“Nothing grew but weeds. No vegetables thrived, and hardly any of the flowers bloomed. I took my mother’s beautiful, colorful garden and murdered it.
“When I lived in my loft in Los Angeles, I experimented again and tried keeping a cactus. You know—the kind that don’t need a lot of attention. Mary helped pick it out. She was the real green thumb of the family. She told me plants helped clean the air.”
She stopped and swallowed hard. He didn’t need her to tell him what she was struggling with, how fresh her grief must still feel for her. It was written all over her face, and tears glittered in her eyes.
Immediately, his innate masculine protective instinct rose in him, but he didn’t trust female tears any more than he did the crying woman so he quashed it back.
Still struggling to speak, Miranda cleared her throat.
“Mary assured me a cactus was the easiest to keep and that even I couldn’t fail, but I managed to strangle the life out of the poor thing within a matter of months.”
“You forgot to water it?” He managed to keep his voice neutral, but he couldn’t help but be concerned. If she was afraid of owning a houseplant or a pet, how was she going to get on with twin babies?
“Sometimes. I’d go weeks without thinking about it at all, and then I’d suddenly remember and overwater.”
Her face flamed.
“Anyway,” she said, taking a deep breath and swiping a palm across her cheeks to remove the lingering moisture, “at the end of the day, I destroyed it. What’s the opposite of green thumb? Black thumb? That’s me.”
He chuckled despite himself.
“So you can see why I’d be concerned about owning a dog. Fortunately, I don’t need a live animal to keep me healthy. I’m in good shape. I work out and eat clean, most of the time. Barring chocolate. Chocolate anything is my weakness.”
She wouldn’t be concerned about her physical condition. She was in really good shape—objectively speaking.
“You could use one for good therapy, then. Dogs make great listeners.”
He didn’t know why he was trying to sell her on the benefits of owning a dog. He wouldn’t put one of his dogs in her care in a million years. She had more than enough responsibility with the twins.
She laughed. “I guess we can all use a little good therapy from time to time, can’t we? I imagine a dog is far cheaper than a psychologist.”
“And a therapist isn’t overjoyed to see you when you walk in the door at night like a dog is.”
“Point taken.” Miranda helped the twins change their crayons to a different color.
He didn’t want to like anything about this woman, but he had to admit she did already appear to have somewhat of a handle on keeping the twins occupied and happy. Much better than he’d thought she would have, in any case.
“So tell me about your dogs.” She propped her chin on her palms.
He raised a brow. Most people’s eyes simply glazed over when he tried to talk about his life’s passion, yet Miranda was urging him to do so.
“My herding dogs are the way I make my main living,” he said. “I own a few especially well-bred Australian cattle dogs with excellent working lines, and between all my females, I manage several litters of puppies every year. I train them and sell them to local ranchers in Texas and surrounding states. I’ve developed enough of a reputation that I’ve got a waiting list for my puppies. That’s my bread and butter.”
He didn’t know why he was telling her all this. He hated talking about himself and didn’t like to brag. But there was something about Miranda’s personality that pulled the words right off his tongue.
Harper rolled over and stared up at him with her big brown eyes. He planted a kiss on her chubby cheek, making her smile and pat his whiskered face with her soft palm.
“I have a dog rescue on the side, and that’s where my true life’s work lies,” he continued. “I take dogs from kill shelters and help them find forever families. That’s the name of my shelter—Forever Family. But some of the dogs I pick up have health or behavioral issues and can never be rehomed, so they stay with me.”
Her eyes widened. She was probably imagining how many dogs he sheltered. She would be surprised when she knew the truth, because she was probably guessing too few.
“I teach all my dogs—cattle dogs and rescues alike—to pass the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen program. That certification goes a long way into making the dogs more adoptable.”
“How interesting,” she said, and sounded like she meant it. “All the shelters I know just keep the dogs in cages and walk them from time to time. It’s commendable for you to put in the extra effort to make them ready for their new adoptive families. And I imagine there aren’t too many people who would be willing to take on a dog that they knew at the outset they couldn’t rehome.”
“No, I don’t suppose—” Suddenly, he clamped down on his jaw and lowered his brow. Why was he continuing to yammer on about his work? It made him feel vulnerable that he’d shared a part of himself that he rarely revealed to others.
In general, he kept his thoughts to himself, and this—this was Miranda Morgan he was opening up to, telling her all about his life.
His guard snapped up. He sure as shootin’ hadn’t come to visit her on a social call, much less to put himself in the hot seat—or underneath a makeshift tent with crayons in his hand.
This was ludicrous. How was he going to turn the conversation around to the real reason he was here?
“No, no, Hudson,” Miranda said when the boy started gnawing on the end of his crayon. “That’s not your snack.” She reached into a plastic bag she’d stored beside her and withdrew a hard cracker, replacing the crayon with the finger food.
Simon didn’t want to be, but he couldn’t help but be impressed.
Again.
The woman had actually considered that Hudson and Harper might want snacks before she’d arranged the twins—and herself—in the tent.
Miranda had been a single socialite and suddenly she was a mother. She couldn’t possibly have adapted to her new role as much as it appeared she had. He must be seeing something out of the ordinary, catching her in an especially good moment.
But he had to admit she seemed to have thought of everything. He knew he wouldn’t have fared so well, despite having known and interacted with Hudson and Harper since their births. He would have gone in with nothing and would have had to crawl in and out of the tent every time the twins needed something else.
He wouldn’t have even thought of the tent.
He hated to consider the possibility, but apparently, despite that she’d just arrived in town and had only been the twins’ official guardian for a few days, there was something Miranda could teach him about caring for babies.
Who knew?
Miranda handed Simon a cracker and gestured for him to give it to Harper, who’d pulled herself to a sitting position and was manipulating a toy cell phone, pushing buttons that made beeping sounds.
So Miranda had thought of toys, as well.
Simon tried to give Harper the cracker, but unlike her twin brother, she completely ignored his offering.
“What am I doing wrong?” Simon asked, his cheeks burning. He was glad his jaw was covered with a few days’ growth of whiskers to hide the fact that he was flustered by his inability to get Harper’s attention.
Miranda chuckled. “That’s okay. Don’t sweat it. You aren’t doing anything wrong. Hudson will eat Harper’s cracker if she doesn’t want it. He’ll graze