LITMIR.BIZ

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for the triplets while I make six pot pies. The usual suspects aren’t going to work out this morning.”

      “Consider me at your service, then,” he said.

      “What?” she said, shaking her head. “I couldn’t ask that.”

      “Least I can do, Norah. I got you into this mess. If I remember correctly, last night you said you’d always wanted to get married at that chapel and I picked you up and said ‘Then let’s get married.’” He let out a breath. “I still can’t quite get over that I did that.”

      “I like being able to blame it all on you. Thanks.” She smiled, grateful that he was so...nice.

      “Besides, and obviously, I like babies,” he said, “and all I had on my agenda today was re-familiarizing myself with Wedlock Creek.”

      “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t try to let you off the hook. Triplet seven-month-olds who are just starting to crawl are pretty wily creatures.”

      “I’ve dealt with plenty of wily creatures in my eight-year career as a cop. I’ve got this.”

      She raised an eyebrow and opened the door, surprised when Reed took hold of the enormous stroller and wheeled in the babies. She wasn’t much used to someone else...being there. “Didn’t I hear you tell Annie that you had no intention of ever getting married? I would think that meant you had no intention of having children, either.”

      “Right on both counts. But I like other people’s kids. And babies are irresistible. Besides, yours already adore me.”

      Brody was sticking up his skinny little arms, smiling at Reed, three little teeth coming up in his gummy mouth.

      “See?” he said.

      Norah smiled. “Point proven. I’d appreciate the help. So thank you.”

      Norah closed the door behind Reed. It was the strangest feeling, walking into her home with her three babies—and her brand-new husband.

      She glanced at her wedding ring. Then at his.

      Talk about crazy. For a man who didn’t intend to marry or have kids, he now had one huge family, even if that family would dissolve tomorrow at the courthouse.

      * * *

      As they’d first approached Norah’s house on the way back from Annie and Abe’s, Reed had been all set to suggest they get in his SUV, babies and all, and find someone, anyone, to open the courthouse. They could root through the mail that had been dumped through the slot, find their license application and just tear it up. Kaput! No more marriage!

      But he’d been standing right in front of Norah’s door, cute little Brody in his arms, the small, baby-shampoo-smelling weight of him, when he’d heard what Norah had said. Heard it loud and clear. And something inside him had shifted.

       You know what else is crazy, how special it was. The ceremony, I mean. Me—even in my T-shirt and shorts and grubby slip-on sneakers—saying my vows. Hearing them said back to me. In that moment, Shel, I felt so...safe. For the first time in a year and a half, I felt safe.

      He’d looked at the baby in his arms. The two little girls in the stroller. Then he’d heard Norah say something about a dream come true and back to reality.

      His heart had constricted in his chest when she’d said she’d felt safe for the first time since the triplets were born. He’d once overheard his mother say that the only time she felt safe was when Reed was away in Wedlock Creek with his paternal grandmother, knowing her boy was being fed well and looked after.

      Reed’s frail mother had been alone otherwise, abandoned by Reed’s dad during the pregnancy, no child support, no nothing. She’d married again, more for security than love, but that had been short-lived. Not even a year. Turned out the louse couldn’t stand kids. His mother had worked two jobs to make ends meet, but times had been tough and Reed had often been alone and on his own.

      He hated the thought of Norah feeling that way—unsteady, unsure, alone. This beautiful woman with so much on her shoulders. Three little ones her sole responsibility. And for a moment in the chapel, wed to him, she’d felt safe.

      He wanted to help her somehow. Ease her burden. Do what he could. And if that was babysitting for a couple hours while she worked, he’d be more than happy to.

      She picked up two babies from the stroller, a pro at balancing them in each arm. “Will you take Bea?” she asked.

      He scooped up the baby girl, who immediately grabbed his cheek and stared at him with her huge gray-blue eyes, and followed Norah into the kitchen. A playpen was wedged in a nook. She put the two babies inside and Reed put Bea beside them. They all immediately reached for the little toys.

      Norah took an apron from a hook by the refrigerator. “If I were at the diner, I’d be making twelve pot pies—five chicken and three turkey, two beef, and two veggie—but I only have enough ingredients at home to do six—three chicken and three beef. I’ll just make them all here and drop them off for baking. The oven in this house can’t even cook a frozen pizza reliably.”

      Reed glanced around the run-down kitchen. It was clean and clearly had been baby-proofed, given the covered electrical outlets. But the refrigerator was strangely loud, the floor sloped and the house just seemed...old. And, he hated to say it, kind of depressing. “Have you lived here long?”

      “I moved in a few months after finding out I was pregnant. I’d lived with my mom before then and she wanted me to continue living there, but I needed to grow up. I was going to be a mother—of three—and it was time to make a home. Not turn my mother into a live-in babysitter or take advantage of her generosity. This place was all I could afford. It’s small and dated but clean and functional.”

      “So a kitchen, living room and bathroom downstairs,” he said, glancing into the small living room with the gold-colored couch. Baby stuff was everywhere, from colorful foam mats to building blocks and rattling toys. There wasn’t a dining room, as far as he could see. A square table was wedged in front of a window with one chair and three high chairs. “How many bedrooms upstairs?”

      “Only two. But that works for now. One for me and one for the triplets.” She bit her lip. “It’s not a palace. It’s hardly my dream home. But you do what you have to. I’m their mother and it’s up to me to support us.”

      Everything looked rumpled, secondhand, and it probably was. The place reminded him of his apartment as a kid. His mother hadn’t even had her own room. She’d slept on a pull-out couch in the living room and folded it up every morning. She’d wanted so much more for the two of them, but her paycheck had stretched only so far. When he was eighteen, he’d enrolled in the police academy and started college at night, planning to give his mother a better standard of living. But she’d passed away before he could make any of her dreams come true.

      A squeal came from the playpen and he glanced over at the triplets. The little guy was chewing on a cloth book, one of the girls was pressing little “piano” keys and the other was babbling and shaking keys.

      “Bea’s the rabble-rouser,” Norah said as she began to sauté chicken breasts in one pan, chunks of beef in another, and then set a bunch of carrots and onions on the counter. “Bella loves anything musical, and Brody is the quietest. He loves to be read to, whereas Bea will start clawing at the pages.”

      “Really can’t be easy raising three babies. Especially on your own,” he said.

      “It’s not. But I’ll tell you, I now know what love is. I mean, I love my family. I thought I loved their father. But the way I feel about those three? Nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’d sacrifice anything for them.”

      “You’re a mother,” he said, admiring her more than she could know.

      She nodded. “First and foremost. My family keeps trying to set me up on dates. Like any guy would say yes to a woman with seven-month-old triplets.” She glanced at Reed, then began cutting

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