The Seal's Secret Heirs. Kat Cantrell

the keys to his future.

      He rolled from bed and pulled on a new long-sleeved shirt, jeans and boots. Eventually, his wardrobe would be work-worn like Liam’s, but for now, he’d have to settle for looking like a rhinestone cowboy instead of a real one. Coffee beckoned, so he took the back stairway from the third floor to the ground floor kitchen, albeit a bit more slowly than he’d have liked.

      Hadley had beaten him to the coffeepot and turned with a smile when he entered. “Good morning. Sleep well?”

      “Fine,” he lied. He’d lain awake far too long thinking about how this woman and his brother wanted to take his kids away. “And you?”

      “Great. The babies only woke up once and thankfully at the same time. It’s not always like that. Sometimes they wake up all night long at intervals.” She laughed good-naturedly and lowered her voice. “I think they plan it out ahead of time just to make me nuts.”

      Guilt crushed Kyle’s lungs and he struggled to breathe. Some father he was. They’d agreed the night before that Hadley would continue in her role as Maddie and Maggie’s caretaker until Kyle got his feet under him, but it didn’t feel any more right this morning than it had then. His sister-in-law was getting up in the middle of the night with his kids, scant hours after he gave Liam and Grace a big speech about how he was all prepared to step up and provide a loving environment.

      No more.

      “I appreciate what you’re doing for my daughters,” he rasped, and cleared his throat. “But I want to take care of them from now on. I’ll get up with them at night.”

      Hadley stared at him. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?”

      “Uh, well...” Should he brazen it out or admit defeat? God Almighty, he hated admitting any kind of weakness. But chances were good she’d already figured out he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the board when it came to babies. “I’m going to learn. Trial by fire is how I operate best.”

      “They’re not going to pull out AK-47s, Kyle.” Hadley hid a smile but not very well and handed him a cup of steaming coffee. “Sugar and creamer are on the table.”

      “I like it black, thanks.” He sipped and added good coffee to his list of things he was thankful for. “Tell me the things I need to know about my kids.”

      “Okay.” She nodded and went over a list of basics, which Kyle committed to memory. Eating. Bathing. Sleeping. Check, check, check. Stuff all humans needed, but his little humans couldn’t do these things for themselves. He just had to help them, the way he would a wounded teammate.

      “Can I see them?” he asked. Felt weird to be asking permission, but he didn’t want to mess up anything.

      “You can. They’re sleeping, but we can sneak in. You can be quiet, right?”

      “Quiet enough to take out a barracks full of enemy soldiers without getting caught,” he said without a trace of irony. Hadley just smiled as though he was kidding.

      He followed Hadley to the nursery, a mysterious place full of pink and tiny beds with bars. The girls were asleep in their cribs, and he watched them for a moment, his throat tight. Their little faces—how could anything be that tiny and survive? A better question was, how did your heart stay stitched together when it felt as if it would burst from all the stuff swelling up inside it?

      “I was their nanny first, you know,” she whispered. “Before I married Liam.”

      What did a nanny even do? Was she like a babysitter and a substitute mom all rolled up into one? If so, that seemed like a bonus, and he’d be cutting off his nose to spite his face to relieve her of her duties. She could keep on being the nanny as far as he was concerned, as long as Grace was okay with it. She must be. Liam had hired Hadley, after all, and Grace seemed pretty impressed with them as a team.

      “I’m not trying to take away your job,” he mumbled.

      Did she see it as a job? If she and Liam wanted to adopt the girls, she’d obviously grown very attached to them. Was it better to cut off their contact with the babies instead? Get them used to the idea?

      If so, he couldn’t do it. It seemed unnecessarily cruel and besides, he needed the help.

      “I didn’t think you were. It’s admirable that you want to care for them, but there’s a huge learning curve and they won’t do well with a big disruption. Let’s take it one step at a time.”

      He could do that. You didn’t drop a green recruit into the middle of a Taliban hotbed and expect him to wipe out the insurgents as his first assignment. You started him out with something simple, like surveillance. “Can I watch you feed them?”

      “Sure, when they wake up.”

      They tiptoed from the room and Kyle considered that a pretty successful start to Operation: Fatherhood.

      Next up, Operation: Do Something About Grace. Because he’d lain awake last night thinking about her more than he’d wanted to, as well. Somehow, he had to shut down the spark between them. Or hose it off with a big, wet kiss.

      * * *

      Grace sat in her car outside of Wade House and pretended that she was going over some notes in her case file. In truth, her stomach was doing a cancan at the prospect of seeing Kyle again, and she couldn’t get it to settle.

      She’d gone a long time without seeing him. What was so different now?

      Nothing. She was a professional and she would do her job. Get out of the car, she admonished herself. Get in there and do your assessment. The faster she gathered the facts needed to remove the babies from Kyle’s presence and provide a recommendation for their permanent home, the better.

      Hadley let her into the house and directed her to the second floor, where Kyle was hanging out with the babies. Perfect. She could watch him interact with them and record some impartial observations in her files.

      But when Grace poked her head into the nursery with a bright smile, it died on her face. Kyle dozed in the rocking chair, Maddie against one shoulder, Maggie the other. Both babies were asleep, swaddled in soft pink blankets, an odd contrast to Kyle’s masculine attire.

      But that wasn’t the arresting part. It was Kyle. Unguarded, vulnerable. Sweet even, with his large hands cradled protectively around each of his daughters. He should look ridiculous in the middle of a nursery decorated to the nth degree with girlie colors and baby items. But he looked anything but. His powerful body scarcely fit into the rocking chair, biceps and broad shoulders spilling past the edges of the back. He’d always been incredibly handsome, but on the wiry side.

      No more. He was built like a tank, and she could easily imagine this man taking out any threat in a mile-wide radius.

      It was a lot more affecting than she would ever admit.

      And then his eyelids blinked open. He didn’t move a muscle otherwise, but his keen gaze zeroed in on her. Fully alert. Those hard green eyes cut through her, leaving her feeling exposed and much more aware of Kyle than she’d been a minute ago. Which was saying something, given her thoughts had already been pretty graphic.

      It was heady to be in his sights like that. He’d always looked at her as if they shared something special that no one else could or would be involved in. But he’d honed his focus over the years into something new and razor sharp. Flustered, she wiggled her fingers in a half wave, and that’s when he smiled.

      It hit her in the soft part of her heart and spread a warmth she did not want to feel. But oh, my, it was delicious. Like when he’d taken her hand in the parking lot last night. That feeling—she’d missed it.

      She’d lain awake last night imagining that he’d kissed her the way she’d have sworn he wanted to as they stood under that streetlight. It was all wrong between them. Kissing wasn’t allowed, wasn’t part of the agenda, wasn’t what should happen. But it didn’t stop her from thinking about it.

      She