“And this new living situation,” she said, “how would it affect us?”

“You’re talking about the kiss last night?”

“No, I’m talking about what you might expect after the kiss last night.”

A little insulted at the notion that he would maneuver her and the kids to his house as a way of forcing her into his bed, Connor frowned at her. “Relax. You’ll have your own suite. I don’t need to trick women into my bed. Or force them. They come willingly enough.”

If Dina gritted her teeth any harder, her jaw might snap.

“I won’t,” she finally said, and those two words, along with the situation, tugged a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, I seem to remember you kissing me back last night.”

“A minor bump in the road.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

“Trust me on this,” Dina said, eyes flashing, “I won’t be one of the legions of women who have rolled out of your bed.”

“Don’t paint yourself into a corner,” Connor said. “Or make vows you’ll just have to take back later.”

“That won’t happen.”

“But the move will,” he told her flatly.

* * *

Triple the Fun is part of the bestselling series from Mills & Boon® Desire™—Billionaires and Babies: Powerful men … wrapped around their babies’ little fingers

Triple the Fun

Maureen Child

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MAUREEN CHILD writes for the Mills & Boon® Desire™ line and can’t imagine a better job. A seven-time finalist for the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, Maureen is the author of more than one hundred romance novels. Her books regularly appear on bestseller lists and have won several awards, including a Prism Award, a National Readers’ Choice Award, a Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence and a Golden Quill Award.

One of her books, The Soul Collector, was made into a CBS TV movie starring Melissa Gilbert, Bruce Greenwood and Ossie Davis. If you look closely, in the last five minutes of the movie you’ll spot Maureen, who was an extra in the last scene.

Maureen believes that laughter goes hand in hand with love, so her stories are always filled with humor. The many letters she receives assure her that her readers love to laugh as much as she does. Maureen Child is a native Californian but has recently moved to the mountains of Utah.

For all of you reading this book right now! Because of you I’m able to tell the stories I want to tell. I’m incredibly grateful for each of you!

Contents

Cover

Excerpt

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Extract

Copyright

One

“You’re where?” Connor King didn’t bother to hide the laughter in his voice. He kicked back in his office chair, propped his feet on the edge of his desk and stared out the window at his view of the Pacific Ocean. Holding the phone to his left ear, he listened to his twin’s grumbling with a widening smile on his face.

“With the twins at the park near the house.”

“How the mighty have crashed and burned,” Connor chortled, shaking his head. Only two years ago, his identical twin, Colton, had been single, driven, a wild man who chased down every extreme adventure their company offered to other risk takers around the world.

Then Colton had found out that his ex-wife, Penny, had given birth to twins, a boy and a girl. His world had been thrown into turmoil and he’d been forced to make some real changes and face some hard truths. Though he’d nearly blown the whole thing, Colt had wised up in time to build a new life. Now he had a wife and two kids and was happier than ever before.

That didn’t mean that Connor wouldn’t give him grief at every opportunity, though.

“A playdate,” he repeated with a laugh. “Man...”

“Yeah, yeah,” Colt muttered. “Have your laugh and get it over with. Then we can talk about the Ireland plans. You still flying over there to check things out?”

“That’s the idea,” Connor said, still chuckling. In the last year, King Extreme Adventures had morphed into King Family Adventures. When Colt had finally realized what was most important in his life, he and Connor had reevaluated their business plan. Extreme adventures were risky and dangerous, and the potential client base very limited. On the other hand, by switching the emphasis of their company to family adventures, they’d opened themselves up to a worldwide audience.

Sure, they still ran the extreme adventures for those that wanted it, but since shifting their business focus, the company had grown exponentially.

“I’ll be staying at Ashford Castle and Jefferson’s setting me up with a guide to show me around the area.”

“Amazing,” Colt muttered. “We go from offering black diamond ski runs in the Alps to family tours of Ireland.”

“Things change,” Connor reminded him. “You should know that better than anyone.”

“Not complaining,” his twin said, then in a louder voice called out, “Reid, don’t throw sand at your sister.”

Con chuckled. “Riley can take care of herself.”

“Yeah—there she goes. Sand right back at him.” Colt laughed a little. “Penny’s at home painting their bedroom. I figured taking the dangerous duo to the park was the easier job. Should’ve known better.”

While his brother talked, Connor looked up as their admin, Linda, walked into his office with the mail. She smiled at him, handed the stack of letters over and left the office. Idly, Con picked out a legal-size manila envelope from the rest and threw the others on his desk. Catching the phone between his ear and his shoulder, he ripped open the flap, pulled out the papers and skimmed them. It only took a second for him to say, “What the hell?”

Colt paused, then asked, “What’s wrong?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” Con muttered, straightening in his desk chair, staring at the papers in his hand. The edges of his vision darkened until he was looking at the typeset words as if through a telescope. Despite the legal language designed to make most people feel inadequate to the task of deciphering it, Connor understood enough to know that his world had just taken a major shift.

“What’s going on?”

Colt’s voice in his ear sounded far away, as though the phone had become a tunnel miles long. Connor’s gaze locked on the phrase that had leaped out at him. A heavy band tightened around his chest until drawing a breath seemed a Herculean feat. A ball of ice dropped into the pit of his stomach.

He swallowed hard and made himself say the words. “Apparently, I’m a father.”

* * *

An hour later, Con was standing on the flagstone patio at Colt’s cliff-side home in Dana Point. Staring out at the ocean below them, Con hardly noticed the sailboats, the surfers or the waves pounding against the shore with a regular rhythm that sounded like a heartbeat. If he turned his head to the left, he’d be able to see his own house, not a mile farther down the cliff road.

Colt’s house was modern, with lots of glass and chrome, though Penny had made inroads there, infusing the place with warmth and color over the last couple of years. Con’s place was more traditional, though it clung to the face of the cliff as well.

But he wasn’t thinking about houses, style or the damn sea that relentlessly swept in and out. All he could think was: triplets. He’d outdone his brother by one, though he couldn’t really take credit for it, could he? Sure, it had been his sperm, but it wasn’t as though he’d been involved any further than that.

Hell. He hadn’t even known the babies existed until today. Because a woman he’d trusted—a friend—had lied to him. And that was almost harder to believe than the fact that he was suddenly the father of three.

He had to get to the bottom of this. Find out everything he could before deciding on a plan of action. But there would be a plan. He was sure of that much, at least. What exactly it would entail was still a mystery.

Connor had put the King family lawyers on the case before he left to come to Colt and Penny’s house. He was going to be logical. Rational. He wasn’t giving in to his instinct to do something. Anything. But it wasn’t easy.

So far, all he knew was the name of the woman currently suing him for child support. Dina Cortez. Sister of Elena Cortez, wife of Jackie Francis.

