Twins On The Doorstep

THIS MIRACLE’S A MYSTERY

When newborn twins mysteriously appear on Cole McCullough’s doorstep, everyone at the Healing Ranch, including Cole, starts to think...could they be his? Why else would someone leave them there? Cole knows there must be another explanation. Unless...

The only woman that Cole’s been that close to is Stacy Rowe—the one he cared for deeply, and deeply regrets losing. But Stacy hasn’t been in Forever in…forever. Eight months, to be exact. And while the math adds up, nothing else does! She would never abandon two little babies that way—she’s said as much. But she does seem awfully keen to help him care for them. And the closer their odd little family grows, the more Cole has to wonder...

Cole shook his head. “And to think I actually thought I missed you.”

“Yeah,” she retorted. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

He blew out a breath, telling himself it wouldn’t do either one of them—or more important, the twins—any good to blow up like this right here in front of the sheriff’s office. It was just that he had forgotten just how easily Stacy could set him off. And half the time—like now—she did it without warning. It was like being caught in a blitzkrieg.

“Stacy,” he said, growing stern, “let me take the basket in. It’s heavy.”

“It’s not,” she argued. Except that it really was. And the babies were moving. With a sigh, she relented. “It’s awkward.”

“All the more reason for me to take it,” Cole told her. For a few brief seconds, she debated continuing to argue the point with him.

But her arms were beginning to really ache. So, in the end, she said, “Fine, you can carry them in—but only because I’m thinking of the babies.”

Twins on the Doorstep

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA is a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author who has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

To

Nik and Melany.

Remember never to let

A day go by without saying

“I love you.”

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

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

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

He was getting too old for this.

A hundred years ago, at twenty-six he would not just have been married but would have had at least three, maybe four, kids. He would have been settled into his life, doing what he could to provide for his wife and children.

Instead, here he was, twenty-six years old and still trying to figure out just what his life would eventually be.

Part of the reason for his surly mood, Cole McCullough thought as he sat up and dragged his hand through his unruly, shaggy, dark blond hair, was that he was spending two nights a week with his six-foot-two body crammed into a bunk bed. Sometimes three nights. And that was because two—sometimes three—days a week, he worked at the Healing Ranch. The Healing Ranch was a horse ranch run by Jackson and Garrett White Eagle, two of his friends. Their sole focus was to take in and help troubled boys, building up their feelings of self-worth by having them take care of and work with horses.

All in all, it was a noble calling—for the White Eagle brothers. Not that he didn’t believe in it. He did. But the Healing Ranch was their calling, their mark in the world.

Just like the family ranch was really Connor’s.

Oh, they had all put in their time, he and Cody and Cassidy, but the ranch, left to all of them when their father died, was really Connor’s baby. The rest of them had worked on it to show their gratitude to Connor. When their father had died so suddenly, Connor gave up his dream of going to college and became their guardian so that he, Cody and Cassidy wouldn’t suddenly find themselves being swallowed up by the county’s social services.

He knew that going to college had meant a lot to Connor, but his big brother never hesitated to give it up. For them.

After getting dressed, Cole paused to throw some water on his face in the tiny bathroom just off the equally tiny bedroom. The area had been added onto the main bunkhouse to give him some semblance of privacy. The main bunkhouse was where the boys stayed when their families—and in some cases, social services—sent them to the ranch. The Healing Ranch was a last-ditch effort to straighten them out. Without the ranch, the next stop would have been juvie—and most likely jail.

Initially, there had been only two boys on the ranch. And then there were four. And, as word of the ranch’s success spread, there were more. A lot more. Which was why he had wound up working here part-time.

The rest of the time, he was on the ranch, helping Connor.

Always helping.

And while there was nothing wrong with helping his older brother, Cole wasn’t building something of his own. Cody and Cassidy had gone on to find their places in life—not to mention that each had someone to share that life with them. Cody was a deputy sheriff and Cassidy was working at the town’s only law office and taking classes at night. And Connor was running the family ranch, just the way he wanted to.

Cole sighed. He was the only one of the family at loose ends, not yet sure what ultimate course he wanted his life to take.

Damn it, he was going to be late getting back to the ranch, he upbraided himself. He wasn’t going to come to any lasting, earth-shattering decisions by brooding. Besides, this life he was living was a hell of a lot easier than what he and his siblings had been faced with after their father died.

With both parents gone, they’d found themselves close to destitute. Even when their father had been alive, there were times when they had barely gotten by. Mike McCullough would hire out to neighboring ranches on occasion to make sure there was always food on the table. When he was alive, they never went hungry.

Without their father, they found that they had to scramble, doing whatever they could to scrape by.

