The Tycoon's Tots (7 page)

He stopped and Chloe wondered what he was thinking as his gray eyes roamed her face. Did he think she'd asked him to stay for coffee because of that kiss last night? No. Surely not. It wasn't in her to play seductress even when she was dressed in her sexiest outfit, much less a grubby shirt and worn jeans. And even if he did think she was sending him provocative signals, the man wasn't wet behind the ears, nor was he subtle. He'd simply come out and tell her she'd be wasting her time to try and change his mind about the twins with feminine wiles.

When he failed to go on, Chloe finally prompted, “And what?”

His eyes flickered away from her face, then back to it. “I want you to know I'm not proud of what my sister has done to your family. I'm not saying she was blackmailing your father for the money. That I don't want to believe. But it's obvious she was either asking your father for money or demanding it. Whatever the case, it was wrong of her.”

A few days ago, even last night, Chloe would have taken tremendous satisfaction in hearing him admit his sister had maligned her family. But today it didn't seem all that important. Maybe Rose's ability to forgive was rubbing off on her. Or maybe she was beginning to see that blaming someone else for her troubles wasn't showing the true grit of a Murdock.

“Thank you for saying that, Wyatt. That's the only payment I wanted from you.”

Yes, he could see that now. But it was still incredible to him that even though she'd lost her finances, money wasn't the real issue with her. She was more concerned about apologies and the right and wrong of it.

Coffee began to pour into the glass carafe, filling the room with its pungent smell. Glad for something to do, Chloe gathered cups and saucers.

“There's plenty of Aunt Kitty's cherry cobbler left. Would you like some with your coffee?”

“I never turn down dessert. Even if it is the middle of the afternoon,” he said.

Chloe filled two small bowls with cobbler and placed them on a tray with the cups. After she poured the coffee, she carried the whole thing over to the kitchen table.

Wyatt took a seat and Chloe checked on Adam in the playpen. The baby had fallen asleep, so she covered him with a thick blanket before she joined Wyatt at the table.

Noticing he was waiting for her to get settled before he ate, she said, “Don't wait on me. You'll find you have to eat whenever you can around here and not worry about manners. Something usually happens and you have to jump up. It might be hours before you get a chance to eat again.”

“I was just thinking this is the quietest time I can ever remember spending anywhere,” he said, digging into his cobbler.

“I don't think of this place as quiet, but I suppose to someone like you who lives in the fast lane it's as slow as Christmas turkey.”

“Is that slow?”

She gave him an impish little smile. “It takes all year to get it. I'd say that's pretty slow.”

“I didn't realize you thought I lived in the fast lane,” he replied. “Do I look like a party goer?”

She frowned as she slipped a bite of cobbler into her mouth. “No, you look like a man who works a lot.”

His lips twisted. “You couldn't know that about me.”

From the corner of her eye, Chloe watched his fingers curl around his coffee cup. They were long, strong fingers, the skin tanned and sprinkled with dark hair. He wore no rings or jewelry of any sort. Not because he couldn't afford it, obviously. He wasn't a flashy man. In fact, she found him very unpretentious.

“Let's just say I have a hunch that you get up with work on your mind and go to bed with work on your mind. You don't eat breakfast and grab anything you can for lunch because you either have meetings or phone calls to make. You take work home with you and rarely have friends over. You go out on occasion, but only after you've taken the time to choose your date carefully. And even then, you're usually wondering if you'll ever meet a woman who has any depth to her. Am I anywhere close?”

Last night Chloe had correctly perceived his thinking, and now she'd pretty well summed up his life. Could the woman see inside him or something?

He shifted uncomfortably on the padded chair. If she knew all that about him, maybe she could see he was, in spite of a gallant fight, growing attracted to her.

“You're…” He frowned, then with a conceding shrug of his shoulder, chuckled lowly. “How did you know?”