Jackie.

Shaking his head, Con gritted his teeth against a wild rush of anger. Jackie had been Con’s best friend all through high school and college. When he got burned in love, Jackie was the one he turned to. She was the one woman in his life he’d always trusted—mainly because she’d never wanted anything from him. In fact, the only time they’d ever argued was second year of college when they’d both fallen for the same girl. A faint smile briefly twisted his mouth as he remembered that rather than discover which of them the woman might go for, they’d both chosen their friendship over the redhead.

Three years ago, Con had been Jackie’s best man when she married her longtime girlfriend, Elena Cortez. Hell, he’d even taken her to Vegas for a mini bachelorette party before the wedding. He would have bet the King family fortune that Jackie would never lie to him. And yet...

“So stupid,” he muttered, stabbing his fingers through his hair as a cold June wind pushed at him.

“How were you supposed to know?” Penny King stepped up alongside him and gave his arm a pat.

As much as he appreciated the support from his sister-in-law, she simply couldn’t understand the level of betrayal he was feeling. He could hardly grasp it. “I should have checked. When Jackie moved to Northern California, I should have kept in touch. Maybe then...”

“None of this is your fault,” Colt said as he walked up beside his wife and stood staring at his twin.

“My sperm. My babies. My fault.” Con shook his head and tightened his grip on the bottle of beer he didn’t even want. He knew his family was on his side, but the bottom line here was, he hadn’t made a move to keep up with Jackie. He’d merely let her slide out of his life. If he’d done things differently, he wouldn’t be in a state of shock today.

“You know,” Colt murmured sagely, “it’s easy to see where you made a wrong turn when you look back at the road you’re on. Not so easy when you’re looking ahead.”

Frowning, Connor grumbled, “You can spin this any way you want. Fact is, I screwed up.”

And nothing his family said could change that. Turning his face back into the wind, gaze fixed on the frothing ocean, memories rose up and nearly choked him.

“Connor, we want to have a baby.”

He laughed, dropped one arm around Jackie’s shoulder and said, “Congratulations! So it’s a trip to the sperm bank for you guys! See? I always told you that you’d need a man eventually.”

Jackie grinned and shook her head. “Funny guy.”

“I try. Which one of you’s getting pregnant?”

She leaned into him and shrugged. “Elena’s going to do the heavy lifting. I’m her support system.”

“You’ll be great parents,” he assured her and steered her toward the bar in the corner of his living room. Once there, he dug a couple of beers out of the minifridge and opened them. Handing one to Jackie, he tapped the neck of his bottle against hers. Then, frowning a little, he asked, “How does that work, though? What does the kid call you? Are you both Mommy? Mommy One and Mommy Two?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. We’ll figure that out when we get there.” Jackie took a sip of her beer and said, “There’s a lot to take care of before we get to the kid talking. And part of that is, Elena and I, we wanted to ask you something important.”

“Okay...” Connor picked up on her sudden nervousness, and it was so unlike Jackie, he was concerned. “What’s going on?”

Rather than answer right away, she took another sip of beer, chewed at her bottom lip and then blew out a long breath. “See, this is why Elena will carry the baby. I don’t think I could give up beer for nine months.”

“Uh-huh,” Connor said with a frown. “Quit stalling. What is it you’re trying to say?”

They’d spent the day together, catching a movie, going to check out the Porsche Connor was thinking of buying and ending up back at his house for a quick one-on-one game of basketball. She hadn’t said a word about any of this. Suddenly, though, she wasn’t being herself, and that was starting to worry him.

“Okay,” she repeated, then took a deep breath. Lifting her gaze to his, she said, “The thing is, Elena and I have been talking about this for a long time.”

“Yeah? Not surprising. You’re both all about hearth and home—”

She snorted. “Yeah, we’re practically a ’50’s sitcom. Anyway, you know how you just said we’d have to head for the sperm bank because, you know, obviously we need a donor, and—” She paused for another sip of beer as if her throat was too dry for her to force the words out. “Okay, I’m just gonna put it out there. We don’t want to go with some stranger we picked out of a catalog. We’d like you to be the baby daddy.”

Surprise slapped at him. For a second or two, he could only stare at his best friend. Jackie’s gaze was sure and steady, but there was also a flicker of understanding there, too, as if she knew exactly what he was feeling. Well, hell. He hadn’t really thought about who might be the father of the child his friend wanted so badly—he’d assumed that she and Elena would go to a sperm bank and pick out some genius donor.

But now that she’d asked him, Connor realized it made sense. He and Jackie were practically family. Who the hell else would she ask?

“Elena wants this, too?”

“Completely,” Jackie assured him, and now that everything was out in the open, she was clearly more relaxed. “Con, there’s no pressure on you, okay? Feel free to say no, with no hard feelings between us, I swear. Just...don’t say no right away. Think about it, all right?”

Connor reached out, grabbed her and pulled her in for a tight hug. She sighed, wrapped her arms around his middle and held on. “I know this is big, Con. Seriously big. And I know it’s kind of weird, me asking you for your baby stuff. But—” she tipped her head back and looked at him “—we really want this and we want that...connection to the baby’s father, you know? You mean a lot to us. Not just me.”

He gave her a squeeze. “Yeah, I know. I love you, too.”

“God, we’re mushy all of a sudden.”

“Babies’ll do that to you, I hear,” Con said.

Her eyes went misty. “A baby. Hard to imagine me a mom.”

“No, it’s not,” he assured her. And seeing that dreamy, wistful look on her face would have decided him even if he hadn’t already made the choice. They’d been friends so long, how could he not help her when she needed it? “I’d have a condition, Jack...”

She sucked in a breath and held it. “What?”

“I can’t just father a kid and walk away. I’ll have to be a part of my child’s life.”

Part-time father, he told himself. All of the fun and little of the hassles.

“Absolutely, Con. Agreed.”

“All right then.” Connor swung her in a circle and Jackie shrieked with laughter. When he set her on her feet again, he gave her a fast, hard kiss and said, “Let’s make a baby.”

They’d tried.

But Jackie told him the insemination hadn’t taken. When he’d offered to help them try again, she’d turned him down. Said that she and Elena were moving to Northern California to get a fresh start. Then she’d sort of disappeared from his life. No phone calls. No nothing.

He’d allowed it to happen, too, so he couldn’t throw all the blame on Jackie for that. “I should have checked,” he said again, hating that he hadn’t.

“Yeah, well—” Colt leaned back against the low stone wall separating the patio from a wide swath of manicured lawn “—who would have expected Jackie to lie to you?”

