And she didn’t trust him enough to...

  Yeah, that stung.

  Like hell.

  “If you adopt them out, you won’t have a say in what rights I have,” she calmly pointed out.

  “So...you can’t go to court when that necessity arises?”

  “If I haven’t already established my rights, made them a part of the adoption, my chances of getting them dwindle. The adoptive parents could have a say, as legally, at that point, the twins are fully theirs.”

  He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  She had.

  Didn’t make him feel any better.

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “Not to make choices on my behalf, I don’t.”

  He hadn’t thought the wrench in his gut could twist any further. It did.

  Funny thing was, he didn’t blame her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.”

  “But it doesn’t change anything, does it?”

  “We are who we are, Jordon. That hasn’t changed.”

  Did it make any difference that he wanted it to have done so? While he was trying to find a palatable response to his silent question, her voice came softly over the car’s speaker system again.

  “Ultimately, no matter who you are or what did or didn’t happen between us, I would still be filing this motion. You’ve got legal rights, but what if something happened to you before you adopted them out? You giving me all access to them doesn’t help them then. My rights haven’t been established yet, and they need to be.”

  He hated that she was right. Again. “You’re obviously thinking much more clearly than I am at this point,” he conceded, not feeling a whole lot better.

  And yet...putting those little ones to bed...

  That was...something else.

  Outside his realm of expectation.

  Beyond anywhere he’d tried to reach.

  Unforgettable.

  In a frighteningly wonderful way.

  Dare he tell Mia that he was actually, maybe, toying with the idea of keeping the girls? To the point of looking up preschool options and making a mental list of people he worked with closely, people he trusted who had kids so he could pick their brains if, by some chance, he packed up his charges and took them home with him.

  “I don’t have nearly as much to consider as you do, Jordon,” she pointed out and for a sick second there, he thought she’d read his mind.

  In the past, she’d often known what he’d been thinking.

  They weren’t in the past, and she didn’t know him anymore.

  “I’m just the babysitter who wants to be a forever visitor,” she continued, sounding...healthy.

  Maybe too healthy?

  Where was the woman who wore her heart on her sleeve? Who bled for a couple she’d never met to the point of wanting to give her own eggs so that another woman could have the child she so desperately wanted?

  The woman who’d cried a river the night he’d told her he’d accepted a financial position in New York?

  “You’re trying to attend to the estate of strangers, while making choices that will affect the entire future lives of two children you just met.” She sounded so reasonable. So...calm and sure. Like she had a handle on every aspect of their unexpected reunion.

  Her words brought his panic back. Full throttle.

  How could he possibly, on his own, with absolutely zero experience with children, handle such a responsibility in a way that those little girls deserved?

  Didn’t the world see how unfair this was to Brown Eyes and Blue Eyes?

  “You’re as much a part of them as I am,” he said, like a petulant kid.

  “I know. And I’m doing all I can.”

  She was doing more than he was, at the moment. Caring for the girls nonstop while he sat in a luxurious hotel working his regular day job.

  “Maybe it would be good if we talked about some of the choices I have to make,” he said then. She wanted rights. He could give them to her.

  “You probably wouldn’t like anything I have to say on the matter.”

  “As you’ve pointed out, they’re as much your daughters as they are mine. I’m kind of obligated to listen,” he said.

  “Not legally.”

  “No, but otherwise...”

  “And if I said I thought they should stay here in Shelter Valley?”

  She would think that because she’d never lived anywhere else. Hell, she’d hardly spent the night outside of Shelter Valley’s ten square mile radius. She’d never been capable of even imagining life outside her remote, small desert town.

  But he got her point.

  The issues that had broken them apart still existed. In full force. Made larger by the fact that she no longer trusted him.

  “They’re city girls,” he said. And then, against his judgment, added, “When I said choices I have to make, I meant in terms of a Phoenix adoption, or taking them to New York first, which would give me more time to find the best prospective family. And what to keep, maybe put in storage and what to sell of their parents’ belongings.”

  When silence fell, he started to panic again. He needed her. More than that, the girls needed her. Whether she liked it or not.

  She didn’t have to trust him.

  He just needed her to help him.

  “Madeline and Keith had a dossier on me,” he pointed out to her. “They knew I own an apartment in the city. Pretty clearly, they were choosing to have their daughters raised with all of the opportunities big-city living provides.”

  Or, it could be, as Kelly Chase had pointed out on Sunday, that the Robinsons’ greatest desire was to have their children raised with biological family.

  They hadn’t known about Mia.

  Nor known how much Jordon was going to need help.

  She was petitioning for rights. Had already filed the motion. What did he do with that? If he chose to keep the girls, he’d have Mia in his life, too. There, but never his.

  If he gave them up, he’d have to find a family willing to take Mia on.

  What was she thinking?

  The court might not grant her request.

  “Please, Mia. At least give me your input in terms of their stuff, and whether to keep them in Phoenix or move them to New York.” When it came to those two tiny girls, he’d beg if he had to.

