She was taking over. Could hear herself doing it. Was ready to be vetoed. Rightfully so.

  “We can tell them over breakfast,” Jordon said, nodding. Sounding pleased.

  And so was she.

  Smiling, she glanced at him.

  He looked back at her.

  And she got up and left.

  The porch.

  But turned before she made it past the stairs.

  “Good night,” she told him. Feeling better for having done so.

  “Night, Mia,” he said back.

  And she let the Jordon-ness in his voice infiltrate her personal space a little bit.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jordon was a nervous mess when Mia texted the next morning to let him know that breakfast was ready.

  He’d heard the three of them come in, heard Mia tell the girls that they could watch a show on TV, but that they had to be quiet because Jordon was working in her office.

  Until the text, though, he’d been able to focus fully on the activity on her computer screen. Including a couple of windows with private conversations taking place. People who worked for him.

  People he trusted.

  Then the text hit and he had to excuse himself.

  From men and women who didn’t yet know that he was a father.

  “Look, Jordon! Mama Mia maked cheesy eggs!” Violet proclaimed, wiggling on her knees on her seat at the table while she waved an arm in front of her as though unveiling a rare diamond instead of a steaming bowl of eggs.

  The drama amused him. And made him fall in love all over again, too.

  Every time.

  Both twins were bursting with boatloads of the stuff.

  As far as he was concerned, they could keep it coming until the day he died.

  But something else hit him.

  Jordon.

  Mama Mia.

  She was already Mama.

  He was...just Jordon.

  What if that was all they wanted him to be? They’d spent a week establishing a new normal. And...he reminded himself as he sat down...preschoolers didn’t generally understand the concept of time because it was an abstract entity. According to both Mariahs.

  When Mia sat, he sent her a look.

  She didn’t respond. Just served up eggs, giving the girls spoons, and put some cut-up bananas and strawberries on the little plates, too.

  He waited to see if she was going to eat because he sure didn’t feel like it. When she spooned up her own eggs, and took a bite, he did the same.

  For about two seconds.

  “Mama Mia, do you have something to tell the girls?” he blurted, feeling hot and cold at the same time.

  “I sure do,” Mia said, sounding excited, but still not making eye contact with Jordon. He needed her and...

  Needing her wasn’t part of their deal. Wasn’t how it was going to work.

  Needing her meant trouble down the road, which would then reverberate to Ruby and Violet. He and Mia had had the discussion. Had decided.

  Both girls were busy eating, clearly more interested in breakfast than any adult news.

  “Hey, Ruby, you want to know a secret?” Mia asked then.

  The little blonde looked up, nodding, while, also on her knees, she took another bite of eggs.

  “I want to know, too,” Violet said. She stopped eating to look at Mia.

  “Jordon has a new name, and only you get to use it.”

  “Only us?” Ruby’s nose scrunched as she asked the question, her little voice ending on a higher, questioning note.

  “Yep.”

  “What is it?” Violet’s head spun to Jordon, along with a little spatter of egg, as the girl asked the question.

  He was about to choke when Mia said, “It’s Jordon Daddy, kind of like Mama Mia.”

  “Except now, you can just call us Mama and Daddy for short.” He was breathing again. Had taken up the reins.

  He was a father.

  * * *

  “Huh?” Violet, her whole face seeming to frown, swung her gaze to Mia, and Mia didn’t panic. She nodded.

  And words came to her.

  “When mommies and daddies die, then sometimes kids get new mommies and daddies, and that’s what happened. Only it’s a little bit different because Jordon Daddy and Mama Mia don’t live together in the same house...”

  “...but we both love you as much as the whole sky,” Jordon said from his end of the table, and Mia was thankful for him. He’d given them a tangible quantity. The sky was something they could see. And it never ended or went away.

  The sky hadn’t been in Mariah O’Connell’s report.

  “We don’t have a died mommy and daddy, we have you?” Ruby asked, then looked to Violet.

  “Yeah, we have you?” Violet looked between Mia and Jordon.

  Blinking back tears, Mia said, “Yep!” She didn’t ask if it was okay. While they needed to give the girls as many choices of their own to make as they could, she couldn’t give them a choice that wasn’t theirs to make.

  Violet took a bite of egg. Ruby tried to scoop a banana slice with her spoon, failed, and picked the slice up with her fingers and shoved it into her mouth.

  “Hey, um, guys...” Violet said, looking between Mia and Jordon again. “Do we still get to see Macy today and do swimming?” Her little-girl enunciation didn’t distract from her seriousness.

  “Yes.” Mia nodded. And when both girls looked at Jordon, he nodded, too.

  “Yay!” both girls called.

  And then Ruby asked, “Can I be done eating now?”

  She’d cleaned her plate.

  Violet quickly spooned up the last of her eggs and grabbed pieces of strawberry in each hand. “Can I be done, too?” she asked, her mouth full.

  “What do you say?” Jordon asked, when Mia would have just let them off the hook, given the circumstances.

