thing was beet red, flailing her hands and kicking madly. A wet stain on the mattress hinted to at least one of her problems.

Travis awkwardly patted her rigid tummy. “There, there, darling.” She sucked a startled sob, blinked expectantly up at him, then screwed up her face and wailed even louder. Travis wrung his hands, muttering. He grabbed the pink pacifier at the foot of the crib and wiggled it inside the baby’s open mouth. Instantly, she clamped her gums together and startled to suckle.

“One down,” he mumbled, then headed toward T.J., who was just as red-faced as his sister and twice as loud. Frantic, Travis searched the crib for the blue pacifier, finally spotting it on the floor by the dresser. He scooped up the precious piece of plastic, sprinted into the bathroom to scrub it off with hot, soapy water. By the time he’d managed to dash back and pop the clean pacifier into T.J.’s greedy little mouth, Ginny was crying again.

He ran to her crib, retrieved the pink pacifier, which had slipped away and fallen under her ear. When he tried to reinsert the rubbery nipple, she turned her face away, yowling in protest. “I know it’s not exactly what you had in mind, but it’s the best I can do. Make believe it’s Mommy, okay, darling?”

Ginny stared up, heaved a resigned shudder and accepted the pacifier.

Travis exhaled all at once. “That’s my girl.”

With his heart pounding, he retrieved a wet washcloth from the bathroom, then lurched back down the hall and knelt to sponge Peggy’s pale face.

She moaned again. “You do love me,” she whispered without opening her eyes. “I knew you did. I knew it.”

A lump the size of Wyoming wedged in Travis’s throat. He wanted to speak, hell, he wanted to holler that yes, yes, he loved her. But those words had never touched his tongue before, and he couldn’t form them now.

Her lips moved. “I love you, too, Daddy.”

Every drop of moisture instantly evaporated from Travis’s mouth. Peggy didn’t love him. Hell, she didn’t even know who he was. She was delirious, dangerously sick and out of her mind with fever. There was only one thing to do.

So Travis did it.

* * *

The first awareness Peggy had was of an uncomfortable tightness pressing the bridge of her nose and the hiss of oxygen being fed into the mask. She blinked at the light, squinted at the blurred form leaning over her. It was a woman with short blond hair and a gentle smile. “Easy, now. You’re going to be fine.”

“Where am I?” The question came out slurred, muffled by the mask, but the female EMT didn’t seem to notice.

“In an ambulance,” she replied.

An ambulance? The answer was confirmed by a jarring bounce as the vehicle sped along a bumpy road. Peggy lifted a weak hand and grasped the female medic’s wrist. “My babies…”

“Your babies are fine,” the woman said, loosely grasping Peggy’s wrist and pressing a thumb against the pulsing vein. “Your friend is taking care of them.”

“My friend?”

“Umm.” The medic studied her watch, then smiled and placed Peggy’s hand back onto the cot. “You had us worried for a while, but your pulse is much stronger and your blood pressure has stabilized.”

“I don’t have any friends,” Peggy blurted.

“Well, you certainly have one. He probably saved your life.”

“He?” Disoriented as she was, Peggy took a moment to clear her fuzzy mind.

The medic chuckled. “Very much a ‘he.’ Big brown eyes, shoulders to die for, and hips that look so good in jeans it ought to be illegal.”

Peggy moaned. “Oh, God. Travis.” She yanked at the mask, tried to sit up, fought the medic’s attempt to calm her. “Please, I have to get back, I have to go home.”

“Sh, you’re going to be fine.”

“You don’t understand. Travis can’t take care of the twins. He doesn’t know how, he’s even afraid to pick them up.” Peggy fought against the woman’s restraining hands. “Please, you have to take me back…aah!” A burning sensation shifted Peggy’s attention, and she stared in horror at the tube jutting from her taped arm. A fluid bag was suspended above her head, dripping clear liquid into the tube.

Memories slid through her mind, fuzzy images of the lighted kitchen, the tilting tunnel door. She remembered the feel of rough carpet against her cheek, the desperate cries of her babies. How long had she been unconscious? How long had her babies lain there, crying with hunger, with fear?

Reality hit like a sledge. If Travis hadn’t come back, it might have been days before anyone found them.

But he had come back, and he’d saved their lives. Again.

* * *

“You’ve got to come over,” Travis shouted into the telephone. “Ginny’s all wet and T.J.’s crying, and they’re both hungry as vultures, and I’ve got to get to the hospital to see about Peggy, and—”

“Peggy’s in the ER,” Sue Anne said. “I just called. She’s awake and alert, and the doctors are examining her now.”

