Twins

September 2020

Double Trouble

November 2020

Twin Heirs

December 2020

Their Twin Baby Surprise

January 2021

Double the Love

About the Author

CHRISTY JEFFRIES graduated from the University of California, Irvine and received her Juris Doctor from California Western School of Law. But drafting court documents and working in law enforcement was merely an apprenticeship for her current career in the relentless field of mummyhood and romance writing. She lives in Southern California with her patient husband, two energetic sons, and one sassy grand-mother. Follow her on Facebook or visit her website at www.christyjeffries.com

The Matchmaking Twins

Christy Jeffries

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-04138-6

THE MATCHMAKING TWINS

© 2016 Christy Jeffries

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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To my great-aunt, Mary Jane Templeton. Thank you for providing me with so much characterization for this story and thank you for providing me with so much love and acceptance as a child. I miss our shopping trips, our beauty parlor visits, and our lunches out. I’m sure Heaven has a lot more gold painted pine cones, Pepsi-Cola, and Grand Ole Opry episodes now that you’re there.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Officer Maria Carmen Delgado had once come under heavy fire while guarding some of the most remote military encampments in the world before leaving the Marine Corps to become a cop, patrolling the roughest gang neighborhoods in Las Vegas. But eight-year-old twins Aiden and Caden Gregson of Sugar Falls, Idaho, were certainly going to be the death of her.

“Boys,” she said as she unlocked the driver’s-side door to her squad car. “I told you that if you were going to ride along with me, you had to promise to stay in the backseat of the Explorer.”

“Sorry, Officer Carmen,” Aiden said, looking anything but remorseful. “Chief Cooper was calling you on the radio, and we had to tell him that you were ten-seven ’cause you were taking a leak. We couldn’t figure out the secret code for the leak part.”

When she’d volunteered for the after-school mentorship program at Sugar Falls Elementary, she’d expected to get assigned as a quasi-big-sister to some disadvantaged young girl. She hadn’t expected the director to pair her up with a couple of identical little boys with a penchant for mischief and a knack for speaking their overly bright minds.

Normally she only hung out with the Gregson twins when she was off duty. But the officer scheduled to relieve her had come down with the flu and the small-town police department was still new and slightly understaffed, so she’d volunteered to stay late and cover his shift. Since Carmen didn’t like letting anyone down, she’d gotten special permission to pick the boys up from school in her patrol vehicle and bring them back to the station. It would only be for an hour, she’d told herself. What trouble could they possibly get into in that amount of time?

She should’ve known better.

So far, they’d already locked themselves inside a jail holding cell, lost a week’s worth of their allowance money by betting the dispatcher she couldn’t finish their math homework and got kicked out of the local Gas N’ Mart.

And now they’d just told her boss that she’d been taking a leak. Actually, Carmen wished it was just that simple to use the restroom while wearing all her tactical gear along with her police uniform—especially since she went more frequently following her surgery.

Because she couldn’t very well take the boys inside the ladies’ room with her, she’d told them to stay put inside her cruiser and asked Scooter Deets, one of the older volunteer firefighters who was parked nearby, to keep an eye on the twins. Apparently, ol’ Scooter was no better at maintaining control than she was.

Carmen shook her head, thankful the bobby pins securing her coiled bun prevented her hair from being as frazzled as her nerves.

“I knew I never should have let you guys learn our radio codes. You two are in violation of ten-thirty and about to become ten-fifteens,” she said, referring to their unauthorized use of police equipment.

“Wait.” Caden pulled out the little notepad he’d started carrying in his pocket lately. “What’s a ten-fifteen again?”

“It’s a prisoner in custody,” his twin brother answered before flashing his cheeky smile, minus two recently lost incisors.

“Hey, Officer Carmen, will you teach us Spanish, too?”

“Vámanos, mi liositos,” she said before shooing them out of the front and using the handheld radio mic to respond to her boss.

“Sorry about that, Chief,” she said after his voice crackled on the other end. “The Gregson twins are officially on administrative suspension for disobeying a direct order to stay put in the backseat.”

“Roger that,” her boss said. “Tell them that their dad came by the station to pick them up, but since you all were still out, I told Luke that you’d meet him at the Little League fields. You can drop them off there.”

Her belly twisted and she resisted the urge to throw the mic out the window. Captain Luke Gregson, the twins’ father, was the last person she wanted to see today. Or, really, any day for the matter. But she couldn’t say that to Chief Cooper.

“Ten-four,” she replied instead, before clicking off. Then she turned to her two mischievous passengers. “Buckle up, kiddos.”

“Can we go Code Three with the lights and sirens and everything?” Caden asked as she pulled the vehicle back onto the main highway and headed toward the small park on the other side of town. “Dad’s gonna make us do extra laps if we’re late to practice.”

She should’ve just taken the boys to the ball fields after school and let them run wild. Maybe if they got more of their energy out, they wouldn’t be prone to getting into so much trouble. Not that anyone ever really disciplined the adorable rascals.

