A Sweetheart Deal

Wyatt Lockhart is bound to regret moving in with Adelaide Smythe. She’s broken the Texas rancher’s heart before, and their last spontaneous reunion resulted in a couple of surprises—twin babies! Wyatt won’t shirk his fatherly duties, but being this close to Adelaide makes it hard to remember why he should stay far away.

Adelaide knows she hurt Wyatt, and she’s determined never to do it again. Once they figure out how to share parenting duties, she’ll give him enough space to keep both their hearts safe. But life together at the Circle H is already growing on her. For the sake of their family’s future, can Wyatt forgive Adelaide for the past?

“Don’t want to get too comfortable here?”

Wyatt’s scent—all warm, sexy man—sent another thrill thrumming through her. She rose, clothing in hand. Determined to be practical, even if he wouldn’t be. “More like I don’t want to overstep my bounds. Become even more intrusive to your living space than the twins and I already are.”

“Hey.” He caught her arm and reeled her back into his side. “Are you unhappy here?”

“No. It’s just…” She tried to ignore the way his gaze scanned the V of her robe. “You and I have made a lot of changes really quickly.”

“Because we had to,” he countered, all implacable male. “What I want to know is why you’re suddenly running so hot and cold again.”

Exasperated, Adelaide ran both her hands through her hair. “I’m unnerved because we’re doing what we always do! Getting way, way ahead of ourselves!”

Wyatt gathered her in his arms. “No,” he countered gruffly, smoothing the hair from her face. “We’re catching up.”

The Texas Valentine Twins

Cathy Gillen Thacker

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CATHY GILLEN THACKER is married and a mother of three. She and her husband spent eighteen years in Texas and now reside in North Carolina. Her mysteries, romantic comedies and heartwarming family stories have made numerous appearances on bestseller lists, but her best reward, she says, is knowing one of her books made someone’s day a little brighter. A popular Mills & Boon author for many years, she loves telling passionate stories with happy endings and thinks nothing beats a good romance and a hot cup of tea! You can visit Cathy’s website, www.cathygillenthacker.com, for more information on her upcoming and previously published books, recipes and a list of her favorite things.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

“When were you going to tell me?” Wyatt Lockhart demanded. He was obviously furious.

Adelaide Smythe looked at the ruggedly handsome rancher standing on the front stoop of her Laramie, Texas, cottage and tried not to react. An impossible task, given the way her heart sped up and her knees went all wobbly any time he was within sight.

Purposefully ignoring the intent look in his way-too-mesmerizing smoky blue eyes, she picked up both duffel bags of baby clothes, blankets and burp cloths and carried them to her waiting SUV.

Aware he was still waiting for an answer, she stated coolly over her shoulder, “I wasn’t.”

Wyatt moved so she had no choice but to look up at him.

He looked good, but then he always looked good in the way of strong, tall and sexy. Radiating an impressive amount of testosterone and kick-butt attitude, he stood, brawny arms folded in front of him, legs braced apart. Back against the rear corner of her vehicle.

His gaze drifted over her, as if he were appraising one of the impeccably trained cutting horses that he bred and sold on his ranch. “You didn’t think I would find out?”

Adelaide tensed. Of course she had known.

She shrugged, her carelessness in direct counterpoint to his concern, and slid the duffels into the cargo area next to the boxes of diapers and formula.

Finished, she lifted her chin defiantly and looked into the piercing gaze that always saw way more than she would have preferred. “I knew your mother might mention it, eventually.” Just as she had intuited that the most cynical of the Lockhart sons would be more than just a little unhappy when he heard about the arrangements.

Wyatt stepped back as if to ward off a punch. “My mom knows?”

It was her ranch. Of course Lucille Lockhart knew Adelaide and the twins were moving temporarily into the Circle H bunkhouse the following week!

Wondering how Wyatt imagined she could manage this without the matriarch’s explicit permission, Adelaide favored him with a deadpan expression. “It was Lucille’s idea, obviously.” As was the notion that Adelaide start bringing over the things she was going to need now, instead of waiting and trying to do it and transport her six-week-old twins all at one time.

Again, Wyatt shook his head as if that would clear it. His sensual lips compressed into a thin, hard line. “I know the two of you have always been close.”

An understatement, Adelaide thought. In many ways Lucille Lockhart had been the loving maternal force her life lacked. Even before her father had betrayed everyone they knew and taken off with a gold-digging floozy. “Yes. We have.”

Wyatt took off his hat and shoved his fingers through the thick, straight layers of his wheat-colored hair. Frowning, he settled his Stetson square on his head and met her gaze head-on. “I still find it hard to believe my mother talked you into this travesty.”

Adelaide didn’t see what was so difficult to understand. If Wyatt had a single compassionate bone in his body, he would have extended a helping hand, too. If for no other reason than their two families had once been very close. “Lucille knows how I’ve been struggling to manage in the six and a half weeks since my children were born. She thought some assistance...” Some help feeding and diapering and rocking...

His brow lifted. He cut in sharply, all harsh male judgment once again. “Financial, I suppose?”

A mixture of embarrassment and humiliation filled Adelaide with heat. She’d never imagined needing a helping hand. But since she suddenly did...she would accept it on behalf of her twins

Adelaide marched back to the porch, tension shimmering through her frame. Aware only a small part of any of this was her doing, she picked up the large monogrammed designer suitcase that held her own clothing. The one that, unfortunately, had been given to her as a high school graduation gift. And had accompanied her on another, fortuitously ill-begotten, trip.

The way Wyatt was eyeing it said he remembered, too.

Refusing to think about what he might be recalling about their hopelessly romantic—and ill-fated—adventure, she continued, “If you consider being guests at her ranch for a couple months so I won’t have to pay rent on top of my mortgage and new construction loan...”

He definitely did.

She squared her shoulders and admitted reluctantly, “Then yes, I do need some financial help, and in many other ways, as well. Things have been hard for me, since my father left Texas...”

Seeing how she was struggling under the weight of her bag, Wyatt reached over and took it from her. In two quick strides he carried it to the cargo area and set it next to the two smaller duffels. “Don’t you mean since he embezzled funds from my family’s charitable foundation and then fled the country?”

Her shame over that fact only increased as time passed. Adelaide tossed in a mesh bag of soft infant toys. Figuring she had done enough packing for now, she slammed the lid on the cargo hold. “I’ve apologized every way I know how for that.” A fact that Wyatt very well knew, gosh darn it.

She stomped closer, determined to have this out once and for all, so they’d never have to discuss it again. “Everyone else in your family has forgiven me,” she reminded him.

He remained where he was. Which was...too close. Far too close. He leaned down, inundating her with the scent of sun-warmed leather and soap. “So they’re more foolhardy than I am,” he said.

Adelaide glared at him. She knew Wyatt was still angry with her. And that his anger was based on a lot more than the sins of her father. The thing was, she was grief stricken over their failed romance, too. The knowledge that their dreams were never going to come true.

Ignoring the heat and strength radiating from his tall body, Adelaide stepped around him and headed wearily for the porch. Unable to help the defeated slump of her slender shoulders, she asked, “When are you going to let our last mistake go?”

He caught up with her and joined her on the small porch. Hooking his thumbs through the loops on either side of his belt, he murmured silkily, “I never said making love with you bothered me.”

It had sure as heck bothered her! To the point she barely slept a night without reliving that reckless misstep in her dreams. Refusing to admit how many mornings she had awakened hugging her pillow as if it were the answer to her every wish and desire, Adelaide challenged him with a smile.

“Then that makes two of us,” she drawled, refusing to admit how small his six-foot-three frame made the four-by-four-foot square beneath the portico feel.

Wyatt paused. His gaze roamed her postpregnancy frame, dwelling on the voluptuousness of her curves. “Enough to go again?” he taunted softly.

So that was it, she realized with a mixture of excitement and resentment. He still desired her every bit as much as she yearned for him. Fortunately for both of them, she was sensible enough not to repeat their error. Even if her obstetrician had given her the go ahead at her last checkup.

