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“Yeah. Not that we can’t do it ourselves. I mean, we do every year, but the pickup seems to be acting up this morning. It doesn’t want to start. So I thought maybe you’d volunteer yours.”
“Sure. When?”
“Sooner the better,” Kara said with a smile. “How about right after you two get back from the doc?”
“No problem.” Caleb smiled. “Actually, I’m kind of looking forward to it.”
Kara’s smile had enough wattage to light the entire town of Big Falls, Maya thought.
“Hey, we should probably be going pretty soon,” Caleb said. “I’m going to go out and start the car, let it warm up.” He glanced at Maya. “I’m assuming you want to take the van, right?”
“It’s the most comfortable for me.”
He nodded and headed out of the room. Maya heard his feet running down the stairs. Her sister sent her an innocent look, and then turned to go.
“Kara, hold it right there.”
Stopping, but not turning, Kara said, “What?” in a squeaky voice.
“What did you do to our pickup?”
Now she did turn. She must have thought those fluttering lashes would help her cause. “What do you mean?”
“You did something so it wouldn’t run, so that you could con Caleb into coming with us to get the tree. Didn’t you?”
Her brows came down fast. “You have a suspicious mind!”
“And you haven’t denied a thing.”
Kara crossed her arms over her chest. “I like him.” Then she tipped her head to one side. “Besides, did you see his eyes light up? Did you hear what he said about not remembering the last time he bothered to celebrate Christmas with his father?”
“That’s not what he said—he said he couldn’t remember the last time he got a tree,” Maya corrected.
“So how do you celebrate Christmas without a tree?” Kara shook her head. “He’s lonely, Maya. I can see it.”
“Yeah, well…maybe.”
“Aren’t you even curious?”
Behind her, Caleb said, “Curious about what?” Kara gasped and whirled on him. He only grinned, gave her a mischievous wink, and looked past her to Maya. “Your chariot awaits. But you can finish your coffee first. Give it time to warm up.”
“I’ll take the coffee with me,” she said. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.” She drew a breath, preparing herself for the inevitable awkward moment when she was forced to get her bulk up out of a chair. But before she could even begin, Caleb was there. He slid one arm behind the small of her back, steadied her with the other and helped her up so easily anyone would have thought she must be tiny. She liked it and that scared her.
CHAPTERNINE
Caleb caught himself sliding into a mire of sentimentality more than once on that drive to the small redbrick prenatal clinic in Tucker Lake, fifteen miles the other side of Big Falls. It was a dangerous game he was playing out here. Getting emotionally involved with the babies…insinuating himself into the family and into Maya’s life before he even knew for sure that he was the father, but hell, they were twins. He was a twin. His own father had been a twin, too. But, like Caleb’s own twin, his uncle had been stillborn. It terrified him to think of that. It also verified that these children were his. Maybe not totally, and not legally, but it was all the proof he needed. He couldn’t leave. That was obvious. He didn’t want to. Exactly what he did want was as elusive as the meaning of life on Earth. What to do next was a question he couldn’t begin to figure out. It seemed all he could do was stumble through, one step at a time. If it turned out that Maya was lying to him, then he was setting himself up for a big fall. The problem was, she wasn’t lying to him. He might be a gullible idiot, but he just…believed her. Maybe because he wanted to believe her, an even scarier thought.
That worried him.
They didn’t have to wait long. He was glad, because being in the waiting room surrounded by swollen-bellied women and nervous-looking men made him feel like a fraud. As if he didn’t belong. As if they could take one look at him and tell he was an outsider, not a real partner to the mother of his kid. Kids.
“Come on in, Maya,” a nurse said, only moments after they had taken seats in the waiting room.
Caleb helped Maya to her feet and held her arm as they were led to a small exam room.
Maya seemed to know the drill by heart. She walked in, stepped on the scale, then used a small stepping stool to get up onto the exam table. She lay back, and the nurse whipped out a tape measure and peeled Maya’s blouse back and leggings downward to measure her belly. “Any problems?” the nurse asked cheerfully.
Caleb stared at the swollen mound of pink flesh underneath Maya’s blouse. Her belly button was turned inside out.