And speaking of their lack of discipline, by having to take them directly to baseball practice, she’d be forced to shoot the breeze with their father, the hunky and obviously heartbroken Captain Gregson. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the handsome and widowed Navy SEAL turned recruiter. Or that Carmen didn’t know how to talk to men. It was just that the man had this extremely frustrating habit of treating Carmen like she was one of the guys.

Of course, she couldn’t really blame him, or the rest of the males in the small touristy town of Sugar Falls. With her long black hair always pulled into a tight no-nonsense bun and a complete lack of makeup, Carmen was used to working in a male-dominated environment and having to fit in with the good ol’ boys.

It was difficult for people to see that beneath the Kevlar vest and the blue polyester unisex uniform, she was still one-hundred-percent female. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, she rested the other one underneath her sturdy leather duty belt and rubbed along her longest scar. Well, she was mostly female.

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and tried to focus on the innocent chatter of the eight-year-olds behind her. In her brain, she knew that she was a strong woman and her ability to have children, or lack thereof, should not define her.

But there was always that niggling sense of what she’d lost.

“Hey, Officer Carmen,” Caden said, breaking her negative reverie. “Are you gonna be at our game this Saturday? Dad and Coach Alex said I could be lead batter.”

Carmen sagged against her seat, wishing she could go to all the twins’ games. But no matter how much the two charming troublemakers were growing on her, she’d rather relive her emergency surgery than be faced with spending more time near their father, Captain Dimples.

Luke had returned to town only a month after she’d taken the position with the Sugar Falls Police Department. When she’d been in the Marine Corps, she’d heard about his elite Special Ops team who’d carried out some of the deadliest missions in Afghanistan. Of course, she hadn’t thought that one of its members would eventually end up living in the same small city. Or that said member would have such adorable kids, who needed more supervision than the single dad could provide.

She especially didn’t know that he’d be so damn good-looking.

“I’m not sure about this weekend,” Carmen said. “We’ll see what my schedule looks like.”

“Aw, c’mon, Officer Carmen,” Aiden chimed in. “Ever since Aunt Kylie had her babies, we’re the only kids on the team who don’t have someone in the stands cheering for us.”

Her chest grew heavy with guilt and she tugged on her weighted vest as if she could physically relieve the pressure. Here she’d been feeling sorry for herself and the fact that she’d never have a family of her own, yet these poor young children had to grow up without a mom. As much as she’d bonded with the two wild and wonderful boys, was she doing them all a disservice by allowing herself to get too close to them when what they really needed was a mother figure?

She was usually much more empathetic than this, which was why she’d been a good MP and an even better cop in Vegas. It was why she’d made the big move to a small town like Sugar Falls in the first place. She needed to find herself again.

And she needed to get her emotions in check.

She pulled into the dirt lot behind the bleachers and was saved from making any additional commitments by the sudden appearance of the tall, muscular, blond male walking toward them and waving.

Her stomach grew uncomfortable and she almost undid her seat belt, thinking the baton attached to her duty belt had shifted and was digging into her flesh. But she knew the feeling well enough to realize it wasn’t from anything she was wearing. She got that same tightening of her insides every time she saw Captain Luke Gregson.

“Hey, monkeys,” he said to his children as he leaned into the open driver’s-side window. “Did you guys catch any crooks today?” His face was close enough that she could see where he’d cut himself shaving this morning. And she could smell the lemon and oak moss scent of his aftershave.

Button it up, Delgado, she told herself.

“Well, we almost stopped a robbery at the Gas N’ Mart,” one of the kids said from the backseat. But Carmen was so focused on not attaching her nose to the tanned and fragrant skin on Luke’s neck that she couldn’t tell which of the boys was talking. “We were getting our slushies and a man walked in with his hat pulled down past his eyebrows and he was reaching into his back pocket, like he was gonna pull out a gun.”

Luke raised one brow, clearly aware of his children’s fondness for exaggeration. Carmen should interject here, but she was too busy commanding her tummy to relax to get any words out.

“So, me and Caden made a run for him, ’cause we were gonna karate chop him up before he could start shooting down the place.”

“Oh, crap,” Luke muttered, and she finally got her hormones under control so she could explain.

“Don’t worry.” She put her hand up as though she could physically stop his thoughts. Then she returned it to the wheel when she realized how close it was to touching his face. “It was only Scooter Deets, and he was reaching for his wallet, not a gun.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t recognize him ’cause he wasn’t wearing his normal Boise State cap. His new goat chewed a hole clean through it, and now he has to wear a diff’rent one until he goes into the big city next month.”

The big city was Boise. It was only an hour’s drive down the mountain, but it was probably a yearly excursion for a local like Scooter.

“So nobody actually got hurt?” Luke asked. Was it her imagination or was his sudden release of air a little too warm and minty? “There wasn’t any damage?”

“Well, Scooter didn’t really get hurt ’cause we landed on all those chips when we jumped at him. But Mrs. Marconi told Officer Carmen that someone was gonna hafta pay for a new display stand since hers is all bent up now.”

