Detective Barelli's Legendary Triplets Read online

  She went to bed a single mom of triplets...

  And woke up married!

  Blame it on the spiked punch, or on the legend of Wedlock Creek Chapel. But Norah Ingalls is now Detective Reed Barelli’s wife. The lawman certainly didn’t intend to marry the gorgeous mom of three infant babies; an instant family wasn’t in his plans. Yet just walking away was unimaginable. In this brand-new Wyoming Multiples romance, marriage is just the beginning...

  It was true. She was the mother of triplets.

  “So, what’s our plan for getting back our marriage license?” she asked. “I guess we can just drive out to Brewer first thing in the morning and ask for it back. If we get to the courthouse early and spring on them the minute they open, I’m sure we’ll get the license back before it’s processed.”

  “Sounds good,” he said.

  “And if we can’t get it back for whatever reason, we’ll just have to get the marriage annulled.”

  “Like it never happened,” he said.

  “Exactly,” she said with a nod and smile.

  Except it had happened, and Reed had a feeling he wouldn’t shake it off so easily, even with an annulment and the passage of time. The pair of them had gotten themselves into a real pickle, as his grandmother used to say.

  * * *

  THE WYOMING MULTIPLES:

  Lots of babies, lots of love

  Dear Reader,

  In my series The Wyoming Multiples, a century-old wedding chapel has a legend attached to it: those who marry there will have multiples—twins, triplets, quadruplets, even quintuplets in three cases—in some way, whether through luck, science, marriage or happenstance.

  Single mother of seven-month-old triplets Norah Ingalls doesn’t believe in legends; after all, she didn’t marry in the chapel and boom: triplets, two girls and a boy. But then one summer evening, she does marry in the chapel under the strangest circumstances, and that’s how the legend comes true (belatedly) not only for her but for confirmed bachelor Detective Reed Barelli...

  Did you know that I also recently wrote six novels in the Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen series for Special Edition under the pen name Meg Maxwell? For more information about me and my books, please visit my website, melissasenate.com. You can also write me with comments or questions at [email protected], friend me on Facebook at Facebook.com/MelissaSenate and follow me on Twitter at Twitter.com/MelissaSenate. I love to hear from readers.

  Thanks so much for your interest in Detective Barelli’s Legendary Triplets. I hope you enjoy it!

  Thank you!

  Melissa Senate

  Detective Barelli’s Legendary Triplets

  Melissa Senate

  Melissa Senate has written many novels for Harlequin and other publishers, including her debut, See Jane Date, which was made into a TV movie. She also wrote seven books for Harlequin’s Special Edition line under the pen name Meg Maxwell. Her novels have been published in over twenty-five countries. Melissa lives on the coast of Maine with her teenage son, their sweet rescue Shepherd mix, Flash, and a lap cat named Cleo. For more information, please visit her website, melissasenate.com.

  Books by Melissa Senate

  Harlequin Special Edition

  The Wyoming Multiples

  The Baby Switch!

  Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen

  (as Meg Maxwell)

  Santa’s Seven-Day Baby Tutorial

  Charm School for Cowboys

  The Cook’s Secret Ingredient

  The Cowboy’s Big Family Tree

  The Detective’s 8 lb, 10 oz Surprise

  A Cowboy in the Kitchen

  The Montana Mavericks: The Great Family Roundup (as Meg Maxwell)

  Mommy and the Maverick

  Red Dress Ink

  Little Black Dress

  Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

  The Breakup Club

  The Solomon Sisters Wise Up

  Questions to Ask Before Marrying

  Love You to Death

  See Jane Date

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

  http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010002

  Dedicated to my darling Max.

  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

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Cottages on Silver Beach by RaeAnne Thayne

  Excerpt from How to Romance a Runaway Bride by Teri Wilson

  Chapter One

  The first thing Norah Ingalls noticed when she woke up Sunday morning was the gold wedding band on her left hand.

  Norah was not married. Had never been married. She was as single as single got. With seven-month-old triplets.

  The second thing was the foggy headache pressing at her temples.

  The third thing was the very good-looking stranger lying next to her.

  A memory poked at her before panic could even bother setting in. Norah lay very still, her heart just beginning to pound, and looked over at him. He had short, thick, dark hair and a hint of five-o’clock shadow along his jawline. A scar above his left eyebrow. He was on his back, her blue-and-white quilt half covering him down by his belly button. An innie. He had an impressive six-pack. Very little chest hair. His biceps and triceps were something to behold. The man clearly worked out. Or was a rancher.

  Norah bolted upright. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. He wasn’t a rancher. He was a secret service agent! She remembered now. Yes. They’d met at the Wedlock Creek Founder’s Day carnival last night and—

  And had said no real names, no real stories, no real anything. A fantasy for the night. That had been her idea. She’d insisted, actually.

  The man in her bed was not a secret service agent. She had no idea who or what he was.

  She swallowed against the lump in her parched throat.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. What happened? Think, Norah!