  “Please?” the girls said in unison.

  And Jordon granted them leave.

  Mia was up, clearing away dishes before the girls were out of the room.

  “That went well,” Jordon said, joining her by the sink with his plate and the empty egg bowl. He was close enough for her to feel his heat.

  And inhale the clean musky scent of him.

  Before he was gone again.

  And she was in the kitchen all alone.

  * * *

  Jordon waited until the final bell rang before leaving Mia’s office. Just made sense, rather than losing more floor time on the drive. He’d texted Mia. She’d agreed.

  And after a satisfactory day’s work, he walked out into a completely silent house.

  Mia had texted that the girls were going to try bareback riding, if he wanted to come out. He did want to, and noticed, as he let himself actually look around long enough to take in his surroundings, that the home felt completely different than it had in the past.

  As a college student, he’d visited often, and the place had seemed...darker. Not as bright. Or open.

  Yet, the same china hutch stood in the dining room, the key rack by the door hadn’t changed, specific things he remembered were there.

  The furniture? He couldn’t be sure. He just remembered the hutch because Mia had cried when she’d once pulled out a dish and dropped it. He’d told her it was no big deal. They’d just get another one.

  It had been her grandmother’s and irreplaceable to her.

  And the key rack...he’d felt like the tallest man alive the day he’d walked in and Mia’s father had invited him to hang his keys on that rack.

  He’d been accepted as one of them.

  The old man had trusted him with his daughter’s heart.

  Jordon ripped his gaze away from that rack, bugged out and, ignoring the dirt getting on his dress shoes, strode with purpose over dusty ground toward the barn and corral behind it.

  His purpose: escape the past he couldn’t change and get to the future stretching out before him. And there they were.

  Ruby and Violet, each with a single blond braid down their backs, with matching T-shirts, jeans and little cowboy boots, were astride horses being led by one woman in between them.

  Mia.

  None of them noticed him standing there at the fence, out of place in his expensive navy pants, and white dress shirt.

  They were all glowing, bursting with something that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before.

  Yep, there they were.

  The three people who’d changed his life forever.

  For a second there, he was an observer to their joy, not only in what they were doing, but in doing it together. He panicked.

  Couldn’t see a place for himself in their lives.

  “Jordon Daddy, look at me!” Violet had glanced his way. “Mama Mia says I can wide!”

  “Yeah, wook at me!” Ruby called next.

  Stepping completely up to the fence, leaning over it, he called back, “Great job!”

  His glance stopped at Mia briefly, as he looked from one of his daughters to the other, but she didn’t give him a chance to share a smile with her.

  The moment was his.

  And hers.

  With the girls, separately.

  He got it.

  And knew his place, too.

  There were three women who’d changed his life forever.

  He’d already failed one of them.

  He would not fail the other two.

  * * *

  Layla Lawrence was the one person in the world who knew how much Mia had loved Jordon. Others had guessed. Figured. Suspected. Layla was the only person, other than Jordon, Mia had ever told.

  All day long, between soaking up moments with the girls, constantly aware that Jordon could be hauling them off to New York within a day or two, she tried to picture how the meeting with Layla would go.

  How did you meet your ex’s mother for the first time in ten years and pretend that you hadn’t once felt like she was your mother, too?

  Time passed. Memories...emotions...did not.

  As she was learning about Layla’s son.

  She didn’t trust Jordon. Couldn’t be in a personal relationship with him. But she still loved him. On some level, she’d known the previous week.

  Had finally admitted the truth to herself the night before.

  Sitting there on the porch of a cabin she owned and he occupied.

  Layla had reached out to her the week after Jordon left Arizona. And a couple of times after that as well.

  Mia hadn’t responded.

  Hadn’t been able to open her heart and reach out to anyone.

  Until her father came home with Brilliant.

  By the time she’d healed enough, found her own inner strength and set out to forge a new future for herself, she’d felt like too much time had passed to answer Layla’s texts.

  And had also decided, rightfully so she still thought, that it wasn’t right to pull Jordon’s mother in any direction that would take her away from her son. Even just not being able to mention her. Or have them both over for dinner.

  Layla was the only family Jordon had.

  At the time, Mia had still had her father.

  And Lincoln and Sara and their spouses. Her nephew had been on the way.

  Jordon had been living on a shoestring in New York and she’d had a ranch coming to her.

  None of which mattered.

  Layla wasn’t coming to see Mia.

  She was a grandmother on a mission to meet her granddaughters.

  But no matter how many times Mia reminded herself of the facts, she couldn’t stop the emotions swirling inside her.

  She’d loved Layla. Was looking forward to seeing her.

  And dreading it, too.

  As it turned out, when she saw Jordon’s SUV head up the long drive and took the girls out on the porch to wait for him, she didn’t have to focus on keeping it about the twins. It just was.

  “Come on, Jordon Daddy,” Violet called from the porch as soon as Jordon stepped his first foot from the vehicle. “Mama Mia says chocolate milkshakes for tissert, but first we has to wait for dinner and you!”

