LITMIR.BIZ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “What’s going on?”

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

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

      * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Jackie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       “Connor, we want to have a baby.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       They’d spent the day together, catching a movie, going to check out the Porsche Connor was thinking of buying and ending up back at his house for a quick one-on-one game of basketball. She hadn’t said a word

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