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“Of course they are,” she told him hotly, making another grab for the papers he held in his hand. “I would never take chances with the twins’ health.”
“But you do with your own.”
“I never get sick.”
One black eyebrow lifted again and his gaze dropped meaningfully to the fresh scar on her abdomen, now hidden beneath her T-shirt.
Her eyes rolled practically to the back of her head. “Appendicitis is something different. That could happen to anyone.”
“Which is why we have health insurance,” he said, tone so calm and patient she wanted to shriek.
“I can take care of myself, Colt. I’ve been doing it most of my life—” She closed her mouth fast before she said more than she wanted to about that. Her past wasn’t the point here anyway. Staring at the pile of bills he still held in one tight fist, she thought of something else to throw at him, as well. “You had no right to pay off my hospital bill, either.”
“Again,” he pointed out, “someone had to.”
“But that someone doesn’t have to be you.”
Two days, she told herself. He’d been back in her world about two days and already, things were turned upside down. She didn’t want to be indebted to him and if he kept this up, she’d never be able to repay him.
“This cottage is paid for—that’s good,” he was saying. “But when I took the twins into the yard this morning, I noticed you need a new roof.”
“Yes, it’s on my list and I’ll get to it as soon as I can.” That list was miles long though, and the roof was much closer to the bottom of that list than the top. With any luck, rain would be scarce again this winter and she wouldn’t have to worry about the roof for another year.
“The roofer will be here on Friday,” he said.
Control, like a single, slippery thread, was sliding out of her hands and Penny kept grasping at it fruitlessly. Colton King was a tank. A gorgeous, sexy tank. He simply mowed over whoever or whatever stood in his way, flattening everything in his path.
And she knew that he would do the very same to her if she tried to stand between him and the twins. But what kind of mother would she be if she didn’t try to protect her kids from having their little hearts broken? No. She had to hold her ground, not give him another inch, or he would completely take over her life.
“You can’t buy me a new roof,” she said, keeping her voice quiet and her tone even.
“Already done.” He stacked the now-paid bills on the other side of the computer, where she couldn’t reach them easily. Then he leaned back in his chair, folded his arms over his chest and said, “I called my cousin Rafe. His construction crew will be out here on Friday. They’re checking for termites while they’re at it, since these old cottages are like an all-you-can-eat buffet for those bugs—”
“Dam— Darn it, Colt,” she corrected herself quickly with a guilty glance at the babies sitting close by. They would be talking soon and she didn’t want them picking up the wrong words. “I don’t want you doing this.”
“When the first rain hits, you’ll thank me,” he assured her.
When she first woke up this morning, Penny had actually felt better. Less sore, less tired. Now, she felt as though she needed to go back to bed. If she slept long enough, maybe he would be gone when she woke up again. But even as that idle wish floated through her mind, she set it free because she knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Colt wouldn’t leave until he was good and ready. And when he did go, there would be no stopping him.
Drawing out the chair beside him, she eased down into it and looked him dead in the eye. “You can’t just come into my life and reorder it to suit yourself.”
“I paid some bills,” he said. “You obviously need the money and I can afford it, so what’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that I pay my own way.” Silently, she gave herself a cheer for remaining very cool and logical. “I take care of myself and my family.”
He looked at her through serious, cool blue eyes. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it? The twins are my family, too.”
Her heart iced over and her stomach sank. This is what she’d been afraid of. That Colt would find out about the twins and immediately claim them. Brush her aside—or steamroller her—and take what he wanted.
A bank of clouds rushed across the sun, sending an intermittent mix of light and shadow into the kitchen. The twins were babbling happily to each other and for the first time, Penny didn’t wonder what they were saying, or if they could understand each other. She was too busy trying to understand the subtext of what Colt was saying.
Was he laying claim to his children? Was he already laying the groundwork for pushing Penny out of her babies’ lives? Fear became a knot in the center of her chest. For most of her life, she’d taken care of herself. She’d solved her own problems, made her own happiness. Now her life was suddenly out of her control and she didn’t have a clue how to deal with it. The one thing she did know was that she wouldn’t surrender. Not without a fight.
She kept her voice low and calm when she asked, “Colt, what is it you’re after? Just tell me flat out what you expect to happen.”
He leaned in toward her, flashed a quick look at the babies, then shifted his gaze back to her. Cloud shadow moved over his features, making his eyes look more distant, more...mysterious.
“I expect my kids to be well taken care of. To have what they need.”
“They do,” she argued in a choked whisper. Hadn’t she been working herself nonstop to ensure just that? She might be a little late on her bills, but they all would have been paid. Eventually. And her kids didn’t want for anything. “The twins are healthy and they’re happy.”
