Colton Countdown
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Tara Taylor Quinn
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Chapter 1
Ezra Colton’s chin hit his chest and he jerked awake. Every muscle tensed, he quickly assessed his immediate danger level to be zero and relaxed back into the quite comfy-for-his-big-shoulders chair, in his great-aunt’s lovely, homey room. Glancing across at the woman who’d been mostly dozing in a matching chair during the entirety of his afternoon visit, he noticed she was also awake and staring at him.
His smile was immediate, and he tried to shrug off her lack of response. His siblings, his mom, had all warned him that his aunt’s memory loss had drastically worsened since he’d last been home. Still, fingers tapping on bare knees beneath the army-green shorts he’d pulled out of his duffel that morning, he couldn’t accept that she didn’t know him. At least a little bit.
“It’s pretty hot outside,” he offered, looking her right in the eye. “People are grumbling a bit, but after being in Afghanistan, I’m fine with the heat. You remember that time I went tubing in the river without Mom and Dad’s permission and ripped my swim trunks on that tree limb? I came straight to you. You had me change into some of Uncle’s old shorts, and you fixed those trunks for me. And then told me to go home and tell my parents what I’d done.”
Not a snippet of response. Of any kind of recognition, even.
But she was still looking straight at him. So he kept chatting until she dozed off again. Figured he needed to get his lumbering butt up and active. A month of leave could make a guy soft, and no way he was letting his men down. His sergeant stripes were way more than uniform decoration, and he’d die before dishonoring them.
Still...a few more minutes to relax... That was what leave was for, right?
What did it say about him that he was more relaxed hanging out in a room at the Sunshine Senior Home than with most of the siblings who’d all, for once, gathered in the same town at the same time for his big brother Caleb’s wedding?
The home—at least, the wing where Aunt Alice’s room was located—might be filled with memory-care patients, but there was order to the day, to the rooms and the patients who wandered in them. You knew what to expect and how to deal with it.
Unlike the chaos and drama that attached to his huge, well-known family like bees on honey. And sometimes stung like bees, too.
But...did sitting there make him a coward? He ran a hand across the top of his close-cropped hair. Stood, stretching muscles that, while difficult to fit into some shirts, served him well, and glanced again at his great-aunt. When she was sleeping, she looked...as he remembered her. Like herself. The vacant stare when she was awake...
His mom had been right. He hadn’t been prepared.
He should just go. It wasn’t like she’d know—or remember that he’d been there. Still, she was Aunt Alice. He couldn’t just walk out on her.
With a hand on the back of her chair, he bent to kiss her cheek like he’d done every time he’d left her since he was a little kid, moving slowly so he didn’t startle her. And then, with a hard bump in the butt from behind, nearly fell over.
“What the...?” Swinging around, his first instinct to defend and protect, he had an arm half raised in front of him as he shielded his aunt with his body and had to drop his gaze to meet that of his attacker.
Big brown eyes gazed soulfully up at him from a mutt’s tilted, light brown head. Before he could even drop his arm, a very young voice, in a place filled with old voices, called out, “Charlie!”
And two dark-haired urchins appeared in the doorway. “Charlie!” The girls, in identical sundresses and sandals, didn’t even seem to notice him as they hurried straight to the errant dog. “We’re really sorry, sir.” The child with braids and holding a book spoke up. The other one, wearing her long straight hair down, patted Charlie on the head.
“He doesn’t like it when someone claps at him, and he ran off,” the bookless one of the two of them—and, he noted, the one without freckles as well—added to the first’s apology.
With virtually zip experience around children—his little niece, Iris, didn’t count because she was only a few months old, still just sleeping, eating and being held, and because with his career mostly out of the country, he’d only seen her, sleeping both times, in the few days he’d been home—Ezra was mesmerized by the pair, clearly sisters and most likely twins, until a slight movement caught the corner of his eye—and his attention.
