Double the Trouble

She busied herself with the seat belt, only wincing once or twice as she settled herself into the wide, extremely comfortable leather seats. An unwanted comparison to her worn-out four-door sedan jumped into her mind, but she pushed it away again. Her car might not be shiny, with leather seats—and ooh, a minitelevision in the dashboard—but it got her where she was going. So far.

Colt climbed into the driver’s seat, tossed her bag of personal items into the back, then fired up the engine. He hooked his seat belt, checked the mirrors—in fact, did everything but look directly at her. Finally, Penny couldn’t stand it.

“Why are you here?”

He glanced at her briefly. “To take you home.”

“Robert was supposed to pick me up.”

“We came to a different arrangement.”

“You have to stop interfering in my life.”

“No, I really don’t.”

He steered the car down the driveway and out into traffic and she was quiet as the familiar landscape flashed past. Buildings and cars on the left, the ocean on the right as he drove down the Pacific Coast Highway. Sunlight glinted on the surface of the water and made her eyes sting. That’s why they felt teary. Not because of the helpless sensation beginning to build inside her.

“You’re quiet,” he observed. “Unusual for you as I remember.”

“People change.”

“Not normally,” he said. “People are who they are. But situations...they change.”

And here we go, she thought.

“You should have told me,” he said tightly and she risked a quick look at him. His profile was rugged, breathtakingly gorgeous and hard as stone.

“You didn’t want to know,” she said.

“I don’t remember being given a choice.”

“Funny,” she muttered, as the memory of their last morning together rose up in her mind again, “I remember.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

How could he have forgotten? He’d made his choice long before they even met. But that last morning with him, he’d shared it all with her, searing the memories into her mind. If she closed her eyes, she could still see his face, hear his voice and then finally, the receding sound of his footsteps as he walked out of her life.

“I want to know everything, Penny.” He stopped for a red light and threw her a hard look. “Every damn thing that’s happened over the last two years.”

“Eighteen months.”

“Sue me,” he snapped. “I rounded up.”

The light turned green and he stepped on the gas. With his gaze locked on the road, he said, “And when that conversation begins, you can start by telling me why you thought it was a good idea to hide my kids from me.”

“We’re not in hiding.”

“You know what I mean.”

Yeah, she did. And that’s exactly what she had done, though it sounded a lot colder when he said it out loud. “I had my reasons.”

“Can’t wait to hear them,” he assured her.

Outside the car, it was a typical fall day in Southern California. Sun shining, clear sky, about sixty-five degrees. Inside the car, however, it was midwinter in the Arctic. Penny wouldn’t have been surprised to see ice forming on the dashboard. Colt burned cold when he was furious. She’d seen it firsthand at the convention when they’d met.

Their third day together, Penny was running her booth, trying to win some clients for her fledgling sports photography business. A drunk stumbled onto the convention floor from the casino and had made Penny miserable. Hanging about her booth, demanding a kiss she had no intention of giving him. Chasing away potential clients.

But she’d been handling him until he made a grab for her—and before she could take care of the situation herself, Colton had been there. Icy rage in his eyes, he’d grabbed the drunk by the collar of his shirt and half dragged, half walked him off the floor. When he came back to her, Colt’s anger was gone, but concern had been flashing in his eyes and Penny could remember feeling...cherished. Say what you would about equality, it was hard not to feel a thrill when a man was so protective.

He’d come to her rescue and then treated her as if she were made of glass instead of treating her like the fiercely independent woman she was. And she’d loved every minute of it.

He was excitement and tenderness and sex all rolled into one. No wonder she’d fallen so hard, she told herself. No woman in the world would have been able to resist Colton King. That week with him had been the most magical of her life. In a few short days, she’d fallen so completely in love with him. She’d even married him in a sweet, shabby chapel and told herself that it was meant to be. She’d indulged in dreams and imaginings and let herself drift on a tide of the most incredible sex she’d ever experienced and thought somehow that it would all work out.

Until, of course, the world came crashing down on her and reality took a bite of her heart.

And now cold, hard reality was back to do it all again. But this time, she wouldn’t let herself be vulnerable to him. This time, she wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that a man who showed such passion in bed must feel something for her. This time, she was ready for Colton King.

“You were never going to tell me, were you?”

“No,” she said, not even bothering to give him her list of reasons. They wouldn’t make a difference to him. He didn’t care why—only that she hadn’t told him.

