The Texas Cowboy's Triplets

She did, Kelly noted in satisfaction.

Dan hung around for another hour. Long enough to partake in chicken salad sandwiches, and chips and fruit. Then help with the cleanup as the kids retired again to the playroom, this time to build structures out of wooden blocks. Shoshanna was smiling and talking as readily as the triplets.

“Feel better?” Dan asked.

Kelly hung up her dish towel to dry. “I do.” Maybe she’d been projecting some of her own childhood fears and troubles onto the child.

She watched Dan drain the last of his iced tea. “It’s possible she just needs time to adjust. And more of an effort from me and some of the other moms to include her in activities after school hours.”

She walked him to the door, realizing how much this felt like a date, albeit a family one. Resisting the urge to step in and give him a big hug for fear how that would be seen, she smiled instead and said, “Thanks for asking me to go today. I feel a lot more at ease.”

“Good.” He grinned at her with a tantalizing sparkle in his eyes. “Maybe now we can go on that date you owe me.”

Owe! Kelly drew herself up to her full five feet nine inches. “I don’t remember promising...”

His low chuckle sent another shimmer of awareness drifting through her.

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “I stand corrected.” He bent his head and lightly kissed the back of her knuckles before lifting his head to look into her eyes. Murmuring playfully, “But it’s only fair, don’t you think? That you give me a chance to woo you?”

Feeling her knees begin to quiver, and wondering what the impact would be like if he really kissed her, Kelly repeated the old-fashioned term in surprise. “Woo me?”

He rubbed his lips across her knuckles even more seductively this time. “Mmm-hmm.”

Aware how easily this man would be able to seduce her, she jerked her hand away. Sent him a deadpan look from beneath her lashes. “I’m not woo-able.”

He stepped back, his hearty chuckle hanging in the sizzling air between them. “Famous last words.”

Were they?

Was she woo-able after all?

“But,” he allowed patiently, still holding her eyes, “if that is true, then you have nothing to lose, do you?”

“You have a point,” Kelly countered just as mildly. Although, she thought in amusement, maybe it wasn’t the one he was trying to make. “There’s only one way to put an end to your current quest.” Only one way to prove to him that she had already failed at matrimony once and wasn’t about to give it another go.

The meaning of her words sinking in, his eyes radiated pure pleasure. “Give me what I want?”

“Once,” Kelly stated. So he would see what she already knew, that she was not “the one” for a marriage-minded man like him.

He could then put her in the Rejected Candidates column. Move on to the next female hopeful. And she could put this crazy, ill-conceived attraction she felt for the sexy husband-wannabe behind them.

* * *

WEDNESDAY NIGHT DAN stopped by his sister Lulu’s Honeybee Ranch to pick up a gift en route to his date. The petite dark-haired spitfire looked him up and down. “Aren’t you all fancy!”

He stayed a good distance from the hives where she had been working. “It’s just a shirt and jeans.”

Lulu stripped out of her protective white bee suit, hat and gloves. Surveyed him with a wry smile. “Ironed shirt and jeans. Shirttail tucked in. Your good brown leather boots. Freshly shaven and showered, smelling of aftershave, and did you also get a haircut by the way?”

He grunted. “It was time.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Lulu rolled her eyes. “Who’s the lucky lady this time? Must be someone special if you’re going to this much trouble.”

“Kelly Shackleford.”

His sister did a double take. “Well, what do you know, stud. The pretty preschool teacher finally agreed to go out with you?”

With way too many stipulations.

Dan nodded, happy after months of trying to have gotten that far. “She has.”

Lulu’s eyes narrowed. “On a school night?”

“She was only able to get a sitter from seven to nine.”

“Where are you going?” Lulu led the way into her ranch house.

“The concert in the town square.”

Another pitying glance. “Your choice or hers?”

“Hers,” Dan allowed.

A smirk. “That’ll be nice. And public.”

Beginning to lose his temper, Dan groused, “What’s your point?”

His only sister sobered. “I’m just saying Kelly’s put a lot of safety nets into this outing. Weeknight. Setting with a lack of intimacy or privacy. A short overall time period and early end.”

