The Tycoon's Tots (5 page)

Though her statement intrigued him, he didn't probe further. Instead, he turned his attention to his food and tried to tell himself Chloe Murdock was just another beautiful woman, like any beautiful woman back in Houston. She just happened to have a stronger effect on him, that's all.

Kitty had prepared cherry cobbler for dessert. They had it with their coffee in the living room, while the twins crawled on the floor and pulled up to anything they could get their little hands on.

Several times Chloe had to get up to tend to them. As Wyatt watched her, he wondered where she found the energy to work at the stable all day, then chase after two rambunctious babies at night.

When the twins finally wore themselves down and began to whine and fuss, Kitty announced she was going to put them and herself to bed.

Chloe got up from the couch to help her, but the older woman quickly waved her back down. “No. I can manage. You stay here and visit with Wyatt. He might like another bowl of cobbler.”

Groaning, Wyatt rubbed his midsection. “I couldn't eat another bite, Kitty. But thank you. It was. all delicious.”

It had been a long time since Chloe had seen such a
beaming smile on her aunt's face. And the fact that Wyatt Sanders put it there perplexed her. Kitty wasn't a fool where men were concerned. She knew they could turn on the charm whenever it suited their purpose. So what was the woman thinking?

After Kitty and the twins had disappeared down the hallway to the bedrooms, Chloe went over to the fireplace and tossed another log on the fire.

“I like your aunt. She's a very kind woman,” Wyatt said as he sipped the last of his coffee. “How long has she lived here with you?”

“Several years. When my mother first became ill she moved in to be with her. To give her emotional support mainly. As sisters they were very close. Then after mother died we encouraged Aunt Kitty to stay with us. I think she needed us as much as we needed her.”

“She's never been married or had a family of her own?”

Chloe shook her head as she held her hands toward the warmth of the fire. “Aunt Kitty was once involved with a married man. When that relationship ended, so did her interest in men.”

The flatness of Chloe's voice bothered him. As did Kitty's earlier remark about Chloe never wanting to marry. She was a very young woman. Probably no more than twenty-five. And her beauty was the kind that turned a man's insides to hot mush. In Houston she could easily find a rich man to marry, one who would take her away from this drudgery. So why didn't she leave? What was holding her here?

“That's too bad. Kitty would make some man a good wife.”

“I'm sure of it,” Chloe agreed. “But sometimes life deals us an entirely different hand from what we hope for.”

And what had she hoped for? Wyatt wondered. She
seemed contented with what she had. “To be honest, before I left Houston to come here, I figured you and your sisters would be glad for me to take the twins off your hands.”

It was a good thing she didn't have a riding quirt in her hand, otherwise she would have been tempted to hit him with it. “You thought we wouldn't want our own brother and sister? How could you?”

“I figured you each had your own lives to worry about. And,” he went on sheepishly, “I thought you would probably hold the circumstances of the twins' birth against them.”

She didn't try to keep her mouth from falling open. “Dear God, what sort of women do you think we are? Just because your mother and sister didn't want children doesn't mean all women are that way! And especially Murdock women!”

His eyes narrowed. “I'll admit my mother wasn't a candidate for the cover of a parents' magazine. But you can't know that Belinda didn't want her babies!”

Chloe knew what she'd said to him was a low blow and she was a little regretful. But damn him, he was saying some pretty insulting things himself.

“She left the twins without a word. And when Roy arrested her she told him she hadn't wanted the babies. She had left them at the ranch thinking Daddy was still alive and she was leaving them with him.” Closing her eyes for a moment, she shook her head, “Dear God, Daddy had already been dead for two months.”

“Maybe it does look bad on her part,” Wyatt countered. “But I know Belinda cared about her babies. Otherwise she wouldn't have written to me, asking me to come get them.”

Chloe's green eyes widened. “She did that?”

“It's the main reason I'm here. She wanted me to be the twins' father.”

“I find that hard to believe. The woman never mentioned your name.”

“And I find it even more difficult to believe Belinda took all that money from your father!”

Before he knew it, Chloe's hand was wrapped around his wrist, tugging him up from the couch.

“What are you doing?”

“I want you to come with me.”

He got up from the couch and she led him down the hallway and into a room that would have been dark if it hadn't been for the shafts of moonlight slanting through the windows.

Wyatt knew he should have his thoughts on what she was about to show him. But where Chloe Murdock was concerned, his mind had a will of its own. He was keenly aware of the touch of her hand, the scent of her perfume, the closeness of her body.

“If this is something to do with the money—”

“Don't say anything,” she interrupted. “Yet.”

Dropping his hand, she went to a large desk and switched on a banker's lamp. It shed a small pool of light on the desktop but did little to illuminate the room.

“This is where my father did all the ranch's bookkeeping. He also used this room as a place to relax and read. He was an educated man and could have taught school if. he'd chosen to use his teaching degree, but he was an outdoorsman at heart and decided to build this ranch when he was younger than I am now.”

“Which is?”

“Twenty-four.”

She glanced at him from beneath her thick lashes, and not for the first time tonight, she noticed what a handsome man he was. Beneath his white shirt and dark olive trousers, he was broad shouldered, long legged and lean. She didn't know if the exercise he got was natural or forced,
but either way he was obviously fit. Too fit for her peace of mind.

“That's very young to build a cattle empire.”

“Daddy wasn't your everyday kind of man. He was special.”

He studied her quiet face. “Then you don't hate him for the trouble he's caused the family?”

She looked down at the desktop to the ink blotter where Tomas's scribbled notes were still legible. To one side lay the same ledger where he'd posted his profits. And he had made plenty of profits in his day. She could still hear his laughter, smell his cigarette smoke—and she ached to have him back.

