He loved the East Coast.

  She was the Wild West through and through.

  “You’d really let me have them all summer?”

  Her doubt bothered him. Way more than it should have. “They’re yours, too, Mia.”

  She nodded then. Staring at him, still. Sipped from her wineglass without taking her eyes from him.

  As though if she blinked, he’d change into some kind of monster.

  And the trouble was, he couldn’t blame her.

  He understood.

  She was the one who’d been honest from the very beginning. Before they’d even become a “them.” She’d told him she couldn’t leave Shelter Valley. That her future was in that remote, small desert town.

  And he’d said okay. Every single time.

  Over a four-year span.

  Every time.

  Seeing it all through her eyes, he’d been lying to her their entire relationship.

  No way a woman was ever going to be able to trust a man who’d done that to her.

  But he could co-parent with her.

  Because they both loved those little girls that much.

  “Are you in?” he asked, feeling as though his entire life rested on her response.

  Which made no sense. He could keep the girls with or without her.

  But they needed her.

  And she needed them, too.

  “I’m in,” she said, then stood up, emptied her glass of wine, crossed the suite to peek in on the girls and let herself out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Trembling so hard she could hardly get her key card to swipe, Mia fell into her hotel suite and headed straight for the wet bar. She snagged a bottle of water out of the refrigerator behind the bar, made a beeline for an armchair in a seating arrangement in front of the wall of windows and collapsed.

  The wall of city lights glistening in front of her blurred as her eyes filled with tears.

  Happy ones.

  Relief was palpable. And ecstasy...she didn’t know what to do with it. She needed Brilliant, her horse. Her private love. Needed to tell the twelve-year-old animal the newest twist in her Jordon Lawrence saga.

  Brilliant had only been two when Mia’s father had used grocery money to buy the rescued mustang after Jordon left.

  The mare had heard every single thought Mia had had back then. She’d been through all of the feelings. Brilliant had saved her life.

  And now...

  She was a mother!

  Not officially. Not until the court recognized her as such.

  But...the carrot he’d dangled...

  Would he really let her keep the girls on the ranch for months each year? Months! She’d be a real mother! And maybe she could fly to New York for their birthday, for Christmas...she’d heard the city was beautiful during the holidays. Had always been curious about the huge tree that was decorated in the center there.

  She wouldn’t stay at Jordon’s, of course, but she’d find a place close by. Something with security.

  And she wouldn’t stay long. The pushing crowds of strangers. The constant noise.

  Oh, who cared! She was really going to be a mother!

  She couldn’t count on it, of course. Couldn’t tell anyone.

  Jordon could change his mind in a blink.

  About keeping the girls. Or keeping her in their lives.

  But sitting there in the dark, she couldn’t help but savor the possibility. Ruby and Violet. In her life forever?

  Being able to watch them grow? To make certain they knew, every day of their lives, that they were loved and adored?

  She could video call every morning before school. Or every night before bed.

  Maybe both.

  And fly to New York for dance recitals.

  Or parent-teacher conferences.

  If Jordon agreed.

  She was getting way too far ahead of herself. Way too greedy. He’d offered summers and she was taking over parts of every single day.

  But only in her dreams. Her secret thoughts that she shared only with herself and Brilliant.

  Violet and Ruby...if they showed any interest at all in artistic endeavors—and they had already that week—she had so much she could teach them.

  She could introduce a kid’s corner to her brand.

  Oh, God.

  She had biological children.

  And she was going to get to mother them?

  A dream she’d been slowly giving up on.

  Brilliant wasn’t going to believe it.

  Tears flowed like rivers.

  And she let them.

  * * *

  Showering with a baby monitor was new.

  Mia had told him the twins were early risers, so Jordon was up before dawn taking care of his own morning routine so he’d be ready for the preschoolers when they awoke.

  Normally, he gave himself a moment under the spray to wake up. Let the hot water loosen his muscles. Normally he shaved in the shower. That morning he was in and out in about a minute. Shaved at the sink—already dressed in the only other pair of shorts he had with him, tan ones, with a black polo shirt—and with his bathroom and bedroom doors open.

  He’d had the twins’ door open before they awoke. And was seated just outside at the dining table, scrolling on his phone.

  They were in a strange room. And Mia’s wasn’t the first face they were going to see.

  By the time they finally stirred, an hour later, he had several educationally fun shows for four-year-olds queued up and ready on his phone and hit play on the first, volume high as he entered the room.

  Mariah O’Connell had talked about a lot of things in a very short period of time. Distraction was the one that had stuck.

  Two shows later, the three of them were still sitting there, the girls in their jammies, propped up on the bed’s headboard, watching shows.

  Ruby and Violet were on one side of the phone he had propped up in the middle of the blanket. He was on the other.

  It wasn’t a daddy cuddling with his girls.

