The Tycoon's Tots (2 page)

According to Lola, little girls didn't lose their tempers and they certainly didn't resort to physical violence. It was a lesson from her mother that Chloe always remembered, but had never fully learned. She was too much like her father, she supposed. She couldn't sit idly on her hands when an innocent person was being wronged.

Stepping from the stall, Chloe walked to within a step of Wyatt Sanders and looked him square in the eye. “I don't know who did the seducing, my father or your sister. And I hardly imagine that you could know, either. But I do know your sister had no business becoming involved with a married man twice her age.”

There was some truth to what Chloe Murdock was saying, but Wyatt knew there were always two sides to every story. And he couldn't believe Belinda had decided to walk down the wrong path all by herself.

“And your father had no business getting a woman half his age pregnant!”

“You're damn right he didn't,” Chloe hotly agreed. “My mother was an invalid at the time he was sleeping around with your sister! His behavior was lower than a snake's belly, but that doesn't change things. We could stand here all day flinging accusations at each other, but it wouldn't bring my father or your sister back.”

A part of Wyatt admired this woman for her nononsense bluntness. He couldn't stand people who philosophized
a point to death and in the end wound up saying nothing. But in the matter of his sister, Wyatt couldn't simply put it all behind him and say what's done is done. Even though they hadn't been particularly close, he'd loved Belinda. And he couldn't help but feel guilty because he hadn't been there for her when she'd needed him the most

He let out a long, heavy breath. “Actually, I didn't come here to fling accusations. I would like to know exactly what happened between my sister and Mr. Murdock, but that can wait. My main concern now is my little niece and nephew.”

Chloe felt as if ice water had suddenly been dashed in her face. Adam and Anna, the twin babies that this man's sister had left on the Bar M doorstep, were her half sister and brother. Chloe considered them her babies now and she'd already had a lawyer working on adoption proceedings. If Wyatt Sanders had any notion of trying to take them away from her, he might as well forget it here and now.

“There's no need for you to be concerned. Adam and Anna are in perfect health and growing.”

“I understand you've had them here on the ranch ever since—”

Chloe couldn't prevent a sneer from twisting her lips. “Your sister dumped them, you mean? Yes, the county judge granted me and my sisters temporary custody. Then later, when we learned they were really our half brother and sister we knew they actually belonged here anyway.”

His eyes remained on her face and Chloe got the. impression he was trying to gauge her or size her up in some way. She didn't like the feeling at all.

“Then you think the twins belong here?”

“Of course. They're Murdocks. This is the Murdock home.”

“You know for certain that your father sired them? Were DNA tests performed?”

Under different circumstances Chloe would have howled with laughter, but she could hardly find her sense of humor with Wyatt Sanders standing a few inches away looking as though he were ready to pounce at any given moment.

“Believe me, Mr. Sanders, there's no need for tests to be done. For legal purposes I suppose we could have a test run to see if we truly are siblings. But once you see the twins, you'll know that would be a waste of time and money.” She folded her arms across her breasts. “Besides, I'm going to adopt the babies. Maybe you should understand that right now.”

Chloe Murdock's announcement stunned him. He'd been told by New Mexican authorities that Belinda's children were under the care of the Murdock family, which consisted of three sisters. Chloe, the youngest, had direct charge over the twins. But none of the child welfare people had mentioned anything about her plans to adopt the children.

What did it all mean? Wyatt wondered. Was he going to have a fight on his hands?

“I had no idea you intended to adopt the babies,” he finally said.

“I'm not surprised. We weren't even aware Belinda had a brother. As far as I know your sister never mentioned you. Not even when we talked to her in jail.”

Wyatt didn't know if it was Chloe Murdock or what she was saying that was having such a strong effect on him. But suddenly his insides were shaking as if he'd just woken from a two-day drunk.

“You saw my sister while she was jailed?”

Chloe nodded. It wasn't one of her more pleasant memories. But she and her sisters, Justine and Rose, had felt compelled to talk to the woman. She'd known things about
their father that only she could tell them. And Belinda had told them some things in her own disturbed, fragmented way. Chloe had come away from the county jail feeling both saddened and sickened. From what she'd seen, Belinda Waller had once been a beautiful young woman, but drugs and alcohol had ruined her looks, her mind, and subsequently her very life. It was such a waste.

