The Tycoon's Tots (9 page)

Absently tracing the handle of the coffee mug with his fingertip, Wyatt contemplated all that she'd just told him. This place, Chloe's life, and that of her family, were so very different from what he'd expected. When he first got to New Mexico, he'd figured he was going to find three high-rolling women who blamed his sister for the ranch's decline, rather than the rock-bottom cattle prices of the past several months.

But now, after viewing the checks Belinda had cashed and seeing the stark, simple life the Murdocks led, he'd had to face the fact that he'd been wrong.

“You say you divided the work responsibilities after Tomas died. How were things around here while he was still living?”

She smiled and her green eyes sparkled with fond memories of happier times. “It was very different. Daddy usually had no fewer than five wranglers hired to work the place. Not to say that Rose and I didn't work back then. We did. But we could choose our own hours and set our own pace.”

“You had to let all the cowboys go?”

Nodding sadly, she looked away from him. “It's not something I like to think about. This ranch used to employ five men who counted on their salaries to provide for their families. It was…”

She paused and Wyatt could see her throat working as she tried to swallow. The sight so unsettled him, he had to glance away.

“It was very hard when we had to tell them we couldn't use them anymore,” she finally finished.

Wyatt suddenly thought of all the men he'd fired for different reasons down through the years and how impersonal those decisions had been to him. Yet to Chloe, letting the wranglers go had been like saying goodbye to a part of her family.

Had being an oilman for so many years left him without a heart? Or did Chloe have too much of one? He didn't know. But one thing was for sure, she was making him look at life from an altogether different angle.

Something, he wasn't quite sure what, made him reach over and cover her hand with his. “Maybe it will be like that again, someday, Chloe. I hope it is.”

Perhaps she was a fool, but she honestly believed he meant that. The idea he might have even a small measure of compassion for her disturbed Chloe. She didn't want him to care for her. She didn't want him to give her a reason to like him, to soften her heart toward him.

“I…” Her eyes fell from his to the tabletop. “I… uh…I'm going to try my best to make it that way…again.” Her eyes lifted slowly back to his. “It will probably take years. But time is one thing I do have. And energy,” she added with a little joke of a smile.

But how long would her energy last? he wondered solemnly. How long would it be before this place broke her down and turned her into a tired, bitter woman?

For Chloe, the touch of his hand was growing hotter and
hotter, leading her thoughts to places she shouldn't dare think about.

Gently, but firmly, she pulled her hand away and stood. “Thanks for the coffee. I'd better get the twins to bed now.”

Wyatt knew she was bothered by his touching her. So was he. Bothered because he couldn't get enough of it. And he knew from now until the time he left this ranch, it was going to be a struggle with himself to keep his hands off her.

Rising to his feet, he drained the last of his coffee. “I'd better come with you so I can learn all about bedding a baby. I have a feeling there's more to it than just laying them in the crib and covering them up.”

He followed her out of the room and Chloe breathed in several long breaths. She had to keep her senses straight, she had to remember who he was and why he was here.

In the living room they each picked up a sleeping twin and carried them to the nursery. A single bed was positioned at one end of the small room. Chloe placed Anna on the mattress and motioned for Wyatt to do the same with Adam.

“We need to put on their nightclothes before we put them in the cribs,” she explained.

Her voice was normal, not hushed and Wyatt glanced at the sleeping twins expecting them to start howling at any moment.

“You're going to wake them up,” he whispered.

Chloe smiled knowingly. “By this time at night they're tuckered out. It would take a freight train to rouse them.”

She pulled footed pajamas out of a nearby chest of drawers, then pointed to a stack of diapers on a small dressing table. “Those are the regular diapers you've been using today. The heavy ones for overnight are here in the closet,” she told him.

He moved to where she stood by the open door and
peered over her shoulder. She smelled like a garden of roses on a hot summer's day. Sweet, warm and seductive. The scent filled his head with erotic images, and his hand itched to slip the clasp from her hair and watch it tumble down onto her shoulders. It would be so good to take her by the shoulders and pull her close.

“Yes. I see.”

Something about the huskiness in his voice drew Chloe back around and her breath caught in her throat as she looked up at him. There was a softness in his gray eyes, a warmth that stirred the woman deep inside her.

