Texas Lullaby (Texas Montgomery Mavericks Book 7) Read Online Free Page A

had talks like these before, only it had always been her delivering the bad news rather than being on the receiving end.
    She nodded. “Where are we meeting him?”
    Meredith’s nurse walked up. “Come with me. We have a family room for you.”
    Lydia took her mother’s arm while Jason pushed her father’s wheelchair into a small conference room. She braced herself and then realized it wasn’t her she was worried about bracing. It was her parents. This was not going to be easy.
    Her mother had already started crying. So had her dad.
    Dr. Harrington entered and sat. “Dr. Henson. Mr. and Mrs. Henson. Mr. Montgomery. It’s times like these that make being a physician hard.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, but Mrs. Hardy died about five minutes ago. It was too sudden for us to gather you to say your goodbyes.”
    Ida Henson gasped and slumped against Lydia. “No. No. Not my baby.”
    Larry Henson sobbed into an already soaked handkerchief.
    “She never regained consciousness. Take some comfort in the fact she felt no pain.”
    Hot, salty tears leaked into the corners of Lydia’s mouth. She could taste them on her tongue. An odd realization came over her. She’d delivered death notifications to families before, but she’d never thought about what came next.
    Jim had been an only child with no living parents. Wherever Meredith was buried, he should be with her.
    And the children. Years ago, when the twins were born, Meredith had made Lydia swear to take the kids if anything happened to her and Jim. Lydia had agreed, but then both women had laughed at the ravings of a new mother. And now Lydia was faced with the prospect of raising three small children.
    Her parents were in their mid-seventies, long past the age of being able to keep up with toddlers. Plus, her father’s heart event tonight clearly signaled that she couldn’t look to them for help.
    And then there was her fiancé, the man who’d been adamant about not wanting the responsibility of raising children.
    She was on her own.
    Suddenly overwhelmed with the enormity of the task facing her, she slumped in her chair and allowed the tears to flow.
    * * * * *
    How Lydia was able to hold it together for the forty-eight hours after her sister’s death was a question she would probably ask herself for the rest of her life. Because she was the only family member who could realistically take the children, and because of the prior agreement with her sister, they were released into her care.
    Since she and the children would be living in Whispering Springs, she persuaded her parents to bury Meredith and Jim there so that the children would be able to visit the graves as needed to understand the concept of death. Jason’s parents immediately volunteered to arrange for the burial sites at Greenwood Cemetery, right outside the city limits of Whispering Springs.
    Caroline sweet-talked Larry Henson into having one of the stents done in Dallas. She and Travis drove Lydia’s parents down to Baylor and got Larry checked into the hospital there. And while Lydia was relieved her father was getting the stent he needed, she also felt a modicum of relief at having one less problem to deal with.
    The children were almost more than she could handle. Ellery and Annie, the three-year-old twins, cried almost non-stop on Sunday while they were in the hotel waiting for Meredith and Jim’s bodies to be released. Levi was a dream baby. He ate and slept, unconcerned by the chaos going on around him.
    Jason was the lynchpin that held them all together. He rented a van to get them home. He brought food when they were hungry. Bought clothes for the kids to wear. Held Lydia at night when she could take no more.
    However, the guilt of leaning so heavily on Jason ate at her. It wasn’t fair. The man was putting up a good front, but he had minced no words in expressing his disinterest in parenting. She would have to find a way to do this without him. However, for now, she would take whatever help