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the front porch to offer a warm welcome. All they needed was their baby brother, Carter—a marine on overseas deployment and still unaware of all the family drama—to make their homecoming complete.

      “Grayson!” Maddie’s breathless voice warmed him as he approached. His city-gal sis sure had taken to the country life since she and Violet had stumbled across each other in Fort Worth last July. A God-engineered coincidence for sure. “We were starting to get worried. Thought you’d never get here.”

      “Got a late start.” No point in telling his nosy sister that a beautiful woman had been the cause. He’d never get a moment’s peace.

      Under the dim porch light, his brother Jack hung back, snatching uncomfortable glances in his direction as Violet and Maddie—both mindful of the sling—enveloped Gray in exuberant hugs. Jack’s hair was longer than his, grazing the collar of a Western-cut shirt, and it appeared he didn’t keep at that pesky five o’clock shadow as diligently as did his cop brother.

      Clear, too, that he and Jack still shared an awkwardness despite efforts to get beyond the unnerving situation last weekend when they’d first met. Maddie and Violet didn’t seem to have that problem. You’d have thought they’d grown up together. They even had similar mannerisms and could finish each other’s sentences.

      But he and Jack, while polite and friendly enough on the surface, were strangers. On guard. Uncomfortable with the whole situation.

      When the sisters’ lively welcome calmed down, Gray’s twin thrust out his hand. “Good to have you back.”

      “Good to be back.”

      But from the wary look in Jack’s eyes it was apparent he, too, recognized both were parroting expected pleasantries.

      Inside the house Gray again sensed, as he had at his first visit, an emptiness in the home of his birth mother. He could detect a subdued, almost reverential hush in a place he’d been told that a few months ago she’d filled with love and laughter. It was evident, too, that Jack and Violet were out of their element in her absence and grieving her tragic situation.

      Out of a sense of obligation—and curiosity—he’d joined his siblings in a visit to Belle at the Grasslands care facility last weekend. It had been another surreal moment as he’d stared down at a still-beautiful woman in her early forties, auburn hair spread across a pristine white pillow.

      He’d been denied the opportunity to know the woman who’d cradled him and his twin side by side in her womb for nine months, who had given birth to them so many years ago.

      Why?

      From all he’d picked up on since the revelation of the family’s state of affairs, she loved Jack and Violet with all her heart. Treasured them. Had she not felt the same way about him and Maddie? How could a mother choose between children?

      “Gray?” Jerked from his inadvertent reverie, he turned to Maddie as they entered a spacious, warmly lit kitchen. “Kendra—I mean, Keira—and I are bunking together in the same room, so you can have mine like last weekend.”

      Keira was Jack’s fiancée, a savvy blonde who’d landed on the Colbys’ doorstep last month after a car accident left her without memory. They’d called her Kendra since she didn’t have any ID on her. Thankfully, her memory eventually returned and they’d learned her real name was Keira Wolfe and she was a veterinarian. Jack had promptly staked his claim.

      “I don’t want to keep putting you ladies out.” It was a five-bedroom place, but the master suite—Belle’s—remained unoccupied. “The couch in the den would suit me fine.”

      His sisters made identical sounds of protest.

      “It’s just for tonight.” Violet linked her arm through his uninjured one and once again he found himself staring in disbelief at her very existence. She looked amazingly like her twin, but with a country freshness all her own. A sprinkling of freckles. Auburn hair caught up in a long ponytail, she exuded a comfortable confidence no doubt born of a lifetime of ranching. “Jack’s moving out to his new place tomorrow.”

      Jack had taken on a seventy-year-old house known to locals as the old Lindley place, the spread it sat on now part of the Colby Ranch.

      He glanced at his brother. “That a fact? I imagine you’re considerably more motivated to complete that renovation than you might have been a month ago.”

      Jack’s eyes lit up and he offered his first grin. “A little lady will do that to a man. Get ready, Grayson. Your time’s coming.”

      “Don’t know about that.” He ducked his head, wary that his perceptive sis might read his mind—pick up on an image of the beautiful Elise who’d filled his thoughts in recent hours. “I’m kind of attached to a bachelor life.”

      “Oh, Gray,” Maddie blurted, placing her hands on her hips, “you’re still wallowing in the after-effects of that breakup. Give yourself time.”

      He shot her a warning look. He didn’t want to discuss his old girlfriend tonight. Certainly not in front of his newfound siblings—although he suspected from the way Violet nodded knowingly that Maddie had already filled her in. Dealing with one sister was challenging enough. Now he had two.

      “Jack’s been there, done that.” Violet looked to their brother for confirmation. “He was crazy about a gal before she dumped him. But now that Keira’s come along, he can barely remember Tammy’s name. God knows what He’s doing, Gray. He closes one door and opens another.”

      Gray managed a smile in Jack’s direction, figuring he didn’t much care for the sharing of his personal business any more than his twin did. Poor guy. He’d been dealing with two sisters for months now, but how long would it take to get used to the double-barreled powerhouse pair they’d become?

      Leaning against the kitchen countertop, Gray accepted a cold glass of water from Maddie.

      “You don’t see me sweating it. No rush. God can take all the time He needs.” What a lie. Sounded good, but didn’t have much substance. He was ready to settle down. Start a family. But his profession of choice was proving to be a detriment. “Besides, there are enough weddings in the works for one family.”

      Not only was Jack engaged, but Maddie recently pledged herself to the Colby Ranch’s foreman, Ty Garland. And Violet had caught the eye of one of Maddie’s old beaus, Landon Derringer. A lot had happened during the months Grayson had been on his undercover assignment.

      Jack held his gaze with a knowing one of his own, probably seeing through to the reality of Gray’s marital protests, his allegiance to the bachelor way of life. A guy had his pride, after all.

      “Always room for one more wedding, bro.”

      What his brother didn’t mention, though, is that the siblings had come to the same conclusion. Until their dad returned safely—and Belle recovered—no one would be tying any knots. As much as Gray didn’t like to think about it, how long would they stick with that vow if the weeks and months drew out? Belle had been in a coma since midsummer, with no sign of rejoining the world. Maddie and Landon had journeyed to south Texas in August to look for their dad. Keira and Jack tried again in September. Would their father turn up at Thanksgiving as he’d originally planned—or not?

      While he couldn’t do anything but pray for their mother, Gray could continue the search for his dad. He’d already filed a missing person’s report and put his law-enforcement channels to good use.

      But would his efforts be enough?

      With so many issues about their parentage in turmoil and Belle so badly off, he needed to deliver to his family a positive outcome for their dad’s situation. That would be one step in the right direction for a happily-ever-after on all counts.

      And in spite of protests to the contrary, meeting a certain pretty brunette had him admitting he wouldn’t mind settling down with a happily-ever-after of his own.

      Chapter