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Special Forces Father
Victoria Pade
First comes fatherhood. Then comes love? Marine Liam Madison has always been focused on serving his country. But when he learns that he’s the father of orphaned four-year-old twins, service takes on a whole new meaning. Fortunately, the kids’ loving nanny, Dani Cooper, is by his side every step of the way…
First comes fatherhood...
Then comes love?
Marine Liam Madison has always been focused on serving his country. But when he learns that he’s the father of orphaned four-year-old twins, service takes on a whole new meaning. Fortunately, the kids’ loving, gorgeous nanny, Dani Cooper, is by his side every step of the way as he learns the ropes. And as Liam falls hopelessly in love with his children, he might just be falling in love with their nanny, too...
VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted choco-late lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip-cookie recipe.
For information about her latest and upcoming releases, visit Victoria Pade on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Victoria-Pade-230635274196/)—she would love to hear from you.
Also by Victoria Pade (#ulink_76168f16-9fd2-5519-b632-57d7eb0f0744)
The Marine Makes His Match
AWOL Bride
A Camden’s Baby Secret
Abby, Get Your Groom
A Sweetheart for the Single Dad
Her Baby and Her Beau
To Catch a Camden
A Camden Family Wedding
It’s a Boy
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Special Forces Father
Victoria Pade
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07813-9
SPECIAL FORCES FATHER
© 2018 Victoria Pade
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my editor, Elizabeth Mazer,
who kindly, tactfully and with humor embraces
my characters, kicks them in the shins and
complicates their lives in ways that make better
books. I have so, so enjoyed our collaborations
and would give much for it to go on and on.
Contents
Cover (#u2455439f-9ee5-58c1-869f-0c352ae45d22)
Back Cover Text (#ueaa19cdd-9712-5ff4-b088-76d2b5104c11)
About the Author (#uf47b1f17-ebc5-5fd0-8baf-d52b8f24bbe8)
Booklist (#ulink_9ea4dfc6-7509-53a8-a81f-aa27ab8f4b83)
Title Page (#ud9f823cf-6a5e-574a-bff3-76751ebb96d1)
Copyright (#u912d48a1-c36a-57ba-93d8-ff734af1e38f)
Dedication (#ufe96caca-6590-5b16-b768-b3210f6f57b7)
Chapter One (#u2232fdde-1b9b-58ff-95ff-8ec9956ed47c)
Chapter Two (#ubd2f0df7-58d6-5d0d-94ed-6c2dec70680d)
Chapter Three (#u4a81e4ff-c8c7-5304-81b0-72ac16dc19c0)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u18eff249-c4e2-5a45-b6ef-da25cd10e5bb)
“It’s princess hair.”
Really bad princess hair, Dani Cooper thought as she looked at herself in the hand mirror that her four-year-old hairstylist Evie Freelander brought her.
But she said, “Oh, I feel like a princess now.”
“That’s not princess hair,” Evie’s twin brother, Grady, decreed when he looked up from his coloring book to assess his sister’s work. “Princess hair looks pretty.”
“It’s pretty because Dani is pretty!” Evie insisted.
“Thank you,” Dani said with a laugh, turning her head from side to side to get the full view of her long dark mahogany hair. Evie had attempted to braid four different clumps of it and then secured those clumps with neon hair clips haphazardly around her head.
Dani had applied light makeup that April morning to accentuate her golden-brown eyes, her thin nose and her full lips, and that was still in place this evening, but she was glad no one outside the Freelander home would be seeing her like this.
“Okay, clean up now,” she said. “It’s time for our ten-minute dance party to get the wiggles out, and then it’s pajamas and your wind-down for bed.”
“Dance party!” Grady shouted, quickly putting his markers in their box while Evie made a face and fell back on the sofa as if in a faint.
“Can Grady help me?” she moaned.
After three years as the twins’ nanny, Dani knew this routine. “Nope,” she answered Evie. “Grady is picking up his stuff and you need to pick up yours. Or we’ll dance without you!” she finished with a cheery reminder of what the consequences would be.
Evie groaned again, sat up as if it was a chore for her and gathered the mirror, toy hairbrush and what remained of the clips to put away.
“I’ll meet you in the dance room,” Dani called after them when they headed for their rooms to return their things.
The Freelander house was a large, starkly contemporary structure of glass, steel and concrete. It sat far back on a huge lot at the end of a cul-de-sac in one of Denver’s upscale gated communities in the Cherry Creek area. The distance from the street allowed for some privacy despite the undraped windows that comprised almost the entire front of the house.
The twins’ mother had taken ballet lessons several times a week as her workout and the in-home studio occupied one of the front-facing rooms. The kids liked to cut loose there. They got a kick out of the echo. So that was where Dani let them have their dance parties.
As she went into the dark room she could see outside, where the curved drive was illuminated by in-ground lighting. But the minute she turned on the lights the windows reflected only inside the room.
She got the music started just as the four-year-olds ran back in.
“Ready?” she asked them before all three of them launched into some free-form jumping, footwork and wiggling around that amounted to wild gyrations more than anything that resembled dancing.
Their ten minutes were nearly up when the doorbell rang.
Dani’s friend Bryan had said he might stop by tonight after the kids were asleep, so she hadn’t yet turned on the security system. He was early.
At the sound of the doorbell the dancing stopped and, as Dani turned off the music, both kids went to the window, where they bracketed their eyes with their hands and pressed their faces to the glass to see out.
“It’s a so-dyer,” Grady announced.
“A soldier?” Dani repeated the word he’d mispronounced.
“It is,” Evie confirmed.
With the twins following behind, Dani left the studio and went to the marble entry hall, certain that the eight-foot-high steel front door was locked. Beside the door were an intercom and a small screen that displayed the images picked up by the camera outside.
“You’re right, it is a soldier,” she mused, convinced by the officer’s service uniform and the straight, stiff military stance of their visitor that made him look as if he were at attention out there.
She pushed the button on the intercom and said, “Can I help you?”
“I’m Liam Madison. I got a message from someone named Dani Cooper. I’m looking for the Freelander house...”
Ohhh, she knew the name Liam Madison.
Not the man but the name.
But since she didn’t know the man and she was very protective of the twins, she said, “Do you have some identification?”
He produced a military ID, complete with a picture, and held it up to the camera.
Holy cow, he was handsome!
And that was only his ID picture.
She’d been distracted by the uniform, but when he took the ID away from the camera lens she took in the sight of his face, realizing that he was definitely hella-handsome. He also was, indeed, Liam Madison, and since it was Dani who had reached out to him, and the twins who were in need of him, she unlocked the door and opened it.
“Hi,” she said simply, taking in what neither the four-inch security screen nor the ID picture had done justice to.
Not only was the guy gorgeous, he was also over six feet tall, broad shouldered, toned and muscular. His hair was closely cropped and the color of unsweetened chocolate. His face was a masterpiece of chiseled bone that gave him refined cheekbones, a sharp jawline, a sculpted chin and a nose that was kept from being completely perfect by a bit of a boney bridge. He had slightly thin lips, and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, streaked by silver to make them even more remarkable.
“I’m Dani Cooper,” she introduced.
“Ma’am,” he said formally to acknowledge the introduction.
“This is a surprise,” she said.
“I was granted an emergency family leave and just got off a plane at Buckley Air Force Base.”
“Even though you’re a—”