Luke drew his fingers through his short military-cut hair. Carmen had seen the exasperated mannerism several times just this past month and knew the poor dad was once again frustrated at his children’s antics. “Okay, boys. Hop out and go warm up for practice. I already put your gear in the dugout.”

“Do we hafta do extra laps?” Aiden wanted to know as they exited her car.

“You will if you don’t mind your manners and thank Officer Delgado for putting up with you two this afternoon.”

“Thanks, Officer Carmen,” Aiden said. Ever since she’d taken the job with the police department, the twins were the only people in town who called her by her first name. Well, actually her middle name, since Maria Carmen was a mouthful even to her.

“Yeah, thanks,” Caden added. “We’ll see you next Tuesday again. And maybe Saturday for the game, remember?”

After this afternoon, she was looking forward to a little peace and quiet. But would it really be almost a whole week before she’d get to see them again?

“I’ll see you next Tuesday, but I don’t know about Saturday, yet.” Unfortunately, her last sentence wasn’t even heard by the two boys who were now running toward their teammates.

“So, do I really have to pay for a new chip display at the Gas N’ Mart?” Luke asked.

Uh-oh. He was still there. And her little towheaded buffers had made a beeline for the field. She shifted her hips to the right, but because of her holster knocking into the seat belt buckle, she couldn’t scoot any farther away from him.

“It really didn’t look too busted to me,” she said, thankful she was wearing her mirrored aviator sunglasses. Hopefully Luke couldn’t tell that she was barely able to make eye contact with him. “I set it back up and the boys put all the bags that didn’t burst open back on the shelves. I was going to have them clean up the broken chips, but I think Elaine Marconi just wanted us to get out of there at that point. She was annoyed, but she has kids of her own so she didn’t seem too put out. I’ll have the chief let you know if she files a claim for damages.”

There. She’d directed any future conversation through her boss, who also happened to be Luke’s friend. While she loved spending time with his funny and impulsive children, being around the man himself caused the butterflies fluttering around in her stomach to migrate straight to her brain.

“Those boys are going to be the death of me,” he said, voicing aloud the exact thought she’d had forty minutes ago. His forearms now rested on her windowsill, as though he wasn’t planning to shove off anytime soon.

“Anyway, I’m sorry we’re late. It was my fault,” she said quickly, hoping he’d take the hint that she was in a hurry to finish the conversation.

“Don’t worry about it. Listen, I really appreciate you spending time with them after school. I’m sure you have much more important things to do around town than play big sister to a couple of little monkeys.” The way he smiled showed his dimples to advantage and indicated that he used the nickname for his kids out of affection.

But she wasn’t particularly fond of the way he classified her into his sons’ peer age range, as if she wasn’t just a few years younger than Luke, himself. At least he’d said sister, though, and not brother. That was something, right?

As much as she wanted to get far, far away from his sexy grin, politeness dictated she respond. “Actually,” she said, “you may find this hard to believe, but the Sugar Falls PD doesn’t see too much action on the weekdays. Foiling a nonrobbery at the Gas N’ Mart has been the most exciting thing to happen on one of my shifts since last January when those tourists didn’t check out of the Snow Creek Lodge by eleven o’clock.”

She clamped her lips tightly together after she spoke. Why did she do that? Why did she always downplay the importance of her job—the value of her abilities? Shrinks would probably say it was some type of residual defense mechanism from growing up in her oversize machismo family or trying not to stand out in a male-dominated profession.

“Still, I know they’re in good hands with you.” Did the man ever stop smiling? “Coop said you outwrestled half his force in defensive tactics training last week.”

“That’s not saying much considering we only have four other officers on staff.” There she went again. She should be proud that she was an expert in martial arts. But she didn’t want Luke to think of her as some juiced-up, studly gladiator. She wanted him to see her as…

Stop. It was this kind of foolish thinking that would seriously undermine all the work she’d put into getting her mind right and her head back in the game since she’d broken up with Mark and moved here. Man, she needed to get away from Luke and her AWOL thoughts.

Thinking quickly, she reached beneath the dashboard and double clicked on the mic of her bandwidth radio, causing the volunteer dispatcher to respond. Carmen clicked on the mic again, then leaned down toward the radio as though she was listening to something Luke couldn’t hear.

The resulting static probably wouldn’t fool a former SEAL, but she went through the pretense of answering a phony call out. “Ten-four. I’m en route.”

She looked back at him as she put the vehicle in gear. “Gotta run,” she said, barely waiting for him to move his arms off the window before tearing out of the dirt lot.

That was the worst fake radio call out Luke had ever seen. And he should know. He’d trained as a communications specialist before going through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training.

He watched Officer Delgado drive off, gravel crunching and dust flying. Why had she been in such a hurry to get away from him? Was he giving off that lonely “I need to talk to someone who understands kids” vibe again? He rubbed his forehead, then dragged his fingers through his hair before shoving his hands in his jeans pockets.

His twin brother, Drew, said it was obvious whenever Luke was missing the guys from his unit—or worse, when he’d been in the cabin all weekend with his squirrelly sons and he needed adult conversation—because it was the only time Luke uttered more than a few sentences.

