Prologue #2
God, she was beautiful with her long, loose blond hair and her full, pouty lips.
Her eyes reminded him of the sky at the beach on a sunny day.
He shook his head as if disgusted with himself—this was what happened when you denied yourself sex for four straight months.
Torren took her hand in his and noticed her slight shiver when he introduced himself.
He took an educated guess that if Tana had a husband, he didn’t move here with her and her daughters.
He noticed that she wasn’t wearing a ring, but that didn’t matter.
His number one rule when it came to women was no single mothers.
Hell, it was the only rule that he had about women.
It was just too messy, especially with the ones who wanted to introduce him to the kids.
He wasn’t ready for any of that. Shit—he couldn’t even handle a ten-week-old puppy.
Still, the way pretty Tana responded to him had his cock thinking of fifty different ways he could take her.
Fuck. Well, his dick needed to get the message and fast—Tana was off-limits.
“It’s good to meet you, Tana. I’m Torren.
Your girls are welcome to play with Tucker anytime they would like.
” His offer was met with cheers and clapping from his newest little fans.
Sure, now they paid attention. “But,” he barked, “you both need your mom’s permission before you come skipping across the road.
” Both girls nodded, not taking their eyes from him.
“You also need to apologize to your mother for not following her rules.” Tana gasped as both girls said their apologies.
“Wow, do you have kids? Because that was pretty awesome,” Tana gushed, and Torren cringed.
The thought of having kids made him feel a little queasy.
He was probably the last person on earth who should have anything to do with kids.
He just said what his grandpa would have.
And, dammit, seeing Sarah and Elizabeth reminded him of when he and Tag were little.
Torren just shook his head, not knowing if “Fuck no!” was an appropriate response to her question, especially with her daughters listening on.
“Well.” Tana pulled each of her daughters up from the ground, to a chorus of “not fair” and “you’re so mean”. Torren wanted to laugh at the girls’ protest, but from the look of frustration on Tana’s face, he knew that would be a bad idea.
“It was good to meet you, Torren. If you ever need anything, we are across the road—feel free to holler.” Tana turned and dragged her twin daughters with her as both tried to run back to where Tucker continued to play.
Torren didn’t miss the way Tana’s hips swayed with every step or the way her perfect pear-shaped ass looked in her jeans.
Geez, what was wrong with him? He just met this woman, and already she was making him rethink rule number one.
He shook his head and picked up Tucker to head back into his house.
He needed to unpack a few more boxes before he headed into town to get ready for his two-night hiking trip.
It was his turn to take out a group, and honestly, he was looking forward to the distraction.
He looked down at his new puppy and realized that he was going to have to find a sitter for him.
Shit. He wanted to pound Tag for saddling him with a responsibility that he had no business having in his life.
He was going to have to come up with a solution fast since he was leaving first thing in the morning.
He looked back across the road to where Tana was still trying to wrestle her two, now crying, twins.
Well, she did offer— “Tana, wait up.” He knew that this was crossing a line and was probably going to lead to him breaking rule number one, but he had no other choice. He took a deep breath and headed across the street towards the sexiest woman that he had seen in months. Yeah, he was fucked.
Tana Cahoon watched as the sexy, hulk-sized man moved his furniture and the rest of his belongings into his home last night.
There were two of them, both identical, and she was fascinated by their size.
She never saw a human being so big and physically fit, unless she counted the men who seemed to only exist on television or social media.
This man must work out all day long, judging from the muscles that she saw.
She quickly closed her curtains, not wanting to tempt herself as if that was going to be an issue.
What would a man who looked like that want with a single mother of twin four-year-olds who were nearly impossible to control?
She had so much baggage that she was sure that no man would ever want her again, and that was just fine with her.
Tana spent the past five years in a marriage that started so promising but ended horribly.
She was like so many stories that she heard about other women over the years—she became a statistic.
At first, her husband, Matt, seemed so loving and gentle that she thought that she was truly the luckiest girl on the planet.
But after he lost his job, he started drinking, and things went downhill from there.
He was a mean drunk and would criticize her for every one of his failures.
She tried to help him, wanting to understand the pain that he was feeling, but he refused to let her in.
The first time he hit her, she vowed that she would never go back to him, but he was always sorry after he sobered up, and she was a fool.
Tana thought that she could change him, even save him, but she was so wrong.
When she was almost eight months pregnant with the twins, he went out with a few buddies for a drink.
She was pissed that he was spending money that they didn’t have.
Tana was working two jobs while pregnant, and he couldn’t seem to find even a part-time opening.
He rolled in about two in the morning, and she had had enough.
She screwed up her courage to confront him, and that was the worst mistake she could have made.
She told him that she wanted him to stay home with her and stop spending all the money that she was working so hard for.
He lost control of his temper, screaming about how she didn’t understand him and about how she was trying to make him into something that he wasn’t.
He pushed her down the small flight of steps in their little townhome, knocking her unconscious.
When she came to, she was lying in her own blood, and he was nowhere to be found.
She was able to crawl to her phone and call for help.
Tana didn’t remember much else, other than a few flashes of memories from the ambulance ride and the pain that she felt in her belly as they wheeled her into the operating room.
The last thought she had before they put her under was how afraid she was that she was going to lose her babies.
She woke up from the surgery two days later to find out that she had two beautiful little girls, and they were perfect.
Her mother tried to persuade her not to go back with him, but when Matt showed up at the hospital with flowers and apologies, she took him back.
She was young and scared at the thought of taking care of two infants on her own.
Tana refused to press charges and went home two weeks later with Matt and her girls.
For a while, things were good. Matt got a job at the refinery, and he even tended bar at the local dive a few nights a week until she could start working her waitressing job again.
When they laid everyone off at the refinery, things went downhill, and Matt started hanging out at the bar during his off-hours.
He was fired for stealing from the cash register, finally hitting rock bottom.
Once he started getting more aggressive with her again, Tana took that as her sign to leave.
She left him and moved in with her mother.
Tana wasn’t going to let him fall into the same patterns with her.
She would never let Matt lay a hand on her girls or herself, for that matter, ever again.
He started sniffing around her mom’s house, threatening to take the girls away from her, scaring both Sarah and Elizabeth.
She decided that the three of them needed a fresh start.
One day, she was at her local library using their computer to hunt for their new beginning when she came across an ad for a children’s librarian at a little place in a town called Harvest Ridge, Colorado.
She thought that it sounded like a perfect fresh start, and she packed up their car and drove across the country.
She didn’t even tell her mother where she was heading, not wanting her mom to tell Matt.
It was best if she kept her new place a secret for now until she got her legal divorce papers back in the mail.
Tana signed them and appeared in court. Once she had the legal documents, she would be free from Matt, and her girls would be safe.
The day after her sexy new neighbor moved in, she realized that her girls were not watching television in the family room where she had left them.
She did a quick, panicked search of the house and yard before she heard Sarah’s giggle through her open kitchen window.
Tana couldn’t believe that they both defied her and crossed the road after she told them over and over not to leave the yard.
And there her two precious little angels sat, cross-legged in the grass, playing with an adorable puppy while the sexy hulk watched them.