She had thought running her own business would give her freedom. Instead, she was being strangled by all the tiny strings that were forever coming undone. She spent more time on bookkeeping and client hunting than she did actually cooking anymore, and she really missed that. But between taking care of the babies, worrying about Connor’s new role in their lives and paying the bills that never stopped coming, who had time to cook?
A shriek of pain grabbed her. Dina looked up and saw Connor holding Sage while the baby screamed and cried wildly. Tossing her tablet to the park bench, she raced across the sand, feet sliding on the uneven ground until she reached Connor. When Sage lunged at her, she grabbed him, held him close and instantly began to soothe his tears. The tiny boy’s breath shuddered in and out of his lungs as tears streaked his cheeks. Patting his back and rocking side to side, she looked up at Connor. “What happened?”
“He fell. He scooted out of the swing and fell about a foot to the sand.” Con lifted Sadie out of the baby swing and set her in the sand beside Sam.
Sage’s howls had died down to whimpers now and he snuggled his face into the curve of her neck.
“He was okay, I swear. I don’t know how he moved that fast in the first place, but he was okay. In fact, he laughed at first. Then, you’d have thought he’d landed on broken glass,” Connor was saying.
Dina shook her head. Finally, a chink in the perfect father armor. “He’s not hurt. He’s scared.” She slid the palm of her hand up and down Sage’s back. “He’s not used to the swings and he’s too small to be in a regular one anyway...”
Connor frowned, muttered, “I should have known that.” Then he bent to look at Sage. “Hey, buddy, you okay?”
Sage only burrowed closer to Dina and she gave him an extra squeeze for it. The triplets might be enamored by the new man in their lives, but clearly when they wanted comforting, it was her they turned to. Her heart swelled with love for the three tiny people who had brought such contained chaos into her life.
“Is he all right?” Connor asked with a sigh.
“He’s fine,” she said. “But it’s nap time, so I should get them home.”
“Right.” Connor nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Home.”
Still holding Sage tight, Dina turned to pick up their things and head to the car. But first she glanced over her shoulder and said, “You might want to stop Sam from eating sand.”
“What?”
She smiled, listening to Connor’s frantic yelp as he dealt with his sand-eating son.
* * *
Con still hadn’t read Jackie’s letter.
He’d planned to, that first night, but he’d been too angry at her to read whatever it was she had to say. Too twisted up over his first visit with his kids and too distracted by thoughts of Dina. Besides, how could Jackie possibly explain away lying to him about his own children? There was no reason good enough, he told himself. No excuse that would take away the pain and the fury of the betrayal still raging inside him.
For years, Jackie was the one woman he’d trusted. The one friend he could count on no matter what. To find out now that she’d used him just as so many other women had tried to tore at him.
Con wandered through his darkened house. He didn’t need lights since he knew the position of every stick of furniture in the place. He didn’t want lights because right now his mood was so dark that light would be offensive. The quiet was overpowering—especially after having been in Dina’s tiny, too crowded bungalow only an hour ago. A smile teased his mouth briefly as he remembered the chorus of noises created by the busy triplets and for a second, he tried to imagine those sounds here, in his big, empty house.
“Funny,” he murmured, just to shatter the silence, “this place never seemed empty before. Just...roomy.”
Sure, he knew a man alone didn’t need a huge house. But why buy a small one? Con had always had some vague, nebulous idea of finding a woman at some point, getting married and having kids. But he’d been in no rush for that. Now he had the kids, but no wife—just two women on his mind. The memory of one haunting him and the other, one he couldn’t stop wanting.
He walked through the living room, skirted the wide coffee table and stepped through a set of French doors onto the patio. Out here, there were solar lights circling the area, but the illumination was so pale, he didn’t really mind it. Barefoot, he felt the cold damp of the flagstones beneath his feet and accepted the chill as part of the June night. Moonlight sifted through a covering bank of clouds and lay across the dark ocean like a pale ribbon tossed on top of black velvet. The pounding waves slamming into the cliffs below were a heartbeat. The wind off the sea was cold and cut right through the fabric of his T-shirt, but he didn’t care. He had too much to work out to bother about being cold.
For three days, he’d been the part-time father he’d thought he would be. Coming and going from the lives of the triplets and Dina like a ghost. He could drop in, harass Dina a little, play with the kids, then leave it all behind and go to his office. There, his new responsibilities were buried beneath contracts, dealing with clients, new business ventures and a hundred other things that demanded his attention.
But always, the triplets and their guardian came sliding back into his consciousness. And every time he left that cottage in Huntington Beach, it was harder to go. Con scraped one hand across the back of his neck as that realization sank in. However it had started—outrage, betrayal, duty—it had become something else. What, exactly, he wasn’t ready to admit yet. But he knew he was deeper into this situation than he would have thought possible three days ago. He knew that he missed those kids when he wasn’t around them.
And yeah, he missed being around Dina, too. Damn, but the woman was fascinating. She was on edge around him most of the time, but that didn’t do anything to dull the desire he felt every time he looked at her. She was prickly, defensive and her temper made those dark brown eyes of hers flash. Damned if he didn’t enjoy that, too.
Then there was today at the park. When Sage was hurt and scared, he hadn’t wanted Con. He’d wanted Dina. Her connection to the babies was deep despite the fact that she’d been their guardian only three months. So Con had to work with that, as well. Did he take those kids away from her? Or did he try to find a way to work with her?
“Hell, this whole mess could have been avoided if Jackie had just told me the damn truth.” He tipped his head back, stared up at the sky and said, “You know you did this, right? You enjoying the show?”
He couldn’t get an answer from the night. The only one he might get was in the house, in Jackie’s letter. And it was time to finally read it. See what his friend had to say to him.
Whatever it is, it’s too little, too late, as his mother used to say.
Shaking his head, Con stalked across the patio to the house, then walked into his bedroom and snatched Jackie’s letter off the dresser. He hit the wall switch, flooding the huge room with light from the ironwork chandelier overhead. He took a seat on the edge of his bed and pulled the letter free. His gaze swept over the familiar handwriting and in his head, he heard Jackie’s voice...
“Con, if you’re reading this, Elena and I are both gone, so no offense, but I hope you never read this. But if you are, I know you’re pissed, and I can’t blame you. Yes. I lied.”
Anger spat at him again.
“I didn’t tell you about the pregnancy or the babies because Elena and I wanted them all to ourselves. Yeah, selfish. I can almost hear you thinking it. And maybe it was, I don’t even know. But when you said you wanted to be a part of the babies’ lives, it made both of us realize that you would only confuse things.