“You got them up and dressed,” she said, noting the fresh shirts and pants, the little socks on their tiny feet.
“You sound surprised,” he said.
“I guess I am.” In fact, she was stunned. She’d thought that Colt would be lost dealing with the twins. Instead, he had them changed and fed and was behaving as if he always started out his mornings in a three-ring circus.
He never stopped feeding the babies as he spoke. “The King family has been procreating at a phenomenal rate the last few years.” He shrugged. “You can’t go to any family gathering without someone handing you a baby who needs changing or feeding or both. So I’ve had plenty of practice. We all have. Granted, I don’t spend a lot of time with the babies...but enough to know my way around a diaper.”
True. He’d told her about all the children his cousins were having. She just had never once considered that he would have taken any interest in them. As he’d told her himself, Colt wasn’t the family type. He was more interested in risking his life than in living it.
“Still,” he mused, his voice tightening slightly, “I’ve never done it for my own kids before.” He shot her a sideways look that was hard and cold and promised a long talk in the very near future.
“Colt...” She was too tired, too achy to deal with him.
Where Colt was concerned, nothing was easy—except the passion. That had been cataclysmic from the start. From the very first moment they’d met, their eyes had locked and a chemistry like she’d never felt before had burst into life, burning away every inhibition, every ounce of logic, even her most ingrained natural defenses.
Everything she thought she knew about herself had drained away in the face of the overwhelming pull of the magnetism drawing her and Colt together. So she’d let it go. Everything she’d ever believed. Everything she’d ever promised herself. She had surrendered completely to what her body was demanding—and when it was over, when Colt walked away, she’d paid the price.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. So whatever he had to say to her, she would fight him. She would stand strong against that wild feeling of raw passion because she knew that it didn’t last. She’d lived it.
“I think they’re finished,” he said abruptly, cutting off her thoughts. He stood, got a paper towel damp and wiped two happy little faces and sets of grubby fingers. While he did, he asked, “You want to tell me about them?” He paused. “Or is that a secret, too?”
She swallowed hard and stood, unbuckling Riley and lifting the baby into her arms. The twinge of pain was worth it to feel her daughter’s solid warmth pressed against her. Kissing the baby’s cheek, she said, “What do you want to know?”
“Everything, Penny,” he murmured, lifting Reid free of his seat. “I’ve discovered some things on my own in the last couple of hours with them—”
“Tell me,” she said, wondering what he thought of the children he’d only just met.
“Well, for one thing, Reid’s going to be left-handed. And he’s already got a pretty good arm on him.” Colt held the little boy easily in the crook of his arm and grinned when Reid patted both of his cheeks. “And I’ve figured out that Riley is the more adventurous one. She doesn’t like being held for too long. She wants to be on the floor, getting into things. Reid likes cuddling, but he’s more than willing to join his sister to plow through a room.”
Penny laughed shortly. It was such an apt description of the twins. Reid was thoughtful contemplation and Riley was a trailblazer. “You’re right. I always thought Riley was the most like you.”
One black eyebrow lifted and he shook his head. “When we were little, Con was the one off pushing envelopes. I wanted to be near my mom—and the cookie supply.”
She smiled at the image of Colt as a cookie-stealing little boy, but had to ask, “Then why are you the one who flies off to adventure spots while Connor runs your business from an office?”
The light in his eyes dimmed, then went out completely as his features shuttered, effectively sealing her out of whatever he was feeling. “Things change.”
Penny felt as though she’d struck a nerve, but she had no idea how. King’s Extreme Adventures was so well-known that everyone was aware of which twin was the crazy one. The week they were together, Colt had told her stories about his travels for the company.
And most of those stories had terrified her. Being helicoptered in to ski down the sheer face of a mountain? Climbing to the rim of a volcano where the heat of the magma was so intense, you were forced to wear protective heat suits? Parasailing in the Alps. Chasing tornadoes. He’d done them all and more and he seemed to thrive on not only the adventure—but the risk.
And as much as she’d loved him, as much as it had pained her to watch him walk away, she’d had to admit to herself that they never would have worked out anyway. How could she love a man who thought nothing of putting his life on the line in exchange for a brief shot of adrenaline? And now, how could she allow her kids to love a father who was so careless with his own life that one day he wasn’t going to come home?
“You’re right.” Penny carried Riley into the living room and heard Colt following after her. His footsteps were loud against the wood floor and seemed to mimic the thump of her own heart. Having him here in the home she’d made was...distracting.
She had to find a way to get him out again. “Some things do change,” she said, carefully easing the baby onto the floor beside a huge plastic toy bin. She took off the lid and smiled as Riley pulled herself up to wobble unsteadily, a wide, proud smile on her face.
Penny took a seat on the nearby sofa and watched as Colt set Reid down beside his sister. But rather than sitting down with her, Colt moved to the front window and glanced outside at the morning sunlight before turning to face her again.
Judging by the expression on his face, Penny knew they were about to have that “talk” he’d been promising her. And frankly, she was ready for it. Get everything out in the open so he could go away and she and her twins could have their lives back.
