If you want a different pediatrician, I’ll cancel him.”
“Two?” Hysteria tinged Faith’s tearful voice. “Twins?”
“Yeah. None of us were prepared. With no history, we were flying by the seat of our pants.” Leaning forward, the doctor clasped his hands between his knees. “You’ve got a lot to deal with. I suggest visiting your niece and nephew before you tackle the unpleasant chores that face you. I think they’ll give you the will to do what needs to be done.” He stood then, and gripped her shoulder briefly. “Well, I have to go complete the paperwork.”
“I, uh, thanks for all you did.” Dazed, Faith rose. Automatically blotting her eyes, she stood and held on to a chair back. Order and organization had always been her greatest strengths. Dependability ran a close second. In an isolated portion of her brain, Faith knew she could get through this ordeal by focusing on one task at a time.
Task one: Mop up the coffee she’d spilled.
Task two: Welcome Lacy’s babies into this harsh, cruel world.
Task three: See her sister properly laid to rest.
Only after she’d done those things would Faith allow herself to think about the future. Struggling with a fresh surge of tears, she groped in her pockets for a tissue to wipe up the coffee. In doing so, she encountered her copy of the custody agreement. In sad hindsight, Lacy’s urgency became all too clear. Lacy must have sensed how badly off she was if she’d had custody papers prepared. Oh, why couldn’t she have had the care to preserve her own health?
She hadn’t. And Faith had promised to be the babies’ guardian. She would do a good job of it, even if right now her loss seemed too great to bear.
Once she’d mopped up the spill—but before she notified the mortuary who’d handled her mother’s funeral—Faith took Dr. Finegold’s suggestion. She made her way to the nursery. With her first glance into the isolettes, she lost her heart to these two tiny scraps of humanity. The baby swaddled in blue screwed up his red face and bellowed, letting the world know he was a force to be reckoned with. His sister pursed a rosebud mouth and slept on, the barest hint of a sigh raising her chest.
A pediatric nurse placed a bolstering hand on Faith’s shoulder. “I’ll get you a mask, gown and gloves if you’d like to hold them.”
“May I?” Faith’s heart fluttered with both joy and sorrow. Joy for herself. Sorrow for the sister who’d never comfort these little ones with her touch.
She made an effort to curb her sadness and concentrated on counting the babies’ fingers and toes. “Oh, aren’t you sweethearts? It takes both of you together to weigh what your mama did at birth.” Lacy had been a solid eight pounds. Faith rocked them and talked on in a low murmur, determined that they should start life hearing about the good, fun-loving side of their mother. “Your mama loved you,” she whispered. “She gave up her own life for you. I’m going to make sure I bring you up the way she would have wanted….”
Soon after, Faith fed both babies with special tubes the nurses prepared, tubes designed to teach the babies to suck properly.
By staying, rocking the dear little bodies and holding them close, Faith was able to delay dealing with her loss. Dr. Finegold was right, she decided, staring at the babies who were now curled up, sleeping peacefully.
Lacy’s twins gave her the strength to go on. To take the next step, complete the next task.
CHAPTER TWO
THE TELEPHONE WAS RINGING when Faith walked into her apartment the next afternoon. She’d spent most of the morning attending to the numerous details associated with Lacy’s funeral. The cloying scent of funeral-home flowers remained in her nostrils. Although she’d walked home in the late-summer sunshine, she still couldn’t warm up.
Physically and mentally drained, Faith considered letting her machine take a message. The red light already blinked, so there were others. News traveled fast in a hospital. It was probably someone from the staff wanting to express condolences. But what if it was the funeral home? The director had said he’d be in touch if any problem arose. Maybe she’d neglected something important.
She snatched up the receiver on the fifth ring. After an initial exchange of hellos, it was a minute or two before Faith realized the caller was the hospital’s chief administrator.
At first all she heard was his mention of the twins, and she panicked. Her heart flew over high hurdles, while her ears recoiled in fear. She could only think that something had happened to Lacy’s babies, even though they’d been fine when she stopped by at ten. The nurses had assured her the babies were healthy, small as they were.
Little by little, Faith’s training kicked in, and she relaxed enough to make sense of what Dr. Peterson was saying.
“I don’t understand,” she ventured shakily when she thought she finally had his message straight. “Two men are at the nursery asking to see the twins? Both claim to be the father? Who are they? How do they…” Her voice trailed off, but before Dr. Peterson could say another word, Faith drowned him out. “It doesn’t matter. Allow no one near Lacy’s babies. No one but me. I’ll be there in five minutes. Tell the nursery staff to have the men wait in the room at the end of the hall.”
The taste of fear grew stronger after she dropped the receiver and bolted for the door. The how, the why, the who all whirled in a muddle through Faith’s sleep-deprived brain. She’d hardly closed her eyes since Lacy had reappeared so abruptly in her life…and then vanished for good. Had it really only been last night?
The how fell into place before Faith reached the sidewalk. Local newspapers had built a headline story out of the death of Michael Cameron’s first multiple-organ transplant patient. Faith had briefly glimpsed today’s front page. At the time, she’d only registered pain—to think Lacy wasn’t to be allowed dignity in death. Her sister had despised the condition she thought had stolen her independence. Lacy had been terrified of becoming a burden to others. She would have hated having her weaknesses exposed to the world.
As she hailed a cab, it struck Faith that the who—the two men making demands at the hospital—wasn’t really any great mystery. One of them would be the great Dr. Cameron himself. The other, probably the married playboy. Kipp, the sailor with no last name.
It wouldn’t be long before Faith ferreted out the why, she thought grimly as she paid the driver, and quickly entered the hospital by a side door. Not that anything either man had to say would change the facts. Lacy’s last request had been for Faith to keep her baby safe from the likes of those two. She had papers saying so.
For good measure, Faith stopped by the admitting office and ran off two copies of the custody document. If, by the time she reached the nursery, she still felt as hostile toward the men as she did now, she’d rub their noses in the truth. Neither one of them had loved Lacy enough to stick by her during her pregnancy. As far as Faith was concerned, the jerks didn’t deserve to set eyes on the twins—and that went for the actual birth father, as well as Michael, who must suffer delusions of being the dad. Why else would Dr. Cameron be here throwing his weight around?
Staff members glanced at Faith curiously as she hurried along the corridor and took the back stairs two at a time. Obviously the grapevine had spread the word. An interested crowd would be lurking behind the potted plants in the expectant fathers’ waiting room.
Thanks to one of the larger rubber plants, Faith was afforded a good view inside the room before anyone noted her approach. Her breath did a half hitch that she couldn’t control. Michael Cameron stood near the window. His brown hair, still dark and thick, was mussed as if he’d run a hand through it several times. The inscrutable Dr. Cameron, who rarely, if ever, had a hair out of place.
No matter how hard Faith tried to control her feelings, her heart always did a slow somersault when she came across Michael unexpectedly. It irritated her that she never seemed to have that reaction to other men—eligible men.
Today