Special Forces Father

“Marine. Yes, ma’am.”

“Is he a so-dyer?” Grady asked, hiding behind Dani while Evie stood to one side of her.

“Soldiers are army,” he corrected.

He got points for understanding the word, but getting so technical with a four-year-old only made Dani smile.

Just before she remembered what Evie had done to her hair and how she looked meeting this man for the first time.

But if he’d noticed that she was unsightly there was no evidence of it. And there was nothing she could do about it now, so she merely said, “This is Grady and this is Evie,” nodding to each child in turn. “Guys, this was a friend of your mom’s. His name is Liam.”

Any mention of their late parents sobered them and this was no exception.

“Say hello,” she prompted when neither the kids nor Liam Madison responded to the introduction.

“H’lo,” both children parroted, eyeing him somberly the way they did all strangers.

“Nice to meet you,” the marine said as much by rote as the kids’ greeting had been.

It occurred to Dani just then that she’d kept their guest outside long enough. She invited him in and dispatched the twins to put on their pajamas.

“Get your blankets for wind-down and I’ll bring your yogurts and milk in just a minute,” she instructed as Liam Madison stepped across the threshold to stand at attention inside rather than out.

Hella-handsome but not warm and fuzzy. Dani was familiar with that military-instilled rigidity.

As the kids bounded out of the entry she closed the door, motioned behind her with a thumb over her shoulder and said, “Why don’t we talk in the kitchen? I’ll be able to hear them better from there.”

The marine nodded curtly and followed her as she led him in the same direction the kids had gone, to the rear of the expansive house.

“Can I get you something to eat or drink?” she asked along the way.

“Thank you, no. But you could tell me who you are, exactly.”

Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was industrial, and she offered him a seat on one of the metal bar stools at the stainless steel island in the center of it.

He didn’t accept the offer, remaining standing at one end of the island while Dani went behind it and got out bowls, spoons and glasses, and then took yogurt and milk from the fridge.

“I’ve been Evie and Grady’s nanny since they turned a year old and switched from a baby-nurse. Well, I’ve been their primary nanny. There was one who came in at bedtime for overnights, and another for the weekends. But after the accident—”

“What kind of accident?” he interrupted. “Your message said that’s how Audrey and her husband died but you didn’t give any details.”

Dani had no idea what kind of feelings this man might still have for Audrey, so she trod lightly when she answered. “It was a car wreck. I don’t know what you know about Owen, Audrey’s husband...”

“When she ended things with me she just said she’d met someone else,” he said matter-of-factly, giving no indication that he had any lingering resentments. Or tender feelings either.

“Owen Freelander was an acclaimed architect. He designed and built this place—it was his showpiece. His crowning glory just before he retired.”

“Retired?”

“He was a lot older than Audrey. He’d just turned sixty-eight a few weeks before the accident.”

“Sixty-eight?” the marine repeated in surprise. “Audrey was a year younger than I am so she was thirty-one... Her husband was thirty-seven years older?”

“He seemed like a young sixty-eight, but there was definitely an age difference. And even though he also seemed healthy, he had a heart attack driving home that night three weeks ago. He died when he lost control of the car and hit a tree. Audrey was critically injured. She only lived for two days...”

Still unsure how the marine felt about her late employer, Dani paused a moment and then said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s a shock—this whole thing is a shock—but I haven’t seen or heard from Audrey in over five years. I didn’t wish her any harm but I moved on a long time ago. I don’t think I’m in line for condolences.”

Dani nodded as she finished spooning yogurt into bowls. “Audrey lived just long enough to tell me about you, to ask me to try to contact you to take the twins.”

“Because I’m their father?”

The guy seemed tough as nails until he said that, and Dani heard an underlying note in his voice, clueing her in to how dumbfounded and unsettled he really was by the prospect.

“She told me that she knew she was pregnant when she broke up with you but there was something about a phone call when she hadn’t been able to talk to you for months? Whatever you said to her made her know that was how it would always be?”

“I’m Force Recon... Reconnaissance... That’s US Marine Special Forces. When I’m on a mission I’m out of touch. I can’t be reached. That’s how it had been for a while before I had the chance to call her, after we’d seen each other the last time. It’s how every mission is, how my next mission was going to be. And I never know how long a mission will take. Plus I couldn’t ever tell her where I was or what I was doing either. She couldn’t know anything,” he explained. “No one can.”

“Well, I guess that conversation, learning that, convinced her that she didn’t want a relationship anymore with someone who wasn’t available to her. She’d found out that she was having twins. She’d met Owen and he wanted her to marry him. He was even willing to claim the babies as his own. Owen’s name is on the birth certificates as Evie and Grady’s dad.” Dani said that last part gently because she also had no idea how it might affect him.

He scowled but she wasn’t sure whether that was out of anger or hurt or what. But since he didn’t say anything, she went on answering his initial question about who she was.

“Anyway, Audrey told me that you—not Owen—are the twins’ father. She knew she wasn’t going to make it and neither Audrey nor Owen had any family to turn to for the kids. She said you were all they would have left and that I needed to let you know about them. To try to contact you through the marines...”

He was still just frowning, saying nothing, so she merely continued.

“There wasn’t even a guardian named in their wills, so when Audrey passed, Evie and Grady became wards of the state. But I just couldn’t see them go into foster care. I sent you that message right away and talked to Owen’s attorney so he could approach the court to ask that I be named the twins’ temporary guardian. I told the judge what Audrey had confessed about you, and that I’d sent you word, and asked that they let me do whatever needed to be done so Evie and Grady could at least stay at home, with a familiar face, until this gets sorted through. So that’s who I am—formerly their nanny, now their guardian.”

“We’re ready,” Evie called.

“I’ll be right back,” Dani said, taking a tray with the bowls of yogurt and the glasses of milk across the kitchen to the stairs that led to the children’s portion of the house. It was four steps down from the main floor and devoted to the twins’ bedrooms and a nanny’s suite she was using. There was also a play area and a living room complete with the kids’ own entertainment center.

“Is that man still here?” Grady whispered as she got them set up to watch the animated shows they were allowed before bed.

“He is. We’re talking in the kitchen if you need me.”

“He’s kinda scary,” Evie whispered, too.

“You don’t need to be scared of him. Remember he was a friend of your mom’s. She wouldn’t have been friends with him if there was anything to be scared about, would she?”

There was no answer, so Dani said, “She wouldn’t have been. I think he’s just a little sad that she’s gone—like we all are.”

Their expressions were skeptical but they were more interested in getting to the cartoons, so she started those and left them to watch while she returned to the kitchen and Liam Madison standing where she’d left him.

“So...” she said when she got there, hoping to prompt him to say something.

“It’s been over five years. Not a word, not a hint that I have kids...” he said.