Maureen Child - His Little Secret - Double the Trouble

He pulled in a deep breath of the cool night air and held it inside, hoping that it might swamp the fires still raging within. Naturally, it didn’t, and he was left to burn as he took a seat on the steps and stared up at the sky.

Colt was still trying to come to grips with what had just happened. Being with Penny had rocked him right down to his bones. He was used to desire. Used to slaking that desire with whatever woman was handy. What he wasn’t used to was what happened to him with Penny.

Over the last couple of years, he’d convinced himself that the memories he carried of his week with Penny were exaggerated. That no one could be that amazing. That the...connection he felt with her didn’t really exist. Well, those lies had just been smashed.

His heart felt like a jackhammer in his chest and his mind was filled with a jumble of thoughts he couldn’t sort through.

Sex with Penny was staggering. No other way to put it or think of it.

Stars spilled across the blackness and a quarter moon looked like a child’s teeter-totter. Child. The twins’ features swam into his mind and he felt himself tighten up. Thoughts of sex dissolved as he considered the reason he was here. Those two kids deserved better than this cramped, too-short-for-real-people house. They were Kings. He could admire Penny for all she’d accomplished on her own, but now that he was in the picture, things were going to change.

He was putting his own life and business on hold to be here for Penny and the twins, but that couldn’t last. He had places he had to be—Mount Etna, to be specific.

That thought quickly spiraled into another and from there, his brain raced with ideas. A slow smile spread across his face as he considered one notion in particular. Hell, he could go to Etna this week. And Penny and the kids could go to Sicily with him. The twins could see some of the world—never too young to experience different things. Then Penny could take photos of his BASE jumps to be used in advertising and that would help her business.

Smiling to himself, he nodded thoughtfully as the plan came together.

* * *

“You must be out of your mind entirely.” Penny stared at him the next morning, astonished at what he’d just said.

Colt spooned more yogurt into two waiting mouths and flicked her a glance. “Not at all. This is perfect. I get my work done, you get some advertising for your business and the kids get to fly on a private jet. A win all the way around.”

Shaking her head, Penny grabbed her cup of coffee and took a long drink, hoping that caffeine would give her the strength to deal with Colt. She’d awakened that morning alone in her bed, and though she was disappointed, she hadn’t been surprised. Colt wasn’t the snuggling kind of man and she knew it. And still there was a flicker of pain when she was forced to acknowledge that he was keeping a distance between them—even after what they’d shared.

But this was nuts.

“You can’t really expect us to go to Sicily with you.”

“Why not?” He shrugged, wiped Riley’s mouth with a paper towel, then shoveled more yogurt into her. “We’ll give it another week. You should be good to go by then.”

Was it really so easy for him? Just make a decision and go? She had responsibilities. The twins to think of. A business to build. A house to take care of. Which she told him.

“The house will be fine. The twins will be with us,” he looked at her again. “As for your business, it’s at a standstill and you know it. I looked into your files this morning while you were sleeping. You’re barely covering expenses.”

Outrage and embarrassment tangled inside her, convulsing into tight knots that felt like balls of ice in the pit of her stomach. Not only had he delved into her bank account and her bills, he’d snooped through her business. He’d riffled through her records and all he’d seen was the bottom line. He hadn’t noticed the hard work, the hopes, the dreams.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she murmured, then laughed shortly at her own naïveté. Of course he’d intruded. Of course he’d stuck his nose into her business. Look what he’d done to her life!

The night before, she’d allowed herself to forget just how wide a gulf separated them. She’d indulged her senses and put her logical self on the back burner. But now Sensible Penny was back in charge.

Keeping her voice light so the twins wouldn’t pick up on any tension, she focused a laser glare on Colt. “My business isn’t any of yours.”

“Wrong,” he said easily. Then before she could argue, he continued. “I’m not looking for a battle here, Penny. I’m just saying, your business could use a good boost—and taking pictures for King’s Extreme Adventures would give you that.”

She slumped back in her kitchen chair. Sunlight fell through the windows and lay across the table and the old oak flooring. “Yes, because nothing says ‘I’ll take great pictures of your toddler’ like doing a photo spread of an insane man jumping off a volcano.”

A wry grin touched his mouth briefly and she felt the punch of it to her middle. But she wouldn’t be seduced again.

“Colt, I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t need it.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“But mine is the only one I’m concerned with.”

He sprinkled a few Cheerios onto the twins’ tray tables and finally turned to meet her gaze squarely. “I’m offering you a job. It pays well. And,” he added with a slow smile, “there are other benefits.”

That swirl of something hot and wicked punched her low again and even melted a couple of the ice knots. But enough of them remained to keep her on course.

“We are not taking the babies on an excursion to a volcano. And no,” she added, “I don’t want to take pictures of you risking your safety, much less have my children witness that. Do you want them scarred for life?”

He snorted. “I don’t remember you being so squeamish. When we met you were into sports photography. You wanted to travel the world, capturing danger and excitement with your camera.” Shaking his head, he looked at her quizzically. “Now you’re happy to take pictures of suburbia? What happened to all of the big dreams?”

“I became a mom,” she said, trying to make him understand, though she doubted he ever would. “Plans change. Dreams change.”

Her words were soft but powerful, and he acknowledged that with a brief nod for her. Then Colt looked at the twins and she watched his features soften and his eyes warm. She knew that his children had reached him in a way she’d never been able to. But she also knew that this time in her cottage was a blip on his radar screen. It didn’t matter how much he cared for the twins.

Colton King, as he’d told her himself, was not the staying kind.

* * *

Friday morning, Rafe King from King Construction was at Penny’s house bright and early. Colt was glad for the distraction. Since his brilliant plan had been shot down the day before by Penny, the two of them had been staying out of each other’s way. Which wasn’t easy in a house no bigger than a good-sized garden shed.

Carrying two cups of coffee with him, Colt strode out of the house and met his cousin as he climbed down from his truck.

“Coffee.” Rafe grinned as he reached for it. “You always were my favorite cousin.”

“And your wife’s my favorite cousin-in-law.” Colt looked past Rafe into the cab of the truck. “Did Katie take pity on me and send cookies?”

Rafe’s wife, widely known as “Katie King the Cookie Queen,” ran her own business out of her home while taking care of their daughter, Becca, and their newborn son, Braden. She also baked cookies for the legions of King cousins who adored her.