Charlie had a paw on the edge of Aunt Alice’s chair, and her hand moved to cover it. His gaze rose slowly from that gesture to his aunt’s face, and he could hardly believe the small smile he saw there. He’d been there a couple of hours with no sign of life from the woman other than a blank stare, but Charlie had a response out of her in less than two minutes.
Bookless was reaching for the dog’s collar.
“I’m a triplet,” he blurted, grabbing her attention before she pulled the animal away. Even if the girls weren’t twins, they were dressed alike as though someone wanted them to be. “And I have three sets of twins for brothers and sisters,” he added, as though someone was adding up multiple birth values.
“We’re twins,” Bookless told him, her little fingers resting on her dog’s neck. And not holding the collar. “We were born at the same time,” she added.
“I’m Claire and she’s Neve,” the girl with braids told him. Her adorable freckles made him want to smile at her. And he might have if she hadn’t worn such a serious expression. “We aren’t supposed to be in here.”
“We can’t help it, Claire,” Neve said, shrugging. “We had to get Charlie. Claire was reading to Mrs. Sally and Mr. Bo, and I’ve heard the story a gazillion times—” she rolled her eyes “—but I like the part where Flow—that’s the smaller horse who everyone thinks can’t win—gets ahead of everyone else because she’s trying harder—and I guess I forgot to hold Charlie’s collar tight enough right when Mrs. Sally clapped for Flow and, well, what’s a triplet?”
“It’s three instead of two, Neve,” Claire said. “We’re two. Triplets is three. But—” she peered up at him, nose scrunched “—what’s three twins?”
“Three sets of twins, right, mister?” Neve said. “And that’s...” Letting go of Charlie, she held up the fingers on one hand, pointing with her other to individual fingers as she tried to count to two, three times.
“One, two, one, two, one, two,” Claire butted in then, holding up a finger each time she named a one or a two, and then looking at the total of held-up fingers when she was done. “You have six twin brothers and sisters?”
“That’s right.” He nodded, noticing that Aunt Alice’s hand was moving atop the paw still resting on her chair, as though Charlie knew that the lost old woman needed him.
“Six kids being born at once?” Neve burst out, her voice rising markedly by the end of the question.
“Just two at once,” he said. “Remember, that’s twins. Two born at once. They were born three different times, years apart.”
“Is triplets years apart, too?” Claire asked.
“Nope,” he told her, suddenly enjoying the moment of diversion more than he had anything else since getting off the plane in Denver. “It’s three born at the same time.”
“You have two more of you born at once?” Neve asked, giggling.
Thinking of Dom and Oliver, he couldn’t in any way see his brothers as two more of him. He and his fellow triplets were very different guys. But he ended with, “Yep,” because the girls seemed so delighted by the thought.
“Two against one,” Claire said. “That’s what sometimes happens if someone wants to play with Neve but not me. Is that what happened to you?”
“I always say you can play, Claire. You just sometimes want to read.”
Not sure if he was still required to answer the question Claire had posed, but certain that he didn’t want to do so, he asked her, “Are you the younger or older twin?”
“I’m younger,” Claire said, her gaze serious.
“I’m her big sister by two minutes!” Neve chimed in, standing next to her sister to gaze up at him. “But I’m a little person. You sure are big,” she said. “Almost like a giant.”
“Are your other triplets as big as you?” Claire, full of questions, apparently, asked.
“My older triplet—” he used her word for him and his brothers “—is named Dom, and he’s taller than me by one inch. And the younger one, his name’s Oliver, is my same height, but he’s a little skinnier than I am.” Lean, Oliver was lean.
“Oliver?” Neve asked, her nose scrunching up as the lilt in her voice rose. And then she giggled. “He’s a cat! And him and Jenny are together forever, just like Claire and me.”
When Ezra stood there, his brain racing trying to figure out the reference, Claire said, “Did you ever watch Oliver & Company, mister?”
The Disney movie. Right. Had he ever seen it?
