The Seal's Secret Heirs

“Give me a job if it means so much to you that I take ranch ownership seriously. I’ll do something with the horses.”

Liam nearly busted a gut laughing, which did not improve Kyle’s grip on his temper. “You can feed them. But that’s about it. You have no training.”

And Kyle wasn’t at 100 percent physically, but no one had to know about that. His injuries mostly didn’t count anyway. It just meant he had to work that much harder, which he’d do. Those babies were worth a little agony.

“I can learn. You can’t have it both ways. Either you give me a shot at being half owner of Wade Ranch or shut up about it.”

“All right, smart-ass.” Liam tipped back his hat and jerked his chin at Kyle. “We got a whole cattle division here at Wade Ranch that’s ripe for improvement. I’ve been concentrating on the horses and letting Danny and Emma Jane handle that side. You take over.”

“Done.”

Kyle knew even less about cows than he did babies. But he hadn’t known anything about guns or explosives before joining the navy, either. BUD/S training had nearly broken him, but he’d learned how to survive impossible physical conditions, learned how to stretch his body to the point of exhaustion and still come out swinging when the next challenge reared its ugly head.

You had to start out with the mind-set that quitting wasn’t an option. Even the smallest mental slip would finish a man. So he wouldn’t slip.

Liam eyed him and shook his head. “You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack. I’ll take my best shot at the cattle side of the ranch. Just one question. What am I aiming at?”

“We have a Black Angus breeding program. Emma Jane—she’s the sales manager I hired last year—is great. She sold about two hundred head. If you want me to call you successful, double that in under six months.”

That didn’t sound too bad, especially if there was a sales manager already doing the heavy lifting. “No problem. Now drop the whole adoption idea and we’ll call it even.”

“Let me see you in action, and then we’ll talk. I have yet to see anything that tells me you’re planning to stick around. If you take off again, the babies will be mine anyway. Might as well make it legal sooner rather than later.” Liam shrugged. “You made your bed by leaving. So lie in it for a while.”

Yeah, except he’d left for very specific reasons. He and Liam had never been close, and Kyle hadn’t felt as if he was part of anything until he’d found his brothers of the heart on a SEAL team. That’s where he’d finally felt secure. He could actually care about someone again without fear of being either abandoned or betrayed.

He’d like to say he could find a way to stay at the ranch this time. But what had changed from the first time? Not much.

Just that he was a father now. And he owed his daughters a stable home life. They were amazing little creatures that he wanted to see grow up. With the additional complications of Maddie’s health problems, he couldn’t relocate them at the drop of a hat, either.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kyle repeated for what felt like the four hundredth time.

Maybe if he kept saying it, people would believe him. Maybe he’d believe it, too.

Three

Kyle drove into town later that night on an errand for Hadley, who had announced at dinner that the babies were almost out of both diapers and formula. She’d seemed surprised when he said he’d go instead.

Of course he’d volunteered for the job. They were his kids. But he’d made Hadley write down exactly what he needed to buy, because the only formula he’d had exposure to was the one for making homemade explosives. List in his pocket, he’d swung into his truck, intending to grab the baby items and be back in jiffy.

But as he pulled into the lot at Royal’s one-and-only grocery store, Grace had just exited through the automatic sliding doors. Well, well, well. There was no way he was passing up this opportunity. He still had a boatload of questions for the girl he’d once given his heart to, only to have it handed back, shredded worse than Black Angus at a slaughterhouse.

Kyle waited until she was almost to her car, and then gingerly climbed from his truck to corner her between her Toyota and the Dooley in the next spot.

“Lovely night, isn’t it, Ms. Haines?”

She jumped and spun around, bobbling her plastic sack full of her grocery store purchases. “You scared me.”

“Guilty conscience maybe,” he offered silkily. No time like the present to give her a chance to own up to the crimes she’d committed so long ago. He might even forgive her if she just said she was sorry.

“No, more like I’m a woman in a dark parking lot and I hear a man speaking to me unexpectedly.”

