Sweet Trouble. Susan Mallery

raised one myself,” she said.

      “Right. Sure. Here.”

      Jesse took the wrapped baby and smiled down at her. “Hello, pretty girl. How are you? Keeping mom up? She’ll remember and punish you later. You might want to think that through.”

      The baby’s eyes focused on her face, then slowly began to close. Nicole hesitated a second, before retreating to the back of the house to collect Molly. Eric stared at her.

      “Who are you?” he asked.

      “I’m your aunt Jesse,” she said as she closed the front door, stepped over several toys and followed him to a family room.

      There was a sofa and television, along with toys and a couple of baskets of laundry. A stack of diapers sat in one chair. Shoes littered the hallway leading to the kitchen.

      Jesse remembered Nicole’s house being mostly tidy and quiet. It was a place Jesse had never felt at home. While this place made her feel at ease, she couldn’t believe her perfect sister lived in chaos.

      A small, hairy white dog raced through the room, followed by a slightly larger black-and-white dog. Pets? Nicole had pets?

      “That’s Sheila,” Eric told her. “Rambo is her son. Like I’m my daddy’s son.” He seemed proud of the fact.

      Nicole returned with a second infant and collapsed in a chair.

      “Clear a space,” she murmured, rocking her daughter with a desperation that spoke of many nights without sleep. “Come on, Molly. It can’t be that bad, can it?”

      Kim, the baby Jesse held, had quieted enough for her to ask, “Want me to put her down?”

      Nicole shook her head. “She won’t sleep. She’ll wake right up.”

      “We can try,” Jesse said, knowing getting the twins into their own cribs was the only solution that was going to let Nicole rest.

      Nicole’s gaze narrowed, then she shrugged. “Whatever. They’re in the sitting area off our bedroom. They have a room upstairs, but it got to be too far to walk when I realized they weren’t ever going to sleep.”

      Her voice was thick with emotion, as if she was inches from losing it all.

      “I’ll show you,” Eric said. He’d been hovering by his mom. Now he led the way down a short hallway and into the master suite.

      Jesse had the impression of space, large furniture and a view of a massive backyard. She followed Eric into what would usually be the master bedroom retreat area. A love seat and coffee table had been pushed to the side. Two cribs stood in the middle of the space.

      “This one is Kim’s,” Eric told her, pointing to the one on the right.

      She smiled at him. “Wow. You’re very helpful. I’m sure your mom is happy to have you around. You’re a great big brother.”

      Eric beamed. “I’m the man of the house while Daddy’s gone.”

      “Your mom is so lucky.”

      She eased the sleeping baby into the crib. Kim stayed asleep. Jesse wound the mobile above the crib and motioned for Eric to join her as she backed out of the room.

      They returned to the family room. Nicole stared at her.

      “She’s sleeping?”

      “Yes. Why don’t I take Molly while you go grab a shower?”

      Nicole hesitated, as if she was going to argue, then she handed over the infant and hurried down the hall.

      Jesse gazed at the sleepy baby in her arms. “Do you have one of those chairs that rocks the baby?” she asked Eric.

      He nodded and pointed to the far corner.

      Jesse dug it out from behind a pile of towels and set it in front of the sofa. Molly fussed when she was put in, but quieted as the chair began to crank back and forth.

      The piles of laundry needed attention first, Jesse thought. “Where are the washer and dryer?” she asked Eric.

      He showed her the utility room off the kitchen. She loaded in towels, added soap and started the machine. She took baby clothes out of the dryer and quickly folded them, giving him socks to match up.

      “Excellent job,” she told him, as she cleaned off the kitchen table, wiped it down, then stacked the clean clothes in piles. “Are you thirsty?”

      “Uh-huh. I can have juice.”

      There were boxes in the fridge. She got him settled with his drink, then loaded the dishwasher with as much as she could fit in before filling the sink and washing the big pots and pans by hand. She just started drying them when Nicole walked into the kitchen.

      “Where’s Molly?” she asked.

      Jesse pointed to the slumbering baby in the rocking chair. “There’s a load of towels going in the washer. The dishwasher is full, but I didn’t know if it would pull too much hot water from your shower, so I waited.”

      Nicole sank into a chair at the table. “You didn’t have to do this.”

      “I don’t mind.” She knew what it was like to be overwhelmed, to think she was never going to get enough rest to feel human again.

      The doorbell rang. Nicole winced, but Eric went running. “It’s Billy and his mom,” he yelled. Molly started to cry.

      “I’ll take the baby,” Jesse said.

      “Thanks. Eric’s spending the afternoon at his friend’s house. I’ll be right back.”

      While Jesse soothed Molly back to sleep, Nicole saw off her son, then returned to the kitchen, looking exhausted. They stood staring at each other for an awkward second.

      “So, you’re back in Seattle?” Nicole asked as she sank into a chair at the table.

      “For now.” Jesse remembered the pictures she’d brought and went to get them. When she returned, she handed them to her sister. “Gabe’s been asking about his father. I’ve put off their meeting as long as I could, but I’m running out of excuses. So we’re here, at least for a few weeks.”

      She hesitated because Nicole hadn’t looked at the pictures. “I went to see Matt this morning. He wasn’t expecting me.” There was an understatement. “I’d told him I was pregnant when I left, but he didn’t believe he was the father. Given the circumstances, I guess I can’t blame him.”

      Now came the hard part, Jesse thought. She’d practiced what she wanted to say dozens of times, but suddenly couldn’t think of any of her carefully prepared phrases.

      “I didn’t sleep with Drew,” she said, jumping in and hoping her sister would listen. “I never slept with him, tried to sleep with him or thought of him as anything but your husband. He and I were friends. We would talk and that was it. I was in love with Matt.”

      Nicole stood and crossed to the dishwasher, where she pushed a couple of buttons to start the cycle. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

      “We have to eventually.”

      “Why?” Nicole turned to face her, then sighed. “Okay. Maybe. But not today.”

      Jesse wanted to push. She’d felt awful about Nicole’s hurt and anger for five years and she didn’t want to wait any longer. But the mature choice would be to let her sister get used to the idea of her being back first.

      “I’ll leave the pictures,” Jesse said quietly. “You can look at them later. There’s a lot of Matt in Gabe. Especially in his eyes. It made it hard to forget.”

      Not hard. Impossible.

      Nicole nodded. “I will.” She crossed her arms across her chest. “I thought I’d hear from you when you turned twenty-five.”

      Meaning