Colton's Twin Secrets

by Justine Davis

  “I get it,” she said. “How could anybody be ready for something like this dropping on them? Especially if you weren’t close.”

  “It’s not their fault,” he said, feeling suddenly like he needed to defend those two innocent babes. “And...when I thought, this morning, that they really are connected to me, that we share DNA, it...was the weirdest feeling.”

  He half expected her to laugh at him. Or say something banal or full of false reassurance. Instead, to his surprise, as she began to heat the oil, she said, “I don’t really cook. I have about a half dozen dishes I’m really good at, because our cook taught me. But outside of that, I’m hopeless.”

  Our cook. Of course. Why would Fenwick Colton’s daughter ever have to learn to cook? She would have had a cook on staff all the time and would expect that to continue.

  “Well, six meals plus a night of takeout, and we’re through a week of dinner,” he said lightly.

  Something in her smile made it belatedly hit him that she’d been returning honesty for honesty. He’d let out that weird feeling of connection he’d gotten, and she’d confessed she couldn’t cook. Interesting, he thought, in much the same way he did when a suspect said something unexpected.

  “You’d probably get tired of the same thing every week,” she said as she chopped the onion with relative efficiency.

  “Nah. I’m not picky.”

  She dumped the onions in the skillet. Then she picked up the can of peppers and looked around. He leaned over and opened a drawer, pulling out a can opener. She looked at it doubtfully, and he wondered if she’d ever even used a manual one. He took the can from her and applied the opener, then handed her back the can, hanging onto the sharp-edged lid. She turned to the sink and drained off some of the liquid, then added the rest of the contents to the skillet. It was already starting to smell edible, and his stomach rather fiercely—and loudly—reminded him he’d had only toast and that apple today.

  She glanced at him, and he couldn’t define the smile she gave him then. Nor the feeling it gave him.

  “You might want to feed the babies while I’m fixing this. They’re starting to fuss.”

  “Oh. Right. There’s stuff in the bag Mrs. Nelson gave me.”

  And as he went to get them, he was thinking that Miss Gemma Colton was just full of surprises.

  * * *

  Gemma stared at the house as they pulled up. Dante hadn’t been kidding when he said it stood out.

  “No wonder you don’t want to move in. If your place is your style, you’d never be happy here.” He looked surprised but didn’t speak, so she went on. “It might look at home in Florence, maybe on the outskirts of Rome, but here it just looks...garish.”

  “I think that’s what she was going for. The Italian part, not the garish,” he added hastily, as if he’d just remembered the woman he was speaking of was dead.

  “You have a key?”

  “I do now,” he said. They each took one of the baby carriers, and as they walked toward the big, heavy front door, she pondered all the layers in that answer. He did now, so he hadn’t before. Not even in case of emergency? She guessed most people with a first responder for a relative would choose that person to have access in case of emergencies. Who better? So apparently Dante had been serious when he’d said they weren’t close.

  And yet his brother had left him his children. Officially, he’d explained on the way over here, according to his brother’s attorney.

  They’d left Flash at his place for this trip, and she’d had to smother a smile at how he’d explained to the dog why.

  “May need the space in the way back for...stuff, buddy, so you need to stay here.”

  “You think he understands?” she’d teased.

  “Don’t know,” he’d answered. “What I do know is that if I don’t tell him, when we get back it’ll look like a bomb went off.”

  She’d looked from him to the dog and back. “I don’t know why you think you don’t know anything about handling a baby.”

  He’d looked startled, but then he’d grinned at her.

  Dante Mancuso had a killer grin.

  She could admit that, she told herself. Just because she loved and was going to marry Dev didn’t mean she couldn’t notice that other men existed. And that some of them were great looking. Or really built. Or had killer grins.

  Some even had all three.

  “Gemma?”

  His voice snapped her out of the memory, and to her own irritation she felt herself flush slightly. There was no reason for that—her thoughts had been perfectly normal.

  He’d opened the front door and was holding it for her. She stepped inside, and the illusion of stepping into another world was complete. The pattern of statues of marble and other materials continued inside. She glanced at the twins, who were quiet. Because they were happier here? She looked back at Dante and decided not to bring that up.

  “Your sister-in-law did all this?” At his nod, she said, “She must have really missed Italy.”

  “Far as I know, she’d never even flown over it.”

  Gemma’s brows rose. “She did a lot of research, then.”

  “I guess,” Dante said, looking around as if he’d never thought about it that way.

  “Was it your brother, then, who wanted the style?”

  “I don’t think so. He never cared much. And he liked keeping things...inconspicuous.”

  Her brows rose. “This is hardly that.”

  “Exactly.” She thought she saw his jaw tighten before he said, “My brother didn’t like drawing attention because his dealings weren’t always on the up-and-up.” He grimaced. “Just like the rest of the family.”

  She studied him for a moment. Obviously this wasn’t something he tried to keep secret or he wouldn’t have told her, someone he’d just met this afternoon. “And yet you became a police officer.”

  “I always was the misfit,” he said drily.

