Read Cowboy Love in Peril [Love: The Cowboy Way 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) for Free Online

them in a while and the twins had changed so much in the months since. The fear that they might start dropping not-so-subtle hints again, about why she and Wade still hadn’t made things legal, gave her a moment’s hesitation, but she was damned if she was gonna deprive her kids of their extended family because she was scared of a difficult conversation.
    A wave of nausea hit her without warning, as the thought of another difficult conversation she was going to be forced to start one day soon tore through her mind. Brandon and Wade loved the children so much, every bit as much as she did. Kimber had known that, one day, they’d have to deal with the paternity of the kids. She just wasn’t prepared for it to become an issue so soon, or become so obvious—to her, at least. Maybe she was the only one who could see how much the kids looked like their father. Brandon nor Wade had mentioned it at all.
    As the minutes ticked by and the night deepened around her, Kimber decided she would be leaving for Arizona in the morning. How long for, she didn’t yet know. A knot formed in her stomach at the thought of being away from Brandon and Wade for even a few days. She felt tears prick the back of her eyes when she realized that she couldn’t tell them her plans. They would do their best to talk her out of leaving, but she desperately needed the time and space to figure out what she wanted, and find the courage to tell them about the children.
    She tiptoed from the babies’ room and crept back into bed. Wade and Brandon didn’t stir, not even when she reached for their hands, clutching them to her chest, as silent tears coursed down her cheeks long into the night.

Chapter Four
     
    “Where the hell is everyone?”
    Wade’s shout echoed around the empty kitchen and he listened for a moment to see if he got a reply before heading to the fridge to grab a glass of juice.
    Neither Kimber, Brandon, nor the kids were in the house as he’d expected them to be, and he was starting to get an uneasy feeling about it. Brandon had disappeared first thing with some vague excuse about Seth needing help, but when Wade had gone to see if everything was okay at the Reed place, Seth claimed not to have seen Brandon at all.
    Wade had left the house early that morning, foregoing the usual routine he shared with Brandon of getting the girls up and giving them their breakfast so Kimber could sleep in a little. He loved sharing that time with them every day. He missed out on so many of the fun parts of having babies around, due to the relentless demands of running two ranches, that every moment he had with the girls was precious, and he knew Brandon felt the same way.
    He groaned as he thought of Brandon and the storm brewing between them. Wade had done his best to avoid the subject of marriage, and he knew Kimber and Brandon were hurt and bewildered by his reluctance to talk about it. He couldn’t explain it to them, not until one of them noticed what he’d seen a few months back.
    Jessica and Emily were angelic little girls, blessed with blonde hair and cornflower-blue eyes like their mother. They were also starting to look a hell of a lot like Brandon.
    Wade had first noticed one morning a couple of months earlier when he’d walked in to the nursery to find Brandon dozing in the rocking chair, holding the sleeping girls in his arms. Emily’s lips were pursed as if ready to kiss someone and Wade got a lump in his throat at how cute she looked doing it. Jessica was doing it, too. And so was Brandon.
    The shared likeness between the three was so obvious, Wade laughed a little at first, stunned that he’d never noticed it before. But the smile slipped from his face and he didn’t feel like laughing any more as a thousand emotions rushed through him and the sound of his pounding heart drowned out every other noise.
    The sense that he’d inserted himself into what was meant to be Kimber and Brandon’s lifelong love affair tied his gut in knots.