Page 190 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

Bolt drops his head on my boot with a sigh. Even he’s waiting for me to spit it out.

Caleb tips his chair back. “You in trouble?”

I huff a laugh. “Not exactly.”

Dad folds his arms. “That sounds like yes.”

I look out over the yard. The fading light. The sagging fence line. A chorus of insects starting up in the brush. I consider keeping it simple. I’m thinking about changing work. I’m considering staying closer to home. I’ve got feelings I don’t know what to do with.

But the truth is bigger than that, and these two men have known me long enough to hear the shape of a lie even if I dressed it up nice.

So I go with the truth.

“There’s a woman,” I say.

Caleb lets out a bark of laughter. “You had me worried.”

Dad just lifts a brow. “There’s always a woman.”

“Not like this.”

That gets both their attention.

Caleb’s chair comes back down onto all four legs with a quiet thump.

Dad studies me for a long beat. “All right,” he says. “Start over.”

So I do.

Not every detail. They don’t need the precise logistics of how many people June’s tangled up with or exactly how she sounds when she laughs or the way she fits under my arm in the dark, designed to ruin me. But enough.

I tell them about Redwood Run. About June coming to town for the nanny job. About her working for Wayne, and Fletcher and me getting pulled into her orbit right alongside him.

I tell them she’s kind. Funny. Good with Wayne’s boy, Evan. That she makes these wooden toys with her own hands and carries around scraps of wood in her pockets because she thinks anything can become something if you give it the chance.

Dad smiles at that.

I tell them she’s had a rough run. Bad ex. Worse luck. Anonymous rumors messing with her life. That she’s scared more often than she lets on, and brave enough to keep going anyway.

Then I tell them she’s pregnant.

Caleb goes very still.

Dad’s expression doesn’t change much, but I see the shift in his eyes. Focus sharpening. Weight settling.

“And it might be yours,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Might be one of the other two fellas’ as well,” Caleb says carefully.

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Caleb says slowly, “that’s complicated as hell. You never can do anything simple, like I do, can you?”

I laugh once. “You don’t say.”

Dad doesn’t laugh. “What do you want?”