Shattered. Joan Johnston

all over his carpet or were cranky because they were feverish? He might not find it so much fun playing parent when the twins turned stubborn and defiant. How would he respond if they were mischievous? Or downright mean to him? All of which she’d experienced with her sons in their short lives.

      Once Shaw realized what being a parent was really all about, he might be as anxious to be rid of the twins as he’d been to have them come and live with him.

      She could always hope.

      The limo rolled to a stop in front of a sprawling, single-story house with white adobe walls and a red, barrel-tiled roof. Shaw’s home was half-hidden by flowering bougainvillea and draped by gnarled live oaks that provided cool shade from the hot Texas sun.

      Kate looked for windows, but didn’t see any. She felt her heartbeat ratchet up. How could anyone bear to live in a place so shut off from the light? She would feel suffocated in a house like that.

      A barrel-chested man in a long-sleeved plaid, western-cut shirt, worn blue jeans and cowboy boots opened the door to the limo and stood back as Shaw got out, the boys tumbling after him. Her sons headed straight for the German shepherd sitting beside him.

      Kate’s heart was in her throat, afraid the large dog would snap at them. When Shaw reached a hand back inside for her, she took it as the fastest way to get out of the limo.

      “Be careful!” she warned the boys.

      “Wolf won’t hurt ’em, ma’am,” the heavyset man said.

      Despite his dangerous-sounding name, the dog sat unruffled as her sons “oohed” and “aahed” and ran their hands over his furred head and back.

      “This is Micah,” Shaw said, introducing the man to Kate. “He takes care of the house. He’s a terrific cook.”

      “Good to see you, Boss.” The hired man turned to Kate and said, “You need anything at all, ma’am, just let me know.”

      “Thank you,” Kate said.

      Micah excused himself to help Bruce with their bags, which were in the trunk of the second limo. Wolf rose and followed him.

      “Let’s go inside,” Shaw said to the twins. “I’ll show you your rooms.”

      As though it was the most natural thing in the world, he slid an arm around Kate’s waist and headed down the winding walkway that led to the front door. She went with him willingly, because her other choice was to make a scene in front of her sons.

      The boys hop-skipped on the lush lawn beside Shaw to keep up with his long strides.

      “You said rooms, Shaw,” Lucky pointed out. “Does that mean I don’t have to share a room with Chance?”

      “Is that all right with you?” Shaw asked.

      “It sure is!” Lucky backpedaled beside Kate as he crowed, “Mom, I’m gonna have a room of my own!”

      “Me, too!” Chance shouted, running in circles on the lawn with his hands held out like an airplane.

      Kate made a distressed sound that Shaw must have heard because he leaned close and said, “Any reason why that isn’t a good idea? I just thought—”

      “It’s a fine idea,” she snapped. “Any other wishes you plan to fulfill while we’re here?”

      “As many as I can,” he snapped back. “I’ve got a lot of making up to do, as you well know.”

      “You’re going to spoil them, Shaw.”

      “By giving them their own rooms?”

      “And bringing their horses and their dog and their cat here.”

      “That doesn’t sound like a hell of a lot,” he said. “I would have liked to be the one to give them their first horse. Or their first dog.”

      “Or their first cat?”

      “I hate cats.”

      Kate couldn’t help it. She laughed.

      “What’s so funny, Mom?” Lucky asked.

      “I tickled your mother’s funny bone,” Shaw said.

      “I know Mom’s really ticklish in the ribs,” Chance said. “I didn’t know she had a funny bone. Where is it?”

      She looked helplessly at Shaw and laughed harder. It beat the heck out of crying.

      Shaw chuckled. “I’ll show you sometime.” He opened the door to his home and gestured his sons inside.

      Kate saw why there were no windows on the outside. The interior walls in the U-shaped house were made of windows that brought the outdoors inside. The patio in the center of the courtyard was shaded by a giant oak and graced with a waterfall burbling over stones into a pond dotted with blooming white water lilies.

      Kate watched her sons move through Shaw’s earth-toned bachelor living room, past the saddle-leather, man-size chairs and the plush, man-length couch, both situated in front of a stone fireplace that ran up to the cathedral ceiling, as though they were bird dogs hunting down the scent of a covey of quail.

      They touched everything, the odd-shaped lamps, the Hopi Indian dolls, the pillows on the couch, letting their curiosity take them from item to item. They scuffed their feet across the colorfully patterned rug.

      She waited for Shaw to tell them to back off, not to handle this, to leave that alone. But he said nothing. She searched his face, trying to discern what he was feeling. But he had his emotions well contained.

      When the boys finally headed down a wide hallway off the living room, he followed them as though he were attached by an invisible string. She thought he might have forgotten she was there, so entranced was he with his sons.

      She stood bemused for a moment, wondering if she should follow him or stay where she was.

      He returned to the doorway and said, “The bedrooms are down this hall.”

      He waited for her, and she was grateful the hallway was wide enough for her to walk beside him without touching. She saw the boys had stopped and waited for him.

      “Which room is mine?” Lucky asked.

      “Which one is mine?” Chance asked.

      “This is yours,” he said to Lucky, pointing through a doorway. “And this is yours,” he said to Chance, indicating the doorway next to it.

      At first Kate thought there was a mirror in the wall between the two rooms. Then she realized that a double door had been cut in the wall between the two rooms, and that they were mirror images of each other. The boys could shut the door between their rooms for privacy, or leave it open if they wanted to play together.

      While Kate watched, the two boys met in the doorway, then turned and grinned at Shaw, acknowledging the perfect beauty of the connecting doorway. Then they turned again to explore their separate rooms, which each held a twin bed, an end table and lamp and a desk with a computer. Flatscreen TVs hung on the wall of each boy’s room, with a DVD player on a table beneath it stacked with many of the same movies she’d seen on the plane.

      Kate smelled fresh paint. “When did you do all this?”

      “I had a doorway cut between the rooms the day I found out about the twins.”

      Kate felt a shiver run down her spine. He’d planned this moment. He’d intended to have his sons living here. This was no vacation he’d organized for them. This was forever.

      Kate glanced up at Shaw and at last saw some of the emotions he’d been so careful to hide. Triumph. And satisfaction.

      “I hope my room is near the boys.” So she could grab them when the time came and make her escape.

      “You’re sleeping in here.” He opened the door to the room at the end of the hall and waited for her to enter.

      Kate’s