  Mia caught a glimpse of Jordon’s smile as both girls, in matching short outfits from the wardrobe Jordon had brought from their previous home, ran down to hurry him up.

  And then she looked over to the side of the car less visible to her. Saw the top of the door as it opened.

  And then watched the blond hair appear. It was still long. Wavy.

  She waited for the eyes. Blue like Jordon’s.

  But they weren’t focused on her at all.

  Layla Lawrence had a sparkle Mia had never seen before. Energy to her step as she rounded the car. And a gaze for no one but the little girls who were about to get very lucky.

  Mia quietly tucked herself inside the house.

  And kept her mostly happy tears to herself.

  Chapter Nineteen

  With his attention on his daughters and mother, eager for them to meet, Jordon still saw Mia slip away.

  He missed her immediately.

  And focused on his mother coming around the car, reaching an arm out to the slender, well-dressed blonde woman who’d always just been “Mom” to him. A woman he’d taken for granted, and perhaps hadn’t really seen, for most of his life.

  “Ruby, Violet, we have someone very special having dinner with us,” he said, as the girls stopped dancing around as soon as they saw the stranger in their midst. Standing side by side, so close they were touching, both girls hung back, watching as Layla joined him.

  He was ready to give her her name. Grandma. But she stepped forward, squatting down in front of the twins.

  “Oh, baby girls, I’ve been so excited to know you!” Layla’s voice had the sound again. The one he’d heard on the phone.

  “Now, I think you’re Ruby...and you’re Violet,” Layla said, looking directly at the girls. She was close, but not in their faces. As though she knew exactly how to put uncertain four-year-olds at ease.

  The girls both nodded. He’d told his mother about the differing eye color, only in a matter of relaying that he hadn’t even known their names at first—hadn’t expected her to remember who was who.

  “You know what a grandmother is?” Layla asked next.

  Wow. He’d told her in the car that the girls didn’t know about her. That they’d only just told them that morning that he and Mia were Mama and Daddy.

  Both girls nodded slowly, wide-eyed, as they watched her.

  “Like Gran, on The Little Mouse’s House,” Ruby said, naming a show that he’d seen Mia turn on for the twins.

  “That’s right!” Layla, still down on her haunches, looked between the two of them. “And I’m your new grandma and you can call me Gran.”

  For a woman who’d stood back his entire life, leaving Jordon to forge his own way, the change in Layla was pretty staggering.

  And...nice.

  In an overwhelming kind of way.

  He hadn’t told her he’d planned to have the kids call her Grandma. Or even figured out himself exactly how he’d introduce her. He’d kind of assumed Mia would be involved and help out.

  And there it was, done.

  Or...not quite...he amended as Violet said, “Does Mama Mia say it’s okay?”

  Cringing for his mother’s sake, afraid the newly found essence of joy emanating from Layla would fade away, Jordon opened his mouth to save the moment, but Layla was once again ahead of him.

  “I don’t know,” she said, holding out a hand to each of the girls. “Why don’t we go and find out?”

  The girls took her hands. But didn’t move.

  Looking at him, Ruby said, “Is Jordon Daddy coming, too?”

  “Of course,” he answered before he’d had a coherent thought. And, with a hand resting gently on each of his daughters’ backs, he followed them, and his mother, into Mia’s house.

  A place that had once felt like home to him.

  But one in which he was no longer welcome except as his daughters’ father.

  * * *

  Only because she’d been listening for it, Mia heard the front door open a split second before a small voice called out, “Mama Mia!”

  And the other one, Ruby, she knew, called, “Mama Mia, look what we got!”

  “It’s a grandma!” Violet said then, bursting into the kitchen, Layla just half a step in tow behind her.

  “Can we call her Gran?” Ruby asked then, her sweet face so dramatically serious as she stared up at Mia. “Pwetty pwease?”

  “Yeah,” Violet said then. “Pwetty pwease?”

  She’d have granted the wish regardless, but with those sweet faces peering up at her, Mia granted immediate permission.

  While the girls dropped Layla’s hands to join their own and dance in a circle, singing tunelessly, “We got a Gran, we got a Gran,” Mia’s gaze met Layla Lawrence’s for the first time in ten years.

  “It’s good to see you,” she uttered the understatement. Layla looked amazing. Like herself, only younger, if that was possible with the passage of years. Dressed in vivid blue that matched her eyes, instead of the grayish shades she used to wear, her shoulders straight rather than hunched with worry, the woman’s gaze swam with emotion.

  “Can I have a hug, sweetie?” Layla asked, and Mia fell against her naturally. Held on for a long moment.

  When she pulled away, Mia said, “I’m so sorry I didn’t answer your texts...”

  As the girls circled the kitchen, hands still joined, cries of “We get chocolate milkshakes,” filling the room, Mia heard Layla say, “I understood, Mia. I didn’t expect a response. I just wanted you to know you were still in my heart.”