And Mia adored them for it.

  “Hey...hey, you...” Mia glanced over as she realized the little girl voice had been trying to get her attention. Sitting at the smaller craft table she’d set up for them, the twins, making houses out of glue and cotton swabs, had been talking to each other in words Mia was still struggling to decipher, and Mia’s mind had wandered.

  “That’s not powite, Viyet,” Ruby leaned over to whisper loudly at her sister’s shoulder. “’Member...” Ruby’s words drifted off on one that Mia understood—remember.

  “It’s okay,” she jumped in before things could go south again. “I’m Miss Jones, like Jordon told you, but my first name’s Mia. It’s easier. You can call me that.”

  “Mia!” Violet’s giggles stopped Mia in her tracks. The childish sound, the purity, took any breath she had. And...why was her name so funny?

  Jumping up from the table, Ruby started to wiggle her hips back and forth. “Mama Mia...” was all she got out before Violet had joined her, moving her own hips as both girls yelled out their rendition of one of the choruses of the popular show tune.

  And then repeated it a second time. Putting the most emphasis on the Mama Mia part.

  She couldn’t help the grin that split her face. The joy on those faces...

  The cuteness overload in the dancing.

  Their parents had taught them show tunes.

  And...

  “I’m calling you Mama Mia,” Violet announced.

  “Me, too,” Ruby said.

  And Mia, her heart choking her, glanced up to see Jordon entering the room.

  “Hey, girls, whatcha making?” he asked, kneeling down to inspect the half-built, slightly tilted houses.

  With more of their normal reticence, the twins explained, in their own words, the project they were working on. Finishing sentences for each other.

  If Jordon noticed the sudden lack of joy in their polite conversation, he gave no indication of it to them. He praised their efforts. Made suggestions.

  Helped right a wall that was on the brink of falling down.

  There was no doubt that he was glad to see the girls doing well.

  But the look he sent Mia, the sharp ping it sent through her, left no doubt that with her, he was not at all pleased.

  Chapter Six

  “You told them you’re their mother?” Frayed around the edges, Jordon shot the question at Mia the first second they were alone.

  Standing in the craft room, listening to the girls chatter in the bathroom down the hall as they washed glue off their hands, he shook his head.

  As if they weren’t all dealing with enough...

  How was he going to explain...or take them with him...

  What had she been thinking?

  A few seconds passed before he realized that Mia wasn’t answering him.

  And when she did, her eyes on fire, she said, “Don’t ever come into my house again without knocking first.”

  “I did knock. Several times.” And had wanted to check the house before heading down to the barns. Because he’d look really out of place if his charges weren’t there.

  “You could have called my cell...”

  Right. He hadn’t thought that far. “You have a habit of not answering,” he said, inanely. As though the fact had played a part in the way he’d opened Mia’s front door and walked through her house as though he belonged there.

  Had every right to do so.

  “Ruby and Violet are your wards. I will always answer my phone to your call when they are with me.”

  Good to know.

  Very good to know.

  And she still hadn’t responded to his initial charge.

  Why would she...didn’t seem right to do that to little kids who didn’t really even get the concept of death yet...talking about biology and...

  He stared at Mia. She stared back.

  “You...didn’t tell them.” He read the truth in her eyes before he let it resonate from within. Of course she hadn’t. She wouldn’t.

  “No. I said they could call me Mia. Apparently their parents were show tune folks, or at least one of them was. They were singing it, and dancing, right before you came in.”

  He’d heard the giggles. They’d rent through him, pushing him toward the sound, lighting him up in a way that scared him to death.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  With a grimace, he nodded. “I really do have a lot of good qualities,” he told her then. Contrary to what he’d shown her.

  “I know you do, Jordon. I wouldn’t have loved you, otherwise.”

  Another kick in the gut, though he was fairly certain that Mia didn’t know those words would hurt.

  “Do you object to them calling me Mama Mia?”

  Yeah. He did. Because it hit him low.

  He was a guardian. He didn’t come first. “Absolutely not,” he told her, giving her the other truth. “They made a choice. And it seems to make them happy.” He smiled.

  She smiled back.

  Ruby appeared, her upheld hands dripping water down to her elbows and then to the floor. “Viyet got water on the floor!” she said, her r’s sounding more like w’s.

  And Jordon wanted to laugh out loud.

  * * *

  Needing Jordon out of her house—at least for a minute or two so she could wall off her heart to his presence—Mia suggested a trip down to the barn to visit with Macy. Clearly, she had to figure out a set of guidelines that would give him as much time with the girls as he required, but not in her home.

  Seeing him suddenly appear in her craft room, looking all important in his dress pants, shirt and tie, and shiny black shoes...she didn’t need that.

  The memories she was making with her daughters were extremely precious. And private. She didn’t want them tainted with the Jordon heartache that had been plaguing her since the day he’d driven out of town.