  There’d been lots of orange punch. And giggling, when Norah was not a giggler. The man had said something about how the punch must be spiked.

  Norah bit her lower lip hard and looked for the man’s left hand. It was under the quilt. Her grandmother’s hand-me-down quilt.

  She sucked in a breath and peeled back the quilt enough to reveal his hand. The same gold band glinted on his ring finger.

  As flashes of memories from the night before started shoving into her aching head, Norah eased back down, lay very still and hoped the man wouldn’t wake before she remembered how she’d ended up married to a total stranger. The fireworks display had started behind the Wedlock Creek chapel and everything between her and the man had exploded, too. Norah closed her eyes and let it all come flooding back.

  * * *

  A silent tester burst of the fireworks display, red and white just visible through the treetops, started when she and Fabio were on their tenth cup of punch at the carnival. The big silver punch bowl had been on an unmanned table near the food booths. Next to the stack of plastic cups was a lockbox with a slot
and a sign atop it: Two Dollars A Cup/Honor System. Fabio had put a hundred-dollar bill in the box and taken the bowl and their cups under a maple tree, where they’d been sitting for the past half hour, enjoying their punch and talking utter nonsense.

  Not an hour earlier Norah’s mother and aunt Cheyenne had insisted she go enjoy the carnival and that they’d babysit the triplets. She’d had a corn dog, won a little stuffed dolphin in a balloon-dart game, which she’d promptly lost somewhere, and then had met the very handsome newcomer to town at the punch table.

  “Punch?” he’d said, handing her a cup and putting a five-dollar bill in the box. He’d then ladled himself a cup.

  She drank it down. Delicious. She put five dollars in herself and ladled them both two more cups.

  “Never seen you before,” she said, daring a glance up and down his six-foot-plus frame. Muscular and lanky at the same time. Navy Henley and worn jeans and cowboy boots. Silky, dark hair and dark eyes. She could look, but she’d never touch. No sirree.

  He extended his hand. “I’m—”

  She held up her own, palm facing him. “Nope. No real names. No real stories.” She was on her own tonight, rarely had a moment to herself, and if she was going to talk to a man, a handsome, sexy, no-ring-on-his-finger man—something she’d avoided since becoming a mother—a little fantasy was in order. Norah didn’t date and had zero interest in romance. Her mother, aunt and sister always shook their heads at that and tried to remind her that her faith in love, and maybe herself, had been shaken, that was all, and she’d come around. That was all? Ha. She was done with men with a capital D.

  He smiled, his dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners. Early thirties, she thought. And handsome as sin. “In that case, I’m...Fabio. A...secret service agent. That’s right. Fabio the secret service agent. Protecting the fresh air here in Wedlock Creek.”

  She giggled for way too long at that one. Jeez, was there something in the punch? Had to be. When was the last time she’d giggled? “Kind of casually dressed for a Fed,” she pointed out, admiring his scuffed brown boots.

  “Gotta blend,” he said, waving his arm at the throngs of people out enjoying the carnival.

  “Ah, that makes sense. Well, I’m Angelina, international flight attendant.” Where had that come from? Angelina had a sexy ring to it, she thought. She picked up a limp fry from the plate he’d gotten from the burger booth across the field. She dabbed it in the ketchup on the side and dangled it in her mouth.

  “You manage to make that sexy,” he said with a grin.

  Norah Ingalls, single mother of drooling, teething triplets, sexy? LOL. Ha. That was a scream. She giggled again and he tipped up her face and looked into her eyes.

  Kiss me, you fool, she thought. You Fabio. You secret service agent. But his gaze was soft on her, not full of lascivious intent. Darn.

  That was when he suggested they sit, gestured at the maple tree, then put the hundred in the lockbox and took the bowl over to their spot. She carried their cups.

  “Have more punch,” she said, ladling him a cup. And another. And another. He told her stories from his childhood, mostly about an old falling-down ranch on a hundred acres, but she wasn’t sure what was true and what wasn’t. She told him about her dad, who’d been her biggest champion. She told him the secret recipe for her mother’s chicken pot pie, which was so renowned in Wedlock Creek and surrounding towns that the Gazette had done an article on her family’s pie diner. She told him everything but the most vital truth about herself.

  Tonight, Norah was a woman out having fun at the annual carnival, allowing herself for just pumpkin-hours to bask in the attention of a good-looking, sexy man who was sweet and smart and funny as hell. At midnight—well, 11:00 p.m. when the carnival closed—she’d turn back into herself. A woman who didn’t talk to hot, single men.

  “What do you think the punch is spiked with?” she asked as he fed her a cold french fry and poured her another cup.

  He ran two fingers gently down the side of her cheek. “I don’t know, but it sure is nice to forget myself, just for a night when I’m not on duty.”

  Duty? Oh, right, she thought. He was a secret service agent. She giggled, then sobered for a second, a poke of real life jabbing at her from somewhere.

  Now the first booms of the fireworks were coming fast and there were cheers and claps in the distance, but they couldn’t see the show from their spot.

