Montana Twins. Charlotte Maclay

jumping swing thing. He’d need two of—

      “Eric, the babies are about to wake up. They’ll be hungry and need their bottles.”

      “Oh. Well, okay.” So he needed to learn their schedules. No big deal. “We’ll feed them and then we’ll go.”

      “What time does the store close?”

      He checked his watch. “Six o’clock. It’s four now.”

      “That should give us barely enough time—if the store doesn’t have a big selection and you don’t linger over your decision.”

      His jaw went slack. It took that long to get the twins ready to roll? Lord, when he got up in the morning, he shaved, showered, ate breakfast and was on the road in under thirty minutes. How much longer could it take to get two itty-bitty babies organized for a trip of less than a half mile?

      IT WAS LIKE PREPARING for an African safari.

      There was a diaper bag, extra bottles, a plastic baggie of pacifiers in case the twins began to fuss. Then Laura had insisted that the infant car seats, which only an hour ago he’d taken into the house, had to be transferred to his vehicle. She was right, of course, that the babies’ safety was all-important but the seat belts had tangled. Sorting out the mess had taken Eric a full twenty minutes. She’d suggested, with mock sweetness, that they could take her SUV, which had the seat belts already adjusted to the proper length.

      Not a chance! They were his kids now.

      Still, he had to give her credit. While he had battled frustration, she had remained calm. Cuddling the twins and cooing at them. Checking on his workmanship to be sure the babies would be as safe as possible.

      A child could do worse than have her as a mother.

      Which didn’t mean Eric was going to concede the twins’ custody to her, not by a long shot. Blood counted.

      By the time they all piled into the police cruiser, a black-and-white SUV with a light bar on top—which he’d been forced to drive because his personal vehicle was a pickup truck that didn’t have a place for the twins—Eric was exhausted. He suspected Laura was, too. But she was so tight-lipped, he was afraid to comment.

      Hell, they would have been better off to carry the babies down the street to the general store. But then, how would they have gotten a chest of drawers back home if he hadn’t driven the SUV?

      Not that there was much time left before the store closed to do their shopping by the time they got there.

      LAURA ADJUSTED AMANDA in a cuddly sling across her chest. She had yet to find a sling to handle both babies at once, so Eric carried Rebecca into the general store.

      A cheery chime greeted their arrival as he pushed open the door and held it for Laura.

      An amazing array of products, from wilted produce to bathroom faucets, cluttered the narrow aisles. Aging Christmas items were still on display on the higher shelves, two-foot-tall aluminum trees, dusty Styrofoam snowmen in jaunty hats and a plastic crèche missing its wise men.

      Idly Laura wondered how many years the decorations had been waiting for a frantic last-minute shopper to succumb to desperation.

      From the back of the store, a woman appeared. She wore a blue butcher’s apron over a print dress and had one of those faces that was best described as having character. Laura guessed a line had been etched for each of the seventy-something years she had lived in Montana.

      “Afternoon, Eric. Bet you’ve run out of frozen dinners again and don’t want to eat at—” Her eye caught the baby in his arms, and she halted abruptly. “My sakes, look at what you’ve got. Isn’t she the cutest little thing.”

      Laura winced as the woman chucked Rebecca under the chin. She’d been told by the doctor that the twins’ immune system might not be as strong as those of a higher birth-weight baby, and she hated to take the twins around strangers.

      “Excuse me,” Laura said. “The babies are—”

      “Hetty, I’d like you to meet Laura Cavendish. Hetty Moore and her husband, Joe, own the store.”

      Laura smiled politely, but before she could prevent it, Hetty had zeroed in on Mandy’s rosy cheek, giving the baby a grandmotherly pinch.

      “Twins…” she crooned. “You’ve been keeping secrets from us, Eric. Shame on you. These little bundles are too precious to hide. And their mamma, too. Such a pretty girl.”

      “I didn’t know about them till yesterday, Hetty.”

      “He’s their uncle,” Laura tried to explain.

      Hetty’s eyes widened and she gasped. “You mean Walker has been—surely not Rory. Why, they’re only just married, the both of them. I can’t think what gets into a man’s head these days. My Joe and me—”

      “Hetty! It’s not what you think. This has nothing to do with my brothers.”

      She huffed. “I should hope not.”

      Eric rolled his eyes, and Laura stifled a smile. The good folks of Grass Valley had a tendency to jump to conclusions. Explaining the situation would likely take hours, and there wasn’t that much time before the store closed.

      “Eric was hoping to buy a small chest of drawers to put the twins’ things in,” Laura said.

      “With two new babies to manage, you’ll be needing a lot more than one chest of drawers.” On a mission now, Hetty bustled down the aisle toward the back of the store.

      “They may not be staying that long,” Laura called, hurrying after her.

      “Now, honey, you don’t have to play coy with me, giving me some wild story about young Eric being the twins’ uncle. If he’s their daddy, you have to give him a chance to make up for whatever he did that upset you. I’m sure you two can work out your differences.”

      “We might as well give it up for now,” Eric muttered only loud enough for Laura to hear. “Once Hetty gets something in her head, it sticks there like Super Glue, even if it’s wrong.”

      “I don’t want people to think you and I—”

      “They won’t. Not for long.”

      Just what did that mean? Was he going to take out an ad in the local paper, assuming there was one, to explain the situation? Or was it simply too obvious the handsome town sheriff wouldn’t be caught dead with someone like her? Not that she was a dog. But she certainly wasn’t model thin. Nor had she ever been considered sexy. Men had never fallen all over themselves to ask her out. And the few who had soon lost interest, either because she knew more about history and government than they did, or because she couldn’t give birth to the offspring their egos demanded a woman produce.

      “Now here’s a nice one.” Hetty scooped a display of American flags and red, white and blue bunting off the top of a five-foot high honey-oak chest of drawers. “Conrad Gelb’s a true craftsman. I’m sure he’d make up another one just like this if—”

      “It’s too tall,” Laura said. “I’m going to use it for a changing table while I’m here.”

      “He could make you one of those, too, if you want.”

      “We aren’t a hundred percent sure the babies will be staying—”

      “I’m sure.” Juggling Rebecca in one arm, Eric lifted the edge of a dust cover from a similar oak piece that was about waist high and had three drawers. “How about this one?”

      Laura nodded. “That would work fine.”

      “Won’t hold but a teaspoon’s worth of baby clothes,” Hetty warned.

      “We’ll take it.” Eric glanced around the store. “How ’bout those swing things babies like?”

      To Laura’s dismay, and frequently over her objections,