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  “Agreement?” He was lost, needed a map terribly. Maybe if he wasn’t so immersed in her beautiful green eyes he could pay attention better, but he had to hang on to something, and drinking her in was something he’d longed to do for a long time.

  “Our marriage agreement.” She laughed, sounding somewhat nervous. “We were both in a different place then, and it was a rash agreement.”

  “Our marriage agreement?”

  Her face took on a pink cast, and he realized she was embarrassed.

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

  “Hang on a minute.” He held up a hand. “What are you talking about, Jade?”

  She looked at him, obviously torn about saying more.

  “Don’t leave me in the dark.” He glanced at the Christmas tree twinkling in its corner and scratched his head. “I remember saying that if you happened to get pregnant, I wanted to marry you.”

  “Yes.” She looked relieved. “But you don’t have to anymore.”

  Finally they were getting someplace. “Won’t the father marry you? I mean, if Sam’s being an asshole, I can sure beat his head in for you.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Sam’s not the father of my children. Sam doesn’t want any part of marrying anyone, and he certainly wouldn’t get a woman pregnant. He avoids what he calls women traps like the plague. For that matter, so do Squint and Frog—even if they claim to be here looking for brides. I just don’t think they’re all that serious. Playing the field, is my guess.”

  “Back to the father issue.” Ty couldn’t get the whole story straight in his head. “We’ll worry about the home team and their field-playing later.”

  “The babies are yours, Ty,” Jade said softly, and it felt as if wings rushed into his heart, lifting it skyward.

  “Mine?”

  She frowned. “Well, of course! Who else’s would they be?”

  He swallowed hard, stunned. “I don’t see how.”

  She raised a brow. “You don’t see how?”

  “We don’t, either,” Frog called down the hall. “Can we have a few more details? There’s a big hole in this story!”

  Jade grabbed Ty’s hand, led him down the hall to a guest room, closed the bedroom door. “Of course you’re the father. You don’t remember working really hard to help me get pregnant?”

  She looked seriously disappointed in him, so Ty reached out, pulled her to him. “Slow down a minute, beautiful, and let me catch my breath. I’m still processing the fact that I don’t have to tie Sam to a cactus and leave him for an unpleasant, prickly end.”

  “I can’t believe you think Sam and I... I mean, I would never—” Jade looked at him, disgusted. “No. Never Sam. He’s just really good with the babies, and he loves them. And I think they’re comforted by his deep voice. Actually, the girls love Frog and Squint, too, but they don’t come around daily, even hourly, like Sam does.”

  Ty grunted. “I’ll try to thank him. Won’t be easy, because I’m a bit jealous.” If those tiny little pink-wrapped babies were his, he was totally jealous of all the hours Sam had spent holding them that he had missed out on. “So, mine, huh?”

  “Of course they are. I just didn’t tell you because I was...afraid.”

  Ty gazed into her eyes, seeing her apology in her honesty. “Because of my training.”

  “I really felt like it was best if I waited until later to tell you. I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing.” Jade took a deep breath. “Believe me, it wasn’t the easiest decision I ever made.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “I’m a father. That’s just about the best welcome-home gift I could have ever gotten. I don’t know if it’s totally hit me yet.”

  She smiled. “Sometimes the fact that I’m the mother of twins hasn’t totally hit me yet, either.”

  “Twins.” His brain struggled to take that information in. Then he laughed out loud. “I told you your ovary would like me.”

  She tried not to laugh, moved out of his arms. “Yes, you did. Crow all you like. You deserve it.”

  “I certainly plan to. So now, about getting married—”

  “No, no. That’s exactly what I came here to tell you.” Jade’s face turned serious. “Marriage is out of the question.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ty hurried after Jade as she exited the bedroom. “What do you mean, out of the question? Of course we’re getting married! Those babies are going to have a father, and it’s not going to be Stand-in Sam!”

  Jade stopped in the hallway and put a hand against Ty’s chest, sending his pulse skyrocketing. He wanted to kiss her desperately, celebrate his good fortune of becoming a father—sensed that would be a mistake. Jade was far too defensive, her demeanor closed off from him.

  Nope. No kissing.

  But as soon as he could manage it, he was going for those sweet lips. He’d gone far too long without kissing Jade.

  “I don’t want anything to change, Ty.”

  He caught her hand in his. “Sorry, darling, it’s changing.”

  “It can’t.” Jade shook her head, adamant. “Ty, look. I spent the last several months eaten up with guilt because I wasn’t telling you that you were a father. I didn’t know if that was the right decision or not. What if you’d died? Gotten killed by a roadside bomb or something?” Her eyes filled with tears, astonishing him. “You have no idea how hard it is to watch the news every night with your heart in your throat, wondering if your babies are ever going to get to know their father.”

  Their friends trooped out of the kitchen.

  “Ty’s really the father?” Squint asked. “I did not see that coming.”

  “I thought about it once,” Frog said, “but I dismissed it as being too impossible.”

  “Oh, wow,” Mackenzie said. “What a great homecoming gift for you, Ty!”

  “Congratulations, Ty,” Daisy said, and he wondered again why his friends had suddenly let trouble into their tight-knit circle.

