“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 the handheld radio mic to respond to her boss.
“Sorry about that, Chief,” she said after his voice crackled on the other end. “The Gregson twins are officially on administrative suspension for disobeying a direct order to stay put in the backseat.”
“Roger that,” her boss said. “Tell them that their dad came by the station to pick them up, but since you all were still out, I told Luke that you’d meet him at the Little League fields. You can drop them off there.”
Her belly twisted and she resisted the urge to throw the mic out the window. Captain Luke Gregson, the twins’ father, was the last person she wanted to see today. Or, really, any day for the matter. But she couldn’t say that to Chief Cooper.
“Ten-four,” she replied instead, before clicking off. Then she turned to her two mischievous passengers. “Buckle up, kiddos.”
“Can we go Code Three with the lights and sirens and everything?” Caden asked as she pulled the vehicle back onto the main highway and headed toward the small park on the other side of town. “Dad’s gonna make us do extra laps if we’re late to practice.”
She should’ve just taken the boys to the ball fields after school and let them run wild. Maybe if they got more of their energy out, they wouldn’t be prone to getting into so much trouble. Not that anyone ever really disciplined the adorable rascals.
And speaking of their lack of discipline, by having to take them directly to baseball practice, she’d be forced to shoot the breeze with their father, the hunky and obviously heartbroken Captain Gregson. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the handsome and widowed Navy SEAL turned recruiter. Or that Carmen didn’t know how to talk to men. It was just that the man had this extremely frustrating habit of treating Carmen like she was one of the guys.
Of course, she couldn’t really blame him, or the rest of the males in the small touristy town of Sugar Falls. With her long black hair always pulled into a tight no-nonsense bun and a complete lack of makeup, Carmen was used to working in a male-dominated environment and having to fit in with the good ol’ boys.
It was difficult for people to see that beneath the Kevlar vest and the blue polyester unisex uniform, she was still one-hundred-percent female. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, she rested the other one underneath her sturdy leather duty belt and rubbed along her longest scar. Well, she was mostly female.
She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and tried to focus on the innocent chatter of the eight-year-olds behind her. In her brain, she knew that she was a strong woman and her ability to have children, or lack thereof, should not define her.
But there was always that niggling sense of what she’d lost.
“Hey, Officer Carmen,” Caden said, breaking her negative reverie. “Are you gonna be at our game this Saturday? Dad and Coach Alex said I could be lead batter.”
Carmen sagged against her seat, wishing she could go to all the twins’ games. But no matter how much the two charming troublemakers were growing on her, she’d rather relive her emergency surgery than be faced with spending more time near their father, Captain Dimples.
Luke had returned to town only a month after she’d taken the position with the Sugar Falls Police Department. When she’d been in the Marine Corps, she’d heard about his elite Special Ops team who’d carried out some of the deadliest missions in Afghanistan. Of course, she hadn’t thought that one of its members would eventually end up living in the same small city. Or that said member would have such adorable kids, who needed more supervision than the single dad could provide.
She especially didn’t know that he’d be so damn good-looking.
“I’m not sure about this weekend,” Carmen said. “We’ll see what my schedule looks like.”
“Aw, c’mon, Officer Carmen,” Aiden chimed in. “Ever since Aunt Kylie had her babies, we’re the only kids on the team who don’t have someone in the stands cheering for us.”
Her chest grew heavy with guilt and she tugged on her weighted vest as if she could physically relieve the pressure. Here she’d been feeling sorry for herself and the fact that she’d never have a family of her own, yet these poor young children had to grow up without a mom. As much as she’d bonded with the two wild and wonderful boys, was she doing them all a disservice by allowing herself to get too close to them when what they really needed was a mother figure?
She was usually much more empathetic than this, which was why she’d been a good MP and an even better cop in Vegas. It was why she’d made the big move to a small town like Sugar Falls in the first place. She needed to find herself again.
And she needed to get her emotions in check.
She pulled into the dirt lot behind the bleachers and was saved from making any additional commitments by the sudden appearance of the tall, muscular, blond male walking toward them and waving.
Her stomach