“You’re like a sandwich.” Neve popped back into the conversation, once again sparing him from Claire’s question. “Smooshed in the middle of two more!” she pronounced, clearly pleased with herself. “A giant sandwich.”
He followed the conversation, and also noticed something pretty cool going on apart from the girls. Aunt Alice’s hand rose to Charlie’s head, her fingers moving slightly. Wanting to prolong her enjoyment, and unable to come up with any interesting reply to a giant sandwich, he motioned toward the book that Claire had been hugging to her chest since they’d come in. “So your book’s about a horse named Flow?”
She held it up, showing him the cover. Flow Goes to the Races. The title was in bold purple-and-pink lettering.
“I have a brother and sister, one of the pairs of the twins I told you about, who run a ranch, the Gemini, and they have horseback riding. Have you been there?”
The question gained him identical shakes of two little heads, in tandem. And while Neve stepped back beside Charlie’s head again, Claire pointed to Aunt Alice. “You want me to read it to her?”
“Sure, if you want to,” he said, as another movement caught his eye. This one from the doorway—a woman hovered there, just off to the side, mostly out of sight.
For the first time since the kids had appeared in his great-aunt’s room, he wondered why two young girls were roaming freely through the halls of the memory-care unit.
And had a feeling he was about to find out.
And perhaps get chewed out as well, for engaging with them.
Figuring he’d much rather have it be him than them, he invited Claire to start reading and backed slowly toward the door.
She’d been made. Dealing with all the feels, Theresa Fitzgerald stepped farther back from the door, but not so far she couldn’t still hear her daughter’s sweet, so serious voice as she read her beloved story to the memory-care patient. She’d never have believed it was possible to love anyone as much as she loved her twins.
And she most certainly hadn’t expected to be caught eavesdropping—by one of the gorgeous Coltons, no less. Embarrassment joined the flood, but there was so much more. Her girls...the ease in their tones, the innocent, unfiltered chattiness...
As she came down the hallway, the sounds had stopped her in her tracks.
She hadn’t heard them talking like this since their father died...
Mark.
A year later, and she still lived with the gaping hole his death had left in their lives.
But the girls... She’d had to see who’d managed to elicit natural engagement with them...who’d had the ability to draw them out of whatever darkness had held them captive. Even if just for a moment...
“Are you...?” The man broke off, his gaze going to the badge she wore pinned just above her left breast. “Oh...you manage this place? I sincerely apologize here,” he continued on, his blue eyes meeting hers with none of the complexity or veils she’d have assumed a Colton man would wear naturally. “I know I should have sent these girls out immediately, the second they came into the room to retrieve their runaway dog, but...” He glanced at her badge again. “Senior Care Manager?” he asked.
To which she nodded, intending to say more, but he said, “Then you know Alice,” nodding at the scene playing out in the room. “Maybe you see this all the time, you know, if the dog is a regular or something, and Alice always responds this way. But from what my mom told me, my aunt is almost always little more than a breathing statue, showing no reaction or awareness at all, and she’s smiling. Kind of petting him. I’m afraid I purposely kept the girls chatting so that the dog could stay a moment and...” He glanced down at his feet, showing her the top of his head, covered with shortly cropped light brown hair, before looking up at her once again.
The quick look shot a flame through her...one she hadn’t felt since Mark got sick...shocking her so much she barely heard his next sentence: “Please apologize to whoever is in charge of them. I swear they weren’t harmed...”
“I know they weren’t. I’ve been standing here listening.” She had to fess up. It was just her way. “Enjoying the conversation.”
Claire’s voice carried over to them, the words filled with the emotion of the story and yet a very distinct pause at the end of each sentence, too, as the little girl read, rather than recited, the book Theresa knew she had completely memorized. Neve, bless her energetic little heart, stood right there, listening, her little fingers on Charlie’s collar, as though she hadn’t done exactly the same, hearing exactly the same, far too many times to count over the past months.
