Dottie smiled up at him and pulled him in for a hug. “That sounds nice. The kids will love it. They’re doing pre-school lessons, but they can skip a day to play with their daddy.” She kissed him, then rolled out of bed to take a shower.
“You know, any time you want to quit the job, if you want to, I’d be happy.”
She smiled at him. “I need to give two-week’s notice at least.”
“Hot damn. We’re going to celebrate.”
She laughed. “All right. The kids will be thrilled. I’ll let Dan know when I get in. Oh, wait, he’s not going to be in for a couple of days.”
“Why? Is he sick?”
“Personal business. Not that I’m saying there’s anything to what our coffee shop owner says—she’s our resident town gossip—but she said she saw a blond enter Dan’s house as if she lived there. Dan wasn’t home at the time.”
“Huh.” Jack smiled, tugging on a pair of clean boxer briefs. “Well, it makes for a nice bit of gossip, if nothing else.”
“You haven’t heard anything about what’s going on with him, have you?”
Jack pulled Dottie back in for a hug. “Nope. I sure am glad you’re going to be home so that anytime I’m off, we can spend the time together. I thought we could run as cougars tonight.”
“I’d love that. You haven’t had a chance to mark the territory.”
He laughed. “Not the first thought I had. I wanted to get a feel of the surrounding woodlands out here. Then, yeah, I’ll mark the territory, just in case anything wild has a notion to bother you and the kids.”
“I need to shower. I hear Jeff up already.”
“Okay, I’ll throw on some clothes and fix them breakfast.”
“Wow, this is really nice.” Then she hurried to the bathroom to shower.
He finished getting dressed and headed into the kitchen, calling Leyton as he went to see what was on the schedule concerning Hellion. Jack hoped he had a break so he could spend the day with the kids. This would be great. A wonderful time to bond since he hadn’t had a chance to in the past three months.
“Nothing,” Leyton said. “We can’t find any clue as to where they’ve gone to now. We’re searching any place Ralph might have ended up so he could have someone take care of the bullet wounds. No word on that. We figure they’ll deal with it themselves, and he’ll be ready to go after a couple of days. For now, enjoy the time with the kids. I know you’ve been wanting to see them since you arrived home. Just have someone on call to take care of them if something happens and we need you. Travis is itching to go back to work with us, and is promising he won’t get hit this time.”
Jack chuckled. “Sounds good.”
“Daddy!” Trish ran to give him a hug.
“I’ll let you go. Sounds like you have some bonding to do.”
“Thanks, Leyton,…for everything.”
Then Jack ended the call and lifted Trish into his arms and carried her into the kitchen. Jeff was peering into the fridge, but when he saw Jack, Jeff ran to give him a hug too. “I told Trish you were here,” he said. “She didn’t believe me.”
“I’m here and I’m going to fix breakfast. If I don’t get called in, I’m going to stay with you for the whole day. Then when Mommy gets off from work, we’re going for a cougar run.”
“Yay!” both kids said and Jack put Trish down.
Jack peered into the fridge, then pulled out the carton of eggs. This was the first time ever for him to cook breakfast for the kids solo. “How about ham and cheese omelets?”
“Yeah!” Trish said.
Jeff nodded.
“What do you do when Mommy cooks?”
“Wash our hands.” “Set the table.” “Help with cooking.”
Jack raised a brow. “All right. Wash your hands and I’ll cut up the cheese and ham and you can put them on the eggs.” He was sure his mother hadn’t let him anywhere near the kitchen ever. Not until he had a place of his own and a girlfriend showed him how to cook. Not that his mother thought boys shouldn’t cook. She just didn’t want him making a mess in her kitchen. He guessed the time he tried to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich had convinced her he wasn’t a chef-in-the-making. He couldn’t help it if she kept the peanut butter in the fridge and it wouldn’t come off the butter knife easily. He supposed he should have looked a little harder for where the peanut butter that hadn’t made it on his sandwich had ended up.
“Okay, so Mommy said you have schoolwork to do?” Jack helped them get situated at the kitchen counter so they could sprinkle the cheese and ham on the eggs.