“How was she then? How long was that before she died?”

Chloe shrugged. “Two or three weeks probably. As far as how she was, I can't really say. I didn't know her beforehand.”

Wyatt felt weak and sick. And he wondered why he'd ever left Houston to come here. But of course, deep down he knew it was simply for the babies. He felt he owed Belinda that much.

Turning away from Chloe, Wyatt walked to the end of the long stable and stared out the open doorway at the mountain range rising directly behind the ranch.

It didn't seem possible that his family was gone now. His mother had simply left. His father had been killed. And now Belinda was dead. The only close relatives Wyatt had left were the twins.

“Mr. Sanders? Are you all right?”

He turned slowly to see Chloe standing just behind him. She looked genuinely concerned for him, which was quite a switch from a few moments ago when he'd gotten the impression she wanted to wham the side of his head with her shovel.

“I was just thinking about Belinda,” he said, then with a sigh he swiped a hand through his coal black hair. “She was beautiful and outgoing. One of those bubbly kind of people who laughed a lot. She loved excitement and always liked to stay on the go.” His expression grim, he glanced away from her. “But her traveling days are all over now.”

Whatever Chloe felt about Belinda Waller, she harbored no malice toward this man. As far as she and her family knew, he had nothing to do with the damage his sister had done to their father and their ranch. It would serve no purpose to describe to him the pathetic creature she'd seen locked behind bars. He obviously didn't know what his sister had become. And Chloe hardly wanted to be the one to tell him.

“Well, we might as well go up to the house so you can see the twins,” she said, while telling herself the sooner he saw the babies, the sooner he would leave the ranch. “Aunt Kitty is probably feeding them a snack about now.”

“Earlier, at the house, a small woman with gray hair answered the door. Was that your aunt?”

Chloe nodded and Wyatt said, “I figured she was the housekeeper or nanny or something.”

“We're all family around here,” she told him, her voice laced with pride.

“I see,” he said. “And she helps take care of the twins while you're doing this?” He gestured around the large stable.

The way he said
this
made it sound as if she were no better than a common ditch digger. And she suddenly decided it was a shame the inside of this man wasn't as nice as the outside. But then, in her experience, men were usually lacking beneath the surface.

“She does,” Chloe answered his question. “Aunt Kitty loves the twins as much as me and my sisters.”

He didn't say anything to that and Chloe wondered what he was thinking and why he was really here. She somehow knew she hadn't heard everything from him yet

“Well, right now I have to get the horses off the walker. If you'd rather not wait, you can go on up to the house without me,” she told him.

Wyatt figured if he was smart, he wouldn't wait. He'd go see the babies without this woman's interference. But
he didn't always do the smart thing. Believing Belinda's happy stories proved that much.

“I'll wait. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Surprised by his offer, she looked at him. Not as a threat, but simply as a man. “I wouldn't want you to dirty yourself.”

There wasn't anything he needed to prove to this woman. Her opinion of him didn't matter at all. Yet the idea that she thought of him as soft, pricked his ego as nothing had in years. “I've been known to get a little dirt under my fingernails before.”

She gave him a dry little smile. “Scratching and clawing your way to the top, I suppose?”

“You find something wrong with ambition, Ms. Murdock?”

“Not when it's aimed in the right direction, Mr. Sanders.”

Brushing past him, she walked out of the stable to leave Wyatt standing by the empty stall. For a moment he considered following her, but then he decided there wouldn't be much point in it. This was her turf, and she obviously figured he'd be more of a hindrance than a help.

It took her only a matter of a few minutes to return the four horses to their stalls. Wyatt stood silently by, watching her work and wondering if this was how she spent all of her time here on this isolated New Mexican ranch. In his opinion it was a shame to see a beautiful woman like her buried in such a place.

Once she was ready to go, Wyatt followed her out of the stable and along the beaten path leading back to the house. Along the way they passed several barns and a maze of connecting metal pens.

Wyatt didn't see any cattle except one bull lying near a mound of alfalfa hay. Closer to the house, in a small wooden corral, a black calf poked its head through the fence and bawled loudly.

“You'll get your bottle soon enough, Martin,” Chloe told the calf. “You're not the only one around here who's hungry.”

“Where's his mother? Can't she feed him?” Wyatt asked as they walked on at a brisk clip. Did the woman move at this pace all day, he wondered. If she did, she had to feel like hell by nightfall. And weren't there any cowboys around to help?