Put that way... “You’re saying I should read something into this?” Other than the fact she’d been so eager to go out with him she couldn’t wait until the following weekend?

“Aren’t you?”

Hell, yes. Unfortunately.

The irony wasn’t lost on him, either.

He’d spent a lot of time going out with women he suspected might be all wrong for him, just to be sure he wasn’t missing out on a chance to get married and have a family. Now that he finally felt differently about a woman from the outset, she was preparing to simply go through the motions with him in order to officially eliminate him as a viable romantic prospect.

Much to his chagrin, there was no denying the universal payback of that.

Lulu gently patted his arm. “Want my advice?”

Lord knew he really appeared to need it in this case. “Always.”

Lulu handed him a gift set of four kinds of honey. “Make every second count, cowboy.”

Dan planned to.

* * *

UNFORTUNATELY, THE MINUTES were ticking away before they even got started.

Kelly’s teenage babysitter was late and had not arrived yet. The triplets—who had been sent to let him in the door—were thrilled to see him yet very unhappy he was taking their mother out.

“It’s not fair,” Michelle pouted. “We wanted to go to the park, too.”

Dan was trying to figure out how to handle that when Kelly came breezing down the staircase in a burst of flowery perfume.

Damn, she was gorgeous. Her full-skirted sundress hugged her torso, accentuating her full soft breasts and slender waist. She was still fastening her earrings.

She accepted the four-pack of Lulu’s famous Honeybee Ranch honey from him with thanks and a smile. Set it aside. Then turned back to her daughter, her caramel-blond hair flowing over shoulders, explaining gently, “I told you. Dan and I aren’t going to the part of the park where the playground is. We’re going to the bandstand to listen to music.”

“But I like music!” Michelle folded her arms in front of her and pouted all the more.

“Are they going to sing ‘Farmer in the Dell’?” Matthew wanted to know. “Or ‘Hokey Pokey’?”

“No,” Kelly said firmly. “In fact,” she said levelly, with a telltale look Dan’s way, “I’m pretty sure it’s all very boring music. Isn’t that right, Deputy Dan?”

Getting her cue, he nodded soberly. “I think your mommy is right. You all would be really fidgety if you had to sit through that for two whole hours.”

“Well, then,” Michael declared, independent as always, “I don’t want to go.”

A knock sounded.

Kelly opened the door and Tessa Lowell came in, hair still wet and smelling vaguely of chlorine. Briefly, introductions were made. “Sorry, Ms. Shackleford,” the sitter said. “The swim meet ran late, and I couldn’t leave until I got my ribbon.”

“I completely understand,” Kelly said.

Dan looked at his watch. It was nearly seven thirty. “Any chance you could stay until nine thirty then?”

“No problem.” Tessa grinned.

Kelly looked like she wanted to interject. Then grabbed her shoulder bag instead. “You know where all the emergency numbers are.”

“I do. But not to worry, Ms. Shackleford.” Tessa beamed. “We’re going to have even more fun than you-all are!”

“Walk or drive?” Dan asked as they hit the driveway.

He’d waited for this moment for so long, he could hardly believe his good fortune. Kelly seemed to be having a similar “is this really happening after all” moment.

With a shrug, she tilted her head at the clear blue sky with a few scattered white clouds. “Well, it’s not that hot or humid. Parking along the town square can be hard to find, and,” she said, drawing a breath that lifted and lowered the enticing swell of her breasts, “it’s only four blocks.”

He fell into step beside her. “Then we walk.” He debated whether to take or hand or not. Decided not. “You look pretty tonight.”

“Thank you. So do you.” She shook her head. Tried again, more succinctly this time. “I mean you look handsome.”

He grinned. “Good to know.” And deep down it delighted him that she was obviously as acutely aware of him as he was of her.

She swung to face him. The sexual vibe between them intensifying, she raised a cautioning hand. “I know I agreed to do this, Dan. But—” her lower lip took on a rueful curve “—I think it may have been a mistake.”

Chapter Four

“A mistake?” Dan had been ready for this kind of reticence, given how high Kelly had her guard up. But he hadn’t really expected it until the end of the evening. He reached over and took her hand in his, wondering all the while what it would take to make her feel as crazy with longing and giddy with desire as he did at this instant. “Why is that?”