It was a perfectly legitimate thing to say except the streetlight spilled over her face, illuminating her scowl and negating her point about a dark parking lot. She was that bent up about him saying hey outside of a well-lit grocery store?

He raised a brow. “This is Royal. The most danger you’d find in the parking lot of the HEB is a runaway shopping cart.”

“You’ve been gone a long time, Kyle. Things have changed.”

Yeah, more than he’d have liked. Grace’s voice had deepened. It was far sexier than he’d recalled, and he’d thought about her a lot. Her curves were lusher, as if she’d gained a few pounds in all the right places, and he had an unexpected urge to pull her against him so he could explore every last change, hands on.

Okay, the way he constantly wanted her? That was still the same. He’d always been crazy over her. She’d been an exercise in patience, making him wait until they’d been dating a year and she’d turned eighteen before she’d sleep with him the first time. And that had been so mind-blowing, he’d immediately started working on the second encounter, then the third. And so on.

The fact that he’d fallen in love with her along the way was the craziest thing. He didn’t make it a habit to let people in. She’d been an exception, one he hadn’t been able to help.

“You haven’t changed,” he said without thinking. “You’re still the prettiest girl in the whole town.”

Now why had he gone and said something like that? Just because it was true didn’t mean he should run off at the mouth. Last thing he needed was to give her the slightest opening. She’d slide right under his skin again, just as she’d done the first time, as if his barriers against people who might hurt him didn’t exist.

“Flattery?” She rolled her eyes. “That was a lame line. Plus, I already told you I’d handle your case impartially. There’s no point in trying to butter me up.”

Oh, so she thought she was immune to his charm, did she? He grinned and shifted his weight off his bad leg, cocking his right hip out casually as if he’d meant to strike that stance all along. “I wouldn’t dream of it. That was the God-honest truth. I’ve been around the world, and I know a thing or two about attractive women. No law against telling one so.”

“Well, I don’t like it. Are you really that clueless, Kyle?”

The scowl crawled back onto her face and it tripped his Spidey-sense. Or at least that’s what he’d always called it. He’d discovered in SEAL training that he had no small amount of skill in reading a situation or a person. Before then, he’d spent a lot of time by himself—purposefully—and never paid much attention to people’s tells. Honing that ability had served him well in hostile territory.

So he could easily see Grace was mad. At him.

What was that all about? She was the one who’d dumped him cold with no explanation other than she wanted to concentrate on school, which was bull. She’d been a straight-A student before they’d started dating and maintained her grade point average until the day she graduated a year after he had. Best he could figure, she’d wanted Liam instead and hadn’t wasted any time getting with his brother once she was free and clear.

“You got something to say, Grace?” He crossed his arms and leaned against her four-door sedan. “Seems like you got a bee in your bonnet.”

Maybe Liam had thrown her over too quickly and she’d lumped her hurt feelings into a big Wade bucket. And now he was giving her a second shot to spill it. He just wanted her to admit she’d hurt him and then say she was sorry. That she’d picked the wrong brother when she’d hooked up with Liam. Then maybe he could go on and meet someone new and exciting who didn’t constantly remind him that Kyle, women and relationships didn’t mix well. Maybe he’d even find a way to trust a woman again. He could finally move on from Grace Haines.

She licked her lips and stared at the sky over his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m not handling this well. The babies are important to me. All my cases are, but because we used to date, I want to ensure there’s no hint of impropriety. All the decisions I make should be based on facts and your ability to provide a good home. So please don’t say things like you think I’m pretty.”

Something that felt a lot like disappointment whacked him between the eyes. She had yet to mention the episode with Liam. Maybe she didn’t even know that Kyle had seen them together, or didn’t care. No, he’d never said anything to her about it, either, because some things should be obvious. You didn’t fool around with a guy’s brother. It was a universal law and if he had to spell that out, Grace wasn’t as great a girl as he’d always thought.

“Well, then,” Kyle said easily. “Maybe you should transfer my case to someone else in the county, so you don’t have to deal with my brand of truth.”

She probably didn’t even remember what she’d done with Liam and most likely thought Kyle had moved on. He should have moved on. It was way past time.

