by Terry Spear
“You’d better keep in touch with Dottie and the kids like you said you would,” Aunt Emily warned, as if she had to tell him. “You can’t disappoint them. They truly love you.”
“I won’t.” Jack smiled at her and took her arm as he led her back to the parking lot. “As long as I’m not in the field or working where I can’t contact them, I’ll be in touch.”
“Are you glad I convinced Dottie to come here with the kids?”
Jack chuckled. “I think you know the answer to that question and as soon as I join her and the kids in Yuma Town, I’m asking her to marry me. So, hell yeah, I was glad to see her and Trish and Jeff and happy to be given the chance to prove how much I care about all of them and want to be with them as soon as I can.”
Three months would feel like a lifetime.
4
As soon as Dottie and the kids arrived at the airport, she called Jack to tell him they made it home.
“I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning, and I’ll give you and the kids a call when I get in.”
“Okay, sounds good. Stryker Hill, our full-time deputy sheriff, is here to pick us up at the airport. I’ll call you later when we’re home again.”
“Okay, I’m just chilling with Aunt Emily. I look forward to getting your call.”
Dottie and Jack ended the call, and she hurried with the kids to see Stryker, who was all smiles, his green eyes cheerful, his wavy dark hair freshly cut. She felt her smile was strained. She and the kids had a wonderful vacation. Now she needed to tell her friends the truth about Jack Barrington.
“We’re having a big welcome home for you at Hal and Tracey’s ranch,” Stryker said, hauling out their bags to his vehicle.
She and the kids were tired. But she knew she couldn’t say no to her friends.
“I’m taking you straight to the ranch. I warned everyone you and the kids would probably be tired. All your friends wanted to show you how glad they were that you were coming home and how much they missed you.”
“I missed everyone too.” Though she’d been so busy with Jack and her aunt and his family, she’d been rather occupied. If Jack hadn’t been in her bed every night, she would have thought of them then too. She’d missed him the moment she and the kids left him to go to the security checkpoint at the airport. Tonight when she went to bed all alone, she’d miss him all over again. Even at the ranch, she wanted what the other couples had. A mate to snuggle with at the fire pit and to take home with her that night when the celebration was over. A daddy who would help her put the kids to bed. And then kiss her senseless all over again.
“Can we ride the ponies?” Jeff asked, perking up.
“I’m sure Hal’s foreman would be happy to take you and Trish for a ride,” Stryker said, smiling down at Jeff. “You know how much Ted Weekum loves to take kids on rides.”
“Daddy doesn’t know how to ride. He’s not a kid, but I told him Uncle Hal would teach him how to ride on a pony first.”
Stryker looked at Dottie, waiting to hear what this was all about. She’d told the kids not to say anything to anyone about their daddy until she’d had a chance to tell everyone. But she halfway figured one or both of them would let it slip.
“Tell you when we get there,” Dottie told Stryker. She didn’t want to have to repeat what she was going to say to everyone over and over again.
“All right. So what did you get to do while you were at your Aunt Emily’s?” Stryker asked.
Jeff started digging in his suitcase. “I got to be Robin Hood and mommy was a princess.” He waved his Robin Hood hat about.
“I was a fairy princess,” Trish said, snuggling with her cloth doll in the back seat. “And Daddy was…”
“He was a knight. But he doesn’t know how to ride a horse,” Jeff said.
Stryker again took his eyes off the road and glanced at Dottie.
“I’ll tell everyone when we sit down to talk,” she said.
Stryker shook his head, but he was smirking.