That was the hardest part to swallow, Connor admitted silently. He’d always trusted her. Had never doubted what she told him. And all this time, she’d hidden his children from him.

Con shook his head and squinted into the wind. His heartbeat raced and the ice in his stomach was colder, deeper somehow than it had been only an hour before. And after all the lies, he couldn’t even yell at her. Because she and Elena were dead. He hadn’t been able to cut through most of the legalese in the damn letter from the lawyer, but that much he’d caught. Dina Cortez, the babies’ guardian, named by the late Jackie and Elena Francis, was the one suing him.

How the hell could he mourn his friend when he was so furious with her all he wanted to do was rage at her for what she’d done?

“So who’s Dina Cortez?” Colt folded his arms over his chest.

“Elena’s sister,” Connor told him. “I met her at the wedding. She was Elena’s maid of honor and the only one of her family who showed up.” He frowned. He still couldn’t understand how family didn’t support family, no matter what. “Don’t remember much about her, really.”

“Doesn’t matter, I guess,” Colt mused. “You’ll be getting to know her pretty damn well soon enough.”

“True.” And he’d have plenty to say once he met up with Dina Cortez again.

* * *

“Sure,” Dina said into the phone. “We can cater your anniversary party on the twenty-fourth. No problem. If it’s all right with you, we can meet later this week to discuss the menu.”

Idly tapping her pen against the desktop calendar already filled with doodles, squiggles and notes incomprehensible to anyone but her, Dina listened to her latest client talk with only half an ear.

How could she concentrate when she knew that very soon, she was going to be clashing with one of the Kings of California? Connor King, father of the triplets even now playing on the floor beside her, was a member of a family with more money than God and far more power than she could ever hope to claim.

She’d met him once before, when Dina’s sister, Elena, had married her longtime partner, Jackie Francis. Connor had been Jackie’s best man and he’d caught Dina’s attention from the moment she saw him. Of course, any woman would have been captivated by the man. He was gorgeous and possessed that innate sense of being in charge that was both alluring and irritating to a strong woman.

His easy relationship with Jackie was one of long standing; they’d been best friends since high school. But what was more impressive to Dina at the time was that he had been so focused on being there for his friend. Most single guys used a wedding as an opportunity to pick up women. But Connor hadn’t paid attention to anyone but his friend.

Of course, he might be feeling a little differently toward Jackie at the moment. What Jackie and Elena had done to him was unforgivable.

While her client rambled on in her ear, Dina shifted her gaze to the babies behind a series of child gates. When the kids came to live with her, she had cordoned off a section of her work area in the kitchen. Blankets were piled on the floor, toys were scattered everywhere and three beautiful thirteen-month-old babies giggled and squealed and babbled to each other in a language no one but the three of them could possibly understand.

In a few short months, those babies had become Dina’s whole world and it terrified her to think of what Connor King might do when he found out about them. Would he fight her for custody? Oh, boy, she hoped not. There was no way she could win in a legal battle with a King.

Her client finally wound down and in the sudden silence, Dina said quickly, “Right. I’ll give you a call in a day or two and we’ll set up that meeting. Okay, great. Thank you for calling. Goodbye.”

She hung up and her fingers rested lightly on the back of the receiver. Naturally, as soon as she was off the phone, the babies got quiet. Smiling, she looked at them, two boys and a girl, and felt a hard, swift tug at her heart. She loved her niece and nephews, but being a single mother wasn’t something she had planned for.

But then, Jackie and Elena hadn’t planned to die, had they? Tears stung the backs of her eyes and she blinked them away. She looked at those shining, smiling faces watching her, and Dina felt such sorrow for her sister. She and Elena had been close, joined together against the chaos their mother had created. With their grandmother, the two sisters had formed a unit that had been shattered when Elena died.

Heart aching, Dina thought about her big sister and wished desperately that things were different. Elena had wanted nothing more, for most of her life, than to be a mother. She’d dreamed of having her own family.

Then she and her wife, Jackie, had finally succeeded in having the children that completed them, only to die before their triplets were a year old. The unfairness of it ripped at Dina and lodged a hard knot of pain in the center of her chest. But crying wouldn’t help. She should know. Dina had cried an ocean of tears in the first couple of weeks after her sister and her wife died unexpectedly. So she was done with tears, but not panic.

Panic wasn’t going anywhere. It came to haunt her in the middle of the night when she lay awake trying to figure out how to care for three babies all on her own. It walked beside her when she took the kids for a walk in their triple stroller. It whispered in her ear every time she bid on a catering job and didn’t get it.

Which was one of the reasons she had decided to sue Connor King. He had money. Besides, he had been a big part of Jackie and Elena’s lives. He had been prepared to be a part of the kids’ lives. He owed it to his children to help pay for their support. With fewer financial worries, she could hire a part-time nanny to assist her in taking care of the triplets. Not that she was looking to bail out of caring for them—she wasn’t. But she had to work and leaving them with a babysitter—even a great one like Jamie, the teenage girl who lived next door—just wasn’t a permanent solution.

Sadie, Sage and Sam were all looking to her for protection. For safety. For love. She wouldn’t fail them. Smiling down as the boys wrestled and Sadie slapped her teddy bear, Dina promised, “You’ll know who your mommies were, sweet babies. I’ll make sure of it. They loved you so much.”

Sadie chewed on her bear’s ear and Dina huffed out a sigh. Raising three babies alone wouldn’t be easy, but she would do it. The triplets were what was important now, and Dina would do whatever she had to do to protect them. And on that thought, she stood up and announced, “You guys ready for a treat?”

Three heads spun toward her with identical expressions of eager anticipation. She laughed a little as Sadie pulled herself to her feet and demanded, “Up!”

“After your snack, okay, sweet girl?” The sweet girl in question’s bottom lip quivered and Dina had to steel her heart against giving in. If she got Sadie up, then Sage and Sam would want out, too, and instead of a snack, she’d spend the next half hour chasing the three of them through her house. And, since it was closing in on their bedtime, she didn’t want them getting all worked up anyway.

Before any of them could start complaining—loudly—Dina hustled to the counter to slice up a couple of bananas and pour milk into three sippy cups. Thank heaven Elena and Jackie had weaned them off bottles early. As soon as the kids were settled, gnawing happily on bananas and laughing together, the doorbell rang.

“You guys be good,” she said and headed down the hall to the front door. She took a quick peek out the side window at the man on her porch and gasped. Connor King. The image of him was so clear and sharp in her memory, it was almost weird to see him standing on her porch.

Panic swam through her veins and she wasn’t even surprised. She was becoming used to that out-of-control sensation, and she was pretty sure that wasn’t a good thing. Somehow, Dina hadn’t expected this meeting to happen so quickly. Maybe she should have. He was a King and he’d just found out he was the father of three children. Of course he would show up. Of course he would start pushing his metaphorical weight around. She knew enough about him and his family to know that he was going to be a formidable opponent, no matter what.