He'd promised not to kiss her again. Not to repeat what had happened in the kitchen this morning. At the moment, the promise had relieved her. Now it was vaguely disappointing to know she might never again feel his lips against hers.

Clearing her throat, she started to step around him, but his hand quickly caught her by the shoulder.

“Wyatt—”

“Don't worry. I'm not about to ravish you.”

The mere idea of Wyatt ravishing her was enough to send heat hurtling through her body like an atomic explosion.

“I didn't think you were,” she murmured.

His mouth twisted wryly. “But the idea crossed your mind.”

Her heart was thumping so hard she felt light-headed. “Are you telling me it hasn't crossed yours?” she asked boldly.

“It's crossed it so many times, the inside of my forehead looks like a roadmap,” he confessed. “But I gave you my promise.”

“Is your word good?”

His fingers slid ever so gently up the slope of her shoulder until they reached her hair.

“I've never broken a promise before.” But then he'd never been so tempted before either, he realized.

Her nerves buzzing, her mouth dry, she closed her eyes as his strong fingers combed slowly through her hair. He was attracted to her. No, it was more than that, she reasoned. He wanted to make love to her. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in his touch. The idea both thrilled and terrified her.

“Wyatt, we—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “We shouldn't be getting this close to each other.”

“I'm not a fool, Wyatt.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “We're two very different people. Back in Houston you would have never looked at a woman like me.

“A woman like you?” His brows lifted. “Chloe, there are no women like you back in Houston.”

“Oh, there are, Wyatt. You just don't move in their circles.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her she was wrong. There wasn't anybody else in the world like her. But that would be like admitting he was falling in love with her. And he wasn't. He just had a case of healthy lust for Chloe Murdock.

“You make me sound like a snob. I may know a lot of upper-class people. But that doesn't mean I associate strictly with those kind.”

To make her point, Chloe lifted her hands and offered them to him. “Look Wyatt. Don't tell me you've ever asked a woman with hands like these out on a date.”

He took hold of her small, work-worn hands. The nails were clipped to a short, practical length. They were bare of polish, the cuticles ragged in places. He turned the palms up and ran his thumbs over the calluses lying just below her fingers.

She was right in a way, he silently mused. Her hands
weren't soft or jeweled or manicured like those of the women he knew. But they were far more beautiful to him. He didn't know exactly why. He only knew that when he watched her touch the twins and even her horses, she did it with love.

Bending his head, he placed a kiss on each palm, then looked up at her. “You're wrong to belittle yourself, Chloe.”

Her lips twisted mockingly, while inside her heart was filled with painful regret. “Weren't you trying to do just that when you first came here?”

Rueful shadows filled his eyes. “That already seems like a long time ago, Chloe,” he murmured. “And if I looked down on you then, it was only because I was angry and hurting. I didn't know you.”

“You don't know me now,” she reminded him.

His brow furrowed. “Why do you say that, Chloe? Is there something about you you're not telling me?”

A dark, closed shutter fell over Chloe's face and without answering, she stepped around him and moved back to where the twins lay sleeping on the narrow bed. Wyatt followed.

“Talk to me, Chloe.”

“I am what you see, Wyatt. I'm not for you and you're not for me. Don't complicate things by being—”

She didn't know how to finish. He did it for her. “Attracted to you?”

He was standing just inches behind her and Chloe was so very tempted to turn to him, to tell him all the hidden things in her heart and hope he would understand. But he wouldn't. Richard had professed to love her. He'd even wanted to marry her. Until he'd found out she was barren. Then she hadn't been good enough for him. It would be the same with Wyatt. He was a man accustomed to the best of things. He wouldn't hold on to anything flawed.

“I guess that's what I'm trying to say,” she mumbled.

Chloe was right, he supposed. They were two very different people. He had a life in Houston he would soon have to go back to. He couldn't let himself become involved with her. And why, oh why, did he even want to?

“Why does that bother you?” he asked her. “Is it me or just men in general?”

She turned around and stared at him with eyes so sad and accusing Wyatt felt something inside him wither.

“Have you forgotten why you're here, Wyatt?”

His sister's death. Her plea for him to get the twins. And his silent vow to do so. He'd started to New Mexico with all those reasons sharp and clear in his mind. But when he looked at Chloe nothing was clear or simple. Except that he wanted her.