  Her continued hesitation gave him serious pause—time to sit face-to-face with the fact that he hadn’t included possibly keeping them himself in the choices he’d laid out to her. But when she said, “I’m open to either of those conversations,” he took her at face value just enough to say, “Let’s start with the boxes, then. Tomorrow night after the girls are asleep.”

  And when she agreed, he hung up, fully aware that he was in way over his head, but seeing no other option, except to keep pushing forward.

  Chapter Nine

  When the phone rang while she was still in her office later that night, Mia wanted to push to end the call. She’d spent an hour on her various social media sites, uploading new videos from her queue, responding to comments and posting comments on a couple of accounts she followed. Another half hour took care of financial matters, mostly just going over a report from her accountant. And the rest of the nearly three hours since she’d hung up from Jordon had been spent on reading about Madeline and Keith Robinson. She’d already read and reread all of the files on the girls, the child life specialist’s report, even the one from the friend—a next-door neighbor whose daughter was also four—who’d had the twins the previous week but had shied away from the couple’s personal business until that evening.

  Jordon had mentioned that the couple had read his dossier. That they’d chosen him to be the girls’ guardian knowing that his life was in Manhattan. Insinuating that they were choosing big-city life for their daughters’ futures.

  She’d found supporting evidence to that claim based on their own lifestyle choices. And was in no mood to speak to Jordon again that night. It was almost midnight.

  On the third ring—a vibration only as she’d turned off the ringer so it didn’t disturb the girls—she glanced at the caller ID. She’d told Jordon she’d answer every call from him anytime she had Ruby and Violet.

  When she saw her oldest sibling’s name on the screen—her brother, Lincoln—she grabbed up the cell. “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I want to know. Have you lost your mind, Mia?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It took you years to get over that man. Sara says you still aren’t there, which is why you’re alone and not starting a family of your own. And you’re suddenly watching his kids for him?”

  The joys of living in Shelter Valley far outshone the downside. But it did have one. She should have figured someone would call Sara or Lincoln. Both still had friends in the valley. People they’d graduated high school with, who, like Mia, had opted to stay in town.

  “Their...parents...just died in an accident, Lincoln. They were referred to Forever Friends. You want me to just turn them away because Jordon Lawrence was appointed their guardian?” She cringed as she heard first, the lie by omission, and then second, her weak defense. She almost had sent them to another program. Right up until she’d found out they were her own children.

  Not something anyone but Jordon and now her attorney and several people at Sierra’s Web even knew about. If any of them, other than Jordon, shared her news, they’d be liable to a lawsuit. Whether anyone outside Sierra’s Web knew about Jordon’s biological connection to Ruby and Violet, she had no idea. He hadn’t said. She hadn’t asked.

  But she knew she wasn’t going to be the one to spread that truth around.

  “And Sara’s wrong,” she added. She loved her gynecologist sister to death but hated how Sara thought she knew Mia better than Mia knew herself just because Sara was four years older than she was. “I love my life. And I’m far from alone. I can’t remember the last time I went twenty-four hours without seeing and talking to multiple people.”

  “You’re keeping Jordon’s kids, Mia. What are you thinking?”

  Lincoln loved her. She adored him, too, most of the time. But he was not, as he seemed to think, a replacement for their father.

  “I’m thinking that Jordon is in over his head. The kids were here in Phoenix, and he hasn’t been back here since he hightailed it out after graduation.”

  “He was back six years ago to move his mother east with him.”

  “The girls are only four. They’re traumatized. And Jordon is floored. He’d never even met them. He’s got all kinds of things to sort out, and with no warning that this all was coming. He’s had to work some, too, and he didn’t know anyone else to ask.”

  “So once again, you step up for him. You have his back. When has he ever had yours?”

  Ten years ago, before graduation, she’d have had a list of times come to mind. Current day, looking back, she couldn’t think of any.

  Didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  “He used you, Mia. You don’t owe him anything...”

  “Believe me,” her voice filled with confidence, “I know that. I’m not doing it for him.”

  “Please tell me you aren’t falling for his kids.”

  Not Jordon’s kids, no. “I’m not.”

  She was falling for her own. But until she knew if she’d have any rights to them, that news was entirely under wraps. Spreading it around served no purpose for anyone.

  Including Ruby and Violet.

  Most of all them. Not that they’d get the nuances at four. But later...

  They’d already lost one mother. She wasn’t going to be responsible for them knowing they’d lost another.

  “How long are they going to be there?”

  “Not long. Maybe another week.” If she was lucky enough. “Mariah Macy’s Mom is working with them.” She paused as she heard herself repeat the girls’ name for the horse therapist. And then quickly explained to her brother, who’d known Mariah Montford as long as she had.

  “What about Lawrence? He hanging around, too?”

