Page 3 of The Story of Danny Rose

As I headed up the porch steps, he pointed his blade at the kitchen window.

“I don’t know if it’s Twin One or Twin Two, but I can see their shadow over the stove.”

I suppressed a sigh.

“The other one’s underneath the porch,” he added dismissively. “He might wanna dry his feet. It’s gonna be chilly tonight.”

I clasped my hands behind my back and stepped into his line of sight, keeping the front door behind me. “Danny Rose.”

He grinned and widened his arms. “You remember me.”

Yup, still that killer smile with the dimples. Dangerously gorgeous blue eyes too.

I nodded with a dip of my chin, then eyed the floorboards. “Boys, you can come out. It was less exciting than a prank.”

I heard some shuffling on the other side of the door and a twig or two breaking underneath the porch. Soon after, the Tenley twins joined me on the porch and looked at Danny with shuttered expressions.

Danny finished his apple and jumped to his feet, then extended his hand to Reese. “I guess Payne has forgotten his manners. I’m Danny—and I already know who you are. But which one is which?”

I cleared my throat and kept quiet. No reason to tell Danny I was making Reese wear a dark tee every day and River a light. There was seriously no other way to tell them apart. They were carbon copies, with copper-brown hair, sharp features, and striking green eyes. They had some height on Danny, but they shared his swimmer’s build. Or runner’s, maybe.

“Reese.” Reese shook Danny’s hand. “How do you know who we are?”

Good question.

I folded my arms over my chest.

“How about we trade?” Danny suggested. “I ask a question, and you answer. Then you can ask me something.”

Technically, that’d already happened. He’d asked who was Reese and who was River.

Not that it mattered. “No,” I replied. “I ask the questions—you answer. Or you get off my property.”

He stared at me.

This was one of the fields in which Danny didn’t belong. He wasn’t a gray man. He didn’t necessarily stand out, but there was nothing ordinary about him either. His expression often revealed his mood, his stubbornness, and how much left he had on his fuse.

I showed fuck-all.

“I feel like I have a lot to bargain with,” he hedged, returning his knife to its sheath. “Don’t you wanna know how I got all that info on you?”

Yes, but not at any cost. Not enough to give him leverage. And to be honest, I had my guesses. Considering he’d dug out my history and probably knew the names of my siblings, chances were he’d gone through my sister somehow. She was a sociable woman who would share her life story with the person standing behind her in the line at the grocery store.

If that were the case, I’d have a whole other bone to pick with Danny.

He wasn’t the type to break eye contact. Instead, he flashed his palms in surrender and switched tactics. “Fine. I heard through the grapevine that you were training a pair of twin brothers who’d recently quit the Army.”

Hmm. Plausible. I probably had a friend who knew a friend of his and so on. For as great as we were at keeping shit to ourselves, we were masters at sharing insignificant gossip.Veterans who loved to vent were a dime a dozen, and I’d been in the game long enough to admit I was one of them. So while I never shared personal information, pour me a pint and I could tell anyone about Belize, Baghdad, and Bosnia.

Twin brothers with great potential who left the Army right after finishing boot camp were, on the other hand, not a dime a dozen. Couldn’t have taken Danny long to find out who they were.

I accepted his response and dug out my car keys, and I handed them to Reese. “Go get the truck. I’ve promised you beer and steaks.”

“Yes, sir.”

The twins jogged down the porch steps.

In the meantime, Danny and I maintained eye contact.

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