The SEAL's Secret Heirs by Kat Cantrell Page A

nasty snipers so American supply ships could dock without fear of being shot at.
    Kyle would have sworn up and down that being a SEAL had prepared him for any challenge, but he’d been able to perform that job with a sense of detachment. Oh, he’d cared, or he would never have put himself in the line of fire. But you had to march into a war knowing you might not come out. Knowing that you might cause someone else to not come out. There was no room for emotion in the middle of that.
    Being a father? It was 100 percent raw emotion, 24-7. Fear that he was doing it wrong. Joy in simply holding another human being that was a part of him, who shared his DNA. Worry that he’d screw up his kids as his parents had done to him. A slight tickle in the back of his throat that it could all change tomorrow if Grace suddenly decided that she’d made a mistake in awarding him custody.
    But above all else was the sense that he shouldn’t be doing it by himself. Kids needed a mother. Hadley was nurturing and clearly cared about the babies, but she was Liam’s wife, not Kyle’s. Now that the news had come out about Grace’s recommendations, it didn’t seem fair to keep asking Hadley to be the nanny, not when she’d hoped to adopt the babies herself.
    It was another tangle he didn’t know how to unsnarl, so he left it alone until he could figure it out. Besides, no one was chomping at the bit to change the current living situation and for now, Kyle, Liam and Hadley shared Wade House with Maggie and Maddie. Which meant that it would be ridiculous to tell Hadley not to pick up one of his daughters when she cried. So he didn’t.
    Plus, he was deep in the middle of growing the cattle business. Calving season was upon them, which meant days and days of backbreaking work to make sure the babies survived, or the ranch lost money instantly. He couldn’t spend ten or twelve hours a day at the cattle barn and take care of babies. That was his rationale anyway, and he repeated it to himself often. Some days it rang more true than others.
    A week after Grace had told him he’d earned custody of his daughters, Kyle spent thirty horrific minutes in his office going through email and other stuff Ivy, Wade Ranch’s bookkeeper and office manager, had dumped on his desk with way too cheery a smile. The woman was sadistic. Death by paper cuts might as well be Ivy’s mantra.
    God, he hated paperwork. He’d rather be hip-deep in manure than scanning vet reports and sales figures and bills and who knew what all.
    A knock at his door saved him. He glanced up to see a smiling Emma Jane and he nearly wept in relief. Emma Jane had the best title in the whole world—sales manager—which meant he didn’t have to talk to people who wanted to buy Wade Angus. She handled everything and he blessed her for it daily.
    â€œHey, boss,” she drawled. “Got a minute?”
    She always called him “boss” with a throaty undertone that made him vaguely uncomfortable, as if any second now, she might declare a preference for being dominated and fall at his feet, prostrate.
    â€œFor you, always.” He kicked back from the desk and crossed his arms as the sales manager came into his office. “What’s up?”
    With a toss of her long blond hair, Emma Jane sashayed over to his desk and perched one hip on the edge, careful to arrange her short skirt so it revealed plenty of leg. Kyle hid a grin, mostly because he didn’t want to encourage her. God love her, but Emma Jane had the subtlety of a Black Hawk helicopter coming in for landing.
    â€œI was thinking,” she murmured with a coy smile. “We’ve mostly been selling cattle here locally, but we should look to expand. There’s a big market in Fort Worth.”
    Obviously she was going somewhere with this, so Kyle just nodded and made a noncommittal sound as he waited for the punch line.
    â€œWade Ranch needs