  “No. I’m not a fool, you know? He’s been here a few hours the past couple of nights, but I leave him alone with the girls.” For the most part. They’d had dinner together once. Sort of. She’d served the girls and stood at the counter as much as she could, leaving Jordon to fend for himself.

  And then, far too late in the conversation for her liking, she got her game back. “Who’s your watchdog?” she asked, going on the defensive, as she should have from the beginning.

  But she knew. Greg Richards. Sheriff of Shelter Valley Greg Richards. Greg and Lincoln had become forever friends, in spite of Greg being ten years older, the year Lincoln had risked his life to rescue Greg’s adopted son, Ryan, from a raccoon attack.

  “You can’t honestly think, in Shelter Valley, that someone wouldn’t have said something? All the people you have coming and going out there...”

  He wasn’t going to tell her.

  Which was probably just as well. She didn’t want to have to be openly pissed at Greg, whom she adored, for caring about her. Even if he went about it in an unbecoming way.

  “Seriously, be careful, sis.”

  “Always.”

  With a quick “love you,” he hung up.

  It wasn’t until a good minute later that she realized she hadn’t asked about his kids. Something she always did. Every single time they talked.

  So maybe there’d been a little bit of truth in Lincoln’s worries about her. She’d been warned. And would do better guarding her heart, so that when Jordon Lawrence left town this time—possibly taking her little girls with him—she wouldn’t face-plant again.

  * * *

  On Wednesday, Jordon spent more time on the business of being Ruby and Violet’s guardian. Madeline and Keith had named a close friend of theirs to handle their funeral arrangements, which had all happened before Jordon was in town. He had the estate because they’d left everything material to their twins. After the final bell rang in New York—and going with the thought that since the twins hadn’t asked about their house, it would be best just to keep moving them on from it—he interviewed and hired a company to go through the home and get him a full list of items, down to how many spoons in the silverware drawer.

  He wanted it all. From laundry detergent to toothpaste. Maybe he’d pass on brand information so the twins had what familiarity they could as they started new lives.

  Once he had a list, he’d have something concrete from which to start making decisions. He’d like Mia’s opinion, too.

  Probably.

  She didn’t trust him.

  And maybe they were more enemies than partners in this life-changing venture. She wasn’t going to want what he wanted and vice versa. They’d already been around that block and neither had fared well.

  They couldn’t chance the same outcome for the girls.

  And how would it be any different? She wanted them to stay in Shelter Valley?

  She hadn’t actually said so, but her question, while hypothetical, had very clearly been asked to prove a point.

  Still, no matter what the court said, Mia was their mother. He had to at least listen to her opinions. It was the right thing to do.

  This time around, he’d really listen, not just hear what he thought would ultimately happen.

  Or assume he knew what was best for her.

  But the girls...he had to do what he thought was best for them. They were too young to know. Or to be expected to make such decisions.

  The weight of that...knowing that his choices were going to entirely shape two young lives...he couldn’t seem to get out of the mud on that one.

  He arrived in Shelter Valley later than he’d have liked. Missed dinner. But brought ice-cream bars. Ruby and Violet had never had them, not with white ice cream on a stick with chocolate covering them, they’d said. While Mia handled some business in her office, he’d taken the twins outside to eat the potentially messy treat just before bath time.

  Feeling pleased with himself as the girls grinned and ate like perfectly well-adjusted preschoolers—not the quieter version of themselves they generally were around him—he grabbed his phone out for a picture.

  Got two before the world fell apart again.

  Ruby took a disastrous bite that broke her melting chocolate and it fell to the ground in a huge chunk.

  The little girl started to cry as though her heart was irrevocably broken. Sobs, hiccups, high squeals.

  Violet watched her, continuing to eat.

  And Jordon felt like everyone on the ranch—however many bunches of acres it was—was hearing the little girl’s despair and judging him.

  He was a poor excuse for a father.

  Even for a guardian.

  Kneeling down, as Ruby bent to pick up the dust-covered chocolate, Jordon further upset her by pulling her hand away. He’d been gentle, barely touching her, but she screamed like he’d broken her all over again.

  “Hey,” he said, trying to get her to look at him, her eyes so filled with tears he wasn’t sure sight was even a possibility. “We’ve got more inside,” he told her. “This is why we came outside. The chocolate breaks sometimes.”

  Why hadn’t he bought the fruit juice frozen on a stick kind? The worst they did was drip. Not fall apart in huge heart-destroying clumps.

  “Yeah, see, Wuby?” Violet suddenly spoke, didn’t seem any louder than Jordon had, but Ruby suddenly stopped crying. “Mine just did it, too!” She pointed to a glob of chocolate on the ground. “Can I have another one, too?”

  Not sure if he’d started a bad thing, offering seconds, Jordon sure as hell wasn’t going to go back on what he’d said, and had the girls follow him to the steps outside the back door, ordering them not to move any of their feet even a little or they wouldn’t get another bar, as he quickly ducked inside for a visit to the freezer.