“I'm here to help you with the twins,” he finally replied.

Her jaw hardened. “No. You're here to
get
the twins.”

Until this very moment, Wyatt hadn't really understood what that meant to Chloe and how, in the deepest part of her, she must hate him for wanting to take her babies. But they weren't her babies really. They were Belinda's.

“Is that all you see when you look at me?” he asked, his voice rough with frustration. “Just the enemy?”

It wasn't. But Chloe knew the smart thing to do would be to let him think so. Things were quickly getting out of hand between them and it looked as though it was going to be left up to her to put a stop to it.

“I can't let myself forget who you are, Wyatt.” Grim faced, she turned back to the babies and reached for their pajamas. “I told you before. The twins mean more to me than anything. I won't let you or anyone come between us.”

Was he trying to come between Chloe and the babies? Wyatt asked himself. Was he wanting her love or the twins, or both? And what the hell was he going to do about any of it?

A
lmost a week later, Wyatt entered the study and found Chloe posting bills in the ledger. The banker's lamp cast a soft glow over her pale features and auburn hair. Her gaze was fixed in deep concentration on the figures before her. She was unaware of Wyatt's presence until he stood directly in front of her.

Lifting her head, she said nothing, just looked at him.

“I saw the light. I thought you'd already gone to bed.”

What was the point in going to bed? Chloe thought. She couldn't sleep. Working on the ledger was more productive-than lying in bed thinking about him—something she'd been doing constantly for the past week.

“I wanted to get this paperwork done first,” she told him.

Rose and Justine and their families had left the house only a little more than an hour ago. They'd brought a potluck supper and stayed several hours afterwards.

During the last few days Wyatt had met Chloe's relatives. One by one he'd decided he liked them all. Roy and Harlan were fair, friendly men and both interesting to talk
to. Rose and Justine were each straightforward, intelligent and beautiful. But the thing that had struck Wyatt the most about the two women was their kindness and willingness to accept him as the twins' uncle—rather than a rattlesnake just waiting to strike, as Chloe seemed to regard him.

Dropping her head, Chloe went back to work on the ledger, and Wyatt knew she was telling him to leave her alone. But so far he hadn't made it a habit to follow her wishes.

Propping his thigh on the corner of the desk, he said, “Rose left us all her meatballs. She said she knew you wouldn't cook unless you had to.”

“She knows me.”

It was all Wyatt could do not to reach over and close the book. She'd been cool to him all week and he was finally at the simmering point.

“If you're worried I've been putting my long-distance calls on your telephone line, don't be. I have a company calling card.”

“I didn't realize you'd been making any calls.”

Who was she kidding? She'd walked into this study several times and seen him on the telephone. Each time she had immediately whirled on her bootheel and left the room. “You've seen me on the telephone. Who the hell did you think I was talking to?”

The roughness of his voice grabbed her attention. She looked up at him. “I don't really care who you call or if you bill it all to the Bar M,” she said dryly. “The ranch is already broke. What's a few more hundred dollars in phone bills?”

Wyatt understood she had plenty to worry about. Since he'd always had money, it was hard for him to imagine the stress of trying to meet bills without it. Still, he didn't want to be her whipping boy.

“Why are you being so snotty?”

It was all Chloe could do to keep from jumping to her
feet and yelling at him to get out and leave her alone. “Who's being snotty? You were the one cursing.”

Sighing, he stood and jammed his hands in his jean pockets.

“Well, so I was,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, then fixing his eyes on hers, he added, “Your sisters don't seem to have any trouble being kind to me. I wonder why you do?”

Snorting, she jumped to her feet. “Is that what you want from me, Wyatt? My kindness? I thought it was my babies.”

Suddenly the room was horribly quiet. Wyatt felt as if she'd flung a knife into his chest. “Why are you doing this? The day of Kitty's accident, you welcomed my help. You told me how much you appreciated my being here. And you were pleasant to be around. Now you look at me as if I were a leper.”

Even though the room was mostly dark, Chloe could see his face. The pain she saw there matched the agony in her heart. He was right. She had avoided him as much as possible. But he'd left her little choice. It was either that or make a complete fool of herself.