She laughed and it felt, oh, so good. “I have friends who've moved to the city. And I've spent a lot of time in Santa Fe. It's a western city, but it moves fast.”

He took another bite of cobbler and wondered how long it had been since he'd sat eating like this and not have his mind on acquiring a new drilling company, or flying to Dallas or Tulsa or New Orleans. His thoughts were normally on mergers or buy outs, of what the overseas sales of raw crude were doing and how it was going to affect his own market.

But with Chloe, all of that seemed to fade away to another place and time. When he looked at her, his priorities became fuzzy and jumbled.

On the way out here today, Wyatt had told himself he was coming to see the twins and to attempt to change Chloe's mind about their future. After all, he'd already been away from his office in Houston far longer than he'd first anticipated. He didn't have time to simply wait around until she finally realized he would be the best thing for the twins. He needed to nudge her thinking along. But he had to admit all of that was only part of why he'd driven the twenty-mile trip. He couldn't quit thinking about the kiss they'd exchanged last night. Even now, the memory of it sent slivers of heat curling around in his stomach and an incredible urge deep inside him to do it all over again.

“You don't exactly move at a slow pace around here,” he countered, remembering the first day he'd seen her exercising the horses. She'd buzzed around the stable like a worker bee with a death sentence. “And I doubt you really have friends over very often, or go out on a date more than once every two months. And when you do, he either bores you or irritates the hell out of you. Am I anywhere close?”

“You make it sound like my life isn't that much different from yours. But you know it is,” she told him.

“Just tell me if I'm right or not,” he persisted.

She watched her finger make a slow circle around the rim of her coffee cup. “You're right about some of it.”

“The dating part?”

Her eyes lifted from the cup to his face. “Why do you want to know about that?”

Wyatt shrugged and tried to appear casual. “Well, you insist you want to be the twins' mother. It makes me wonder why you wouldn't want to marry and give them a father.”

Of course she should have known it was the twins he was interested in. Not her. “We've already been over this
issue before. If—and this is a remote if—I ever found a man I thought would be good for me and the twins, I wouldn't hesitate to marry. But I don't ever expect to find him.”

Unsettled by his question and the probe of his gray eyes, Chloe got up from the table and carried her empty bowl to the sink. Kitty's accident this morning had left things undone in the kitchen. Dirty dishes were still waiting to be washed and the floor was gritty.

She fit the stopper in the sink and turned on the hot water. Wyatt might as well learn she didn't have time to sit and socialize with him or anyone.

I don't ever expect to find him.
Chloe's words rolled slowly over and over in Wyatt's mind as he watched her from his seat at the table. She was hiding something. Sooner or later he was going to find out what it was. And then maybe he would understand what drove her to work herself to the point of exhaustion during the day, then spend her nights with two babies who weren't really hers.

Before he could stop himself, Wyatt went over to where she stood with her hands plunged in the soapy water. He dropped his empty cup and bowl in with the mound she was working on.

“Chloe,” he began, “I know I'm an outsider. And I don't know about all the things you have to do around here to keep the ranch going. But I do know you can't manage alone. Now that your aunt is out of commission for a while, you—”

She whirled on him and the absolute terror he saw in her eyes halted the rest of his words.

“I know what you're going to say. Now is the time for you to take the twins, right?”

A few days ago he probably would have said just that. But today the idea hadn't as yet crossed his mind. He'd been too busy worrying about Chloe and wondering what he could do to ease her burden. Where, along the way had
his thinking changed? Why did his heart soften every time he looked at her? This wasn't the way he'd planned for things to go.

The horrible whiteness of her face tore at him and before he could analyze his actions, he reached out and touched her arm. She immediately flinched, but didn't pull away as she continued to hold his gaze in the grip of hers.

“No. That wasn't what I was going to say at all.”

Confusion flickered in her eyes and her lips parted with surprise. It was all Wyatt could do not to pull her into his arms and taste those soft pink lips once again.

