Special Forces Father. Victoria Pade

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—”

      “Marine. Yes, ma’am.”

      “Is he a so-dyer?” Grady asked, hiding behind Dani while Evie stood to one side of her.

      “Soldiers are army,” he corrected.

      He got points for understanding the word, but getting so technical with a four-year-old only made Dani smile.

      Just before she remembered what Evie had done to her hair and how she looked meeting this man for the first time.

      But if he’d noticed that she was unsightly there was no evidence of it. And there was nothing she could do about it now, so she merely said, “This is Grady and this is Evie,” nodding to each child in turn. “Guys, this was a friend of your mom’s. His name is Liam.”

      Any mention of their late parents sobered them and this was no exception.

      “Say hello,” she prompted when neither the kids nor Liam Madison responded to the introduction.

      “H’lo,” both children parroted, eyeing him somberly the way they did all strangers.

      “Nice to meet you,” the marine said as much by rote as the kids’ greeting had been.

      It occurred to Dani just then that she’d kept their guest outside long enough. She invited him in and dispatched the twins to put on their pajamas.

      “Get your blankets for wind-down and I’ll bring your yogurts and milk in just a minute,” she instructed as Liam Madison stepped across the threshold to stand at attention inside rather than out.

      Hella-handsome but not warm and fuzzy. Dani was familiar with that military-instilled rigidity.

      As the kids bounded out of the entry she closed the door, motioned behind her with a thumb over her shoulder and said, “Why don’t we talk in the kitchen? I’ll be able to hear them better from there.”

      The marine nodded curtly and followed her as she led him in the same direction the kids had gone, to the rear of the expansive house.

      “Can I get you something to eat or drink?” she asked along the way.

      “Thank you, no. But you could tell me who you are, exactly.”

      Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was industrial, and she offered him a seat on one of the metal bar stools at the stainless steel island in the center of it.

      He didn’t accept the offer, remaining standing at one end of the island while Dani went