When they arrived at the horse ranch, everyone welcomed her back with a big barbecue—Hal and Tracey Haverton, owners of the ranch. Chase and Shannon Buchanan, who ran the Pinyon Pines Resort, the newly renovated cabins at Lake Buchanan that had been in his family for generations, and their two-year-old twins, Zoey and Sadie, who both gave Jeff and Trish a hug, excited to see them back. Dan Steinacker, her boss and the sheriff; Stryker Hill, the deputy sheriff; Travis and Bridget MacKay, Cougar Special Forces Division agents; and Leyton Hill, also a CSF agent, and his mate, Dr. Kate Parker, the only physician in town. Leyton and Stryker had recently learned they were twin brothers and that had shaken them up a bit. Not to mention Ted Weekum, the foreman, and the ranch hands, Ricky and his older brother, Kolby Jones were there to celebrate Dottie and the kids’ return.
The whole time on the flight home, she’d been rehearsing how she was going to tell them about Jack Barrington. Stryker hadn’t said a word to anyone about the daddy business, waiting for her to get settled and tell the story.
Now she was seated with the rest of the adults around the fire pit, beers or glasses of wine in hand. All except Tracey, who was pregnant with twins, and Kate, who were both drinking sweet tea.
“Did you have fun with your Aunt Emily?” Dr. Kate asked Dottie, snuggling with Leyton on one of the outdoor couches, a fire blazing in the fire pit.
Ted offered to take Jeff and Trish to ride ponies in a little corral nearby. The kids, wanting to show off their Renaissance costumes, had dressed at the ranch house first. Ted had made a big deal of addressing Trish as a princess and Jeff as Master Robin.
“I’m Robin Hood,” Jeff said, as if Ted had gotten his name wrong.
“Why yes, of course. Master Robin Hood.”
“Can you teach Daddy how to ride a pony?”
“Yeah, cuz he doesn’t know how to ride one,” Trish said.
Everyone turned their attention from the kids to Dottie, some with raised eyebrows. Dan was frowning, his blue eyes narrowed, his dark brown hair shaggier than she’d ever seen it. He was unshaven too, and dark circles beneath his eyes revealed he hadn’t been getting enough sleep.
“Uh, yeah, we had a really good time,” Dottie told everyone gathered. “I have some news though. I ran into someone I knew back in college, Jack Barrington. I have to tell you something that I’ve kept from everyone. I’m glad to be able to tell you now. Jeffrey Brown was not the father of my kids. He made me promise to say they were and I didn’t know if I’d ever see Jack again. He’s been in the army all of this time and was Trish and Jeff’s biological father. I mean, Jack is their father.”
Everyone sat in silence, just watching her, waiting to see what else she had to say about this revelation. “I didn’t tell anyone because Jack wanted to make an army career of it at the time. I didn’t want to be hauled from one assignment to another. It’s difficult enough for a military wife, who isn’t used to the military, but it really is problematic when you’re a cougar. And even more so when you have cougar children. I don’t know how he’s managed to deal with not being able to run as a cougar for months at a time.”
“We did fine,” Leyton said, just one of the few men here who had served in the military. It was a time-honored tradition for the men of Yuma Town. But they didn’t mate anyone until they left the service.
She appreciated the military and the men and women for their service. She just had not wanted to be married to an active duty service member. Yet after renewing her relationship with Jack, she was eager to make this work between them.
“But I understand how you would feel about moving a couple of kids around like that. For footloose bachelors, we made do,” Leyton said.
Everyone knew the circumstances surrounding her cousin’s death and her father’s too.
All the guys agreed. Dan, Chase, Leyton, his brother, Stryker, Travis, Hal, and even Ted had served. She was afraid her boss would be upset with her for not being honest about this beforehand. Something was going on with Dan
too and so she knew she hadn’t been the only one keeping a big secret.
Dan took a swig of his beer. “I’ve known. I wasn’t sure if the two of you would ever get together again. I learned of it a while back.”
Shocked to the core, Dottie didn’t know if he was just saying so because he was upset with her for not telling everyone the truth or he really had known. Why hadn’t he told her then? “When?”
“Some time ago,” he said vaguely. “I’m the sheriff. I know when something isn’t adding up.”
No one else said anything, just waiting for Dan to get it off his chest. She wondered if he wasn’t the only one who had known or had suspected then.
