Lone Star Twins. Cathy Thacker Gillen

Soberly she nodded, adding, “She still gets that neither of us want to get hitched.”

      No woman prized her independence more than the outspoken Poppy. For a lot of very different reasons, he felt the same. “But?” he prodded.

      Wrinkling her nose, she reluctantly explained. “Anne Marie’s decided she would feel better if we were actually married at the time of the adoption. And, as it happens, the Stork Agency apparently has a requirement of their own—that any time more than two children are adopted simultaneously, there be two married adults with a longstanding relationship doing the adopting.”

      “The agency officials didn’t say anything about this when we were there, meeting Anne Marie and the other girls.”

      “Apparently they didn’t expect Anne Marie to choose us...but they wanted to give her a basis for comparison. As it turns out there was another couple that was also in the running, which Anne Marie’s mother met and prefers, and they are married. But in the end, Anne Marie decided she wants us. On the condition,” Poppy reiterated with a beleaguered sigh, “that we get hitched and the kids have the same last name.”

      “I have no problem with you becoming a Caulder,” Trace said. “In a nontraditional sense, of course.”

      “Or you could become a McCabe.” Removing a coated elastic band from her wrist, she swept her hair up into a messy ponytail on the back of her head and secured it there.

      Aware when she wore her hair that way it reminded him of her college cheerleading days, he volleyed back. “Or, better yet, you could just drop the Elizabeth—” her middle name “—and change yours to Poppy McCabe Caulder. Like a lot of married women do, for practical reasons, to cut down on the confusion.”

      Silence fell.

      Finally, realizing this was one battle she wouldn’t win with him, Poppy conceded, “Fine. If you insist.”

      “I would.” Thanks to two parents who couldn’t stop marrying—and then divorcing—he’d been saddled with a lot of different “family names.” He had no intention of ever inflicting the same on any offspring. Whatever it started out with was what it would stay.

      He studied the ambivalence in her dark brown eyes. “You’re sure you want to get married, though?”

      Trying not to think that if things had gone the other way, he and the woman opposite him might very well be married now, Trace watched her rise to pace around the room, then return, her taut-fitting jeans doing very nice things for her waist and hips.

      A river of desire swept through him.

      He wished they were close enough to touch.

      Kiss.

      He wished he could inhale the tantalizing apple blossom fragrance of her soap and shampoo.

      Meanwhile she looked perfectly content with the way things were; the two of them thousands of miles apart.

      “It’s a big step,” he cautioned her. “Even if it is only on paper.”

      She twisted off the top of a water bottle. “I’m sure I want to adopt those twins with you.” She paused to take a long, thirsty drink then shrugged. “And since this is the only way...”

      Travis knew how frustrated and upset she was, deep down. And with good reason. He and Poppy had abandoned contraception ten years ago, when she’d told him she wanted to start a family, on her own. As her best friend, because he still felt responsible for a very sad time in her life, he had readily agreed to help her achieve her goal of having a child on her own.

      After six years, and many a passionate rendezvous, she still hadn’t been able to conceive. She hadn’t wanted to see a fertility doctor, because she didn’t want to risk having multiples. So she had signed up to adopt. Again with his full emotional support. For the first two years, strictly on her own, as a single woman. When that hadn’t panned out, he had signed on to be the dad in the proposed arrangement. Except that they hadn’t been selected by any of the mothers wanting the type of open arrangement they did.

      Hadn’t even come close. Until now.

      But there was a catch.

      The babies were twins.

      And, of course, when he’d agreed to all this a couple of years ago, he had never considered the fact that he and Poppy would have to get married.

      That, for a lot of reasons, neither of them wanted.

      Yet with both of them thirty-five and her biological clock ticking, passing on the marriage requirement and waiting for another baby to come along—a single-birthed child this time—did not seem wise.

      It would be foolish to not do whatever was deemed necessary to make this happen. Even if getting hitched wasn’t something they would choose under any other circumstance. “What’s the timetable?” Trace asked finally, aware that nothing about their long-standing relationship was exactly conventional.

      “According to the agency, we’ll need at least three weeks to get all the legalities in order, after we’re married. That is, if we want the babies to come home from the hospital with me.”

      “And naturally we do.” After waiting so long, Poppy would be heartbroken if she had to miss out on a single second of motherhood.

      She took another long, thirsty drink. “The twins are due on December twenty-fourth.”

      That gives us less than a month, all told. Trace frowned. “Only one problem with that. I’m still deployed and not due for leave again until next spring.”

      Suddenly looking plucky as ever, Poppy beamed with her trademark Can Do attitude. She might not have been a twin or triplet, like her five younger sisters, but she knew how to go after what she wanted, no matter the obstacles in her way. “Fortunately, I have a solution.” She pushed on. “A marriage by proxy.”

      Trace had heard the term bandied about by his fellow airmen and women, mostly as a joke. Realizing he was thirsty, too, he got up to get a bottle of water from his room’s mini-fridge. He returned to the desk, his dog tags jingling against his chest. “You can really do that?”

      “In exactly four states in the USA. California, Texas, Montana and Colorado. Luckily—” her grin widened “—we are both permanent residents of the Lone Star State.”

      “So how does that work?” he asked curiously, wishing he’d had time to clean up since coming off duty before they’d connected.

      Poppy sobered. “I can’t speak to the process in the other three states. But under Texas law, a member of the military who is deployed out of the country can request to be married by proxy. Generally, there need to be extenuating circumstances—like the birth of a child or some other reason for urgency—and the ceremony will have to take place here in Texas. We’ll just get someone to stand in for you at the courthouse.”

      Physically take my place? Next to Poppy? His jaw tightening, Trace tried not to consider how much that rankled, or why it might. “You’re kidding,” he said gruffly and then paused as he studied her slightly crestfallen expression. “You’re not kidding?”

      “This is the only way we’re going to be able to adopt Anne Marie’s babies,” Poppy reminded him. “And you know how long I’ve been on the waiting list.”

      Forever, she had often lamented.

      A fresh wave of guilt stung Trace. He was part of the reason Poppy had had such trouble getting the family she’d always wanted. Although no one but he and Poppy knew about the specifics, at least in her hometown of Laramie. Mostly because she hadn’t wanted anyone else to know about the tragedy and he’d had no choice but to abide by her wishes.

      “Anne Marie is also the only one who’s ever been amenable that we want to raise these children more as friends than anything else. The fact you’re constantly deployed in the military, like her late father, actually gives you a heroic