She reached out and laid one hand on his forearm. She let him go again instantly and regretted touching him at all, because a zing of reaction shot from her hand, up her arm, to ricochet around the inside of her chest like a ball of heat. That overpowering attraction they’d shared right from the start was obviously alive and well and now throbbing deep inside her. Ignoring her body’s clamoring need, she swore, “They’ll never go without.”
“You’re right about that,” he said and leaned back in his chair again. He looked every inch a King—in name and profession—lounging comfortably as if he hadn’t a care in the world. While Penny sat opposite him, her stomach churning, her mind racing.
This was what it was to be as wealthy as God, she told herself. Colt was so used to being able to command whatever he wanted done, he didn’t even think about it. He’d ordered a new roof for her house as easily as she bought a gallon of milk.
Somehow, over the last eighteen months, she’d managed to forget that easy arrogance he carried with him. She’d forgotten that his way of life was so different from hers that they might as well have lived on different planets.
“Don’t try to fight me on this, Penny,” he warned. “You’ll lose.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she countered with more confidence than she felt. What could she possibly do in a battle with one of the Kings of California? He had a fleet of lawyers at his beck and call and a bank account that was endless. If this ended up going to court, then she didn’t stand a chance against him and she knew it. So what she had to do was make sure it never went before a judge. She couldn’t trust that the courts would choose a mother’s love over a father who could support the twins so easily.
“Really?” he asked, clearly amused. “You think you can take me on?”
Oh, there was more than one meaning to that question. She knew, because her body started buzzing and heat sizzled in his eyes, melting the ice. Penny dropped her gaze from his because she didn’t want him to see what he could do to her so easily. She only wished it was as simple to hide her reactions from herself.
“I’ve done something else this morning that you should probably know about,” he said.
She swallowed hard, hoping her voice wouldn’t sound choked when she said, “What’s left?”
“You know your bills are all current now, but I’ve also transferred money into your bank account—”
“You what?”
He smiled. “I transferred money into your account.”
Her blood pressure had to be through the roof because she could actually hear her heartbeat in her ears. “How much money?”
One eyebrow lifted. “Greedy?”
“Appalled,” she corrected.
He shrugged. “Most women would be delighted to have a half million dollars dropped into their bank accounts.”
Six (#ulink_05a8f899-76d1-5c6a-8b21-d930bbbbe747)
“A half—” Penny gulped noisily and then blinked as the room spun around her. Her vision narrowed, black rushing in from the edges even as little dark dots danced merrily in front of her. “Half. Half...”
“Breathe, Penny,” he suggested.
She wished she could, but her lungs weren’t working. Shock had her blinking furiously trying to clear her vision even as she slapped one hand to her chest as if she could somehow jump-start a heart that had clearly stopped. The man was insane. And pushy. And generous. And infuriating.
She opened and closed her mouth on words that wouldn’t come. Gasping now, Penny knew she was going to end this “conversation” in a dead faint.
“Damn it,” he muttered, then leaned out, put his hand on the back of her head and pushed her forward, until her head was between her knees. “Breathe before you pass out.”
She drew in breath after breath and still her chest felt tight and her head was spinning. Penny felt him thread his fingers through her hair, and his touch sent new nerves skittering along her spine. Wasn’t it enough that he’d sent her brain into a tailspin? Did he have to do the same to her body? His closeness wasn’t making it any easier to breathe.
As if from a distance, she heard the twins laughing and she fought hard against the dizzying sensation clouding her head. Thankfully, they were too young to know just what exactly their daddy could do to their mommy.
When she was able to draw a few deep breaths, she forced herself to say, “Fine. I’m fine, let me up.” Once she was sitting up again, she took another breath for good measure and met his gaze. She scowled at the humor glinting in his eyes. Of course he would be enjoying this.
“Good to know I can still make a woman faint.”
“You’re being funny?”
He shrugged casually, but his eyes remained sharp and fixed on her. “I’m not joking when I say they’re my kids and I’m going to make sure they’re taken care of.”
“By buying off their mother?” Insult slapped at her. Did he really believe he could just walk in here, wave his money in front of her face and she’d do backflips to please him? “A half a million dollars? What were you thinking?”
“That you need the money.”
“I don’t want it, Colt,” she said tightly.
“Want it or not, it’s done,” he said and closed the laptop with a soft click. “You don’t have to live from month to month, Penny.”
“I don’t need your handouts.” Okay, big lie. She did need it. She just didn’t want to need it. A half a million dollars? That was nuts. Just insane. And served to point out once again just how different their lives were.
