“Fuck it,” she laughed as she put the van back in drive and took off down the street, leaving the suburb from hell in her wake.
It took another half-hour to get back to the agency and then everything was in high gear. Her boxes were offloaded into a pup truck, while she and the triplets joined Tucker in a passenger bus where they would all be driven to the private airstrip from which they would depart. It all seemed to move so quickly until they got on the plane and then it was as if time stood still. The long trip from her South Carolina suburbs to Wyoming stretched into multiple feedings and diaper changes.
She was at least grateful that Tucker had no issues helping her with the girls rather than leaving her to tend to them herself, as she was accustomed to doing. It made her already feel better about having signed up for this little farce with him.
“Thank you so much, Tucker. I didn’t mean for you to have to help with them.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I suppose that if they are going to be mine too, I should know their names.”
“You know, I suppose I should too,” she laughed.
Tucker looked at her curiously, not understanding until she explained that the agency had also given the girls new names. He nodded as she glanced at the new birth certificates and matched the times of birth up to the order in which her own girls were born, trying to achieve some sense about things, in case she ever needed to make sense of the new paperwork.
“This one is Sable,” she said, putting her hand on her oldest daughter’s shoulder. “She’s my quiet one. Hardly ever fussy.”
“Easy enough to remember with the dark brown hair,” Tucker replied.
“Yes. This one is Ella,” she told him, touching the straw colored hair of her middle child. It was almost identical to her own hair in color. “She’s a little more spirited, but not too over the top.”
“She has your hair and your eyes,” he remarked, repeating her name aloud. “Ella.”
“And finally, we have this saucy little redhead of mine. Her name is Hannah. She makes up for anything that the other two don’t make a stink about,” Leslie laughed.
“Hannah,” he repeated. “Where did she get the red hair?”
“I have no idea,” Leslie laughed.
“They are beautiful little girls. I’m sure they will grow up to be as stunning as their mother.” It was a compliment, but there was no hint of mirth as he said it. He seemed to just be shrugging it off as a statement of fact. Tucker was already showing himself to be a man of few words, but still considerate. Still, she was relieved when they landed, another passenger van waiting to take them to his house. This was the final leg for the agency. Past this, she and the girls were in his care, though she had been given another card for her wallet. This one looked like a calendar on one side, but Kate had told her it had the same heat activated makeup that would reveal a number closer to her if she got into any kind of trouble and needed immediate assistance.
It was clear that the agency had no intentions of anyone they signed on to be caught in a bad situation as a result. One call from her and they would remove her and the children immediately and deal with the client directly from there. If he had broken any rules that had been set forward in the agreement, he would be liable for payment on the contract, money they kept in escrow so he couldn’t default on it.
“Here we are, Leslie. Home sweet home,” Tucker said as they pulled onto a long dirt road that led through a thicket of trees and opened up to a circular driveway with a large log cabin in the center.
Leslie, as she would have to get used to now being known as, sat looking at it in wonder. To say it was a log cabin was an understatement. It was three stories of log cabin, with large glass pane windows and an upper balcony. It was massive. Beside it, sat a large industrial-style metal building with unknown contents. Why did a single man need so much space, she found herself wondering?
It was something that she would perhaps learn while she was here, she supposed. For now, she and her three girls, who were now named Hannah, Ella, and Sable - all names that began with the first letter of their birth names to make it easier for her - were on their way to a better life.CHAPTER SIXTucker wasted no time in getting the triplets set up in a room of their own. Cribs, changing tables, dressers, hampers and the like were already in place and it was decorated with pretty blue bows lining the tops of the walls. They had all they needed already set up, which she found odd since the agreement had only taken place today.