Living in northern Nevada was taking some getting used to, Sierra acknowledged, as she tugged the fleece-lined hat over her ears and stuffed her hands into matching gloves. Then she opened the door to step outside and sucked in a shocked breath.
When she’d told her brother that she was taking a job in Haven for six months—starting in January—he’d warned her that it would be cold. Sierra hadn’t been concerned. No one had ever accused her of being a shrinking violet.
But right now, she felt like a frozen violet—and she’d only been outside for fifteen seconds.
A quiet whimper escaped her as she thought longingly of the twenty-four-hour gym in the basement of her apartment building in Las Vegas.
Former apartment building, she reminded herself.
She’d vacated the premises at the same time she’d walked away from her eighteen-month relationship with Eric Stikeman. She still missed the spacious two bedroom with the floor-to-ceiling windows and mountain view. Eric...not so much.
In any event, when she’d agreed to take the job in the Haven DA’s office, she’d been hopeful that she might find similar accommodations here. Those hopes had quickly been dashed.
The good news was that she’d found a fully furnished townhouse in a newer development. Unfortunately, the furnishings hadn’t included a treadmill.
The real estate agent had told her that there was a gym at the community center, but Sierra was reluctant to commit to a membership, not knowing how often she’d use it when her only goal was “moderate” daily physical activity. But the gym also offered yoga classes, and her friend Aubrey had frequently remarked that Sierra should take up yoga to help her relax.
Former friend, she amended.
And a reason for some of her current tension, as well as more evidence that she was a lousy judge of character—at least when it came to her personal interactions.
So for now, Sierra had decided that morning walks would provide not only exercise but also the opportunity to explore the area and maybe even meet some of her neighbors.
Apparently the locals were a hearty breed, as she crossed paths with more than a few residents out walking their dogs, spotted a couple others up on ladders taking down holiday decorations and observed several children playing in the snow.
But if she was going to continue walking in frigid weather, she was going to need a warmer pair of boots. And a thicker coat. And probably some thermal underwear, too.
On second thought, a gym membership might be cheaper.
She exchanged greetings with a man holding a leash attached to an Old English sheepdog and considered the benefits of a canine companion. It would be nice to have company, she mused, not only on her daily walks but at home.
But as appealing as the idea was for now, she was only going to be in Haven for six months. After her contract with the DA’s office was finished, she’d be going back to Las Vegas, where she no longer had an apartment. Which meant that she’d be staying with her brother and sister-in-law until she could find a place of her own—which she wouldn’t be able to do until she found a new job—and Whitney was allergic to dogs.
She paused on the sidewalk near where two little girls were building a snowman—or trying to with the limited amount of snow on the ground. Because the air might be frigid, but it was still desert, and snow was as scarce in the winter as rain was in the summer. Still, they’d managed to put one modest-sized ball of snow on top of a slightly bigger ball of snow.
Sierra didn’t have a lot of experience with kids, but one of the partners at Bane had a four-year-old grandson who sometimes came into the office and these girls looked to be a similar age. One was dressed in a pink snowsuit with blue boots, the other wore a purple snowsuit and orange boots.
Twins, she guessed, and shuddered at the possibility of heightened nausea and vomiting, which she’d read could be experienced by women carrying multiple babies.
The girl in pink took the knitted hat off her own head to set it on the snowman.
“Now your scarf,” she said to her sister.
The girl in purple dutifully began to tug at the knot by her throat.
“That’s a nice snowman you’ve got there,” Sierra said.
Both girls beamed with pleasure.
“He needs a scarf,” Pink said.
“Can you help me wif it?” Purple asked, still tugging on her scarf.
“I don’t know that your mom would want you dressing up your snowman in your accessories,” Sierra said.
“It’s okay,” Pink told her. “Mommy’s not here.”
Sierra wasn’t sure how to respond to that and was relieved when the front door opened and a man walked out.
Relieved, that was, until she recognized him as the thief of her Frosted Flakes.
“Here we are,” Deacon said, his attention on the two girls. “Mini Oreos for the eyes and mouth and a baby carrot for the nose.”
