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Chapter 44
Vince was on his way back to the hospital when Mara appeared at his side. “I’ve come to say good-bye,” she said, slipping her arm through his.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, I find this little town extremely boring, don’t you?”
Grunting softly, Vince thought about the family waiting for him in the hospital and shook his head. “Not anymore. So, where are you going?”
“I’m not sure. Italy, perhaps. I haven’t been there in the last thirty or forty years. Why don’t you come with me?”
He laughed softly. “Italy sounds mighty tempting, but I’m afraid I can’t leave right now.”
“Of course, I forgot, you’re tied to that mortal now.”
“More than you know,” he said, grinning. “I’m a father.”
Mara came to an abrupt halt, her eyes wide with disbelief as she looked up at him. “What did you say?”
“I’m a father.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Yeah, that’s what everybody keeps telling me.”
“Where is it? I want to see it.”
“Them,” Vince said. “Not it.”
She blinked at him in disbelief. “Them? As in, more than one?”
“Yep. I’ve got twin boys. Come on, I’ll prove it to you.”
Cara was still sleeping soundly when Vince and Mara entered her room.
Mara immediately went to where the babies lay sleeping, her expression softening as she gazed at the two infants. “How can this be?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Vince said. “Near as I can figure, it was a combination of you being so old in the life and me being so young.”
She mulled that over a bit and then nodded. “I suppose that could explain it, but…” She shook her head. “No one will believe this.”
“Since you’re partly responsible, how would you like to be their godmother?”
Mara gaped at him. “Me? A godmother?” A slow smile spread over her face. “I’d like that very much. What are their names?”
“They don’t have any.”
“Why not?”
Vince shrugged. “Cara and I can’t find any that we agree on.”
Mara studied the babies for a moment; then, lifting her hand, she placed her finger on the forehead of Vince’s firstborn son. “This one shall be called Raphael,” she said. “And this one,” she said, touching the other baby’s brow, “will be Rane.”
Vince nodded, wondering how he would explain what had just happened to Cara and how they would change the babies names without hurting Mara’s feelings if Cara didn’t like them.
He was still wondering about that when Mara picked up Raphael. Before he realized what she meant to do, she scored the pad of the baby’s thumb with her fingernail, and licked the single drop of blood that oozed from the tiny cut.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vince demanded.
“I’m bonding with my godson,” she said.
Vince stared at her, his eyes narrowed.
“This way, I’ll always know where he is,” she explained, kissing the top of the baby’s head, “and how he is.”
Vince watched as she gently put the baby back in his bed, then picked up Rane. Watching Mara lick his son’s blood, he decided this was something Cara didn’t need to know about.
Mara smiled as she kissed Rane’s cheek, then put him back to bed. “I guess I won’t be leaving town after all,” she said, “at least not for fifteen or twenty years.”
She kissed each baby again and then, with a wave of her hand, she was gone.
Vince stared after her, wondering how he would tell Cara that her children’s godmother was a vampire. And then he grinned. Another vampire in the family shouldn’t come as much of a shock.
Chapter 45
Cara went home two days later, and the babies went home two days after that.
Cara still couldn’t believe that Vince had let a vampire she had never met name their children. She might have argued about it, only the names Mara had chosen seemed perfect.
The reality of being a mother didn’t quite measure up to the way Cara had imagined it. She wasn’t prepared for mountains of dirty diapers and T-shirts stained with spit-up milk, or for colicky babies who cried for hours no matter how you tried to comfort them.
At times, she felt totally inadequate as a mother. Perhaps if she’d had younger brothers or sisters, she would have known what to expect. One thing for certain, she gained a new respect for her own mother. It was Brenna who did the first diaper change after they brought the babies home from the hospital, Brenna who rocked one baby while Cara nursed the other, and Brenna who helped her interview nannies.
The nanny they all agreed on was named Mrs. McPike. She was a middle-aged woman who had raised nine children of her own, and who agreed to come Monday through Friday and to do light housekeeping, as well as help with the babies.
After a week of motherhood, Cara wondered if she was going to survive.
After two weeks, she was certain she would never again have any time to herself. It seemed as though she spent all her time with one baby or another at her breast. Fortunately, she had plenty of milk. She was certain there were cows with less!
After three weeks, she felt as if she had been a mother all her life.
During this time, Vince was her rock. He held her when she needed holding, listened to her secret fears, rubbed her back, ran errands in the middle of the night, changed diapers when necessary, brought her flowers for no reason at all, and assured her that things would get better when the babies were a little older.
“How do you know?” she asked. “You’ve never had kids before.”
“Ah, but I have nieces and nephews, and I babysat for all of them,” he said with a wink. “You’re doing a great job.”
She basked in his praise.
As he said, the time came when the babies ate less and finally slept through the night.
Cara spent hours on the phone with Bethy, exchanging recipes and bragging about how smart their children were.
Roshan and Brenna came to visit several times a week, but tonight, Cara had wanted to get out of the house and they had gone to visit her parents.
About nine o’clock, the babies fell asleep on her parents’ bed.
“Honestly,” Brenna said, glancing from one sleeping child to the other, “they just get more beautiful all the time.”
