Kat Cantrell – The Seal's Secret Heirs (страница 2)

Every nerve in Kyle’s body went on full alert, vibrating with tension as he reoriented and automatically began scanning both the threat of Liam and the perimeter simultaneously. The foyer was empty, save the two Wade brothers. And Liam wasn’t getting the drop on him twice.

“That’s for not calling,” Liam said succinctly and balled his fists as if he planned to go back for seconds.

“Nice to see you, too.”

Dang. Talking hurt. Kyle spit out a curse along with a trickle of blood that hit the hardwood floor an inch from Liam’s broken-in boot.

“Deadbeat. You have a lot of nerve showing up now. Get gone or there’s more where that came from.”

Liam clearly had no idea who he was tangling with.

“I don’t cater much to sucker punches,” Kyle drawled, and touched his lower lip, right above where the throb in his jaw hurt the worst. Blood came away with his finger. “Why don’t you try that again now that I’m paying attention?”

Liam shook his head wearily, his fists going slack. “Your face is as hard as your head. Why now? After all this time, why did you finally drag your sorry butt home?”

“Aww. Careful there, brother, or people might start thinking you missed me something fierce when you talk like that.”

Liam had another thirty seconds to explain why Kyle’s welcome home had included a fist. Liam had a crappy right hook, but it still hurt. If anything, Kyle was the one who should be throwing punches. After all, he was the one with the ax to grind. He was the one who had left Royal because of what Liam had done.

Or rather whom he’d done. Grace Haines. Liam had broken the most sacred of all brotherly bonds when he messed around with the woman Kyle loved. Afghanistan wasn’t far enough away to forget, but it was the farthest a newly minted SEAL could go after being deployed.

So he hadn’t forgotten. Or forgiven.

“I called your cell phone,” Liam said. “I called every navy outpost I could for two months straight. I left messages. I called about the messages. Figured that silence was enough of an answer.” Arms crossed, Liam looked down his nose at Kyle, which was a feat, given that they were the same height. “So I took steps to work through this mess you’ve left in my lap.”

Wait, he’d gotten punched over leaving the ranch in his brother’s capable hands? That was precious. Liam had loved Wade Ranch from the first, maybe even as early as the day their mother had dropped them off with Grandpa and never came back.

“You were always destined to run Wade Ranch,” Kyle said, and almost didn’t choke on it. “I didn’t dump it on you.”

Liam snorted. “Are you really that dense? I’m not talking about the ranch, moron. I’m talking about your kids.”

Kyle flinched involuntarily. “My...what?”

Kids? As in children?

“Yes, kids,” Liam enunciated, drawing out the i sound as if Kyle might catch his meaning better if the word had eighteen syllables. “Daughters. Twins. I don’t get why you waited to come home. You should have been here the moment you found out.”

“I’m finding out this moment,” Kyle muttered as his pulse kicked up, beating in his throat like a May hailstorm on a tin roof. “How...wha...”

His throat closed.

Twin daughters. And Liam thought they were his? Someone had made a huge mistake. Kyle didn’t have any children. Kyle didn’t want any children.

Liam was staring at him strangely. “You didn’t get my messages?”

“Geez, Liam. What was your first clue? I wasn’t sitting at a desk dodging your calls. I spent six months in...a bad place and then ended up in a worse place.”

From the city of Kunduz to Landstuhl Regional, the US-run military hospital in Germany. He didn’t remember a lot of it, but the incredible pain as the doctors worked to restore the bone a bullet had shattered in his leg—that he would never forget.

But he was one of the lucky ones who’d survived his wounds. Cortez hadn’t. Kyle still had nightmares about leaving his teammate behind in that foxhole where they’d been trapped by insurgents. Seemed wrong. Cortez should have had a proper send-off for his sacrifice.

“Still not a chatterbox, I see.” Liam scrubbed at his face with one hand, and when he dropped it, weariness had replaced the glower. “Keep your secrets about your fabulous life overseas as a badass. I really don’t care. I have more important things to get straight.”

The weariness was new. Kyle remembered his brother as being a lot of things—a betrayer, first and foremost—but not tired. It looked wrong on his face. As wrong as the constant pain etched into Kyle’s own face when he looked in the mirror. Which was why he’d quit looking in the mirror.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning.” Kyle jerked his head toward what he hoped was still the kitchen. “Maybe we can hash it out over tea?”