“His mother is dead. My sister Rose and I take turns hand-feeding him.” Chloe didn't go on to tell him that Martin's mother was killed when Belinda torched a section of the ranch. It was a horrible scene she hated to think about, much less relate to him.

A few moments later, the two of them entered a small courtyard landscaped with an assortment of desert plants, a couple of piñon pines and redwood lawn furniture.

A ground-level porch made a square with the back of the house. Wyatt followed her across one end of it, through a screen door and into a warm, cluttered kitchen. Two steps inside the room, Wyatt stopped dead in his tracks as he spotted two red-headed babies sitting side by side in a pair of high chairs.

These were his sister's children, the only close relatives he had left. Yet incredibly they looked like the woman standing next to him.

“Aunt Kitty, this is Wyatt Sanders.”

Wyatt tore his gaze away from the babies to see the petite gray-haired woman had joined them. She was wiping her hands on a tea towel and looking Wyatt over with open suspicion.

“Yes, he told me his name when he came to the door. I see you found Chloe,” she told him.

He nodded politely toward the older woman, but before he could get a word out, Chloe said, “Did he tell you he's Belinda Waller's brother?”

Kitty's face grew ashen and her wide gaze flew from
her niece to the dark-haired stranger. “Belinda's brother?” she asked in a hoarse whisper. “We didn't know she had a brother! What are you doing here?”

Wyatt turned to Chloe and wondered, not for the first time, what his next words were going to do to her.

“I'm here to take the twins home. With me,” he said quietly.

N
ow was not the time for Chloe to panic or lose her temper. She had to show this man he didn't scare her. The twins were hers! He couldn't simply walk in and take them away from her!

Her gaze didn't waver as she met his cool gray eyes. “The twins
are
home, Mr. Sanders. Like I said earlier, they're Murdocks, and the Bar M has been our home for more than thirty years.”

She'd already told him her intention of adopting the twins, so it hardly surprised Wyatt to hear her calling this ranch their rightful home. But he had other ideas. The quicker Ms. Chloe Murdock realized that the better off they'd all be.

“I think you're forgetting the babies are half Sanders.”

Like a mammy dog guarding her litter, Chloe stood her ground. “Excuse me, but your sister's name was Waller, not Sanders.”

He grimaced as though Chloe's point had little consequence on the matter. “She was married and divorced several
years ago. But by any name, her babies are my niece and nephew.”

“And they're my half brother and sister. I think even you can admit that.”

Groaning, Kitty reached for a nearby chair and wilted into it.

Wyatt turned his gaze back to the twins who were busily concentrating on eating graham crackers. Soggy crumbs dotted their bibs and cheeks and clung to their fingers in gooey clumps. They seemed perfectly contented and their sweet, intelligent faces went straight to Wyatt's heart.

“How old are they?” he asked.

“Ten months,” she answered, then volunteered. “They can crawl and pull up now.”

Fascinated by the sight of them, Wyatt walked over and hunkered down to their level. The babies weren't exactly identical, but close to it. They both had green eyes, chubby round faces and dimpled cheeks. The girl's hair was a bright red cap of curls while the boy's was the very same dark auburn as Chloe Murdock's.

Even to him, it was plain to see they were her brother and sister. Wyatt couldn't deny that. Yet they were a part of him, too. He couldn't forget or dismiss that fact.

“Hello, you two,” he said, suddenly feeling awkward and foolishly emotional. “I'm your Uncle Wyatt.”

The sound of his voice caught the twins' attention and both children stopped their chewing to give him a closer look.

“We named them Adam and Anna,” Chloe said as she came up behind the three of them.

He looked over his shoulder at her. “That isn't what my sister named them?”

“No. For a long time we had no idea who they belonged to or what their names were. So we named them ourselves.”

One dark brow arched at her. “Don't you think you were being rather presumptuous?”

Fury washed through Chloe but she tried her best to squash it down. “And don't you think these two little darlings deserved something better than Baby Boy or Baby Girl? Don't you think they deserved better than to be left in a laundry basket on a porch? There was no one around when your sister dumped them and to this day we still don't know how long they had been there before my sister Justine found them. Apparently Belinda had no idea that a coyote or anything could have dragged them off and killed them. Or maybe she did,” Chloe couldn't help adding.

