His Little Secret: Double the Trouble. Maureen Child

about her head, with her green eyes shining with both pain and panic, he’d wanted her so badly he’d had a hell of a time just walking out of the hospital.

      After Vegas, he’d buried her memory and lost himself in dozens of temporary women. Yet he’d never really been able to wipe Penny from his mind entirely. And now she was back—with his children—and he’d be damned if he’d be cut out of his kids’ lives. Even if, he was forced to admit, he was hardly father material.

      The beach was nearly empty and the sunset stained the white clouds varying shades of pink and orange. The waves crashed relentlessly onto the shore, and out beyond the breakers, a few remaining surfers chased the next ride.

      “You’re an idiot.”

      Colt didn’t have to turn around to know who had spoken. His twin’s voice was unmistakable.

      “Thanks for stopping by,” he said. “Go away.”

      “Right. That’ll happen.” Instead, Connor settled down on the sand beside his brother and instinctively took up the same position as Colt. Arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees, gaze fixed on the ocean. They were so alike, they generally didn’t even have to speak because each knew what the other was thinking.

      But today, Colt realized, even he didn’t know what he was thinking. Sexual desire, yes. Fury, oh, yes. But there was so much more. How the hell could he figure it out? Thoughts raced through his mind, slapped up against the wall of his brain and then rushed back down again to tangle with the others. Much like the legendary surf at the Wedge, Colt’s mind at the moment was a dangerous place to be.

      “You don’t surf the Wedge alone and you know it,” Connor said.

      True. Even adrenaline junkies knew what line not to cross, but today, he just hadn’t given a damn. Not that he would admit it to Connor.

      “I wasn’t alone,” Colt argued. “There are at least a dozen other guys out there.”

      “Yeah, all looking out for themselves. Don’t suppose you noticed the riptide?”

      “I noticed,” he admitted grudgingly. Riptides were a danger on their own. Riptides at the Wedge were a whole new level of risky. Get caught in one of those and you could be dragged out to sea so far you wouldn’t have the strength to swim back in. “And I don’t need you nagging me.”

      “Fine. Won’t nag. Just leave a note behind next time you surf here alone, okay?”

      “A note?” He looked at his twin.

      Connor shrugged. “You’re gonna commit suicide the least you can do is leave a note—you could say, ‘I should have listened to Connor.’”

      Colt shook his head and returned his gaze to the churning sea. White water and spray shot into the air. A cold sea wind whipped his hair back from his forehead, and overhead, gulls shrieked like the dying.

      He didn’t even wonder how Connor had known to find him here. For the last ten years, Colt had spent most of his time chasing the next adventure. Always searching out danger and beating it. He just wasn’t the office, suit-and-tie kind of guy.

      Hell, even with floor-to-ceiling windows displaying a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean and the California coastline, he felt trapped in the building he and Connor owned on the Pacific Coast Highway. Which was why, he reminded himself, he was the adventure man and his twin was in charge of paperwork.

      He shuddered at the thought of being buried behind a desk. Like the clients that King’s Extreme Adventures served, Colt was always looking for the next shot of adrenaline. Skydiving, BASE jumping, extreme surfing, wingsuit flying―he’d done them all and had no intention of ever stopping.

      In spite of what he’d learned today.

      “Have you seen the twins?”

      “No.” Colt narrowed his gaze on the ocean and tried to ignore the sudden, frantic beat of his heart.

      “Why not?”

      “Because I’m too pissed at their mother.”

      Connor laughed shortly. “I’m guessing their mom’s not real fond of you about now, either.”

      He turned his head to glare at his brother. “You think that matters to me?”

      “No. But I know the kids do.”

      Well, that took the fire out of him. “What the hell do I know about being a father?”

      Connor shrugged. “We had a pretty good role model for that, I think.”

      “Yeah, we did.” Their parents had been the best. Until... Guilt reared up inside him, shouting to be heard, but he shut it down as he always did. The past didn’t have any meaning here. This was all about the now. And the future. “Doesn’t mean I’ll be any good at it.”

      “Doesn’t mean you’ll suck, either.”

      Colt laughed and pushed one hand through his still-wet hair. “Quite the pep talk.”

      Connor grinned and turned his gaze on the ocean. “You don’t need a pep talk. Unless you don’t believe they’re your kids...”

      “No.” Colt shook his head and scowled. Naturally, he’d considered that for a split second, right after Robert Oaks had punched him. But he’d discounted it just as quickly. “One thing Penny is not is a liar. In spite of the fact that she hid them from me. Besides,” he reasoned, “if she was trying to push someone else’s twins off as mine, she’d have come to me for money right from the jump.”

      “True. Still, you should do a paternity test. Cover all your bases legally.”

      He would, eventually. Colt wasn’t an idiot. But tests or no tests, he knew, in his gut, those twins were his. Penny had been too panicked about him finding out about them to have him doubting it for a second. And she was right to panic, he told himself. Because things were going to change. Her life as she knew it was now over.

      Because Colton King would do whatever he had to to make sure his kids were taken care of.

      * * *

      Maybe he’d forgotten to come.

      Penny laughed silently at the very idea. Colton King might look like a wild, untamed, crazy adventurer—and he was. But he was also a brilliant businessman who never forgot a detail.

      So then if he hadn’t forgotten, why hadn’t he shown up at the hospital this morning as promised? Penny had spent a long, sleepless night, worrying about what she would say to him when he strolled into her room again. Turned out, she needn’t have bothered.

      All day, she’d been tied in knots, waiting for him to appear. And he never showed up. Why that should irritate her when she really wished he would just go away and stay away, she didn’t know.

      But then, her feelings for Colton King had always confused her. That one week with him had fueled her dreams and her fantasies for months. Even when she was pregnant with the twins he had known nothing about, her mind continued to plague her every night, with alternative endings to their time together. But every morning, she was dragged back to a reality where happily ever afters didn’t exist.

      “And you should remember that,” she muttered, giving herself a warning. Yet even while that thought squirmed through her mind, her body bristled with nervous expectation and she couldn’t quite seem to calm it down.

      Penny had spent most of the day—when she wasn’t torturing herself with thoughts of Colt—trying desperately to be released from the hospital. Not only couldn’t she afford a lengthy stay—they probably charged a hundred dollars for an aspirin—but she needed to get home. To be with her kids. To be back at her cottage, tucked away from everything so she could... What? Hide? From Colt? Not a chance. Now that he knew the twins existed, Penny would never be free of him.

      Her heart rate suddenly jumped into overdrive and she groaned. For heaven’s sake, would she always have that reaction