Just as she started the car, her phone rang. A Nevada area code flashed on the screen, bringing a wry smile to her lips. It wasn’t quite a call from Seth, but close enough.

“Hey, Missy,” she said after she switched the call to speakerphone.

“Hey, sugar pie! How’s my favorite birthday girl doing?” With the way Missy Masterson chain-smoked, you’d think she’d sound perpetually hoarse, but Seth’s mother had one of those breathy, Marilyn Monroe voices that only added to her sexpot status.

“I’m doing good. I got the voice mail you left yesterday. I wanted to call you back during my break—” but I spent it with your son’s tongue between my legs, “—but I didn’t get a chance. Thanks for the birthday message. It was sweet of you.”

“I can’t believe you worked on your birthday. Shame on you.”

“Hey, as I recall, you were at the theater until three in the morning last year on your birthday.”

“I’m the choreographer. Where else would I be? Now, tell me everything you’ve been up to. We haven’t spoken in ages. How’s business?”

“Pretty good. Enrollment has doubled, and we’re expecting a full house for the recital at the end of July. All the parents are super excited.” She rolled her eyes to herself. “Except for maybe one. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if his daughter doesn’t end up dancing in the recital at all.”

She quickly told Missy about the awful “date” with Porter, and when she finished, the older woman sounded utterly disgusted. “What a slimeball! Send my son to beat him up, pronto.”

Laughing, Miranda set the phone in the cup holder and drove away from the school. “I totally should. Seth would be happy to do it—he already kicked the ass of one man who had the audacity to bother me.”

Seth’s mother was not perturbed in the slightest. “My boy has always been a hothead. And too big and strong for his own good.” Missy sounded suspicious now. “Is he giving you any trouble? Because he definitely has the tendency to bulldoze people in order to get his way. He gets his bossy, overbearing side from his father.”

“Seth has a father?”

The second she asked it, she felt like a total moron, and Missy made it worse by snorting. “No, Miranda, my son was born via immaculate conception.”

Okay, she deserved that. “I mean, neither of you talk about Seth’s father. I didn’t realize he was ever in the picture.”

“Oh, he was. Not for long, though. He bailed when Seth was five. But good riddance, because that man was nothin’ but trouble. Anyway, I wanted to make sure Seth isn’t being his usual jackass self and causing you any grief. Is he hitting on you left and right?”

For a second she almost confessed that she and Seth were kind of dating, but she wasn’t sure if he wanted his mother to know about them. And depending on what happened tonight, dating might not even be in the cards.

So she opted for a casual response. “No, he isn’t causing me grief. Why would he?”

“Because he’s been panting over you for more than a year.”

“What?” Astonishment shot through her.

“Don’t you remember when he came to visit that time? He’d just gotten back from wherever the hell they sent him and he showed up at the theater?”

With flowers for his mother. Right. She did remember.

And didn’t that just floor her, knowing that Seth had lusted over her from way back then.

That baffling piece of information was still on her mind long after she’d hung up with Missy. She made a mental note to tease Seth about it when she saw him, but teasing him was the last thing she wanted to do when she walked into her living room a half hour later.

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head as she absorbed the scene before her. Seth was sprawled on the couch, his gray eyes focused on the Pixar movie playing on the TV screen, but it wasn’t his willingness to watch a bunch of animated toys dance around that stunned her.

It was the two children tucked on either side of his chest, fast asleep.

Her children.

Seth was actually cuddling on the couch with her kids.

His gaze sought hers, one finger coming up to his lips. She was surprised the twins had already conked out—it was only eight o’clock, and normally they didn’t go to bed for another hour or so.

“Let me take them to their room,” she whispered.

In the end, Seth was the one who carried them, and he even tucked Sophie in while Miranda tended to Jason. She was floored when she noticed him brush a lock of hair off her daughter’s forehead with infinite tenderness.

What the heck had happened here tonight?

She couldn’t wait to get some answers, but the mom in her needed to get the basics out of the way first. “Did they eat their dinner?” she asked as she shut the twins’ door and joined Seth in the hallway.

“Every last bite.” He fished his smoke pack from his pocket. “Can we do this interrogation outside?”

Nodding, she followed him out to the backyard. “Did they give you any trouble?”

“None.” His movements were oddly ungainly as he lit a cigarette and sank into one of the chairs near the door. “Miranda…”

It suddenly occurred to her that he hadn’t so much as touched her since she’d walked in the house. No kiss. No hug. Not even a hand squeeze. Wariness promptly rose inside her, making her stomach churn.