His Motherless Little Twins Read Online Free PDF Page A

for the sleeping hours, and the green, glowing trace of baby Bryce’s heartbeat on the cardiac monitor next to his bed illuminated the area like an eerie beacon, Dinah stopped halfway to the crib to admire the miracle baby lying there, breathing easily and sleeping peacefully. All was right in his world and he had no idea how people had scrambled to save his life today, how they’d put their own lives at risk to save him. Neither had he any idea how many people had already crept in to see how he was doing, or hovered outside the door, worrying about him. He had no idea that things weren’t perfect, and that’s the way it should always be in achild’s world. Molly should have had a chance at that, if even for a moment.
    Dinah loved children, loved taking care of them, loved the innocence of the smiles and giggles. She’d fallen in love with Molly. Abandoned at birth because of overwhelming disabilities, her birth mother had simply walked away. Never looked back. And had left a precious child to die alone in an impersonal hospital nursery where the duty nurses took good care, but didn’t truly care. No child should ever be alone that way, and she’d made sure Molly had never been alone.
    It had reawakened something in her. A longing. And watching Bryce now reminded her of the all things he would have ahead of him, things Molly wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t have gone home from the hospital, wouldn’t have slept in a crib, wouldn’t have had toys to play with. All those weeks sitting with Molly in the hospital, holding her, singing to her, she’d wanted to pretend things could be normal for the child, but she’d known…as a nurse, she’d known. All those weeks with Charles calling her crazy for getting involved. Hopeless was what he’d called Molly. But Dinah had never seen hopeless. All she’d seen had been a sick child who’d had no one but her.
    How could she have been so wrong about Charles? He was a pediatrician. He was supposed to love children, no matter what their condition. Through Molly, what she’d come to know had been a man who could barely tolerate them.
    How could she have been so blind?
    Now, watching Bryce, and feeling so connected to him, the longing to be part of something so good was stirring again. It would be nice to sit and cradle him in her arms the way she had Molly, to whisper motherly things in his tiny ear. It was a feeling that scared her, though, because she knew the pain of loss when it ended. It was unbearable. So deep and profound nothing could touch it or make it better.
    Not ever.
    With her marriage to Damien, shortly after she’d graduated from nursing school, she’d wanted all the right things—the nice little house with a white picket fence. Wanted to bake pies for her husband and cool them on the windowsill in the afternoon so their sweet aromas would waft down to him as he came home from work. Wanted children playing in the yard. Wanted to snuggle with him in the evening after the children were in bed, and talk about the things that were interesting to no one but themselves—how their days had been, who they’d met on the street, what they were going to do tomorrow, and next week and next year. But that was a dream life that hadn’t come true as Damien had been bored with their daydreams by the end of their first year together and already working on a way to find his life with someone else. And here she was now, at thirty-four, fresh from the last daydream fiasco with Charles, older but, apparently, not much wiser.
    Well, experience was the best teacher. Maybe she had a tendency to let her heart rule her head, but this time her head was fastened on better. Avoid relationships and the problems didn’t happen.
    â€œHe looks so peaceful, you wouldn’t know what he’s just gone through, would you?” Eric asked.
    â€œEric!” she gasped, startled that he’d been able