“I’ve got to get there,” Travis insisted.

“What you’ve got to do is take care of those babies.”

“Me? I don’t know anything about babies.”

“You’ve spent every spare minute with them for the past eight weeks. I figure you’ve picked up a tip or two.”

“That’s different.” Travis raked his hair, dragging the telephone toward the hallway until the cord went taut. He swore.

“Humph, nice language in front of those babes.”

“The twins are in the nursery. I’m in the living room. The blasted cord is too short.” He spun around, clutching the phone in one hand and the receiver in the other. “Sue Anne, please, I’m begging you. I’ll wash every cab in the fleet with a cotton swab and drive night shift for a year. Hell, I’ll even do your laundry. Just come over!”

She was silent a moment. “Does that include ironing?”

“Sue Anne!”

A chuckle filtered through the line. “Sorry, kid, much as I love to take advantage of panic-based generosity, I can’t leave the dispatch center.”

“Danny can take over.”

“He’ll be in Denver for the rest of the week. College registration—” A telephone rang on Sue Anne’s end of the line. “Hold on,” she muttered to Travis, then answered what he presumed to be the dispatch center’s call-out phone, which was a separate line for Conway Cab customers. He heard his sister speak briefly, repeat an address on the west side of town. There was a ripping noise, as if she’d torn a sheet of paper from a pad. A moment later, he heard her on the two-way radio, relaying the information.

Travis checked his watch and groaned. It was 6:00 a.m., and the day shift was just pulling out. Where had the time gone? The three hours since he’d first arrived had flown by in chaos, and Lord only knew how long it had been since those poor babies had anything to eat. They’d dozed off for a spell after he’d given them the pacifiers, but they were awake now and sounded hungry enough to suck off the wallpaper.

“Travis?”

He tightened his grip on the receiver. “Yeah?”

“Things are getting busy here. Grab your cell and put me on speaker phone.”

“I can’t. I forgot to charge it.”

“Listen, do you still carry that portable two-way in your truck?”

“Sure, but why…?”

“If you use it to patch into the dispatch center, I might be able to give you a few pointers while you’re caring for the kids.”

“Oh. Yeah. Great.” Travis dashed toward the front door, and would have made it if he hadn’t been carrying the telephone. The cord tightened, yanking the phone body out of his hand. The instrument bounced across the floor. He dove for it, retrieved the phone and lost the receiver, which skidded under the sofa.

Frantic now, Travis grabbed the curly cord and dragged it out hand over fist, hollering, “Sue Anne, Sue Anne? I can’t get through the front door. The cord’s not long enough—”

“Hang up, Travis.”

“Huh?”

A long-suffering sigh made him wince. “Hang up the telephone, brilliant brother of mine, then go get the two-way out of your truck and use it to contact the dispatch center.”

He frowned and rubbed his forehead, feeling like a damned fool. “I knew that.”

Sue Anne chuckled. “Sure you did.”

There was a click. The line went dead. Sue Anne had broken the connection, leaving Travis utterly alone with two hungry infants and a heart full of fear.

* * *

“Am I going to die?”

Dr. Amanda Jennings smiled and patted Peggy’s hand. “Of course not. We’re going to take very good care of you.”

“But you don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Not yet,” she conceded. “But we’ll run some blood tests, take a couple of X rays—”

“X rays?”

“You’ve got a nasty lump on your head. The paramedic report indicates that you probably struck the kitchen table when you fainted.”

Peggy bit her lip and turned away so the doctor wouldn’t see the tears form. For the first time, she realized how vulnerable her babies were. If anything happened to her, they’d be raised by strangers, alone and unloved. The thought made her nauseous. That couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it happen. “Could someone please call my ex-husband? I have an emergency number.”

“I’ll see to it myself,” Dr. Jennings replied kindly. She jotted the number on a blue scratch pad on the bed table, tore off the sheet and clipped it on Peggy’s chart. Then she gave Peggy a reassuring pat and disappeared between the folds of the drawn bed drape.

Peggy lay there, watching life-giving fluid drip into her veins and feeling more terrified than she had since the day she’d watched her father walk out of her life. At least she’d still had a mother to love and nurture her. One parent wasn’t enough, but it was better than none, which is exactly what her beloved babies would face if they lost their mother.

