by Deb Kastner
“Yep, good to go,” she said as much to the crowd that had formed around her as to Simon.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. And thank you,” she said to the teenager, who beamed back at her.
His brow creased. She was taking this far too well.
He probably would have crawled into a hole and not come up again. Ever.
But not Miranda.
She smiled at those surrounding her and curtsied, as if she had just finished putting on a play instead of flopping nose down on the concrete floor.
Curtsied.
People actually started chuckling and clapping, offering their support, while all he could think about was that it was a wonder she hadn’t hurt herself more than she had.
Just another addition Simon could make to his mental list of differences between them.
While Simon admittedly took everything too seriously, Miranda was—
The truth was, he didn’t know how to describe her. Emotions swirled around and knotted themselves in his chest whenever he even thought of her. But one thing was for certain. They were as different as night and day—in the way they perceived the world, as well as how they encountered it.
Before he’d gotten to know Miranda, he hadn’t realized what a strong and dedicated woman she was. He’d misjudged her. But now that they were spending time together with the twins, he had the distinct impression it would be harder than ever to be the godfather he wanted to be.
He and Miranda were so different. He didn’t understand her view of the world, and before long, she would get tired of his cup-half-empty outlook.
He’d made a mess of every relationship he’d ever been in, and Miranda was a complicated woman.
Could they be friends? He had a hard time seeing through their dissimilarities, and he was nothing if not practical. The more time they spent together, the larger their differences appeared. How long before the gap between them would be too far to cross?
* * *
Well, that had been humiliating.
When she was a kid, Mason used to tease her that Klutzy was her middle name. And she’d just proven that for the benefit of the entire town.
And Simon.
At least she’d provided a good laugh, after everyone was certain she hadn’t actually injured herself in her inglorious fall. And the twins had loved it. They thought it was all a game, which was just as well.
Her knee hurt slightly but not enough to make a big deal of. She’d ice it when she got home. In the meantime, there were plenty of other booths to explore.
Simon threw three darts, popping the same number of balloons, and won a purple giraffe for Harper. He then proceeded to knock down bottles with a tennis ball and won Hudson a large red ball with white stars on it.
Miranda was glad for that, because she couldn’t throw darts or tennis balls. She and Simon encouraged the twins to throw bean bags into buckets, which neither of them managed to do, not that it mattered. They each received small participation prizes—candy cane tree ornaments that the teens had fashioned into reindeer using pipe cleaners.
By the time they’d nearly finished visiting all of the booths, Miranda’s knee was beginning to hurt in earnest, but she didn’t want to cut the twins’ fun short and Simon legitimately appeared to be enjoying himself for a change.
There were only two games left—the kissing booth, which Miranda was purposefully avoiding, and she suspected Simon was doing the same, and a big tin barrel filled with water and floating rubber ducks.
“Pick a duckie, win a prize,” said the teenage girl, a pretty blonde with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
“That sounds easy enough,” Simon said, setting the giraffe on the counter and bracing Harper so she could lean over the barrel and grab a duck.
Harper being Harper, she tried to pick one for each hand.
“Easy does it,” Simon said, gently returning one duck to the pond.
The teenager looked at the bottom of the duck, where the prize had been written in permanent ink, and handed Harper a six-inch dolly.
Simon shot Miranda a grin. “I’m glad we’re getting to the end. I’m out of hands.”
Miranda laughed and set the red ball on the floor so Hudson could have his turn at the duckies. His hand hit the water palm down, splashing it into Miranda’s face.
She sputtered. “That’s not how this works, buddy.”
Taking his hand, she guided him to a duck, which he pulled out in triumph before it went straight for his mouth. Miranda was so busy trying to remove the duck without causing Hudson to wail that she didn’t immediately see what Hudson had won.
The teenager stood with her arm stretched out, bearing a bag half-filled with water, a goldfish nervously swimming back and forth in its depths.
A real, live goldfish.
“Oh, dear. I don’t—can we get something different?” she stammered.
The teenager shrugged. “Sorry. All we have left are dolls and goldfish.”
Simon nudged her shoulder. “Come on, be a sport. As pets go, goldfish are a piece of cake.”
Miranda cringed. “Says you. Remember the cactus? I have no idea how to take care of a goldfish.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll set you up and show you the ropes.”
That was what she was afraid he was going to say. Reluctantly, she accepted her live fish offering, but only because both of the twins appeared fascinated by it. They’d probably enjoy watching the fish, for as long as that lasted.
“I think we’re finished here,” she said, eyeing the ball at her feet. “But I can’t pick up the ball and hold the fish at the same time, and you’ve got your hands full, too.”
Mason appeared at her side, his mischievous brotherly grin causing Miranda some pause.
“I’ll help with the ball and the fish,” he said, picking up the ball, taking Miranda by the shoulders and pushing her away from the exit. “But you’ve missed one booth.”
“Knock it off, Mason,” she said under her breath. “I’ve been embarrassed enough today.”