She shook her head. “Can’t. We’re overloaded. So we’re stuck with each other.”

Which meant she’d checked into it. That was somehow more disappointing than her skipping over the apology he was owed.

No matter.

Grace was just a woman he used to date. That’s all. There was nothing between them any longer. He’d spent years shutting down everything inside and he’d keep on doing it. Nothing new here.

And she had his babies and their future in the palm of her hand. This was the one person he needed on his side. They could both stand to act like adults about this situation and focus on what was good for the children. It would be a good idea to do exactly as he suggested to her and let bygones be bygones. Even though he hadn’t meant a word of it at the time.

“You’re right. I’m sorry, too. Let’s start over, friendly-like.” He held out his hand for her to shake.

She hesitated for an eternity and then reached out to take it.

The contact sang through his palm, setting off all kinds of fireworks in places that had been cold and dark for a really long time. Gripping his hand tight, she met his gaze and held it.

The depths of her brown eyes heated, melting a little of the ice in his heart.

Her mouth would be sweet under his, and her skin would be soft and fragrant. The moon had risen, spilling silver light over the parking lot, and the gentle breeze played with her hair. The atmosphere couldn’t be more romantic if he’d ordered it up. He barely resisted yanking her into his arms.

Yeah, he was in a lot of trouble if he was supposed to keep this friendly and impartial. She was his babies’ caseworker. But the fact of the matter was that he had never gotten over Grace Haines. He could no sooner shut down his feelings about her than he could pick up her Toyota with one hand. And being around her again was pure torture.

* * *

The next morning, Kyle woke at dawn the way he always did. He’d weaned himself off an alarm clock about two weeks into BUD/S training and hadn’t ever gone back.

He lay there staring at the ceiling of his old room at Wade House. Reorientation time. Not a SEAL. Not in Afghanistan. Not in the hospital—which had been its own kind of nightmare. This was the hardest part of the day. Every morning, he took stock, so he’d know who and where he was. Then he thanked God for the opportunity to serve his country and cursed the evil that had required it.

This was also the time of day when he made the decision to leave the pain pills in the bottle, where they belonged.

Some days, that decision was tougher than others. There was a deep, dark place inside that craved the oblivion the drugs would surely bring. That’s why he’d never cracked open the seal on the bottle. Too easy to have a mental slip and think just this once. That was cheating, and Kyle had never taken that route.

Today would not mark the start of it, either.

Today did mark the start of something, though. A new kind of taking stock about the things he was instead of the things he wasn’t. A father. A cattle rancher. He liked the sound of that. It was nice to have some positives to call out. He needed positives after six months of hell.

Of course, Grace would be watching over his shoulder, and Liam was going to be smack in the middle of Kyle’s steps toward fatherhood and ranching. The two people he distrusted the most and both held the keys to his future.

He rolled from bed and pulled on a new long-sleeved shirt, jeans and boots. Eventually, his wardrobe would be work-worn like Liam’s, but for now, he’d have to settle for looking like a rhinestone cowboy instead of a real one. Coffee beckoned, so he took the back stairway from the third floor to the ground floor kitchen, albeit a bit more slowly than he’d have liked.

Hadley had beaten him to the coffeepot and turned with a smile when he entered. “Good morning. Sleep well?”

“Fine,” he lied. He’d lain awake far too long thinking about how this woman and his brother wanted to take his kids away. “And you?”

“Great. The babies only woke up once and thankfully at the same time. It’s not always like that. Sometimes they wake up all night long at intervals.” She laughed good-naturedly and lowered her voice. “I think they plan it out ahead of time just to make me nuts.”

Guilt crushed Kyle’s lungs and he struggled to breathe. Some father he was. They’d agreed the night before that Hadley would continue in her role as Maddie and Maggie’s caretaker until Kyle got his feet under him, but it didn’t feel any more right this morning than it had then. His sister-in-law was getting up in the middle of the night with his kids, scant hours after he gave Liam and Grace a big speech about how he was all prepared to step up and provide a loving environment.

No more.