  “Let’s go see!” she said, taking his hand to pull him up.

  But Fabio’s expression had changed. He seemed lost in thought, far away.

  “Fabio?” she asked, trying to think through the haze. “You okay?”

  He downed another cup of punch. “Those were fireworks,” he said, color coming back into his face. “Not gunfire.”

  She laughed. “Gunfire? In Wedlock Creek? There’s no hunting within town limits because of the tourism and there hasn’t been a murder in over seventy years. Plus, if you crane your neck, you can see a bit of the fireworks past the trees.”

  He craned that beautiful neck, his shoulder leaning against hers. “Okay. Let’s go see.”

  They walked hand in hand to the chapel, but by the time they got there—a few missed turns on the path due to their tipsiness—the fireworks display was over. The small group setting them off had already left the dock, folks clearing away back to the festival.

  The Wedlock Creek chapel was all lit up, the river behind it illuminated by the glow of the almost full moon.

  “I always dreamed of getting married here,” she said, gazing up at the beautiful white-clapboard building, which looked a bit like a wedding cake. It had a vintage Victorian look with scallops on the upper tiers and a bell at the top that almost looked like a heart. According to town legend, those who married here would—whether through marriage, adoption, luck, science or happenstance—be blessed with multiples: twins or triplets or even quadruplets. So far, no quintuplets. The town and county was packed with multiples of those who’d gotten married at the chapel, proof the legend was true.

  For some people, like Norah, you could have triplets and not have stepped foot in the chapel. Back when she’d first found out she was pregnant, before she’d told the baby’s father, she’d fantasized about getting married at the chapel, that maybe they’d get lucky and have multiples even if it was “after the fact.” One baby would be blessing enough. Two, three, even four—Norah loved babies and had always wanted a houseful. But the guy who’d gotten her pregnant, in town on the rodeo circuit, had said, “Sorry, I didn’t sign up for that,” and left town before his next event. She’d never seen him again.

  She stared at the chapel, so pretty in the moonlight, real life jabbing her in the heart again. Where is that punch bowl? she wondered.

  “You always wanted to marry here? Then let’s get married,” Fabio said, scooping her up and carrying her into the chapel.

  Her laughter floated on the summer evening breeze. “But we’re three sheets to the wind, as my daddy used to say.”

  “That’s the only way I’d get hitched,” he said, slurring the words.

  “Lead the way, cowboy.” She let her head drop back.

  Annie Potterowski, the elderly chapel caretaker, local lore lecturer and wedding officiant, poked her head out of the back room. She stared at Norah for a moment, then her gaze moved up to Fabio’s handsome face. “Ah, Detective Barelli! Nice to see you again.”

  “You know Fabio?” Norah asked, confused. Or was his first name really Detective?

  “I ran into the chief when he was showing Detective Barelli around town,” Annie said. “The chief’s my second cousin on my mother’s side.”

  Say that five times fast, Norah thought, her head beginning to spin.

  And Annie knew her fantasy man. Her fantasy groom! Isn’t that something, Norah thought, her mind going in ten directions. Suddenly the faces of her triplets p
ushed into the forefront of her brain and she frowned. Her babies! She should be getting home. Except she felt so good in his arms, being carried like she was someone’s love, someone’s bride-to-be.

  Annie’s husband, Abe, came out, his blue bow tie a bit crooked. He straightened it. “We’ve married sixteen couples tonight. One pair came as far as Texas to get hitched here.”

  “We’re here to be the seventeenth,” Fabio said, his arm heavy around Norah’s.

  “Aren’t you a saint!” Annie said, beaming at him. “Oh, Norah, I’m so happy for you.”

  Saint Fabio, Norah thought and burst into laughter. “Want to know a secret?” Norah whispered into her impending husband’s ear as he set her on the red velvet carpet that created an aisle to the altar.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “My name isn’t really Angelina. It’s Norah. With an h.”

  He smiled. “Mine’s not Fabio. It’s Reed. Two e’s.” He staggered a bit.

  The man was as tipsy as she was.

  “I never thought I’d marry a secret service agent,” she said as they headed down the aisle to the “Wedding March.”

  “And we could use all your frequent flyer miles for our honeymoon,” Reed added, and they burst into laughter.

  “Sign here, folks,” Annie said as they stood at the altar. The woman pointed to the marriage license. Norah signed, then Reed, and Annie folded it up and put it in an addressed, stamped envelope.

  I’m getting married! Norah thought, gazing into Reed’s dark eyes as he stood across from her, holding her hands. She glanced down at herself, confused by her shorts and blue-and-white T-shirt. Where was her strapless, lace, princess gown with the beading and sweetheart neckline she’d fantasized about from watching Say Yes to the Dress? And should she be getting married in her beat-up slip-on sneakers? They were hardly white anymore.

  But there was no time to change. Nope. Annie was already asking Reed to repeat his vows and she wanted to pay attention.

  “Do you, Reed Barelli, take this woman, Norah Ingalls, to be your lawfully wedded wife, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”