“They bring Charlie to visit specific residents every Tuesday afternoon,” she said, when there was so much more important information to glean in the minute or two she had. What had he done to draw them out?
Why him? What quality did he possess that had performed this small miracle for her daughters?
“And I’m sorry for eavesdropping, Mr. Colton.”
“You know me?” the man asked, frowning. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember us ever meeting. Did we know each other in school?”
She shook her head. “No. Your mom talks about all of you, has shown me, and others, pictures of all of you...” But nothing had prepared her for this Colton in the flesh. If her girls hadn’t been on the other side of that door, she’d have turned tail and run.
Or walked away as quickly as proper protocol and manners would allow.
“And...I know you’re Ezra because you told the girls your triplet brothers are Dom and Oliver.” There, could that be enough baring of her soul, please?
He was sorry. She was sorry.
And there they stood, with Claire pronouncing every single word, slowly and distinctly.
“I’ve not had much experience with kids, but they’re a delight.” Ezra Colton warmed her mother’s heart that time. The woman heart, the mother’s heart—what was the man trying to do to her?
“Thank you.”
He looked at her. Back into the room. “They’re yours?”
She’d taken for granted he’d known that. When he’d had no way of knowing. “They are,” she told him. And then, with her heart so discombobulated, more came pouring out. “And I don’t know what kind of magic you came bearing, but what you’re seeing, well, not the reading, that’s how it is every week, every visit. But the way the girls were talking to you, so open and friendly... It’s just kind of sent me into a state of flux here.”
He shook his head. Probably thinking her a blubbering person incapable of maintaining responsibility for an entire care home.
Not wanting to hear what he was thinking, she hurried forward with, “They’ve been... They haven’t been comfortable around strangers since their dad died.”
And you want to know my slightly-larger-since-I-gave-birth pant size, too?
“Their dad...your husband?”
Looking at the girls, not him, she nodded, embarrassed. “I can’t believe I just laid that on you... I’m just...” Her chin trembled. That meant tears were imminent. Stiffening her shoulders, she continued, “I’m just glad to see them happy.”
They were talking softly, standing so that Ezra Colton was the only one immediately visible to those in the room. She blamed her wayward tongue—and emotions—on the false intimacy their little tête-à-tête created.
“I’m...sorry. I had no idea.” Ezra’s soft tones seemed to carry a rare brand of tenderness, coming from such a muscled, imposing figure. “I’ve lost comrades, who were family to me. And—” he glanced toward the girls, who were nearing the end of their story “—like them, I lost my father at a young age.”
She knew the story, of course. She’d been too young to remember much more than hearing Ben Colton’s name in the news, but pretty much everyone who’d been in Blue Larkspur for any length of time knew the story. And eventually heard how the revered justice had been taking bribes and sending wrongfully convicted individuals to prison. She’d even heard it said by an old-timer at the home that the car accident that took Ben’s life had been a blessing...
She’d never figured a wife and children would find the loss of their loved one a good thing, though. No matter the wrong choices he’d made, Ben Colton had loved his wife and kids. Or so she’d heard.
“How old were you when he died?” she asked.
“Just turning sixteen.”
Which made him, what, thirty-six? “You were ten years older than my girls are,” she said aloud. “They were five when Mark died, but he’d been sick for a while before that.”
They’d been through a lot, her twins, strong, sweet, and compassionate beyond their age.
Too much. She would not have any more of their childhood robbed from them—no matter what Mark’s parents said or tried to do to her.
Claire’s voice faded away. Neve slid her fingers under Charlie’s collar. Ezra’s great-aunt was dozing off, and he straightened, moving back into the room.
As always, Flow, against all odds, had won the race.
Stepping away from the wall, Theresa rounded the corner into the room, showing herself to her recalcitrant daughters with a smile, not a frown, and silently promised them that they were going to be winners, too.
Just like Flow.