Then he spotted Sierra on the sidewalk. Their gazes locked.
“Oh,” he said, obviously as surprised to see her as she was to see him. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said back.
“She wikes our snowman,” Pink chimed in.
“Well, of course she likes your snowman,” Deacon agreed. “He’s very handsome. Or he will be when you give him a face.”
The girls took the proffered items and returned to their snowman-in-progress.
“Did you change your mind about needing a lawyer?” he asked Sierra.
She shook her head. “I was just out for a walk.”
“You live around here?” he asked.
“A couple blocks over.”
“I guess that makes us neighbors, sort of.”
“Sort of,” she agreed, before shifting her attention back to the little girls who were now stuffing mini Oreos in their mouths. “Your daughters are adorable.”
“They’re not mine,” he said, shaking his head to emphasize the point. “They’re my brother’s kids.”
“So...your nieces?”
Now he nodded.
She looked from one child to the other, noting their similar heights and features.
“Twins?” she guessed.
He nodded again. “Double Trouble, I call them.”
The girls giggled at the obviously familiar nickname.
“We need mo’ cookies,” Purple said.
He glanced over, sighed. “You were supposed to use them to make the snowman’s mouth, not put them in your mouths.”
That remark earned another round of giggles.
“You know where the cookies are,” Deacon told them. “You can go get one more package, but that’s all.”
They raced toward the door.
“I get the carrot,” she said. “But why mini Oreos?”
“Because I’m all out of lumps of coal.”
“None left in your Christmas stocking?”
His lips twitched at the corners. “Is it so hard to believe that I might have been on Santa’s ‘nice’ list?”
“Were you?”
“I can be naughty or nice, depending on the situation,” he told her.
And suddenly their conversation was inching toward potentially dangerous territory again, the air between them charged with electricity.
Deciding that a change of topic was in order, she asked, “Did your nieces enjoy their Frosted Flakes for breakfast?”
“They always do,” he said.
She should have left it at that, but she felt the teensiest bit uneasy thinking that she might have judged him not only too quickly but also unfairly.
“So why did you let me think that you would be spending the night with two women?” she asked him.
“Is that what you were thinking?”
She narrowed her gaze. “You know it was. You winked.”
“And somehow you interpreted that as code for a threesome?”
She huffed out a breath. “I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation. It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe it does,” he countered. “Maybe I want to know why you’d assume a casual mention of breakfast with twins meant a night with two women.”
“It was the wink,” she said again.
“Or was it the fact that you looked at me and wanted me and guessed that most other women do, too?”
“What I guessed is that you’d be as obnoxious as you are arrogant—and I was right.”
“Here’s an idea,” he said, seemingly unfazed by her retort. “Why don’t we talk about my character flaws over dinner?”
“Because I don’t date players.”
“And, after two very brief conversations, you think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?” he challenged.
She shrugged. “Some people aren’t very complicated.”
“Are you always so quick to rush to judgment?”
No, she wasn’t. But she was apparently quick to judge him, and that was something she’d have to give some consideration to on her own time.
For now, she simply said, “Goodbye, Mr. Columbia Law.”
“It’s Deacon,” he reminded her. “And you haven’t given me your number. Or even your name.”
“Not an oversight,” she told him.
She was right.
He’d acted like a dick, and she’d called him on it.
Well, she’d accused him of being arrogant and obnoxious, which was essentially the same thing. And not a completely inaccurate characterization of his behavior, Deacon acknowledged, if only to himself.
He was usually much smoother in his interactions with the opposite sex. But there was something about the cool reserve of the woman—who still hadn’t even told him her name—that made him want to elicit a reaction.
He’d at least succeeded in that, even if the reaction wasn’t quite what he’d hoped for. But as his high school baseball coach used to say, if you’re going to go down, go down swinging.
“We got the cookies,” Piper announced, running toward him, her sister close on her heels.