“I don't look at you like you're a leper. I'm just keeping a safe distance,” she said in a low, desperate voice, then turning her back to him she walked over to the wall of windows looking out toward the mountains. “And don't ask me why. You know why.”

Infuriated by her attitude, he went to her.

“Because you're afraid of me? Or more afraid of yourself?” he asked, standing just inches behind her back.

Goaded by his questions, she whirled around. “I'm not afraid of you! I'm not afraid of any man!”

“Then you're afraid of yourself. You think I might tempt you to give in and act like a real woman for once in your life.”

All the pent-up pain and frustration inside Chloe came
pouring out. She flew at him with both fists and pounded his chest as though it was a dirty saddle blanket needing to be cleaned.

Wyatt was stunned motionless by her flogging. But after a moment he decided she'd vented enough anger on him. Grabbing both her wrists, he held her tight.

Chloe struggled against him, then realized she was wasting her strength trying to overpower him. Flinging her hair back out of her eyes, she glared up at him.

“How dare you say something like that to me!”

“Why?” he asked. “Because it's true?”

“Do you think you're so irresistible that I'm actually going around aching for you?”

“Yes,” he said with quiet conviction. “Because I've been aching for you.”

Something inside her crumbled, and she had to look away as tears filled her eyes.

“You don't mean that, Wyatt. Not really.”

Moving closer, he placed his hand on her shoulder. “Surely that doesn't surprise you. The first night I stayed under this roof I admitted I was attracted to you. Did you think that was going to change?”

Her head bobbed up and down. “Yes. After you got to know me.”

And she'd been trying to show him the very worst of herself. Why? he wondered. What was she really afraid of?

With a groan of frustration, he said, “Hell, you won't let me get to know you. But this icy act of yours hasn't changed the way I feel whenever I look at you. And that is what you've been trying to do, isn't it? Cool me down? Make me dislike you?”

“Wyatt, the twins—”

“Yes, I know I came here because of the twins. But you can't deny there's something between us. Why won't you admit it?”

Groaning, she moved to step past him. Wyatt grabbed her by the upper arms.

“Wyatt, you promised you wouldn't kiss me again.”

Her words were urging him to keep that promise, yet the smoldering light in her eyes was begging him to break it.

“And I haven't,” he said, “I just want us to be… friends, at least.”

“You think we were becoming friends?” His assumption surprised Chloe. She didn't think Wyatt had felt connected to her in any way.

His hands moved down her arms until his fingers were curled around both wrists. “Isn't that what you would call us?”

A friend had never kissed her the way Wyatt had. A friend had never made her feel so hot and shaky and reckless she couldn't trust herself to look at him.

“I don't think you and I could ever be friends, Wyatt. We seem to bring out the…worst in each other.”

His hands slid slowly, warmly, up her arms until they were resting around the base of her neck. Beneath his fingers, he could feel her pulse throbbing wildly, the satin smoothness of her bare skin. And his throat tightened with a longing he couldn't understand or explain.

“You call that the worst, Chloe? You think it's bad for a man and woman to want each other?”

“It is when the man and woman are you and me.”

The past few days Wyatt had spent living here with Chloe had been the hardest, yet the most fulfilling time in his life. He'd found out about babies and all it took to care for them. He'd learned a little about ranching and raising horses and what it was like to live in the mountains of New Mexico. But most of all, he'd learned about family and about love. And how it felt to have neither.

“Chloe, God knows I didn't come here to fall in love with you. But I believe I have.”

She began to tremble. Not just from the shock of his words, but because she feared they echoed what was in her own heart. Oh, dear God, she silently prayed, why had this happened?

“Wyatt…don't say that to me,” she whispered desperately.

“I have to, Chloe. I can't stand your being around me, but not being near me. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?”

Yes, she did. She'd missed the closeness they'd shared that first night he was here. A hundred times a day she had to stop herself from going to him just to hear his voice or see his smile. Over and over she found herself wanting to share things with him. Yet she'd held back, knowing it would be disastrous to allow herself to get attached to him.

“I do understand, Wyatt. And I know I've… behaved…” she drew in a deep breath and let it out “…like I don't have good sense. But I…” she spread her palms against his warm chest “…I'm afraid. When I talked about you not knowing me. What I meant…” Her throat closed around the rest of the words. She turned away from him and swallowed at the tightness, but still she was unable to utter a sound.

