The SEAL's Secret Heirs(3)

“That’s for not calling,” Liam said succinctly and balled his fists as if he planned to go back for seconds.

“Nice to see you, too.”

Dang. Talking hurt. Kyle spit out a curse along with a trickle of blood that hit the hardwood floor an inch from Liam’s broken-in boot.

“Deadbeat. You have a lot of nerve showing up now. Get gone or there’s more where that came from.”

Liam clearly had no idea who he was tangling with.

“I don’t cater much to sucker punches,” Kyle drawled, and touched his lower lip, right above where the throb in his jaw hurt the worst. Blood came away with his finger. “Why don’t you try that again now that I’m paying attention?”

Liam shook his head wearily, his fists going slack. “Your face is as hard as your head. Why now? After all this time, why did you finally drag your sorry butt home?”

“Aww. Careful there, brother, or people might start thinking you missed me something fierce when you talk like that.”

Liam had another thirty seconds to explain why Kyle’s welcome home had included a fist. Liam had a crappy right hook, but it still hurt. If anything, Kyle was the one who should be throwing punches. After all, he was the one with the ax to grind. He was the one who had left Royal because of what Liam had done.

Or rather whom he’d done. Grace Haines. Liam had broken the most sacred of all brotherly bonds when he messed around with the woman Kyle loved. Afghanistan wasn’t far enough away to forget, but it was the farthest a newly minted SEAL could go after being deployed.

So he hadn’t forgotten. Or forgiven.

“I called your cell phone,” Liam said. “I called every navy outpost I could for two months straight. I left messages. I called about the messages. Figured that silence was enough of an answer.” Arms crossed, Liam looked down his nose at Kyle, which was a feat, given that they were the same height. “So I took steps to work through this mess you’ve left in my lap.”

Wait, he’d gotten punched over leaving the ranch in his brother’s capable hands? That was precious. Liam had loved Wade Ranch from the first, maybe even as early as the day their mother had dropped them off with Grandpa and never came back.

“You were always destined to run Wade Ranch,” Kyle said, and almost didn’t choke on it. “I didn’t dump it on you.”

Liam snorted. “Are you really that dense? I’m not talking about the ranch, moron. I’m talking about your kids.”

Kyle flinched involuntarily. “My...what?”

Kids? As in children?

“Yes, kids,” Liam enunciated, drawing out the i sound as if Kyle might catch his meaning better if the word had eighteen syllables. “Daughters. Twins. I don’t get why you waited to come home. You should have been here the moment you found out.”

“I’m finding out this moment,” Kyle muttered as his pulse kicked up, beating in his throat like a May hailstorm on a tin roof. “How...wha...”

His throat closed.

Twin daughters. And Liam thought they were his? Someone had made a huge mistake. Kyle didn’t have any children. Kyle didn’t want any children.

Liam was staring at him strangely. “You didn’t get my messages?”

“Geez, Liam. What was your first clue? I wasn’t sitting at a desk dodging your calls. I spent six months in...a bad place and then ended up in a worse place.”

From the city of Kunduz to Landstuhl Regional, the US-run military hospital in Germany. He didn’t remember a lot of it, but the incredible pain as the doctors worked to restore the bone a bullet had shattered in his leg—that he would never forget.

But he was one of the lucky ones who’d survived his wounds. Cortez hadn’t. Kyle still had nightmares about leaving his teammate behind in that foxhole where they’d been trapped by insurgents. Seemed wrong. Cortez should have had a proper send-off for his sacrifice.

“Still not a chatterbox, I see.” Liam scrubbed at his face with one hand, and when he dropped it, weariness had replaced the glower. “Keep your secrets about your fabulous life overseas as a badass. I really don’t care. I have more important things to get straight.”

The weariness was new. Kyle remembered his brother as being a lot of things—a betrayer, first and foremost—but not tired. It looked wrong on his face. As wrong as the constant pain etched into Kyle’s own face when he looked in the mirror. Which was why he’d quit looking in the mirror.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning.” Kyle jerked his head toward what he hoped was still the kitchen. “Maybe we can hash it out over tea?”