He imagined the snow they’d tracked inside melting on his hardwood floors but decided that he’d wipe it up later. Now he helped the girls put the finishing touches on their creation, took some pictures of them posing beside it and sent the photos to his brother and sister-in-law.
They both immediately responded to his text with heart emojis, then Regan sent another message:
We’ll be there to pick them up in about an hour.
Make it 2 hours, he suggested. We haven’t watched Encanto yet.
2 hours, she confirmed. And thank you again. xo.
“Okay, girls—take your hat and scarf off the snowman now so we don’t forget them out here,” he instructed.
“But he’ll get cold,” Poppy protested.
“He’s a snowman,” Deacon said. “If he wasn’t cold, he’d melt.”
“Like Fwosty,” Piper said, nodding sagely.
“I don’t want him to melt,” Poppy said worriedly.
“I don’t think you have to worry about him melting anytime soon,” Deacon said.
It was far more likely that the snowman would meet his end courtesy of the seven-year-old bully who lived three doors down and already had a reputation for kicking over and stomping on the neighborhood snow people. Not that he was going to tell his nieces that.
“And even when he does eventually melt, it just means that you can look forward to building him again when the snow comes back,” he said instead.
“Can we watch ’canto now?” Poppy asked.
“First, we need to pack up your stuff, so you’re ready to go when your mom and dad come to get you, then we can watch Encanto.”
“Can we have popco’n with the movie?” Piper wanted to know.
“An’ Wed Vines?”
“You ate all my Red Vines last night,” he reminded them. “But yes, we can have popcorn.”
While the girls hung up their snowsuits, he wiped up the melted snow on the floor, then together they gathered up pj’s, toothbrushes, books and toys before carrying their backpacks downstairs and settling in front of the television to watch the movie.
He adored the two little girls and was always happy to spend time with him. Of course, he would have been even happier if his brother hadn’t confided that his babysitting services were being utilized so that the twins’ parents could focus on making another baby.
Not that Deacon objected to his brother having an intimate relationship with his wife—because wasn’t that supposed to be one of the benefits of marriage?—he just didn’t want to hear about it. Especially when he was achingly aware that it had been far too long since he’d enjoyed any action between the sheets.
His own fault, Deacon knew. He’d had a good thing going with Mariah Traynor for almost six months—or they’d had some pretty good chemistry, anyway. But it turned out that they didn’t have much in common beyond that. He was a Dodgers fan; she couldn’t stand baseball. He cheered for the 49ers; she abhorred football. He enjoyed watching the Golden Knights; she didn’t even know that Vegas had a hockey team.
Now, of course, he was kicking himself for ruining a good thing—or at least a sure thing. Because since then, he’d discovered that one really was the loneliest number.
And if Mariah wasn’t the type of woman that he could envision spending the rest of his life with, maybe that was because he couldn’t envision spending the rest of his life with any one woman.
Never say never.
The problem was, Haven wasn’t exactly overflowing with single women.
Or maybe the real problem was that he’d already dated most of them—way back in high school when he’d been looking for love (or at least sex) in all the wrong places. And if he hadn’t found love, he’d at least discovered the pleasures of physical intimacy. There had been plenty of girls willing to share those pleasures with him—and others who’d looked at him with obvious disdain, who’d snickered in the hallways when he walked by and whispered (not very quietly) about Faithless Faith Parrish’s youngest son.
With his brother’s words still echoing in his head, and Piper and Poppy singing about not talking about Bruno, Deacon went into the kitchen to make the kids’ snack.
He tossed some mini marshmallows and M&M’s in with the hot corn when it was popped, and Piper and Poppy immediately declared it was “the best popco’n ev-uh.”
Of course, they weren’t quite four, so he didn’t put much stock in their use of the superlative. Case in point, they also claimed that he read “the best sto-wees,” gave “the best hugs” and was, overall, “the best unca.”
While he appreciated their enthusiastic endorsement, he was painfully aware of his own shortcomings. And he was definitely not looking forward to the day that they learned the truth about him.
Because he wasn’t the best anything—he’d found that out long ago. But he was determined to be better than his beginnings.