The Texas Cowboy's Triplets. Cathy Gillen Thacker

waited for this moment for so long, he could hardly believe his good fortune. Kelly seemed to be having a similar “is this really happening after all” moment.

      With a shrug, she tilted her head at the clear blue sky with a few scattered white clouds. “Well, it’s not that hot or humid. Parking along the town square can be hard to find, and,” she said, drawing a breath that lifted and lowered the enticing swell of her breasts, “it’s only four blocks.”

      He fell into step beside her. “Then we walk.” He debated whether to take or hand or not. Decided not. “You look pretty tonight.”

      “Thank you. So do you.” She shook her head. Tried again, more succinctly this time. “I mean you look handsome.”

      He grinned. “Good to know.” And deep down it delighted him that she was obviously as acutely aware of him as he was of her.

      She swung to face him. The sexual vibe between them intensifying, she raised a cautioning hand. “I know I agreed to do this, Dan. But—” her lower lip took on a rueful curve “—I think it may have been a mistake.”

       Chapter Four

      “A mistake?” Dan had been ready for this kind of reticence, given how high Kelly had her guard up. But he hadn’t really expected it until the end of the evening. He reached over and took her hand in his, wondering all the while what it would take to make her feel as crazy with longing and giddy with desire as he did at this instant. “Why is that?”

      Color swept her cheeks. “Because I know that you’re looking to settle down and get married.”

      He stepped even closer. “And?”

      She kept her eyes on his a disconcertingly long time. “I’m not marriage material,” she evaded finally.

      It wasn’t the first time she had told him this. He hoped it would be her last. “Who told you that?” he scoffed. “Your ex-husband?” If so, he’d like to wring the jerk’s neck.

      Her teeth raked across the soft lusciousness of her lower lip. “How do you know I’m divorced instead of widowed?”

      “I figure if you’d already been married to the love of your life and didn’t want to date for that reason, you’d just say so. Plus, there would likely be photos of the triplets’ daddy around the house. There aren’t. At least not that I’ve noticed. Or some mention of him, either from you or the kids.”

      She retreated into scrupulous politeness. “I might have never gotten married at all.”

      He wasn’t surprised to find her still holding him at arm’s length. Slanting her a sidelong look as they began to stroll in the direction of the town square, he noticed how the dwindling sunlight caught the shimmer of blonde in her caramel hair. “Was that the case?”

      Another shadow crossed her face. Their eyes locked, providing another wave of unbidden heat between them. “No.”

      Dan savored her nearness and the pleasure that came from being alone with her. “How long after you had the kids did you divorce?”

      She shoved her hands in the pockets of her skirt. “It became final one week later.”

      One week? He let his glance drift over her slender form to her spectacular legs. “After giving birth to triplets?” He couldn’t hide his astonishment. His gaze returned slowly to her face, pausing on her lips before returning to her long-lashed amber eyes.

      Sadness came and went in her guarded expression. “It’s a very long story.”

      “We’ve got at least three more blocks.”

      She sent him a quelling look.

      “More,” he added, curtailing his own rising emotions, “if we take the long way.”

      Kelly smiled faintly. Sighed. “Okay, maybe you should know.”

      Now they were getting somewhere. He studied the mixture of regret and longing in her eyes.

      “I didn’t date when I was younger because of how chaotic my life was, so I was pretty naive when I met Grif right after college. I had a lot of student loan debt, so I was working weekdays at a preschool and then moonlighting on weekends at his family’s real-estate firm in Phoenix.” She took a breath. “Grif had just graduated from Wharton Business School, and he felt entitled to a bigger role in the family company. His parents wanted to see him married—to someone of an appropriate social standing—and settled down with kids first, before they gave him a part-ownership in their multimillion-dollar enterprise.”

      Dan caught her hand in his, and this time she didn’t let go. “That didn’t go over well?”

      Kelly sighed and looked down at their entwined fingers. “No. He quit working for them, took a job with their biggest competitor and eloped with me.”

      “He was using you?”

      Kelly’s jaw tautened. “To tick them off, yes.” She stared straight ahead.

      “Did you know that?”

      “No.” She frowned. “He was so charming I thought he was wildly in love with me. I probably would have gone on thinking that, at least for a while, had I not become pregnant right away. His family went ballistic. And when we realized I was carrying triplets, so did Grif.”

      Curtailing his rising anger, Dan guessed, “He didn’t want the babies?”

      “Of the child of an addict who spent half her life in foster care?” She smirked derisively. “No. So they sent the family lawyer to see me with a proposal. If I would not claim the children were legally Grif’s, they were prepared to set up a very generous general welfare trust that would provide for me and for the children, through college. All I had to do was agree to an uncontested divorce, pretend to the few people who knew about the pregnancy that I’d miscarried, leave Arizona immediately and settle elsewhere.”

      “What would happen if you didn’t agree?”

      “They were going to fight me for custody. And they promised me it would be very unpleasant. They’d bring up my unstable childhood and my family history of addiction. And with their money and influence, they might have won.” She released a pensive sigh. “So to spare my children that kind of ugliness, I said yes to their plan, agreed to an uncontested divorce and chose Texas.”

      Dan hated the way the bastards had treated her. He was also glad they were permanently out of her life. “So Grif’s name isn’t on the triplets’ birth certificates?”

      “I left the space blank.”

      He saw the good and bad in that, too. Extricating their hands, he wrapped his arm about her shoulders and drew her closer. “Have the triplets asked about their father?”

      Their paces slowed. “Only in a general sense.”

      His protectiveness toward her grew. “What did you tell them?”

      She leaned into him, her voice soft. “That they were my very own little miracles, sent from heaven so we could be a family.”

       So true.

      “And that not all families have daddies, or mommies, for that matter.” Her voice caught slightly. Embarrassed, she averted her gaze. “And it’s okay, as long as children have at least one parent who loves them.” She swallowed, composing herself, as their steps slowed even more, then stopped. “And I do love them, very much.”

      “You’re a wonderful mom, Kelly.” He grasped her shoulders, and turned her to face him.

      She sighed with a mixture of sadness and frustration. “And yet, I can’t give them what they should really have had all along. A complete family.”

      Maybe not with her