Adelaide stiffened. “Not if we were the last two people on earth,” she vowed.

* * *

THE LOOK IN Adelaide’s eyes had Wyatt believing her.

The knowledge of what she had done—or more precisely hadn’t done—convinced him otherwise.

Wishing he no longer found her thick mane of chocolate-brown hair and wide-set sable eyes so alluring, he stepped closer still. Deliberately invading her personal space, he let his gaze drift over the elegant features of her face, lingering on her slightly upturned nose, the prominent cheekbones and lushness of her lips.

Body hardening, he demanded, “Then why did you concoct such a harebrained plan with my mother?” If that was indeed the case. He still found it hard to believe that his mother had played matchmaker.

Adelaide blinked at him and furrowed her brow. “Why do you care where the twins and I live while the addition is being built on my home?”

Her innocence was real enough to be believed...had he not been the recipient of her heart-rending, soul-crushing antics. He knew, better than anyone, what she was like deep down. Reeling him in, and promising one thing, then actually delivering on another...

Luckily, his broken heart had mended.

“Even if it is technically on your mother’s property,” Adelaide continued irritably.

It was his turn to do a double take. He studied the riotous blush of pink on her pretty face. “You think I’m ticked off about you and your kids moving into the bunkhouse on the Circle H?”

Adelaide lounged against the opposite post. She folded her arms in front of her, the action plumping her newly voluptuous breasts even more. She regarded him with contempt. “Aren’t you?”

He wouldn’t lie. “I think it’s a bad idea.” One of the worst, actually.

Her lower lip thrust out in the way that always made him want to haul her into his arms and kiss her. “Why?”

He remained on his side of the small covered porch with effort. Getting emotionally entangled with this woman again would not serve either of them. “I don’t want to see my mother taken advantage of by your family again.” The first time had been bad enough.

Adelaide sent him a withering glare. “I’m not my father.”

She was right about that. In some respects, she was worse. Paul Smythe’s actions had been aimed at the bank account. Adelaide’s targeted...the heart.

He pulled a folded envelope from a back pocket of his jeans. Still holding her turbulent gaze, he handed it over. “I would have believed that if I hadn’t seen this,” he told her gruffly.

Adelaide stared at the logo on the outside of the folded business letter, announcing the information was from the Texas Metro Detective Agency. Farther down, it was addressed to Wyatt Lockhart, regarding background information on Adelaide Smythe.

The color drained from her face. He watched her shiver, although the temperature was mild for the last day of January. She stared up at him in disbelief. “You actually had me investigated?”

She’d given him no choice. “The minute I heard my mother had invited you-all to stay at her place indefinitely. And you made her Jenny and Jake’s godmother and ‘honorary grandmother.’”

Adelaide looked like she wanted to kick him in the shin. “You really are unbelievable,” she sputtered.

Refusing to allow her indignation to sway him from the facts, he countered harshly, “Don’t you want to know what I found out?”

Recovering, she handed him the report, said with cool disdain, “Well, obviously you’re dying to tell me, so far be it from me to stop you.”

If she wanted to play dumb, he could draw it out mercilessly, too. “Remember Vegas?” The most wildly romantic and absolutely soul-crushing time of their teenage courtship?

Her spine turned as stiff and unyielding as her mood. “I’d rather not.”

He agreed with her there. Their hasty elopement hadn’t turned out the way he’d envisioned. Her, either, judging from the blotchy red and white hue of her skin.

“It wasn’t just the wedding night you had trouble following through on,” he told her sarcastically, still not sure this wasn’t some kind of ruse cooked up by her, long ago, left to wreak havoc on him now. Seeing he had her complete attention, he continued, “You had a little difficulty with the paperwork, too.”

For a moment, she seemed not to even breathe. She regarded him warily. “What are you talking about?” she bit out finally.

His worst nightmare come true, obviously. “We’re still married.”

Chapter Two

A whisper of fear threaded through Adelaide. What Wyatt was suggesting was even worse than the thought that he might have somehow discovered the disturbing messages she’d been getting through her social media accounts. Messages that were also tied to her past, although in a different venue.

This was dangerous territory. “Stop clowning around.”

Scowling, he stood with his hands on his hips. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

No, he most certainly did not. A fact that unsettled her even more than the person pretending to be her MIA father. “Look, I don’t know who you talked to, Wyatt, but I signed everything and paid the lawyer the wedding chapel recommended before I left Nevada.”

His jaw took on a don’t-mess-with-me tilt. He stepped close enough she could almost touch the rough stubble lining his impossibly masculine jaw. “Then why isn’t there any record of the dissolution of our marriage?” he demanded gruffly.

Deciding being close enough to kiss was a terrible idea, Adelaide backed up. “I don’t know. Maybe you hired an incompetent private investigator.”

“And maybe the annulment was never filed,” Wyatt bit out. “Which is why I’ve asked Gannon Montgomery to meet us here in five minutes.”

The former Fort Worth attorney, now married and living in Laramie, had handled lots of clients with family money, fame and fortune, including a case involving the former Dallas quarterback’s son.

Adelaide should have known that her ex would revert to a legal solution to a very personal problem that, had they both been reasonable, would not have required any outside intervention.

“Fine,” she huffed, ready to call in her own ace attorney. She whipped out her cell phone. “You want lawyers involved? I’m calling mine, too.”

Luckily, it was the very end of the work day, and Claire McCabe was still in her office. She agreed to come right over. So by the time Adelaide had brewed a pot of coffee, Claire McCabe and Gannon Montgomery had both arrived.

Big and handsome, Gannon was a few years older than she and Wyatt. Claire was in her midfifties. She had two adopted children, and was the go-to attorney in the area for families who had children in extraordinary ways. Adelaide had always found Claire sympathetic and kind, and today, to her relief, she seemed to have extra helpings of both ready to dish out.

“So where are the twins?” Claire asked warmly.

“Upstairs, sleeping.” Adelaide glanced at her watch. “Hopefully for at least another half an hour.”

“Then let’s get to it, shall we?” Claire suggested.

Gannon sat at the dining table next to Wyatt. Claire sat next to Adelaide. While she poured coffee, Gannon and Claire perused the documents, then did quick searches on their laptops for any verification of an annulment. “I’m not finding any,” Claire said. “Under either of their names.”

“Nor am I,” Gannon added. “Although their marriage comes up right away, on Valentine’s Day, almost ten years ago.”

“So that means the detective agency is right,” Wyatt presumed, big hands gripping the mug in front of him. “Adelaide and I are still legally married?”

He looked about as happy as Adelaide felt.

Claire and Gannon nodded.

Adelaide did her best to quell her racing pulse. Even bad situations had solutions. “What will it take to get an annulment?” she asked casually.

More typing on the computers followed as both attorneys researched Nevada law.

“Were you underage?” Gannon asked.

Adelaide admitted reluctantly, “We were both eighteen. No parental permission was required.”

“Incapacitated in some way?” Claire queried. “Mentally, emotionally? Either of you intoxicated or high?”

Wyatt and Adelaide shook their heads. “We knew what we were doing,” he said.

In that sense, maybe, Adelaide thought, recalling how immature they had been. They hadn’t had any idea what it really meant to be married. Since both of them had remained single, they probably still didn’t know.

Gannon exhaled roughly. “Then you’re going to have to claim fraud.”

“I’m not doing that,” Adelaide cut in. Not with her family’s reputation.

“Well, don’t look at me. I’m not the one who changed my mind and backed out,” Wyatt said.

Claire lifted a hand and intervened gently. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

Adelaide flushed. Reluctant to discuss how foolishly romantic she had been, when they had set out for Vegas, after both had fought with their parents about the too-serious nature of their relationship. How determined they were to do something to show everyone, only to find out how scary it was to truly be in over their heads.

Adelaide drew a deep breath. “We eloped without thinking everything through.”

Wyatt sat back in his chair, the implacable look she hated in his smoky blue eyes. “What she’s trying to say is that she got cold feet.”