With her fingers tangled in the bedclothes she fought panic, reminding herself that even if the worst happened to her the twins still had a father. Clyde wouldn’t abandon his children to foster care. He’d come through for them. She knew he would.

She knew it.

* * *

“Oh, Lord.” Travis grabbed a towel, flapping it at the billowing white cloud.

The radio strapped to his belt crackled. “What’s going on?”

Travis continued flapping with one hand and poked the send button with the other. “A mite too much powder,” he muttered. “Got it under control.”

T.J. sneezed and whacked his little fists. The poor, redheaded little thing looked like a sugar-dusted carrot cake. Travis used a corner of the towel to clear white powder from the baby’s face, but his fuzzy little scalp was coated with the stuff. A problem for later, Travis decided. He tossed the towel aside, fastened the diaper’s sticky tabs, anchored the tiny pajama snaps and heaved a relieved sigh. Behind him, Ginny, who’d already been changed and diapered, had given up trying to get milk out of the pacifier and was wailing her little heart out.

Travis brushed his palms together and hit the radio switch. “They’re both clean and dry,” he announced. “Now what?”

“Well, what’s the first thing you want when you step out of your morning shower?”

His heart sank. “I don’t suppose you’re talking about a cup of strong, black coffee.”

“Not unless you suck it through a nipple.”

“Oh, for crying out loud—”

“Which is possible, I suppose, considering how many times I dropped you on your head when you were little. Accidentally, of course, even if you were a whiny little twerp who made my life miserable.”

“Dang it, Sue Anne, quit giving me grief and tell me what the devil I’m supposed to do here.”

“Does the word formula ring any bells?”

The image of Danny feeding T.J. white stuff out of a bottle came to mind. Travis sighed. “I don’t know how to make it.”

“Check the fridge,” Sue Anne suggested cheerfully. “My guess is that Peggy has a few bottles already made up and waiting.”

The mere thought gave him hope. He spun on his heel, dashed to the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator. Relief made him limp. “Oh, yeah. Oh, thank you, Lord.”

“Travis?”

“Umm?” He poked the radio send button, steadied his voice. “There’s four bottles in here.” A distressed wail floated from the nursery. “Geez, Sue Anne, the babies are getting all perturbed.”

“Warm the bottles.”

“Okay.” He snatched up two of the bottles, kicked the fridge door shut, then looked frantically around the room. “How?”

The radio remained stubbornly silent.

“How?” Travis shouted at thin air. “There isn’t a microwave. Do I put them in the oven, tuck them under my armpits, what?”

The radio crackled. “Okay, I assume that by now you’ve got a bottle in each hand and are too rattled to hit the send button, which suits me fine because hearing a grown man snivel makes my teeth itch. So just keep your mouth shut and listen. First, put a couple inches of water in a saucepan.”

Travis’s frenzied gaze swept the room and settled on the cabinet where he thought Peggy kept her cookware. He dashed over, clunking a bottle against the knob.

“Put the bottles down, Travis, then open the cupboard.”

He straightened, staring down at the radio.

His sister’s amused voice floated from black plastic. “No, there’s not a camera in there, m’dear. I just know you. Now, get your fanny in gear and heat up that dadgummed water before those poor babes are old enough to climb out of their cribs and do it themselves.”

Muttering, he set the bottles on the counter, retrieved a saucepan and continued to follow his sister’s eerily clairvoyant instructions until the bottles had been warmed. At Sue Anne’s insistence, he tested the contents on his wrist, howled in pain, then held his wrist and both bottles under the faucet to cool them.

When the formula was as close to lukewarm as Travis could manage, he hurried back to the nursery, where he stood in the center of the room, clutching the precious bottles and staring from one wailing infant to the other. “Which one do I feed first?”

The radio was silent. Frustrated, he shifted both bottles to one hand and reached for the button at his hip. “They’re both screaming, Sue Anne.”

She sighed. “You’ve got two hands, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but I can’t reach both cribs at the same time. My arms aren’t long enough.”

“Then, I guess you’ll have to move one of them, won’t you?”

His heart plummeted toward his boots. “You mean…?” His frantic gaze spun from one cranky infant to the other. “Oh, Lordy, I can’t, Sue Anne, I just can’t. They’re squirming and squawking, wiggling like a pair of hooked worms. I’ll drop them for sure.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Travis, get a grip. You can flatten a thousand-pound steer with your bare hands. I figure you can handle a tiny baby that doesn’t weigh more than a bag of flour.”