Tied Up, Tied Down (Rough Riders #4)(16)

“Yeah? Maybe I am a little touchy ’cause my only brother can’t be bothered to drive sixty miles down the road to meet my baby daughter.”


“I ain’t good with babies,” he said softly. “You know that.”


Kade hadn’t been either up until about two weeks ago. “Look. I ain’t gonna make you change her diaper.”


Kane’s mouth twitched.

“But I would like you to see her. Next to her mama, she’s the prettiest thing in the whole world.”


“I reckon she probably is. But you ever think it might not be the best idea for me to see her? Or for her to see me?”


“Didja hit yourself in the head with a hammer?”


“Why you say that?”


“’Cause you ain’t makin’ a lick of sense.”


Kane squinted at him. “Yeah? Did it escape your notice in the year you’ve been gone that we’re identical twins? That havin’ two men who both look like daddy might be confusin’ to her?”


Hell. That hadn’t occurred to him.

“I know you’re bondin’ with her, or whatever you wanna call it, and it’d be just my luck if I’d f*ck it up somehow. I done that once with you and her mama. I ain’t lookin’ to do it again.”


Kade had no idea how to answer. For once his brother had brought up a valid point.

“I appreciate your honesty. But it wasn’t your fault I never came clean with Skylar about me not bein’ you. I pissed away my chances to tell her and I gotta live with my stupidity.”


A couple of minutes passed where the only sounds were bugs and birds and the grinding chink of tools against hard-packed soil.

A heartfelt sigh drifted up from where Kane worked in the dirt. “Didja ever wonder why Ma named us Kane and Kade? Jesus. It ain’t bad enough hardly anyone can tell us apart? We gotta have names that are damn close to identical?”


“Yeah, I wondered that. But neither of us has balls enough to ask the blonde tornado just what she was thinkin’ when she popped out a matched set,” Kade said wryly.


“Nice to meetcha, Miz Bancroft.”


When Annie yelled, “Sky. Did you hear me? Line two,” Skylar had no choice but to dump him with Dee.

Ten minutes later, she found Kade and Dee chatting in the herb drying room. He turned around at her approach. His heated I-wanna-eat-you-up look made her nipples hard and her belly clench. Then his handsome face lit up when he noticed Eliza was in her arms.

“There’s my sweet girl.”


At the sound of his voice, Eliza’s tiny feet kicked.

His grin widened. “Didja miss me, baby? You been behavin’ for your mama today?”


“Your sweet girl hasn’t slept for more than fifteen minutes at a time all day.”


“Maybe that means she’ll sleep all night for a change.” He nuzzled Eliza’s pudgy neck. “Which ain’t fair because it’s your night to be up with her.”


“My night? I thought we were taking turns?”


“Me too, sweetheart. But I took all the turns last night. You didn’t move when I got out of bed. At midnight. At two. And at four.”


Dee chuckled. “Oh. I get it now.” Still smiling, she said, “Nadia wants to talk to you before you leave. She says it’s important.” Dee disappeared around the corner.

Skylar withheld a groan. She liked Nadia. She liked that Nadia wasn’t afraid to talk to her when she kept her distance from everyone else. She liked that Nadia wasn’t a drama queen. But it bugged the heck out of her Nadia was so fickle, and Sky didn’t have to guess what Nadia wanted to talk to her about. Again.

“Lemme take Eliza home so you can get back to work.” Kade lifted her from Skylar’s arms. “Come on, girlie. You and me gotta date with a warm bottle and a hot bath.”


“Do you want to drive my car? Or just take the car seat out of it?”


He frowned. “I have a car seat in my truck.”


“Since when?”


“Since the day after I moved in. I bought one, figurin’ it’d be easier if we had two.”


“I didn’t know.”


“You didn’t ask. You assumed. I’m findin’ you do that a lot with me, Skylar.” His eyes met hers. “See you at home.”


Why was everyone acting so weird today?

The second Sky returned to her office, Annie, a forty-something, no-nonsense native Wyoming cowgirl, descended on her like a rabid coyote. “So Eliza wasn’t an immaculate conception as you’d led all of us to believe?”


Sky snorted.

“Granted, that spectacular hunk of a man is pretty damn close to god-like.”


No argument here.

“Not that he had eyes for anyone but you. Lord, with the hot way he was eatin’ you up, we all thought he was gonna nail you right there in the main room next to the coffee pot.”


Her cheeks heated.

“Eliza’s daddy is living with you, and you couldn’t mention it to me? For godsake, you’re sleeping with him and you’ve kept it to yourself?”