“Came to my senses,” Adelaide corrected him archly, irritated to find he still hadn’t a compassionate bone in him. When he merely lifted a brow, she continued emotionally, “You did wild and reckless things all the time, growing up, Wyatt. I didn’t.”

He scoffed, hurt flashing across his handsome face. “Well, we sure found that out the hard way, didn’t we?”

She knew she had disappointed him. She had disappointed herself. Though for entirely different reasons. Adelaide turned to their attorneys, explaining, “I was fine all through dinner, but when it came time to check into the hotel and consummate our union, I...” Choking up, Adelaide found herself unable to go on.

All eyes turned to Wyatt, who recounted dryly, “She panicked. Said she loved me, she just didn’t want to be married to me, not yet.” Accusation—and resentment—rang in his low tone.

Adelaide forced herself to ignore it, lest she too become caught up in an out-of-control emotional maelstrom. “I wanted to go home to Texas, finish our senior year of high school. And I wanted everything we had done, undone, without our families or anyone else finding out.”

Wyatt, bless his heart, had agreed to let her have her way.

Unlike now.

Exhaling, he continued, “We went back to the wedding chapel and asked the justice of the peace who married us if he could pretend we had never been there. He refused. But he gave us the name of someone who could help us.”

Adelaide remembered the relief she had felt. “So we went to the attorney’s office the next day and asked him to file an annulment.”

“I had a rodeo to compete in that evening, in Tahoe, so I signed what the attorney told me to sign and took off, leaving Adelaide behind to wrap things up.”

“Which I did,” Adelaide said hotly.

Wyatt lifted a brow. “You have a canceled check to prove it?”

His attitude was as contentious as his low, clipped tone, but she refused to take the bait. “No. I paid his fee in cash.”

Wyatt rocked back in his chair, ran the flat of his palm beneath his jaw. Finally, he shook his head and said, “Brilliant move.”

Resisting the urge to leap across the table and take him by the collar, Adelaide folded her arms in front of her. “I was trying not to leave more of a paper trail than we already had.”

Wyatt narrowed his gaze at her in mute superiority. “Learned from the best, there, didn’t you?” he mocked.

Adelaide sucked in a startled breath. “Do not compare me with my father!” she snapped, her temper getting the better of her, despite her desire to appear cool, calm and collected. “If not for me, and all the forensic accounting work I did, people still might not know where all the money from the Lockhart Foundation went!”

An angry silence ticked out between them. Broken only by his taut reminder, “If not for your father, the foundation money might still all be there. My mother would not have been put through hell the last year.”

Their gazes locked in an emotional battle of wills that had been years in the making. Refusing to give him a pass, even if he had been hurt and humiliated, too, she sent him a mildly rebuking look, even as the temperature between them rose to an unbearable degree. “Your mother knows I had nothing to do with any of that. So does the rest of your family.” Ignoring the perspiration gathering between her breasts, she paused to let her words sink in. Dropped her voice another compelling notch. “Why can’t you accept that, too?”

* * *

THE HELL OF it was, Wyatt secretly wished he could believe Adelaide Smythe was as innocent as everyone else did. He’d started to come close. And then this had happened.

He had seen Adelaide taking advantage of his mother’s kindness and generosity, decided to investigate, just to reassure himself, and found even more corruption.

Claire and Gannon exchanged lawyerly looks. “Let’s all calm down, shall we?” Gannon said.

Claire nodded. “Nothing will be gained from fighting.”

Adelaide pushed her fingers through the dark strands of her hair. It spilled over her shoulders in sexy disarray. “You’re right. Let’s just focus on getting the annulment, which should be easy—” she paused to glare at Wyatt “—since we never consummated the marriage.”

Once again, she was a little shady on the details. “Not then,” Wyatt pointed out.

Adelaide paled, as if suddenly realizing what he already had.

Claire’s brow furrowed. “You’ve been together intimately in the ten years since?”

Wyatt nodded, as another memory that had been hopelessly sexy and romantic took on a nefarious quality. “Last spring. After a destination wedding we both attended in Aspen.”

A flush started in her chest and moved up her neck into her face. In a low, quavering voice, Adelaide admitted, “We have a penchant for making terrible mistakes whenever we’re alone together. But since we didn’t know we were married at the time, that can’t count as consummating the marriage.” She gulped. “Can it?”

Stepping in, Gannon stated, “Actually, whether or not you slept together really doesn’t affect the marriage’s legality in the state of Texas. Hasn’t for some time.”

Wyatt and Adelaide both blinked in surprise.

“Emotionally, it might have ramifications,” Claire interjected.

No kidding, Wyatt thought. Their one and only night together had sure left him feeling as if he had been rocketed to the moon, his every wish come true, and then...as soon as Adelaide had come to her senses...sucker punched in the gut by her. Again.

“Unless, of course, one of you is impotent and concealed it, which is clearly not the case,” Gannon continued.

No kidding, Wyatt thought, remembering the sparks that had been generated during his and Adelaide’s one and only night together.

“You’re saying we can’t get an annulment?” Adelaide asked.

“Too much time has elapsed—nearly ten years—for you to request one from the court,” Gannon said.

Claire soothed, “You can, however, get a divorce.”

Wyatt knew what Adelaide was thinking. An annulment was a mistake, quickly remedied. A divorce meant being part of a marriage that had failed. That didn’t sit well with her. He hated failing at anything, too.

“But we went to a lawyer at the time!” Adelaide protested.

Claire looked up from her computer. “Who, according to public record, has apparently not been a practicing member of the Nevada bar for nearly a decade.”

Wyatt nodded. “The private detective agency said Mr. Randowsky had quit his practice and left the state shortly after we saw him. His practice dissolved accordingly.”

Adelaide looked both shocked and crestfallen. “So there’s no record of us ever being in his office? No real proof we ever tried to get an annulment?”

“None,” Wyatt confirmed irritably. He had already been down that avenue with the private investigators. “I couldn’t even locate anyone who worked in his office at the time.”

Adelaide buried her head in her hands. “Which means that getting Mr. Randowsky or his former staff to testify on our behalf is a lost cause.”

“Plus, there are children involved now,” Claire pointed out.

Adelaide sat up abruptly, her pretty face a mask of maternal ferocity. “My children,” she stated tightly. “I went to a fertility clinic and was artificially inseminated two weeks before I saw Wyatt in Aspen.”

Gannon looked at Wyatt. “You knew about this when you were together?”

Even as Wyatt shook his head, he knew it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had. When he had seen her again that night, so happy and glowing and carefree, he had wanted her. She had wanted him, too. Recklessly. Wantonly.

And the rest was history.

“Adelaide didn’t tell me she was starting a family until after I slept with her in Aspen.” “Nice as this was, and it was nice, nothing else can happen, Wyatt. I’ve got other plans...”

She tossed her mane of glossy dark hair and gave him a defensive look. “It was a one-night stand, Wyatt. A kind of whimsical ‘what if’ for both of us ten years too late. I didn’t think my pregnancy was relevant.”

He hated her habit of downplaying what they had once meant to each other. Even if she hadn’t had the guts to follow through. He looked her up and down, refusing to let her pretend any longer. “Oh, it was as relevant as the protection I wore.”

Adelaide’s mouth opened in a round O of surprise. “Wyatt!”

“Don’t mind us,” Gannon said dryly. “We’re lawyers.”

Claire added, “We’ve heard it all.”

“Anyway,” Wyatt stated, “I know what you’re thinking.” What he’d thought before reality and statistical probability crept in, given the fact that she’d already been inseminated and he’d worn a condom every time. “But the twins are not mine.”

And he was glad of that. Wasn’t he? Given the fact he still felt he couldn’t quite trust her?

Adelaide’s slender shoulders slumped slightly. “Thank heavens for small miracles!” she muttered with a beleaguered sigh.

She turned her glance away, but not before he saw the look of defeat in her eyes.

Wyatt felt a pang of remorse. So, the situation had ended up hurting her, too—despite her initial declarations to the contrary. Maybe he should try to go a little easier on her.

Certainly, they had enough strife ahead of them...