Wyatt straightened to his full height and looked at her through narrow gray eyes. “Whatever my sister was, she wasn't a murderer.”

“I don't think you really know what your sister was,” she said flatly. “But that's beside the point now. The babies are mine. You'll not take them from this ranch.”

“Chloe, perhaps—” Kitty began only to have her niece wave a quieting hand at her.

“What makes you think you have a right to them?” Wyatt asked coolly.

“What makes you think you do?” she countered.

Wyatt glanced down at the babies, then turned his attention to the room they were in. It wasn't anything like the spotless kitchen in his Houston condominium. There were pots and pans hanging on one wall, plants lining every available windowsill, and dirty dishes stacked on the table and cabinet counter. Something resembling pinto beans had boiled over on the cookstove and dripped down over the control knobs. In one corner an ironing board was piled with clothes. Whether they were clean or not, Wyatt couldn't tell.

“I think the twins deserve a better life than this,” he said bluntly.

Ladies didn't resort to physical violence
be damned, Chloe thought, as she stepped up and jabbed her finger hard in the middle of Wyatt Sanders's chest.

“And I think you wouldn't know a better life if it reached up and bit you in the butt!”

Momentarily stunned by her unexpected response, Wyatt could only stare at her. She wasn't only sexy, she was the wildest little thing he'd ever come across.

“And if you think this place is so bad,” she went on, “I suggest you leave. Now! Before I call the sheriff.”

Kitty gasped. “Chloe! There's no need to call Roy. Mr. Sanders is—”

“Who's Roy?” Wyatt asked, seemingly unruffled by her threat.

“The sheriff.”

“My brother-in-law.”

The two women spoke at once, but Wyatt managed to decipher the message. It irked him that she wanted to drag the law into this, even if the sheriff was her family. But it didn't surprise him. Chloe Murdock didn't appear to be a woman who'd give up or give in without a fight.

Before he could say anything, Anna began to whine and fuss. Wyatt instinctively turned toward the baby, but Chloe instantly leapt between them.

“Don't you dare touch her!” she hissed at him, then lifted the little girl into her arms.

With a glare as cold as gray granite, Wyatt pulled a pen and small business card from a pocket inside his jacket, then quickly wrote something across the back.

“This is where I'll be staying,” he said flatly. “When you decide to calm down, maybe we can talk about this sensibly.”

Calm down? She wanted to leave her handprint along the side of his face!

“I really doubt I'll ever get the urge to talk to you, Mr.
Sanders, so you might as well go back to Houston and play oilman.”

“We'll see, Ms. Murdock,” he said, then turned and walked out the same door she'd brought him through earlier.

Once he was truly out of sight, Chloe glanced at her stricken aunt, then still holding Anna, raced out of the kitchen.

“Chloe!”

Kitty jumped from her chair and grabbing Adam hurried after her niece. She found her in the living room peering out the long paned windows which overlooked the front yard.

“What are you doing?”

Clutching Anna even tighter, Chloe watched the expensive dark blue car pull away from the house and head down the drive. “Making sure that—man is gone!”

“He'll be back, Chloe,” Kitty said grimly. “You might as well get ready for it. Didn't you notice how cool he was? I got the impression he's here for the long haul.”

Chloe turned away from the windows, and for the first time since Wyatt Sanders had announced his intentions, she allowed the fear she was feeling to show on her face. “Dear God, what are we going to do, Aunt Kitty? There isn't any way Wyatt Sanders can take the babies, is there?”

In a weary daze, Kitty sank onto the couch and wiped a hand across her forehead. “I have no idea, Chloe. Custody rights are very unpredictable nowadays.”

Chloe looked down at Anna's sweet face. She couldn't imagine her life without the babies. She refused to even try.

“Maybe you should call the lawyer who's handling your adoption proceedings.”

Chloe set Anna on the tiled floor and the little girl immediately
crawled over to the couch and pulled up beside her aunt's knee.

“I'll call him right now.” She snatched up the phone book, quickly searched for the number, then punched it through. After a few brief words with a secretary, she hung up. “He's out of town and won't be back for another week or more.”

“Just our luck. Maybe you could discuss it with his associate.”

“If I have to, I will. But right now, I'm going to finish the chores at the stable, then drive over to Justine's. She and Rose need to know someone is trying to take our brother and sister!”