“The babies’ ages? That Jeffrey Brown just showed up from nowhere, and claimed the babies were his? I didn’t trust him back then. He had an air about him—that he’d served. He’d let some terminology slip that either meant he’d been in one of the branches or he had a military family. I’d asked him once. He said no. Just the way he held my gaze as if to prove to me he was telling the truth made me wary. Then he took off after the kids were born. When I looked into his background to learn what I could, to see if I could at least get him on child support, I found a dead-end. Still, I really didn’t think the kids were his. After we learned about the criminal activities he was involved in, I suspected he’d used you and the kids as a cover. Still, I wanted to know who the father was, if Brown wasn’t Jeff and Trish’s dad. I discovered you’d been seeing a Jack Barrington in college, and that the two of you had been good friends. Then he went into the army. I know how much you weren’t interested in being a military wife. But I also figured if he got out, you and he might end up together. It’s for the best really, if he loves you and the kids. That’s all we can ever hope for.”
Everyone was quiet for a little while.
“So what do you think?” Bridget asked, sounding like she wanted to be excited for her, if this was going to work out. She was CSF and had rescued Travis at Christmastime. They’d had a quick romance, fallen in love, and mated.
“I want to be with him. He is good with the kids, and with me.”
Shannon joined her and gave her a big hug. “I’m so excited for you. It’ll work out. I know it will.”
Chase gave her a hug too and agreed, then they retook their seats.
“So what’s the deal then exactly? How long does he have left on active duty?” Hal was a part-time deputy, but he was doing a lot of Tracey’s kind of work too and they owned the horse ranch. Both currently worked as Special Agents for the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Services, going after wildlife exploiters. Though with Tracey being pregnant, she was getting lower-key assignments. She had about three and half months left before the twins arrived.
Dottie didn’t know how Hal could be pulled in so many directions and still have time for Tracey. “Jack is coming here after his service obligation is up. I’d hoped maybe he could work for the sheriff’s office or maybe for Leyton with the CSF. He has the combat training like all of you had.”
“He would have to work for my boss, Chuck Warner, for several months to a year in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, if he got on with CSF. Jack will need the training and mentorship,” Leyton said.
Travis McKay and his wife, Bridget, who both had worked for Chuck, agreed. “It’s for the best,” Travis said. “Nothing worse than getting yourself killed on your first mission out. And Chuck ensures he keeps his agents alive.”
Dottie noted that Dan didn’t offer to make Jack a deputy sheriff instead.
If Jack had to work several months to a year training with the CSF away from home? She’d never last.
Three months later, Jack was due to come into town and stay with Dottie, and she really thought this could work. They’d kept up correspondence, and she’d told everyone about Jack and hoped he might be able to get a job with Leyton as an agent with the CSF, sooner, than later. She thought Jack would be a quick study, though Leyton had told her time and again that it was for the best if he trained with one of the best. She thought he was one of the best.
Jack had sent comic books, coloring books, or books to read to the kids almost on a daily basis. She loved him for it, but she had to keep telling Jeff and Trish that this was only while Jack was separated from them. She didn’t want them to think he was going to give them presents every day of the year when he lived with them.
No one was making a big deal of putting out the welcome mat for Jack in Yuma Town, just her. She hoped her friends would treat Jack like a friend and not the enemy here. If anyone was to blame for her not telling them that he was the father of her twins, it was her, not him. She knew it didn’t have all to do with that though. They worried about her and the kids in case things didn’t work out like the last time she was married. Maybe Jack needed the adventure in his life. The ability to travel all over. Maybe he wouldn’t like living in one little place the rest of his life. Or the day-to-day drudgery of having a wife and kids. She loved her kids, her life, but she’d grown into the role of being a mother. It wasn’t all about theme parks, zoos, and Renaissance fairs. It was all the daily stuff that a parent had to deal with.