“Then what—”

“I was going to offer myself to fill in for Kitty,” he said quickly before he had time to ask himself if he'd gone mad.

C
hloe laughed. Softly at first, then louder. Wyatt was bewildered by the response. He'd expected a tirade of cursing or some sort of sarcastic rejection. Yet she continued to laugh until there were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks.

“Chloe. Chloe,” he said gently and pulled her into his arms. She didn't try to resist him, but her body was stiff and rigid as he smoothed a hand down her back. “Why are you crying?”

“I—I'm not. I'm laughing.” She hiccuped and scrubbed her eyes with her fists.

“You are crying, and there's no need for it,” he assured her.

Like a moth testing a flame, she leaned her cheek against his chest, drew it back, then finally decided to settle it against the beat of his heart.

“Why not?” she asked in a wobbly voice. “The idea of an oilman becoming a cook and baby-sitter is enough to make anyone cry.”

He smiled over her head. “I don't think the world will run out of gasoline if I lay off work a few more days.”

“That wasn't what I meant!” Her composure gathered, she started to pull away from him. Wyatt's hand caught the back of her head and she found her face a breath away from his.

“What do you think about the idea?”

She couldn't believe he'd offered, or how much it touched her that he had. “I think you're crazy. You can't stay here with me!”

Wyatt hadn't exactly thought about staying here at nights, but now that she'd brought it up, he knew he wouldn't be much help unless he was here on the ranch twenty-four hours a day.

“Why not?” he asked.

She wished he'd let her go. She couldn't think sensibly while he was touching her, while the male scent of him swirled in her head and his tempting lips were only a breath away.

“Because. We'd be alone.”

“The twins will be with us,” he reasoned.

She groaned. “Two ten-month-old babies can't be considered chaperones.”

One of his brows arched. “You think we need chaperones?”

She drew in a sharp little breath. “After last night, I know we do.”

Last night
. Yeah, last night was still on his mind and Wyatt just had to see if it was still on hers.

Lowering his head just a fraction, he covered her lips with his and drew her into the tight circle of his arms.

Chloe told herself she wanted to pull away from him. She even put her palms against his chest to pry some distance between them, but that was as far as her resistance took her. Heat and a sexual excitement she had long ago forgotten swept through her body and insisted that her lips
cling hungrily to his, that her arms move up his chest and around his neck.

“Chloe,” he murmured as his mouth lifted to trail hot moist kisses behind her ear, down her neck and across the tender line of her jaw.

Her hands gripped the top of his shoulders as her head reeled with sudden longing. She wanted this man! How could that be? He could only hurt her. Yet every fiber of her body longed for his mouth, his touch, his love.

The shocking direction of her thoughts gave her the strength to twist out of his arms and back away. “This is exactly why you can't stay here!”

Her breasts were heaving and color burned high on her cheeks. She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and at the moment all he wanted was to crush her mouth beneath his, kiss her until she was soft and pliant in his arms and her green eyes glowed with dark desire.

“You can't say you didn't enjoy that,” he said, his voice faintly accusing.

“I…” Her eyes dropped to the dusty floor and her teeth pressed into her bottom lip. “I liked it all right. That's what makes it so bad.”

His brows drew together. “Bad? You call that bad?”

Her jaw dropped. “Have you not heard anything I've been saying to you these past few days? I don't go playing around with men! Or does that not mean anything to you?”

He was still shaking from the encounter and she wanted to label it as play! He'd never known such an exasperating woman. “You think what just happened between us was playing around?”

She turned her back to him. “By any name it shouldn't have happened.”

He eyed the stiff, rigid line of her back and shoulders. “Because of who I am?”

“That's part of it.”

And what was the other part? Wyatt desperately wanted to ask her. But he instinctively knew now wasn't the time to press her about her love life. Besides, that was something he was going to have to forget entirely.

“Chloe, forget the past five minutes. What just happened won't happen again.” At least he'd try like hell not to let it happen again, he told himself. “I didn't offer to help you with the twins just as a means to get to your body.”