Oblivious to the ambivalence within him, Claire went back to taking notes. “So this...Adelaide’s decision to have children via artificial insemination and sperm bank...is why you parted acrimoniously. Again.”

Wyatt only wished it had been that simple. “I wouldn’t have cared about that,” he said honestly, ignoring Adelaide’s embarrassment and looking her square in the eye.

Adelaide returned his level look. “Over time, you might have.” She glanced at the baby monitor, as if hoping it would radiate young voices. It was silent. She cleared her throat, turned to regard their lawyers. “In any case, the insemination at the clinic took place before Wyatt and I ever saw each other again and were...reckless.”

Reckless was one way to describe it, Wyatt mused. There was also passionate. Tender. Mind-blowing...

“And I was already sure I was pregnant...from the way I was feeling...”

Which was why, Wyatt thought, she’d been so happy. In retrospect, he could see that it’d had little to do with seeing him again.

And for reasons he couldn’t explain, and didn’t want to examine, that stung, too.

More lawyerly looks were exchanged between the two attorneys.

Clearly, Wyatt noted, there was another problem.

Claire’s brow furrowed. “Is the donor’s name on the birth certificate?”

Adelaide shook her head. “No. Just mine. But I know exactly who the biological father is. Donor #19867 from the Metroplex Fertility Clinic’s sperm bank, where I was inseminated.”

More glances between attorneys.

“This is a problem,” Claire said.

Gannon agreed. “Under Texas law, any children born during a marriage are legally the offspring of the husband, unless and until proved otherwise. Meaning court-ordered DNA tests are going to be necessary.”

“Why court-ordered?” Wyatt asked, his impatience matching Adelaide’s. “Can’t we just have them done on our own?”

“Not if you want them to be part of any legal record,” Gannon said. “When DNA tests are court-ordered, a strict chain-of-custody procedure is followed, ensuring the integrity of the samples. Everyone who has contact with them has to sign. This protects against tampering, or ill-use.”

Made sense.

“Then court-ordered it is,” Adelaide said grimly, as Wyatt nodded.

“Luckily, we can formally request this online.” Gannon was already typing. “I’ll follow it up with a call to the judge to make sure it goes through immediately.”

“While you do that, I’ll call my cousin Jackson McCabe, who is chief of staff at Laramie Community Hospital, and ask him to write the medical orders for the blood tests.” Claire rose, cell phone to her ear. “And arrange to have them done as soon as possible.”

Not that it would matter, Wyatt thought, as Claire stepped into the next room and Gannon, when finished, walked out onto the front porch. They all knew what the tests were going to reveal. Once that happened, he and Adelaide would go their separate ways.

Forever.

* * *

UNABLE TO SIT still a moment longer, Adelaide rose, gathered the mugs and took them to the kitchen sink. “I wasn’t finished with that,” Wyatt called after her.

No one had been, Adelaide knew. But she needed something to do before she exploded with tension. “Hold your horses,” she said over her shoulder. “You’ll get a fresh mug in a minute, and more hot coffee to go with it. Unless you’d prefer something more dainty.” She turned his way to give him a too-sweet look. “Like tea?”

He shot her a deadpan look.

They both knew he hated tea. All kinds.

He didn’t like iced coffee, either.

Or at least he hadn’t.

What if he had changed?

Then again... Doubtful.

Gannon walked back in, just as she sat four fresh mugs and a platter of cookies on the table. “We’ve got the court order.”

Claire returned, too. “Jackson expedited everything on the hospital’s end. The hospital lab will be open until eight this evening, so you can both go over now if you like.” She paused. “If you want to write this down...?”

Adelaide plucked a notepad and pen from the charging station, then returned to the table, carafe in hand. She slid the former across the table to Wyatt.

He ignored her helpful gesture. “I’ll just type it in.” He pulled out his smartphone, gaze trained on the oversize screen, paused again, then brought up the appropriate menu.

Just scribbling the info on paper would have been faster. Then again... “It’s probably best,” Adelaide quipped, in an effort to lighten the mounting exasperation. “No one can read his chicken scratches anyway.”

Wyatt squinted at her, his expression partly annoyed and the rest inscrutable.

“Unless something’s changed?” she continued, determined to be just as provoking and ornery as he was being.

It hadn’t just been the love notes he’d passed to her in class she hadn’t been able to decipher. It had been anything and everything he wrote. Worse, he had seemed to take perverse delight in everyone else’s frustration. Just as he was enjoying her impatience now. She didn’t know why he had to be such a pain sometimes.

“You’ve taken a class in penmanship...?” she taunted lightly, aware they had temporarily reverted to their worst selves from their teenage years.

“You wish.” Smugly, Wyatt looked at Claire, his fingers poised over the keyboard on his man-size smartphone. “Ready when you are.”

Barely suppressing her own exasperation, Claire returned to her own handwritten notes. “The tech who’s going to be doing the test is Martie Bowman. The outpatient lab is on the first floor of the main building of the hospital, in the east wing. Suite 111.”

Wyatt quickly typed in the information. “Do you want to email that to me, too?” Adelaide asked.

“Not necessary,” Wyatt said. “I’ve got it.”

He was also as impossibly chauvinistic as ever. Adelaide sighed. “How long until we have the results?”

“They’re going to put a rush on it. So three or four days at most.”

“What about the rest of it?” Adelaide asked.

“It would be advisable to proceed with the divorce only when the DNA results are back,” Gannon said.

Adelaide decided to give it one last try. “Are you sure it has to be divorce? Can’t we remedy this mistake—” and it had been a big one, the biggest of her life “—some other way? Maybe just invalidate the marriage on some technicality, or...I don’t know...” She was grasping at straws, and she knew it.

Wyatt grimaced. “I agree. I’d prefer to find another way to end this, too.”

“There isn’t one,” Gannon decreed.

“You’ve not only consummated the marriage, but had children during the term of the union, which has lasted nearly ten years,” Claire reminded sagely.

Gannon agreed. “Like it or not, divorce is the only way to dissolve your marriage.”

* * *

NO SOONER HAD Claire and Gannon left them to discuss their pending trip to the hospital lab than a wail sounded on the baby monitor. A second swiftly followed.

Adelaide looked at the alarmed expression on Wyatt’s face. Suddenly, she was in no hurry to have cheeks swabbed or blood drawn. At least with him standing right next to her. “I’ve got to feed the twins, so...” She waved him off. “If you want, you can go ahead to the hospital without us.”

He stood firm. “I prefer we all go together. Just get it done.”

It wasn’t as if they didn’t already know the results.

Irritated, she took the stairs quickly, as the cries quickly escalated to a fever pitch. “Well, some things won’t wait.”

He lagged behind at the foot of the stairs. “How long...?”

Adelaide threw the words over her shoulder. “If you want to make it fast, then give me a hand, cowboy.”

Never in a million years did she think he would take her up on the suggestion. By the time she bypassed the tiny master and reached the even tinier room with the twin cribs, the volume had been turned up nearly as loud as their little lungs could go.

Unable to bear to hear her children sobbing, Adelaide quickly picked up little Jake and snuggled him in one arm. His sobs subsiding, she walked over to Jenny’s crib and scooped her up, too. Hence, it was suddenly blissfully quiet, as she carried both to the changing stations set up side by side.

“You’re going to change both their diapers simultaneously?” Wyatt lingered in the doorway, the same cautious, awestruck expression he had on his face whenever he saw a new foal.

Except this wasn’t one of the cutting horses he bred on his ranch.

Adelaide shrugged. “Neither one of them is all that keen on going second.”

“Then how do you...?”

“When I was nursing, I put one on each breast.”

She knew it was too much information. She also figured too much information might incent him to leave.

He seemed to know that was what she wanted, so, as ornery as ever, he strolled languidly into the room.

Jenny and Jake lay on their backs while she worked at unsnapping their onesies, letting their legs go free. Fortunately, both diapers were just wet.

“They look like you,” Wyatt said softly.