“Yeah, I heard about your little fall. Are you sure you didn’t hurt yourself?” At least he sounded semiconcerned, though no less impish.
Big brothers. Can’t live with them, can’t shoot ’em.
“Nothing an ice pack won’t fix,” she assured him, not that Mason was going to listen.
Unfortunately, Simon was following them, probably not realizing he was a lamb being led to the slaughter. He really ought to know better, having been best friends with Mason for over ten years.
“Nothing that a little kiss can’t fix,” Mason amended, shoving Miranda underneath the mistletoe in the kissing booth.
“I don’t have any more cash,” she protested.
Mason grinned like a Cheshire cat and tossed the teen behind the table a five-dollar bill. “It’s on me. Simon, the honor is all yours.”
Simon eyed the booth—and Miranda—dubiously. He looked like a kindergartner, afraid of getting cooties. Miranda didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended.
She chose laughter.
“A kiss to make it better,” Mason prompted.
“Am I really that bad?” Miranda teased, handing Mason the goldfish and shifting Hudson to her right arm so she could offer Simon her left cheek.
“Yes. I mean no. I mean—” Simon stammered, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
Miranda raised her brows. “Is it yes or no? There’ll be a foot of snow in Texas before you figure this out.”
Simon scowled, intensely concentrating, clearly looking for a way out of this situation, and that only made Miranda and Mason laugh harder.
At length, he tipped his hat back with the arm that held the giraffe and dolly and sighed, the poor, long-suffering cowboy.
He first pressed a kiss on Harper’s forehead, then stepped forward and kissed Hudson, as well. Last, he leaned toward Miranda, his lips hovering over her cheek as if in indecision.
But when his warm lips finally met her skin, it wasn’t the hasty peck she expected.
He lingered.
Chapter Nine
Simon’s mind lingered on that kiss far longer than it should have. Stupid Mason for making a complicated relationship even more thorny. Kissing Miranda reminded him once again that she was a woman, and not just the twins’ guardian.
Part of him wanted to do what he always did when threatened—fight. Fight the feelings, and stay far away from Miranda Morgan. Or was that flight?
Instead, he called and made arrangements for them to take a day trip to the zoo. At least the zoo didn’t have a kissing booth. In fact, it was specially decorated for the Christmas season, with zoo lights in the shapes of animals. The kids would love it, and it would be the perfect place for him and Miranda to walk on neutral ground—literally and metaphorically.
Something told him the zoo was a place that not only the twins would like, but that Miranda would delight in, as well. Anyone who enjoyed making play tents out of sheets would enjoy seeing all kinds of exotic animals. And he didn’t even want to get her started on special Christmas decorations.
When he arrived at Miranda’s cabin and rang the bell, she only opened the door a crack and poked her head out.
“We’re not quite ready yet,” she murmured, and then shut the door in his face.
He didn’t have to see what was going on to be able to imagine the scene from the ruckus he was hearing inside.
Squeaking and squealing and shrieking and giggling—and not all coming from the nine-month-olds.
It must be total chaos in there. He waited patiently for a couple of minutes, but finally, his curiosity got the best of him and he slipped inside the door.
Miranda squeaked when she saw him.
“If you can just hold on a moment more, Simon. I have to put these two in the bath before we go. We were making hard biscuits for snacks and a certain someone—” she coughed the name “Hudson” into her palm “—had both fists in the bowl the moment my back was turned. He got flour and sticky dough everywhere.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t left the bowl on his high chair where he could reach it,” he suggested with a chuckle.
She laughed. “You’re right. My bad.”
Once again his opinion of her shifted, bumping up a few more notches. It took a brave soul to attempt to make homemade anything with two nine-month-old babies “helping.” That sounded like way more trouble than it was worth to any sane person, but Miranda was all smiles and laughter.
The house smelled scrumptious, but her kitchen looked like a powder keg had blown up in it—a keg of flour. Sticky dough dotted the counter, and Simon suspected more dough had gone onto baby skin than had made it into the biscuit batter.
To his amusement, the goldfish Hudson had won at the Christmas carnival was swimming around in a bowl on the far end of the counter. Miranda had managed to keep the little fish alive for a week.
“Can I help?” he asked, thinking he could wipe down counters or mop the floor or something useful.
Miranda grinned at him. “I thought you’d never ask. Can you grab me a couple of bath towels?”
He grabbed the towels—bright yellow, surprise, surprise—and followed her into the bathroom, stopping short as he entered.
The woman had an evergreen wreath in her bathroom.
In her bathroom.
And the toilet seat was decorated as Santa Claus. No shortage of Christmas cheer here.
Shaking his head, he turned on the bath water while she divested two wriggling babies from their dough-covered fuzzy footie pj’s.
“This is so much easier with a second set of hands,” she gushed. “Usually, my bathroom looks like a water bomb exploded in it when I have to give them a bath. These kids really know how to make a splash.”