Slowly she turned around and eyed him skeptically. “It sure felt that way a few moments ago.”

Frustrated, he raked a hand through his hair. For some reason, Wyatt felt his getting custody of the twins hinged on whether Chloe allowed him to stay here on the Bar M for the next few weeks. Not under any circumstances could he let her know just how attracted he was to her. Otherwise, her boot was going to be kicking his rear right out the front door.

“That was—totally out of character for me,” he explained. “Just a sudden urge that I—acted upon.”

“And how do I know you won't have another sudden urge?”

“Chloe—” He took a step toward her and she held up a hand to deter him from getting any closer.

“Wyatt, I have enough problems already. The last thing I need is to let you seduce me into making love to you.”

Just hearing her say those words sent a surge of desire through him, but he did his best to ignore it. “I won't. It won't be that way.”

She said nothing, just folded her arms across her breast

He went on, “Look, Chloe, I'm not crazy. You're the last woman on earth I need to become involved with. Just give me the chance to let me help you. Besides, the twins are the real issue here. Not me, or you, or us.”

That was certainly true enough, Chloe thought. And she wasn't vain enough to think Wyatt was really interested in
her as a woman. She was far more worried about the reckless impulses she felt everytime the man touched her. But if he kept his distance as he said he would, then it might be an altogether good thing to let him see exactly what he'd be getting into with the twins.

“You're right. The twins are the issue.”

“Then you're going to accept my offer?”

Was she crazy? Or just desperate enough to say yes?

Before Chloe could weigh the answer to those questions, the telephone rang.

Glad for the interruption, Chloe walked to the end of the cabinets and pulled the receiver down from the wall phone. As soon as she answered, Justine's voice came back at her.

“Chloe, I've got some news for you.”

“Oh, about Aunt Kitty? Surely she hasn't already had her surgery? It's only been a few hours since Rose took her to Roswell.”

“No. Rose assured me she was going to stay there until Kitty was safely out of surgery and I haven't heard from her yet. Have you?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, I called to let you know Roy checked out your Mr. Sanders.”

Chloe's eyes flew guiltily over to Wyatt, who had begun to wash the dishes she'd started on a few minutes ago.

“And—what did he have to say?” she asked trying her best to sound casual.

“Just what you thought. From what Roy says, the man is Mr. Good Guy. Not even an old parking ticket.”

She felt glad and torn and guilty all at once. “Well, that's…well, at least we don't have to wonder anymore.”

There was a pause, then Justine said, “Chloe, you sound a little strange. Are you feeling all right? You're not worrying yourself sick over Aunt Kitty, are you? I promise
the surgery will be a snap for her. She and Lucille will be playing cards by tomorrow.”

“I'm… not worrying about Aunt Kitty. I—I've just been trying to figure out what to do about keeping up the horses and the stable. Rose and Emily can't do it all.”

“Roy is going to try to make it by there this evening and help with whatever he can.”

Chloe continued to watch Wyatt as he washed dish after dish and stacked them on a nearby drainboard. She'd never seen a man at work in this kitchen. And for that man to be Wyatt made it an even stranger sight.

“Thank Roy for the offer,” Chloe said with sudden decision, “but I'll be able to handle things myself.”

“But the twins—” Justine began to argue only to have Chloe interrupt, “Will be taken care of. I've already got someone for the job.”

“Job? Chloe! What are you talking about? I know you're in a desperate spot right now. But we can't afford to hire anyone!”

“This person doesn't require pay.”

There was another long pause and then Justine sucked in an audible breath. “Oh, my Lord, you're not talking about Wyatt Sanders, are you?”

“I am.”

“Chloe, what are you thinking? What has he done to you?”

Justine's choice of words brought a blush to Chloe's cheeks. “Nothing. I know what I'm doing. I'll explain it all later.”