“Yeah, Mommy and Abby have been teaching us.” Trish pointed to a stack of papers and books.
“But we always eat first cuz we have to have brain food, Mommy says,” Jeff added.
“Okay, brain food first, and then we’ll do some work on your school assignments.” Jack hadn’t had preschool when he was a kid, so he wasn’t even sure what they were supposed to be learning. He suspected that the materials would be easy enough to understand. “You can show me what you’re supposed to be doing first. Then after we get some of our school work out of the way, we can do something outside for a while. Recess.”
They looked at him like they didn’t know what recess was. “We’ll just go outside for some fresh air and sunshine. Maybe a hike.”
As the kids helped, they dropped ham cubes and shredded cheese all over the floor and the island counter. He realized he should have made more just so they had some for the eggs.
He finished fixing them both ham and cheese omelets and served them up when Dottie joined him in the kitchen and kissed him. “Well, this is a lovely change for me.” She glanced at the cheese and ham on the floor.
He quickly served her an omelet and a cup of coffee. “Okay, so the kids and I have our day cut out for us. When you get home, I’ll fix dinner and then we can go for a cougar run. And don’t worry about the mess. We’ll clean it up.”
“I’m sooo glad you’re home, Jack.”
“Me too,” Trish said.
“Me too,” Jeff echoed.
When Dottie was finished with breakfast, she gave each of the kids a hug, and then Jack. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Yep. We’re going to have fun. Hey, how hard can this be?” Jack figured it would be a piece of cake compared to what he had to deal with as a CSF agent.
“I agree. Do what your daddy says and don’t give him too hard a time.”
“We won’t,” the kids both said.
“See you later, honey.” He walked her out to the car. “I have all the emergency numbers if I need them.”
“I called Abby and told her that she’s on standby at a moment’s notice.”
“Okay, good show.”
And then one more hug and kiss and Jack sent Dottie on her way. He cleaned up the plates and frying pan, while the kids swept up the mess they’d made on the floor. He helped go over it again. He asked the twins what they wanted to do first. He thought this was going to be a challenge, but they were used to a routine and both brought out papers that they used to draw lines from beginning letter sounds to pictures on a paper.
“Good,” Jack said when both had perfect papers. “Now what?”
“We practice our ABC’s.” Trish ran to get their lined paper before Jeff could.
They wrote their A’s in capital and lower case and while they were working on that, Jack called Shannon. “I was trying to figure out a good school break for the kids. Do you think swimming at the lake is too much?”
“No, Jack. That’s perfect. Are you at home with the kids?”
“Yeah, the case is stymied for the moment. So Leyton said I could stay home with the kids. We’re doing lessons and after that, I thought we could go swimming for a while, then return to finish up lessons.”
“Remember they’re only four. So they don’t have an eight-hour day of class work.”
“Uh, okay. Sounds good. If I get called up to chase bad guys, can you watch the kids until
Abby can pick them up?”
“Absolutely. Get your beach towels, swim suits, and bring them over.”
“Okay in a couple of hours.”
He read to them, they read to him, practiced counting, and then they brought out their shapes and put them in the matching shape form, and used crayons to identify their colors.
After playing with money for a while, Jack was ready to take them swimming. He thought of taking them out for lunch afterward. He didn’t want to suggest it in case they were tired after swimming. They both had fallen asleep in the car on the way home from the Renaissance fair and from the theme park, so he halfway expected it to happen after swimming too. After a night of loving Dottie, he’d be ready for a nap also.
“Ready to go swimming?”
“Yah!” Both kids ran off to get their swimsuits on and Jack dressed in his, then wore his jeans over that. So far, he’d had a great day. The kids had been having fun too.
When they arrived at Lake Buchanan, he let Shannon know they were there, and she came out with her two kids, both blue-eyed, blond, two-year-old girls, Sadie and Zoey. Tracey was visiting also and said she had to learn how to teach her twins how to swim after they were born and were the right age. She sat on a chair on the beach while Shannon and Jack took the kids to the water’s edge.