Miss Joan, the redheaded, tough-talking firecracker of a woman who ran the diner, saw to it that they always had enough to eat. Not one who believed in handouts, she’d made a point of having them work for their supper.

“Work’s hard on your hands, but good for your soul,” she’d maintained more than once.

So she gave them work. Cassidy had been her youngest waitress to date, Cody did cleanup at the diner, and as for Cole, Miss Joan had him running errands.

Looking back, he was convinced that she hadn’t really needed them to do any of those things, but Miss Joan felt that just handing them the money outright wouldn’t have done them nearly as much good as having them earn it.

She’d been right, Cole thought now with a smile. Miss Joan had instilled a work ethic in all of them, a desire to make something of themselves.

Maybe that was why he felt so restless. He was still looking for his own niche.

“Not gonna find it here, McCullough, rehashing the same old stuff and keeping Connor waiting. Move,” he ordered himself.

There’d be time enough to think about the fact that his life was stalled at the starting gate after today’s chores on the family ranch were done.

With that, Cole paused to grab his hat, turned off the light in his bedroom and opened the door. He had his own separate entrance so that he could come and go as he pleased without having to pass through the bunkhouse and all its residents. Two to three days a week he worked with the boys during regular hours and sat with them in the dining hall at mealtime. But Jackson and Garrett recognized the fact that there were times when a man just needed his privacy, even when there was nothing to be private about.

He opened the door and was ready to step out and greet whatever the day held for him.

Or so he thought.

Cole caught himself a second before his foot would have made contact with the wide wicker basket, kicking it and its contents to the side.

Stunned, Cole froze in place, realizing he had come perilously close to all but drop-kicking the two infants who were nestled in the basket, looking up at him with wide, wide blue eyes.

Chapter One

“What the...?”

At the last moment, despite his shock, Cole swallowed the expletive that was about to burst out of his mouth. Given that he had almost stepped on not one but two infants lying in a basket on the doorstep, it would have been understandable, but inappropriate—at least, to his way of thinking.

It took him a moment to come to grips with the situation, not exactly a run-of-the-mill one by a long shot.

“Okay,” Cole announced, looking around in the pre-dawn light. “This isn’t funny. You just can’t leave babies in a basket like this.” Getting no response, he raised his voice. “You’re not being responsible.”

Nobody answered.

Not one to lose his temper in general, he felt himself losing it now. These were babies, not toys or props to be used in a prank.

He tried again.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun, come out, come out, whoever you are. I’ve got to get going and babies shouldn’t be left outside like this in September. Or any other month of the year, either, for that matter.” Again, Cole had to bite back a few choice words meant for the knucklehead who was behind this practical joke.

Cole looked around.

Nobody came out of the shadows.

One of the babies made a sound, catching his attention.

Crouching down, Cole looked at the two infants wedged together in the basket. They appeared blissfully unaware that they were completely out of their element.

“Where’s your mama, guys? Or girls,” Cole amended. “Sorry, your blankets don’t exactly give me a clue what gender you are.”

He looked around again, but there was still no one coming out to claim the babies or own up to the rather poor joke.

This didn’t make any sense.

With a sigh, Cole picked the basket up and rose to his feet with it.

“Well, you can’t stay out here,” he said to the infants. “No telling what might come by.” Just then, he heard a coyote howling in the distance. “Like that fella. He’s probably hungry. Whoever left you here deserves to be taken behind the barn and given a solid thrashing,” he said fiercely.

He thought about just walking into the bunkhouse with the babies to demand whose idea of a joke this was, but leaving the infants outside like that was beyond some foolish joke. It was damn dangerous. This didn’t really feel like something one of the boys would do.

What if he hadn’t come out when he did? Or if he’d decided, just this once, to walk through the bunkhouse to go outside instead of using his own door? There was no telling how long the babies would have remained out here, unprotected.

“Who left you out here like this?” he asked the small faces looking up at him as he made his way to the main house.

“You know, you are awfully cute,” he commented to the infants. “Too bad you can’t talk and tell me who your mama is, because she needs a serious talking-to. No offense,” he added.

One of the infants sounded as if he—or she—was mewling in response.

Reaching the ranch house, Cole realized that he couldn’t safely balance the basket and knock on the door so he used his elbow instead. When he didn’t get an immediate response, he did it again, harder this time. Because he was jostling the basket and therefore the infants inside of it, he stopped and waited for someone to come to the door.

He was just about to try again when he saw the door finally being opened.

Garrett White Eagle was not usually at a loss for words but this was one of those few times when his mind seemed to go blank.