Color swept her cheeks. “Because I know that you’re looking to settle down and get married.”

He stepped even closer. “And?”

She kept her eyes on his a disconcertingly long time. “I’m not marriage material,” she evaded finally.

It wasn’t the first time she had told him this. He hoped it would be her last. “Who told you that?” he scoffed. “Your ex-husband?” If so, he’d like to wring the jerk’s neck.

Her teeth raked across the soft lusciousness of her lower lip. “How do you know I’m divorced instead of widowed?”

“I figure if you’d already been married to the love of your life and didn’t want to date for that reason, you’d just say so. Plus, there would likely be photos of the triplets’ daddy around the house. There aren’t. At least not that I’ve noticed. Or some mention of him, either from you or the kids.”

She retreated into scrupulous politeness. “I might have never gotten married at all.”

He wasn’t surprised to find her still holding him at arm’s length. Slanting her a sidelong look as they began to stroll in the direction of the town square, he noticed how the dwindling sunlight caught the shimmer of blonde in her caramel hair. “Was that the case?”

Another shadow crossed her face. Their eyes locked, providing another wave of unbidden heat between them. “No.”

Dan savored her nearness and the pleasure that came from being alone with her. “How long after you had the kids did you divorce?”

She shoved her hands in the pockets of her skirt. “It became final one week later.”

One week? He let his glance drift over her slender form to her spectacular legs. “After giving birth to triplets?” He couldn’t hide his astonishment. His gaze returned slowly to her face, pausing on her lips before returning to her long-lashed amber eyes.

Sadness came and went in her guarded expression. “It’s a very long story.”

“We’ve got at least three more blocks.”

She sent him a quelling look.

“More,” he added, curtailing his own rising emotions, “if we take the long way.”

Kelly smiled faintly. Sighed. “Okay, maybe you should know.”

Now they were getting somewhere. He studied the mixture of regret and longing in her eyes.

“I didn’t date when I was younger because of how chaotic my life was, so I was pretty naive when I met Grif right after college. I had a lot of student loan debt, so I was working weekdays at a preschool and then moonlighting on weekends at his family’s real-estate firm in Phoenix.” She took a breath. “Grif had just graduated from Wharton Business School, and he felt entitled to a bigger role in the family company. His parents wanted to see him married—to someone of an appropriate social standing—and settled down with kids first, before they gave him a part-ownership in their multimillion-dollar enterprise.”

Dan caught her hand in his, and this time she didn’t let go. “That didn’t go over well?”

Kelly sighed and looked down at their entwined fingers. “No. He quit working for them, took a job with their biggest competitor and eloped with me.”

“He was using you?”

Kelly’s jaw tautened. “To tick them off, yes.” She stared straight ahead.

“Did you know that?”

“No.” She frowned. “He was so charming I thought he was wildly in love with me. I probably would have gone on thinking that, at least for a while, had I not become pregnant right away. His family went ballistic. And when we realized I was carrying triplets, so did Grif.”

Curtailing his rising anger, Dan guessed, “He didn’t want the babies?”

“Of the child of an addict who spent half her life in foster care?” She smirked derisively. “No. So they sent the family lawyer to see me with a proposal. If I would not claim the children were legally Grif’s, they were prepared to set up a very generous general welfare trust that would provide for me and for the children, through college. All I had to do was agree to an uncontested divorce, pretend to the few people who knew about the pregnancy that I’d miscarried, leave Arizona immediately and settle elsewhere.”

“What would happen if you didn’t agree?”

“They were going to fight me for custody. And they promised me it would be very unpleasant. They’d bring up my unstable childhood and my family history of addiction. And with their money and influence, they might have won.” She released a pensive sigh. “So to spare my children that kind of ugliness, I said yes to their plan, agreed to an uncontested divorce and chose Texas.”

Dan hated the way the bastards had treated her. He was also glad they were permanently out of her life. “So Grif’s name isn’t on the triplets’ birth certificates?”

“I left the space blank.”