  But it was close enough for him.

  He could do this.

  He could father his daughters.

  He’d give it another day or two of thought and then, if he still felt that the decision was in the girls’ best interests, he’d let Sierra’s Web know that he’d be moving Violet and Ruby back to New York with him.

  He’d go through the list the estate people were going to send him regarding things in the house, share it with Mia, make decisions and then Sierra’s Web could handle the rest of the details regarding the estate. Including selling the house.

  And they’d put all the funds in a trust for Ruby and Violet, to transfer to them when they turned twenty-one.

  Until then, and through college, he’d support his daughters himself.

  Assuming he decided to keep them.

  * * *

  Mia had a whole week’s worth of videos planned—things she could shoot that evening after Jordon took the girls home to their cabin to bed—by the time Jordon texted to say he’d called down for breakfast to be sent up and asked her to join them.

  He’d ordered her a ham, egg and cheese breakfast burrito with potatoes and onions as add-ons.

  Something she hadn’t had in a long while.

  But that had been a favorite of hers during college.

  And as they ate, he talked about taking the girls to the aquarium. She hadn’t known there was one. Seemed kind of odd, aquatic animals in a desert, but what did she know?

  “It’s new to the city since I lived here,” Jordon told her, his eyes aglow with a light she didn’t know if she’d ever seen. Excitement, yes, but...more. “It’s on the northeast side, up in or near Scottsdale,” he continued, as though she knew the city well enough to travel mentally with him.

  When she shrugged, because the day was up to him, he asked the girls if they wanted to see a dolphin. Started talking about the exhibits, and after they both gave enthusiastic yeahs, he looked to Mia again. With a smile that was filled with a bit of excitement, too, she nodded.

  They’d be back at the ranch by dinner. With a completely fun day behind them.

  A day of pleasure together that would be the start of their future?

  She didn’t let herself dwell on the thought. Set her sights on living every moment of the day, helping the girls smile and laugh their way through it, getting as many pictures as she could.

  As they’d established the day before, she supervised Ruby’s snapping herself into her car seat and Jordon oversaw Violet’s do-it-herself process. She couldn’t help the wave of warmth that spread through her as she glanced over at him and found him looking at her.

  Like parents, bonding over the heads of their children?

  They’d both been poleaxed in the past week with a circumstance that had changed them forever, and yet...in handling the situation...they made a good team.

  Mia had just buckled her own belt, and Jordon had barely started his rented SUV in the hotel’s covered garage, when Violet asked, “Are we going home now?”

  And Ruby immediately followed with, “Are we going home?”

  Turning, Mia looked at them both, saw them looking at her expectantly, and when Jordon didn’t immediately respond said, “Where’s home?”

  Thinking that maybe bringing the girls back to the city had been a little early in their moving-on process.

  “You know,” Violet said, frowning.

  Maybe they’d need to do a drive by at least.

  And then see.

  Looking over at him, she asked, “You’ve got the key, right?”

  His nod, his somewhat blank look, told her he wasn’t sure what to do. Such an odd thing, the way the ten-years-older Jordon seemed to know less than the college version had done.

  “Are we going home?” Ruby asked again. “Macy might miss us.”

  Wait. What?

  “Macy?”

  Violet nodded so big her chin touched her chest. “’Cause we give her treats every morning.”

  “That’s where you want to go?” Jordon asked then, glancing in the rearview mirror.

  “Yeah!” both girls said in unison. “Home to see Macy!” Violet added.

  And Jordon put the vehicle in gear. “Then that’s where we’ll go,” he said, in a happy tone that was clearly meant for the young twins behind him.

  “Yay!” Ruby said. Then asked, “How long until we get there?”

  “How high can you count?” Jordon’s reply was exactly what he’d asked the girls the day before every single time they’d asked the question on the way to Phoenix.

  He didn’t seem to mind. Didn’t lose patience with their constant queries, even now that they weren’t yet capable of calculating his response. He just got creative. Told them they’d be there in as long as it took two of their favorite pig cartoons to play. That they’d be there after two more people got to be with Macy.

  And on it went.

  He didn’t seem bothered by the missed trip to see the dolphins.

  Mia had no idea what kind of effect the day’s plans change would have on the future, though. Her stomach knotted over the breakfast she’d consumed as she worried that he’d think the twins were already shrinking into introverts who were afraid to leave their comfort zones.

  Funny how all the words and phrases he’d thrown at her that last night they were together in the past were coming out of storage. She’d thought she’d wiped them from her brain, when, instead, she’d just buried them.

  And in that moment, she was glad they were there. A healthy reminder not to get her hopes up regarding anything Jordon said about a future that included her.

  He didn’t consider her lifestyle choices healthy ones.

  And the signature on the girls’ bottom line was all his.

  * * *

  They still hadn’t gone through the boxes of the girls’ things deposited in one of Mia’s spare bedrooms.