Recovering, Garrett opened the door to the main house wider and asked Cole, “Have you taken up selling babies door-to-door? Because I’m pretty sure that your brother Cody will tell you that’s illegal.”

Perturbed, Cole didn’t bother commenting on Garrett’s assessment. Instead, he told the man, “I almost tripped over these two when I was leaving this morning. Some brainless jackass left them on my doorstep.”

“Cute little things,” Garrett observed. “Bring them into the living room.”

He gestured into the house, then led the way to where he, his brother and their wives gathered in the evening, usually with at least a few of the boys who were making progress in the program.

Cole placed the basket on the wide, scarred coffee table just as Garrett called out toward the kitchen, “Hey, Jackson, could you come in here? You’ve just got to see this.”

A minute and a half later Jackson White Eagle, taller and slightly more muscular than his younger brother, walked into the living room.

“What’s all the commotion abou—” Jackson stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes went straight to the basket on the coffee table. “Garrett, what are two babies in a basket doing on our coffee table?”

“Don’t look at me,” Garrett protested. “They belong to Cole.”

“Cole?” Jackson asked incredulously. His eyes shifted to the cowboy he’d hired to work part-time on their ranch.

“No, they don’t,” Cole denied with feeling. “I just stumbled over them on the doorstep as I was leaving this morning.”

“Your doorstep,” Garrett pointed out, obviously thinking that was the key word.

Cole shook his head, trying to distance himself from any responsibility. “I’m beginning to think that was just a mistake.”

“Your mistake?” Garrett asked, eyeing his friend closely. “Did you get some ladylove in the family way, Cole?”

Garrett sat down on the old brown-leather sofa in front of the babies. He made a few cooing noises at the infants, which seemed to entertain them sufficiently to get them to stop whimpering.

“Forever is just a little larger than a postage stamp,” Cole pointed out, referring to the nearby town. “I think if something like that had happened, everyone in Forever would have known—if not immediately, then soon enough.”

“So, these little cuties aren’t yours?” Garrett asked, just to make sure.

If they had been his, Cole would have owned up to it without any hesitation and done the right thing by the babies’ mother. Cole felt that his friend knew him well enough to know that.

Cole frowned at Garrett. “No.”

“You’re sure about that?” Jackson asked, looking at Cole closely.

“Absolutely,” Cole answered, but just the slightest note of hesitation had entered his voice.

What if...?

No, no way. It wasn’t possible.

The only woman he’d been intimate with in the last year had been Stacy Rowe. But Stacy had suddenly taken off not too long after that, leaving without a single word to him. Leaving as if the evening they had spent together had filled her with regrets.

Or maybe, according to the rumor he’d heard later, her Aunt Kate had insisted Stacy come with her on “the vacation of a lifetime,” then whisked her off on a prolonged tour of Europe.

Having her leave like that, without warning, had really hurt him, although he’d said nothing to anyone, not even his family. He’d thought that he and Stacy had something unique going, but obviously she hadn’t shared his feelings.

In time, he got over it.

Or so he told himself.

“Well,” Jackson was saying, turning to look at him. “What are you going to do with them?”

Cole looked at the other man, stunned. “Me?”

“Well, yes,” Jackson replied. “They were left on your doorstep.”

Cole still doubted that had been the person’s actual intention. He didn’t always stay over the same days. He could just as likely have not been here. “Undoubtedly by mistake.”

“Maybe not,” Jackson said thoughtfully.

“What are you talking about?” Cole asked.

“Your brother Cody came to his future wife’s rescue and wound up delivering a baby,” Jackson reminded him. “And didn’t Cassidy rescue that baby from the river not too long after that?”

“Yes,” Cole answered cautiously, not sure where Jackson was going with this.

“Can’t be a coincidence,” Jackson told him. “Somebody probably feels that your family’s good with babies. Want my suggestion?” Before Cole could say anything in response, Jackson told him, “Take the babies home with you until you can sort this whole thing out.”

“Wait,” Cole said, feeling as if this whole thing was just spinning out of control. “You’re forgetting one important thing. You’ve got a ranch full of teenage boys, all of them old enough to father a child—or two,” he pointed out.

Jackson studied the infants for a moment. “My guess is that these babies are about three or four weeks old. Maybe less.”

“Okay,” Cole said, waiting for Jackson to make a point.

“That means that if they were fathered by one of the boys on the ranch, it would have had to have happened about ten months or so ago,” Jackson told him.

“Right,” Cole agreed, still waiting for Jackson’s point.

“Well, we’ve only got three boys who have been here that long,” Jackson concluded. “The rest have been here for less time than that.” There were several who had graduated the program and returned home in that time frame, but for now, he decided not to mention that. He still felt that the infants might be Cole’s.