And since there was no ignoring him, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and yanked the door open. “Connor King,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“You should have been,” he ground out tightly, then pushed past her into the house. “Where are my kids?”

Two

Connor had come for his kids, but now couldn’t take his eyes off the woman who’d opened the door. Lust surged through him, grabbed him at the base of his throat and held on tight. All he could do was try to breathe through it.

The woman currently glaring at him had huge, chocolate-brown eyes, thick black hair hanging loose around her shoulders and long, gorgeous legs displayed by the white shorts she wore. Her short-sleeved red T-shirt clung to her body, showing off breasts that were just the right size to fill a man’s hands.

Con couldn’t understand how he hadn’t noticed her at Jackie and Elena’s wedding two years ago. Or how he’d managed to forget her. This was not a forgettable woman.

“Dina Cortez?” he asked, though he knew damn well who she was.

“Yes. And you’re Connor King.”

He nodded. Lust was still there, clawing at him, but he breathed through it and got back on track. “Now that the formalities are over, where are the kids?”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts, lifted her chin and said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah,” Con told her. “That’s what my lawyer said, too.”

In fact, he hadn’t needed his lawyer to tell him to stay clear until they had more answers. Con knew he shouldn’t have come, but there was no way he could stay away, either. He was a father. Of triplets. How the hell was a man supposed to ignore that?

He’d had to come, see the kids and find out what he could for himself, minus lawyerspeak. His twin had understood, though Penny had argued against it. But then, a couple of years ago, Colt had barged right in, too, to get a look at his twins and to confront the woman who’d given birth to them and then kept them a secret.

Well, Con couldn’t face down Jackie or Elena, but the triplets were here, which explained, at least to him, why he was.

“Lawyers can still do their legal dance,” he said, silently congratulating himself on keeping the temper still frothing inside him at a low boil. “For now, I had to come.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He choked out a short laugh and shook his head. “Because I just found out I’m a father by hearing that I’m being sued for child support.”

“Maybe if you had kept in contact with Jackie and Elena you would have known earlier,” she pointed out.

“Seriously? You really want to go there? Maybe if my best friend hadn’t lied to me about those kids, this wouldn’t be an issue,” he argued and took a step closer. “And your sister was in on those lies,” he reminded her tightly.

She blew out a breath and seemed to release some of the anger he could still see churning in her eyes. “Fine. You’re right. They didn’t tell me, either, you know. About you, I mean. They didn’t tell me who the babies’ father was.”

His breath exploded in a rush. He was angry and had nowhere to focus it. He and Dina had been caught up in a web spun by Jackie and Elena. God, he wanted five minutes with Jackie just to demand some answers. But since he wasn’t going to get that time, he said, “How did you find out about me, then?”

Sighing, Dina said, “There was a letter to you in their papers. I read it.”

His eyebrows lifted.

She saw it and shrugged. “If you’re waiting on an apology, there isn’t one coming.”

Reluctantly, he felt a flash of admiration for her. She was tough. He could appreciate that. She was gorgeous and he really appreciated that. Lust still had him by the throat and it was a wonder he could talk at all. Hard to keep his mind on what was happening when his body was urging him to think about something else entirely.

That compact yet curvy body, her dusky olive-toned skin and the wary glitter in her eyes all came together to make Connor grateful to be a man. She smelled good, too. But none of that was important right now.

“Fine,” he finally managed to say. “How about a few answers, then?”

Nodding, she walked into the living room and he followed. The house was small and old, like every other bungalow in this section of Huntington Beach. Yards were narrow, houses were practically on top of each other and parking was hard to come by.

He’d noticed when he arrived that her yard was so ratty it looked like she kept goats. The driveway had more potholes than asphalt and the roof needed replacing. The whole place could use a coat of paint and he’d been half-afraid what the inside might look like.

But here he was surprised. The house was old but clean. Clearly, Dina put whatever time and money she had into maintaining the inside rather than the outside. The hardwood floors were scarred but polished. The walls had been painted a soft gold and boasted framed photographs of family and nature. The furniture looked comfortable and though the house was small, it was welcoming.

A hallway spilled from the living room and led, he guessed, to the bedrooms. There was a small dining room attached to the living area and beyond that, the kitchen. A happy squeal erupted and Con flinched. The triplets were back there. His children.

He scrubbed one hand across his face in a futile attempt to clear his mind. Shaking his head, he ground out, “My lawyer did some checking after I got your lawsuit papers this morning.”

She frowned a little, but he didn’t care if she was having second thoughts about suing him now.

“He says Jackie and Elena died three months ago?”

All of the air seemed to leave her. Dina slumped and dropped into the closest chair. “Elena was taking flying lessons.” A smile curved her mouth briefly. “She wanted to be able to come down here to visit me and our grandmother whenever she wanted to.”

Con’s stomach clutched.

“Anyway, she got her license and to celebrate, she and Jackie went on a weekend trip to San Francisco.”

“Without the kids?”

She nodded. “Thank God, as it turned out. One of their friends stayed at the house with the triplets. Anyway, on their way home, there was some kind of engine trouble. Elena wasn’t experienced enough to compensate for it and they went down in a field.”

Pain slapped at him as Connor’s mind filled with memories of Jackie. Of the years they’d spent together, of the laughs, of all the good times. He hated knowing she was dead. Hated thinking how scared she must have been at the end. Hated that she wasn’t here for him to yell at. Getting past his own racing thoughts, he looked at Dina and saw the misery in her eyes before she could mask it. And he was forced to remember that she’d lost her sister in that crash.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About Elena.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking a breath as she stood up to face him. “And I’m sorry about suing you without talking to you first.”

A snort of laughter shot from his throat. “Aren’t we polite all of a sudden.”

“Probably won’t last,” she mused.

Con thought of all that had to be settled between them—of the triplets and their welfare, of his still simmering rage at having been lied to for two years—and he had to agree. “Probably not.”

Nodding, Dina accepted that and asked, “So where does that put us right now?”

“Opposite sides of a fence,” Connor answered.

“That’s honest, anyway.”

“I prefer honest. Lies always end up getting...messy.” He didn’t say it, but judging by Dina’s expression, she heard the implication. That it was her sister and Jackie’s lies that had brought them here, tangling the two of them up in a situation that was only going to get more chaotic.

Connor was here to claim his children. To do the right thing no matter who got in his way. That included Dina Cortez.

His stomach clenched as he heard a squeal of laughter soaring from the other room.

