The More Mavericks, the Merrier! Read online

  Oh, Babies!

  RUST CREEK RAMBLINGS

  We here at The Gazette just love a happy ending, and if anyone needs a little Christmas, it’s Jamie Stockton. The stoic rancher has been raising his triplet babies alone since his wife died. Thanks to Rust Creek Falls’s volunteer “baby chain,” Jamie has had many helping hands. But his bed is still empty, and so is his heart.

  Could family friend Fallon O’Reilly be the one to brighten his holiday? Babies Henry, Jared and Kate surely love having Fallon around, but their lonely dad may take a little more convincing. Hang the holly, dear readers, and deck the halls as our cautious cowboy rediscovers his Christmas spirit—and the “girl next door” gets a present she will never forget!

  “Jeez, Fallon—you’re not actually hoping to stir up trouble, are you?”

  “Maybe I am,” she said. “Maybe I’m tired of every man I know treating me like a buddy. Maybe I want someone to look at me and realize I’m a woman, to want me as a woman.”

  And suddenly he got it. “You mean me,” he realized. “You want me to see you as a woman.”

  She sighed as she shook her head. “No, Jamie. I think I’ve finally accepted that that is never going to happen.”

  “But I do see you as a woman,” he assured her. “A genuinely warm, funny and smart woman.”

  “Maybe it’s un-PC,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to be admired for my personality or my intelligence. I want to be wanted.”

  Jamie swallowed. “You’re looking for a hookup?”

  “That wouldn’t be my first choice,” she said. “But I’ve decided to open my mind up to any and all possibilities.”

  “A hookup should not be one of them,” he told her. “You deserve better than that.”

  “What does the song say—we can’t always get what we want, but we get what we need?”

  “Don’t go, Fallon.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying.

  She paused with her hand on the door.

  “Don’t go out to the Ace tonight.”

  She slowly turned around, her expression carefully neutral. “Are you making me an alternate offer?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Stay here. With me.”

  MONTANA MAVERICKS: The Baby Bonanza—Meet Rust Creek Falls’ newest bundles of joy!

  Dear Reader,

  I have two wonderful sons, both teenagers now, but they came into my life one at a time. Though the memories of those early days and sleepless nights have faded, I haven’t completely forgotten how terrified and overwhelmed I felt at times, knowing that I was responsible for the care and well-being of a helpless baby (and, two years later, a toddler and a baby!). So while I have absolutely no practice caring for triplets, I imagined the experience would be somewhat similar to my own…times three!

  But I also had a partner with whom to share the work and the worry, which Jamie Stockton—suddenly a single dad to three premature babies—does not. Thankfully, Rust Creek Falls is the kind of community where friends and neighbors are always willing to lend a hand to others in need.

  Fallon O’Reilly is happy to help take care of her friend’s beautiful babies—and determined to do everything she can to make sure that their first Christmas is a merry one, despite the obstacles their dad keeps putting in her path. Jamie has a lot of reasons not to look forward to the festive season, but Fallon refuses to let him dampen her holiday spirit.

  As she works her magic spreading Christmas cheer around his ranch—a tree in his living room (that she made him cut down), cookies baking in his kitchen (that she enticed him to help decorate), carols playing on the radio (that he finds himself humming along with)—he realizes that his feelings have started to change. Not just about the holidays, but about the woman who’s always been one of his best friends…

  And if Fallon gets her holiday wish, she’ll find a handsome Maverick—and his three adorable children—under her tree on Christmas morning.

  I hope you enjoy Jamie and Fallon’s story, and that all of your holiday wishes come true!

  Brenda Harlen

  The More Mavericks, the Merrier!

  Brenda Harlen

  Brenda Harlen is a former attorney who once had the privilege of appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada. The practice of law taught her a lot about the world and reinforced her determination to become a writer—because in fiction, she could promise a happy ending! Now she is an award-winning, national bestselling author of more than thirty titles for Harlequin. You can keep up-to-date with Brenda on Facebook and Twitter or through her website, brendaharlen.com.

  Books by Brenda Harlen

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Those Engaging Garretts!

  Building the Perfect Daddy

  Two Doctors & a Baby

  The Bachelor Takes a Bride

  A Forever Kind of Family

  The Daddy Wish

  A Wife for One Year

  The Single Dad’s Second Chance

  A Very Special Delivery

  His Long-Lost Family

  From Neighbors…to Newlyweds?

  Montana Mavericks:

  What Happened at the Wedding?

  Merry Christmas, Baby Maverick!

  Montana Mavericks: 20 Years in the Saddle!

