“They’re entertaining.”
She laughed. He held out his hand. “So, are you ready?”
She smiled slightly and nodded, because her mind had been made up. She walked to him, but didn’t take his hand. She led him out of Jason’s room, over to the nurse’s station where she took Cindy, thanked everyone for their kindnesses to the kids and Jason, and left.
* * *
She was silent, a virtual zombie, the entire drive home, but Chance wasn’t worried. They’d been at the hospital nearly three hours. They’d whipped by lunch and were cruising toward supper and having had only the pudding the nurses had provided, the twins were starving.
He should give Tory a little time to herself, but he knew she needed the twins to keep her grounded. So he let her unbuckle Sam from his car seat and carry him into the cottage.
“Our first order of business is to feed these two,” he said, following her into the great room. He tossed his keys to the table behind the sofa. “So you get their coats off while I heat up some baby food.”
She nodded.
He raced to the kitchen and got food ready for the kids. One at a time, she removed a snowsuit then brought a baby to his or her highchair. When the food was ready, so were they.
Sam squealed with delight, showing off two new bottom teeth. Cindy laughed and patted her highchair tray.
“See? They’re ready.”
But Tory stood frozen by the chairs. She didn’t even blink.
“Tory? A little help here?”
She peeked over at him. “Huh?”
“You feed Sam. I’ll feed Cindy.”
She took a step back, licked her lips.
“Okay.” The empty expression on her face wasn’t going away. She might be in the room, but she wasn’t really present. And he didn’t blame her. She’d been through a lot that day. “Why don’t you go to your room? We’ll be fine.”
She nodded, pivoted and fled to her bedroom. He let her go, knowing that the love and cuddliness of two adorable babies could only go so far in terms of helping her broken heart.
But tomorrow morning, and the next morning and the next morning, they would be here for her. Ready to ease her back into her life.
And so would he.
He wouldn’t let himself feel the relief of knowing they’d finally hit the point where he could help her for real. He wouldn’t let himself think that his gain was another man’s loss. He dealt only in reality. Fact. Figures. Because if he let himself think of Jason, lying in a hospital bed, breathing only with a machine, his emotions would overwhelm him. He wouldn’t be able to help Tory.
So he didn’t think of the vagaries of life, the unfairness of some things. He put his mind on helping Tory.
But a few hours later, he began to worry about her. She hadn’t come out of her room for dinner. So he tapped on her bedroom door. If she didn’t answer, he would assume she was sleeping, but if she did answer he wouldn’t let her sit in her room and brood.
A very faint, “Yes,” come from beyond her door.
So he opened it, stepped inside and found her packing. “What’s up?”
“I’m going.”
Half of him expected that. These next days would be the most difficult of her life and she might think she needed to be alone, but he knew she needed to be with him and their kids.
“Well, okay,” he said, walking a little farther into the room. “I know you need some time and space, but there’s no reason for you to leave.”
“I need to be with Jason.”
“I know that. You won’t have to work for the next couple of days or weeks or whatever you need. But you’re welcome here. We want to help you through this.”
“Help me through this? Jason is the one who is dying.”
He felt her slipping away. Not that he didn’t want her to mourn Jason, not that he didn’t want her to feel the sorrow she deserved, but he had the sudden, intense intuition that if he let her go, she’d never come back. “I know Jason is the one who is dying. But, Tory, just like always, you don’t see that you’re suffering too.”
She took a careful step back. “I see. I always see. I’m just not the important one.”
“I get it that Jason is the more important one now. I just don’t want you to pull away so far that you forget you have us. We want you to stay with us.”
“Stay with you?” Her face fell into sad lines. “How can I stay with the man I fell in love with while my fiancé was dying?”