It was too early in the morning for Jack Daniel’s, though he might make an exception, pending the outcome of the conversation.

Liam nodded and spun to stride off toward the back of the house. Following him, Kyle was immediately blinded by all the off-white cabinets in the kitchen. His brother hadn’t left a stone unturned when he’d gotten busy redoing the house. Modern appliances in stainless steel had replaced the old harvest gold ones and new double islands dominated the center. A wall of glass overlooked the back acreage that stretched for miles until it hit Old Man Drucker’s property. Or what had been Drucker’s property ten years ago. Obviously Kyle wasn’t up-to-date about what had been going on since he’d left.

Without ceremony, Liam splashed some tea into a cup from a pitcher on the counter and shoved the cup into his hand. “Tea. Now talk to me about Margaret Garner.”

Hot. Blonde. Nice legs. Kyle visualized the woman instantly. But that was a name he hadn’t thought about in—wow, like almost a year.

“Margaret Garner? What does she have to do with any—”

The question died in his throat. Almost a year. Like long enough to grow a baby or two? Didn’t mean it was true. Didn’t mean they were his babies.

It felt like a really good time to sit down, and he thought maybe he could do it without tipping off Liam how badly his leg ached 24-7.

He fell heavily onto a bar stool at the closest island, tea forgotten and shoulders ten pounds heavier. “San Antonio. She was with a group of friends at Cantina Juarez. A place where military groupies hang out.”

“So you did sleep with her?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Kyle said noncommitally. They were long past the kiss-and-tell stage of their relationship, if they’d ever been that close. When Liam took up with Grace ten years ago, it had killed any fragment of warmth between them, warmth that was unlikely to return.

“You made it my business when you didn’t come home to take care of your daughters,” Liam countered, as his fists balled up again.

“Take another swing at me and you’ll get real cozy with the floor in short order.” Kyle contemplated his brother. Who was furious. “So Margaret came around with some babies looking for handouts? I hope you asked for a paternity test before you wrote a check.”

This was bizarre. Of all the conversations he’d thought he’d be having with Liam, this was not it. Babies. Margaret. Paternity test. None of these things made sense, together or separately.

Why hadn’t any of Liam’s messages been relayed? Probably because he hadn’t called the right office—by design. Kyle hadn’t exactly made it clear how Liam could reach him. Maybe it was a blessing that Kyle hadn’t known. He couldn’t have hopped on a plane anyway.

Kyle couldn’t be a father. He barely knew how to be a civilian and had worked long and hard at accepting that he wasn’t part of a SEAL team any longer.

It was twice as hard to accept that after being discharged, he had nowhere to go but back to the ranch where he’d never fit in, never belonged. His injury wasn’t supposed to be a factor as he figured out what to do with the rest of his life, since God hadn’t seen fit to let him die alongside Cortez. But being a father—to twins, no less—meant he had to think about what a busted leg meant for a man’s everyday life. And he did not like thinking about how difficult it was some days to simply stand.

Liam threw up a hand, a scowl crawling onto his expression. “Shut up a minute. No one wrote any checks. You’re the father of the babies, no question.”

Well, Kyle had a few questions. Like why Margaret hadn’t contacted him when she found out she was pregnant. While Liam had little information on his whereabouts, Margaret sure knew how to get in touch. Her girlfriend had been dating Cortez and called him all the time. She’d known exactly where he was stationed.

It was nothing short of unforgivable. “Where’s Margaret?”

“She died,” Liam bit out shortly. “While giving birth. It’s a long story. Do I need to give you a minute?”

Kyle processed that much more slowly than he would have liked. Margaret was dead? It seemed like just yesterday that he’d spent a long weekend with her in a hotel room. She’d been a wildcat, determined to send him back to Afghanistan with enough memories to keep him warm at night, as she’d put it.

He was sad to learn Margaret had passed, sure. He’d liked thinking about her on the other side of the world, living a normal life that he was helping to secure by going after bad guys. But they’d spent less than forty-eight hours together and had barely known each other, by design. He wasn’t devastated—it wasn’t as if he’d lost the love of his life or anything. Not like when he’d lost Grace.