  On Sunday afternoon, when the girls were worn out from their time with Macy, followed by playing in the pool with new kids who’d just checked in and then insisting on time at the playground set in a fenced-off area in the middle of the cabins, Mia suggested a kids movie at her house. And Jordon, after seeing the girls lying down together on Mia’s couch, their drooping eyelids facing the flat-screen television mounted to the wall, suggested that he and Mia go through the boxes.

  He needed to know what to put in storage with whatever was coming out of the house for the girls, and what to move to the cabin.

  He needed to stay busy. To be doing.

  Because the weight of what to do for the girls’ future was weighing on him.

  They’d designated an area for things that were going into long-term storage, one for the girls’ immediate use, and a third to be shipped to Ruby and Violet’s permanent home.

  His place, he was thinking.

  But something was holding him back from fully committing to that end.

  The long-term storage pile was easy: Madeline’s and Keith’s yearbooks, though why he’d brought them with him in the initial boxes, he didn’t know.

  When he started to put Madeline’s jewelry in that pile as well, Mia shook her head. “You need to keep that with them, Jordon. Even if they don’t know it’s there. That’s going to be intensely personal to them someday and shouldn’t be in some storage unit someplace.”

  “Maybe a lockbox?” he asked, thinking of the one he had at the bank in New York, just a couple buildings down from his. The box had come free as part of his premium customer ranking when he’d made his first large deposit. It had been empty ever since.

  “That’s where I would put it,” Mia was saying, opening the large box that contained all the stuffed animals he’d found in the girls’ home. “And these would be good for you to take to the cabin with you. Like we talked about, introduce them now, and then let them take them to their permanent home...”

  She didn’t say his place. Or to New York.

  And hadn’t made any mention at all that day of their talk the night before. His offer, his promise, to give her summers on the ranch with their daughters.

  Her daughters, he amended, thinking of her comment to that end the night before. And his. Science.

  Not a family.

  Of course, with the girls in constant company there’d been little time for conversation of a serious, adult nature. But at the pool...

  He’d sat alone while she’d talked to a couple of families who’d just checked in that day.

  He’d noticed, though, that she’d kept an eye on the twins at all times, too. Always aware. That was the Mia he’d known and loved.

  Past tense.

  Please, fates. Past tense.

  “Jordon?”

  Standing there in the short denim skirt she’d had on all day, topped by a white sleeveless shirt that reminded him once again how well he knew the exact shape of her breasts, Mia was still holding the first two stuffed animals she’d pulled from the box. A purple unicorn and a white one.

  Staring at him.

  Right. The stuffed animals going with him to the cabin.

  “The cabin’s fine,” he said, motioning to the box. “Just leave them packed and I’ll carry the whole thing down. Maybe let the girls unpack them?”

  She nodded but was still watching him.

  And he reminded himself that, in some ways, whether she knew it or not, Mia Jones knew him better than anyone ever had.

  She knew how to read him.

  Apparently, some things didn’t change.

  So...he’d give her what she seemed to want.

  Mostly because he didn’t know of any other way to proceed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You don’t trust me.”

  Shock went through Mia when she first heard the words. Betrayal even. She and Jordon, they’d been existing under some kind of unspoken truce to just deal with the girls. Not each other.

  She’d already told him she didn’t trust him.

  How could he...

  But she knew.

  He was right to face what she didn’t want to acknowledge. Having the two of them as parents, sharing parenting duties, might not be best for Ruby and Violet in the long run.

  She wanted to let anger take over.

  Or persuasion.

  But knew she wouldn’t like herself if she did either.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. But then words continued coming to her. “Not as far as I’m concerned. And yet, in a way, I do, in that I know what not to rely on. I know how you really feel now.”

  “You have no idea how I feel.” Sounded a bit like he was letting anger do his talking. She waited a moment, but when he didn’t continue, she did.

  “I do trust you where the girls are concerned,” she told him. “More than I’d trust anyone else.” He needed to know that. “Even knowing how you feel about my life choices...and knowing that I could lose out... I trust you to do what you think is best for Ruby and Violet.”

  “What if what I think is best turns out not to be?”

  She hadn’t expected that. Had thought she was freeing him up to do what he was going to do.

  And hope that the court gave her visitation rights if he took them away.

  “You’re doubting yourself?” she asked. And telling her about it?

  “I want them.”

  She smiled then. The way he said it, with such fatherly ownership...

  “So take them,” she said, knowing that her girls would be well cared for. Watched over. Tended to. “Madeline and Keith had your dossier, Jordon,” she reminded him. “They chose you. And really, the choice was theirs to make. They chose what they wanted for their daughters’ futures. Your only decision, really, is whether or not you can honor their wishes. Whether or not you want those children. And it sounds as if you do.”