But moving to Sugar Falls to become a full-time dad, changing assignments from team leader of an elite Special Forces unit to pushing paper at the naval recruiting office outside of Boise…well, it was all proving to be more challenging than he’d anticipated.

Luke poked his athletic shoe at some tiny rocks that had been kicked up from Carmen’s patrol car as she’d blasted out of the lot. The action was instinctive, as though his feet needed the physical reminder that he was actually standing on solid ground.

He thought back to the night before Samantha’s accident several years ago. Luke had been in a training exercise where the team was being hoisted from the ocean and into a hovering Osprey helicopter. It was dark and the water was choppy, with waves crashing over his head. When it had been his turn, part of his safety harness ripped and he’d had to hold on to the cable with his bare hands to keep from dropping. He’d dangled like that, with the chopper blades stirring up more wind force than the actual storm, for at least a minute before being pulled up to safety.

Ever since his wife had died, he hadn’t been able to shake that feeling of being suspended in the air, swinging above a raging dark sea and holding on as if his life depended on it.

“Hey, Dad,” Aiden yelled from the outfield. “Are ya comin’ or what?”

He waved at the boy and started to jog toward the dugout. He needed a good run tonight. Something that would clear his thoughts or at least make his mind too tired to think.

“How’s Officer Delgado today?” Alex Russell, the team coach, asked Luke when he finally made it back to the dugout. He liked Alex, whose family owned the local sporting goods store, but he didn’t like the sly half smile the man was now wearing.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Even Luke heard the unfamiliar agitation in his voice.

“I’ve just noticed that she’s been dropping the boys off at practice a few weeks in a row.”

“Yeah, that mentorship program at the school finally found someone who was willing to take them on. Once a week, I have to stay at the recruiting office later and can’t pick the boys up, so I think Delgado must’ve taken pity on them—the people who work at the after-school program, that is.”

“Some kids have all the luck.”

His kids? Lucky? No way. They’d already lost their mom before they could really remember her and they’d been bounced around with various relatives while Luke had played Captain Save-the-World. Now it was taking a whole ski resort village to raise the lovable little hellions. “What do you mean?”

“Not only do they get to hang out with a cop, which would be any boy’s dream, but they get to ride around with the hottest one on the force.”

“Officer Delgado?” Okay, so Luke was faking the surprise in his voice. The woman was naturally beautiful with those classic high cheekbones and full lips, but he’d quickly gotten the impression from the woman herself, as well as most of the other men in town, that she definitely was not on the market—not that he was, either. So then why was Alex bringing up her hotness?

“C’mon. Like you haven’t noticed the way she fills out that uniform.”

Sure he had, and he wanted to take the aluminum bat leaning against the fence and swing it at the head coach for even suggesting that he’d noticed, too.

Whoa. Shake it off, Gregson. What was up with the irrational jealousy?

“I try not to,” Luke said, his jaw locking around each word. And that was true. He felt guilty sometimes just for looking at her.

“Hell, we all try not to, Luke. She obviously isn’t the type to flaunt anything and probably wouldn’t appreciate it if we were noticing. She’s all business, that one.” Alex picked up a glove and patted his shoulder before walking out of the dugout. “Let’s get started, boys!”

Maybe Luke wasn’t the only guy in town who Officer Delgado wasn’t warming up to. He should be somewhat relieved that it wasn’t just him. Still, the woman turned into a block of ice whenever he spoke to her, and he didn’t know what to make of that. Luke wasn’t usually so chatty, but he’d tried to talk to her about things they could possibly have in common—like the military or martial arts. Once, he even asked her what she bench-pressed because, clearly, the shapely woman worked out. Yet, unless they were talking about the twins, she shut down completely every time.

She’d made it plain that she was indifferent to him, but for some damn reason, anytime he was within a few feet of her, he couldn’t get his mouth to stop yapping.

Not that he was actually interested in Carmen like that. Or in any woman, for that matter. When he’d been active on the team and going to bars with his single buddies, he’d had no problem charming the ladies. But those days were over soon after he’d met Samantha.

After his wife died, it had taken him a while to get his head back on straight, and he wasn’t entirely convinced he’d succeeded yet. He used to think that volunteering for the most dangerous missions and staring his fears in the face would make him feel more in control. Then, after a near-death experience last summer, he realized he couldn’t be so selfish as to put Aiden and Caden at risk of becoming total orphans. So he’d settled down and aimed for the safety net of Sugar Falls.

Now all his charm was exclusively used for smoothing over the trouble his children unintentionally caused. So far, neither his charm nor his commitment to his children had diminished that dangling, out-of-control feeling he still got. To make matters worse, when Carmen Delgado was around, his safety net seemed further away than ever—and he wasn’t sure he could survive another free-fall.

Chapter Two

Carmen had just finished lunch at the Cowgirl Up Café on Snowflake Boulevard and was walking back to the station to do some paperwork before her shift was over when a very pregnant Mia McCormick waved her over from across the street.