  “That’s awesome!” Mackenzie flew down the hall to throw her arms around his neck. “Now Justin will have a fellow father to talk baby with!” She glanced with delight at her husband, and he saluted Ty with a grin.

  “Uh, yeah. I hadn’t exactly thought of it that way, but yeah. Me and Justin. Fathers. Who would have ever thought it?” Ty said, feeling a little panic come over him. But he wasn’t going to be a husband, not like Justin. The sparky redhead who’d drifted into the kitchen with the rest of the group seemed pretty clear on that.

  “Excuse me, gang,” he said, following Jade as she tried to sneak out the back door. “Just a minute, mother of my children.”

  Jade kept walking toward her house. “I have to get back. It’s almost time to nurse the babies.”

  “I can help you.” He was damned if Sam would be Drop-In Daddy any longer, not while he was around.

  “Not with nursing, you can’t.” Jade walked faster. “Ty, I get that all of this is a shock to you, and you’re welcome to come around anytime you like to see the babies, but I don’t want anything to change between us. I mean it.”

  He caught her hand, stopping her. “As I said, everything has changed. So get ready for that.” It felt so good to hold her hand, hold any part of her, that he forgot his earlier vow about keeping his distance, and pulled her against his chest. “Now this feels like home.”

  She remained against his chest, surprising him, because he’d expected a bit of a tussle. She was plenty strong-willed, and he’d been gone long enough to give her time to get really set in her ways. “I know you have some bug in your head about me, and the babies, but we’re getting married, beautiful.”

  She pulled away. “I can’t marry you. I’m sorry.”

  “Because?” He stopped her when she prepared to dart off again. “Because y
ou don’t want to be married to a guy who’s not going to be around much?”

  “Of course not!” She thumped his chest with a stern finger. “No one has supported your dreams more than me, so don’t even go there.”

  “Then why? Marrying me is the smartest thing you could do. We have babies who need the Spurlock name.”

  She seemed to go a little pale, though it was hard to tell in the very frigid weather, which was already pinkening her cheeks. “Oh, God, Ty.”

  “What?” He looked at her. “What is it?”

  “I can’t marry you. I’m sorry, I can’t. I appreciate that you want to do the right thing by the children, but I promise you, Eve and Marie will be just fine.”

  He stopped, his brain scrambling. “Eve and Marie?”

  “Yes.” She looked at him curiously. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “I might have missed it, but—” He tried on his daughters’ names, turning them over in his mind. “Those are beautiful names. Eve and Marie Spurlock. Perfect.”

  “No,” Jade said, “they’re Eve and Marie Harper. It’s just the way it has to be.”

  She headed off, her boots crunching in the crusty snow.

  “Why?” He stopped her again. “A promise is a promise, doll face, and you did promise me that marriage was my reward for overcoming your timid ovary.”

  She shook her head. “Neither of us knew what we were promising then, Ty. Forget it.”

  “I’m not forgetting a damn thing. My daughters are going to have my name.”

  Jade sighed. “Ty, how much more bad news do you want in one day?”

  “Bad news?” He considered that. “I haven’t had any bad news today. All I’ve gotten is good news, so go ahead and hit with me with whatever you’re keeping under that sexy red hair of yours. Be prepared, you’re talking to a navy SEAL. I don’t hear a whole lot of bad news. Everything filters into best possible outcomes.”

  “All right.” Jade took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to tell you this. I know you said you didn’t want to hear, and God knows, I’m still pretty floored by the whole thing. But I finally opened that stupid box.”

  “So? Nothing that was buried in a box is going to keep me from being a father to my children, Jade.” He tucked her against his chest once more, wanting to chase away the sudden shadows in her eyes. “I promise you, everything is going to be fine. I suggest you start thinking of what kind of wedding gown you’ll be wearing.”

  “Ty, I don’t really know how to say this,” she said, pulling herself from his arms, “but Robert Donovan is the girls’ grandfather.”

  Ty stared at her, caught and wary. “No, he’s not. Not if I’m the father.”

  “You’re the father,” Jade said slowly, softly. It came to him that she was trying very gently to point him toward information she thought he needed. “And Robert Donovan is your father.”

  The earth shifted beneath his feet, then Ty realized it was his legs going rubbery. His brain felt rubbery, too, unable to process what the mother of his children had just said. “What?”

  She took another deep breath. “Ty, I’m so very sorry. Sheriff Spurlock and your mother adopted you from Robert Donovan’s wife. Robert doesn’t even know you’re his son. That’s why the box was buried. Your father never intended anyone to know.” Jade’s eyes filled with sympathetic tears. “I so didn’t want to tell you, Ty. I know you said you never wanted to know what was in it, and I tried to keep to the letter of our agreement. But as you can see, that’s a promise I just can’t keep.”

  He shook his head, refusing to acknowledge what he was hearing. Felt himself grow dark inside. It explained so much. God, how he despised Donovan. Almost hated him.

  This was insanely bad news. “So Daisy is my sister.”

  Jade nodded. “I invited her to come to a few more of our functions and projects, Ty. It’s not easy for me. But there’s a part of me that feels that family should be...family.”

