The SEAL's Secret Heirs

“Fine, fine,” he assured her, visualizing Liam throwing their overnight bags into the cockpit of the Cessna and flying off toward home without even pausing to shut the door. “Well, except Maddie won’t stop crying. I’ve tried everything, bottle, rocking, and it’s a bust. Any ideas?”

“Did you burp her?”

“Of course.” He hadn’t changed her diaper, but his sense of smell was pretty good and he didn’t think that was the problem.

“Temperature?”

He dashed back into the family room, cringing at the decibel level of Maddie’s cries, and put a hand on her forehead. Which was moronic when he’d been holding her for thirty minutes. “She doesn’t feel hot.”

“Is that Maddie crying like that?” Now Hadley sounded worried, which was not what Kyle had intended. “Take her temperature anyway, just to be sure. Then try the gas drops. Call me back in an hour and let me know how it’s going.”

“Won’t I be interrupting?” He so did not want to know the answer to that, but it was pretty crappy of him to call once, let alone twice.

“Yes,” Liam growled in the background. “Stop coddling him, Hadley.”

Kyle muttered an expletive aimed at Liam, but his wife was the one who heard it. “Excuse my French, Hadley. Never mind. I got this. You and Liam go back to whatever you were doing, which I do not need details about.”

“We should come home,” Hadley interjected. This was accompanied by a very vehement “No!” from Liam, and some muffled conversation. “Okay, we’re not coming home. You’ll be fine,” Hadley said into the phone in her soothing voice that she normally reserved for the girls, but whether it was directed at Liam or Kyle, he couldn’t say. “Call Clare if you need to. She won’t mind.”

“Clare?” Liam’s incredulity came through loud and clear despite his mouth being nowhere near the phone. “She’s already got plenty of babies that Royal Memorial pays her to take care of. Call Grace if you’re going to call anyone.”

Grace. He could get Grace over here under the guise of helping with the twins and get to see her tonight after all. Now that was a stellar idea if Kyle had ever heard one. Not that he was about to let Liam get all cocky about it. “Sorry I bothered you. Good night.”

Kyle eyed the still-screaming baby. Fatherhood wasn’t a job for the fainthearted, that was for sure. Nor was it a job for the clueless, and thankfully, Ms. Haines already had him cast in her head as such. She thought he was clueless? Great.

Time to use that to his advantage.

Eight

When the phone rang, Grace almost didn’t answer it.

The oven had freaked out. Worse than last time. It turned on and heated up fine, but halfway through the cooking cycle, the element shut off. Cold. Which described the state of her dinner, too. The roast was still raw inside and she could have used the potatoes to pound nails.

But there was no saving it now. The oven wouldn’t start again no matter how much she cursed at it. She’d checked the power cord but it was plugged in with no visible frays or anything. Last time, she’d been able to turn it off and turn it back on, but that didn’t work this time.

So why not answer the phone?

Except it was Kyle. His name flashed at her from the screen and she stared at it for a moment as the wow from earlier flooded all her full-grown woman parts. So this was taking it slow? Calling her mere hours after she’d broken off a kiss with more willpower than it should have taken—for the second time?

“This better be important,” she said instead of hello, and then winced. Her mama had raised her better than that.

“It is.” Something that sounded like a tornado siren wailed in the distance. “Something’s wrong with Maddie.”

That was Maddie doing the siren impression? Relapse. Her heart rate sped up. Those harrowing hours when they didn’t know what was wrong with Maddie came back in a rush. Heart problems were no joke, and Maddie’d had several surgeries to correct the abnormalities.

“What’s wrong? Where’s Hadley?” She might be hyperventilating. Was that what it was called when you couldn’t breathe?

“She and Liam went to Vail. I didn’t want to bother them.”

Vail? Suspicion ruffled the edges of Grace’s consciousness. The couple had just gone to Vail a couple of months ago. Was this some kind of covert attempt to get Kyle to take his fatherhood responsibilities more seriously? Or an elaborate setup from the mind of Kyle Wade to get his way with Grace?