A soft cry sounded and Sadie turned instantly toward the baby monitor on a nearby table. Another halfhearted sniffle and cry came through loudly. At least one of the girls was awake.
“I have to go check on the twins,” she said, heading for the doorway.
Rick was right behind her. Hearing that tiny cry had sent an arrow of something sharp and sweet shooting through him. “Are they all right?”
She stopped, looked up at him and put one hand in the middle of his chest to keep him from coming any closer. “They’re fine.” Then she shot her brother an irritated look. “They probably just heard their daddy and their uncle acting like jackasses.”
When she left the room, she never looked back, only called out as she went, “You two can see yourselves out.”
Rick looked over to Brad. “Well, that went well, thanks to you.”
“Don’t blame me if you’re fool enough to try to talk sense to a woman,” Brad shot right back.
Frustrated beyond belief, Rick grabbed his hat and tugged it on. He shot Brad another hard look and said, “This isn’t over between me and your sister.”
“I wish you luck with that,” Brad muttered. “But I warn you. Sadie’s changed since the twins came. Used to be you could predict how she’d react to something. Now …” He shook his head helplessly.
He had already noticed the changes in Sadie, Rick thought, and hadn’t needed her brother to clue him in. There was a time when Sadie Price never would have lost her temper. It wouldn’t have been ladylike. Her icy coolness had always attracted him for some reason. But Rick had to admit that the wild heat of her now was even more appealing.
A few minutes later, Rick was in his truck, looking up at the facade of the Price mansion. Everything in him urged him to stay. To batter away at Sadie’s arguments until they evaporated like shallow creeks in high summer.
But, he thought, as he turned the key and fired up the engine, he was already learning something about Sadie. She was a woman a man would have to sneak up on. She had already dug her heels in, refusing to marry him and she wasn’t likely to back down from that.
So, he’d have to seduce her. Charm her. Get her into bed and make love to her until she couldn’t think straight.
Then he’d get her to marry him.
The fireworks booth was doing a booming business.
Nothing like a small-town Fourth of July, Sadie thought with a tired smile. She’d missed this when she was living in Houston and now that she was home, she wanted to be a part of it all.
Which was why she was standing behind the counter explaining the finer points of whistling rockets and multicolored fountains to excited kids and their tired parents.
She tried to see past the crowd to where Hannah was watching over her napping twins. But there were just too many people in the town square. Seemed like every citizen of Royal had turned out for the festivities. The noise level alone was almost deafening. Between the crowd itself and the country-and-western band playing at the far edge of the square, peace and quiet would be hard to come by today. But then, who needed peaceful on the Fourth of July?
Summer heat sizzled every breath and the delectable scent of barbecue drifted on a lazy wind. Sadie was having a good time. In fact, the day would have been perfect. If not for thoughts of Rick Pruitt. The man was keeping her on edge, though she hated to admit it, even to herself.
True to his word, he was getting to know his daughters, dropping by the house every day during the last week, playing, reading stories, helping with bath time. And the girls were delighted with the attention. Both Gail and Wendy woke up every morning now asking when Daddy was going to come.
“How you doing, Sadie?”
“What?” She turned and smiled at Abby Langley. “Sorry, I was daydreaming, I guess.”
“In this heat, maybe you’re just hallucinating.”
Sadie laughed and shook her head. “If only …”
Abby leaned one hip against the counter. Handing Sadie a bottle of cold water, she uncapped her own and took a long drink. “Boy, that’s good. Okay, so who’s the daydream about? A certain marine, I’m guessing.”
Sadie took a grateful sip of the icy water and let it slide through her system. Even with the fans behind them stirring the hot July air, it was stifling in the fireworks booth.
“Hey, Abby,” one of the other workers called out.
“Sadie and I are on a break,” she answered.
“I could use one. Too much heat and too many thoughts,” Sadie admitted. “And yes, your guess was right. All of those thoughts are about Rick.”
Abby was one of the only people outside her immediate family who knew the truth about the twins’ father. Sadie hadn’t had many close friends in her life, so she treasured Abby and had really missed their friendship when she and the girls were living in Houston. Abby understood growing up in Royal as the daughter of wealthy parents. But she also knew what it was like to strike out on her own. She had made a dot-com fortune when she lived in Seattle, then come home to Royal to marry her high school sweetheart. Everything had seemed perfect for her.
Of course, nothing had turned out the way she’d expected. What ever did?
“Tell me,” Abby urged.
Sighing, Sadie said, “He’s been coming over every day. Spending time with the girls …”
“And this is a bad thing?”
“No.”
One of the other workers in the booth reached past Sadie for a box of red sparklers. Sadie took Abby’s arm and pulled her away a few steps. Lowering her voice, she continued, “It’s not that I don’t want him to get to know his daughters. They should have a father in their lives and they’re already crazy about him—”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
“But,” Sadie acknowledged with a nod, “what happens when he ships out again? He’s home on leave. He’s still a marine, Abby. Which means he’s not staying in Royal. When he leaves, the girls won’t understand. They’ll just know their daddy’s gone.”
“Okay, that would be hard,” Abby said as they both deliberately ignored the customers starting to stack up on the other side of the counter. “But isn’t it still better for them to know him?”
“Yes, of course, it’s just …”
“Confusing?”
“Extremely,” Sadie said with a sigh. “You know, even when I was a kid, Rick Pruitt … confused me.”
Abby laughed. “Sadie, when we were kids, all boys confused us. Hasn’t changed much.”
“No.” A sad smile curved Sadie’s mouth as she idly straightened a stack of Magic Wonder fountains. “But for you, it was different. Your family was rich, but they didn’t keep you separate from everyone in town. Brad and I went to private academies, remember?”
She shrugged as if it didn’t bother her, but it still did. When she was a girl, Sadie had wanted friends. She’d seen the other girls her age going shopping or sitting in the diner, laughing together or flirting with boys, and she had desperately wanted to be one of them. But except for Abby, she remained an outsider. Just as she had been for most of her life.
“True,