Page 29 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

“I’m known for that,” he said, blandly. “Fresh, hypothermic March air is my favorite.”

And he was shocked beyond measure—and something like delighted, if he was honest about it, when she hauled off and punched him.

Right in the gut. And hard.

Then winced, because there wasn’t a lot of give in that area.

Rosie glared at him like he was the one slugging people. She shook her hand, and yanked it back when he went to take it in his.

“This is not a joke,” she hissed at him. “Our very small children are in this house. And who are they with? Oh, that’s right. Every single one of our family members. This is no time to be doing…this. In acloset.”

“How exactly do you think that both of our families got so big?” he asked.

Innocently, he thought.

She looked like she wanted to punch him again, but thought better of it.

“Count to one hundred, Ryder. Quietly.”

Rosie moved around him and didn’t look back as she eased open the door, glanced out, then swiped a packet of something unidentifiable from the shelf beside her as she walked back into the kitchen.

He leaned back against the door that she shut behind her with what felt like a little punch of temper. While he was at it, he flipped the lights on. And wasn’t at all surprised to find that the pantry was as ruthlessly organized as everything else in this house.

Lines of cans, boxes neatly stacked. But he knew the truth that wasn’t immediately clear from that sort of evidence. Rosie was a good cook. She liked her ingredients organized so she could toss them altogether and find a kind of art in the making of things.

Kind of like Rosie herself. She kept herself pretty much ruthlessly organized too. Yet he had the pleasure of knowing that just like any one of those boxes of spaghetti staring back at him, she was rigid and unbendable… until she heated up.

When he eased his way out of that pantry, having obediently counted to the prescribed one hundred, the kitchen was empty. He walked to the entryway that led into the living room and paused there, because everyone he cared about was there.

Everyone he cared about and the Starks, that was, though he grinned even as he thought it.

Eli and Levi were cuddled in between Belinda and Zeke on the couch. Ryder caught the old man’s eye as he sat there, beaming down at his grandsons.

Zeke nodded. Ryder nodded back.

But inside, Ryder felt more than a little ashamed of the fact that he’d gone and yelled at his father in the workshop that night. He also understood that he was forgiven.

And for a moment, he got it.

This was the thing his father had always wanted. This feeling inside of him, that sat on him so heavily but didn’t feel smothering, was love.

He’d felt it immediately when he’d understood who the twins were. He felt it now, looking at his sons chattering earnestly to their grandfather, his father.

Ryder feltconnectedwhen that was a word, a feeling, he had really only ever associated with his twin. This connection was different. Bigger. It was a link to the world, and to his family, and to the march of humanity across the planet in ways that he’d heard people talk about before, but had always thought sounded made up.

He got it now.

And over in the corner, talking intently with Cat and Kendall, stood the reason why.

Rosie.

Rosie, who’d made this happen. And though he might have wished that it had happened in a way that hadn’t left her on her own with two babies, thinking that was how it was going to be for her forever, he couldn’t be sorry that it happened at all. How could he?

She looked up from her conversation and he didn’t understand how he could be the only man in this room who seemed to see that particular sparkle in her eyes. Surely everyone here could tell, just from looking at how her flushed cheeks were, that she’d had his tongue in her mouth not long before.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out, not at all surprised to find that it was a text from Wilder though he sat across the room, seemingly paying attention to whatever it was Jack Stark and Harlan were talking about.

Weird how you and your baby mama disappeared from the party at the same time. I’m sure that’s coincidental.

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