No surprise there. She had picked a donor with the same shaped facial features, dark wavy hair and bittersweet chocolate eyes as her own.

The tender regard in his expression made him all the more handsome. “Their eyes are blue, though.”

Pure blue.

His were blue-gray.

The wistfulness he was suddenly evidencing forced her to recall he had always wanted kids, too. “Most fair-skinned babies are born with dark blue or dark gray eyes that can change color several times before their first birthday.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Did not know that.”

Did not know a lot of things. Finding it a relief to be able to distract themselves with information, she explained, “An infant’s eye color changes as he or she gets older and melanin levels increase.”

He watched as Adelaide eased away the wet diapers, quickly wiped down their diaper area and slid on the new.

Wyatt turned to her, his broad shoulder nudging hers in the process. “When will you find out?”

Ignoring the electricity of the brief contact, she fastened one, then the other. “By their first birthday, I’ll know if their eyes are going to be blue or brown or green or gray.”

Not that it mattered.

They would be adorable regardless.

She turned back to the man she had once loved. Suddenly, he wasn’t the only one feeling wistful. Had their elopement worked out, the way they both had hoped, these children could have been theirs. But they weren’t. So...

She sighed, aware Wyatt had gone back to observing her children. He leaned closer, regarding them contentedly. For a person who’d had zero interest in ever laying eyes on the two babies she’d had on her own, he was certainly fascinated.

“I think they have your nose, too. See the way it turns up slightly at the end?”

She certainly recalled Wyatt kissing her nose. And her cheek, and her temple, and...

Best she not go there.

She really should not go there.

“Your eyelashes, too,” he mused.

Aware this situation was getting far too intimate too fast, she challenged him with a droll look. “Is that a good thing or bad?”

He straightened. As their gazes collided, it was hard to tell what he was feeling.

“Fact.”

“Whew!” She pretended to wipe perspiration from her forehead. “For a moment, I thought you were paying me compliments.”

His low laugh filled the room, bringing back a slew of unwanted memories.

Simmering with emotion, Adelaide scooped up Jenny in one arm, Jake in her other. She headed down the hall. He followed, close enough she could feel his steady male presence. “You’re really going to go down the stairs like that?”

He was a man. Of course he wanted to take charge. “Very carefully. And yes, I am.”

He still looked skeptical.

With good reason, had she not already done this dozens of times.

Figuring as long as she had a pair of helping hands nearby she might as well use them, Adelaide turned and handed off little Jake. For a moment, Jake gazed up at Wyatt mutely, studying the handsome rancher’s unfamiliar face.

Blinking in confusion, Jake let out a howl loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood.

“Now what?” Wyatt mouthed, looking every bit as panicked as Adelaide had felt the first moment she was confronted with two in the hospital. When all she had ever signed up for was one baby. Until Mother Nature had intervened. Adelaide held out her free arm.

Wyatt slid Jake back into her hold.

To everyone’s relief, the crying ceased.

Adelaide continued on downstairs, as originally planned. Once in the kitchen, she had no choice but to put both babies down in their infant seats, as she prepared their bottles. Luckily, they were so focused on watching her, each other and their visitor, both forgot to voice their immense impatience, as per usual.

Wyatt stood next to her, his arms braced on the counter on either side of him. Was it her imagination, or did he look completely besotted by her precious offspring?

“When did you stop nursing?”

“Our doctors made me stop when they reached four and a half weeks. I wasn’t able to provide enough milk for both and trying to do so was having an adverse effect on my health.” She sighed her regret. “Since I’m all they’ve got, I had to do what was best for all of us. Even if that meant making concessions I would really have rather not.” She paused to give her babies adoring looks. “I thought it might be hard for them, moving from breast to bottle, but they adjusted really easily. Maybe because they were already getting supplemental formula feedings.”

He nodded. Understanding in a way she didn’t expect.

Telling herself this was no time to start feeling kindly toward him, Adelaide put one bottle in the warmer, waited for it to ding, then added the other. Finished, she tested the liquid of both on the inside of her wrists. Scooping up both babies, she inclined her head at the bottles. “Mind bringing those in for me? You’ll save me a trip.”

“Sure.”

Adelaide walked over to the sofa and settled both infants into the supportive indentions on the extra-large twin nursing pillow already there, then she sat and carefully moved it onto her lap. Wyatt handed over the bottles one at a time, and she tipped the nipples into Jake and Jenny’s mouths. Then all was silent as they drank. For the first time in a while, Adelaide felt herself begin to relax and really breathe. Until she looked up again and saw Wyatt watching her with the kind of respect she had always yearned to see.

Telling herself that his newfound admiration didn’t matter, that this situation would be over as quickly as their one-night stand had been, Adelaide bent her head and did not look up at him again.

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, they were on their way. Thankfully in separate vehicles. Four cheek-swab DNA tests later, they again split up. Wyatt returned to his horses and his ranch. Adelaide took the twins home and thus began the wait for results.

They came in late on the third day.

On the morning of the fourth, she found herself back at the hospital. This time in Dr. Jackson McCabe’s office. To her surprise, Wyatt was there, too.

Jackson indicated they should sit, even as Adelaide’s palms began to sweat. “I understand you requested this test to disprove Wyatt’s paternity of the twins.”

Wyatt and Adelaide nodded.

“It proved the opposite. Adelaide Smythe is their biological mother, Wyatt Lockhart their biological father.”

“But that’s...” Adelaide sputtered. She thought this was just a formality! “I was artificially inseminated before Wyatt and I ever hooked up. So it can’t be! He can’t be!”

* * *

SHE SLANTED A look at Wyatt, who was not moving or reacting in any way.

“Apparently the AI did not take,” Jackson explained.

That was impossible. “We used protection when we were together!”

Not because she had felt she needed it, since she had been convinced she was already pregnant by then, but because she hadn’t wanted to stop and explain her circumstances, a move that surely would have spoiled the romantic aura of the evening, as surely as it had the morning after. And she had wanted that one night with Wyatt so very badly. To make up for everything heartbreaking and awful that had come before.

“No birth control method is one hundred percent effective.” Jackson handed over two sets of lab results. “The tests were conclusive. Both children are Wyatt’s. So—” he rose, reaching across the desk and shaking their hands “—congratulations to both of you.”

Chapter Three

Wyatt was still reeling from the news that he was a dad, when his younger sister met them at the door of Adelaide’s home, where she had been babysitting the twins. Sage caught the equally shell-shocked look on Adelaide’s face. “What happened to you?” Immediately incensed, his sister swung back to him and demanded, “Are you responsible?”

If Sage only knew, Wyatt thought ironically. Feeling joy—that he finally had the kids he had secretly wanted for a long time. And shock—that the woman he’d once thought—erroneously—was the love of his life, was the mother who had provided them.

He had no idea why fate kept propelling them together this way. When it was abundantly clear he and Adelaide could not be more wrong for each other.

Yet there was nothing of the cruel joke of nature when it came to the sweetly slumbering children, he thought, gazing down at Jenny and Jake in reverence and awe.

They were perfect.

And they were his.

As well as Adelaide’s...

Oblivious to the ambivalent nature of his thoughts, Adelaide turned back to Sage and made a shushing motion with her hand. “It’s complicated,” she told his sister.

Sage looked them both up and down. Sighed, as a twinkle came into her eyes. “Isn’t it always with the two of you?”

Reluctantly, Wyatt turned away from the twins, who were still sleeping angelically in their Pack ’N Plays. Eager for some time alone with them, he grabbed his sister’s coat and bag and ushered her toward the door. “Thanks for babysitting.”

Sage dug in her heels. “I can stay awhile longer if you need me.”

Adelaide’s expression broadcast the need for privacy. “Wyatt and I have some things we need to discuss.”

Which probably, Wyatt admitted grudgingly, should be done before the twins woke up.

“Uh-huh.” Sage shrugged on her coat and patted Wyatt’s arm. “Be good to Adelaide, big brother.”

As if he had ever wanted to be anything but, Wyatt thought grumpily. Even if things hadn’t worked out.

Sage shut the door behind her.

