The - Cowboy’s - Secret - Twins by Dilesh

more time to try to talk me into moving here,” she said. He nodded, his eyes teasing her. “There is that,” he agreed.
    “Okay, I won’t leave tomorrow. But the next morning we’ve got to get back home.”
    He finished his scotch and set the glass down on the coffee table. “And what then?” The teasing light in his eyes vanished. “When will I see the boys again?”
    Melissa realized that her life was about to get more complicated. She’d been thrilled that Henry wanted to be a part of the boys’ lives, but now she was faced with the logistics of how they would make it all work.
    “I guess I can commit to twice a month driving here for a weekend visit,”
    she said. “I know it isn’t ideal, that you’d like to see the twins every day,”
    she added as she saw the dismay on his face. “But, Henry, you have to work with me here.”
    “I know.” He leaned back against the sofa and frowned thoughtfully. “I never knew how kids would make me feel, how much they’d make me want to be there for them, to protect them and teach them. I never dreamed that thoughts of them would be so all-consuming.”
    She smiled, finding him even more attractive than ever with love for his children—for her children—shining from his eyes. “Welcome to parenthood.”
    He shook his head and smiled. “I never knew it would be like this.” His features were soft in the glow from the Christmas lights and Melissa found herself wishing for things that could never be.
    She wished she and Henry were married and tonight after checking on their children they’d get into bed together and make love all night long. She wished they’d share breakfast the next morning and talk about their shared dreams, laugh over secret jokes and know that they would face each other over their first cup of coffee every morning for the rest of their lives.
    Foolish wishes, she knew. Wishes brought on by the glow of the Christmas tree and the warmth of family that permeated this house. She was slowly being seduced by Henry and his mother and she knew she’d be a fool to hope for anything except weekend visits for the boys and nothing more.
    Still, she’d allowed him to talk her into staying another day because she’d been reluctant to leave this house of warmth, reluctant to leave him.
    “Are there twins in your family?” he asked, pulling her from her wayward thoughts.
    “Not that I know of. What about yours?”
    “I think there were twins on my father’s side of the family,” he replied. The doorbell rang and Henry checked his watch with a frown. “Who could that be?” Melissa watched as he rose from the sofa with a masculine grace.
    When he disappeared from her sight, she leaned back in her chair and released a sigh. She’d enjoyed the day with him far too much. His ideas about marriage had shocked her. Was he so afraid a woman would take his money? Did he not believe that he was worth anything simply as a man? What good was it to have money if all it made you do was worry about who might take it away from you?
    She wondered what had made Henry so cynical about love. Had some woman hurt him in the past? Certainly Tom had hurt her, but even the pain of his rejection hadn’t made her belief in true love waver. When he returned he carried his car keys with him. “That was Willie from the garage. He delivered my truck.” He pocketed the keys and sat back down on the sofa.
    “Henry, do you have a computer?” she asked. She knew he had never really embraced her story about MysteryMom and more than anything she wanted him to believe that she had no interest in any of his money for herself.
    “Sure, in my study. Why?”
    “I was wondering if maybe you could let me use it to see if I can connect with MysteryMom. This is the time of the evening when I normally could find her in the chat room. It’s important to me that you believe what it was that brought me here to you.”
    “You haven’t given me a reason not to believe you.”
    She