God, he was a father, and the ramifications of that hadn’t sunk in yet. He’d only had a few hours to try to wrap his head around the fact that everything he knew had changed with the simple act of opening that envelope from Dina’s lawyer.

He’d helped Jackie and Elena because he wanted to. And, he remembered, because he thought it might be fun to be on the periphery of a child’s life—more as a benevolent uncle than a father. But things were different now and they’d all have to adjust.

“So, is this a truce?”

Con looked at Dina when she spoke and thought about it for a second or two. He was still angry—he didn’t think that would be going away any time soon—but he had to at least bury that anger long enough to do the right thing. And that meant making sure his children were cared for. How Dina would fit into the future, he didn’t know. But better to keep her close until he figured it all out.

When she shifted under his steady regard, he finally said, “Truce. For now.”

A long, high-pitched wail erupted from the other room and in the next couple of seconds, two more voices joined the first until those cries built into a combined sound that ratcheted through Con’s head like a hammered spike. “What the—”

Dina was already walking and threw back over her shoulder, “You want to be a father? Now’s your chance.”

Con swallowed back a quick jolt of nervousness and followed her. Hell, the King family had experienced a population explosion in the last few years. Every time the cousins got together, they passed kids from arm to arm, so he wasn’t a stranger to crying babies. The fact that these were his children made the situation a little different, naturally. But he could handle it.

His babies. His children. Something visceral swamped him and he could finally understand and sympathize with everything his twin had gone through when he’d discovered his own kids. At the time, Connor had listened, sympathized and commiserated, but now he realized just what a life-altering moment this really was. Looked like he owed Colt an apology.

Yet even though he was twisted up over the circumstances they’d found themselves in, he was male enough to enjoy the view Dina provided as she walked away from him. The woman had a great behind.

Shaking his head fiercely, Connor told himself to get a grip and followed her. It wasn’t far and yet it felt to him as if he was taking the longest journey of his life. From bachelor to father. From a single man to a family man.

And he wasn’t sure yet just how he felt about it.

In the kitchen, he glanced around quickly, noting white walls, black counters and splashes of red in the curtains hanging over the window and the toaster and blender sitting on the counter. But it wasn’t the house he was interested in right now. Instead, everything in him concentrated on the far end of the big, square room. There, behind a series of interlocked child gates, were the triplets.

One of them, a girl, stood up, wobbling a little, clutching the top rail of the gate and howling like a banshee. When she saw Dina, the tiny girl started stamping her feet as if she were marching in place. Dina swept the baby into her arms, then turned to face Connor.

“Sadie, meet your daddy.”

Tears tracked along her cheeks. Wispy black curls framed her face and Connor’s heart expanded so quickly, so completely, he felt a physical ache. A connection he hadn’t really expected leaped to life as he looked at the tiny human being he had helped to create. Her coloring was all King, but the shape of her eyes was just like Elena’s. Like Dina’s. The baby stopped crying as she looked at Connor, and in a blink, she went from tears to a tiny coy smile that tugged at his heart as surely as her little fingers plucked at Dina’s shirt.

Without another word, Dina handed him the baby girl, then turned to gather up the boys. She straightened with a baby on each hip, clinging to her shoulders. “They need to be changed, and since they’ve already had dinner, it’s bath time, followed by story time and bedtime and then the countless middle-of-the-night cry times.” She tipped her head and looked at him. “You up for this?”

Sadie slapped both hands against his cheeks, then dropped her head onto his shoulder with a soft sigh. Con was toast and he knew it.

“I’m up for it.”

* * *

Dina had to give it to him.

She hadn’t expected Connor to know a thing about handling babies. First, because he was a man, and sexist it might be, but in her experience the only thing a man knew about kids was how to hand them off to the nearest woman. Secondly, didn’t the rich hire nannies so they didn’t have to know how to care for a baby?

But he’d surprised her. Again. The first big surprise of the day had come when he’d shown up at her house unannounced and snarly yet still managing to look edible. Through their uncomfortable first meeting, the anger on both sides and the still simmering distrust, Dina had felt the unmistakable sizzle of desire.

Oh, it wasn’t a good idea, but what woman wouldn’t feel it? Tall, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs, Connor King was the kind of man who captured attention as easily as he breathed. His black hair was a little too long, hanging over the collar of his white shirt while thick hanks of it fell across his forehead. His eyes were an icy blue and his mouth seemed to be frozen in a grim slash that only occasionally twisted into a half smile that should have been reassuring, yet wasn’t. He had a right to be angry, she knew.

But he didn’t have the right to be mad at her. She hadn’t known about him until a couple of weeks ago. Okay, maybe she should have contacted him directly rather than going through lawyers, but she hadn’t expected him to care. He had been a sperm donor—an untraditional one, yes, but nothing more.

Though her sister had never told Dina who the babies’ father was, she had said that he’d made the donation and then disappeared from their lives. That was their story. Of course Elena hadn’t bothered to tell Dina that Connor didn’t know about the children he’d fathered. She winced and silently acknowledged just how complicated this whole thing really was.

Until she’d read the letter that Jackie left for Connor, Dina had assumed he wasn’t interested in a relationship with his kids. Which was why she had been so furious when she discovered who the babies’ father really was. Because of the secret kept by Jackie and Elena, Dina had been scrambling to take care of the children when it hadn’t been necessary.

Connor King was so wealthy that providing for the triplets would be easy compared to how Dina’s life was going at the moment. With all the added expense of caring for the three children she was responsible for, she’d had to push her catering business to the max. She was bidding on everything from a ten-year-old’s birthday party to the local bank’s grand opening. Some jobs she got, some she lost.

And while getting jobs meant staying alive, she was left with the question of who took care of the kids while she worked. Dina’s grandmother was always glad to help out, but the triplets were too much for the older woman to take care of on a regular basis, and paying Jamie to babysit pretty much ate up any profit Dina was lucky enough to make.

It had been a hard three months, adjusting to life as a single mom, so was it any wonder she’d sued for child support the moment she found out who the babies’ father was?

A splash of water and a screech of outrage caught her attention. Gladly letting her thoughts slide away to be examined later, Dina stepped over the threshold into the cottage’s one bathroom. The triplets were in the tub, Connor hanging over it, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he tried to deal with all three wet, slippery babies. Puddles gathered on the floor and under the knees of his slacks.

“Don’t take the ducky from your sister,” he said and relieved one baby of the duck in question.

A howl of outrage followed and Connor said quickly, “Here, um, which one are you? Sam? Sage? Have a boat.”

Dina laughed softly, enjoying seeing someone else fight the battle of the bath for a change. Sadie loved the water, Sage spent bath time trying to escape it and Sam would fall asleep sitting up in the warm water if you weren’t careful. Sadie splashed again and laughed in delight when Connor yelped as the water hit his eyes.

