Chapter One

      The poor kid from Prosperity, Texas, who hated fixing other people’s trash for a living had come full circle.

      On the upside, his father would be proud. But Brendan Tanner had a lot of mileage on him since those resentful teenage days. The Corps had a way of turning an ungrateful kid into a buttoned-up, battle-hardened marine. And it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

      Now he was in Rust Creek Falls, Montana, fixing a broken toaster. He was living at a place called Sunshine Farm. After seeing something online about it being a welcome place to get a fresh start, he’d reached out to Luke Stockton, one of the owners, and the cowboy had invited him to stay as long as he wanted. The name made him smile, although the upward curving of his mouth felt a little rusty. In the last eighteen months there hadn’t been much to smile about.

      It disappeared when he heard a sudden high-pitched squeal. Those battle-hardened marine instincts kicked in and he automatically took a defensive stance, then realized the sound was a child’s laughter. Slowly he released his breath. The reflexes were still sharp, but apparently so were the bad memories.

      The kid in question burst through the open door of his temporary barn workshop and came to a stop in front of Brendan. The blond, blue-eyed little guy stared up at him and chewed on his index finger.

      “Hey, buddy. Where’s your mama? Did you go rogue?”

      The kid babbled something that could have been a foreign language for all Brendan knew, then pointed to his tall rolling toolbox. It had belonged to his father, one of the few things he’d brought with him from Texas. When word got out that he was handy, he’d found a use for the tools. Something told him this kid could put them to use, too, but there would be hell to pay.

      His next thought was all about heaven when the prettiest redhead he’d ever seen appeared in the workshop doorway.

      “Jared! There you are, you little stinker.” The reprimand was spoken with such affection that it wasn’t a scolding at all. Then she smiled at Brendan. “Hi.”

      “Ma’am.” He nodded and touched the brim of his Stetson. She was a little breathless, probably from running, but it was just about the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. “I wondered where his mom was.”

      “Oh, I’m not his mother. Aunt by marriage. My sister Fallon married Jamie Stockton, who was a widower, and she became a mom to his triplets—Jared, Henry and Kate.”

      Brendan watched her grab the kid when he made a move toward the toolbox. Instantly the boy started squirming to escape. If Brendan was in her arms, escape would be the last thing on his mind.

      Then it sank in. Triplets. “There are two more like him?” he asked.

      “Triple joy.” She laughed and held on to the little wiggle worm. “Or triple trouble. It changes from moment to moment.”

      “Dat.” Jared pointed a stubby little finger at a screwdriver sitting on the workbench. “Want dat.”

      The kid’s determination increased his twisting to get free, but to her credit the redhead hung on. Brendan had trained in hand-to-hand combat in the Marines and wasn’t sure he could have managed to wrangle the boy. He’d never been around kids, but even he knew giving this small human a sharp tool was a bad idea—no matter how determined he was to have it. He could offer to supervise, but there were too many ways for the situation to go sideways. Then he had an idea.

      Underneath the workbench was a basket of broken toys. Eva Stockton, the wife of Luke, who owned Sunshine Farm, had given it to him. She’d said she kept them around for her niece and nephews and asked him to repair any he could. The kids were hard on them, she’d said, and after meeting Jared he understood what she meant.

      He pulled the stash out into the open. “Maybe he’d like to look through these?”

      “You’re a lifesaver.” The woman looked at him as if he’d hung the moon.

      The lifesaver part was truer than she knew, Brendan thought. He’d saved lives, and buddies had saved his, too. They shared a bond unlike anything he’d ever known, the tight-knit family he’d never had. A brotherhood forged in battle. But a different sort of skirmish ensued when the redhead set little Jared on his feet. The toolbox was forgotten as he started in on the toys.

      “Car!” Jared held one up that was missing a wheel. He squatted down and set it on the hard-packed clay floor and made the universal sound effect used by boys to simulate an engine revving.

      “Here’s to the short attention span of a two-and-a-half-year-old.” The woman’s eyes were big and blue and beautiful. The laughter shining there was really something special. “He hasn’t seen those broken toys for so long they’re like brand-new to him.”

      “I haven’t had a chance to check them out and see if they’re salvageable.”

      “Eva and Luke are keeping you busy?”

      “Understatement. Fix a broken clothes dryer and suddenly you’re a Jedi knight who can use the force to put Humpty Dumpty back together.” He shrugged. “And they tell all their friends.”

      “So, do I call you Sir Jedi? Or do you have a name?”

      He nearly winced. Obviously his social skills were as rusty as his smile. “Brendan Tanner.”

      She held out her hand. “Fiona O’Reilly.”

      He took her hand and something crackled up his arm, shocking the words right out of his head. He barely managed to mumble, “Nice to meet you.”

      While his brain was frozen, the rest of him was hot as a Texas sun on the hard-packed plains.

      Before it turned awkward, Jared struck again. He’d emptied every last toy from the basket. Apparently the process of taking them out was playing with them and he was on to bigger and better things. Like the toolbox he’d temporarily forgotten. He opened a metal drawer, the one with various saw blades.

      Without thinking it through, Brendan grabbed him up before he could touch anything and hurt himself. There was an instant screech of protest.

      “I think they heard that in the next county.” He looked at Fiona. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle him, but those things are sharp.”

      “You have pretty good reflexes.” Instead of being upset, she looked impressed. The kid, however, was ticked off and held his arms out to her. She took him and ignored the loud grunts and the struggle to get back down. “No way, Jared. How come you don’t know by now that I’m not a soft touch?”

      Brendan begged to differ with her on that. She looked plenty soft to him, in all the right places. But he knew that was not what she meant. “I can’t imagine herding two more like this one.”

      “That’s why I’m here. Luke and Eva invited the family to dinner and I’m part of the reinforcements. Fallon has Henry. The last time I saw them he was chasing a chicken and she was hot on his heels. Jamie was keeping Kate from going headfirst into the horse’s water trough. And I drew the short straw. We call him jackrabbit because he’s so fast.” She kissed his cheek and made smacking noises, getting a giggle out of the squirmy boy.

      The sight of this woman with a child in her arms struck a chord deep inside Brendan. Her brightness flashed