The SEAL's Secret Heirs, page 2
It was twice as hard to accept that after being discharged, he had nowhere to go but back to the ranch where he’d never fit in, never belonged. His injury wasn’t supposed to be a factor as he figured out what to do with the rest of his life, since God hadn’t seen fit to let him die alongside Cortez. But being a father—to twins, no less—meant he had to think about what a busted leg meant for a man’s everyday life. And he did not like thinking about how difficult it was some days to simply stand.
Liam threw up a hand, a scowl crawling onto his expression. “Shut up a minute. No one wrote any checks. You’re the father of the babies, no question.”
Well, Kyle had a few questions. Like why Margaret hadn’t contacted him when she found out she was pregnant. While Liam had little information on his whereabouts, Margaret sure knew how to get in touch. Her girlfriend had been dating Cortez and called him all the time. She’d known exactly where he was stationed.
It was nothing short of unforgivable. “Where’s Margaret?”
“She died,” Liam bit out shortly. “While giving birth. It’s a long story. Do I need to give you a minute?”
Kyle processed that much more slowly than he would have liked. Margaret was dead? It seemed like just yesterday that he’d spent a long weekend with her in a hotel room. She’d been a wildcat, determined to send him back to Afghanistan with enough memories to keep him warm at night, as she’d put it.
He was sad to learn Margaret had passed, sure. He’d liked thinking about her on the other side of the world, living a normal life that he was helping to secure by going after bad guys. But they’d spent less than forty-eight hours together and had barely known each other, by design. He wasn’t devastated—it wasn’t as if he’d lost the love of his life or anything. Not like when he’d lost Grace.
“We used protection,” he muttered. As if that was the most important thing to get straight at this point. “I don’t understand. How did she get pregnant?”
“The normal way, I imagine. Moron.” Liam rolled his eyes the way he’d always done when they were younger. “Do you have any interest whatsoever in meeting your daughters?”
Kyle blinked. “Well...yeah. Of course. What happened to them after Margaret died? Who’s taking care of them?”
“I am. Me and Hadley. Who’s the most amazing woman. She’s the nanny I hired when you didn’t respond to any of my calls.”
Reeling, Kyle tried to gather some of his wits, but they seemed as scattered and filmy as clouds on a mild spring day. “Thanks. That’s... You didn’t have to. That’s above the call of duty.”
Liam crossed his arms, biceps rippling under the sleeve of his T-shirt. “They’re great babies. Beautiful. And I didn’t do it for you. I did it because I love them. Hadley and I, we’re planning to keep on taking care of them, too.”
“That’s not going to happen. You’ve spent the last ten minutes whaling on me about not coming home to take responsibility for this. I’m here. I’m man enough to step up.” He set his jaw, which still throbbed. “I want to see them.”
The atmosphere fairly vibrated with animosity as they stared each other down, neither blinking, neither backing down. Something flickered through Liam’s gaze and he gave one curt nod.
“Fine.” Liam called up the stairs off the kitchen that led to the upper stories.
After the longest three minutes of Kyle’s life, he heard footsteps and a pretty, blonde woman who must be the nanny came down the stairs. But Kyle only had eyes for the pink bundles, one each in the crook of her arms.
Sucker punch number two.
Those were real, live, honest-to-God babies. What the hell was he thinking, saying that he wanted to see them? What was that supposed to prove? That he didn’t know squat about babies?
They were so small. Nearly identical. Twins, like Kyle and Liam. He’d always heard that identical twins skipped generations, but apparently not.
“What are their names?” he whispered.
“Madeline and Margaret Wade,” the woman responded, and the babies lifted their heads toward the sound of her voice. Clearly she’d spent a lot of time with them. “We call them Maddie and Maggie for short.”
Somehow that seemed perfect for their little wrinkled faces. “Can I hold them?”
“Sure. This is Maggie.” She handed over the first one and cheerfully helped Kyle get the baby situated without being asked, which he appreciated more than he could possibly say because his stupid hands suddenly seemed too clumsy to handle something so breakable.
Hey, little girl. He couldn’t talk over the lump in his throat, and no one seemed inclined to make him, so he just looked at her. His heart thumped as it expanded, growing larger the longer he held his daughter. That was a kick in the pants. Who would have thought you could instantly love someone like that? It should have taken time. But there it was.
Now what? What if she cried? What if he cried?
He’d hoped a flood of knowledge would magically appear if he could just get his hands on the challenge. You didn’t learn to hack through vegetation with a machete until you put it in your palm and started hacking.
“You can take her back,” he said gruffly, overwhelmed with all the emotion he had no idea what to do with. But there was still another one. Another daughter. He found new appreciation for the term double trouble.
“This one is Maddie,” the woman said.
Somehow, the other pink bundle ended up in his arms. Instantly, he could tell she was smaller, weighing less than her sister. Strange. She felt even more fragile than her sister, as if Kyle should be careful how heavily he breathed or he might blow her to the ground with an extra big huff.