  She laughed at that, but she wasn’t certain he’d meant it to be funny. “Then maybe they’re lucky they ended up with you.”

  He stared at her, looking suddenly thoughtful. She turned and walked through the elaborate house to a room in the back. Here the decor was more typically a nursery, although a bit heavy on the pink frills. She took out her phone and checked the screen, then went around picking items he in turn stacked near the door.

  “You made a list?” he asked.

  “I didn’t want to forget anything important,” she said. He didn’t need to know she’d sent a desperate text to Juliette asking what the essentials were. The list she’d sent back seemed impossibly long; how could such tiny beings require so much? The pile grew. Diapers, wipes, lotions, ointments, powders—it seemed endless. She found one of the diaper bags she’d feared—bright pink again, with huge purple flowers—and filled it, vowing to replace it at the earliest opportunity.

  At last it was down to the big things.

  “The twins slept together?” she asked, looking at the single crib.

  “I don’t know.” He jammed a hand through his hair. Nice hair, she thought. She bet it felt good to touch. Dev kept his so short she’d forgotten what it felt like to—

  Stop it! What are you doing?

  “If there’s no second child’s room, they must have,” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. “And I’m getting damned tired of saying that.”

  She looked at him, saw the frustration in his dark eyes. Nice eyes, too, with the annoyingly long, thick lashes some guys were blessed with.

  Stop it!

  “Then do something,” she said, her own rebellious thoughts putting an edge in her voice she hadn’t meant to show. “Go make sure there isn’t a separate room.” She glanced at the list on her phone. “And see if there’s a playpen somewhere. And we’ll need to find the rest of their bottles and
such.” Something else Juliette had said hit her. “I hope she wasn’t breastfeeding too, or this will be even harder.”

  He turned on his heel and left without a word. With him went the odd tension she’d been feeling. Which was strange, because she’d thought it was the insanity of what she’d done that had her so stressed. Surely the enormity of taking on two babies—she glanced at the girls, who seemed content in what were familiar surroundings—was enough to stress anyone.

  She crossed the room and opened the closet. It was stuffed with frilly pink things, mostly matching sets. The Mancusos apparently had really gone in for the identical part. She wondered how the girls would feel, later, when they grew up a little. Would they want to keep that identical thing going, maybe enjoy fooling people? Or would they reach a stage where each wanted to be an individual, different from her sister?

  She didn’t want to think about what might happen if one wanted to cling to the matching and one didn’t.

  “Don’t invent trouble that hasn’t happened yet,” she muttered to herself as she selected clothes, mostly play things, although a couple of the adorable frilly dresses made the cut as well.

  “I found something that looks like the pen they kept Flash in when he was a pup.” His voice came from the doorway.

  She laughed at the bemused tone in his voice. “That must be it.”

  “Load it up?”

  “Load it up.”

  He nodded. Looked at the crib. “In the master bedroom it looked like they had them in there at night, at one point. There’s a basket-looking thing in there.”

  “Probably, when they first came home.” She tried to sound knowledgeable. “They say to keep them close at first.”

  “Found some canned stuff, labeled formula. Is that food?”

  “Yes. And a relief,” she said, meaning it, “that they’re already used to it.”

  “Bunch of baby bottles, too. I didn’t see much actual baby food, though. A few jars.”

  “They may be just starting on solid food. They’re about the age for that, along with their own room.” Thanks again, Juliette.

  He just looked at her for a moment. He didn’t speak, but she could almost see him reassessing, thinking that she knew more than he’d thought she did.

  “I found something else, too,” she said, pointing to the tall dresser in the corner. He glanced over, his brows lowering as he spotted the set of three framed photographs. He took two steps that direction, then stopped. Stared. She saw the moment he realized the pictures were of each of the newly born twins and...him. As if his brother had wanted Dante’s face to be familiar to them.

  He turned on his heel and came back. She couldn’t read his expression, and he didn’t speak until he shifted his gaze to the crib.

  “Guess I need to break that down.”

  “Yes. Oh, and I found the double stroller,” she said, gesturing toward the corner of the room.

  “I’ll get it.”

  “You’ll have to figure out where you’re going to put everything.”

  He looked around the room, eyes slightly unfocused, as if he were seeing the whole house in his mind.

  “I can’t,” he said softly. “I know it would make more sense, but I can’t.”

  She knew he meant live here. “I understand. Losing your brother and sister-in-law like that, and—”

  “There are other reasons not to stay here,” he said, suddenly back to the sharp focus of a cop. “I’ll start on the crib.”

  “I’ll gather up the food and bottles.”

  And as she did she thought about his reaction to seeing that picture—his own picture—in his nieces’ room.

  Chapter 10

  It took every inch of cargo space in the back of his big SUV. He had studied the pile for a moment and then begun packing it in, very efficiently using up the space. He only had to rearrange something twice, which she thought rather amazing given the varying sizes and awkward shapes they were dealing with. Last to go was a large box full of various toys, which he looked at for a moment. Then he looked at her.