“Hey, Officer Delgado, you’re just the person I wanted to talk to,” Mia said as she held open the door to the Sugar Falls Cookie Company to allow Kylie Gregson, the twins’ aunt, to maneuver her double stroller inside. “Do you have a second?”

“Sure.” Carmen followed the women into the little shop that brought so much business to Sugar Falls. She inhaled the scent of vanilla and looked around at the cute displays to see what the flavor of the month was. She’d always been a sucker for fresh baked goods, and even though the turkey sandwich and potato salad she’d finished a few minutes ago threatened to pop open the button on her uniform pants, she might order a couple of cookies and save them for later.

She tried to look anywhere but at the other customers who cooed and made googly eyes at the twin baby girls, talking to Kylie and Mia about feedings and diapers and all the things Carmen would never get to experience.

Carmen had never felt like such an outsider, which was saying something considering she’d been the only female in her MP unit and had had to hoof it clear across the base to take a shower in the women’s head while all of her coworkers got to use the communal locker room.

At least as a Marine and a cop, she had the job in common with her male counterparts. But there was absolutely nothing she could say at that second that would make her fit in with this duo of mommies. And she never would.

When the customers finally left, Mia said, “I’m so behind schedule. I should’ve taken Maxine up on her offer to deliver the cookies to the old Remington Theater for tonight’s dance recital.”

Maxine owned the Sugar Falls Cookie Company and was married to Carmen’s boss. Since Carmen knew Chief Cooper was off duty this afternoon to accompany his wife to an obstetrician appointment, she doubted the pregnant dance teacher would get much help running errands. Maybe that’s what Mia wanted to talk to her about. But before Carmen could remind the woman she was on duty, the other mom spoke up.

“Thank goodness you got the city council to okay you using the old theater for performances,” Kylie said to Mia as she rocked her stroller back and forth. She directed her next comment at Carmen. “Sometimes I worry about my girls growing up in a small city with a limited access to culture, so having a legitimate venue for school plays and band concerts is a total win. Last year, when the community center got double booked, we had to watch the fifth grade’s talent show while the bingo club was shouting out B-39 and O-14 the whole time.”

Carmen smiled politely as the women laughed. She hadn’t been in Sugar Falls very long, so she didn’t share the same memories, but she appreciated these ladies including her in the conversation and not making her feel so out of the loop. Although she was still waiting for them to clue her in on why they wanted to talk to her.

“You’re from Vegas originally, right?” Kylie asked before reaching into the stroller and unstrapping the infant who’d started fussing. Carmen nodded but averted her eyes quickly for fear that if she watched the tender maternal moment too long, she wouldn’t be able to look away. In which case, they’d probably see the hunger and the desperation in her eyes. She planned to avoid that scenario. Sympathy was never easy for her to handle.

“Hey, I thought I saw my nieces being wheeled in here,” a masculine voice said from the doorway. Carmen didn’t have to turn around to recognize the speaker. Her stomach’s telltale reaction to his voice already alerted her.

She told herself it was due to the big lunch she’d just consumed, not his unexpected arrival. Just like it was the sudden crisp spring air rushing in from the open door that caused the shiver to race from inside her starched collar all the way down her spine—not Luke Gregson, himself.

Maybe if she repeated that lame excuse eight more times, she might actually believe it.

The tall man was dressed in his blue battle dress uniform, looking like he’d spent all morning modeling in a photo shoot for some Navy recruitment poster. She would think that seeing him in his military uniform would trick her mind into believing that he was just like every other guy she’d worked with over the past ten years.

But judging from the second shiver making its way down her back, it wasn’t her mind doing the thinking.

A sudden wail jerked Carmen’s attention from the muscular male legs tucked into shiny black boots and toward the small bundle of pink still strapped in the stroller.

“Oh, no.” The pitch in Luke’s normally deep voice raised a few octaves as he reached for his other niece, talking to her. “Did your mean ol’ mama pick up your sister and leave you behind all alone in this big contraption?”

“Luke Gregson.” Kylie stood up even taller than her five-foot-ten height as she faced her brother-in-law. “If you call me or my fashionable stroller ‘old’ one more time, I will drive straight to the school and tell your sons that you promised to take them and five of their best friends camping this weekend.”

“Aw, come on, Kylie.” Luke’s voice sounded just like his sons last week when Carmen had told them they had to practice their spelling words before she took them to Noodie’s Ice Cream Shoppe. “That’s not cool. It’s supposed to rain this weekend, and you know what happened last time I let them invite a friend—one friend—for a sleepover at the cabin. I still have mustard and toilet paper stuck to the living room ceiling.”

Carmen laughed. It didn’t take much to imagine how Aiden and Caden had managed that.

“Hey, Officer Delgado.” Luke finally turned his warm gaze to her. Seeing him holding that precious baby made her stomach drop to her knees, which was the only explanation for why her legs felt so unsteady. “I didn’t expect to see you in here chitchatting the afternoon away with these two.”