“Okay, little girl, no fair splashing when I’m trying to get hold of your brother.”

Sadie babbled at him while Sage climbed up Connor’s chest, a wet, wriggling mass eager to be out of the tub. Connor grabbed one towel, wrapped it around the tiny boy, and said, “Stay right there.”

Then he turned his back on Sage to reach for the next baby. Sadie scooted out of reach, so it was Sam who was the next one out and wrapped like a burrito in a soft, dark blue towel.

Dina just watched. Sure, she could grab the boys and lend Connor a hand, but this was more interesting. She wanted to see how he reacted to the nightly ritual. If he’d fold or rise to the occasion.

While Connor reached out to grab Sadie, Sage dropped his towel and ran past Dina into the hallway, giggling all the way.

“Wait! Come back here!” Connor lifted Sadie, wrapped her up and swung around. His gaze met Dina’s and he said, “Well, thanks for the help.” Frowning, he looked past her into the hallway, swinging his hair out of his eyes. “Where’d he go?”

She shrugged and smiled wider. Couldn’t help herself. “Where he always goes. To the toy box in their room.”

“Great,” Connor said, holding onto Sadie while she squirmed, trying to get back into the water. Sweeping Sam up into his arms as well, Connor stood and faced her.

He was dripping wet. His white shirt was soaked through and plastered to what looked like a very impressive chest. Water droplets rolled down his face and clung to his hair. She smiled again. How could she not?

“Did you enjoy the show?”

“Oh, a lot,” she assured him, still grinning. “But the show’s not over yet. There are still three naked babies to diaper, put into jammies and settle down for bed.”

He shifted the two on his hips. “And you think I can’t do it?”

“I know you can’t,” she said, leaning against the doorjamb, folding her arms across her chest. “Not on your own.”

Sadie squirmed; Sam grabbed a handful of Connor’s hair and tugged. “Wanna bet?”

From the other room came Sage’s high-pitched squeals and the sound of a little truck being pushed across the floor. Dina bent down, picked up the discarded towel and tossed it over Connor’s shoulder. He’d had a rough go of it, but he was still standing, and she had to admire him for that. Still, she had the feeling he was about done.

“Absolutely,” she said, enjoying the harried expression on Connor’s face. She’d known him less than four hours, but she knew that harried wasn’t a look he often wore. This was a man who ruled his world. He was used to people jumping to do his bidding. Now he had to deal with three babies who were used to calling the shots. He was in so much trouble. “What’s the bet?”

A slow, seductive smile curved his mouth and Dina’s insides shivered in response. Maybe betting with Connor King wasn’t the smartest move she could make.

He hefted both babies a little higher and then said, “When I win, we sit down with a glass of wine and talk about where we go from here.”

“And when I win, you write a check and disappear?”

The smile on his face faded away and Dina thought she’d gone too far. But what did he expect? She’d known him just a few hours and he’d crashed into her home, her family and taken over as if he had the right—which he didn’t. Not from where she was standing.

He took a step closer and she kept her gaze on his. Still holding the babies close, he said, “It won’t be that easy, Dina. I’m not going anywhere, so you’d better get used to it.”

“And if I can’t?” she asked.

“I’m willing to bet you can.”

Three

Dina really didn’t want to be impressed, but she was.

When the triplets first came to live with her, she’d been completely lost and practically hopeless at caring for them. She hadn’t done much babysitting as a kid and none of her friends had children, so she’d had zero experience. But she’d consoled herself with the fact that most first-time moms were as lost as she herself was. Since she didn’t have any choice but to jump in and do the best she could, Dina had learned as she went. She hadn’t so much gotten the babies into a routine as she’d gotten herself into one. She’d had to learn from scratch—and fast—how to take care of three babies, and she’d made too many mistakes to count.

Then Connor King arrived, jumped into the fray like a natural and handled it all. He’d seemed so darn sure of himself, she’d stood back, prepared to gleefully watch a disaster unfold. Instead, he’d taken charge, as he probably did in every other aspect of his life, and gotten the job done. Sure, he was a little harried, but he’d done it. Babies were bathed and dressed and tucked into their beds with a story read by Connor, complete with sound effects that had them all giggling.

And honestly, that’s what irritated her the most. The babies liked him. She was here day in and day out and one visit from a handsome stranger and all three of them were won over. What happened to loyalty to good old Aunt Dina, she wanted to know.

As she watched from the nursery door, she felt a small niggle of worry as Connor moved from crib to crib, smoothing his hand across the babies’ heads, each in turn. He was taking a moment—what he probably thought was a private moment—to really look at the children he’d helped to create. She thought she understood what he might be feeling right then, as she’d had a very similar moment herself when the trips had come to live with her. To her, it had felt like a wild mixture of protectiveness and the realization that her life as she had known it was over.

She hadn’t planned on having custody, obviously, but now Dina loved those babies with a fierceness she wouldn’t have believed possible. They were her family. Her only real family now, except for her grandmother and a handful of distant cousins. She would do whatever was necessary to take care of the trips and to protect them from being hurt. Even if that meant protecting them from the man who had only wanted to be a part-time father.

* * *

By the time the evening was over, Connor was wet, exhausted and wanted nothing more than a cold beer, his bed and complete silence for ten or twelve hours. One out of three, he told himself wryly, wasn’t too bad.

He took a long drink of the beer Dina’d given him and let the cold froth slide through him, easing away the tension that had had him in its grip for the last couple of hours.

“So,” Dina said and he heard the grudging respect beneath her words, “you won the bet.”

He managed to turn his head to look at her. “I always do, honey.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Honey?”

His lips quirked. The offhanded honey had slipped out, but now that he saw how annoyed she was by it, he pushed it a little further, just for the hell of it. “Babe?”

She inhaled sharply and hissed out a breath. “Dina will do.”

“Right.” He tipped his head and hid his smile. Connor had only known her for a few hours, but he’d already seen how easy it was to rub her the wrong way. And, for reasons he couldn’t quite identify yet, he really enjoyed pushing her buttons. There was just something about this woman that urged him to push against her boundaries. “I’ll remember that, Dina. Just as you should remember that when I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”

“Noted.”

“Good. I’m too tired to say it again.” He leaned his head against the back of the couch and thought about plopping his feet on the footstool, but he was too beat to lift his own legs. “Those three are something else. Just keeping them all in the tub wore me out. I don’t know how you do the whole bath and changing thing every night all alone.”

“I bathe them one at a time.”

He looked at her again and noticed a smile tugging at her mouth. Apparently he wasn’t the only one enjoying himself. “And you didn’t think that worth mentioning?”

