When he’d boarded the plane Saturday night, he’d have bet a million to one that he would never meet, let alone take custody of, the twin kids he’d been contacted about the morning before. Kids he’d never even heard of until then.

  Thankfully, Mia’s walk to the barn wasn’t far. And the girls stumbled over a couple of different numbers, corrected each other and then started over.

  Because, apparently, that was the rule.

  Mess up. Start over.

  Not a bad way to walk through life.

  Any chance he could convince Mia to buy into it?

  As the woman in front of him stopped, he pulled up beside her in front of a barn, pushed the button to shut off the engine and turned to see both girls...staring blankly.

  He’d expected excitement. A scrambling to be free of the car seats they’d insisted on buckling themselves into. Luckily, Mariah O’Connell—the child life specialist who’d met with him at Sierra’s Web before he’d actually taken physical custody of the twins—had checked their young attempts, deemed them completely correct, and then had proceeded to teach Jordon how to do what the girls had just proven so aptly they didn’t need him to do.

  If only she’d given him more than a list of emergency Sierra’s Web phone numbers and a half hour lecture on what to do after he drove away.

  “You guys want to get out and see the horses?” he asked, looking from one set of blue eyes to a set of brown ones in faces that looked exactly the same to him. It happened, he was told. Sometimes fraternal twins looked almost identical.

  Both girls shrugged. In unison.

  Two against one.

  He didn’t have a hope of pulling this off.

  “Let’s at least get out of the car,” he said then. But sat there until he was sure they’d agree with him. No way he was going to put them through some kind of tantrum because he was trying to make them do something they didn’t want to do.

  He could rule the open floor on Wall Street, but he sensed that he had zero authority with the sprites strapped into the back of his rental car.

  No one was moving.

  Mariah O’Connell had told him that communication was key to something.

  “What’s wrong?” he blurted before emotional outbursts started happening. He’d seen them in restaurants...dads carrying kids out on their hips due to seemingly irrational bouts of uncontrollable crying.

  And these girls...well, Mariah O’Connell and Kelly Chase, the psychiatrist expert who’d also met with him, had given him an earful about their expected emotional adjustments over the next few days.

  “We can’t unbuckle,” Brown Eyes said, her look definitely not happy. But she didn’t seem ready to burst into tears, either.

  “It’s too hard,” the other one said.

  Ruby and Violet. He knew their names. He just wasn’t sure which one was which. So much had happened in a whirlwind of confusion while his mind had been encased in shock-grown cotton.

  That had been fertilized with panic.

  “And...we can’t get out till someone holds our hands at the door.” Brown Eyes again. He was beginning to see her as the leader of the two. Not that he put any stock at all in anything he might perceive in his current situation.

  He jumped out. Didn’t look at Mia. Couldn’t.

  Yanking open the back door on his side of the vehicle, he pushed the center button—pretty much all he remembered about the lesson that had come on top of so many other life sustaining pieces of information. And Brown Eyes pulled her arms out of the restraints binding her to the back of the seat. One leg was still held by a strap. A much loosened one.

  Was he supposed to hold her hand, then?

  What about Blue?

  Did he walk one around to the other?

  With both girls staring at him, he had to make a decision. Felt like the wrong one could snap the tiny dab of glue holding the world together. Determining that if Brown got excited and ran off to see the horses while he was unbuckling Blue, catastrophe would be more likely, he told her to stay put and shut the door beside her.

  By the time he was around to Blue, Brown was standing on the hump on the back middle floor, her hand on the back of Blue’s car seat. Pushing his one button with a sure movement, he stood back, holding out both hands, and was almost weak with relief as Blue and Brown trustingly gave him a hand each and held on to him as they jumped down to the dirt ground beneath his feet.

  They’d done it. The three of them. Successfully navigated a thing.

  For a second there, he felt like he’d ended the day up a million.

  * * *

  Mia tried like hell to exist on anger.

  Far better that than heartbreak, which was pretty much what engulfed her when she saw two little hands reach for Jordon’s big ones and jump down on her land.

  She’d known he’d be a great dad. He just hadn’t seen himself that way.

  Hadn’t trusted himself to get it right, had been her take on the situation. At least that was how she remembered it.

  Years passed. People changed.

  And memories...got worn around the edges.

  Mariah Montford, adopted daughter of the town’s leading family, and founder of Forever Friends, came out of the barn door just as Jordon and the girls reached them. She was a gorgeous woman, the perfect combination of her Native American father and Caucasian mother.

  “This is Mariah,” Mia said, looking at the girls. She had the wherewithal to remember a little game that the woman who had a degree in youth therapy played with her clients. “Mariah Montford. M&M’s like the candy!”

  Jordon just stood there. And Mia was out of words.

  “Who’s this?” the horse therapist asked, looking from the girls to Jordon.

  And then to Mia.

  Which was when Mia realized that she and Jordon were staring at each other—and saying nothing. How did she introduce him? He was obviously leaving it up to her.

