Accidental Dad

“That’s not right, Sadie.” Sam hunkered down to her level, unable to help himself from issuing a heartfelt prayer that God wouldn’t make him wrong about this. “Your home is on the ranch with me, Sadie Lady. You and Emma are my family. Aunt Abby’s going to help us make sure it stays that way. Okay?”

“Sure?” Sadie studied his face, eyes trusting. “Certain sure?” It was their special code, a cross-your-heart kind of promise that Sam wouldn’t break his word.

Please don’t let me disappoint her, God. Prayer number two—from a man who no longer prayed?

“Certain sure,” he insisted, too aware of Kelly watching him with a warning in her dark gaze. Sam ignored it as Sadie threw herself into his arms. He hugged her close, closed his eyes and inhaled that special fragrance that could only be Sadie while he mustered his third plea.

Just this once could You answer my prayer?

Chapter Four (#ulink_e0182a00-c927-5e80-81eb-24faa562275c)

Kelly had no idea what Sam said to her mother, but later that afternoon a chastened Arabella declined the offer to join the family for dinner, claiming a headache. She even declined the tray Kelly brought to her.

“I just want to sleep, to forget this day ever happened,” she said tearfully. “I want my daughter back.” Then her voice hardened as her shoulders went back. “I should never have allowed Marina to come to this place.”

“Allowed her?” Kelly gaped at her mother. “Mom, you couldn’t have stopped her. Marina loved it here with Jake and the kids. This was her home. She chose to live here and it was her choice.”

“You don’t understand.” Arabella’s scathing tone hurt, but Kelly kept her focus.

“You think not?” She couldn’t quite rid her voice of sarcasm. “Marina was my sister, my twin sister. I feel her loss as deeply as you, but I can’t wish her back. Why would I when she’s with her Lord?”

“You don’t understand because you haven’t had children. A mother feels things differently when it’s her own child. There’s a connection that’s like no other connection.” Arabella sniffed.

“The same might be said about twins,” Kelly murmured, trying not to feel hurt that her mother apparently found no such connection with her.

“Those twins would be better off somewhere else.” Arabella’s lips clamped together in a tight line.

“How can you say that?” Aghast, Kelly stared at the woman she’d never felt she understood. “This is their home.”

“Their foster home. Temporary. They’ll make a new home with some other woman.” Arabella shrugged. “Marina wasn’t their real mother no matter how much everyone pretends.”

“She was as much their mother as she was Jacob Samuel’s.” Kelly grit her teeth when Arabella shook her head.

“The connection between mother and child comes from carrying a baby near your heart for nine months. Marina had that with Jacob Samuel.” Her face wan, Arabella leaned back against her pillow with a sigh. “But she made do with the twins.”

“You mean like they were second best?” Indignant, Kelly smothered the words she longed to say to snap her mother back to reality. She was here to make things better, not worse. “If Marina heard you say that she’d be furious, Mom. She loved the twins as much as if they were her own flesh and blood. Pretending she didn’t is not a credit to her memory.”

“You’re pretending, sidling up to Sam, acting as if her family is yours because you have no one in your life.” There was a kind of sneering sound to the words. “Why did you come back, Kelly?” her mother demanded.

The question stopped Kelly in her tracks. She refused to show how deeply those words wounded. “I came back because my twin sister died, and I wanted to be here to help however I could.”