“I appreciate what you’re doing for my daughters,” he rasped, and cleared his throat. “But I want to take care of them from now on. I’ll get up with them at night.”

Hadley stared at him. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?”

“Uh, well...” Should he brazen it out or admit defeat? God Almighty, he hated admitting any kind of weakness. But chances were good she’d already figured out he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the board when it came to babies. “I’m going to learn. Trial by fire is how I operate best.”

“They’re not going to pull out AK-47s, Kyle.” Hadley hid a smile but not very well and handed him a cup of steaming coffee. “Sugar and creamer are on the table.”

“I like it black, thanks.” He sipped and added good coffee to his list of things he was thankful for. “Tell me the things I need to know about my kids.”

“Okay.” She nodded and went over a list of basics, which Kyle committed to memory. Eating. Bathing. Sleeping. Check, check, check. Stuff all humans needed, but his little humans couldn’t do these things for themselves. He just had to help them, the way he would a wounded teammate.

“Can I see them?” he asked. Felt weird to be asking permission, but he didn’t want to mess up anything.

“You can. They’re sleeping, but we can sneak in. You can be quiet, right?”

“Quiet enough to take out a barracks full of enemy soldiers without getting caught,” he said without a trace of irony. Hadley just smiled as though he was kidding.

He followed Hadley to the nursery, a mysterious place full of pink and tiny beds with bars. The girls were asleep in their cribs, and he watched them for a moment, his throat tight. Their little faces—how could anything be that tiny and survive? A better question was, how did your heart stay stitched together when it felt as if it would burst from all the stuff swelling up inside it?

“I was their nanny first, you know,” she whispered. “Before I married Liam.”

What did a nanny even do? Was she like a babysitter and a substitute mom all rolled up into one? If so, that seemed like a bonus, and he’d be cutting off his nose to spite his face to relieve her of her duties. She could keep on being the nanny as far as he was concerned, as long as Grace was okay with it. She must be. Liam had hired Hadley, after all, and Grace seemed pretty impressed with them as a team.

“I’m not trying to take away your job,” he mumbled.

Did she see it as a job? If she and Liam wanted to adopt the girls, she’d obviously grown very attached to them. Was it better to cut off their contact with the babies instead? Get them used to the idea?

If so, he couldn’t do it. It seemed unnecessarily cruel and besides, he needed the help.

“I didn’t think you were. It’s admirable that you want to care for them, but there’s a huge learning curve and they won’t do well with a big disruption. Let’s take it one step at a time.”

He could do that. You didn’t drop a green recruit into the middle of a Taliban hotbed and expect him to wipe out the insurgents as his first assignment. You started him out with something simple, like surveillance. “Can I watch you feed them?”

“Sure, when they wake up.”

They tiptoed from the room and Kyle considered that a pretty successful start to Operation: Fatherhood.

Next up, Operation: Do Something About Grace. Because he’d lain awake last night thinking about her more than he’d wanted to, as well. Somehow, he had to shut down the spark between them. Or hose it off with a big, wet kiss.

* * *

Grace sat in her car outside of Wade House and pretended that she was going over some notes in her case file. In truth, her stomach was doing a cancan at the prospect of seeing Kyle again, and she couldn’t get it to settle.

She’d gone a long time without seeing him. What was so different now?

Nothing. She was a professional and she would do her job. Get out of the car, she admonished herself. Get in there and do your assessment. The faster she gathered the facts needed to remove the babies from Kyle’s presence and provide a recommendation for their permanent home, the better.

Hadley let her into the house and directed her to the second floor, where Kyle was hanging out with the babies. Perfect. She could watch him interact with them and record some impartial observations in her files.

But when Grace poked her head into the nursery with a bright smile, it died on her face. Kyle dozed in the rocking chair, Maddie against one shoulder, Maggie the other. Both babies were asleep, swaddled in soft pink blankets, an odd contrast to Kyle’s masculine attire.

But that wasn’t the arresting part. It was Kyle. Unguarded, vulnerable. Sweet even, with his large hands cradled protectively around each of his daughters. He should look ridiculous in the middle of a nursery decorated to the nth degree with girlie colors and baby items. But he looked anything but. His powerful body scarcely fit into the rocking chair, biceps and broad shoulders spilling past the edges of the back. He’d always been incredibly handsome, but on the wiry side.