Equal parts love and fierce devotion surged through the heart he’d already thought was full, splitting it open. She’d need someone to look out for her. To protect her.
That’s on me. My job.
And then being a father made all the sense in the world. These were his girls. The reason he wasn’t dead in a foxhole flopped out next to Cortez right now. The Almighty got it perfectly right some days.
“And this is Hadley Wade, my wife,” Liam broke in with the scowl that seemed to be a permanent part of his face nowadays. “We still introduce ourselves in these parts.”
“It’s okay,” Hadley said with a hand on Liam’s elbow. Her palm settled into the crook comfortably, as if they were intimate often. “Give him a break. It’s a lot to take in.”
“I’m done.” Kyle rubbed his free hand across his military-issue buzz cut, but it didn’t stimulate his brain much. He contemplated Hadley, the woman Liam had casually mentioned that he’d married, as if that was some small thing. “I don’t think there’s much more I can take in. I appreciate what you’ve done in my stead, but these are my girls. I want to be their father, in all the ways that count. I’m here and I’m sticking around Royal.”
That hadn’t been set in his mind until this moment. But it would take a bulldozer to shove him onto a different path now.
“Well, it’s not as simple as all that,” Liam corrected. “Their mama is gone and you weren’t around. So even though I have temporary custody, these girls became wards of the state and had a social worker assigned. You’re gonna have to deal with the red tape before you start joining the PTA and picking out matching Easter dresses.”
Wearily, Kyle nodded. “I get that. What do I have to do?”
Hadley and Liam exchanged glances and a sense of foreboding rose up in Kyle’s stomach.
With a sigh, Liam pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call their social worker. But before she gets here, you should know that it’s Grace Haines.”
Grace. The name hit him in the solar plexus and all the air rushed from his lungs.
Sucker punch number three.
* * *
Grace Haines had avoided looking at the date all day, but it sneaked up on her after lunch. She stared at the letters and numbers she’d just typed on a case file.
March 12. The third anniversary of the day she’d become a Professional Single Girl. She should get cake. Or a card. Something to mark the occasion of when she’d given up the ghost and decided to be happy with her career as a social worker. Instead of continually dating men who were nice enough, but could never live up to her standards, she’d learn to be by herself.
Was it so wrong to want a man who doted on her as her father did with her mother? She wasn’t asking for much. Flowers occasionally. A text message here and there with a heart emoticon and a simple thinking of you. Something that showed Grace was a priority. That the guy noticed when she wasn’t there.
Yeah, that was dang difficult, apparently. The decision to stop actively looking for Mr. Right and start going to museums and plays as a party of one hadn’t been all that hard. As a bonus, she never had to compromise on date night by seeing a science fiction movie where special effects drowned out the dialogue. She could do whatever she wanted with her Saturday nights.
It was great. Or at least that was what she told herself. Loudly. It drowned out the voice in her heart that kept insisting she would never get the family she desperately wanted if she didn’t date.
In lieu of a Happy Professional Single Girl cake, Grace settled for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup from the vending machine and got back to work. The children’s cases the county had entrusted to her were not going to handle themselves, and there were some heartbreakers in her caseload. She loved her job and thanked God every day she got to make a difference in the lives of the children she helped.
If she couldn’t have children of her own, she’d make do with loving other people’s.
Her desk phone rang and she picked up the receiver, accidentally knocking over the framed picture of her mom and dad celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary at a luau in Hawaii. One day she’d go there, she vowed as she righted the frame. Even if she had to travel to Hawaii solo, it was still Hawaii.
“Grace Haines. How can I help you today?”
“It’s Liam,” the voice on the other end announced, and the gravity in his tone tripped her radar.
“Are the girls all right?” Panicked, Grace threw a couple of manila folders into her tote in preparation to fly to her car. She could be at Wade Ranch in less than twenty minutes if she ignored the speed limit and prayed to Jesus that Sheriff Battle wasn’t sitting in his squad car at the Royal city limits the way he usually did. “What’s happened to the babies? It’s Maddie, isn’t it? I knew that she wasn’t—”
“The girls are fine,” he interrupted. “They’re with Hadley. It’s Kyle. He came home.”
Grace froze, mid-file transfer. The manila folder fell to the floor in slow motion from her nerveless fingers, opened at the spine and spilled papers across the linoleum.
“What?” she whispered.
Kyle.
Her first kiss. Her first love. Her first taste of the agonizing pain a man could cause.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. The twin daughters Kyle Wade had fathered were parentless, or so she’d convinced herself. That was the only reason she’d taken the case, once Liam assured her he’d called the USO, the California base Kyle had shipped out of and the President of the United States. No response, he’d said.
No response meant no conflict of interest.
If Kyle was back, her interest was so conflicted, she couldn’t even see through it.
“He’s here. At Wade Ranch,” Liam confirmed. “You need to come by as soon as possible and help us sort this out.”
