LITMIR.BIZ

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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,

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