  “I don’t see how. She’s as evil as her father.” He straightened. “So I’m evil, too.”

  “Not hardly. Of course you’re not!” She rushed into his arms to comfort him. “Don’t say that! You’re one of the most admired men in this town.”

  He shook his head. “Jade, you don’t understand. I’m more Donovan than I am Spurlock.”

  “You’re pure Spurlock. Nurture versus nature. You know that.”

  “I don’t know that.” He had a dark side, he knew. Now he understood where that darkness came from.

  “Look, that’s a silly theory. If I gave my babies to Cosette Lafleur to raise, they’d grow up very artsy, thinking pink hair was normal, and chatting in French. Of course you’re your father’s son! Sheriff Spurlock was a fine man, and so are you.”

  Ty’s whole world had changed, sliding into some kind of strange abyss he hated. He couldn’t take it in. “You’re positive that’s what was in the box?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Jade backed away, feeling horrible for him, not sure how to comfort him. “I really didn’t want to tell you, but I’d already kept one thing from you, which I felt horribly guilty about, and still do. I couldn’t keep two secrets that would change your life.”

  “I know.” He shook his head. “I’m not angry with you. I’m just cursed.”

  “You’re not cursed! That’s ridiculous!”

  “I’m going,” Ty said suddenly, making up his mind. “I’m going to see the babies.”

  She looked worried. “And then what?”

  He walked away, no longer sure.

  But one thing he did know—he was going to be a father that his daughters knew loved them.

  * * *

  TY COULDN’T SAY he was relieved to know that the reason Jade didn’t want to marry him had to do with his newfound family lineage, and her own feelings of remorse over keeping things from him. Part of those guilty feelings he could have honestly told her to forget about—he’d insisted he didn’t want to know what his father had hidden away in the staircase, and he wasn’t sorry about that decision at all.

  In fact, a big part of him wished he still didn’t know. He was surprised by the amount of anger that had rushed into him at her revelation—anger and questions and fury. But not with her. All his fury was directed at Robert Donovan, who apparently had been an ass for so many years that even his own wife hadn’t trusted him.

  The anger Ty would deal with later.

  As for Jade, just worrying about why she’d been keeping him at arm’s length had been plenty to have on his mind. But now that he knew, he agreed with her; there could be no marriage between them. The last thing he was going to do was sully his daughters’ lives and reputations by announcing their relationship to Robert Donovan.

  God, what a hellish curse that would be to live under.

  And it wasn’t a secret that could be kept. Right now, their dearest friends knew that Ty was the father of Jade’s babies. Daisy had been in the room with the others, so by now, all of BC had heard the news. That was how secrets worked in their community—they just didn’t stay buried forever.

  It sucked, really sucked, to know that Donovan was his birth father. And yet Ty could be a better man than Donovan; the curse didn’t have to perpetuate itself.

  “Listen,” he said suddenly, as Jade returned to the kitchen, where he’d sat himself at the table. He’d tried to nibble on one of Betty’s oatmeal-raisin cookies, but frankly, his appetite was gone like the wind. “Has Sam left?”

  She nodded, sat across from him. “One look at your face seemed to convince him that his presence wasn’t needed. He shot out of here and didn’t even give me a report on the babies.” Jade smiled at Ty and selected a cookie for herself. “Sam usually likes to give me the rundown of every single thing the girls have done while he was babysitting, from first poop to possible smile.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah, well.” Jealousy sparked inside Ty again. “While I’m here, I don’t want Sam babysitting. I’ll babysit.” He pondered that for a second. “I guess it’s not babysitting if I’m the father. Then it’s probably dad-sitting or something.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “So anyway.” He took a deep breath. “You and I are going to keep this deep, dark secret, okay? For as long as we can, anyway. I don’t want the girls growing up with a shadow hanging over their heads. You have to admit it’s a big, nasty shadow. I don’t know how long something like this can stay hidden. Part of me wonders if there’s another shoe that might drop.” Or someone else who knew.

  “I leave that decision up to you, although part of me wonders if Robert has the right to know.”

  “He has the right to nothing.” Ty got up, paced the room. “He’d figure out a way to use them to get something he wants. Trust me, I know the man. He’s an open book. When it comes to his ambition, everyone is a sacrifice.”

  “Except Daisy.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Ty sat down at the table again, reached for Jade’s hand, held it between his. “For now, let’s agree that particular skeleton stays buried in the closet.”

  “Staircase,” she murmured. “Fine by me. I sealed that box up tight. Very tight.”

  “Why’d you wait so long to look in the box?”

  Jade shrugged. “It was your personal business.”

  Ty stared at her. “You realize you may be the only woman on the planet who doesn’t have killer curiosity. I’m betting any other one would have looked that first night.”

  “I waited in case you didn’t make it through BUD/S. If you’d decided to come home, then I could have made you do it—”

  “Ha! You were the one who told me to stay in training no matter what!” Ty squeezed her fingers lightly.

  “I know. But being a SEAL isn’t for everyone.”

  “You think I can’t do what Squint, Sam and Frog did? I don’t know that I appreciate your lack of faith,” he teased.