Relieved.” She drew her arms even more tightly across her chest. “You have kids.” The words tumbled from her. “Two. A boy and a girl.”

His eyes narrowed. He frowned, creases in his broad brow. “Yes.”

“They’re eleven.”

His frown deepened. “They’re twins.”

“Mack and Molly.”

His black brows flattened as he shrugged off his snow crusted coat and hung it up on the peg outside the kitchen door. “And this is important... why?”

Her jaw tightened. Of course he’d say that. Tonight as she’d sat in the rocking chair she’d thought about everything that had happened today and it struck her that Brock wasn’t reserved. He was rude. “It’s important because they’re here.”

His dark gaze shot past her to the dimly lit house. “Here?”

“Yes, Mr. Sheenan. They arrived this evening around eleven, while you were out.”

“At the house?”

“Yes. They’re upstairs sleeping now. I fed them dinner and put them to bed.”

“Huh,” he grunted, stepping around her to enter the house. Make that, push his way into the house.

Just as Molly had when she’d arrived.

Harley bit her lip, thinking that Mack might have inherited his dad’s dark good looks, but Molly had his personality and temper. She followed him into the kitchen where he dropped his damp felt hat on the counter and tugged off his leather work gloves. Melting snow dripped from the hem of his chaps.

His gaze was fixed on the hall with the view of the staircase. “Sleeping, you said?”

She battled her temper, closing the kitchen door and locking it with the dead bolt. “I hope they’re sleeping. It’s almost one in the morning.”

He said nothing to this, crossing to the fireplace to sit down in the rocking chair she’d just vacated. He worked one wet boot off, and then another. The kitchen’s lights were turned low and the kitchen was shadowy, save for the red glow of the fire which still burned with a good-sized log. “You kept the fire burning,” he said.

“You weren’t home,” she answered, standing next to the counter, watching him, thinking that everything had changed. Her feelings about being here had changed. She didn’t want to be here anymore.

For a moment there was just silence and she curled her fingers into the edge of her fuzzy sleeve, making fists out of her curled fingers.

She should just go to bed right now, before anything else was said.

She should just go to bed before she said something she’d regret.

But she couldn’t make herself walk out. Couldn’t leave. She was still too upset. Too shocked. Too worried.

Brock Sheenan was a widower, with kids, and his kids were good kids but they were lonely and homesick and being raised with a lot of tough love. Harley came from a strict Dutch family. She understood rules and order but she’d also been raised with plenty of affection, and laughter, and fun.

After sitting with Mack and Molly while they wolfed down their grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, Harley wasn’t sure the twins had known a lot of hugs and kisses and laughter.

And that ate at her.

It ate at her after they’d gone to sleep. It ate at her as she sat in the rocking chair. It ate at her now.

Brock leaned back in the rocking chair, his big shoulders filling the entire space, his chest so broad it made the oversized rocking chair look small. “Spit it out,” he said.

Harley’s fists squeezed tighter. “Spit it out?”

His dark head inclined. “You’re obviously dying to say something. So say it.