LITMIR.BIZ

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once soft adolescent face had been hardened by life but was no less handsome for whatever trials the years had given him.

      Along with her brother Mason, Simon had picked on her incessantly when she was a soft-hearted, impressionable teenager, but that hadn’t kept her from crushing on him. There was one prank in particular that had stayed with her that had, in a way, informed the woman she’d become when she’d left Wildhorn to pursue a career in photography in Los Angeles.

      He probably didn’t even remember the hurtful incident that had so mortified her, and if he did, it was probably only as a humorous blip on his radar.

      She scoffed softly and shook her head. She’d just been a silly lovesick teenager. It had been a long time since high school, and she’d tucked her memories of Simon, both the nice and the not-so-nice, deep into her heart and locked them away for good.

      Or so she’d thought.

      Naturally, she’d known when she’d moved back to Wildhorn that Simon would eventually cross her path. He and Mason were still best friends.

      But she wasn’t in any particular hurry to see him again, and she definitely hadn’t expected the explosion of emotion she’d felt when he’d walked in the door of her cabin and she’d first met his sea-blue-eyed gaze. It was as if a boxful of fireworks had suddenly gone off in her chest.

      Oh, she remembered Simon, all right. So much more than she wanted to admit. She still recalled every detail of her high school years, every single time she’d lingered by his locker in hopes of seeing him, or stared up at the ceiling in her bedroom, listening to sad songs and pining for the boy in the next room playing video games with her brother.

      As an adult, she’d had her heart thoroughly broken by a man using her to further his career. She’d learned from that, and her trust didn’t come easily anymore. She’d sealed up her heart and intended to keep it that way.

      Which was all the more reason for this first encounter with Simon not to be an emotional explosion.

      She’d been so certain she’d prepared her heart for the eventuality of seeing him again, now that she was home. That any silly teenage emotions she’d felt for him were far behind her.

      Clearly not so much.

      And anyway—why had he mysteriously shown up at her cabin, insisting that he wanted to talk to her?

      She blew out a breath and straightened her shoulders. It wasn’t doing her any good to hide in the nursery speculating over what he might be doing here. The only way she would find out what Simon wanted was to talk to him.

      With a sigh, she gave the twins one last loving glance and quietly closed the door to the nursery behind her.

      The first thing she did when she entered the kitchen was grab the baby monitor and place it on the table between them like a shield as she slid into a chair across from Simon. She’d brewed coffee earlier in the day, and he’d taken the initiative to pour them each a cup and warm the brew in the microwave.

      “Cream or sugar?” Miranda asked, taking a fortifying sip of the hot liquid.

      He shook his head. “Dark.”

      Kind of like the look he was giving her right now.

      “I’m going to come right to the point,” he said, moving straight past polite niceties and digging right in. “I have some concerns about Mary naming you the twins’ guardian when Mason and Charlotte clearly would have been the better choice.”

      She choked on her coffee.

      Of all the rude and unconscionable declarations he could have made...

      His words were so blunt they hit her like a sledgehammer. She scrunched her brow and bit the inside of her lip in a desperate attempt to keep him from seeing how much his statement had hurt her.

      “And this is your business how?”

      He lifted his chin and narrowed his now ice-blue eyes. “I have a vested interest in them and have every intention of protecting them. I expect to have the opportunity to spend time with them and really get to know them. I’m their godfather, which you would have known if you had bothered to attend Harper and Hudson’s christening.”

      “Wow. Judgmental much?”

      “Just telling it like it is.”

      Miranda’s first impulse was to argue with him, except for one tiny detail—

      He was right.

      She had missed the twins’ christening, something that she now deeply regretted. If she could dial time back...but she couldn’t. All she could do at this point was own up to her past mistakes and move forward from here.

      “You’re right,” she admitted softly.

      Simon looked as if he was about to speak, but then he cut himself short and stared at her openmouthed.

      “I’m sorry. Did you just say I was right?”

      Clearly that wasn’t the response he’d expected. For a man who didn’t know her, he certainly had his opinions about her firmly in place.

      She couldn’t help but be a little resentful, but she pressed back the prickly feelings in her chest and continued.

      “I wasn’t at the babies’ christening, and I should have been. With John’s schedule as a surgeon, Mary and John were only in Wildhorn for that one weekend. They couldn’t change their schedule, so I should have. No matter what my reasons, I let my career take precedence over my family, and there’s no excuse for that, so I’m not offering any.”

      Once again, he hesitated before speaking.

      “Special client?” he guessed, curling his hands around the mug of coffee.

      “A-list actors in a private ceremony.” She sighed. “It wasn’t about money or prestige. Both actors were and are close personal friends of mine. The wedding had been planned for a year in advance and I had committed to shooting it well before the twins were even conceived, never mind born. In any other circumstances, I would have excused myself from the shoot and found another photographer to take my place for them.”

      “That probably wouldn’t have been a good move for your career, though, right? You wouldn’t want to be seen to be reneging on your obligations,” he said drily.

      She couldn’t tell whether he was beginning to see her side of the story or whether he was trying to coax her into digging herself deeper into the muck of remorse and shame. Not that it mattered either way.

      “Maybe. I had a reputation for being especially trustworthy. But I would have survived, even if my career took a hit. As it is, now that I’m stepping into my new role as Harper and Hudson’s mother, my celebrity photography days are history, anyway. So in the long run, it didn’t really matter.”

      She felt slightly nostalgic at the admission, but surprisingly not sad or regretful. She’d left celebrity photography in the past, where she now knew it permanently belonged. How could it be otherwise?

      It didn’t matter if she’d made the decision to forage into the realm of motherhood unaided by circumstance, or whether she’d been thrust into the role by a tragedy. She had done everything she’d desired to do in her career, and it was time to come home. Hudson and Harper’s guardianship had simply given her a push in the right direction.

      Home.

      “This must be a jarring change for you, going from the lifestyle you’ve been leading to living in a guest cabin on your brother’s ranch.”

      Again, she felt as if he was probing for answers beneath the surface and possibly trying to trip her up.

      She shook her head. “Don’t forget I grew up here. It’s not that much of a culture shock for me to return to my roots.”

      And if it was, she most certainly wasn’t going to admit that to Simon. She still had the feeling he was pushing

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