The Texas Cowboy's Triplets

She sent him a quelling look.

“More,” he added, curtailing his own rising emotions, “if we take the long way.”

Kelly smiled faintly. Sighed. “Okay, maybe you should know.”

Now they were getting somewhere. He studied the mixture of regret and longing in her eyes.

“I didn’t date when I was younger because of how chaotic my life was, so I was pretty naive when I met Grif right after college. I had a lot of student loan debt, so I was working weekdays at a preschool and then moonlighting on weekends at his family’s real-estate firm in Phoenix.” She took a breath. “Grif had just graduated from Wharton Business School, and he felt entitled to a bigger role in the family company. His parents wanted to see him married—to someone of an appropriate social standing—and settled down with kids first, before they gave him a part-ownership in their multimillion-dollar enterprise.”

Dan caught her hand in his, and this time she didn’t let go. “That didn’t go over well?”

Kelly sighed and looked down at their entwined fingers. “No. He quit working for them, took a job with their biggest competitor and eloped with me.”

“He was using you?”

Kelly’s jaw tautened. “To tick them off, yes.” She stared straight ahead.

“Did you know that?”

“No.” She frowned. “He was so charming I thought he was wildly in love with me. I probably would have gone on thinking that, at least for a while, had I not become pregnant right away. His family went ballistic. And when we realized I was carrying triplets, so did Grif.”

Curtailing his rising anger, Dan guessed, “He didn’t want the babies?”

“Of the child of an addict who spent half her life in foster care?” She smirked derisively. “No. So they sent the family lawyer to see me with a proposal. If I would not claim the children were legally Grif’s, they were prepared to set up a very generous general welfare trust that would provide for me and for the children, through college. All I had to do was agree to an uncontested divorce, pretend to the few people who knew about the pregnancy that I’d miscarried, leave Arizona immediately and settle elsewhere.”

“What would happen if you didn’t agree?”

“They were going to fight me for custody. And they promised me it would be very unpleasant. They’d bring up my unstable childhood and my family history of addiction. And with their money and influence, they might have won.” She released a pensive sigh. “So to spare my children that kind of ugliness, I said yes to their plan, agreed to an uncontested divorce and chose Texas.”

Dan hated the way the bastards had treated her. He was also glad they were permanently out of her life. “So Grif’s name isn’t on the triplets’ birth certificates?”

“I left the space blank.”

He saw the good and bad in that, too. Extricating their hands, he wrapped his arm about her shoulders and drew her closer. “Have the triplets asked about their father?”

Their paces slowed. “Only in a general sense.”

His protectiveness toward her grew. “What did you tell them?”

She leaned into him, her voice soft. “That they were my very own little miracles, sent from heaven so we could be a family.”

So true.

“And that not all families have daddies, or mommies, for that matter.” Her voice caught slightly. Embarrassed, she averted her gaze. “And it’s okay, as long as children have at least one parent who loves them.” She swallowed, composing herself, as their steps slowed even more, then stopped. “And I do love them, very much.”

“You’re a wonderful mom, Kelly.” He grasped her shoulders, and turned her to face him.

She sighed with a mixture of sadness and frustration. “And yet, I can’t give them what they should really have had all along. A complete family.”

Maybe not with her ex-husband. But there were other possibilities, too.

He searched her face, not really all that surprised by the depth of her concern. Or his. Kelly and the triplets were fast filling the empty corners of his heart. Gruffly, he observed, “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Your kids are all doing great.”

With a faint smile, she tipped her face up to his and conceded cautiously, “For now, yes, because so far they’ve accepted my version of events. Although—” she inhaled sharply, looking worried again “—as you noticed, Matthew and Michelle are fixated on my finding a husband.” Another even longer, more heartfelt sigh. “That way, they figure, they’d have a daddy.”

“Michael...?” Dan prodded.

Kelly made an exasperated face. “Also wants a daddy. But he doesn’t want me to have a husband.”

“Complicated.”

Kelly lifted her eyes heavenward before finishing wryly, “Oh, yes, my life is most definitely complicated.”

As was his. Now that she and her kids were in it.

“And it’s about to get even more complicated,” Kelly fretted as they resumed walking once again.

“Because...?”

Dan turned the corner with her, aware if they went any slower they’d soon be going backward. He didn’t mind. He was in no hurry to get to the concert, either. He much preferred simply spending time with her.

Kelly turned her gaze back to his and lamented softly, “In two weeks, the preschool is hosting the Father’s Day picnic. And I know all of these questions, and more, are likely to come up then.”

* * *

KELLY DIDN’T KNOW why she had confided so much in Dan. Usually, she kept her personal feelings about things locked away inside. But there was just something about being with the big, strapping lawman that made her feel it was okay to let down her guard a little. Enjoy life again.

“So who knows about what you’ve gone through?” he asked with the trademark McCabe compassion.

Kelly pushed away the desire roaring through her and forced herself to respond rationally, “The entire story? Here in Laramie? Just you.”

His blue eyes filled with understanding. “What does everyone else think?”

If she strained to listen, she could hear the sounds of the concert in the distance. Kelly turned to look up at him. She knew it was reckless, but the romance-starved part of her did not want their time alone together to end.

“They think,” she said, “that I had a brief, unsuccessful marriage in Arizona to a man who decided he did not want children, and because of that, I have sole custody of my triplets.”

Giving her no chance to protest, he drew her back into his arms. “Why did you tell me?”

She drew a breath. And, knowing they were possibly on the brink of even more heartache, forced herself to look into his eyes. “Because,” she said softly, pragmatically, “I can see how interested you are in me. Or think you are, anyway. And I don’t want you to be left with the impression that any of this is going to go anywhere.”

She saw the indecipherable emotion flash briefly in his eyes and plunged on. “I owed you a date because you helped me set my mind at ease about Shoshanna. And...”

He lowered his head to hers and delivered a kiss. Short, sweet and utterly seductive.

“What was that for?” Kelly gasped, so dizzy it rocked her world.

He rocked her world.