  The Maverick’s Thanksgiving Baby

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  For Connor—it doesn’t seem so very long ago that we were celebrating your first Christmas. Now you’re in your first year at university, and I’m counting the days until you come home for the holidays. A lot has changed over the years, but there are two things that never will: how very proud I am to call you my son, and how much I love you. xo

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Cowboy’s Wish Upon a Star by Caro Carson

  Chapter One

  Jamie Stockton turned the page on the calendar and stared at the letters that spelled out the month. D-E-C-E-M-B-E-R. The final month of a year that had mostly been a blur in his mind.

  Twelve months earlier, he’d been anticipating the upcoming holiday and already thinking about this Christmas, when he and his wife would celebrate the holiday with their babies. Now Henry, Jared and Katie’s first Christmas was only weeks away, but Paula was gone and instead of being excited about the event, he was simply exhausted.

  His fingers automatically wrapped around the heavy mug that was thrust into his hand. He lifted it to his lips and swallowed a mouthful of hot, strong coffee. The caffeine slid down his throat, spread slowly through his system.

  He turned away from the calendar to face h
is sister. “Thanks.”

  “You looked like you needed it,” Bella said, as she started breaking eggs into a bowl.

  He swallowed another mouthful of coffee. “Henry was up three times last night.”

  “Teething?”

  “I don’t know. His cheeks weren’t red, he wasn’t drooling and he didn’t have a fever.”

  “Hmm.” Bella turned and looked at the triplets, lined up in three high chairs beside the butcher block table, each of them focused on the cut-up pieces of fruit she’d offered to tide them over until she could cook breakfast. “He looks okay now—certainly a lot better than you do.”

  “Thanks,” he said dryly.

  She added a splash of milk and began whisking the eggs. “Did Jared and Katie sleep through the night?”

  He shook his head. “Jared was awake once. Katie made it all the way through until her wet diaper woke her up at four this morning.”

  “And since you had to be up at five, you probably didn’t even try to go back to sleep after she was changed.” She poured the egg mixture into the hot pan on the stove.

  “Nope,” he agreed.

  The truth was, even when the kids were settled in their cribs at night, sleep didn’t come easily to him. When he tumbled into his own bed, unable to keep his eyes open a minute longer, his body would immediately shut down. His mind, not so much.

  Although he’d always wanted to be a father, he never planned to be a single father. But that’s what he was, and while the joys of being a parent to ten-month old triplets were countless, the trials were also numerous.

  “I really think you should consider putting them into day care,” Bella said gently.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d made the suggestion, and he understood that—for a lot of reasons—it was a valid one. Of course, he’d nixed the idea the first dozen times she’d mentioned it, vehemently when the town was in the midst of an RSV outbreak. But now that the epidemic had passed, maybe he would reconsider.

  He nodded, because he agreed that socialization in a structured setting would be good for his children. And while the cost of day care for three babies was somewhat prohibitive, he also knew that he couldn’t continue to rely on community volunteers to provide in-home care for his young family.

  Since the tragic death of his wife after the birth of their babies, he’d been the grateful recipient of an outpouring of support and assistance from the residents of Rust Creek Falls. Under the direction of his sister, Bella, several volunteers had come together to create what she called a baby chain and help him take care of the triplets in rotating shifts.

  For the past ten months, his sister had been the anchor of that system. Despite the demands on her, she’d somehow found the time to meet and fall in love with Hudson Jones. And Jamie knew it was time for him to take control of his own life so that she could get on with hers and the planning of her wedding.

  “So you are thinking about day care?” she prompted, evidently surprised.

  He lifted his mug again, to hide his smile behind the rim. “I’ve heard a lot of great things about Country Kids.”

  Bella, who worked at Just Us Kids—the day care center managed by her fiancé—narrowed her gaze as she stirred the eggs in the pan.

  He chuckled. “I’m kidding.”

  “I hope so.”

  “On the other hand, Fallon does work at Country Kids,” he pointed out. “And they offer a discount for more than one child.”

  “Just Us Kids does, too,” she told him, as she took the platter of bacon and toast out of the oven and set it on the table. “Plus, I’m pretty sure I can wrangle a family discount for you.”

  “I’m not looking for anything full-time,” he told her, snagging a piece of bacon as soon as she turned her back.

  “Of course not,” Bella agreed, tearing a slice of toast into pieces for Henry, Jared and Katie to chew on. “Half days would be a better introduction for them. Any change in daily routine is an adjustment for a child, although the triplets do have something of an advantage in that they’re accustomed to being cared for by different people.”

  Because they’d never had the benefit of a mother and a father to tend to their day-to-day needs, Jamie lamented silently. “That’s an advantage?”

  She winced. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know,” he confirmed.

  “So...half days,” she said, attempting to refocus their conversation as she set a plate of eggs in front of him. “Mornings?”