A flash of heat singed the ice in his eyes. “It’s not a handout. It’s the right thing to do.”
“According to you,” she snapped.
“My vote’s the only one that counts.”
“So typical,” she muttered, shaking her head as if trying to convince herself that this was all some kind of nightmare and all she had to do was wake up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, you’re the one who decided our marriage was a mistake.” Words so hard to say. She could still feel the pain of that last morning with him in Vegas. The memory of his eyes, cool, distant, staring at her as if he was watching a stranger. The clipped note in his voice. The fact that he never once looked back as he walked away from her. “Your vote was the only one that counted then, too, I remember.”
His features went cold and hard. His eyes took on that same distance she recalled so well. “That was then. This is now. And the sooner you get used to this,” he was saying, “the easier it’ll be. On all of us.”
She pushed to her feet, gave a quick look to the twins, forced a smile for their sakes, then turned back to Colt. “Why should I want to make this easy on you? You barged in here and took over. No matter what you think, I’m not your duty, Colt. I’m not your anything.”
His smile was tight, his eyes narrowed as he looked past her briefly to the two babies still happily babbling. “This isn’t about you, Penny. It’s about them. And the twins are my duty. My responsibility. And I’m going to do whatever I think is right to make sure they have everything they need.”
“What they need is love and they have that.”
He snorted and tapped his fingers on the thick pile of newly paid bills. “Love doesn’t buy groceries or pay the electric company.”
She flushed but it was as much anger as it was embarrassment. Penny hated that he knew how tight money was for her. Hated knowing that he was able, with a few clicks of a mouse, to clear away the bills that had been plaguing her. Hated that it was a relief to have that particular worry off her shoulders.
Mostly though, she hated being this close to Colton again because it reminded her that wanting what you couldn’t have was just an exercise in self-torture.
“I don’t need a white knight in a black SUV riding to the rescue.”
“You sure as hell need something, Penny.”
“Don’t curse in front of the twins.”
He stared at her. “They’re eight months old. I don’t think they’re listening to us.”
“You have no idea what they hear or remember.”
Grumbling under his breath, he pushed back from the table, the chair legs scraping against the wood floor. When he stood up, he walked past her, across the room, heading for the coffeepot. Along the way, he trailed his fingers across the top of Riley’s head. He looked back at Penny as he poured two cups of coffee. “You can hardly stand without wincing. You’ve got two kids to take care of. Why’re you fighting my help?”
Why? Because having him here tore at her. Her emotions felt flayed. Being with Colt was too hard. Too nebulous. He was here today but he’d be gone tomorrow and she knew it. The question was, why didn’t he know it? He was always looking for a way to risk his life. How long would he last in a beach cottage in a sleepy town where the only risk was fighting diaper rash?
“Because you don’t belong here, Colt,” she said, idly pushing Reid’s scattered Cheerios into a pile for him. “I’m not going to count on your ‘help’ only to watch it disappear.”
Shaking his head, he carried both cups of coffee across the room and handed one to her. “I told you. This is different.” He waved his cup at the twins. “They make it different.”
“For how long?”
“What?”
Her hands curled around the coffee cup, drawing the heat into her palms, sending it rushing through her veins, dispelling the chill she felt. “We were married for a single day before you ended it. You left and never looked back. I won’t let you do that to my kids.”
“Who says I will?”
“I do,” she said, gathering together every last, ragged thread of her remaining self-control. “You live your life with risk, Colt. But I don’t. And I won’t let my kids live that way, either. Most especially, I won’t risk my children’s heartbreak on a father who will eventually turn his back and walk away.”
* * *
“So where is she?”
Late that afternoon, Connor looked around the small living room as if half expecting to find Penny huddled under a throw pillow.
“She’s taking a nap,” Colt answered and dropped onto the couch. The overstuffed cushions felt so good, he thought he just might stay there for a year or two. “So are the twins.”
Connor stuffed his hands into his slacks pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Well, wake ’em up. I want to meet my niece and nephew.”
Stunned, Colt stared at his brother for a second. “Are you nuts? This is the first chance I’ve had to sit down in three hours.” His eyes narrowed on his twin. “Wake them up and die.”
Connor chuckled, walked to the nearest chair and plopped down into it. “Don’t look now, but you sound like a beleaguered housewife.”
He frowned at that, then shrugged. “Never again will I say the phrase ‘just a housewife.’ How the hell do women do it? I’ve been here two days and I’m beat. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of two babies...” He paused, let his head drop to the couch back and added, “women are made of way tougher stuff than us, Con. Trust me.”