“You should have told me.” The words dropped into the silence like stones plunked into a well.
She took a breath and prepared for battle. “I get that you’re angry.”
He snorted. “You think?”
She met his gaze from across the room, refusing to be cowed or ashamed of the decision she’d made. “You made it plain, that last morning in Vegas, that you didn’t want to be married and you definitely didn’t want kids.”
His mouth tightened into a grim line and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Yeah, I did say that,” he admitted. “But that was hypothetical kids. Did I ever say that if you were pregnant I wouldn’t want to know about it?”
“You might as well have.” Penny shifted on the sofa carefully, her stitches pulling and aching, reminding her that she wasn’t at her best. “I knew that you wouldn’t care.”
“So you’re a mind reader.” He nodded sagely.
“I didn’t have to read your mind, Colt. You said it all. Flat out in plain English,” she argued, not willing to stand there and take sole responsibility for what had happened between them. “You walked out on me, Colt. Why did I owe you anything?”
“You had my children.” His voice lowered, emphasizing that last word without having to shout.
She stiffened and he must have noticed because he took a breath, seemed to settle himself and then said, “All right. Let’s start over. Just tell me why you didn’t tell me when you first found out you were pregnant.”
“I already told you.” What she didn’t add was that she had also been afraid. Afraid of the King name, the King fortune. She’d worried that he might simply turn his lawyers loose and take her children from her. And he’d pretty much threatened to do just that when he first stormed back into her life. What chance would she have had against the kind of power the Kings
could muster?
“I missed a hell of a lot, Penny, and I’m not forgetting that anytime soon.”
“I understand.” Which meant, of course, that she and Colt were on opposite sides of this battle and unless they found a way to build a bridge across the gap separating them, there would be no solution. No peace. “You know about them now, Colt. What are you going to do about it?”
He pushed one hand through his hair and she remembered that impatient gesture. “I don’t know,” he grumbled and shot a quick look at the twins, babbling happily at each other. “All I’m sure of is I want to know them.”
She could understand that and, maybe, a small part of her warmed to him because of it. But the fact was that Penny was still exhausted, sore and not a little off her game since Colt had walked back into her life. So being cool and logical was a stretch at the moment.
Walking around the couch, he took a seat in a chair opposite her and close to the twins. His gaze shifted to them briefly and Penny watched his features soften. When he looked back to her, though, his eyes were chips of ice again. “I won’t be a stranger to my own kids, Penny. I won’t be shut out of their lives.”
A sinking sensation swamped her as she came to grips with her new reality. Whether she liked it or not, Colt would be a part of her children’s lives. Now she had to find a way to protect them from caring for him too much. Because though he insisted he wanted to be a part of their world right now, she knew that wouldn’t last long. How could it? He was always traveling, wandering the world, looking for the next rush.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “And what about the next time you go wingsuit flying? Or parasailing?”
He frowned. “What’re you talking about?”
“You, Colt,” she said. “It’s just not in your nature to be a suburban dad. You won’t last a month before you’ll be off running with bulls or some other crazy thing.”
“Crazy?”
“Yes. You risk your life all the time and you do it because you like it.” She shook her head. “I saw pictures of you in a magazine last month—standing on the rim of a volcano while magma jumped in the air around you.”
“Yeah. I was in Japan scouting new sites. So?”
“So how’s a quiet street in Laguna going to hold your interest, Colt?” She gave him a small smile. “This isn’t your world. Never will be. Why fight so hard to be a part of something you never wanted in the first place?”
His gaze never left the twins. Reid plopped down onto his behind and Riley leaned over to pull a car from her brother’s grasp. Reid’s face screwed up as he prepared to howl, but Colt cut off the reaction by reaching into the plastic tub and getting another car that he handed to Reid. Immediately, the baby looked up at him and gave his father a wide enough smile that all three of his teeth were displayed.
Colt laughed a little, waited another moment or two and then shifted his gaze to hers. “Because, Penny. I’m a King. And to a King, family is everything.”
Five
Penny’s fists curled into the fabric of her nightgown and held on as if it meant her life. And in a way, it did. The tangible, very real feel of what Colt had called her “radioactive” nightshirt reminded her of who she was and where she was. This was her home and he was the intruder. For the moment at least, they were on her turf and she held all the cards.
How long that would last, she couldn’t even guess.
Even from across the room, she felt the magnetic pull of him and had to fight against it. He wasn’t here for her―he was here to rip apart her world.
Pain ripped through her and she hated knowing that he still had the ability to hurt her. She’d worked so hard to get past this. To get over Colton King. And she’d done a pretty good job of it, too. She hardly ever thought of him anymore—well, no more than a few times a day and all night in her dreams—but now he was here again, back in her life. This was going to reset her starting-over clock and soon she’d be going through all the misery she’d already survived once. But better to do it now, she told herself. While the kids were too little to understand. Too small to remember him. To miss him when he was gone.
But their argument was circular. He blamed her for keeping secrets. She blamed him for walking away. There was no middle ground here, so she’d have to try to create some.