Adelaide’s small house felt even tinier.

Looking as tense and upset as he felt, she went to the kitchen, stood on tiptoe and pulled out a bottle of Kahlua. Wyatt knew how she felt. He could use a good stiff drink himself. Even if it was barely ten in the morning.

Hands trembling, she made two drinks. Wordlessly, they each took a stool at her kitchen island. “What are we going to do?” she asked in a low, jittery voice, lifting the glass to her lips.

He sipped the concoction of milk, ice and coffee-flavored rum. “The only thing we can. Raise them together.”

She looked down her nose at him. “I’m not staying married for all the wrong reasons.”

He grimaced as the too-sweet mixed drink stayed on his tongue. “I’m not asking you to stay married,” he retorted in exasperation. “I still think we should get a divorce.”

“Good.” Relief softened her slender frame. “I’m glad we agree on that, because the last thing I want Jenny and Jake to suffer through is a marriage like my parents had,” she vowed, her cheeks turning an enticing pink. “With both of them fighting all the time.”

He gazed into her eyes. “I promise you. For the sake of the kids, we won’t fight.” And especially not the way Paul and Penny Smythe had, before Penny had died in that Jet Ski accident when Adelaide was fourteen. He could still remember how unmaternal Adelaide’s mother had been, her dad only a little more interested in their only child. Had it not been for the teachers, camp counselors and horse-riding instructors who had taken an interest in the shy but eager to please little girl, he wasn’t sure what would have happened to Adelaide.

Her face grew pinched. “I promise you, too. We’ll keep things civil in the way we haven’t managed to in the past.”

Regret tightened his gut. It wasn’t the first time he had felt remorse over having given her such a hard time. “Then, we had no reason to buck up,” he admitted shamefully.

She nodded, accepting her own culpability in the ongoing tension between them. “Now, we certainly do.”

The unmistakable ache in her tone caught him unawares. He studied her, realizing for the first time she might wish that things had turned out different for them, too, despite her avowals to the contrary.

Silence. She lifted her eyes to his, then looked at him long and hard. “The question is, how are we going to arrange it?”

He drained his glass. “I don’t want a judge to tell us how the twins are going to divide their time.”

She pushed her unfinished drink away. “I don’t want them to divide their time at all,” she said firmly, sending him a probing look that sent heat spiraling through him. “Not when they are this young.”

It took everything he had not to touch her again. Haul her into his arms. And... “What are you suggesting?” he bit out.

She angled her chin. “That we work together to get you up to speed on all the daddy stuff and make you and the twins comfortable with each other.”

That sounded good in terms of the kids, but there were still wrinkles to work out. “I’m not moving into my mother’s bunkhouse, Adelaide.” He anticipated enough family interference as it was. From his mother, who never seemed to trust him to be able to succeed without her help. And his way too idealistic younger sister, Sage, whose own unsatisfying love life prodded her to look outward for her fix of romance.

“Well, we can’t stay here. The work on the addition to my home is due to start in two days, and the movers are coming to take the bigger items, like the twins’ cribs and changing tables and so on, tomorrow.” She rose and carried her glass to the sink.

Wyatt took his over, too. “I don’t understand why you just didn’t buy a bigger place to begin with when you moved here from Dallas last fall.” Their shoulders touched as they leaned over to put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

Adelaide shut the lid and straightened. “I thought about waiting until spring, when more properties were likely to be on the market, and renting something else in the meantime, but I also knew that the modest price and the location of the cottage—just blocks from downtown where I work—couldn’t be beat. So I put an offer on it that was immediately accepted.”

Okay, that made sense, even if his urge to kiss her again did not. “Why didn’t you do the addition before the twins were born?”

She raked her teeth across her lower lip. “Because Molly and Chance were both busy with other jobs, and I wanted one or both of them to handle it for me.”

That he could also understand. His contractor brother and his fiancée had the best building teams around.

Adelaide moved away, giving him a brief, enticing view of her curvy backside in the process.

She swung back to face him, picking a piece of lint from the knee of her trim black wool skirt. “I also didn’t think the twins would need separate bedrooms for a couple of years. But, given the way they keep waking each other up, I figured it would be better if they each had their own space now. A dedicated space for me to work in, when I do work at home, would be nice, too. And since I was able to get a low-interest construction loan from the bank and Molly and Chance were able to fit my project into their schedule... I went for it.”

“Makes sense.” Even if it would cause a lot of temporary upheaval.

Adelaide removed the coated elastic band from her wrist, gathered her wavy dark hair into a knot on the back of her head and secured it there. “Unfortunately, the babies can’t be around construction dust and fumes. It’s not safe.”

The good thing about Adelaide was that she could be easily persuaded to do what made sense logically. The bad thing was that she often came to regret her ready acquiescence if the situation did not continue to align with her wants and needs. Still, she was also known for making the best of whatever situation she found herself in. A propensity he knew would be helpful to both of them in the coming months. Briefly he covered her hand with his own. “You and the babies can stay at Wind River with me. I’ve got plenty of room at the ranch.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose and looked even more stressed than she had in Jackson McCabe’s office. “That will cause a lot of talk.”

Why did people always think gossip was the worst thing in the world? When what really sucked was hiding the truth out of fear of scandal. He shrugged. “There’s going to be a lot of talk anyway.”

Adelaide looked like she wanted to thrust herself against him and hold on to him for comfort. But of course she didn’t.

She ran her finger along the edge of the granite countertop. “How are we going to handle that?” she asked anxiously.

Wyatt worked on keeping his emotions in check, too. This situation was hard enough without adding messy feelings to the mix. He looked Adelaide in the eye. “For starters? By getting my family together.”

* * *

ADELAIDE COULDN’T RECALL ever being this nervous. “Are you sure you want to do this right now?” she asked, as she bundled up the twins and strapped them into their car seats.

Wyatt grinned, as confident as she was on edge. “Sage already knows something’s up. Garrett works at the hospital, so he may have heard we were there with the twins earlier in the week. Then there’s the court-ordered bloodwork, the fact that both our attorneys were at your house with us. Singularly, none of those details may have caused much gossip, but all together...”

Trying not to notice how he towered over her when they stood side by side, she shut the rear passenger door.

“Besides—” he rested his big hands on her shoulders “—the fact I have two children, that the twins have a daddy to love and watch over them, is fantastic news.”

“You’re right.” She stepped back, aware having his kids was, in many ways, her deepest held romantic fantasy come true.

She’d never imagined it would actually be possible, though. Or dreamed he would ever be able to forgive her for changing her mind about marrying him. Because it had been more than his pride that had been destroyed that day. Her actions had eradicated his trust in her. And in them. She still wasn’t sure his faith in her would ever be resurrected, at least not entirely.

And without that, even becoming friends again would be a challenge.

But, given the situation, there was nothing to do but try to forge some peace.

Go on from there.

* * *

THEY TOOK BOTH vehicles out to his mother’s ranch, the Circle H. By the time they arrived, the Lockhart family was already there, save Wyatt’s brother Zane, who was on assignment with Special Forces.

The rest were gathered in the main room of the bunkhouse. Garrett and Hope, and her eleven-month-old son, Max. The newly engaged Molly and Chance, and her three-year-old son, Braden. Wyatt’s sister, Sage, and his mother, Lucille.

Adelaide settled the twins, who were still fast asleep in their carriers, at one end of the long plank table, while Wyatt asked them all to have a seat toward the other end.

“So what’s up?” Sage asked.

Adelaide’s pulse raced as Wyatt moved to stand beside her. She hadn’t expected to ever want to rely on him again, but right now, she did.

Especially with his family looking at them so curiously.

“Adelaide and I eloped in Vegas on Valentine’s Day, when we were eighteen,” Wyatt announced, as if it were no big deal.

Brows rose all around.

“We thought we annulled it before we left the state, but apparently we were mistaken.”

Garrett cocked his head, clearly as shocked and disbelieving as everyone else. “So you’re still married,” he concluded.

Adelaide lifted her hand. “Yes, but we’re getting a divorce,” she clarified quickly.