Didn’t he? If he saw his sister-in-law and nieces enter the cookie shop, then he had to have seen Carmen come in right behind them. More than likely, he was probably surprised to see her socializing with other women. Not that she wasn’t a little surprised herself.

“First, you call me old and now you suggest we’re all just wasting our time talking about important town business?” Kylie tried to sound stern. “Give me my daughter, Luke. She can’t wait to surprise her cousins at school with the news of their fun-filled weekend.”

Luke maneuvered himself and the pink bundle nestled on his shoulder behind Carmen, as though she were the barrier that would protect him from his brother’s wife, who was clearly only feigning her annoyance. His dimpled smile struck again.

“Now, now, Kylie. You couldn’t ever get mad at me. That’s just the hormones talking.” When his sister-in-law chuckled, Luke finally moved back into the line of fire. “I remember when Samantha had just given birth to the boys and she called my commanding officer in the middle of the night, reading him the riot act because I was still on deployment and she was out of baby wipes and didn’t have any clothes not covered in spit-up that she could wear to the store.”

“Your wife was a saint for putting up with you gone on all that secret assignment mumbo jumbo. I couldn’t even imagine what I’d do if Drew got deployed before the girls go off to graduate school.”

Luke rocked back on his heels but didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. The sadness in his blue eyes and the steeliness of his jaw did the talking for him.

“Oh, my gosh, Luke.” Kylie must’ve seen the same hurt expression cross his face because she tenderly stroked his arm. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay, Kylie. I know what you meant. And you’re right. Samantha did put up with a lot.”

If Carmen had felt mildly awkward before, she was downright uncomfortable at being a witness to his heartache. What was she doing here, anyway? Should she even be listening to them reminisce about his deceased wife, a woman who obviously deserved the pedestal they’d all placed her on?

“So, Mia,” Carmen said, trying to verbally tiptoe her way out of the emotional land mine. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry, I have pregnancy brain and can barely hold on to a passing thought.”

Carmen, knowing she would never be able to personally relate to such a symptom, had no response to that statement. Instead, she forced a smile toward the sweet woman.

“You know how we do group exercise classes at the dance studio?” Mia asked but didn’t wait for a response. “Well, I normally teach a yoga class on Monday mornings, but with the baby due soon, I’m trying to find some substitute instructors while I’m on leave.”

“But I’ve never taught yoga.”

“Delgado’s a Marine,” Luke said, apparently listening in on their conversation. Kylie must’ve decided to distract him from his grief because now he was holding both babies, one nestled against each thick bicep. Whoa.

“She’s a devil dog,” he continued. “They don’t do sissy yoga. Right, Delgado?”

She cringed slightly at the Marine nickname and his inaccurate assessment of her.

“Easy there, skipper,” Carmen said, throwing a naval moniker right back at him. His use of her last name was all the proof she needed that she’d been placed in the Friendzone. It was also a good reminder that she shouldn’t be lusting over him. “You just got out of trouble with Kylie and now you’re trying to pick a fight with Mia, as well? I think you’re underestimating your battle odds.”

Mia’s hand shot between them like a white flag of surrender. “That’s not what I meant. I was actually moving yoga to a different day, which leaves Mondays open. So, I was thinking that maybe you could lead some sort of kickboxing type class or teach self-defense. You know, that type of thing?”

“Oh,” Carmen said, at a loss for words. She hadn’t been expecting the request. She was flattered that the dance instructor thought her capable of teaching, and a little pleased that the small community was beginning to welcome her into their folds. But still. Would other ladies in town even be interested in such a class?

“Give it some thought.” Mia, probably sensing her hesitation, quickly added, “I have the recital tonight, and then the girls and I normally get together on Thursdays for dinner. Why don’t you meet with us tomorrow and we can discuss things more?”

“And by discuss things,” Kylie added, “she means maybe we can help her talk you into it.”

“Uh-oh, Delgado.” Luke smiled showing a single dimple. “These women are trying to get you to come over to the dark side with them. I’m sure you’d rather hang out with us tomorrow at poker night.”

And there she had it. She knew he was part of the group of men who got together with Chief Cooper once a week to play cards. Which meant Luke Gregson definitely thought of her as one of the guys.

It should feel good that both groups wanted her presence at their Thursday night rituals. But there was still the underlying reminder that the man she couldn’t stop thinking about didn’t reciprocate her feelings—and probably never would, considering the loving way he spoke of his late wife. It was enough to dash all hope of her ever finding a man who would accept a damaged woman.

In the past ten years, Carmen had had her share of poker nights and locker-room jokes and testosterone-fueled bragging. A night out with the girls actually sounded like a nice change of pace.

So she looked at the two women and, for the first time, stepped over the invisible line she believed had been drawn in the sand. “What time should I be there, ladies?”

Could Officer Delgado try any harder to avoid him?

As Luke stood outside the bakery, he had to wonder what he’d done to annoy the beautiful cop. Sure, he enjoyed his sassy sister-in-law and her group of friends. But Carmen didn’t seem like the type of woman to hang out with a bunch of former cheerleaders turned moms.

