Trista looked back at Tyler. “Is that the new nanny?”

Tyler tugged on one of the braids he’d done for her this morning. That wasn’t easy by the way. He’d had to reach far into the deep recesses of his mind to remember a different time, when he’d been a young boy and in scouts and done a project that required plaiting.

Now, he was starting to feel like he was almost an expert, except that his hands were so damned big, it seemed his fingers tripped over each other trying to make the braids.

“Is it?” Tessa reached back and tugged on his sleeve. “Is it, Ty? Is it?”

Trista squinted at Griz’s beat up excuse for a truck. “There’s more than one person in there with him and Mac. Two nannies?” She sounded very grown-up a second later. “So, if one can’t get the job done, they’re hoping two can?”

Tyler couldn’t help himself. He laughed. These two were such pistols. “You need to behave, Trista. I’m not telling you again. I won’t have you terrorizing any more nannies.”

He studied the truck as it was pulling up the drive. He’d called Griz in sheer desperation, but he had no idea what Griz had planned, who Griz called, or what arrangements were made.

The only thing that Tyler knew for sure was that Griz wouldn’t do anything to take the girls away from him and Sean.

“Well,” Tessa pushed on. “Why two?”

Tyler shrugged. “Griz said he would figure this out.”

“What’s to figure?” Trista asked, and at the same moment a wind picked up, pushing her horse higher, shaking the leaves in the trees.

“Trista,” Tyler issued a warning in his tone.

“Fine,” she huffed.

And the wind died.

Tessa turned back with a twinkle in her eye.

“That applies to you, too, little miss,” Tyler informed her. Man, he was ready for Sean to get back. Or for whatever Griz had planned to happen. Keeping these two—and their elementals—in check was wearing him down.

Griz stepped out of the driver’s side door, Mac out of the other side.

Then the back doors opened

Two women stepped out.

Curvy.

Beautiful, he had to admit, with their dark hair and smoldering eyes.

His glance went to the other one, and without a single warning, something that felt like a sledgehammer slammed into his chest. Or his body. Or his heart. Or mind.

Or every single damned bit of him.

How could this be?

Two identical women.

Yet that one, the one on the right, with a half-smile and a hellishly determined look in her eye caught his attention as securely as if he’d been a fish on treble tackle, each deadly barb of that hook deeply embedded in his very core.

In front of him, he noticed a subtle change in the atmosphere—or the environment—or something. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something had changed between the twins. Tessa and Trista were studying each other, and whatever was going on with them was a silent conversation that he wasn’t privy to.

Could their elementals communicate silently like shifters could when they were in their shifter animal? When shifters morphed, they could communicate with other shifters in their animal form through a linking of the minds, syncing, and conversing in a silent human language.

The girls had never told him they could do that. Could they? Had they been holding out on him? He had questions.

Before he could phrase one, Trista made a hissing sound.

Tessa seemed to hiss back in agreement.

At the same moment, the foursome, now out of the truck, were walking toward them, the twin women walking behind, looking first at each other, then at the twin girls, then back at each other. Their lips moved, and though, Tyler had shifter hearing—which was damned near to super-hearing, he couldn’t make out the words.

Tessa glared at a spot in the ground a few yards in front of the women.

No, he thought. Damn it. Not again.

Yes, it seemed, again, because Tessa’s eyes narrowed even more, and a rumbling sound came first. Then a split in the ground, creating a schism that was several yards long and too wide for a human to leap over.

Tyler put his hand on Tessa’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t have,” he said, his voice low.

Griz stopped in his tracks. He said something to the women.

One of the women said something in return. Griz stepped back, the women stepped forward, their eyes locked on the twins.

Then one of the women looked at the huge gap in the earth, Tessa’s warning that they would go no farther.

A whistling sound came as a spear of ice, as large as a tree bisected the crevice. The woman stared at the ice, and it slowly transformed, becoming a bridge that crossed Tessa’s ditch.

The woman’s lip quivered, as though she were ready to smile, but didn’t.

Trista looked at Tessa. They both grunted in frustration.

