Wyoming Christmas Surprise. Melissa Senate

too. Join the club.

      See you sometime tomorrow for the deets. Xo

      She was draining the pasta when she realized she was still wearing the Irish friendship ring that Elliot had given her when he’d proposed. She put the big pot back on the stove and then took off the ring and put it in the mishmash drawer of menus and rubber bands.

      She looked at her left hand. That’s better, she thought, wondering about her wedding rings. Her rings and Theo’s were in her jewelry box upstairs, in the bottom drawer that she never opened. Should she put them back on? Give him back his?

      Or should they put them on when they felt more settled?

      She had no idea, but dinner was ready, so she tried to put the rings out of her head and headed into the family room. Theo was on his hands and knees, playfully calling out, “I’m gonna get you,” the babies crawling and giggling.

      This was all I ever wanted, she thought, watching them. And now I have it. This has to work, she told herself. We will make this work.

      Even if he felt like a stranger right now. He wouldn’t always, right? He’d been back in her life for just a couple of hours. She had to give it time.

       We will earn back those rings.

      “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” she said. “You grab two, I’ll grab two?” she suggested.

      She said it like she said it every day. She could seriously get used to this. Live like this.

      “I’m on it,” he said. “Okay, you two,” he said to the babies closest to him. “Time for dinner! Here I come!” They squealed and he scooped one up in each arm, Olivia beaming at him, Ethan grabbing his ear and giggling.

      Whose house is this? Whose life is this? Where am I? Afraid she’d burst into ridiculous happy tears, she quickly reached for Henry and Tyler and followed Theo, marching and making fi, fi, fo, fum noises, into the kitchen.

      “We certainly weren’t figuring in quadruplets when we bought this place,” he said, trying to maneuver Olivia’s legs into the high chair seat. Not easy with another baby in his other arm. He finally got her settled, then slid Ethan into his seat, giving the harness a click.

      With the babies in their high chairs around the kitchen table, cut-up ravioli on their little plates, Allie watched Theo discover the joys of trying to eat dinner with four eleven-month-olds sitting between them.

      You do want kids, though, right? she’d asked him on their third date when she knew, without a doubt, that she wanted to marry him, that he was the one. He’d been talking about his plans for the future, about making detective, then sergeant, then, hopefully one day, captain.

      Someday, he’d said. Right now I honestly can’t imagine.

      At twenty-four, that had sounded right to her. She hadn’t been necessarily ready to be a mother at twenty-four, either. And so she’d married the love of her life, the man of her dreams, counting on someday.

      Except he couldn’t imagine having children at twenty-nine, either, when their arguments had begun to turn from his dedication to his job to his refusal to give her a timeline for starting a family. The last year of their marriage was a doozy. If he couldn’t agree for them to get pregnant when they were turning thirty, then when? Then never, she’d known.

      During their engagement, when she’d told him she wanted to marry in the Wedlock Creek Chapel, but, nudge-nudge-wink-wink, there was that legend about the multiples, so they might have quintuplets next year, he’d said: Does anyone really believe there’s a fertility spell on the chapel? Come on.

      Allie believed. Wedlock Creek was chock-full of multiples, of all ages, produced by people who’d gotten married at the century-old chapel. Of course, she knew plenty of couples who’d married at the chapel who had singles or trouble getting pregnant at all. Still, she liked to believe and so she did.

      But Theo hadn’t been ready for kids, so Allie dutifully used birth control. And then that crazy night when it had failed her—failed them... She and Theo had been arguing, neither refusing to budge from their points, their “rightness,” and then Theo had shaken his head and said he was sorry and just pulled her into his arms, and they’d both shut up. He just held her and she’d gripped him, wishing things could be different, as she knew he did. And when he kissed her, she kissed him back and he’d made love to her on the couch with tenderness and passion and she felt his love like she hadn’t in months.

      She’d conceived the quadruplets that night.

      But the next night, he’d forgotten they’d had plans to attend an award ceremony—her sister Merry was receiving a Brewster County Elementary Teacher of the Year Award—and he’d been unreachable, something she hated. He’d come home at 3:00 a.m., full of apologies and a reason she couldn’t fault him for, involving a cop down and a manhunt. And on and on it went, the hurt and stewing, the two leading different lives, their connection breaking up. Those last few weeks, when he’d reach for her, she’d turn away.