strange. Desperate and shaky.
He stared at her, his grip a bit tighter on the baby carrier. “How did you know that?”
“Because Willem—my late husband—is the one who put her there. She’s mine, Noah. My daughter.”
What? Noah took a step toward Sara, then a step back. “There was a note with her. It said she’s mine.”
Sara shook her head. “She’s not yours. Willem told me she died during the home birth. But he just didn’t want her because she was a girl and frail-looking when her healthy, robust twin brother—the male heir—had been born two minutes earlier.”
No. That’s insanity. On what planet does that sound believable? Even the worst of the worst like Willem Perry wouldn’t do something like that. To his own flesh and blood? His newborn daughter?
She stepped forward, her gaze on the baby’s head before looking up at him. “He left a letter for me via his lawyer detailing how he drove her here right before the rain started to come down in the middle of the night. I had no idea. I thought she didn’t survive the birth.” A sob escaped her, and she put her hand over her mouth.
Oh God. Unthinkable.
So unthinkable that it wasn’t quite sinking in. All he could do in the moment was look at Annabel, whom he’d taken care of for the past almost two months, whom he loved. She was his daughter. The note had said so. She was his child.
“That’s my baby girl, Noah,” she said, taking another step, then stopping. Maybe because of the expression on his face, which had to be something like horror.
For a second he could only stare at Sara, trying to process the craziness that had just come out of her mouth.
He thought about the first moments after bringing Annabel inside the night he’d found her. There had been something familiar about the little face, something in the expression, the eyes, that he couldn’t pin down. He’d figured the baby’s mother was a woman he’d been with for one night...
He and Sara had made love hundreds of times during their brief time as a couple, but the last time was right before she’d dumped him two years ago. He certainly wasn’t the father of her daughter.
He glanced down at what he could see of Annabel’s little profile, and yup, there it was, that slight something in the turndown of the eyes, the way the mouth curved upward. It was Sara’s face. No wonder he’d felt so strangely connected to Annabel from the moment he’d brought her inside the cabin—before he’d even read the note falsely declaring the baby was his.
“I want to hold her so badly,” Sara said. She reached out, and Noah felt the surrender everywhere in his body—the region of his heart most pointedly. This was Sara’s baby. Not his.
Hell, he might break down crying. But he lifted Annabel out of the carrier. He handed her over with a stabbing awareness that this was it—it was over. His stint at fatherhood. He was proud of what he’d accomplished with the ranch, but he was proudest of what he’d accomplished with his daughter.
Not his daughter. He’d have to take that phrasing out of his vocabulary, out of his head. She wasn’t his.
As Sara clutched the baby to her chest, tears streaming down her face, he closed his eyes, not surprised by the weight of sadness crushing his chest.
He loved Annabel. That was a surprise. But it was true.
“Is there somewhere I can go to spend time with her?” Sara asked, her gaze moving from the baby to Noah as she gently touched her wispy light brown curls, her cheek, her arm, her little fingers. “I just can’t believe this is real.”
Me either. He stared at his daughter—her daughter—and the jab in his chest intensified.
“You can take her into the cabin,” he said. “She’s eaten recently and been changed, so she’s all set.”
Now she stared at him, as if shocked he knew anything about Annabel’s feeding and diaper-changing schedule.
“My son, her twin brother, is in the SUV,” Sara said. “Could you take him out for me? I can’t bear to let go of my daughter.”
My daughter. My daughter. My daughter.
Noah’s head was swimming, and his knees were wobbly. He nodded and lurched toward the Range Rover, mostly to have something to brace his fall if his legs did give out.
He pulled open the door, and there was Annabel’s honest-to-goodness twin in green-and-white-striped pajamas. They looked so much alike—the wispy light brown curls. The slate-blue eyes. The nose. The expression. It was all Sara.
He took out the car seat and brought it around to where Sara stood. He lifted up the seat to Annabel’s level. The baby that had been in his arms until five minutes ago. “Annabel, you’re about to meet your twin brother.”
Sara’s mouth dropped open. “Annabel? That’s what you named her?”
He nodded. It was Sara’s middle name.
Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked hard.
“This is Chance,” she said. “Chance, meet Noah Dawson. I’ve known him a long time.”
A very long time. “Very nice to meet you, Chance.” He gently touched a hand to the downy little head with its soft brown wisps.
“And Chance, this is Annabel, your twin sister,” Sara added. “You’re back together where you belong.”
Oh hell. He was about to break down himself.
“I want to hear everything,” she said, her pale brown eyes imploring. “From the moment you realized she was outside on your porch to the moment I drove up. I need to know about her life these past seven weeks. But first I just need some time alone with her. To let this sink in.” She cuddled Annabel against her, her gaze going from her daughter to Noah and back again.
All these weeks that Annabel had been right here, with him, her mother had believed that her baby girl was dead. He had to stop thinking about himself and focus on that—what Sara had been through.
And how twin babies had almost been separated forever.
“I understand,” he said, the sturdy weight of the car seat in his right hand making him both happy and miserable. “I’ll help you inside with the twins, and you can have the place to yourself for however long you need. Text me when you’re ready and I’ll come fill you in.”
She let out a breath. “Thank you, Noah. You can’t imagine.” She shook her head, her tear-streaked face his undoing as much as the situation.
He couldn’t imagine.
They started walking to the cabin, which had once been her home when her father had been foreman. She stopped for a moment, staring up at the newly renovated two-story log house with the hunter green covered porch and flower boxes his sister had insisted on putting everywhere. Sara didn’t say anything about the place, how it had changed, but she had much bigger things on her mind than the ranch.
He opened the door, then stepped aside so she could enter with Annabel. He followed her in, wanting to rip his daughter from her arms. He had to stop walking for a second; the pain in his chest was that severe, and dammit, he was worried he’d start bawling like a little kid any second.
He led her into the living room and set Chance’s carrier on the floor beside the sofa. Sara dropped down on the sofa, crying, laughing, staring at the baby girl in her arms.
“Her baby bag is on the stroller by the door if you need anything,” he managed to say. “Plus, there’s a big basket of baby stuff on the side of the coffee table.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off Annabel. She nodded as if barely able to hear him.
“Take as long as you want,” he said. “Text