He saw the good and bad in that, too. Extricating their hands, he wrapped his arm about her shoulders and drew her closer. “Have the triplets asked about their father?”

Their paces slowed. “Only in a general sense.”

His protectiveness toward her grew. “What did you tell them?”

She leaned into him, her voice soft. “That they were my very own little miracles, sent from heaven so we could be a family.”

So true.

“And that not all families have daddies, or mommies, for that matter.” Her voice caught slightly. Embarrassed, she averted her gaze. “And it’s okay, as long as children have at least one parent who loves them.” She swallowed, composing herself, as their steps slowed even more, then stopped. “And I do love them, very much.”

“You’re a wonderful mom, Kelly.” He grasped her shoulders, and turned her to face him.

She sighed with a mixture of sadness and frustration. “And yet, I can’t give them what they should really have had all along. A complete family.”

Maybe not with her ex-husband. But there were other possibilities, too.

He searched her face, not really all that surprised by the depth of her concern. Or his. Kelly and the triplets were fast filling the empty corners of his heart. Gruffly, he observed, “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Your kids are all doing great.”

With a faint smile, she tipped her face up to his and conceded cautiously, “For now, yes, because so far they’ve accepted my version of events. Although—” she inhaled sharply, looking worried again “—as you noticed, Matthew and Michelle are fixated on my finding a husband.” Another even longer, more heartfelt sigh. “That way, they figure, they’d have a daddy.”

“Michael...?” Dan prodded.

Kelly made an exasperated face. “Also wants a daddy. But he doesn’t want me to have a husband.”

“Complicated.”

Kelly lifted her eyes heavenward before finishing wryly, “Oh, yes, my life is most definitely complicated.”

As was his. Now that she and her kids were in it.

“And it’s about to get even more complicated,” Kelly fretted as they resumed walking once again.

“Because...?”

Dan turned the corner with her, aware if they went any slower they’d soon be going backward. He didn’t mind. He was in no hurry to get to the concert, either. He much preferred simply spending time with her.

Kelly turned her gaze back to his and lamented softly, “In two weeks, the preschool is hosting the Father’s Day picnic. And I know all of these questions, and more, are likely to come up then.”

* * *

KELLY DIDN’T KNOW why she had confided so much in Dan. Usually, she kept her personal feelings about things locked away inside. But there was just something about being with the big, strapping lawman that made her feel it was okay to let down her guard a little. Enjoy life again.

“So who knows about what you’ve gone through?” he asked with the trademark McCabe compassion.

Kelly pushed away the desire roaring through her and forced herself to respond rationally, “The entire story? Here in Laramie? Just you.”

His blue eyes filled with understanding. “What does everyone else think?”

If she strained to listen, she could hear the sounds of the concert in the distance. Kelly turned to look up at him. She knew it was reckless, but the romance-starved part of her did not want their time alone together to end.

“They think,” she said, “that I had a brief, unsuccessful marriage in Arizona to a man who decided he did not want children, and because of that, I have sole custody of my triplets.”

Giving her no chance to protest, he drew her back into his arms. “Why did you tell me?”

She drew a breath. And, knowing they were possibly on the brink of even more heartache, forced herself to look into his eyes. “Because,” she said softly, pragmatically, “I can see how interested you are in me. Or think you are, anyway. And I don’t want you to be left with the impression that any of this is going to go anywhere.”

She saw the indecipherable emotion flash briefly in his eyes and plunged on. “I owed you a date because you helped me set my mind at ease about Shoshanna. And...”

He lowered his head to hers and delivered a kiss. Short, sweet and utterly seductive.

“What was that for?” Kelly gasped, so dizzy it rocked her world.

He rocked her world.

Dan grinned and kissed her again. A little more slowly and deliberately this time. “Because,” he responded tenderly, “I didn’t want you to have to wait until the end of our date to stop fooling yourself and realize I’m not the only one feeling something here.”

* * *

IT WAS JUST one embrace. One short, sweet, incredibly tender and evocative embrace. Yet Kelly couldn’t stop thinking about it and remembering just how wonderful it had felt to be caught up against Dan McCabe’s tall, strong body.