But she was excited about seeing him as a prospective mate too. Her lover, and husband. She’d missed that time with him. Every time she’d thought about seeing him though, he’d been called out into the field and he finally had told her it would be best if he just joined her when he was free to do so.
Except now she had a new problem. She’d gone in to see Dr. Kate Parker-Hill, sure that the test results the doctor would run would say the same as the ones she’d used.
Now, Dottie sat on an exam table at the clinic. “I can handle it,” she said to Kate. She’d used one of those over-the-counter pregnancy tests, well, ten of them. Though she’d bought them in Loveland so no one in Yuma Town would suspect she might be pregnant or was worried she was, when she wasn’t. She had to be certain the multiple tests had told the truth though.
Damn if Kate didn’t smile at her, her brows raised a bit and said, “Well, Dottie, you’re pregnant. No telling if you’ll have a single birth, twins, or more at this point, but yeah, you are right. It’s time to put you on prenatal vitamins.”
“Jack isn’t going to be happy about this.”
Kate raised a brow. “They’re his, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, of course they are. But every time he leaves, I turn up pregnant! He hasn’t really had time to get used to being the father to the twins.”
“Not all your fault. If you want me to, when he gets here, we can take care of that little problem.”
Dottie smiled. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. He just comes in to Yuma Town to see me and you have him scheduled for a vasectomy. After the baby is born, and I’m sure I don’t want any more, I’ll haul him off to your clinic to take care of matters.”
Kate smiled back. “I can do it. Clear my schedule and everything. As to the pregnancy, you said he was good with the kids.”
“Yeah, but this is different.”
“Right, he’ll be here to help raise this baby from day one.”
“That’s if he can get a job. Leyton still won’t let him work here. He wants him to work in White Bear Lake first.”
“Join him. Then once he’s had his training, return here with him, and you can all be one big happy family.”
“There’s no cougar town in Minnesota. Nothing near White Bear Lake.”
Kate sighed. “You will both find a way to make this work. I have no doubt about it.”
Dottie’s phone rang, and she said, “Excuse me. It’s Jack. Hopefully he didn’t get delayed.”
“Well, congratulations.” Kate patted her shoulder. “Can’t wait to meet him.”
“Thanks!” Dottie left the exam room and answered the call. “Are you nearly here?”
“I’m at a service station just outside of town. I’ll be there in just a few minutes. I have some news. I’ll tell you when I get there.”
He sounded not real sure she�
�d like the news. She didn’t know how he’d take her news either. She absolutely wasn’t going to rely on any condoms he used ever again.
As soon as she reached her home out in the country, Jack drove up behind her car and got out. He was all smiles and hurried to take her in his arms, and kissed her like he was the happiest man on earth. “Where are the kids?”
“They’re with Shannon right now. She and Chase run the Pinyon Pines Resort cabins at Lake Buchanon. Her mate is a part-time deputy sheriff also and they have two-year-old twins of their own. She’s taking them swimming in the lake. I was supposed to meet them shortly. I was delayed and then here you are.”
“Do we have time for…” He raised his brows, his arms wrapped around her.
She couldn’t resist him. She’d never been able to. “If we make it quick. I don’t want her to have to take care of them for long. So what’s your news?” She took his hand and led him inside.
He scooped her up and took her into the hall. He didn’t know the layout of the house and paused.
“My bedroom is first on the right.”
“Okay, I have good news and not the greatest.” He stalked toward the bedroom, kissing her forehead. “I was hired on with the CSF. I arrived early, arranged for an interview, and met with the director. Chuck was eager to have me work for them, but—“
“You have to train out of White Bear Lake first.”
“Yeah. So I had to discuss it with you.” He set her down on the king-size bed, the dark pine frame complimenting the ivory and pale blue and pink wedding quilt made by her grandmother. Pictures of her aunt, the kids, and Dottie’s parents and grandparents filled the walls. But he smiled when he saw the one that she’d taken of him holding the kids’ hands at the Renaissance fair. She had printed and framed it to include him with the collection of family photos.