He didn’t want Penny to count on him. He didn’t want his kids depending on him. He’d already failed people who mattered and the aftereffects of that had nearly killed him. Ten years later, he was still paying for what he’d done. His dreams were still haunted by the memories that wouldn’t fade. By the screams. By the thunderous roar of an avalanche and the aching wail of ambulances that were just too late.
He wouldn’t chance all of that happening again. But he also wasn’t going to discuss any of this with Penny’s brother.
“That’s none of your business,” he said.
“Probably,” Robert agreed. “But she’s my sister.”
“I get that. Family loyalty is important.” Colt knew that better than most. And no matter what happened or didn’t happen between him and Penny, she and the twins would always be his family. He would see that they were well taken care of. Have everything they needed. In fact, he would do anything for them.
Except stay.
* * *
Colt’s house was amazing.
It sat on the tip of the bluff in Dana Point, and boasted views of the Pacific from every room in the house. Three stories of living space sprawled across the cliff side, with decks and patios jutting out at every angle. There was a grassy, tree-laden space on either side of the house, with plexiglass fences to keep people safe while still allowing for the view.
It was lush and elegant yet somehow managed to feel cozy. There were ten bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a kitchen that would bring professional chefs to tears. Everything about the place, from the architecture to its perch overlooking the ocean, was breathtaking. Yet it felt...lonely. As if it were a model home waiting to be chosen by a family. Waiting to be lived in.
“So,” Colt asked when he joined her on the stone terrace. “What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” she said automatically, then shifted her gaze to the wide sweep of ocean stretching out in front of her. Sailboats skimmed the surface of the water, breakers churned into the shore below the house, and a handful of surfers bobbed up and down with the rhythm of the waves. “How long have you lived here?”
He leaned one hip casually against the stone railing and flicked a glance at the sea. “A few years. It’s a good base for me. I like being near the ocean.”
“A base,” she repeated. “So, you’re not here often.”
“Nope.” He straightened up and shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“Your housekeeper must love working for you,” she murmured. “Nothing much to do really until you show up occasionally.”
He grinned and she had to force her heart back down from her throat to her chest where it belonged.
“I know she’s excited to have you and the twins here to take care of. It’s true I’m not here much, but you know me, Penny. I keep moving.”
Yes, she did know that, and it tore at her heart to admit it to herself. He was standing right beside her, tall and gorgeous, his black hair ruffled by the sea breeze, his ice-blue eyes narrowed against the sunlight, and he might as well have been in Sicily jumping off that dumb volcano. He was so far from her she felt that she would never be able to reach him.
Then she noticed that his jaw was so tight it was a wonder he didn’t grind his teeth into powder. That muscle flexing in his jaw was the only outward sign that he wasn’t as cool and detached as he would like her to believe.
He was on edge, too. And for some reason, that made her feel better. Good to know she wasn’t in an emotional turmoil on her own.
“You get the twins settled?”
“Yes,” she said with a warm smile. Remembering the nursery where she’d tucked the babies in sent shafts of tenderness for Colt dazzling through her. “I can’t believe you managed to have an entire room done up for them in a few hours.”
“Money can accomplish a lot of things very quickly.”
Her smile deepened. He might pretend to be unmoved, even isolated, but what he’d done for his children disproved that lie. The twins’ nursery here was almost an exact duplicate of their room at the cottage. Bigger, of course, with a staggering view of the ocean. But the cribs were identical, the night-light was the same, their toys and dressers, right down to stacks of new clothes and towers of diapers. All sitting there waiting for the twins to make use of them.
“Yes, your money paid for it, Colt,” she said. “But it wasn’t your bank account that chose the twin teddy bears or saw to it that a guardrail was installed across the window.”
He frowned a little.
“That was you, Colt. You were thinking about the twins. About their safety. Their happiness.”
“And that surprises you?” he asked.
“No,” she said, moving closer to him, tipping her head to one side to study him. “But I think it surprised you. You love them. You love your children and want the best for them.”
His frown deepened a bit and he looked...uneasy.
“Don’t make more of this than there is, Penny,” he warned. “Of course I care about the twins. But this situation with us is temporary and you know it. Soon I’ll be leaving again and—”
She didn’t want to think about that. Not now. Not until she had to. Penny had been so busy trying to maintain her anger at him that letting it go now was enough to unleash the barely restrained passion she felt for this man. She knew he’d be leaving. She knew that what they had together wasn’t enough to hold him. But though they didn’t have a future, they did have a present. If she was bold enough to demand it.
Memories of their night together rushed into her mind and sent dizzying spirals of want and need spinning through her body. She wanted Colt King any way she could have him. And if that meant that she would later pay with pain, then she was prepared to meet the cost. What she wasn’t prepared to do was waste any more time with him.
“I know.”
She stopped him by laying her fingers across his mouth. She was going to lose him and she knew it. She couldn’t fight his nature. She couldn’t offer him the risk and the danger he seemed to crave. So instead she would accept him as he was and leave the worrying about how she would live without him for later.
“Penny...”
“The twins are napping,” she said, moving in even closer, until her br**sts were pressed to his chest. Until she had to tip her head back to meet the ice-blue eyes that were now burning with the kind of passion she’d only known with Colton King. “Your housekeeper is out at the store stocking your kitchen. We have the house to ourselves, Colt. Let’s not waste it.”