And she was still thinking about it two hours later, after the concert ended, when he was walking her home. As well as thinking about how to phrase what she knew she had to say.

When they were one street away, she took an enervating breath and began. “You know how we agreed to just one date...?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I recall you wanting to limit it to that.”

Kelly swallowed, already tingling all over. “Because I thought that, if, at the end of our night out, either one of us just wasn’t feeling it.” Or shouldn’t be feeling it. “Then...”

He stopped walking abruptly, caught her hand. And looked deep into her eyes. “Except, Kelly, I am.”

With a great deal more difficulty than she imagined, she ignored his soft, sexy declaration and pushed on as if he hadn’t spoken. “...the two of us might decide we would be better off as friends.”

Just as he had done with the dozens of other Laramie County women he had dated.

To her consternation, he rejected the notion, again. “Or friends and more,” he murmured persuasively, lowering his head.

She barely had time to catch her breath, and then he was pulling her all the way against him, kissing her again. And again, and again. Inundating her with so many sensations at once. The hard warmth of his body. The delectably minty and masculine taste of his mouth. The clean masculine fragrance of his skin. Heavens, the man knew how to kiss. How to make her want and need and feel, how to draw her into the promise of more, so much more, before letting that same kiss come to a slow and oh-so-sensual end.

When he finally pulled back, he rasped, “I don’t think we were meant to be ‘just friends.’”

Her body didn’t think so, either.

Frazzled, she moved a slight distance away from him and propelled herself forward, in the direction of her home.

With difficulty, Kelly reminded herself that it was a man only half as charming as Dan who’d broken her heart before. Could she really go through that again?

The common sense side of her said no, she could not. “Well, I do,” she countered stubbornly, folding her arms in front of her.

He fell into step beside her, matching her step for step as she hurried home. “Okay,” he said.

Kelly spun on him, echoing in disbelief, “Okay?”

It didn’t help that the sky was velvety black now, with a brilliant quarter moon and a sprinkling of stars. Or that the warm summer air was blowing gently over them. The town streets just as quiet and deserted and serene as they had been before the concert.

Dan shoved his hands in his pockets as they rounded the corner. “We don’t have to agree on everything, Kelly.”

That soothed even as it disturbed. “Meaning you won’t pursue me?”

He offered her his killer smile and gave her a lazy once-over before returning ever so deliberately to her lips. “I didn’t say that. Exactly.”

She ignored the low insistent quiver in her belly. Resolved not to let him know just how much he was getting under her skin, Kelly huffed, “Then what are you saying?”

He delivered a slow, heart-stopping smile. “That you might need some time to think this over before you officially deem us ‘one and done.’”

She wished he would quit behaving like the conquering hero, quit fueling romantic fantasies that had gone too long unexplored. She didn’t need him to remind her—with every request for a date—what a rut she had been in. Didn’t need him to charge past her carefully built defenses. Or make her realize how lonely she had been for just this kind of companionship. She looked at him defiantly when they reached the street lamp on the next corner. “Just so you know, cowboy, I’m not going to change my mind.”

His eyes were dark and unwavering on hers. “Okay.”

She swallowed. “Okay you believe me?”

“Okay.” Chuckling, he tugged her close and dropped a string of kisses along her temple to just behind her ear. “I’ll let you reserve the chance to change your mind.”

She splayed her hand across the center of his chest, pushed him away and kept right on walking. Marching, really. As quickly as she could. “You really are the most maddening man!” she called over her shoulder.

So much so that if it were Christmas, he would have to be put on the naughty list.

He caught up with her on the sidewalk in front of her home. “And you’re the most maddening woman. But you don’t see that discouraging me, do you?”

Kelly swung around to face him. She trembled at the raw tenderness in his gaze. She had the strong sensation—or was it hope?—that he was going to kiss her again.

And that she was going to kiss him back...

He moved toward her. She moved toward him. And just before their lips met, an excited rap on the windows of her home captured their attention.

In frustration, Kelly pivoted to see all three of her children with hands and faces pressed against the living room windows. Tessa standing behind them.

Dan laughed. “Quite the welcoming committee.”