“Hate him? Never. I just can't understand what happened to him. Maybe it was seeing mother go like she did. Little by little until she was hardly more than a wisp of skin and bones. There was no doubt that he loved her fiercely. When she died he said his soul had gone with her. And sometimes I believe that might have been true.”

Though he wanted to say something comforting, Wyatt was at a loss as to what it would be. And being who he was, he wasn't sure she would even accept sympathy from him.

Pushing her memories aside, Chloe bent down and pulled out a drawer at the bottom of the desk. Once she straightened, she handed Wyatt a thick white envelope.

“What is this?”

“Take a look,” she urged.

He opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of checks bound with a heavy rubberband. For several minutes he sifted through them, studying the dates, the amounts and the account number stamped on the back.

After a while he bound the rubberband back around them, stuffed them in the envelope and handed them back to Chloe. “That is a lot of money,” he said grimly.

Chloe nodded. “Those checks are what finally led Roy
to your sister. Before then we had no idea who the twins' mother was or that Daddy was the father.”

“Was there any money left in her bank account when Roy investigated?”

Chloe shook her head. “By then she'd withdrawn it all and left town. The bank manager told Roy it had been a small amount.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “What was she doing with all her money? The money your father had already sent her was more than enough to keep her adequately housed, fed and clothed.”

“We think she was simply blackmailing Daddy, threatening to tell us about her and the twins if he didn't pay. You can't deny she had a drug problem. The doctor said it was the reason her heart stopped so suddenly.”

Chloe was painting a picture of Belinda that was difficult for Wyatt to fathom and yet he had to face the fact that something had gone terribly wrong in his sister's life. Why hadn't he made a point to keep in touch with her? Why hadn't he been around to see what was happening and stop it?

“I had no idea Belinda had taken any sort of drugs until the doctors at the hospital explained her death to me. She'd had a slight heart murmur all her life and she'd been warned that alcohol or drugs would cause damage, so she knew the consequences. It all makes me wonder if she was slowly trying to kill herself. Especially if your father had rejected her.”

For the first time since all of this had happened, Chloe forced herself to look at things from Belinda's side. Had Tomas broken her heart and left her deserted with two little babies? No, she didn't think so. Belinda herself had admitted that Tomas had wanted the children. And then there was all that money he'd sent her. That had to mean something.

“I don't know what she was thinking or what was on
Daddy's mind. We'll probably never know. But one thing is for certain—their affair has left the Bar M drained.”

He looked at her. “That's all the more reason you should want the twins to live with me. Rather than here in poverty.”

Her nostrils flaring, she shoved the canceled checks back in the drawer and closed it. “I hardly think we live in poverty,” she said tightly.

“Maybe not. But you might be, soon.”

She couldn't believe his gall or his priorities. “And whose fault is that?” she countered hotly.

So now they were finally getting to the point, he thought with angry disappointment. Up until now, Chloe had done a good job of putting on an air of family pride, but when it came right down to the gist of things, she was like all the rest.

“I guess the next thing you're going to say is that if I were a real man, I'd offer you financial help to raise the twins rather than take them with me?”

Thinking it was high time to leave the room, she reached over and switched off the lamp. “I wouldn't take a dime from you! And neither would the rest of my family! Your sister whammed us hard, but we will come back from it. And no thanks to you!”

Chloe's reaction to his question surprised him more than anything yet. In his life, money was always a bargaining chip. And because he had lots of it, he'd often been approached for loans and handouts. In his younger years, he'd been softhearted and allowed friends, many of them women, to use him for their financial gain.

He supposed having money had caused him to become jaded about human nature. But he'd learned it was foolish to trust anyone. Especially beautiful women like Chloe.

She brushed past him and headed toward the door. Wyatt quickly snagged a hold on her shoulder and spun her
back to him. “Do you mean you'd have the twins suffer because of your pride?”

She tried to jerk free of his grip, but he only tightened his hold. “Suffer?” she repeated inanely. “You think the twins would suffer living here?”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Chloe. Look around you. This isolated ranch has nothing to offer them. I could afford to give them the best of care. Private schools, any college they chose. In Houston, I could open doors to successful careers for them. They would be exposed to fine art and culture. They'd know more about life than cows and horses and sagebrush and cactus.”

This was the point where Chloe should have been exploding with anger. But oddly she wasn't. She was sad for Wyatt Sanders. And torn. Because she could think of nothing she might say or do that would make him understand what was lacking in his scheme of things.

“I won't waste my breath telling you we Murdocks know a little bit more than cows and horses. But I would like to ask one important thing.”

“Yes?”

“You tell me if you had the twins they would get the best of schools, colleges and careers. They would have the opportunity to make plenty of money. But will they be loved?”

His nostrils flared with indignation. “How could you ask such a thing?”

“It wasn't hard. I just opened my mouth and—”

His hands suddenly gripped both her shoulders. “How dare you imply that I wouldn't love the twins.”

She tilted her head back and glared at him. “I dare because I don't think you have any idea what the word really means. Your world revolves around money and very little else. What could you know about loving another human being?”

His gray eyes took on a strange glitter and then suddenly
his face became a blur and his breath whispered hot against her lips.

“You definitely are a smart-mouthed little thing,” he muttered.

Much to Chloe's dismay, her knees went weak, her breathing shallow. She didn't want to be this close to him. Yet she was powerless to step back.

“I'm not a little
thing.
Especially to you.”

Wyatt could stand it no longer. He had to kiss her, had to prove to her that he wasn't just an oil tycoon. He was a man who needed, loved and hurt.

As soon as his lips settled over hers, Chloe knew she was in trouble. Her stomach fluttered, her heart stilled and heat poured through her veins. She'd been kissed before. Plenty of times, but she couldn't ever remember it feeling like this.