Two hours later and several miles north on the Pardee ranch, Chloe paced around her sister's living room.

“Chloe, you're going to have to calm down,” Justine insisted from her seat on the couch. “It's not like the man tried to physically carry the twins out of the house.”

Chloe looked over at her very pregnant sister. It probably wasn't good to dump this sort of stress on her. Even though the baby wasn't due for another eight or ten weeks, Justine had already been suffering false labor pains.

“I guess I shouldn't have come over here bothering you with this,” Chloe mumbled regretfully. “But I didn't know what else to do.”

Justine waved away her words. “Chloe, honey, Adam and Anna are my brother and sister, too. I was going to have to know about Wyatt sooner or later. I just find it incredible that Belinda Waller had a brother. Why hadn't we heard from him before now?”

Chloe threw up her arms in a gesture of helplessness. “I got the impression he didn't know much about Belinda, or what she'd been up to lately. At least, not the way we knew her,” Chloe added with a shudder. Neither she, Justine,
nor their older sister Rose, who'd very nearly been injured by Belinda's arson, would ever forget the woman.

“Do you think he's on the up-and-up? Maybe he's no better than Belinda,” Justine mused aloud. “If that's the case, there's no court in the country that would consider giving him custody of the twins.”

With a weary shake of her head, Chloe sat down beside her sister on the couch. “Wyatt Sanders doesn't appear to be anything like Belinda. He says he's an oilman. And I tell you, Justine, the man has money. If he doesn't, he's doing a good job of faking it.”

Justine glanced at her wristwatch. “Roy is testifying in court now. But he should be through by late this evening. I'll call and let him know what's going on. He'll run a check on Mr. Wyatt Sanders and then we'll have a better idea what to do.”

Chloe gave her a crooked grin. “You know, it's rather nice having the sheriff of Lincoln County in the family.”

Justine chuckled and patted her protruding belly. “I definitely think so.”

There was no doubt that Justine was happy now. She and Roy Pardee had married back in July a few weeks after the twins first showed up on the ranch's front porch. They loved each other passionately. So much so that Chloe sometimes looked at the two of them with awe and envy.

At twenty-four, Chloe was only two years younger than Justine, and four younger than Rose. But she felt she was a lifetime away from having a family of her own—the sort of family that both her sisters had now.

“Maybe you should go to him,” Justine suggested after a stretch of silence. “Tell the man how it is with you and why you want the babies so badly.”

The look Chloe shot Justine said she must be losing her mind. “Never! There's no way I'd tell that arrogant bast…” She caught herself before the whole word burst from her mouth. “That arrogant man such an intimate detail
about myself. Besides, I really doubt he could or would sympathize with my sterile condition. Especially when he looks like he could produce all the babies he wanted!”

Sighing, Justine reached for the cup of decaffeinated coffee sitting on the end table by her elbow. “Chloe, you're much too sensitive about your condition. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It wasn't your fault you had an infection and it left you too scarred to have children.”

Chloe frowned at her sister. “Sure. That's easy for you to say. You're about to give your husband his second child. I can't give a man anything.”

Justine rolled her eyes. “That's ridiculous of you to think such a thing!”

Dropping her head, Chloe looked away from her sister. “Ridiculous or not, I don't want any man, friend or foe, to know that I'm sterile. You know what happened the last time I tried to be honest and open with a man!”

Her expression full of concern, Justine said, “Richard was a selfish fool. I'm sure he's realized a thousand times what he lost when he broke your engagement.”

Chloe groaned. “Justine, that was four years ago. You don't see the man knocking down my door to beg me to come back to him, do you?”

Frowning, Justine waved away her words. “I, for one, thank God, he hasn't. He wasn't nearly good enough for you.”

Chloe looked at her sister. “Well, you don't have to worry about Richard or any man walking me down the aisle. No man wants a woman who is barren.”

Justine shook her head. “You're wrong, Chloe. Children are a wonderful addition, but they don't make a marriage.”

Maybe her sister truly believed that, but Chloe knew better. She'd been rejected by a man she'd hoped to marry, culled like a cow that couldn't calf. She never wanted to go through that sort of pain and humiliation again.

As for Wyatt Sanders, she would never tell the man she couldn't have children. She'd fight for the twins any way she could, but not that way.