“They really respond well to you,” Luke said.
“They’re good boys. They have good hearts.”
He wanted to tell her that he had a good heart, as well. But so what? Other than that, he didn’t have much to offer a woman.
“They’ve gotten really close to you,” he said.
“I know.” She sighed. Was that a good sigh or a bad sigh? Luke couldn’t tell. “I worry that maybe we’ve gotten too attached to each other.”
“We? You mean you and me?”
“Actually, I was talking about me and the kids,” she said, making his chest sink like the toy anchor at the bottom of the hot tub. “Listen, Luke. I really need to tell you something. To explain why—”
“Hold that thought,” Luke interrupted, seeing his mom waving at him from the doorway. “The boys are sleeping in the RV with my parents tonight and I need to get them out and dried off before Mom and Dad change their minds.”
She held her mouth in a tiny O of surprise. And if he wasn’t sure where her conversation had been headed, he would’ve been tempted to kiss the surprise right off her lips. But he really did need to get his kids out of here before Carmen delivered her big thanks-but-no-thanks speech, which would end up breaking more than one Gregson heart.
Sugar Falls, Idaho:
Your destination for true love!
CHRISTY JEFFRIES graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a degree in criminology, and received her Juris Doctor from California Western School of Law. But drafting court documents and working in law enforcement was merely an apprenticeship for her current career in the dynamic field of mummyhood and romance writing. She lives in Southern California with her patient husband, two energetic sons and one sassy grandmother. Follow her online at www.christyjeffries.com.
The Matchmaking Twins
Christy Jeffries
To my great-aunt, Mary Jane Templeton. Thank you for providing me with so much characterization for this story, and thank you for providing me with so much love and acceptance as a child. I miss our shopping trips, our beauty parlor visits and our lunches out. I’m sure Heaven has a lot more gold-painted pinecones, Pepsi-Cola and Grand Ole Opry episodes now that you’re there.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Officer Maria Carmen Delgado had once come under heavy fire while guarding some of the most remote military encampments in the world before leaving the Marine Corps to become a cop, patrolling the roughest gang neighborhoods in Las Vegas. But eight-year-old twins Aiden and Caden Gregson of Sugar Falls, Idaho, were certainly going to be the death of her.
“Boys,” she said as she unlocked the driver’s-side door to her squad car. “I told you that if you were going to ride along with me, you had to promise to stay in the backseat of the Explorer.”
“Sorry, Officer Carmen,” Aiden said, looking anything but remorseful. “Chief Cooper was calling you on the radio, and we had to tell him that you were ten-seven ’cause you were taking a leak. We couldn’t figure out the secret code for the leak part.”
When she’d volunteered for the after-school mentorship program at Sugar Falls Elementary, she’d expected to get assigned as a quasi-big-sister to some disadvantaged young girl. She hadn’t expected the director to pair her up with a couple of identical little boys with a penchant for mischief and a knack for speaking their overly bright minds.
Normally she only hung out with the Gregson twins when she was off duty. But the officer scheduled to relieve her had come down with the flu and the small-town police department was still new and slightly understaffed, so she’d volunteered to stay late and cover his shift. Since Carmen didn’t like letting anyone down, she’d gotten special permission to pick the boys up from school in her patrol vehicle and bring them back to the station. It would only be for an hour, she’d told herself. What trouble could they possibly get into in that amount of time?
She should’ve known better.
So far, they’d already locked themselves inside a jail holding cell, lost a week’s worth of their allowance money by betting the dispatcher she couldn’t finish their math homework and got kicked out of the local Gas N’ Mart.
And now they’d just told her boss that she’d been taking a leak. Actually, Carmen wished it was just that simple to use the restroom while wearing all her tactical gear along with her police uniform—especially since she went more frequently following her surgery.
Because she couldn’t very well take the boys inside the ladies’ room with her, she’d told them to stay put inside her cruiser and asked Scooter Deets, one of the older volunteer firefighters who was parked nearby, to keep an eye on the twins. Apparently, ol’ Scooter was no better at maintaining control than she was.
Carmen shook her head, thankful the bobby pins securing her coiled bun prevented her hair from being as frazzled as her nerves.
“I knew I never should have let you guys learn our radio codes. You two are in violation of ten-thirty and about to become ten-fifteens,” she said, referring to their unauthorized use of police equipment.
“Wait.” Caden pulled out the little notepad he’d started carrying in his pocket lately. “What’s a ten-fifteen again?”
“It’s a prisoner in custody,” his twin brother answered before flashing his cheeky smile, minus two recently lost incisors.
“Hey, Officer Carmen, will you teach us Spanish, too?”
“Vámanos, mi liositos,” she said before shooing them out of the front and using