Wyatt frowned. “Eventually,” he said.

Lucille pressed a hand to her heart, her joy surfacing as the reality sunk in. “You’re going to give the marriage a try?” The matriarch of the Lockhart clan looked delighted. There was nothing she wanted more, Adelaide knew, than to have all five of her children married and living happily-ever-after.

“No,” Adelaide corrected hastily, glad to see that at least Lucille did not look disappointed in them. At least not yet. “But we have to learn how to live together because...” She cleared her throat. Oh heck, she really did not know how to put this.

The man of the hour did.

Casually, Wyatt related, “We hooked up a while ago, at a wedding, when Adelaide thought she was already pregnant via artificial insemination, and long story short—” he couldn’t quite suppress a triumphant grin “—we just found out the twins are mine. Ours.”

A second really shocked silence reverberated around the table.

Glad to see this, too, was happy news, Adelaide added, with an outer confidence she couldn’t begin to feel, “Naturally, we want to do what is best for everyone. So Wyatt and I have decided to join forces and move in together at his ranch, until such a time as we can figure out a way to be a family without being married or living under one roof.”

Chance and Garrett exchanged looks. “How long do you expect this to take?” Chance asked.

Adelaide had no clue. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was in no rush to let the twins out of her sight for more than a few hours every day. Given how quickly he was stepping up to the plate, she assumed Wyatt would soon feel the same.

“A year. Maybe more,” Wyatt said.

“However long it takes us to consciously uncouple,” Adelaide agreed.

Sage tilted her head, looking every bit as happy as her mother, Molly and Hope. “Well, if it works for the Hollywood stars, why shouldn’t it work for the two of you?”

Chance and Garrett both guffawed.

“This is serious.” Lucille frowned. “Under the circumstances, I think you should both forget about ever getting divorced. And have a proper wedding, here on the ranch, as soon as possible, with all your friends and family present.”

The pressure of that kind of public hoopla made Adelaide reel. “Not going to happen, Mom,” Wyatt said. A little too quickly for Adelaide’s taste.

Was the thought of doing what was best for the twins in the conventional sense really so distasteful to him? Did he hate her that much?

On the other hand, she knew he was certainly being practical in wanting to go into the arrangement with their eyes wide open.

“We should at least have a party to officially welcome Adelaide and the twins into the family,” Lucille insisted.

“Once the dust settles on the news, that is probably a good idea,” Hope concurred, her considerable expertise as a crisis manager and public relations expert coming into play.

“How do we get the word out?” Sage asked.

Hope smiled. “The usual way—via announcement.”

The women promptly went to work. Fifteen minutes later, they had a rough draft of the whimsical announcement. There was a border of hearts, with a stork across the top, carrying two babies, one in pink, one in blue. Followed by the words:

And just when you think you’ve heard it all...

Nearly ten years ago, on Valentine’s Day, at the tender age of eighteen, Adelaide Smythe and Wyatt Lockhart eloped.

They soon got cold feet. And had it annulled. Until fate intervened, and they met up again on another starry romantic night.

Twin babies and a surprisingly still legal marriage were the result!

Please join us on the Circle H Ranch, on Saturday March 1, at 4:00 p.m., to welcome Adelaide and the twins, Jake and Jenny, into the Lockhart family, and celebrate the unconventional events that brought them all together. And brought all of us such happiness and love.

“It can be a combination belated wedding reception slash baby shower,” Lucille decreed.

Wyatt and Adelaide exchanged worried looks. Adelaide was willing to go along to get along, to a point. Not add more deception to the mix. “I think we might want to add something about our plans to eventually amicably divorce,” she said. “Otherwise, we will just face even more scandal down the road.”

“Nonsense,” Lucille huffed. “If you two want to consciously uncouple, that is your business and can be done privately until such time as you are actually ready to divorce. Right now, the emphasis has to be on the twins. They deserve the kind of fairy-tale entry all children merit as they enter this world. When they look back on these events, as they certainly will someday, I want them to see an unconventional beginning brimming with love and joy.”

As much as Adelaide wanted to, she could not argue that.

Chapter Four

“Why are they crying?” Wyatt asked in alarm several hours later. He and Adelaide carried both twins in the front door and set the carriers on the sofa.

Adelaide eased Jake out of the straps and hooded jacket and blanket confining him, and handed him to Wyatt to hold. “A lot of reasons.” Tossing her own coat aside, she bent to retrieve Jenny from her carrier, too. “They saw a lot of new faces tonight.”

No kidding, Wyatt thought. After the news had set in, everyone in the family had wanted to congratulate them and cuddle the twins. His mom had persuaded them to stay for an impromptu family dinner. He’d agreed as readily as Adelaide. Mostly because he hadn’t figured out how to be alone with her yet, under the startling new circumstances.

He wished he had one-thousandth of Adelaide’s ease as a parent.

Horses, he knew. Kids, not so much. He’d never had the golden touch with them. Well, except for his nephews Max and Braden. Those little tykes had taken right to him. Maybe because he bore a resemblance to their own daddies...

“Do you think they’re still hungry?” He and Jake edged closer to Adelaide and Jenny. His daughter hadn’t lessened her wailing, either. “Because they were fed and burped right before we left the ranch.” Less than thirty minutes ago. “Their diapers changed, too.”

Adelaide inclined her head, indicating he should follow suit. She carried Jenny up the stairs. “I think they’re just wound up and overtired.” They moved into the nursery. “Nothing a little walking the floor with them won’t cure. Unless...” Adelaide squinted at him thoughtfully. The crying was so loud now she had to practically shout to be heard. “You’d like to go on home now?”

Wyatt shook his head. He had responsibilities now. “I’ll stay until they are asleep,” he vowed firmly.

She pressed a kiss onto the top of Jenny’s head. He did the same with Jake.

“Your horses...?” she asked.

“Troy and Flint, my hired hands, have already taken care of them.”

Briefly, Adelaide looked disappointed. As if she’d been counting on his work to take him away from them. Heaven knew it wasn’t the first time she’d used an excuse to put distance between them. It stung, just the same.

He told himself her reaction was understandable. Had it not been for the babies they now shared, he would have been out the door hours ago, new dissolution papers filed.

Instead, he was here with the three of them, trying to make sense of what had happened. Figure out how the heck they were going to proceed on a practical level.

It was one thing to promise to care for the kids together.

Another to actually make the situation work.

Luckily, right now, all they had to concentrate on was easing the persistent crying of their children.

He watched as Adelaide shifted Jenny’s head onto her shoulder and tried somewhat awkwardly to do the same. While Jenny cuddled sweetly against Adelaide’s soft breast, her head resting against the slender slope of her mommy’s neck, Jake resisted doing the same. Recalcitrant, he arched his little spine, tilting the back of his neck against Wyatt’s gently supporting palm.

Wyatt was tempted to give up, hand his son over. But given the fact that Adelaide had her own hands full, and Jenny was finally starting to settle down, just a little...

Adelaide mouthed the words, “Move him up a little higher. So his head is...”

Wyatt tried. Little Jake arched again. Opened his mouth wider and the largest belch Wyatt had ever heard came out. Followed swiftly by a flood of curdled, really foul smelling sour milk. Like an erupting volcano, the messy goo went all over Wyatt’s shoulder, the front of his shirt, inside the collar, onto his neck. Trying not to get it on Jake, too—who was remarkably unscathed by the flood—Wyatt lifted his son slightly away from him, still holding him gently with both hands, and that’s when two things happened. Jenny finally fell sound asleep. And Jake spit up again, this time all over the rest of Jake’s shirt and pants.

Gently, Adelaide eased Jenny into her crib. The little darling slumbered on.

Wyatt expected Adelaide to reach for Jake, who, now that he’d emptied the contents of his tummy, was looking incredibly sleepy, too. Instead, she disappeared into the hall bath and came back, a damp washcloth in hand.

By then, Jake had put his head on the only other spit-up free zone of his daddy, Wyatt’s other shoulder. His eyes were drifting closed.

