“Wait here a sec, okay?”
He nodded and she got out of the truck and faced the porch.
Lila and Merry, two of the three MacDougal triplets, came rushing out of the house and started throwing what looked like rice up in the air.
“Congratulations to the bride and groom!” the sisters shouted in unison as rice dropped down all over Allie.
Who just stood there, shaking her head. Her sisters were peering at her, frowning.
“Allie? What’s wrong?” Merry asked.
“I—” Allie began. “It—” she stuttered. “The—” Her shoulders slumped and she turned toward him with an I need help here expression.
Oh, hell, Theo thought, as he got out of the truck and took off his sunglasses.
Allie’s sisters stared at him, then at each other, then at Allie, then back at him.
“Theo?” Merry whispered, squinting at him.
“What?” Lila said, mouth hanging open.
“I have only good news,” Allie said to her sisters. “Theo, it turns out, is alive. And Elliot got cold feet. The timing couldn’t have been better all around, actually. I easily could have had two husbands right now.”
Merry crossed her arms over her chest. “We left you to get married and you come home with your dead husband. Explain yourself now.”
“Right now,” Lila seconded.
Allie brushed rice out of her hair. “There came a knock on the door that changed everything,” she said, glancing at him. “And there Theo was. Very much alive.”
Theo knew how much Allie loved her sisters—they were very close. But he also knew Allie and could tell she was exhausted and needed to sit down—lie down—and process everything.
“It’s a long story,” Allie said, “but has to do with the serial killer he’d been after. He had to fake his death to protect me. The psycho is dead now, so Theo was able to come home.”
Her sisters narrowed their eyes at Theo.
He nodded. “I can explain further. Later, I mean,” he added. “Once Allie and I have had a chance to talk.”
“Thanks for watching the babies,” Allie said to her sisters. “I’ll take it from here.” She gave her sisters the look, the one that meant please just go and don’t ask questions; I’ll tell you everything later. They knew that look.
Thanks for watching the babies. His children. His four children. Four precious little beings he’d never met, held, seen. His heart lurched and he turned to brace a hand on the hood of the pickup.
“I’ll get our purses,” Merry said, rushing inside and coming back out a moment later. “The babies are fast asleep at the moment, Allie. They’ve only been down for about ten minutes, so they should nap a good hour and a half.”
Allie thanked them, and the pair left, walking toward town, which was just a few blocks away. Last he knew, the sisters were roommates, sharing a condo right in the middle of Main Street. He could only imagine the conversation they were having right now.
Allie gave him something of a smile-nod and started up the three steps to the porch. The last time Theo had walked into this house, there’d been only the two of them. And he counted as only a half, since he had put only half of himself into his marriage, their home life, those last few months. The rest he’d given to his job.
As he walked in the front door, the familiarity of the place almost did him in. He’d missed this house more than he knew. He’d built a life here with Allie and everything in it was a reminder of who they were at various ages. Twenty-four. Twenty-seven. Twenty-nine.
He walked through the foyer and into the living room. It was exactly the same. Big overstuffed couches. The muted area rug. The white brick fireplace. A big bowl of apples was on the kitchen island, as always; Allie loved apples. Upstairs, the master bedroom, not much bigger than the other one, hadn’t changed, either. The gray-and-white paisley comforter. Allie’s perfume bottles in front of the big round mirror of her dressing table. And on the bedside table—his side—the police procedural novel he’d been reading was still there, right next to the lamp and alarm clock.
The book was still there.
Which told him that, fiancé or not, Allie hadn’t moved on. Not really.
His relief almost buckled his knees.
He turned around, and there she was, right behind him, biting her lip. He glanced down at her left hand. She wasn’t wearing her wedding rings—the ones he’d put on her finger. Instead, a different gold ring was on her ring finger.
Maybe she had moved on. Maybe she just hadn’t gotten around to putting the book on the bookshelf in the living room. Hell, maybe she was reading it. Maybe she slept on that side now. Nearer the door. For convenience.
“The babies are in the spare bedroom?” he asked.
“It’s not the spare room anymore,” she said with something of a smile. “It’s the nursery.”
He nodded. “The nursery.”
Across the hallway he stepped toward the closed door. He put his hand on the doorknob and gently twisted it, pushing the door open and peering in. Low music was playing: a lullaby, he was pretty sure. The room was dark, black-out shades on the two windows. Four white cribs, each with a chalkboard with the baby’s name in colored chalk hanging across the outer bars, were against the walls. He stepped across the big round blue rug of yellow stars and stood in front of one of the cribs. He closed his eyes for a second and then opened them. Olivia, read the chalkboard. A baby, his daughter, lay sleeping on her back in purple footie pajamas, one hand thrown up by her head in almost a fist. Her lips quirked.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered.
“That’s Olivia,” Allie said. “On the left is Ethan.”
He moved to the crib on the left and looked in. Ethan lay on his stomach, facing away, but then he turned his head and was now facing Theo. He had Theo’s dark hair, as Olivia did.
“And across the room are Tyler and Henry,” she said.
He moved to Tyler’s crib. He also had dark hair, but there was something in his little face that was all Allie. Henry had the same dark hair, but it was harder to tell whom he looked more like, especially with his eyes closed.
“Four babies,” he said, looking at the cribs, at the tidy room. “How have you done this on your own?”
“Well, this afternoon is a good example of how. I didn’t give them lunch. Geraldine—you remember her from next door?—babysat and fed them lunch while Merry and Lila were at the town hall with me for a bit, then my sisters relieved her and put them down for their nap. Easy-peasy when you have a lot of help.”
“You can’t have help every minute of every day, though,” he said.
“No. And there have been hard moments, hard hours, hard days. But no matter what—the lack of time, privacy, inability to pee in peace, drink a cup of coffee while it’s hot, lack of sleep, staying up for hours with a sick baby only to have two or three sick at the same time, the screeching in the supermarket... I could go on. No matter what, I have them. They’re the reward, you know?”
He did know. “I always felt that way about you, Allie. No matter how hard things got those last few months here. You were still my wife. We were still the Starks.”
She almost gasped, and he wasn’t sure if she was touched or shocked or what. Part of him felt as though he knew her inside out. But he’d lost two years. And now he felt he didn’t know her at all. She’d “buried” her husband. She’d raised quadruplet babies on her own for a year. She was obviously strong in ways he hadn’t been