Translation: Liam and Hadley wanted to adopt Maddie and Maggie and with Kyle in the picture, that wasn’t as easy as they’d all assumed. Grace would have to convince him to waive his parental rights. If he didn’t want to, then she’d have to assess Kyle’s fitness as a parent and potentially even give him custody, despite knowing in her heart that he’d be a horrible father. It was a huge tangle.
The best scenario would be to transfer the case to someone else. But on short notice? Probably wasn’t going to happen.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thanks, Liam. It’ll work out.”
Grace hung up and dropped her head down into the crook of her elbow.
Somehow, she was supposed to go to Wade Ranch and do her job, while ignoring the fact that Kyle Wade had broken her heart into tiny little pieces, and then promptly joined the military, as if she hadn’t mattered at all. And somehow, she had to ignore the fact that she still wasn’t over it. Or him.
Two
Grace knocked on the door of Wade House and steeled herself for whatever was about to happen. Which was what she’d been doing in the car on the way over. And at her desk before that.
No one else in the county office could take on another case, so Grace had agreed to keep Maddie and Maggie under the premise that she’d run all her recommendations through her supervisor before she told the parties involved about her decisions. Which meant she couldn’t just decide ahead of time that Kyle wasn’t fit. She had to prove it.
It would be a stringent process, with no room for error. She’d have to justify her report with far more data and impartial observations than she’d ever had to before. It meant twice as many visits and twice as much documentation. Of course. Because who didn’t want to spend a bunch of time with a high-school boyfriend who’d ruined you for dating any other man?
Hopefully, he’d just give up his rights without a fight and they could all go on.
The door swung open and Grace forgot to breathe. Kyle Wade was indeed home.
Hungrily, her gaze skittered over his grown-up face. Oh, my. Still gorgeous, but sun worn, with new lines around his eyes that said he’d seen some things in the past ten years and they weren’t all pleasant. His hair was shorn shorter than short, but it fit this new version of Kyle.
His green eyes were diamond hard. That was new, too. He’d never been open and friendly, but she’d burrowed under that reserve back in high school and when he really looked at her with his signature blend of love and devotion—it had been magic.
She instantly wanted to burrow under that hardness once again. Because she knew she was the only one who could, the only one he’d let in. The only one who could soothe his loneliness, the way she’d done back then.
Gah, what was she thinking?
She couldn’t focus on that. Couldn’t remember what it had been like when it was good, because when it was bad, it was really bad. This man had destroyed her, nearly derailing her entire first year at college as she picked up the broken pieces he’d left behind.
“Hey, Grace.”
Kyle’s voice washed over her and the steeling she’d done to prepare for this moment? Useless.
“Kyle,” she returned a bit brusquely, but if she started blubbering, she’d never forgive herself. “I’m happy to see that you’ve finally decided to acknowledge your children.”
Chances were good that wouldn’t last. He’d ship out again at a moment’s notice, running off to indulge his selfish thirst for adventure, leaving behind a mess. As he’d done the first time. But Grace was here to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone in the process, least of all those precious babies.
“Yep,” he agreed easily. “I took a slow boat from China all right. But I’m here now. Do whatever you have to do to make it okay with the county for me to be a father to my daughters.”
Ha. Fathers were loving, caring, selfless. They didn’t become distant and uncommunicative on a regular basis and then forget they had plans with you. And then forget to apologize for leaving you high and dry. Nor did they have the option to quit when the going got tough.
“Well, that’s not going to happen today,” she said firmly. “I’ll do several site visits to make sure that you’re providing the right environment for the girls. They need to feel safe and loved and it’s my job to put them into the home that will give them that. You might not be the best answer.”
The hardness in his expression intensified. “They’re mine. I’ll take care of them.”
His quiet fierceness set her back. Guess that answered the question about whether he’d put up a token fight and then sign whatever she put in front of him that would terminate his parental rights. The fact that he wasn’t—it was throwing her for a loop. “Actually, they’re mine. They became wards of the state when you didn’t respond to the attempts we all made to find you. That’s what happens to abandoned babies.”
That might have come out harshly. So what. It was the truth, even if the sentiment had some leftover emotion from when Kyle had done that to her. She had to protect the babies, no matter what.
“There were...circumstances. I didn’t get any of Liam’s messages or I would have come as soon as I could.” His mouth firmed into an inflexible line. “That’s not important now. Come in and visit. Tell me what I have to do.”
“Fine.”
She followed him into the formal parlor that had been restored to what she imagined was Wade House’s former glory. The Victorian furniture was beautiful and luxurious, and a man like Kyle looked ridiculous sitting on the elegantly appointed chair. Good grief, the spindly legs didn’t seem strong enough to support such a solid body. Kyle had gained weight, and the way he moved indicated it was 100 percent finely honed muscle under his clothes. He’d adopted a lazy, slow walk that seemed at odds with all that, but certainly fit a laid-back cowboy at home on his ranch.
Not that she’d noticed or anything.
She took her own seat and perched on the edge, too keyed up to relax. “We’ll need to fill out some paperwork. What do you plan to do for employment now that you’re home?”
Kyle quirked an eyebrow. “Being a Wade isn’t enough?”