“Well, you seemed so confident of your abilities...” She sipped at a glass of wine. “I didn’t want to interfere.”

“Uh-huh.” He shook his head. “Well played.”

“Thanks, but you got through it anyway. It was hard, but you did it. I hate to admit it, but I’m sort of impressed.” She studied her wine, sliding her fingertips up and down the long, delicate crystal stem until Connor had to look away from her before he embarrassed himself. “You don’t strike me as the type to know much about kids.”

“I didn’t,” he acknowledged. “Until two years ago. My brother Colt discovered he was the father of twins. So watching him, I picked up a lot. But three seems like a lot more than two. Still, I gave him a lot of grief—made jokes about just how demented his life had become,” he mused. “Now I feel bad about that.”

“Two years?”

She’d caught that. He looked at her again and sighed. “Yeah. Right after Colt reconnected with his kids, Jackie came to me asking for help.” He paused for another drink of his beer. Maybe he’d been delusional, but at the time, he’d thought it could be fun. Help Jackie and give himself a sort-of family like Colt had, only without all the hassles and the interruptions to the way he wanted to live. “Getting to know my niece and nephew is probably what pushed me into agreeing to this whole deal.”

“No, that wasn’t it.”

One eyebrow winged up. “Is that right? Know me so well, do you? After three whole hours?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know you. But Jackie did. And she told me all about how tight you guys were. I heard all sorts of stories about you before the wedding.”

That was disconcerting. He knew next to nothing about Dina. Hell, he barely remembered speaking to her at the wedding. And Connor really didn’t care for being at a disadvantage.

Warily, he asked, “What kind of stories?”

She laughed a little and he thought that probably wasn’t a good sign.

“The one about the redhead comes to mind,” she admitted.

Surprised, he choked out a laugh. “She was a beauty,” he admitted. “But we made a pact that neither of us would hit on her since we both wanted her.”

“You cared more for your friendship.”

He frowned. “Yeah. Back then, anyway. Apparently, things changed when I wasn’t looking.”

“Jackie loved you.”

Con snapped her a quick, hard look. He didn’t need her to tell him about Jackie. Or maybe he did. Everything he’d known was tossed into a high wind at the moment and he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. But he wasn’t going to talk about Jackie now. Not while his anger was so fresh and raw.

“Yeah,” he muttered instead, “I’m convinced.”

“All I’m saying is that you and Jackie were really tight. That’s why you helped. For her. It had nothing to do with your niece and nephew. You did it for Jackie.”

“Reid and Riley played a part, but yeah,” he said, voice cold, “she was my best friend. Or so I thought.”

In the flood of information that had hit him today, he’d hardly had time to react to any of it. The triplets had taken first priority in his mind, because they were here and the immediate problem of dealing with them was hanging over his head. But the truth was, Jackie’s loss was at the back of his mind at all times.

He hated knowing she was gone. That he’d never see her again. And mostly, he hated the fact that he hadn’t kept in touch with her when she and Elena moved. Not just because then he would have known about the babies, but because Jackie had been a huge part of his life from the time they were teenagers and now he just missed her, damn it. She had cut him out, true, but he hadn’t called. Hadn’t asked what was going on. Why she wasn’t calling. Instead, he’d let it go by telling himself that it was her doing, and that wasn’t true at all.

Over the years, whenever he had gone silent, Jackie had been the one to call and demand to know what was happening in his life. To say, Hello? You alive? But when she pulled back, he’d never said a word. He hadn’t called. He’d assumed that she was through with him and he let it go.

Granted, friendships didn’t always last. Even the best of friends eventually hit a bump too big to navigate around and ended up drifting apart. But he hadn’t expected it to happen to him and Jackie. Now she was gone and he would never be able to talk to her again. To tell her he was sorry that he hadn’t called to find out what she was going through.

“I don’t agree with what they did either,” Dina said softly, as if she knew what he was thinking.

He shot her a look, bothered by the fact that she seemed to read him so easily. “They didn’t lie to you, though. They didn’t deliberately cut you out of their lives.”

“No,” she said. “They didn’t. But Elena kept things from me, too. She never told me your name.”

He sat up straighter, rested his forearms on his thighs and cradled his beer bottle between his palms. He’d been a secret all the way around. In spite of what Jackie had said to him in the beginning, they might as well have gone to a sperm bank, because he had become an anonymous donor anyway. He was DNA handily acquired and soon forgotten.

There was a slap in the face as well as the heart. Damn it, why had Jackie done it? And why did he care? Whatever her reasons, they couldn’t make up for what his reality was now. Anger churned into a nasty brew inside him until it was hard to draw a breath and impossible to take another swallow of beer without choking on it.

Connor needed some time to think. To plan. To gather the wildly racing thoughts circling his mind. Being here, with the kids, with the woman who was too much a distraction, wasn’t helping him lay out the immediate future.

Connor liked knowing how things were going to play out. In the business he shared with Colt, Con was the guy who always thought two steps ahead. He laid out the path for their company to follow. He was the one who always knew what was coming next.

Until now.

Now he could only go with his gut. “I’ll be needing a paternity test.”

She sucked in a gulp of air. “You really think that’s necessary?”

“No,” he said shortly. Hell, all it had taken was one look at the triplets to convince him they were his. They weren’t identical, of course, but each of them had the distinctive King coloring. It was more than that, though. He’d felt a connection to those children right from the first and that was something he couldn’t deny.

“My lawyers will want it,” he said, not liking having to explain himself.

“Fine. Then what?”

“Then,” he said, setting the beer onto the closest table before standing up, “we’ll do what comes next.”

“And what’s that?” She stood, too, but kept her distance.

“I’ll let you know.”

“I think you mean we’ll decide what that is together.”

He laughed shortly. “I meant what I said. Those triplets in there are mine. They’re Kings. I’ll do the deciding here.”

Her cheeks flushed with color and he knew it wasn’t a blush but fury that fed the rosiness blooming across her face. “I’m their legal guardian,” she reminded him. “My sister and her wife wanted the babies in my care.”

Con didn’t have the time or the patience to fight this battle right now. “And your sister and her wife hid my children’s existence from me. For all I know, you were in on it.”

“I told you I wasn’t.”

“And I should believe you.”

She gulped in air. “Yeah, you should. Why would I lie?”

“Why would Jackie?” he countered and when she didn’t have an answer for that, he nodded sharply. “Right. Anyway. I’ll want time with the triplets while things are being settled.”

She nodded. “I thought you would.”

“And I want the letter Jackie left for me.”

Her features went stiff and cool, as if she were deliberately shutting off her emotions. He couldn’t blame her, because he wished to hell he could do the same. But everything he was feeling was too close to the surface. Too damn inflamed and sensitive to be buried—so instead he had to fight to push them aside.