As if to prove Miranda’s words, Harper started wildly kicking both legs, sending a wave of water over the side of the tub and utterly soaking one leg of Simon’s jeans.
His gaze met Miranda’s. She was desperately going for a mortified expression, but he could see she was barely holding in her mirth.
She shouldn’t be laughing at him.
And he ought to feel affronted. Would have, in the past. But oddly, he could see the humor in the situation.
It was funny.
He chuckled and the dam cracked.
Miranda clapped a hand over her mouth and began laughing uncontrollably, holding her stomach and rocking back and forth.
“Oh, Simon. Your face!”
“You’re one to talk.” He reached over and wiped his thumb across her cheek where a large smear of dough remained. “It looks like you three are wearing more dough than you baked.”
“We learned fractions today,” she informed him with a mock snooty sniff.
He lifted a brow. He didn’t know the first thing about children, but wasn’t nine months a little young for a baby to be learning math?
She snorted when he tipped his head and stared at her in confusion.
“One fourth of the dough gets on your clothes, one fourth goes on your face, and if all goes well, half gets into the oven.”
“You learn something new every day.”
“See? I’m a great teacher, aren’t I?”
He definitely learned something new every day when he was around Miranda. She was teaching him loads without a classroom and never ceased to surprise him. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but always something different. He handed her one of the towels and slung the other one over his shoulder.
“I have a much higher learning curve than figuring out only one new thing a day,” she informed him as she soaped down the two squirming babies and then scooped Harper into one of the plush, vibrant yellow towels. “I learn several hundred new things a day, usually by trial and error. Mostly error.”
“I noticed you like yellow,” he observed.
“Why wouldn’t I love it? It’s the color of sunshine.”
Yellow wasn’t just Miranda’s favorite color. Miranda was yellow. Sunshine. Tulips and daffodils and other spring flowers. She was always so quick to move on from whatever conflicts they had. She didn’t hold a grudge and just let go, rising new with every morning.
He was more like midnight.
Dark and broody.
Which meant what? Was he the instigator of conflict?
He didn’t want to be that man. Not when he’d worked so hard to do more, to be different from the youth he had been.
He sent up a silent prayer asking God for assistance to be a new and better man. Without the Lord, he was nothing.
As he lifted Hudson from the tub and wrapped him in an identical yellow towel, he mentally resolved to do better.
It didn’t matter what his past had been, or even if his natural predilection was to see the dark before the light.
If he could learn it, he could unlearn it, and hanging out with Miranda was as good a place to start as any. He’d never be bright like sunshine, but at least maybe he could reflect her rays.
“Let’s take my new car to the zoo,” Miranda suggested as they dressed the babies in identical outfits.
“You got a new car?”
“The safest SUV on the market,” she said proudly.
“No tiny bumblebee convertible anymore?”
“Royal blue. Unfortunately, the SUV I wanted doesn’t come in yellow.”
He couldn’t imagine why that new bit of information caused him a moment of dismay. It was a practical decision on her part, but it was almost like taking away a little bit of her personality.
&
nbsp; “If you can get the twins buckled up in their car seats, I’ll get changed into something more appropriate for the zoo. If I go in these,” she said, gesturing to her dough-covered baggy golden sweatshirt and battered yoga pants, “the lions, tigers and bears are apt to want to eat me for lunch.”
Even in a bulky sweatshirt with her shoulder-length chestnut hair pulled back in a messy bun, Simon thought the lions, tigers and bears weren’t the only ones apt to notice her. She was a stunning woman. Any man would take a second look.
He shook the thought away. He wasn’t here to date Miranda. He was here to learn to get along with her for the sake of the twins.
And even if that wasn’t his primary motivation, there were dozens of reasons any attempt at a relationship with Miranda would be a disaster.
Fire and ice, for one. Sunshine and midnight.
That she was Mason’s little sister, for another. There had to be something in the man code about not getting involved with your closest buddy’s younger sister. Mason would have no choice but to take Miranda’s side in a bad breakup and Simon would lose the best friend he’d ever had.
Was he willing to risk that?
And there was yet another wide chasm between them—even here in Wildhorn where she was the single mother of twin infants, in essence, she would always be the successful celebrity photographer with boatloads of money and a contact list full of famous friends, and he would still be the poor, simple country cowboy who could barely make ends meet, and whose existence was primarily working with dogs that would never have another chance at life were it not for him.
What sane woman would want that for herself? Especially because she came as a ready-made family. She would always have to put the twins first.
Not a chance.
He wasn’t good for any of them.
The fact was, he had nothing to offer Miranda, or Hudson and Harper, so it was especially important not only for him to rein in any errant thoughts, but to also make it clear to her that he was in this for the twins and only for the twins.
“What about the kitchen?” he asked as Miranda slid behind the wheel and plopped a camera case in his lap. He felt guilty about leaving it such a mess, even if he hadn’t been party to creating it.