LITMIR.BIZ

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pregnancy at the get-go.”

      “Never an easy thing to do.”

      Liam conceded to that. “And I don’t think she really understood what it is I do—we met when I was here, doing that training. That lasted two months, looked more like a normal job—”

      “But then you deployed...”

      “Right. And even though I’d warned her how it would be when I did, I don’t think it really sank in with her until she actually experienced it a few times. I know when I finally did call her that last time—the call that, according to the nanny, was when Audrey made the decision to take this Owen guy up on his offer—she was pretty upset that there hadn’t been one word from me in a long while.” He tried to get some breakfast down but the appetite he’d woken up with had disappeared, so he just pushed his plate away.

      “Sooo...how are you doing with the idea that these kids could be yours?” Conor asked.

      Liam shook his head. “I’m just kind of in a daze,” he admitted. “Like your message about Declan, the one from the nanny—now guardian—only caught up to me a week ago. I almost thought it was some kind of bad joke. Audrey was dead? She’d left twins that are mine? The kids have no one else and now need me to step in or risk being separated and put into the foster care system?”

      He shook his head again. “It sure as hell seemed like it must be a joke. But then I got to a computer and found an obituary for Audrey that didn’t say how she died but said she was survived by four-year-old twins. Four years plus however many months since they turned four, add nine more—that puts it somewhere in that five-years-ago time slot that I spent with Audrey. And here I am.”

      “Still, you just said yourself that Audrey was a partyer... You are going to test the DNA the way the lawyer told you to, right?”

      “Oh, yeah. This afternoon. I got a text from the nanny saying she scheduled an appointment with the pediatrician to do it.”

      “And what about the nanny?” his brother asked.

       Yeah, what about the nanny...

      That mere mention of Dani Cooper brought the image of her into his head again.

      Not only did she have great skin, she was something to look at all the way around. Exquisite caramel-colored eyes. High cheekbones, a straight nose. Pretty, luscious lips. And a delicate bone structure that gave her a kind of sophisticated, unapproachable beauty.

      Or at least it would have seemed sophisticated and unapproachable if her long, dark brown hair with its rich reddish cast hadn’t been in some kind of weird style that he couldn’t imagine she’d done on purpose. But the style was so weird—and silly—that it had softened the distant, classy beauty.

      And she had one damn fine body to go with it—trim without being too skinny, not tall, curves in all the right places.

      One damn fine body that she’d been using to gyrate like a crazy woman with as much abandon as the kids when he’d first pulled up to the house and could see what was going on inside.

      And yeah, he had to admit that even though the kids had been the reason he was there, even though he’d been sleep deprived and freaked out at the thought that the kids might actually prove to be his, it was still the nanny who had caught his attention. And held it for a while, sitting in his rented SUV, unable to take his eyes off her.

      But what about the nanny—that’s what his brother had asked.

      “What do you mean?” he answered with a question of his own because all he could think about was the way she looked and he didn’t think Conor was asking about that.

      “You said she was the guardian now,” Conor reminded him.

      “Right. I guess she’s been their nanny for a few years, and when Audrey and her husband died she had Audrey’s husband’s attorney go to court to have her named as the kids’ temporary guardian so they could stay in their own home for now.”

      “That’s nice of her. That’s got to mean she went from taking care of them as just her job to being completely responsible for them and playing single parent 24-7?”

      “Yeah, that’s the way I’m understanding it.”

      “That’s above and beyond the call of duty.”

      “Yeah,” he agreed, realizing that he’d been so busy thinking about how she looked that he hadn’t given her credit for that. And he should have.

      “Are you going to start trading shifts with her?” Conor asked then. “Taking care of the kids part of the time so she can get away?”

      “Oh, god no!” Liam said, feeling a rise in his stress level at that idea. “I figure if the court appointed her as their guardian she has to stick around, right? And she needs to—I don’t have a clue what to do with them. I mean, I said I want to get to know them, that I thought it would be good for them to get to know me, in case I am their father. That it would be good for me to learn the ropes. And that if by some chance I’m not their father, I want to make sure they get well taken care of for Audrey’s sake. But I can’t be left alone with them.”

      His brother’s expression was amused and sympathetic at once. “Okay. But you know that if you are their father eventually that could happen?”

      “I... Yeah... But that isn’t right now. Right now the nanny will be there and I’m just planning to lend a hand. To follow her lead. I can’t be left alone with them,” he repeated.

      His brother grinned. “So you’re really terrified of them?”

      “Wouldn’t you be?”

      “I had to do a rotation in pediatrics so I’ve had a little experience,” Conor said of his training as a doctor.

      Liam got up from the kitchen table and took his plate to the sink to rinse it and do what he could to calm his nerves over a prospect he hadn’t considered before this: being left alone with twin four-year-olds.

      Once he felt as if he had some control, he turned back to his brother and said, “I just have to do what I have to do. Whatever that is.”

      “Sure,” Conor agreed. “And I’m here for you, if there’s anything I can do.”

      “You can take me shopping for some clothes,” Liam said. “I don’t have any civvies with me—I pretty much just threw what I needed to travel in a duffel and took off. And I think the uniform makes me a little intimidating to the kids.”

      “Whose names are?”

      “Oh, yeah, they have names,” Liam said, sounding overwhelmed and at sea. “The girl is Evie. The boy is Grady.”

      “Evie Madison. Grady Madison. I guess that works,” Conor mused.

      “Yeah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Liam cautioned, thinking that he could only handle so much at a time.

      And also thinking how grateful he was that Dani Cooper really would be there to hold his hand through what seemed like the most daunting mess he’d ever been in.

      Well, not to literally hold his hand.

      Although there was something about that idea that made the thought of going back to the house to face what he had to face much easier...

      * * *

      “That man from last day is coming back and we have to go to the doctor with him?” Evie said, questioning what Dani had just told her and her brother.

      “The man who was here last night,” Dani corrected. “Remember his name is Liam, and yes, he’s coming with us to the doctor.”

      She was combing Evie’s long hair and putting it into pigtails while Grady watched.

      “But we aren’t sick,” he pointed out. “Why do we have to go to the doctor? Are we gonna hafta have shots?”

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