Without another word, Dina walked across the room to a small secretary table holding a cobalt-blue bowl of fresh flowers. Connor joined her and waited as she opened the top drawer, withdrew an envelope, then handed it to him. Once she had, she crossed her arms over her chest again in what was obviously a self-protective stance.

Too bad she didn’t know that whenever she did it, all she really managed to do was hike her breasts up even higher, demanding his attention. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to meet hers.

“Look,” she said, “we didn’t get off to the best start, but I think we can both agree that we want what’s best for the triplets.”

Con looked from her to the envelope for a long minute, then tucked it carefully into his inside jacket pocket. He wasn’t going to read it here, with an audience.

“We do agree on that much,” he allowed, then added, “but we might have different ideas as to what the best actually is.”

“I guess we’ll have to work on that when the time comes, then.”

“Yeah.” He had no intention of working things out. Those were his children, not hers. He would decide what was going to happen from here on out and she could either go along with it or not. Her choice. Still, for now, he would keep communications open between them. No point in making an enemy this early in the game.

“I’m gonna go,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

“What’s that mean?”

Her question stopped him halfway across the room. He turned back to her. “It means, we’re not done. Not by a long shot.”

* * *

Over the next few days, Dina tried to keep the trips on the already shaky schedule she’d had going for the last three months. But it wasn’t easy, considering that Connor dropped in and out of their lives with no warning. He showed up for breakfast one morning, then went with them to a local lab where the tech took cheek swabs of each child to compare their DNA with Connor’s. It was ridiculous.

He knew darn well those babies were his, so she wasn’t sure what he was up to with the paternity test. The next day, he didn’t show up until bath time and left as soon as the babies were put to bed. Today, he’d insisted on going to the park with them. Rather than let him have the triplets all to himself—because, really, he was very rich, and how did she know he wouldn’t just take them to his house and refuse to give them back—she went with them.

Watching Connor interact with the triplets was endearing and irritating all at once. She had had to do a lot of adjusting when the babies had come into her life. But Connor seemed to be sailing through it. But it wasn’t only that she was bothered by. He was ignoring her completely.

Not that she wanted his attention, because at this point it would only add to the confusion of the situation. But it was the principle of the thing, really. She might as well have been the babies’ sixty-year-old nanny for all the awareness he showed her. Just as well, she reminded herself sternly. Dina had deliberately kept her distance from men like Connor King for most of her life. She’d seen, up close and personal, just what a strong man could do to a woman.

Her own mother had wasted her life trying to change to be whatever the man she was with at the moment wanted or needed. Helen Cortez had slowly faded away, losing herself in the never-ending quest to please a man. Dina had watched as her mother eventually lost her own identity as she depended on man after man to take care of her. Which they never did. By the time Helen died eight years ago, she was just a shadow of herself.

In response to how her mother had lived and died, Dina had vowed to be independent. To count on no one but herself. Strong men could swallow a woman whole, and she had no intention of being devoured. So it wasn’t as though she wanted Connor—her pride was wounded, that was all.

Frowning slightly, she shifted her gaze from Connor and the triplets to the tablet on her lap. While he played with the kids, Dina took the opportunity to go over business files. An independent business owner had to stay on top of things, especially when the bottom line was looking less than enthusiastic.

Flipping through her calendar, she made notes on the different jobs listed there. She still had to contact the Johnsons about the menu for their anniversary party and then put in a bid on a big class reunion being held at the Hyatt at the end of the month. She had a wedding reception to cater in two weeks and a sixteenth birthday party three days later. None of the jobs she had lined up were exactly high paying, but she was in no position to turn a job down, either. She just wished she had more time to devote to growing her business. Instead, she spent most of her waking hours trying to get more jobs and handling the millions of details that seemed to crop up with depressing regularity.

She had thought running her own business would give her freedom. Instead, she was being strangled by all the tiny strings that were forever coming undone. She spent more time on bookkeeping and client hunting than she did actually cooking anymore, and she really missed that. But between taking care of the babies, worrying about Connor’s new role in their lives and paying the bills that never stopped coming, who had time to cook?

A shriek of pain grabbed her. Dina looked up and saw Connor holding Sage while the baby screamed and cried wildly. Tossing her tablet to the park bench, she raced across the sand, feet sliding on the uneven ground until she reached Connor. When Sage lunged at her, she grabbed him, held him close and instantly began to soothe his tears. The tiny boy’s breath shuddered in and out of his lungs as tears streaked his cheeks. Patting his back and rocking side to side, she looked up at Connor. “What happened?”

“He fell. He scooted out of the swing and fell about a foot to the sand.” Con lifted Sadie out of the baby swing and set her in the sand beside Sam.

Sage’s howls had died down to whimpers now and he snuggled his face into the curve of her neck.

“He was okay, I swear. I don’t know how he moved that fast in the first place, but he was okay. In fact, he laughed at first. Then, you’d have thought he’d landed on broken glass,” Connor was saying.

Dina shook her head. Finally, a chink in the perfect father armor. “He’s not hurt. He’s scared.” She slid the palm of her hand up and down Sage’s back. “He’s not used to the swings and he’s too small to be in a regular one anyway...”

Connor frowned, muttered, “I should have known that.” Then he bent to look at Sage. “Hey, buddy, you okay?”

Sage only burrowed closer to Dina and she gave him an extra squeeze for it. The triplets might be enamored by the new man in their lives, but clearly when they wanted comforting, it was her they turned to. Her heart swelled with love for the three tiny people who had brought such contained chaos into her life.

“Is he all right?” Connor asked with a sigh.

“He’s fine,” she said. “But it’s nap time, so I should get them home.”

“Right.” Connor nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Home.”

Still holding Sage tight, Dina turned to pick up their things and head to the car. But first she glanced over her shoulder and said, “You might want to stop Sam from eating sand.”

“What?”

She smiled, listening to Connor’s frantic yelp as he dealt with his sand-eating son.

* * *

Con still hadn’t read Jackie’s letter.

He’d planned to, that first night, but he’d been too angry at her to read whatever it was she had to say. Too twisted up over his first visit with his kids and too distracted by thoughts of Dina. Besides, how could Jackie possibly explain away lying to him about his own children? There was no reason good enough, he told himself. No excuse that would take away the pain and the fury of the betrayal still raging inside him.

For years, Jackie was the one woman he’d trusted. The one friend he could count on no matter what. To find out now that she’d used him just as so many other women had tried to tore at him.

Con wandered through his darkened house. He didn’t need lights since he knew the position of every stick of furniture in the place. He didn’t want

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