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when she’d decided she didn’t want to be a mom anymore, there’d been nothing David could do. Her son had gone back to his biological father. Haley Rose lost her mother and her half brother.
    David didn’t want to think about what he’d lost. He needed to focus on the present, the future, his kid.
    He parked in his sister’s driveway and slumped in hisseat. Some days sucked the life right out of a person. He just wanted to gather his daughter, go home, and forget about Sophie Campbell tucked against his chest.
    His sister gripped the second-floor balcony railing in the middle of a Pilates stretch. David allowed the inevitable smile to cut through his fatigue.
    Not for the first time, he considered how Haley Rose would one day look like her aunt Madison. The dominant genes of the Berg family couldn’t be missed. Madison wore her standard Lycra workout clothes, her lengthy rope of dark hair trailing forward over one shoulder.
    He stepped out of the Scout and shouted up to her, “Sorry I’m late, Mad. I tried to call…”
    “Do you see a watch anywhere?” Madison linked her hands and stretched her arms over her head, a tangle of silver bracelets sliding to one elbow. Who wore bracelets with workout clothes?
    His sister.
    He climbed the concrete steps that led up to the sunning deck on the second floor. “If you ever owned a watch, you lost it.”
    “Only on purpose.” Barefoot, she rolled up her yoga mat and tucked it under her arm.
    Her free spirit frustrated the hell out of him at times, but he had to admit she’d saved his hide the past year by providing child care and even a place to crash. With Leslie’s lack of interest in Haley Rose, he needed all the help he could get. Madison’s easygoing manner soothed his high-spirited daughter.
    What kind of parent was Sophie, with her nanny and big house?
    David shook free from his thoughts of Sophie and met Madison at the base of the stairs. “Where’s the runt?”
    “Playing with her new little friend at his house.” She held a single finger to her lips before he could interrupt. “Yes, I did a thorough check on everything from his family to his blood type before letting your child play with him. He’s a nice kid. Good manners. Does his homework and eats all his vegetables.”
    “I trust your judgment.”
    Madison snickered. “Since when?”
    “I’m glad she’s making friends. I worried about uprooting her to move here just because I didn’t want to drive the extra miles.”
    “You moved so you could spend more time with her and so I didn’t have to hang out at your gross bachelor apartment.”
    “You’re a lot nicer now that you’re grown up.”
    “Suck-up.” She swatted him with her yoga mat before opening the French doors. “Brice is the perfect playmate for your tomboy. They’re just working together on a science project for the fair. It’s not like we have to worry about their hormones yet.”
    “I’d rather not think about my daughter, hormones, and boys.” David shuddered.
    “I told you. He’s a good kid.” She lifted her brother’s wrist and looked at his watch. “I should probably go over and pick her up before they wear out Nanny.”
    “The nanny?”
    “No, her name’s Nanny. The boy’s great-grandmother. His mom’s a lawyer on base.”
    Ah hell.
    *    *    *
    After a quick wriggle into a shirt and pair of shorts, Sophie stalked along the shore to retrieve her son beforethe sun finished setting. When would this day end? Not any time soon, apparently.
    At least he hadn’t officially “ditched” Nanny this time. Nanny knew exactly where Brice was—off playing with the daughter of a nice, young,
unattached
flyboy who just moved to the neighborhood.
    Sophie hadn’t needed even a single guess to determine who bachelor number one might be. Grandma Anna, Nanny, wouldn’t let up until she marched her only granddaughter down the aisle again. Sophie didn’t intend to march anywhere except down her stretch of the