“Well, I know now.”

“It doesn’t change anything, Colt,” she said, turning her head to look at his gorgeous, unyielding profile.

Heat stirred inside her, despite the lingering pain of her emergency surgery. Despite the fact that she hadn’t seen him in eighteen months. Even despite the fact that the morning after their spur-of-the-moment marriage, he’d walked out on her, promising that a divorce lawyer would be in contact with her.

The only reason he was back now was because of the twins. Her babies. And he wasn’t going to get them. She lifted one hand to rub her forehead in a futile attempt to ease the headache making her eyes throb.

“It changes everything and you know it,” he said, voice as tight as the grip he had on the steering wheel. “You should have told me. You had no right to keep my children from me.”

“Rights?” Stunned, headache forgotten, she stared at him as the humiliation of the last time she’d seen him washed over her. “I absolutely had the right to do whatever I had to do to protect my kids.”

“From their father?”

“From anyone who might hurt them.”

His features went stone-still but his eyes were flashing. “And you think I’d hurt them?”

“Not physically, of course not,” she snapped. “But you walked away from me, remember? You’re the one who said you didn’t want to hear from me again. You’re the one who told me that the week we spent together was ‘fun’ but over. Not to mention when you added that the thought of kids gave you hives. Any of this ringing a bell?”

“All of it,” he said. “But I didn’t know you were pregnant, did I?”

“Neither did I.”

“Yeah, but you knew soon after and you didn’t tell me.”

“It wasn’t any of your business.”

He laughed but there was no humor in the sound. “Not my business. I have two children and they’re none of my business.”

“I have two kids. You have nothing.”

“If that’s what you really think, you’re in for a surprise.”

He made the turn that would take him to her house and Penny frowned. “How do you know where I live?”

“Amazing what you can find out if you’re motivated.” He glanced at her, then shifted his gaze back to the shady, tree-lined street in front of him. “For example. I know your business is getting a slow start—switched from sports photography to babies—an interesting choice. I know you don’t have health insurance. And I know that you’re living in your grandmother’s cottage in Laguna.” He took a breath and continued. “Your brother’s engaged to Maria Estrada and is a general practice intern at Huntington Beach hospital. You’re living off your credit cards and your car is fifteen years old.” He spared her another look. “Did I miss anything?”

No, he hadn’t. In fact, Penny worried about what else he might have found out. He’d scratched the surface of her life, but just how deeply had he continued to dig?

“What gives you the right to pry, Colt?” She didn’t like the idea of her past being spread out for him to pick over. Didn’t like feeling as though she’d been exposed. “We spent one week together nearly two years ago.”

“And apparently,” he added, “we made two babies.” He pulled up in front of her house and parked. When he turned the engine off, he faced her and his eyes looked like chips of ice. “That gives me any right I want to claim.”

To avoid looking at him, she stared at the house she loved. A tiny Tudor with dark shutters and beams flat against cream-colored stucco and leaded windows that winked in the last lights of the sun. Ivy climbed along the porch railings and chrysanthemums bloomed dark yellow and purple in the front flower bed. The house was small and cozy and had always, even when she was a child, signified safety and warmth to Penny.

Now she looked at it and felt a sense of peace she desperately needed steal over her.

“I’m not going anywhere, Penny. Get used to it.”

Peace dissolved as a stir of heat erupted inside her again and Penny wanted to shriek with frustration. How could her body respond to a man her brain realized was nothing but trouble? She felt as if she’d been stripped bare in front of him. Her life was nothing more than a series of facts that he felt free to dissect in a cold, dispassionate speech.

But then, that was Colton’s way, wasn’t it? she reminded herself. Unemotional. Detached.

Distanced from any sort of real human contact, he kept his heart—if he had one—locked away behind a steel door that was, as far as she could tell, impenetrable.

Her voice was barely a whisper when she looked into his eyes and asked, “What exactly do you want, Colt?”

“That’s easy,” he said with a shrug. “I want what’s mine.”

A cold, tight fist closed around her heart as he got out of the car, slammed the door and walked around to her side. His? She knew he didn’t mean that he wanted her, so he was talking about her kids. Her babies. Fear coiled around her heart and made breathing almost impossible. But where she might try to run and hide to protect herself—to safeguard her children she was willing to walk into hell itself.

She watched him through the car window and when he opened her door to help her out, she looked into his eyes and said, “You can’t have them.”

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