She had way more in common with him, and he’d simply been trying to point that out. Okay, so maybe he sounded like an arrogant tool with all that ooh rah Marine business. He wasn’t trying to be a chauvinist or imply that she wasn’t capable of teaching yoga. From what he’d seen of her with the twins, and from what he’d heard of her reputation with the MPs, she was one tough cookie.

So then why did she always act like he was a melted chocolate chip stuck to the bottom of her black utility boot?

He would’ve asked Kylie if he’d done anything to offend Carmen, but she’d sat down to nurse one of the girls and Luke had gotten the heck out of Dodge. Not that he was uncomfortable with seeing a woman breast-feed. At least, he doubted he would be. He’d been on a classified mission when his own boys were born, and by the time he’d come home, Samantha had decided that formula was much easier for her. And who was he to object? He couldn’t be there all the time and he still felt immeasurable guilt that his wife had had to do everything on her own.

Not that she’d totally been on her own, he’d found out after the fact. Still, it had been a hell of a lot more than he’d done.

When Aiden and Caden were babies and toddlers, Luke was usually only home for a couple of months at a time. He and his late wife didn’t necessarily share the same parenting philosophy, but they also didn’t share the same workload when it came to the kids, so he took a backseat to her softer approach. Then, after her accident, he’d stayed home long enough to help the boys get through the initial grief before his parents convinced him they could help out. Luke had told himself that the three-year-olds needed a mother figure more than they needed him—after all, it was Samantha who had done most of the work so far.

So when Aiden and Caden were staying with different family members and babysitters and he was still out of the country half the time, the boys lost even more structure.

His cell phone rang, and when he saw the number for the elementary school on the display screen, Luke wished for the thousandth time that he’d been more on top of their discipline. He loved his children more than anything, but man, were they magnets for trouble.

“Captain Gregson, here,” he answered.

“Hello, Captain. This is Mrs. Dunn, the nurse over here at Sugar Falls Elementary.”

Thank God, it was the nurse this time, and not the principal. Wow, that was a really bad thought. “Are my sons okay?” he asked.

“Yes, everyone is fine. Now. Caden had a little incident on the tetherball court and Aiden tried to help him get untangled and, well, the rope got caught. Anyway, I think it’s just a bad sprain, but you should probably get some X-rays just in case.”

“Which one?”

“The left one.”

“I mean, which of my children got injured.”

“Aiden has the actual sprain, but from the way Caden is carrying on, you’d think he was the one hurt.”

It was a twin thing. Luke and Drew had experienced the similar phenomenon growing up. And even as adults.

“I’m coming right now. Is his arm in a sling?”

“Uh, no. Why would it be?”

Luke only had basic medic training to assist in emergencies until a corpsmen got to the scene, but it would seem to him like the nurse would at least want to take pressure off the injured body part. “I just thought that maybe it would help stabilize his arm.”

“Oh, sorry, Captain Gregson. I should’ve been clearer. The sprain is to Aiden’s ankle.”

“How in the world did he sprain his ankle with a tetherball rope?”

“That’s a great question, Captain. And as soon as he gets his brother to relax, maybe Aiden can tell us. I had to snatch some pudding cups out of the school cafeteria to help in the calming-down process.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Luke disconnected the call, got into his nana’s brown Oldsmobile and drove less than a mile from downtown to the school. He’d grown up in Boise, but his parents owned a cabin here and he had spent most of his summers in Sugar Falls before joining the Navy. While the town setting was familiar, he was still getting used to the slower pace of life.

He would’ve preferred to drive around in the yellow Jeep his family kept at the cabin, but when his brother, Drew, had stepped in to care for the boys last summer during Luke’s last deployment, his overly cautious and analytical brother had insisted that the thirty-year-old sedan was safer for shuttling children than the fun and masculine four-by-four.

At least the Oldsmobile was in good shape. Before she’d passed away ten years ago, his grandmother had only driven the thing three times a week—to the grocery store, to the beauty shop and to the casino out on the reservation—so it had low mileage and only some minor dings in the right front fender. Nana never could make the tight turn into her carport at the mobile home park.

He kept meaning to buy a more functional and fuel-efficient car, especially since he was making the hour-long commute into Boise four times a week. But, contrary to what Drew and their sister, Hannah, thought, he’d always been Nana’s favorite grandkid and he missed the old gal.

Growing up, Luke had been the naughty twin—the proverbial pastor’s son who drove his mother to distraction. Nana would come pick him up to give his mom a break, calling him her wild child and having him light her menthol cigarettes for her so she could keep both hands on the steering wheel.

He took a deep breath, still able to smell the Benson & Hedges along with the lingering scent of her Shalimar perfume. His parents were fair and loved him, but Nana had been his island—his place to escape. Driving this brown beast made him feel closer to her.

When he pulled into the school lot, he gunned the eight-cylinder engine, just like she used to do, before pulling into a parking spot. He also overestimated his turn radius and the right bumper knocked into the custom sign that read Principal Parking Only.

