Texas Christmas Twins. Deb Kastner
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strong boy,” Simon said proudly.
“Typical guy, right?” she teased. “Eating everything put in front of him and then some. But don’t worry. Harper can hold her own with Hudson,” Miranda assured him. “When she wants to.”
Typical woman, Simon thought, but did not say aloud.
“In general, Harper’s more easily distracted by books and toys than food. It’s one of the main differences I’ve noticed between the two of them. That and the way Harper babbles so much more than Hudson. She likes to look you right in the face and talk.”
Also typical woman.
Simon filed that information away in the back of his mind. He welcomed anything that would help him get to know the twins better.
“How about you? Would you like a snack, Uncle Simon? Since we’re camping out, we don’t have as much variety as we would if we were hanging out in the kitchen, but I can offer you a cheese stick and a box of juice.”
He grinned and shook his head, thinking she was teasing him.
“Your loss.” She shrugged and handed Hudson and Harper sippy cups, then pushed a tiny straw into a box of juice and peeled a cheese stick for herself.
He thought she must feel silly chowing down on a toddler snack, but she didn’t even appear to notice how incongruent she looked, gnawing on a cheese stick underneath a tent that was too small for her and then taking a long, noisy slurp out of a boxed juice.
“The first day here, I bought the juice boxes for the twins. Turns out they weren’t quite ready, so this is my new go-to drink.” She saluted him with the juice box.
It was as if she embraced her inner child or some nonsense like that. And yet there was something about her innocent actions that warmed Simon’s heart—and then sent it scrambling backward in retreat.
Oddly, she made him feel like an old codger with his shirt buttoned all the way up to the neck, stiff and set in his ways.
He yanked on his collar, even though in reality he wore his chambray with the two top snaps open.
Her smile widened, as if she’d read his mind. “Sometimes I feel more like a kid than an adult.”
She appeared to realize how that sounded the moment the words left her mouth. Her expression immediately turned apprehensive and she dropped her eyes so her gaze no longer met his.
“Um—that probably wasn’t the best thing to admit, was it? Sometimes my mouth runs faster than my head.”
He rolled to his side and couched his head in his hand.
“Probably not,” he agreed as he schooled his thoughts to take advantage of this perfect opening. “We need to talk about that, actually.”
Her gaze widened. “W-what?” she stammered, clearly taken aback, either by the sudden change in his mood or the way he’d narrowed his eyes on her.
“I’d prefer not to speak to you in front of the children,” he said.
The twins might not understand the words, but they would probably pick up on the tension, because he already knew he was going to get flustered and he doubted his ideas would go down well with Miranda.
Her gaze widened. “Oh. I...see.”
Clearly, she didn’t. But she’d picked up on his change of attitude and her shoulders had tensed.
“It’s about time for me to put the babies down for their naps, anyway.”
She switched her attention to the twins and her expression lightened.
Harper snatched at the cracker Hudson was busy gnawing on, taking it away from him. Hudson howled in frustration. Miranda laughed and handed him another cracker.
Harper let out an ear-piercing screech, as if someone had pinched her. The guilty party, cracker crumbs on his chubby cheeks, darted forward, right out of the tent. The kid army crawled faster than any soldier Simon had ever seen.
Without thinking, Simon shoved his knees under him and went up on all fours, smacking the back of his head on the card table and sending it keening to the side.
Stretching to his full length, he grasped Hudson by the waist and scooped him into his arms on a roll, landing on his back with Hudson flapping on his stomach.
“Where do you think you’re going, little buddy?” he asked, planting an affectionate kiss on the baby’s forehead. “Did you pinch your sister? Gentlemen don’t pick on ladies, even when they deserve it.”
“Simon?” called Miranda, her voice sounding oddly muffled from behind him. “Harper. Ow!”
When he glanced back, it was to find the card table tipped completely on its side. Harper was sitting by Miranda, laughing and batting her arms as she pulled her fingers through Miranda’s long chestnut curls.
Miranda couldn’t stop the baby from yanking and tugging, even though it had to hurt, because somehow, she’d managed to get completely rolled up, cocoon-style, in a couple of the white sheets that had only moments before served as a tent.
“A little help here?” she pleaded around the cloth. She wriggled but only managed to wrap herself tighter and tighter.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” he asked mildly as he placed Hudson next to Harper and started tugging at the sheets tangled around Miranda.
With effort, he gently unwrapped her.
“What?” Her brow narrowed in confusion when she noticed him staring at her.
He paused significantly.
“You’re a mummy.”
* * *
So not funny.
At least, coming from Simon West it wasn’t. He’d been a callous teenager, and it didn’t look like he was much better now. His mood had gone as dark as a thunderstorm.
After putting the twins down in their cribs for a nap, Miranda dragged her feet as long as possible before returning to the kitchen, where she was oddly certain a confrontation was going to take place. About what, she had no idea.
She’d never been the confrontational type. She preferred to keep the peace.
Simon had been nice enough for a while, but his surprise visit, especially the whole we need to talk thing, definitely had the edge of tension around it.
She serenaded the twins with an extra lullaby and lingered by their bedsides until they dropped into a tranquil slumber. She loved the sound of their deep breathing and cute little snores.
Here in the quiet of the nursery it was nice and calm, and Miranda’s heart teemed over with serene warmth and love, the polar opposite of the crazy, uneven pulse-pounding her heart had taken with her surprising and unexpected encounter with Simon West.
Simon, the boy Miranda had crushed on for every angst-ridden day of her teen years, was now a man whose once soft adolescent face had been hardened by life but was no less handsome for whatever trials the years had given him.
Along with her brother Mason, Simon had picked on her incessantly when she was a soft-hearted, impressionable teenager, but that hadn’t kept her from crushing on him. There was one prank in particular that had stayed with her that had, in a way, informed the woman she’d become when she’d left Wildhorn to pursue a career in photography in Los Angeles.
He probably didn’t even remember the hurtful incident that had so mortified her, and if he did, it was probably only as a humorous blip on his radar.
She scoffed softly and shook her head. She’d just been a silly lovesick teenager. It had been a long time since high school, and she’d tucked her memories of Simon, both the nice and the not-so-nice, deep into her heart and locked them away for good.
Or so she’d thought.
Naturally,