No more. He was built like a tank, and she could easily imagine this man taking out any threat in a mile-wide radius.

It was a lot more affecting than she would ever admit.

And then his eyelids blinked open. He didn’t move a muscle otherwise, but his keen gaze zeroed in on her. Fully alert. Those hard green eyes cut through her, leaving her feeling exposed and much more aware of Kyle than she’d been a minute ago. Which was saying something, given her thoughts had already been pretty graphic.

It was heady to be in his sights like that. He’d always looked at her as if they shared something special that no one else could or would be involved in. But he’d honed his focus over the years into something new and razor sharp. Flustered, she wiggled her fingers in a half wave, and that’s when he smiled.

It hit her in the soft part of her heart and spread a warmth she did not want to feel. But oh, my, it was delicious. Like when he’d taken her hand in the parking lot last night. That feeling—she’d missed it.

She’d lain awake last night imagining that he’d kissed her the way she’d have sworn he wanted to as they stood under that streetlight. It was all wrong between them. Kissing wasn’t allowed, wasn’t part of the agenda, wasn’t what should happen. But it didn’t stop her from thinking about it.

She was in a lot of trouble.

“Hi,” she murmured, because she felt that she had to say something instead of standing there ogling a gorgeous man as he rocked his infant daughters against an explosion of pink.

“Hi,” he mouthed back. “Is it time for our visit already?”

She nodded. “I can come back.”

She didn’t move as he gave a slight shake of his head. Carefully, he peeled his body from the chair, not jostling even one hair on the head of his precious bundles. As if he’d done it a million times, he laid first one, then the other in their cribs. Neither one woke.

It was a sight to see.

He turned and tiptoed toward the door, but she hadn’t moved from her frozen stance in the doorway yet. She should move.

But he stopped right there in front of her, a half smile lingering on his lips as he laid a hand on her arm, presumably to usher her from the room ahead of him. His palm was warm and her skin tingled under it. The feeling threatened to engulf her whole body in a way that she hadn’t been engulfed in a long time.

Not since Kyle.

Goodness, it seemed so ridiculous, but the real reason it hadn’t been hard to stop dating was because no one compared. She was almost thirty and had only had one lover in her life—this man before her with the sparkling green eyes and beautiful face. And she’d take that secret to the grave.

Her cheeks heated as she imagined admitting such a thing to a guy who had likely cut a wide swath through the eligible women beating a path to his door. He hadn’t let the grass grow under his feet, now, had he? Fathering twins with a woman he’d written off soon after spoke loudly enough to that question.

If she told him, he’d mistakenly assume she still had feelings for him, and that wasn’t exactly true. She just couldn’t find a man who fit her stringent criteria for intimacy. Call it old-fashioned, but she wanted to be in love before making love. And most men weren’t willing to be that patient.

Except Kyle. He’d never uttered one single complaint when he found out she wasn’t hopping into his bed after a few weeks of dating. And oh, my, had it been worth the wait.

The heat in her cheeks spread, and the tingles weren’t just under his palm. No, they were a good bit more in a region where she shouldn’t be getting so hot, especially not over Kyle and his brand-new warrior’s body, laser-sharp focus and gentle hands.

Mercy, she should stop thinking about all that. Except he was looking at her the way he had last night, gaze on her lips, and she wondered if he’d actually do it this time—kiss her as he had so many times before.

One of the babies yowled and the moment broke into pieces.

Kyle’s expression instantly morphed into one of concern as he spun toward the crib of the crying infant. Maddie. It was easy to tell them apart if you knew she was the smaller of the two girls. She’d worn a heart monitor for a long time but Grace didn’t see the telltale wires poking out of the baby’s tiny outfit. Hopefully that meant the multiple surgeries had been successful.

“Hey, now. What’s all this fuss?” he murmured, and scooped up the bundle of pink, holding her to his shoulder with rocking motions.