  He nodded as he picked up his fork to dig into his breakfast. “But not every day.”

  Bella sighed as she scooped smaller portions of egg into three bowls on the counter to cool off for a few minutes before she gave them to the babies. “Part-time only a few days a week isn’t going to be very helpful to you when you’re juggling so much,” she pointed out. “You leave the house at the crack of dawn every morning, then you come back to have lunch with your kids, then you head back out to work and drop whatever you’re doing to come back to check on them again in the afternoon.”

  “And yet I still feel guilty about relying on other people to care for them during so much of the time that they’re awake,” he admitted, adding a couple slices of thick, buttered toast to his plate.

  She sat down with her own breakfast. “You’ll feel less guilty when they’re in day care—and less inclined to interrupt your day to check on them.”

  “Three days a week,” he decided.

  “Four,” she countered, reaching out to snag a couple of pieces of bacon before he emptied the platter.

  He scowled. “They’re only ten months old.”

  “And I’ll be at the day care every minute that they are,” Bella assured him.

  “I don’t know,” he hedged.

  She didn’t press any further as she finished her own breakfast, then gave the babies their eggs.

  Jamie had just pushed his own plate aside when a brisk knock sounded on the back door, then Fallon O’Reilly walked into the room without waiting for an invitation.

  He didn’t mind. Fallon had been a friend of both him and his sister since childhood and one of the first women to volunteer for the baby chain. She was also one of the most regular, and expediency had required that they dispense with the usual protocols months earlier.

  “Good morning,” Fallon greeted Jamie and Bella, her tone and her smile confirming that she believed it to be true. Then she turned to the babies, lavishly kissing each of their cheeks, making them giggle.

  The sound filled his heart with joy and he looked at Fallon with sincere gratitude. She was so great with the babies—so natural and easy. She seemed to love them as he’d hoped their mother would have done, but Paula had never had the chance to be the mother he’d believed she could be—dying only hours after their babies were born by emergency C-section.

  “I brought blueberry muffins.” Fallon set a plastic container in the middle of the table, then moved across the kitchen to retrieve a mug from the cupboard. She brought it and the carafe to the table, offering refills to Jamie and Bella.

  But Bella shook her head. “I should be getting into work.”

  Jamie picked up his mug and stood. “And I need to get out to the barn and check on Daisy. Brooks said she could foal any day now.”

  Fallon frowned at both of them. “Why are you racing off? It’s barely seven-thirty.”

  “Hudson wants to expand Just Us Kids to offer a newborn group and I promised to help him review the applications and set up the interviews,” Bella told her.

  “And I’ve already had breakfast,” Jamie said.

  Fallon looked from sister to brother and back again, her eyes narrowing. “This is about the coffee cake I made for the Fourth of July potluck, isn’t it?”

  Jamie and Bella exchanged a
look.

  Fallon huffed out an exasperated breath as she lifted the lid off the container. “I misread the recipe,” she explained, selecting a muffin and peeling the paper off of the bottom half. “Once. And no one in this town will let me forget it.”

  “Because you served the cake at the potluck.”

  “Three years ago. And it wasn’t really that bad,” Fallon defended.

  “You used two tablespoons of baking powder instead of two teaspoons,” Bella reminded her, settling back in her chair. “The cake was tough and chewy.”

  “And tasted like metal,” Jamie chimed in.

  Color filled Fallon’s cheeks as she tore a piece off the muffin. “Okay, it was bad,” she acknowledged, as she popped the morsel into her mouth. “But these are delicious.”

  Jamie sat down again and reached into the container—because even after eating a full breakfast, there was room for a muffin. Bella continued to look dubious.

  “I brought something else, too,” Fallon said, as she broke up the bottom of the muffin into pieces and set them onto each of the babies’ trays.

  Henry, Jared and Kate showed no hesitation, gleefully stuffing the pieces into their mouths.

  “What?” Jamie asked, nibbling tentatively on the muffin.

  Fallon hesitated, not wanting to overstep. But she’d spent a lot of time with this man and his children over the past ten months, and although she understood that he was still grieving the loss of his wife, he needed to start to look forward instead of back—for the sake of his babies if no one else.

  So she pulled the paper out of her pocket and unfolded it, then slid it across the table for Jamie to read.

  He gave it a cursory—almost curious—glance, then looked away to focus his attention on the muffin that he suddenly couldn’t shove into his mouth fast enough.

  Bella leaned forward to peer at the words on the page.

  “It’s Henry, Jared and Katie’s first Christmas,” Fallon reminded Jamie gently, sliding the paper closer to him. “And I want to help you make it the best Christmas ever for them.”