Mesmerized by the display, Ty didn’t move a muscle—just watched the scene unfold in fascination.

He’d never seen a display quite like Tessa’s and Trista’s. So when he first caught sight of what their elementals could do, he’d been impressed—maybe a bit apprehensive, too.

But now, to see this—the woman who countered Tessa’s power. This was a sight.

“Do it,” Tessa encouraged her sister.

Trista nodded and then seemed to zone out, staring, but not staring at anything in particular.

Tyler glanced at the two women on the driveway, wondering what they would do next.

He hoped Trista would behave. She was being quiet, at least.

Too much to hope for, it seemed.

The wind picked up far more quickly than he’d ever seen before. With a loud howling whistle, a gust of wind blew through the trees.

A crack, louder than if lightning had struck nearby, made him flinch.

The creaking sound that came next was swift and heralded by the tree that crashed across the driveway in front of the quartet that had gotten out of the truck.

“Trista,” Tyler hissed. “You’ve gone too far. What if you’d hit them?”

Luckily, Trista’s trick hadn’t hurt anyone, but the evergreen was still too large for an individual to climb over easily.

“No more nannies,” Tessa folded her arms over her chest, tiny cupid lips pouted, eyes glaring, an amber hue flashing in their depths, her elemental clearly. The amber color was joined by a golden flash. That was her bear.

Really? He was up against not only the twins but also their elementals and their bears?

“You two are in trouble.” His voice was a growl, his own bear hardly able to contain his anger at the antics of the little ones. “Go to your room.” He scowled at them.

A scent hit his senses.

His bear roared a warning.

Tyler looked up from the girls.

Before him, the tree was engulfed in flames. Behind the tree, one of the women, had planted her fists on her hips and was regarding the fire with cool dispassion.

What the hell was she thinking?

What if the cabin caught on fire?

“Stay put.” He gave the twins a warning glance and bypassing the stairs of the porch, he leapt over the railing and sprinted toward Griz, Mac, and the identical women.

He vaulted over the tree, ignoring the flames that licked toward him and stopped before the foursome. “What the hell are you doing? You could have burned my home down. Killed the kids, even.”

The two identical women regarded him with a slight look of curiosity in their expressions. The one—that one—which he’d first noticed, had a shimmer in her dark eyes. Indigo and emerald sparks seemed to rival with the deep dark espresso color of her eyes.

Tyler couldn’t have explained it if he were asked to, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from those eyes. He could get lost in them.

She was a shifter. And from that ice sculpture bridge she’d created, she had an elemental housed within. But what kind of shifter? And where was she from?

There was something about her, he couldn’t turn away.

His bear snarled deep within him, and that snarl was one of pure agreement.

Yeah, well, this wouldn’t work. He had no business being attracted to a woman who was clearly an enemy to Tessa and Trista. Or as Sean had affectionately nicknamed them, the dynamite twins.

T ‘n T.

Too much dynamite if you asked Tyler. Too much drama.

But then again, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Not that he could have it any other way. He wouldn’t trade them for the world.

Griz, clearing his throat, pulled Tyler away from his thoughts and the mesmerizing gaze of that spitfire before him.

He felt like he’d been in a world where just the two of them existed for an eon, but he realized he was only there seconds.

“Camden and Eden Brazos, this is Tyler O’Reardon,” Griz said.

Tyler glanced at the scarred large shifter he’d come to regard as a second father, gave him a nod, then looked at Mac. “You look good.” He smiled at her, and gave her a hug, mindful of the baby she was carrying.

Then he turned his attention to the two newcomers he’d never seen before.

Curvy.

Beautiful.

Intense.

And that one—that one—captivating.

He gave them a nonchalant nod, and urged his bear to control his pulse and not give away his reaction to her.

“That fire…”

“Is gone,” she said. “My sister is in full control.”

Her voice was husky, the kind of voice you’d want to wake up to. The kind of voice you’d want to take to bed.

Well, damn.

So much for controlling his reaction to her. He couldn’t even control his mind.

He glanced at the tree that had been on fire. The flames had subsided, all that remained was charred wood.

Well, damn.