Page 12 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

And this couldn’t be happening. And the boys wereright here.

“I owe you an apology,” Ryder said. “I’m sure you’ve long since moved on, but my behavior that night was—”

Levi and Eli pushed in, each grabbing onto one of her legs, staring up at the strange man in the snowy front yard with great interest.

Then, the way he had last fall, Levi pointed straight at Ryder.

“Eyes,” he said.

The exact same thing he’d said to Zeke.

Ryder looked down at both boys as if he’d forgotten they were there. Or was only just seeing them, and was modifying whatever words he’d been about to choose.

But he stopped dead.

His face went pale. He looked from Levi to Eli, then back again.

And when he looked back at Rosie, he had a completely different expression on his face.

Pale, yes. But lit through with pure fury.

“Rosie.” His voice was colder than the afternoon around them, inching toward an icy dark. He said her name like it was the filthiest curse he could come up with, and she flinched, but she didn’t look away. It was the least she could do. “Are they…?”

Her throat was so dry it hurt. “Ryder.”

He looked… something far more deep and deadly hurt thanoutraged, but he was that, too. She could see it.

She couldfeelit.

Ryder took a step back. Then he surprised her by squatting down in front of the boys.

And ripped her heart out when he smiled at them, with a smile that matched the ones they offered him. First tentatively, then fully.

“Hey,” Ryder said, in a tender voice she didn’t know was possible, coming from a man who usually sounded like a hard shot of whiskey tasted. “How old are you guys?”

Eli smiled wider and stared. Levi puffed up his chest in his little parka. “We three in March,” he said proudly. “That’s older than two.”

Rosie stood there, torn between begging Ryder not to do thisin front of her childrenand knowing she had no say in how he took this in. She watched him do the math. She saw the way it hit him, like a hammer.

He smiled at the boys.

Then he stood again, his dark gaze like fire, and she felt it tear through her.

“You better start talking, Rosie,” he said in a voice that was even worse than the way he looked at her. “And fast.”

Chapter Three

“No,” Rosie said,immediately.

And Ryder thought for a moment that he might actually spontaneously combust, right here and right now—

But she didn’t look obstinate. She looked flustered. “I mean, of course. We will talk. We will. But not…”

She looked down at the two toddlers clinging to her legs, almost helplessly.

He could feel his blood pounding in every part of his body, and he’d felt something like this before. It felt a lot like getting tossed off the back of a nasty, mean-tempered bull at a terrible angle. And then, while hurtling through the air, he would havejust enoughtime to wonder if this was the thing that was going to kill him. Snap his neck. Break every bone in his body.

Ryder felt like that now.

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