Suddenly a Bride / A Bride After All: Suddenly a Bride. Кейси Майклс

      “Okay, not so funny this time. Kay, look, I’m sorry I didn’t call you, but it’s been a hell—” he shot a quick look at the twins, who weren’t really paying attention, thank God “—a heck of a week.”

      “Yes, I heard about The Hammer. Are these two of your little baseball team children?”

      “They’ve never seen a baseball game,” Will answered, going into lawyer mode. Tell the truth while saying nothing.

      “And the entire team is here somewhere? You’re really taking this punishment seriously, aren’t you? Or maybe just trying to score brownie points with The Hammer, which wouldn’t be a bad idea. You really were out of line, Will, you know.”

      “So says the assistant district attorney. If you’d been sitting at the defense table, you would have objected, too.”

      Kay shrugged her bare shoulders. She was dressed in a sort of tube top that didn’t quite reach her waist, and a miniscule tan skirt whose length only barely passed the public decency test. It was like there were two Kays, the buttoned-down prosecutor in the courtroom and the sensual, sexual shark everywhere else. He should know.

      And he needed her gone before Elizabeth got back.

      Besides, the twins were now running in circles in a small cleared spot near the beer stand, chasing each other and nearly bumping into people, including a guy built like a Mack truck and carrying a full tray of beers. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who’d just laugh and say “boys will be boys” if the tray hit the ground.

      “I’ve got to go, Kay,” he told her, pointing to the twins.

      But he’d left it too late, because here came Elizabeth toward him, carrying a large plastic bag with the image of an IronPig on it.

      “Danny! Mikey! Get over here.”

      The twins stopped running and raced to their mother, each of them grabbing for the bag. She pulled out a pink baseball hat with the IronPigs logo on it and then handed the bag to her sons. “You each have the same thing, so there’s no reason to kill yourselves trying to see.”

      Then she looked at Will. And saw Kay.

      “I’m sorry I took so long, Will. There was a line at the register. Hello,” she said to Kay.

      Will didn’t physically step between the two women, but he did think about it. “Elizabeth Carstairs—Assistant District Attorney Kay Quinlan.”

      “Oh, how formal, Will,” Kay said, extending her hand. “Outside the courtroom, I’m just Kay. Are these two adorable boys your sons?”

      “Only mostly adorable, but yes, they’re mine.”

      Will grabbed the twins and stood them in front of him, his hands on their shoulders. Not that he needed a shield from either woman. “Mikey, Danny, meet Assist—that is, meet Ms. Quinlan.”

      The boys mumbled something that sounded vaguely like a greeting and then went back to their new possessions, matching baseball caps and a pair of tan canvas-covered stuffed dogs sporting blue bandannas with the IronPigs logo on them.

      Elizabeth must have seen him looking at the dogs. “They’re autograph hounds. I thought if I could interest the boys in the players that they’d also become more interested in the game. The salesgirl told me the players often sign autographs before and after the games. Is that all right? Oh,” she added, reaching into her purse, “I also got them a set of trading cards with the players’ photographs on them. Although the roster—roster, right?—isn’t complete anymore because players are always coming and going. Some of them have gone up to the big show already this year.”

      “The big show?” Will grinned at Elizabeth’s earnest expression. “You mean, the big leagues, up with the Phillies.”

      “If you say so. She just said the big show. I’m sorry, Kay. This is all new to me—and to the boys. Will has been kind enough to help explain the game to them now that they’re on a team.”

      “So they are on your team?” Kay asked, one perfect eyebrow arched. “The one that only came into existence in the last few days? My, my, William, you don’t let any grass grow, do you?”

      “Excuse me,” Elizabeth said, taking Mikey’s hand, probably knowing that where one twin went the other followed. “I think Mikey would like a hot dog. We’ll be right over there, Will. Kay? So nice meeting you.”

      Will waited until Elizabeth and the boys were standing at the back of the line at the hot dog stand and then turned back to glare at Kay. “You had to do that?”

      “Probably not. She seems like a nice woman. Let me guess. Newly divorced?”

      “Widowed.”

      “Even worse. Shame on you. Well, at least now she’s been warned, hasn’t she? When are you going to make your move, Slick?”

      “I’m not making a move, Kay.”

      “Sure you are. And the sooner you make it, the sooner you’ll be back in the pool. Call me.”

      “I’m not making any—Oh, the hell with it,” he said as Kay turned away, heading for the beer kiosk.

      He stood where he was for a few moments, his thirst for a beer gone, and wondered how he was going to explain Kay to Elizabeth. She’s nobody important, just someone I sleep with once in a while when we’re both bored? No, that wasn’t going to cut it. Did he have to say anything at all? Probably not, at least not from the way Elizabeth had looked at him before taking the boys to the hot dog stand.

      How the hell had he gotten into this mess? Okay, so he knew how he’d gotten into the mess. He should never have tried to set Chessie up with somebody, especially with anal-retentive estate lawyer Bob Irving. Payback was a bitch, but what was fair was fair. And the idea had seemed simple enough. Show the girl a good time, Chessie said. Flirt with her, make her feel feminine, desirable. Remind her she’s still young—and all that crap.

      Sure. Great plan.

      Then have her standing there all fresh-cheeked and vulnerable, with her mommy-clothes yellow blouse and knee-length denim skirt and her silly pink IronPigs baseball cap on, and two cute but definitely not disposable kids with her, and introduce her to the sleek, sensual, übersophisticated, smart-mouthed Kay Quinlan.

      That ought to help Elizabeth come out of her shell, or wherever the hell place it was that Chessie seemed to think she needed to get out of. Not.

      Then again, who needed this? Not him. He didn’t like kids, didn’t know how to relate to them. Cleaning off sticky faces definitely wasn’t a turn-on. Nor was trying to romance a woman whose kids kept getting in the way.

      He looked over at the hot dog stand to see that the boys were now munching happily as Elizabeth squeezed mustard on her own napkin-wrapped hot dog. They were kind of cute kids, though. Maybe they needed a haircut. All those curls on boys old enough to be swinging a baseball bat? He’d be surprised if they weren’t teased in school. But a woman raising her boys alone maybe wouldn’t know the little ins and outs of boy stuff. The kids could have a problem.

      “Nah. Mikey would sock anyone who teased him,” Will told himself quietly. “And Danny would talk the rest of them to death.”

      Will frowned. How did he know that? He’d only been with the twins for a couple of hours that morning. But he was already beginning to be able to tell them apart just by their mannerisms, the way they talked, the words each of them used. The way Danny played his mother like a fine Stradivarius, the way Mikey couldn’t seem to stand still for more than five seconds at a time.

      The blare of the loudspeaker on a nearby pole alerted Will that the team was taking the field, snapping him out of thoughts that weren’t making him all that happy anyway.

      He walked over to Elizabeth and told her it was time to take their seats. They filed into the box in the third row behind the dugout just as it