  “There was a ton more,” he said. “How’d you choose?”

  She shrugged. “I just held each one up in front of them and packed the ones that brought the most smiles and giggles.”

  The slow smile that curved his mouth made her feel a warmth inside that was unlike anything she’d felt before. That smile held a sort of approval, appreciation and acknowledgment she didn’t think she’d ever seen aimed at her before. She had gotten all three after a successful charity gala came off well, or a fund-raiser made the goal, but that had never made her feel the way Dante’s smile did.

  And somehow that rattled her more than even taking care of two six-month-old babies.

  * * *

  She worked, Dante thought, harder than he ever thought she would. Helping him lug all the stuff into the condo, moving it around and all the while somehow managing to keep the twins from causing chaos, by decibel level if nothing else. She talked to them constantly as she went, in that same light, chatty tone that had intrigued them in his office, and it continued to work now.

  He supposed he should have known. Her siblings, full and half, were no slouches. Blake had built his own fortune, Patience was a dedicated vet to the Red Ridge K9s, Bea ran a successful bridal salon—or at least, she had until all these groom killings had started—and Layla was a VP at Colton Energy, and word was it was not nepotism; she was hands-on and very good.

  But word had also been that Gemma, the youngest, was more than a bit spoiled and had only dabbled here and there. But then she began fund-raising for her various animal charities and had apparently found her calling. Since she’d raised a great deal of money for the K9 unit in particular, Dante figured he owed her respect if nothing else. Not to mention she did a job he would hate to do.

  Once they had everything inside, his condo seemed to have shrunk by half. And Flash was looking very aggrieved.

  “Sorry, buddy,” he said softly to the dog, who gave him a pained look. “Neither one of us is cut out for this, are we?”

  “And yet you’re doing it.” Gemma had come up behind him. He’d known it, from Flash’s glance and his own innate cop-honed awareness of his surroundings, plus there was that just enough scent of something flowery, spicy...something.

  Something that likely costs hundreds per bottle, he reminded himself, hoping it would quash the odd reaction he had to it.

  It didn’t.

  He turned on her then, letting a bit of the edginess he was feeling into his voice. “I’m their uncle. That’s why I’m doing this” No other choice. “Why are you?”

  “I told you, for the experience.”

  “And why do you need the experience of—” he gestured at the chaos around them, including the two babies in the playpen they’d set up and put them in first thing “—this?”

  “Maybe I’m just curious.”

  “And maybe that’s not a good enough reason. If this is just some rich girl’s whim that you’re going to get over by tomorrow—”

  “I am a rich girl,” she said, admitting it so easily he was surprised into silence. “A trust-fund baby, and a few other names people throw around. It would be silly to deny it,” she added, as if she’d read his thoughts. “But this is not a whim. I need to do this, to prove I can be a good mother. When the time comes,” she added, a little hastily.

  He studied her for a moment before he said softly, “Prove to who?”

  She studied him in turn, then took in quick breath. “My boyfriend.”

  His brow furrowed. He’d heard something, mentioned in passing, about a Harrington and a Colton. But he thought it had been Hamlin Harrington, the head of Harrington Incorporated. He couldn’t believe it. The guy had to be at least sixty. Only one reason he knew why a woman her age would marry a man that much older than her. But she was
no gold digger—she didn’t have to be.

  “Not the old man,” he said in disbelief.

  “No!” she exclaimed. “That’s my—” She broke off, apparently thinking better of what she’d been going to say. Instead she said in a bit of a rush, “My boyfriend is Devlin, his son. And his father insists he have kids. So the company will always be in family hands.”

  Dante had never met either Harrington, had only seen pictures in the Gazette, and once in person when the senior Harrington arrived at that fund-raiser where he and Flash had had to put in an appearance. He wondered now if Gemma had been there that night. Wondered how he could have missed her if she had been—she was the kind of woman who drew all the light in a room.

  “Anyway,” Gemma said, sounding in a rush to get it out now, “Dev has this silly idea I wouldn’t be a good mom, the hands-on kind he wants. So I have to show him he’s wrong. Then we’ll get back together and everything will be like it’s supposed to be.”

  He stared at her, a little stunned. “Wait. Are you saying he...broke up with you because he didn’t think you would be a good mother to kids that don’t exist yet?”

  He saw a tinge of color rising in her cheeks. “He’s wrong,” she said, rather urgently. “And he’ll see that. And then we’ll get married and someday have those kids.”

  “And you’re all right with that?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Gemma, you can earn respect. Admiration. Even caring. But you should never have to earn love.”

  “It’s not like that, it’s just—”

  “Sounds like it to me. Like you have to prove to him you’re worthy before he’ll deign to love you.”

  “Dev loves me! And I love him.”

  He just looked at her.

  “He does,” she insisted. “It’s just his father’s expectations that messed things up.”

  “Because he let them. You’re setting yourself up for a broken heart, Gemma.”

  “What do you know about it?” she snapped.

  “I know a bit about family expectations. And going against them.”

  “This is different,” she insisted.