with a sniffle.
Delphi sat back down.
Nelson smiled. “I’m going to leave that to you two. Thanks, though. So, you’re due...” He trailed off, mentally calculating.
“The babies are due in November.”
“Babies?” Delphi was sure she’d heard a plural, as in more than one.
“Babies. There are two heartbeats—both strong, thank goodness. Twins. My due date is Thanksiving.” She laughed. “If I make it that far with two of them. It’ll be quite something to be thankful for.”
Babies. Twins. Delphi tried to shut down the imagery that popped into her brain, but it was a losing battle. Her and Lars with their own set of twins. One blond like her, one darker like him.
And that was some truly insane thinking when she’d only known the man a few days. She must be more tired than she’d realized...and more temporarily besotted than she cared to admit.
* * *
“HI, MERRILEE,” LARS said as entered the back door of the airstrip office.
He didn’t stop to chat but headed immediately for the stairs.
Merrilee called out to him. “Good evening to you, too, Lars. She’s not in yet.”
“Oh.” He stopped and pivoted around. He walked back over to Merrilee’s desk. “How are you?”
Merrilee laughed, shaking her head. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?”
There was no point in denying it. “Yep.”
“That seems to be the way you Swenson men do it. It hits you like a truck and that’s it. Quick and hard and there’s no going back. Bull waited twenty-five years for me. Dirk’s been carrying a torch for Natalie since they were kids.” Yes, Dirk was fixated, all right. He had talked about her all damn day. Merrilee continued her rundown of the Swenson men in love. “Liam tried, but he couldn’t deny Tansy. Now it’s you. I’m glad you’re being sensible about it.”
“Do you know how crazy that sounds? You’re saying it’s sensible that I’m in love with a woman I’ve only known three days?” He laughed.
She quirked an amused eyebrow at him. “Are you asking me to reassure you or are you reassuring me that it can’t be so?”
It was pretty damn hard to fathom. “I think the former.”
“Oh, good, because I couldn’t deliver on the latter.”
And she had a point. The Swenson men did tend to love immediately, and it was usually hard and fast. Well, there had been Liam and Natalie, but they’d never been in love. They’d just been friends who were confused and wound up getting hitched.
“I really don’t know what to do about Delphi. I don’t want to freak her out, but I’m out of here in a couple of days. You know our whole relationship was based on it being short-term, but now... Hell, I don’t know. That’s a lie. I do know. She’s going to trip. It’s the damnedest thing—Liam and I have always shared this...I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s not like I can read his mind or ‘see’ what’s going on with him, but there are just some things I know—and when I know—it’s his stuff, not mine. Well, I’m getting flashes of that same knowing with Delphi. Trust me when I say she’s going to flip.”
Merrilee appeared totally unconcerned with his upcoming battle with Delphi. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you’re trained in mounting offensives and detonating explosives without getting blown to bits, isn’t it?”
* * *
BY THE TIME she’d walked back to the bed-and-breakfast, Delphi was in a near state of panic. Everything had turned upside down on her. She heard Lars whistling under his breath as she got to the landing. She paused, but then decided against knocking. She needed a few minutes to herself to decompress from the day, from the weekend, from him.
She walked into her bedroom. The connecting door between their rooms stood open. Damn, she’d forgotten about that. They’d been going back and forth yesterday and this morning and it just made more sense than bopping out in the hall. They’d left it open when they both headed out this morning.
She walked over to the opening. Lars was stretched out on his bed, his hands folded beneath his head.
“Hi,” she said. “How was your visit out to the camp? What’d you think of it?”
Oh, God, she was awash in joy at simply seeing him, his smile. It was terrifying, especially in light of her conversation with Nelson.
“It was great.” His voice washed over her and she soaked up its cadence like a surgical sponge. “Liam has a cool operation set up out there. On one