  And...

  “I’m Violet,” the tiny brown-eyed blonde said.

  “And I’m Ruby.” The girl’s blue eyes seemed to glow with importance for a second, but the light quickly dimmed as she looked at the ground.

  Catching Jordon’s gaze as he looked away from the second small child just as Mia did, she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

  Of concern.

  He’d called multiple times. Had tried to tell her.

  She’d refused to pick up.

  Which didn’t give him the right to drive into Shelter Valley, onto her land, and invade her life with...

  “Our parents died,” Violet said then, looking at Mariah. Her speech, the rounded r’s, so adorable Mia almost wept.

  While Mariah glanced quickly at Jordon.

  “Your mommy, you mean?” Mariah asked, kneeling down to face the two girls. The way they gravitated toward the therapist didn’t surprise Mia.

  Ruby nodded. “Mommy’s died,” she said.

  “She did.” Mariah nodded again, a look of such genuine compassion on her face, Mia almost drifted toward the therapist herself. “What does that mean?”

  “I dunno.” Ruby shrugged.

  “She’s not here,” Violet added.

  “And she can’t come back,” Ruby said, wide-eyed as the two little ones took a step closer to Mariah. The woman’s waist-length black braid seemed to glow in the sun, but it was the real peace on her lovely light brown face that got to Mia, and for a second, Mia envied her.

  Mariah Montford had lost both of her biological parents when she’d been only a few years older than the twins. Mia, only a few grades ahead of Mariah in school, hadn’t known all the details when they were growing up, but she and Mariah had since become close friends. She knew about the horrors Mariah had experienced, an onlooker as her parents were killed on a hijacked plane. The therapist had been saved by pet therapy as a child, right there in Shelter Valley, and after completing her education at the local university, founded and ran the horse therapy division, Forever Friends, of Homestead Ranch.

  From her perch in front of the girls, Mariah Montford looked up at Jordon. “You’re their father?”

  Mia’s gaze shot straight to his face. Watched as he paused, looked at her and then nodded. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she got a little dizzy and sucked in air.

  “You’re here to see if the girls might respond to horse therapy?” Mariah asked then, standing.

  “Ah...yes,” Jordon said. “How do I go about that?”

  Laughing softly, Mariah said, “You don’t. I do. You girls want to come with me and see the horses?” She held out a hand to each of them.

  Without even looking at Jordon, they both took the hands proffered to them. “I won’t take them out of your sight,” Mariah said, pointing toward the door of the barn she’d propped open. “We’ll be right in here.”

  Jordon watched the three head into the barn, the look on his face...devastated.

  He was lost. Well and truly.

  Unlike anything Mia had ever seen before. Losing his wife. Raising two small daughters alone.

  He’d obviously been right to leave Mia. Had met his soulmate someplace else. New York, probably.

  She hadn’t been so lucky. He’d been her one true love.

  Funny how life worked completely wrong sometimes.

  “There are other horse therapy programs,” she told him, hurting for him. For those precious little girls. And feeling the fissure he’d left in her heart ripping wide open again.

  “Mia...”

  She shook her head. Was not going to get into it with him. She would not let him see her cry.

  Wasn’t going to be happy with herself if she dared shed another tear over him.

  Or for him.

  He stepped no closer, but moved over, blocking her view of the barn. His back to his daughters. “They’re yours, too.”

  The urgency in his tone, the panic in his gaze...they got through to her.

  The man had lost his mind.

  Grief from the loss of his wife?

  Thoughts flew. She had to get him help.

  “Remember the Robinsons?”

  Robinsons. Had seemed so altruistic. Jordon needed the money. Her part anonymous. She shook her head. Not because she didn’t remember, but...

  “No, Jordon. She miscarried, remember?” She spoke as though she was addressing one of his daughters. Truly afraid for him.

  And going no further. Her mind, her heart...all frozen right there. In the process of helping him.

  “They preserved our embryos. And four years ago, Madeline delivered healthy four-year-old twins.”

  “They’re four.” She looked toward the barn. Saw only him. Didn’t move to change her view. Couldn’t think. Just stared.

  “Keith and Madeline were killed in a boating accident last weekend. They’d hired this Phoenix-based national firm of experts in various fields, Sierra’s Web, to draw up and then, if need be, execute, their living trust. I had a certified letter from Savannah Compton, the expert lawyer in the firm, yesterday morning. Under the auspices of child services, the girls have been with the family friend who’d been keeping them for the day Keith and Madeline were meant to be gone. It’s all been happening with Sierra’s Web oversight and intervention, as determined by the living trust...”

  His missive had been spilling forth without him even taking a breath. She heard him. Knew what the individual words meant. Couldn’t figure out how to apply them in her current reality.

  She was home. Where life pretty much happened based on choices she made.

  When Jordon’s professor had come to him with the story of his friends who couldn’t conceive due to egg and sperm incompatibilities, a desperate couple who’d been seeking college students willing to donate...