“Okay!” Cole was on his feet. “Let’s go talk to those three hands.”

The babies were making more noise. Jackson’s attention shifted to them. “Well, before we do that, I think these two little people need to be fed first.”

Feeling suddenly, totally, out of his depth, Cole looked around.

“Is Debi here?” Jackson’s wife, Debi, was a registered nurse who worked at the town’s only medical clinic.

Jackson shook his head. “She went in early today. It’s her turn to open the clinic.”

“What about Kim?” Cole asked hopefully, looking at Garrett.

“Sorry, out of luck there,” Garrett told him. “Kim’s away on assignment. She left last week. She still keeps her hand in,” he explained proudly, “doing occasional stories for the magazine that brought her out here in the first place.”

Obviously taking pity on Cole, Jackson volunteered, “However, Rosa’s here,” referring to the Healing Ranch’s resident housekeeper.

Cole was immediately hopeful. “Do you think that she could...?”

“She might, if we ask her nicely,” Jackson speculated.

“She’s probably in the kitchen. I’ll go get her,” Garrett volunteered, taking off.

The babies were beginning to fuss in earnest now. Cole looked at Jackson. “You don’t think that these belong to one of those boys you mentioned, do you?”

“Highly doubtful,” Jackson said. Moving toward the basket, he picked up the louder of the two infants and began rocking it in an attempt to quiet the baby. “You’ve seen the hands. By the end of the day, they’re all too tired to chew, much less try to romance some little lady. Besides, so far this is still an all-male program we have going here. To find a girl his age, our Romeo would have to ride all the way out to town or the reservation. I’d probably know about it if that happened,” Jackson assured him.

“Where did these babies come from?” Rosa Sanchez asked as she walked into the living room.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Jackson told the woman.

Maternal instincts rose to the surface. Rosa picked up the other infant from the basket and held it against her ample bosom.

“Oh, the poor little thing,” she cooed. “He is hungry.”

Cole stared at her, surprised. “You can tell it’s a he? How?” he asked, then pointed out, “The baby’s all bundled up. They both are.”

Rosa merely smiled. “He is noisier. Men usually are,” Rosa told him knowingly. She looked at Jackson. “Bring the other one,” she instructed the man who was technically her boss. And then she turned toward Cole. “You bring the basket. There is no place to lay them down while I take turns feeding them, so the basket will do.”

“Rosa, how are you going to feed them? We don’t have any baby bottles,” Garrett asked.

“Boil a cloth,” Rosa instructed Jackson.

He looked at her in confusion. “And just how is that going to...?”

“When it is clean, we will dip a corner of the cloth into a cup of warm milk and the baby will suck on that.”

“Won’t that take a long time, feeding him that way?” Cole asked.

Rosa gave him what passed for a patient smile. “Just until one of you comes back from the general store in town with two baby bottles,” she replied. “Now go, go,” she urged them. “These babies are getting hungrier by the minute.”

“I’ll go to the general store,” Garrett volunteered, no doubt thinking that was the safest thing for him to do.

“I’ll make breakfast for the boys,” Jackson told his housekeeper, handing off the baby he’d been holding to Cole. “You stay here with Cole and the babies, and do what needs to be done.”

Rosa smiled at him patiently. “Yes, Mr. Jackson.”

* * *

THE PROCEDURE WAS slow and tedious, but, to Cole’s surprise, feeding the infants Rosa’s way seemed to satisfy them, at least for the time being.

“I think this one’s going to suck in the cloth,” he marveled, watching the infant in his arms going at the milk-soaked cloth he was bringing to its lips.

“Don’t forget to keep soaking the cloth,” Rosa prompted. “You don’t want it getting dry.”

“Right,” Cole murmured, taking the cloth he had wrapped around his index finger away from the infant’s mouth and dipping it into the milk he had standing in one of the coffee mugs.

“Mr. McCullough?” Rosa said.

Cole raised his eyes away from the infant he was attempting to feed. It was touch and go at the moment. “Yes?”

“You are sure you are not the father of these babies?” she asked in a low voice. Before he could say anything, she assured him, “It is just the two of us here right now. You can tell me.” She leaned her head in toward him and said in a low voice, “I will not tell anyone.”

“I’m sure, Rosa,” Cole said patiently.

And, for the most part, he was. There was just this tiny little inkling of doubt left, but he knew he was needlessly torturing himself. If there had been a baby—or babies—because of that one wondrous night, Stacy would have told him.

Wouldn’t she?

“Then why would someone leave them on your doorstep?” Rosa asked, dipping the edge of her cloth in the warm milk. “Why not with the sheriff or on the clinic’s doorstep?”