  She’d already reserved a cabin for him. It was one of the two-bedrooms, both with queen beds, so the girls could sleep together. And if he still chose to commute, he could use the cabin for his time with them. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be available until Saturday...

  They were only a few steps on their way from the house when a car drove past, sending a wave of dust that didn’t matter to her always-dusty cowboy boots, or make a difference to the tennis shoes the girls had been wearing all day, but it definitely coated Jordon’s expensive-looking dress shoes.

  She wasn’t sorry.

  About the dust.

  He didn’t belong in Shelter Valley.

  “You have cabins.” He nodded toward the turnoff the car had taken as the twins skipped ahead of them a couple of feet. She loved that they already knew their way.

  And that they felt comfortable enough to head off on their own.

  Keeping her gaze firmly on the girls, she answered Jordon. “Six of them. My dad had a life-insurance policy and I used my portion of the money to start a dude ranch the year after he died. It’s busy year-round.” There. Now that felt good. Letting him know that he wasn’t the only one who knew how to make a buck.

  “Race you!” Ruby called to Violet and started running at full speed. Violet, a second behind, took off after her sister, got tangled up in her own feet and face-planted in the dust. Hard.

  Heart in her throat, Mia rushed forward, reaching the little girl—her daughter—at the same time as Jordon did. She lifted Violet to her feet, getting a quick look at skinned knees, a similar mark on the four-year-old’s chin, no profuse bleeding, and picking her up, cradled the sobbing child to her chest.

  “What’s wrong with Viyet?” Ruby was back in a flash, and Jordon lifted her up. Glanced at Mia over the girls’ heads.

  “She’s fine,” Mia told Ruby, the compassion in her tone coming as naturally as if she’d known the girls their whole lives. “Just a little scraped.”

  Her brown eyes brimming with tears, Violet pulled back enough to look down at her knees and then started crying again. “I’m bleeding!” she wailed.

  At which point Ruby scrambled to get down and moved over to inspect. “It’s not dwipping, Viyet,” she said, sounding more like a mom than a kid in that second.

  “It’s not?” Violet looked down again. She gave a dramatic dry sob and squirmed to get down. “I want Mommy,” she said.

  “Mommy’s goned.” Ruby sounded like she might cry, too.

  Mia knelt down to the two girls. “Mommy’s gone, but you two aren’t alone,” she said. “You have a lot of people who love you and will take care of you. And you have each other!”

  “I was really hoping you were going to introduce me to Macy,” Jordon added, also down on his haunches.

  Mia glanced over at him, met his gaze for the second she allowed hers to remain connected to his. And felt as though she might cry, too.

  For a second there, he was just as she had so long ago envisioned he’d be in their future together.

  The future he’d abandoned.

  And just as the twins’ mommy was “goned,” so was all faith Mia had had in any future for her and Jordon Lawrence.

  He wasn’t the devil. Wasn’t a bad guy.

  He was just too different from her and she was too different from him, for them to build a life together.

  For her own sake, and also for their girls’ future stability, that was a fact Mia couldn’t afford to forget. Even for a second of eye contact.

  * * *

  Jordon stayed until after bath time. While Violet’s knees were more pink than actually scraped, he put salve on them for her. And a dab under her chin, too.

  Sitting on the end of their bed, he read a story to them, turning the book around so the girls could see it. “Like watching TV,” Violet had said.

  And then, turning on the sound machine and baby monitor as Mia had explained, he wished them sweet dreams, closed their door and went out to find Mia.

  She wasn’t in the living room, kitchen or craft room. He couldn’t just leave without letting her know the girls were alone.

  Remembering his misnomer from earlier, he pulled out his phone. Texted her.

  She was outside on the porch. Having half a glass of wine. The baby monitor on the gently rocking swing beside her.

  While he hadn’t been overly fond of spending time at the seeming-to-be-falling-down ranch when he’d been in town attending Montford, he’d always had a fondness for that porch. Made of wood, painted white, with picket railings, it had seemed to represent easier times. Bygone eras where families were large and people laughed a lot.

  A much too fanciful thought for a guy like him.

  “The salve was a good call, thank you,” he said, as he sat on the edge of one of a pair of large, cushioned wooden porch chairs.

  Wineglass held in both hands, she nodded. Seemingly more interested in a truck coming up her drive than in him, his gratitude or any communication between them.

  “You expecting someone?”

  For all he knew, she could have a date. She was young. Successful. Beautiful.

  Savvy, compassionate, fair...

  Shaking his head, he got his mind back on track as she said, “No. That’s a retired couple from Phoenix who are renting a cabin here for a week while their house is being partially remodeled. He grew up on a farm in Iowa and thought the dude ranch sounded like fun.”

  He was happy for them. For her success. It wasn’t what he’d wanted to know.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” He was more direct the second time out. “Someone who’s going to be affected by the girls being here?” It was only for a few days.

  For horse therapy.

  While he sorted things out.