Yep, just like Nana.

He walked inside and waved at the school secretary, who, after the third week of school, had programmed Luke’s cell number into her phone’s speed dial.

He let out a little sigh of relief when he turned left to go to the nurse’s office instead of heading straight down the hall toward the principal’s. He’d spent plenty of time sitting outside doors just like that one when he was growing up. And, since history seemed to be repeating itself, his children had a tendency to do the same.

Karma was definitely on the upswing with his genetics. Luke’s parents often referred to it as God’s sense of humor.

When he entered the room, he saw Aiden, the injured twin, sitting behind Mrs. Dunn’s desk and showing her how to play a computer game. Caden, the uninjured one, was propped on the cot and eating a chocolate pudding cup. His left foot was elevated on several pillows with an ice pack balanced precariously on top.

Even Luke’s brother, Drew, a well-respected Navy psychologist, couldn’t explain twin telepathy. But both he and Luke had experienced it firsthand and he didn’t doubt for a second that Caden could legitimately feel his brother’s pain.

Although, from the way Aiden was swinging around in the nurse’s chair and yelling commands at the woman on how to fight the Creepers on her computer, it seemed nobody was really the worse for wear.

“Dad? Oh, good. You’re finally here,” Caden said as he sat up and reached for his backpack. “We need to get Aiden to the hospital for some X-rays. Let me see your phone.”

Luke patted his pocket, ensuring his cell was far out of reach from his dramatic and impulsive son. “Who were you planning to call?”

“Officer Carmen. I’m gonna tell her we need a police escort with lights and sirens and the works.”

Luke raised his blond eyebrow at Aiden, who had just high-fived Mrs. Dunn for reaching the next level on his favorite game. “I think your brother will be fine on the way there. We can forgo the Code Three routine.”

Besides, he was pretty sure Carmen was off duty by now. Wait. How had he known that? Had she mentioned her schedule to him when he’d seen her at the cookie shop earlier?

Considering she hadn’t said more than two words to him, he doubted it. So why did he know what her shift was? Because today was Wednesday. And she always worked the afternoon shift on Sundays and Mondays, then the morning shifts on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

He tapped his toe against the linoleum. Yep, the ground was still solid. So then maybe he could stomp out some of this useless information he was carrying around about a woman who would just as soon do fifty pull-ups than say hello to him.

Of course he would know her schedule because Tuesdays were the days she always picked up the boys after school, right after putting in a ten-hour day. He had to give the woman credit for that. She was an absolute sweetheart with the twins and had the patience of Job. Aiden and Caden couldn’t stop talking about her or singing her praises, which was probably why she kept popping up in Luke’s head so often—just like his renewed knowledge of Star Wars sequels, now that he’d shown the DVDs to the boys.

“Sorry to have to bother you at work, Captain,” Mrs. Dunn, the fiftysomething-year-old former Ski Potato Queen, said. He knew she had been on the homecoming court and had earned her crown at the annual ski festival the same decade his grandmother had bought her Oldsmobile because the woman kept the framed pictures and newspaper articles displayed on a shelf right above the bandages and antiseptic wipes.

“Actually, we had a presentation at one of the high schools this morning so I was off early today.”

“Being a recruiter must be so exciting. Helping all those young people find their careers.” When the nurse smiled at him, he noticed some of her coral lipstick had smeared onto her front two teeth, but he didn’t have the heart to point it out to the former beauty queen. When it came to those holding any sort of authority position over his children, he found it best to keep them locked in as allies.

“That’s sweet of you to say. It really makes me appreciate all you school employees do to help shape the minds of our next generation.” Which was true. Luke loved his own boys, but he didn’t think he could deal with so many students and their high-energy personalities on a daily basis. He gave the woman his best get-out-of-trouble smile.

Her mascara-clumped eyelashes fluttered as best they could and he knew he’d hit his mark. She smiled back and said, “I bet the high schoolers just adore having a hotshot hero like you come speak to them.”

In Luke’s mind, being a SEAL wasn’t such a big deal. He had just been doing what he loved. Still, maybe he could ask Nurse Dunn to share her flattering insight with Officer Delgado. Not that he cared what the female cop thought of him.

“Dad?” Aiden tapped him with a one of the crutches he must have borrowed from the school nurse. “You ready?”

“Oh. Um, yeah.” After hearing the nurse explain to Caden that she only had one set of crutches, Luke carried Aiden’s backpack and watched as his injured eight-year-old hobbled in front of him on one foot. His other son trailed behind with only a slight limp.

Anytime he had a slow day at the recruiting office and thought he missed the excitement of Spec Ops, all he had to do was drive home to his children. No amount of skilled warfare training could have prepared him for the adventure that was fatherhood.

Of course, it was times like these when he wished he’d pursued sniper school. Maybe then he’d be better equipped to work without a teammate. Without a partner. Sure, he had his family for backup, but sometimes he felt so alone.

The kids climbed into the back of Nana’s Oldsmobile and then immediately turned the crutches into dueling lightsabers.

It was going to be a very long night.

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