“Now this is something you don’t usually see. It’s either all the guys, women, and kids, or just the women and kids. Certainly not Mr. Mom and kids,” Tracey said, smiling.
Jack laughed and they took their inner tubes into the water. It was really nice and warm, and he thought how much fun it would be to swim as cougars here too, at night when the campers weren’t about.
“Do they wear floaties?” he asked.
“Nope. Not as cats. We’ve been bringing them down here since they were infants,” Shannon said.
That made him regret that he hadn’t been doing this all along with the kids and Dottie. The kids were in the shallow water for a time, tossing a ball to him, and then they swam out to him, though he moved in closer to shore. He pulled them around on the inner tubes, and he figured he was getting great exercise while having a ball.
Then his cell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Tracey said, having a time getting out of the chair and finally pulling his cell from his jeans. “Hey, Dottie. Yeah, it’s me. He brought the kids out to swim. Shannon’s here too with her twins. He’s doing great. They haven’t drowned him yet.” She laughed.
Jack smiled.
But then Tracey said, “Uh-oh.”
He looked up from playing with the kids and saw water running down Tracey’s legs.
“My water just broke.”
Jack scooped up his kids and headed into shore. “I need to take Tracey to the hospital. She’s having twins just like the two of you.”
“Well, we know one’s a boy. Could have two boys, or one boy and a girl,” Tracey said. “Your hubby is taking me in. Don’t worry about it. I’ll give…Hal a call. Thanks.”
“I’ll dry and dress the kids,” Shannon said, “if you can drive Tracey to the clinic.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll just keep the kids until you get back.”
“All right, thanks, Shannon.”
“Thanks, Jack. Dottie, have to go,” Tracey said, looking a little pale.
Jack grasped Tracey’s arm and helped her to a chair on the deck. Then he dried off, dressed, and said goodbye to the kids. “I’ll pick you up in a little bit and we’ll have lunch. The babies could take hours before they’re born. But their daddy will stay with their mommy.”
“Okay,” Jeff said.
Tracey was already on her phone to call Hal. “My water broke. Yes, but don’t kill yourself getting to the clinic, Hal. Jack is driving me. He and the kids and Shannon and hers were swimming at the lake. I came over to visit. Shannon will watch all the kids. All you have to do is meet me at the clinic.”
Jack helped her out to his car.
“Wait. I’ll ask.” Tracey turned to Jack. “Hal wants to know: can you deliver a baby? Well, two. Just in case?”
12
Dottie wasn’t sure who was more panicked about Tracey’s water breaking: Daddy Hal, Jack, who was on the way to the clinic to take Tracey to see the doctor, or Dottie, who was always level-headed in a crisis. Then she figured if Jack could handle this, he could handle the situation with her when the time came.
Jack got on his car phone, calling in to Dottie. “The babies are coming. Right. Now. We have to pull over and park.”
Omigod, Dottie couldn’t believe poor Tracey was having the babies before she reached the clinic. And that poor Jack was stuck dealing with it.
“Okay, can you help her strip out of her clothes so she can shift into a cougar? That will be easier. Stryker is on his way to help out. Hal is too far out to reach you in time. Chase is on a call and two hours away. So you’re it until Stryker gets there.”
“I found a place to pull over. We’re only about a quarter mile down the road from the cabins. I’ll leave the line open while I help Tracey.” He helped get her out of the front seat. “Sorry, Tracey. We’re not going to make it.”
“No problem,” she gritted out, clutching her belly.
“Okay, I’m going to help you strip out of your clothes, then you can shift. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded and sat down on the edge of the back seat. He took off her sandals, helped her to stand, and pulled down her shorts and panties. He tossed them on the floor because they were all wet. Then he pulled up her shirt, and unfastened her bra. Cougars often saw other cougars naked when they shifted, but even so, he was new to the neighborhood, hadn’t even met Tracey before, and he hoped she wasn’t uncomfortable about this.
Then he figured she was in too much pain, and the babies were coming anytime now, so nothing else really mattered. “Okay, let me spread the couple of blankets on the—“
“We’re cougars. Just spread them on the ground. I’ll have them there. No sense in making a mess of your car.”