“Colt, I get what you’re trying to do.”
“Is that right?”
“But,” she said, ignoring the taunt, “you don’t have to. Just because they’re your family doesn’t mean you have to be here.”
Nodding slowly, he fixed his gaze on hers and she could have sworn she felt the temperature in the room drop a few degrees. “Where should I be?”
She threw her hands up, already forgetting about that calm, cool middle ground she was going to build. Panic wasn’t a good breeding ground for calm and cool. “I don’t know. Bali? Australia? The top of a mountain, or the bottom of the sea?”
“You’re wrong. I should be right here.”
“No, I’m not wrong.” A short, sharp laugh escaped her. “Right now, you’re doing what you think you should, Colt. Not what you want to do. And when this rush of responsibility has faded, you’ll take off again. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”
Riley chose that moment to crawl to her father and pull herself up by grabbing tiny fistfuls of his jeans. She staggered a little and swayed more than a few times, but Colt sat perfectly still, watching his daughter grow and develop right before his eyes. Her black hair curled around her ears, her blue eyes shone with happiness and her chubby hands slapped at his legs in triumph as she finally found her feet.
He covered one tiny hand with his and stroked his thumb over Riley’s smooth skin. Penny’s foolish, gullible heart gave a ping of tenderness at what she was seeing and just for a second or two, she caught a glimpse of what might have been.
Finally, Colt looked at her again. “I’m here. Whether you like it or not, and you’re just going to have to deal with my presence.”
Not for long, she promised herself, determined not to be touched by the gentle way he treated the twins. Not to be swayed by the warmth in his eyes. She’d been fooled once by Colton King. She’d believed that he had felt the same way she had—swept away by a powerful and unexpected swell of love. And she’d been crushed. Devastated.
In fact, the only thing that had held her together after signing his divorce papers was finding out she was pregnant.
Knowing that she would have a child—then two—helped her to refocus her life. To concentrate the love she’d thought she’d lost onto two children who had become the very center of her life.
She wouldn’t allow Colt to hurt her again. Or worse, to hurt the twins with his callous disinterest in real, honest feelings.
“I’m here. Deal with it,” Colt told her, his voice steely with determination. “Besides, you’re just out of the hospital and you need help, whether you want to admit it or not.”
She wanted to argue, but the pain in her abdomen made that impossible. Looking up at Colt, Penny had to admit, at least to herself, that she wasn’t going to win this one. And if she kept arguing, she’d only end up looking like an idiot. She was in no shape to take care of herself, let alone the twins. Colt was right. She did need help.
She just didn’t want to need him.
Still, he was here and maybe... She nearly smiled as something occurred to her. Maybe if Colt was here, in the middle of what was Penny’s normal chaotic life, if he could experience firsthand just how much work two babies could be, he would leave that much sooner.
Right now, she knew he was running on anger and regret that he was only now finding out about the twins. But sooner or later, his natural inclination to take off would kick in. He might not be able to admit it to himself, but Penny knew that even now, that itch was gnawing at him. If she let him stay, let him ta
ke care of the twins, it might be enough to push him away that much faster. And though it pained her to think of him leaving again, she knew it was for the best that it happened fast.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay what?” He looked at her, suspicion gleaming in his eyes.
“Okay, you’re right. I do need help and you are the twins’ father.”
“Uh-huh.” If anything, his eyes narrowed even further.
She gave him a smile that cost her some of her pride. “Don’t look so surprised. You convinced me, that’s all.”
“Is that right?”
Penny sighed. “Colt, you wanted me to agree with you and I have.”
“That’s what worries me,” he admitted quietly, his suspicious gaze still locked on her.
Reid crawled at top speed across the floor to join his sister. Grabbing hold of Colt’s jeans, he pulled himself up, and laughed in delight as he and Riley took turns slapping their palms against Colt’s thigh. For a minute or two, he simply watched them, a smile curving his mouth, and when he looked over at Penny again, that smile was still reflected in his eyes.
She felt a way-too-familiar jolt of something that she knew was dangerous. Attraction mingled with old feelings of love that were already being rekindled. But she didn’t want that fire again. Didn’t want to get burned by her own emotions being tossed at the feet of a man who had already made it clear that he didn’t want them.
But she knew there was no way to stop what she felt for Colt. The only remedy would be to get him to leave as soon as possible. Then she could lose herself in her kids and her work and pretend that there wasn’t a large, gaping wound in her heart.
* * *
The next morning, after a hideously sleepless night, thanks to red-hot dreams of Colt, Penny stood in the bathroom studying her reflection in the mirror. Right away, she really wished she had simply draped a towel over the mirror instead.
Her hair was wild, her face looked pale and she really wanted a shower but didn’t think she’d be able to manage it on her own. And frankly, the thought of asking Colt for help with that problem was too much to consider. Just thinking about being wet and slippery with Colt’s hands moving over her soap-slicked body made her want to whimper with need. Which was just enough to make her push aside the fantasy and deal with reality.
DOUBLE THE TROUBLE Page 7
