“But we would live under the sea!”
“Like The Little Mermaid,” Sophie piped up. “So cool.”
She decided not to point out that if a tidal wave hit the coast and wiped out Imperial Beach, they’d all be dead, but it was too early in the morning to get all morbid around six-year-olds. Instead, she quickly finished her pancakes, then tidied up the kitchen while the twins ate.
She wasn’t too worried about this impending storm. Everyone kept making such a big deal about this hurricane, but Ms. Nora had been spinning her wheels for days now without dishing out any of the destruction she was supposed to. Miranda had stocked up on supplies the day after the weather network announced the storm was moving north, but she doubted San Diego or its surrounding areas would be affected. You always had to take what the weatherman said with a hundred grains of salt.
After breakfast, she helped the twins get ready, then left them to their own devices while she darted into her own room to shower and change. She slipped into a pair of leggings, a sports bra and a tank top, tied her long hair in a ponytail and shoved her feet into a pair of pink flip-flops. She hadn’t put any effort into her appearance, but it wasn’t like she needed to impress the wannabe ballerinas she’d be spending the day with.
Five minutes later, she and the kids reconvened in the hall—Jason wearing his blue-and-white Little League uniform, Sophie in a cute yellow sundress with her ballet bag slung over her shoulder.
“You guys ready?” Miranda asked with a smile.
“Yeah,” they said in unison.
She cocked her head. “You both used the bathroom like I asked?”
Hesitation.
She sighed and pointed at Jason. “You. Pee. Now.”
The kids broke out into laughter. Jason darted into the washroom, then Sophie took her turn.
As the trio left their small ground-floor apartment, Miranda fixed Jason’s blue baseball cap, then tweaked one of Sophie’s long brown braids. Outside, she ushered them into the older-model, secondhand sedan that had miraculously gotten them here from Vegas without once overheating.
She started the engine while they buckled up. Jason’s baseball practices coincided perfectly with Miranda’s Saturday schedule, and since he was best friends with the coach’s son, he usually went over to their house after practice while Miranda kept Sophie with her at the dance studio. In the evenings, she picked Jason up from his friend’s, and the three of them went to the twins’ favorite pizza place for dinner.
She loved the routine, loved spending time with her kids. She might not have planned to have a baby at eighteen, certainly hadn’t expected to end up with two, but she didn’t regret her decision to keep her babies and raise them alone. Sophie and Jason were her entire life, and they were such good kids.
Come on, baby, I’ve been such a good boy…
Out of nowhere, Seth Masterson’s raspy voice floated into her mind, bringing a shiver to her body.
No. No, no, no.
She had to quit thinking about the man. He had no place in her life, for Pete’s sake.
Her gaze strayed to the rearview mirror, and she spent a few seconds watching the twins chatter to each other in the backseat. For a moment, she tried to imagine Seth sitting next to her. His big, muscular body crammed in the passenger seat, his arm hanging out the open window as he held a cigarette between his fingers.
A sigh got stuck in her throat. No, he didn’t belong in her life. As sexy as he was, and as tempted as she was to remove her Mommy hat for a few hours and enjoy what would undoubtedly be some amazing sex, she couldn’t.
Men like Seth were nothing but trouble. They blew into your life like a hurricane. Lured you in with their bad-boy charm and got you out of your panties. And then they disappeared, leaving a big mess in their wake.
Well, she didn’t need the headache, thank you very much. There was already one storm barreling its way into her life, and it went by the name Nora.
Though she got the feeling that Hurricane Nora didn’t have half the destruction potential that Hurricane Seth was capable of.
Seth and Dylan hopped out of Seth’s Jeep at eight thirty on Sunday morning, striding toward the beach a hundred yards away. They were both bare-chested, wearing shorts, sneakers, and sunglasses that were proving to be unnecessary. The sun had already risen, but the sky was overcast, making Seth wonder if that tropical storm the weather reports kept stressing about would actually make an appearance. He hoped not. He’d been looking forward to a long workout, the more strenuous the better.
When he and Dylan had moved in together three years ago, they’d started working out on the beach every morning, usually with fellow SEALs Cash McCoy and Jackson Ramsey, who rounded out Seth’s circle of friends. Not that he wasn’t buddies with the other men on the team—he was. But letting down his guard and sharing his feelings and all that shit? He only did that around Dylan, Cash and Jackson, which was pretty damn shocking because he’d never really done the whole friendship thing before.
Truth was, he hadn’t had a single male friend growing up. He’d been the loner bad boy who smoked weed and cigarettes and wandered the Strip looking for a f**k or a fight. Raised in a dressing room filled with half-naked women, constantly surrounded by females who, once he got older and grew into his looks, were dying to jump his bones. Needless to say, it had been seriously jarring when he’d enlisted in the navy—suddenly he’d gone from a room inhabited by gorgeous showgirls to a dormitory full of tired, cranky and hungry males forever being screamed at by their commanding officers.