“Chloe,” he whispered, his arms sliding around her waist. “If you've been hurt by a man in the past, I can understand you being afraid to jump into another relationship. Hell, I've had some pretty stinking affairs myself. But that doesn't mean I'm going to deliberately hurt you.”

Had he gone insane? He could hurt her in a thousand ways! She tried to harden herself, to tell her heart not to cry and shatter like a piece of fragile crystal.

“Have you ever loved a woman, planned to marry and spend your whole life with her, and then have her tell you it was over? That you just weren't good enough for her?”

Her husky voice was full of pain and resentment. Wyatt bent his head and pressed the side of his face next to hers.
“I can honestly say I've never been in love, Chloe. In lust, maybe. Or infatuated. But love? I've always doubted its existence. At least the earth-moving kind that you see in movies or hear friends talk about. I didn't think it was possible for anyone to care about another human being more than he cared for himself. But I do care for you, Chloe.”

Her heart throbbed with exhilaration. Yet at the same time it was filled with pain.

“That's what he said, too. And I thought he meant it. I still think Richard did care for me up to a point. But I'm an honest woman, Wyatt. I've told you that before. And in this case my honesty was more than he could take.”

Sensing her torment, he tightened his arms around her waist. “I can't imagine you having a sordid past. But I wouldn't hold it against you if you did.”

A sarcastic laugh spilled from Chloe's lips. “Other than Richard I've only had a handful of boyfriends. A past I do not have. Just a condition. I can't have children.”

Never had any words hit Wyatt so hard. Naturally, he'd been shocked when he'd heard his father had been killed in an accident and equally stunned when he'd been notified of Belinda's death. But Wyatt was a realist, and no one knew better than he that death knew no age or social standing. It just happened. Yet hearing Chloe was sterile was like a fist in the face.

She was so incredibly young, so full of beauty and sexual vibrance. It saddened him terribly to think making love for Chloe would always be just that. It would never have the added wonder of conceiving a child.

“I don't know what to say, Chloe.”

“That's funny. Richard knew all sorts of things to say. How sorry he was. How unfair it was for me.”

“It is sad and unfair,” Wyatt agreed.

She moved away from him and Wyatt watched as she
leaned her forehead against the windowpane and stared pensively out at the night sky.

“You think I wanted to hear that from him?”

Wyatt didn't answer. He wasn't thinking about her condition now. He was suddenly overwhelmed with jealousy as he tried to imagine this unknown man who had once captured Chloe's heart

“I don't know.”

Her gaze jerked over to him. “No. I didn't figure you would know,” she said dryly.

He turned his palms up in a helpless gesture. “Look, Chloe, maybe you have this idea that I'm a playboy or something. Maybe you think I've had lots of women in my life. But that isn't the case. I know all about getting oil or gas out of the ground, what it takes to get it refined and distributed. I could go out on a rig right now and work the floor, the derrick, the generators, anything you asked me to do, I could do it. If I had to fly to Saudi Arabia tomorrow and make a business deal for several thousand barrels of oil, I would know how to do that, too. But I don't know all about women. I don't always know what they want to hear from a man when they're hurting or sad.”

She looked back toward the windows and sighed. There wasn't any reason for her to be bitter with Wyatt. He wasn't the man who'd jilted her. But he would, she knew, if given the same situation.

“I'm sorry, Wyatt I didn't mean to get into all this.” Biting down on her lip, she glanced at him. “I never wanted you to know about any of this.”

Something in her face urged him to cross the few steps separating them. “Why?”

She didn't answer immediately. Wyatt slid his fingers into her hair and against her scalp. “Tell me,” he whispered.

“Because I didn't want to use it as one more argument
to keep the twins. If I could have ten children of my own, I would still want the twins. So my condition is inconsequential.”

Maybe she wanted to think so. But how could it be? Wyatt wondered. “Is that the only reason?”

Suddenly she turned, then burying her face in his chest, began to quietly sob. And like snow on a spring day, his heart melted and filled with a desperate need to comfort the woman in his arms.

“I didn't want you to know…because I—I didn't want you to think of me as half a woman.”