She hung up before Justine could say more, then walked slowly over to where Wyatt was still working at the sink. As she propped her hip against the counter, he turned his head sideways to look at her.

“That was my sister, Justine,” she explained, her heart thumping as though she was on the verge of taking a dangerous high dive.

“She's heard from your aunt?”

Chloe shook her head and knew her expression was sheepish. “She called to let me know Roy had run a check on you.”

He didn't reply, and Chloe said, “I won't blame you if you're angry. But it wasn't the sort of thing I wanted to keep from you.”

If anything, Wyatt respected her for her honesty. “I suppose it should make me mad to think you people distrusted me so much that you felt you had to go behind my back and dig into my life. But…” He paused and shrugged. “I'm not angry. If I were in your place I would've probably done the same thing.”

Chloe didn't know why she was so relieved. It shouldn't matter whether his feelings were bruised. But it did. She didn't want to hurt Wyatt for any reason. When and how she'd come to that conclusion, she didn't know, but it was there in her heart just the same.

“I'm glad you see it that way.” She rubbed at a scarred spot on the countertop. “I—uh, told my sister you were going to help me with the twins.”

He plopped the last saucer onto the drainboard and reached for a tea towel. Drying his hands, he smiled and said, “You won't regret it, Chloe.”

She probably would, but it was too late to worry about that now. Straightening away from the cabinet, she said, “Well, I've decided this would be a good opportunity to find out just how badly you want to be the twins' father.”

It was all Wyatt could do not to yelp with joy and smack a kiss on her lips. The woman was finally giving in. If things kept going like this, he might be able to get the twins out of this place sooner than he thought.

“I'll drive into Ruidoso right now and pack up my things at the motel. I should be able to make it back in an hour and a half at the latest,” he told her, glancing at his watch.

“You're starting today?”

Seeing the surprise on her face, Wyatt said, “Why not? You have horses to care for. You can't do that and watch two babies at the same time.”

“I haven't forgotten you don't know anything about babies. Have you?”

He gave her a lazy smile, and Chloe's heart thumped with foolish anticipation.

“I haven't been around babies before,” he agreed. “But I don't know anything about caring for horses either. And from where I'm standing, the babies seem to be the far safer of the two jobs.”

Chloe couldn't help but laugh. “You may want to reevaluate that opinion after a couple of days.”

He tossed the tea towel on the cabinet counter and rubbed his palms together in a gesture of readiness. “How hard could the job be? Two babies and a little cooking. It'll be a vacation compared to the hours I put in with the oil company.”

Smiling to herself, she said, “Good. I'm sure a vacation like this is just what you need.”

“Chloe, I realize I told Justine I couldn't find any sort of criminal past on Wyatt Sanders,” Roy said as Chloe poured a measurable amount of oats into a black rubber feed bucket. “But that didn't mean it was okay for you to turn the twins and the house over to him.”

She waved her hand at her brother-in-law who'd just gotten off work and was still wearing his sheriffs uniform.

“Justine said you called him Mr. Good Guy.”

He gave an exasperated snort. “Of course I'd say that to her. She's going to have our baby in the next few weeks. I don't want her worrying about anything.”

Chloe walked over to a room where the feed was stored and tossed the half-empty sack of oats against the wall.
Turning back to Roy, she said, “Then you don't think the man can be trusted?”

He lifted his Stetson and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn't say that, Chloe. I don't know the man. I'm not in any position to give you an opinion one way or the other. I just wonder if you know what you're doing.”

Chloe sighed. “You're worried the man is going to be staying in the house—with the twins.”

“And with you,” he added.

Roy's concern touched her. He and Harlan were both like brothers. She valued their opinions and, even more, their love. Yet she was as certain as the day was long that she had nothing to fear from Wyatt. At least not physically. Emotionally was an altogether different matter.

“I know how to take care of myself, Roy. And believe me, I wouldn't let anyone around the twins if I didn't trust them. You know that.”