met Samantha.
After his wife died, it had taken him a while to get his head back on straight, and he wasn’t entirely convinced he’d succeeded yet. He used to think that volunteering for the most dangerous missions and staring his fears in the face would make him feel more in control. Then, after a near-death experience last summer, he realized he couldn’t be so selfish as to put Aiden and Caden at risk of becoming total orphans. So he’d settled down and aimed for the safety net of Sugar Falls.
Now all his charm was exclusively used for smoothing over the trouble his children unintentionally caused. So far, neither his charm nor his commitment to his children had diminished that dangling, out-of-control feeling he still got. To make matters worse, when Carmen Delgado was around, his safety net seemed further away than ever—and he wasn’t sure he could survive another free-fall.
Carmen had just finished lunch at the Cowgirl Up Café on Snowflake Boulevard and was walking back to the station to do some paperwork before her shift was over when a very pregnant Mia McCormick waved her over from across the street.
“Hey, Officer Delgado, you’re just the person I wanted to talk to,” Mia said as she held open the door to the Sugar Falls Cookie Company to allow Kylie Gregson, the twins’ aunt, to maneuver her double stroller inside. “Do you have a second?”
“Sure.” Carmen followed the women into the little shop that brought so much business to Sugar Falls. She inhaled the scent of vanilla and looked around at the cute displays to see what the flavor of the month was. She’d always been a sucker for fresh baked goods, and even though the turkey sandwich and potato salad she’d finished a few minutes ago threatened to pop open the button on her uniform pants, she might order a couple of cookies and save them for later.
She tried to look anywhere but at the other customers who cooed and made googly eyes at the twin baby girls, talking to Kylie and Mia about feedings and diapers and all the things Carmen would never get to experience.
Carmen had never felt like such an outsider, which was saying something considering she’d been the only female in her MP unit and had had to hoof it clear across the base to take a shower in the women’s head while all of her coworkers got to use the communal locker room.
At least as a Marine and a cop, she had the job in common with her male counterparts. But there was absolutely nothing she could say at that second that would make her fit in with this duo of mommies. And she never would.
When the customers finally left, Mia said, “I’m so behind schedule. I should’ve taken Maxine up on her offer to deliver the cookies to the old Remington Theater for tonight’s dance recital.”
Maxine owned the Sugar Falls Cookie Company and was married to Carmen’s boss. Since Carmen knew Chief Cooper was off duty this afternoon to accompany his wife to an obstetrician appointment, she doubted the pregnant dance teacher would get much help running errands. Maybe that’s what Mia wanted to talk to her about. But before Carmen could remind the woman she was on duty, the other mom spoke up.
“Thank goodness you got the city council to okay you using the old theater for performances,” Kylie said to Mia as she rocked her stroller back and forth. She directed her next comment at Carmen. “Sometimes I worry about my girls growing up in a small city with a limited access to culture, so having a legitimate venue for school plays and band concerts is a total win. Last year, when the community center got double booked, we had to watch the fifth grade’s talent show while the bingo club was shouting out B-39 and O-14 the whole time.”
Carmen smiled politely as the women laughed. She hadn’t been in Sugar Falls very long, so she didn’t share the same memories, but she appreciated these ladies including her in the conversation and not making her feel so out of the loop. Although she was still waiting for them to clue her in on why they wanted to talk to her.
“You’re from Vegas originally, right?” Kylie asked before reaching into the stroller and unstrapping the infant who’d started fussing. Carmen nodded but averted her eyes quickly for fear that if she watched the tender maternal moment too long, she wouldn’t be able to look away. In which case, they’d probably see the hunger and the desperation in her eyes. She planned to avoid that scenario. Sympathy was never easy for her to handle.
“Hey, I thought I saw my nieces being wheeled in here,” a masculine voice said from the doorway. Carmen didn’t have to turn around to recognize the speaker. Her stomach’s telltale reaction to his voice already alerted her.
She told herself it was due to the big lunch she’d just consumed, not his unexpected arrival. Just like it was the sudden crisp spring air rushing in from the open door that caused the shiver to race from inside her starched collar all the way down her spine—not Luke Gregson, himself.
Maybe if she repeated that lame excuse eight more times, she might actually believe it.
The tall man was dressed in his blue battle dress uniform, looking like he’d spent all morning modeling in a photo shoot for some Navy recruitment poster. She would think that seeing him in his military uniform would trick her mind into believing that he was just like every other guy she’d worked with over the past ten years.
But judging from the second shiver making its way down her back, it wasn’t her mind doing the thinking.
A sudden wail jerked Carmen’s attention from the muscular male legs tucked into shiny black boots and toward the small bundle of pink still strapped in the stroller.
“Oh, no.” The pitch in Luke’s normally deep voice raised a few octaves as he reached for his other niece, talking to her. “Did your mean ol’ mama pick up your sister and leave you behind all alone in this big contraption?”
“Luke Gregson.” Kylie stood up even taller than her five-foot-ten height as she faced her brother-in-law. “If you call me or my fashionable stroller ‘old’ one more time, I will drive straight to the school and tell your sons that you promised to take them and five of their best friends camping this weekend.”
“Aw, come on, Kylie.” Luke’s voice sounded just like his sons last week when Carmen had told them they had to practice their spelling words before she took them to Noodie’s Ice Cream Shoppe. “That’s not cool. It’s supposed to rain this weekend, and you know what happened last time I let them invite a friend—one friend—for a sleepover at the cabin. I still have mustard and toilet paper stuck to the living room ceiling.”
Carmen laughed. It didn’t take much to imagine how Aiden and Caden had managed that.
“Hey, Officer Delgado.” Luke finally turned his warm gaze to her. Seeing him holding that precious baby made her stomach drop to her knees, which was the only explanation for why her legs felt so unsteady. “I didn’t expect to see you in here chitchatting the afternoon away with these two.”
Didn’t he? If he saw his sister-in-law and nieces enter the cookie shop, then he had to have seen Carmen come in right behind them. More than likely, he was probably surprised to see her socializing with other women. Not that she wasn’t a little surprised herself.
“First, you call me old and now you suggest we’re all just wasting our time talking about important town business?” Kylie tried to sound stern. “Give me my daughter, Luke. She can’t wait to surprise her cousins at school with the news of their fun-filled weekend.”
Luke
