“I’ll win.”
“Really?” Colt shook his head and stood up. “She’s their aunt, Con. You cut her out, the kids get hurt. You become enemies and this battle will get uglier and uglier.”
“That’s the thing though,” Con said. “It is a battle. Or will be as soon as Dina realizes I’m not taking a backseat in all this. Damn it, if Jackie—”
“Let it go already,” Colt muttered. “Jackie did what she thought she had to and so will you.”
“Damn right I will.”
“But you could listen to your older and wiser brother.”
Con snorted. “Five extra minutes of life makes you the expert?”
“No,” Colt corrected. “Going through practically the same thing you are and surviving makes me the expert. Penny and I were able to work things out between us—”
“Yeah, but you were already in love with Penny, you just didn’t want to admit it.”
“Good point and yeah, I know you don’t love Dina.” Colt gave him a grin. “But you do want her.”
Did he ever. The desire he’d felt for her from the start had become a need that he really didn’t want to admit to, because it just made everything else that much more convoluted. But just thinking about Dina made him hard and hungry.
“Mess this up and you’ll never have her.”
“Fine, fine.” Con waved one hand at his twin. He hated to admit that his brother had a point. “Don’t make her an enemy. Go slow.” He paused. “I don’t like slow.”
“You’re not used to it, that’s for sure.”
“True.” He pushed one hand through his hair. “I want to get moving on this but I know I’ve got to make the right steps.”
“That’s something, anyway,” Colt said wryly.
“I got the DNA results,” Con said.
“That was fast.”
“Money talks.” Ordinarily, it would have taken a week, maybe two, to get the results from the private lab. But with the King family fortune pushing buttons, it had only been days. He paused. “The kids are mine.”
“You had a doubt?”
“Of course not. But now it’s legal. It’s ammunition for a custody fight.”
“Con...”
“I know, avoid a fight if I can.” He held up one hand to stop his brother before he could get going again. “And I will. But I like knowing I’ve got an ace in the hole.”
“Okay, clearly you’re going at this full tilt and nothing I say is going to make any difference,” Colt said. “So I’m going to say one more thing.”
“Naturally.”
“Go easy on this or you’ll lose.”
“You’re wrong. I don’t lose.”
* * *
“I’m really sorry, Abuela,” Dina said, “but the babysitter canceled on me at the last minute and I have to be at this party.” She unloaded all of the supplies she’d brought for the triplets as her grandmother sat on the floor, playing with the babies.
“Dina, you don’t have to apologize,” she said, throwing her granddaughter a quick glance over her shoulder. “I love having the children here.”
“Yeah, but you were going to dinner with your friends.”
“Pish. I can eat anytime.” She reached out and caught Sage up in a quick hug. “It’s not every day I get snuggles from los niños.”
Dina smiled as the triplets crawled all over the older woman. At seventy-five, Angelica Cortez was trim, with stylishly cut gray hair that swung at her jawline. Her brown eyes were shrewd and her striking face remained remarkably unlined, which gave Dina hope for her own future.
Angelica’s English was lightly flavored with her native Mexico; Spanish and English mingled happily in everything she said. She did love seeing the babies and if Dina and the kids were here strictly for a visit, it would be different. Dina would be here, too, taking care of them rather than expecting her grandmother to pick up the slack. But with her babysitter sick, Dina just didn’t have a choice. She was catering an anniversary party tonight and if it went well, there was a chance she’d get more jobs out of it.
A headache began to blossom behind her eyes and that didn’t bode well for the long night she had ahead of her. Guilt pinged around inside her like a crazed Ping-Pong ball. Guilt for leaving the kids, for making her grandmother change her own plans to watch them—and then there was the guilt for choosing work over the babies. But on the other hand, if she wanted to be able to feed them, she had to get as many jobs as she could.
Her grandmother’s duplex in Naples was two blocks from the ocean. It was decorated in a blend of Mexican and American styles and was warm and inviting. Furniture was overstuffed; the walls were painted a rich brick red with white crown molding. It should have been dark and depressing, Dina had thought more than once. Instead, it was like being enveloped in a hug. Angelica owned the building and lived in the front apartment while renting the second to one of her best friends. Between the two women, the gardens were so lush and beautiful, they regularly had tourists stopping out front to take pictures.
Naples was small, and elegant, and there were canals winding through the neighborhood much like its Italian namesake. The Christmas parade through the canals was amazing, with the houses and boats decorated with millions of colored lights. Dina was looking forward to taking the triplets to see the spectacle.
“So what is the job tonight?”
“An anniversary party in Newport Beach.”
Which was about a half hour away, and that meant Dina would have to leave soon to get to the site early enough to set up.
Not too long ago, Dina had been the owner of a great little food truck. Business had been good enough that she’d decided to move on and open the catering business she’d always wanted. And it had been doing well, too. She’d had more jobs than she could count, her reputation was growing—and then...
She looked to where the babies were clustered around their great-grandmother. Dina’s world had crashed every bit as much as her sister’s plane had three months ago. When she had taken custody of the trips, Dina had had to cancel a lot of jobs. She simply hadn’t been able to keep up the pace when faced with caring for the three kids. Though her income had been slashed, the bills hadn’t stopped coming. Her rent had gone up, her car broke down, and with the triplets, there were more bills. Doctors, clothes, diapers—the list was never ending, and it was scary being the sole responsible one.
Now she was having to scramble to get jobs, which meant she was bidding on parties she might have ignored a few months ago. But she needed the work to take care of the babies and make sure they were safe.
“Don’t worry so much, nieta,” her grandmother said, and Dina had to smile in spite of the anxiety that never quite left her. “Things happen whether you’re ready or not. You simply have to do what you can to keep up.”
“Yeah,” Dina said, dropping to her knees to gather Sam up into her arms. The tiny boy sagged into her, wrapping his little arms around her neck and smacking her cheek with an openmouthed kiss that left drool behind on her skin and warmth in her heart. She kissed him back, then set him down on the floor beside his brother and sister.
“You haven’t spoken of their father yet.”
Dina looked at her grandmother. The unsettled feeling she’d been carrying around for days deepened. Of course, she had told her grandmother about the