  Jordon had turned them down on the spot. Had told her about it later.

  She’d been the one who’d insisted they help the couple. He’d needed the money to stay in school.

  She’d found it all kind of romantic. She and Jordon helping another couple have their own family as a precursor to the children they’d have together some day. When they were ready.

  And in the meantime...

  She’d made the choice.

  One that had ended up being in vain.

  Over.

  Done.

  No way...ten years later...

  Shaking from the inside out, she said, “There has to be some mistake.” It was all too surreal. Couldn’t possibly be happening. Not in real life.

  She needed a few minutes alone with her horse. Brilliant would calm her enough for Mia to be able to think.

  “I thought so, too. Was certain of it right up until this morning when I was shown documentation. Something about having our DNA from before. And...the Robinsons only had one set of donors.”

  “But after she miscarried...they decided to adopt.”

  That’s what they’d been told.

  What Jordon had told her.

  She’d never met the couple. Nor had she talked to the professor. Finance classes weren’t part of her degree.

  “Apparently, they looked into adoption, but Madeline went into a depression after the miscarriage and decided she wasn’t ready to have any child. Wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready.” He glanced behind them, then continued to speak quickly. “Keith decided to keep our embryos in case Madeline changed her mind and wanted to try again...”

  Staring, mouth open, she knew there had to be a mistake. As soon as her brain synapses started firing again, she’d find it.

  No way what Jordon was telling her made any kind of sense.

  Those precious little girls... His information had to be inaccurate.

  She’d figure it all out.

  And life would right itself once more.

  Chapter Three

  He had to rein in his own panic.

  Looking at Mia, Jordon got that message loud and clear. “Look, I know you’re stunned. Me, too. Blindsided. And what in the hell is going on? But...those two little girls...they’ve lost their parents. They’re with a stranger. A man who knows nothing about children and...”

  Mia’s eyes wide, she stared at him. Took a step sideways to look at the twins standing side by side, silently watching as Mariah Montford pet a horse. The therapist was talking. He could hear her voice, just couldn’t make out her words.

  Mariah Montford, a therapist and owner at Homestead Ranch, and Mariah O’Connell, a child life specialist at Sierra’s Web. It couldn’t be coincidence. Two women with the same name, approaching him the same day, to help with his girls. It meant something.

  “Until the twins announced their names here, I wasn’t even sure which was which,” he said then. Still so strung out by shock he couldn’t seem to process as the situation demanded. “Brown Eyes is Violet. Blue is Ruby.”

  He wasn’t going to forget that again.

  “What do you know about them?” Mia hadn’t taken her gaze from the direction of the girls.

  “Violet seems to be the more dominant of the two. Or at least the most outspoken. She always answers first.”

  “They told you that?”

  “No. I just...any time I asked a question...”

  “What did Sierra’s Web tell you? Or the friend who had them? Or CPS?” Still not looking at him.

  “It’s all in the car,” he said. “And there’s stuff about preschoolers and grief and adjustment. The more stability they have right from the start, the better chance that they’ll readjust in a healthy manner...”

  Stability? Moving to New York with a guy who didn’t have the first clue about raising them?

  “I didn’t know where else to come.”

  No response.

  “I need you, Mia.”

  Still staring towards the twins...their daughters...Mia shook her head.

  His head dropped as his heart sank. “You’re saying you won’t help me figure this out?”

  She didn’t answer and when he looked up at her, she was still watching the girls, her eyes flooded with tears.

  * * *

  Blinking firmly, Mia took a deep breath. She’d have plenty of time to emote in the dark of the night, where no one saw or knew.

  “I need proof,” she said in a voice that sounded cold even to her. And the words, slightly inane. Two things were becoming clear to her. The authorities would not have turned over two four-year-old orphans to a single man without ample checks and balances. Legalities had been followed.

  And there was no way the distraught man standing too close to her would have kidnapped the little sisters. He was clearly scared to death of them.

  Maybe someday the memory of Jordon Lawrence afraid, out of his element, lacking in confidence, would bring amusement. At the moment, his out-of-character reactions were only bringing confirmation of a tale so tall she couldn’t seem to move.

  Not forward.

  Not back, either.

  “What are your plans?” She’d found a place to start.

  “I don’t have any.”

  Her gaze swung in his direction. Seriously? Jordon always had a plan. Always.

  He looked her straight in the eyes. “They were bequeathed to me.” As though that made everything fall into place.

  But it didn’t.

  Clearly not for him any more than it had for her.

  Except... “Only to you.”

  “Savannah, the lawyer I told you about, said that the Robinsons talked about the fact that they didn’t want the girls to be split up or have multiple guardians. And...they had no idea who you were.”

  Her choice. And there was that word again. Her life was shaped by the choices she made every single day. In recent years, she’d adopted the fact as her own personal mantra.

  Because it had given her a sense of security.

  The feeling that she was fully in charge of her life and where it went.