  “No.” No what? She wasn’t involved with anyone? Or she was but he wouldn’t be affected by the girls staying with her?

  As her glance passed over him, like he was a stranger in line in front of her, he accepted her answer as it stood and moved on.

  “Outside of my life in New York, I didn’t make any calls today,” he told her. “Not to deal with the estate, the house or anything to do with the girls.”

  He had their medical records. Their current pediatrician’s address and phone number. The password to their patient portals. Hadn’t even looked at them yet.

  He’d been told the girls were healthy and up-to-date on all inoculations.

  “There’s no rush on my account.”

  That was good to know. He wanted more from her. Didn’t know what.

  But he was pretty sure it was more than he had a right to ask. More than she’d be willing to give.

  He couldn’t go back.

  And even if he could, he wouldn’t choose differently. Other than to be more up-front with Mia, earlier in their relationship, about needing out of Shelter Valley.

  “I can hire someone to clear out the house, have an estate sale, but, obviously, I need to go in and clean out anything that appears personal or might be meaningful to the girls, now or in the future.”

  When he paused, and she didn’t comment, he continued, “Mariah O’Connell, the Sierra’s Web child life specialist, told me that since the girls haven’t asked to go home, it might be best not to risk setting them back in their moving-on process by taking them to the house they shared with their parents. But she said that there’s no real way of knowing if it would hurt or help, and that, ultimately, the choice is up to me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  The question was a turning point for him. The Mia he’d known and loved, the woman who’d talked him into donating embryos in the first place, would have spilled every thought she had on the matter. She’d never had a problem putting her opinions into the mix.

  “I don’t know,” he told her. But didn’t ask for any more from her, either.

  And she didn’t give him any more.

  Except a quiet good-night, when he stood up to leave.

  She was back in her house, the lock secured behind her before he made it down the porch steps.

  Chapter Seven

  The girls loved their jeans. The package had been dropped on the porch after Jordon left the night before and, hoping for a happier start to the twins’ second morning waking up in her home, she’d entered their room at the first sound of stirring, with denim-draped arms and a pair of tiny cowboy boots in each hand.

  Her biological daughters had scrambled over each other to get to her.

  “Look, Wuby, pwetty jewels!” Violet’s little voice had flooded Mia’s heart as the brown-eyed blonde glanced at the jeans. But the moment was brief.

  The boots had stolen the morning. The girls had insisted on having them on their feet before they’d get off the bed. And had worn them with their nightgowns to breakfast.

  She showed pictures of the event to Kelly Chase later that morning as they started their session. Mia had made solar tea with fresh orange slices and invited the woman to sit at the table where the photos had been taken.

  She wanted Kelly to see her as she really was because while she loved her life and thought she could bless the twins’ lives, her perspective was only her own.

  Maybe their new start would work better without her interference. She could certainly see how less complicated would be best.

  And told the psychiatrist so, before the woman had even asked her first question.

  “Relax,” Dr. Chase said, her blue eyes kind. Around the same age as Mia and blonde like her, Kelly’s hair was loosely curled and hung midway down her back. Unlike Mia’s messy, short-layered mop. “You aren’t on trial here.”

  “Both your expert attorney, Savannah Compton, and my own attorney here in town said that you’ll be an expert witness, testifying before the court, on my motion to have visitation with Ruby and Violet.” She couldn’t say my daughters. Not out loud.

  No matter how loudly her heart was crying out for them.

  She hadn’t birthed them.

  To the contrary, she’d given them away at the embryo stage without looking back.

  “That’s right, but by opinion isn’t based on your answers to specific questions. It’s based on my assessment of you.”

  Didn’t make her feel any better. If anything, being on trial with no direction to follow was worse. “Can I ask you a question then?”

  “As many as you’d like.” The woman’s smile, the seeming compassion in her voice, helped. A tad.

  A very small tad.

  “This is so different from having become pregnant and finding myself unable to care for a child in the best way possible, which is what any of these cases I looked up last had to do with. I wasn’t faced with anything unexpected. I actually created embryos with the express purpose of giving them away. For money. Which makes me seem less than...worthy to have any rights to these children. Do you honestly think I even have a chance?”

  She was going to try. The motion was already being filed.

  But...should she get her hopes up at all?

  Taking a sip of tea, Kelly—as the psychiatrist had asked to be called—seemed to be giving the question careful consideration. This oddly calmed Mia.

  “I’ve never heard of a situation like this, either,” Kelly finally said. “And I did some looking, too. There are many instances where a woman donates eggs, but your situation with Jordon...it’s unusual.”

  Unusual to the point of hopeless?

  Heart pumping, Mia wanted sunshine and warmth. She wanted to be outside. Surrounded by the mountains she’d scaled—reminding herself that she was strong and capable.

  She wanted to close her eyes and breathe in the desert air that had always sustained her.

  No amount of self-control, discipline or will was going to help her change a choice she’d made so many years before.