“Okay.” He spread them out on the ground and helped her to the blanket, hoping she could shift. Sometimes when they were in a lot of pain, shifters had trouble shifting either way.
“Call Hal and tell him I’ll be there after the delivery.”
“Okay.” But Jack wasn’t calling anyone. Not while he was trying to help deliver the twins.
Then she shifted into a beautiful, golden cougar and lay panting on the blanket. He hollered to his car phone, the doors to the car still open, the Bluetooth still on. “We’re having the babies as cougars. We can’t make it to the clinic. We’re doing fine.” At least he sure the hell hoped so. And he was damn glad as shifters they could have babies either way, particularly when it came to more complicated multiple births.
“I’ve already alerted the paramedics. They’ll be at your location in twenty minutes,” Dottie said.
Jack looked at Tracey, her green eyes on him. She shook her head and the next thing he knew, she was pushing out the first wet, spotted kitten. She turned and cleaned up the baby and it made its way to her belly to suckle. The baby looked to be about a pound in size, so normal. She laid down again and panted. He wondered how long it would take to have the second kitten. Ten minutes later, it was born. She did the same with the second cub, cleaned it up, and then the cub found its way to momma’s milk.
It was a miracle to see the birth and he was glad Tracey instinctively knew what to do as a cougar. He thought he should move her to the car now. Then again, maybe he should wait for the paramedics. They could use a stretcher to lift her and it would be easier for her to recline on a gurney. Plus, a paramedic would be in the back with her and the cubs to watch over them while the other one drove.
He went to the car and said, “Hey, Dottie, Tracey had her twins. Should I put her in the car and bring her in, or wait for the paramedics?”
“Wait for—“
He heard the siren then. “Yeah, they’re nearly here. We’ll wait. Tell
Hal, mom and cubs are doing great. Wait…” He saw Tracey leaning down again as if she’d just had another cub, and he laughed. “Hell, tell Hal he has triplets.”
Since Hal was Dan’s deputy sheriff, Dottie had to tell Dan that Tracey’s babies—triplets—had come, just to give him a heads up. She hated bothering him when he had “personal business” to take care of, but he would be upset with her if she left him out of the loop.
“Hal and Tracey just had triplets,” she told Dan.
“Triplets? I thought they were having twins.”
“Yeah, sorry to have to disturb you if you were busy”—with a blond, Dottie was thinking—“but Jack had to help deliver her on the way to the clinic. Everyone’s fine.” She was glad Jack hadn’t panicked. “You don’t need to do anything. Everything’s under control. I just wanted you to know Hal was going to be off the job for a little while in case he was needed as a deputy sheriff.”
“Thanks, Dottie. If everything is under control, I’ll check in at the clinic in a couple of days.”
Dottie really thought something was up now. Dan would have been down there with the rest of them, annoying Kate as she tried to take care of Mom and babies.
“Okay, just wanted to…let you know. I need to get back to work.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know.” Then Dan hung up.
Dottie just stared at the phone. “Okay, Dan. What is going on with you?” She called Shannon to let her know that Jack had delivered the cubs—triplets—on the road just fine and that they’d need to do another baby shower for her—for baby number three.
She got a beep that Jack was calling in again, and she quickly ended the call with Shannon, worried something was wrong. “What’s up, Jack?”
“Make that quadruplets. Ensure that when someone tells Hal he has four cubs instead of three, he’s sitting down.”
As soon as Tracey was on her way to the clinic with her four cubs, Jack returned to pick up Jeff and Trish and thanked Shannon for looking after them.
Shannon was shaking her head at the notion that Tracey had double the kids from what the doc could hear, heartbeat-wise. “Quadruplets.” She chuckled. “Hal’s going to need some extra help. Good thing they have a large ranch house. I don’t think their foreman or the two ranch hands, Ricky and Kolby Jones, will want babysitting duty though. Then again, Hal’s parents, Roger and Millie, and Hal’s sister, Allie, will help out. Not to mention that they own and run the town newspaper. It will be front page news.”