LITMIR.BIZ

      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

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