Adelaide wiped the curdled milk from her son’s face. “Want me to take him?” Adelaide murmured softly.

Wyatt shook his head, feeling incredibly proud and relieved he had done what just a few minutes ago had seemed impossible—nearly put his wildly upset son to sleep. “I’ve got this,” he said.

And to his surprise, he did.

* * *

ADELAIDE HAD SEEN new dads cuddling babies. But nothing had ever affected her the way the sight of Wyatt, so tenderly cradling their son, did.

Aware she was near tears that if started would not stop, she turned away. She went into the bathroom, grabbed the lone towel off the rack and returned just as Wyatt was easing Jake into his crib. Her son slept on, looking incredibly peaceful and unscathed.

Wyatt, on the other hand, was a mess.

He looked like he’d been hit by a massive eruption of spoiled milk. He had a little bit in the edges of his hair, along his nape. He smelled even worse. She handed over the towel and another damp washcloth. He dabbed ineffectually, smearing spit-up into the terry cloth rather than removing it from his shirt.

She knew exactly how he felt. “I don’t suppose you have any clean clothes in your pickup truck.”

He shook his head regretfully.

Adelaide winced. She had nothing that would fit, and even worse, the smell of the sour milk was clearly making them both feel ill. “Experience has taught me the best way to clean up is just get in the shower. If you want to do that and toss the clothes out to me, I’ll put them in the wash. An hour and fifteen minutes—you’ll be good as new.”

For a second, she thought he would argue.

A deep breath had him wincing in disgust and simply saying a gruff, “Thanks.” He disappeared into the hall bath.

Twenty seconds later, the door eased open. The clothes, soiled towel and washcloth were handed out. Adelaide took them and disappeared down the stairs.

Luckily, the denim shirt, jeans, black boxer briefs and heavy wool socks could all go in one load. The snowy-white T-shirt and towel would have to go in another. Trying hard not to breathe in the stench, she pretreated the stains, added a detergent that was formulated for baby laundry and switched on the machine. Then she went to thoroughly wash her hands.

Wondering what she was going to give Wyatt to wear, which was maybe something she should have figured out before she had him strip down to nothing, Adelaide started back up the stairs.

Then went back down to get a fleece-lined navy lap blanket from the back of her sofa.

Halfway to the second floor of her cottage she realized two things. First, the shower had stopped. And second, in her urgency to get the river of baby vomit off him, she had neglected to give Wyatt something even more important.

A towel.

She hurried all the faster, reaching the upstairs hall and rounding the corner. Wyatt, never one to stand around waiting to be rescued, had quietly begun his own search for the linen closet. Never mind he was dripping wet and smelling of her lavender shampoo, from head to toe, his only clothing a pale pink washcloth that had already been in the shower, held like a fig leaf over his privates.

The ridiculousness of the scene, the sheer unpredictability of their situation, coupled with the sight of all those sleek, satiny muscles beneath the whorls of hair covering his tall body, had her catching her breath.

Memories flashed.

Laughter bubbled up in her chest.

He grinned, too—sheepishly now. But blissfully, kept his hand, and the washcloth, modestly in place.

That, too, hit her, hard.

The laughter came out.

Wilder now.

Uncontrollable.

Then, just as swiftly, turned into loud, wrenching sobs.

The kind that could wake her babies.

Tears streaming down her face, hand pressed against her mouth, smothering the increasingly hysterical sounds, Adelaide stumbled into the master bedroom.

The next thing she knew Wyatt’s hands were on her shoulders. Warm. Soothing. He was spinning her around, pulling her close, wrapping his arms around her, holding her tight. And still she cried, and laughed, and cried some more. Her emotions spinning as out of control as her life.

She lifted her head, opened her mouth to jerk in a breath. And then his lips were on hers, drawing her in, and she was as lost in him as she had ever been.

* * *

HIS EMOTIONS JUST as out of control as Adelaide’s, Wyatt folded the woman who had once been so much a part of his life, even closer. She was soft and vulnerable, feisty and sweet, and when it came to any sort of reconstituted relationship between them, stubbornly resistant as all get out. Yet when he held her in his arms, kissed her with such fierce abandon, she was all yearning, malleable woman. And right now he wanted her that way.

Not laughing and crying as if her world were splintering apart. Not angry and confused at the unexpected twist their lives had taken. And definitely not as furious as he had been since the last time they’d spent a night together, just under a year ago. When she had finally gotten the courage to make love with him. And then left him again anyway.

He didn’t ever want her to feel as gut-punched as he had, when he had discovered she had chosen to have a baby with an anonymous donor rather than risk having a family with him.

Only to find out what he had wanted all along had come true anyway.

The undeniable fact was that after all this time he still wanted her, wanted this. Wanted the chances they’d never had. Most of all, he wanted to take advantage of the gifts they had been given. The kids. And through them, another chance, this time to get it right...

He’d half expected her to offer some resistance, even if it was only token. He ran a hand down her spine, pressing his hardness into the softness of her body.

She moaned at the onslaught of pleasure engulfing them both. Lifting his mouth from hers, he strung kisses along her jaw, her nape, the open vee of her blouse.

Lifting her arms to wreathe his shoulders, she pressed against him and kissed him back with a wildness beyond his most erotic dreams. Went up on tiptoe, her hands sliding down his spine, lower, lower still.

His body throbbing, he felt her end the kiss and then watched her step back. Damn if she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Pink cheeks still wet with tears, dark eyes glowing, she sucked in an impatient breath and shimmied her skirt down her thighs. Toed off her suede flats and stripped off her tights.

He caught her hand before she could remove her blouse, undo the clasp of her bra. “Let me.”

Her breath stalled. Holding her arms akimbo, she said softly, her eyes still holding his. “If you insist...”

Oh, he insisted all right.

Her blouse went the way of her skirt, and her skin felt soft and silky beneath his fingers.

Whole body thrumming with need, he undid the clasp and eased her ivory bra down her arms. Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, taut and round, the nipples rosy and erect. She wore matching panties that were slung low across her hips.

He hooked his thumbs into either side of them and tugged them down. Past the damp curls, her sleek thighs, past her knees. She gasped as he lowered her to the edge of the bed, parted her knees with his hands and buried his face in her sweet warm softness.

“Wyatt...” She caught his head in her hands, quivering now.

“Shhh.” He found his way to the feminine heart of her. “Busy here.”

She laughed softly. Shakily, as if on the verge of a new flood of tears.

Determined to help her find the release she sought, he dropped butterfly kisses, slow and deliberate.

She shuddered again but did not resist as he ran his thumb along the feminine seam, coaxing her to let all her worries, all her inhibitions float away, to open for him even more. She whimpered low in her throat and gave him full rein. He suckled the silky nub and stroked inside her, fluttering his tongue, until she caught his head in her hands and let her thighs fall even farther apart.

She quivered as he cupped her bottom with both hands, lifted her farther back on the mussed sheets of her bed. Pausing only long enough to grab the condom he carried in his wallet, he covered her and penetrated her slowly. She closed around him like a wet, hot sheath, her entire body shivering with need.

Feeling a little like the conqueror who had just captured the fair maiden of his dreams, he kissed her again, slowly tenderly, even as she draped her arms and legs around him and arched up to meet him. Her response, as true and unashamed as he always hoped it would be, he plunged and withdrew, aware of every soft whimper of desire, every wish, every need.

Until there was no more holding back for either of them.

She came apart in his hands. He free-fell right after her. Together they spiraled into ecstasy, and then slowly, breathlessly returned to the most magnificent peace Wyatt had ever known.

For long moments they held each other tightly, still shuddering, breathing hard. Loving the warmth and softness of her, he rolled so he was on his back. Stroking one hand through her hair, he held her nearer still.

Finally she lifted her head, and her hand came to rest in the region of his heart, even as a wry smile curved her kiss-swollen lips.

“So,” she whispered with unexpected playfulness. Ready to do what she always did, which was downplay the import and strength of their connection. “Is this part of our conscious uncoupling, too?”

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