Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

Dedication

About the Author

Dear Reader

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Copyright

You’re starting today?” Chloe asked.

Wyatt answered nonchalantly. “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,” Wyatt 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.”

Wyatt smiled. “How hard could the job be? Two babies and a little cooking. It’ll be a vacation compared to the hours I usually put in.”

Chloe managed to keep a straight face. “Good. I’m sure a vacation like this is just what you need.”

Dear Reader,

The month of June makes me think of June brides, Father’s Day and the first bloom of summer love. And Silhouette Romance is celebrating the start of summer with six wonderful books about love and romance.

Our BUNDLE OF JOY this month is delivered by Stella Bagwell’s The Tycoon’s Tots—her thirtieth Silhouette book. As her TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP miniseries continues, we finally discover who gets to keep those adorable babies.. .and find romance in the bargain.

Elizabeth August is back with her much-loved SMYTHESHIRE, MASSACHUSETTS series. In The Determined Virgin you’ll meet a woman whose marriage of convenience is proving to be very inconvenient, thanks to her intense attraction to her “in-name-only” husband.

BACHELOR GULCH is a little town that needs women, and the name of Sandra Steffen’s brand-new miniseries. The fun begins in Luke’s Would-Be Bride as a local bachelor falls for his feisty receptionist—the one woman in town not looking for a husband!

And there are plenty more compelling romances for you this month: A lovely lady rancher can’t wait to hightail it out of Texas—till she meets her handsome new foreman in Leanna Wilson’s Lone Star Rancher. A new husband can’t bear to tell his amnesiac bride that the baby she’s carrying isn’t his, in Her Forgotten Husband by Anne Ha. And one lucky cowboy discovers a night of passion has just made him a daddy in Teresa Southwick’s The Bachelor’s Baby.

I hope you enjoy all of June’s books!

Melissa Senate,

Senior Editor

Silhouette Romance

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Tycoon’s Tots
Stella Bagwell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Lloyd,

for all those inspiring speeches

you used to give me.

Love always.

STELLA BAGWELL

sold her first book to Silhouette in November 1985. Now thirty novels later she is still thrilled to see her books in print and can’t imagine having any other job than that of writing about two people falling in love.

She lives in a small town in southeastern Oklahoma with her husband of twenty-six years. She has one son and daughter-in-law.

Dear Reader.

It’s always a special treat for me to have the opportunity to speak to you directly and say a big thank-you for buying and reading my books—all thirty of them—down through the years!

Writing romances isn’t an easy job, but it is a very fulfilling one. I like to think I’m spreading a little love to each and every one of you through my books.

I’m especially proud of The Tycoon’s Tots, which features not one, but two adorable babies and two people who desperately want to be their parents. It also happens to be a continuation of my TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP miniseries.

The Tycoon’s Tots, as with the other two books of the series, is all about family and what it means to a woman to be a part of a family, yet also have one of her very own. After all. we women don’t just stop at being a lover, or wife. More often than not we’re also a mother, a daughter, or a sister, and our love doesn’t just encompass a man it reaches over the entire family and makes each relationship within it a very special thing. I think you’ll see such is the case with my heroines, the Murdock sisters.

It was a delight forme to write TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP and tell you how two babies not only create chaos and change in the Murdock family, but also bring lasting love to Justine. Rose and Chloe. I hope each of their stories will touch a spot in your heart as they did mine and that you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Love and God Bless,

Prologue

Wyatt Sanders picked up the plain white envelope lying atop the leather duffel bag and pulled out a one-page letter. He’d read the words so many times now, he practically knew them by heart, but he still felt compelled to read it again one last time before he left Houston.

Dear Wyatt,

I know it’s been awhile since we last talked, so hearing from me now, like this, must be a shock for you. Believe me, I never wanted to be a burden to you. Especially after Daddy died. You have your own life to live. But there seems to be no one else I can turn to for help.

It’s a long story, but I’ve gotten myself into a mess. I didn’t want you to know how things were with me— at least not until I had the chance to fix them. Just please don’t reproach me for making bad choices. I never was as strong as you, Wyatt.

As of now I’m in a mental health facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. But I’m going to get better. Promise. Until then, I want you to go get my babies and take them home with you. They told me their father is dead now. I’m not sure I believe them, but if he is, I know you’ll be a good father to my twins, Wyatt. They need you now and so do I.

Below his sister’s signature was the name of a family and a ranch in Hondo, New Mexico, where the babies were supposedly staying. Wyatt had never heard his sister mention the family or the place before. But he would find them. It was the only way he could help his sister now.

Chapter One

Chloe Murdock galloped the chestnut around the track a second time, then slowed him to a trot. He wasn’t ready to quit their run, and Chloe had to strain against the reins to remind him who was boss.

She’d just gotten the horse in check when she noticed the man standing at the top of the hill, a few yards away from the stable. He was looking in her direction, his hand shading his eyes, even though he was wearing a pair of dark glasses.

It wasn’t unusual for a man to visit the ranch. Men often stopped by to inquire about buying a horse or bull. The Bar M had always been known for its good stock and that hadn’t changed even though her father, Tomas, had died and no longer ran the place.

Yet even from this distance, Chloe got the impression that this man in his khaki slacks and expensive leather jacket was not here to buy or sell stock. At least not the four-legged kind she was familiar with.

By the time she reached the top of the hill, the chestnut was still dancing with the urge to run. His sides were heaving and his flared nostrils blew streams of vapor into the crisp morning air. The man on the ground kept a careful distance from the woman and the fired up thoroughbred.

“Hello,” she said to him. “I’m Chloe Murdock. Can I help you?”

Not certain he could trust her or the horse, Wyatt remained several steps away.

“I’m Wyatt Sanders. The woman up at the house told me I would find you down here.” Innate good manners had him pulling off his sunglasses and slipping them inside his shirt pocket.

Chloe was a woman who’d never been that impressed with men, good-looking or otherwise, but she had to admit this one was quite striking. His hair was as black and shiny as a crow’s wing and slicked straight back from a wide forehead. His hooded gray eyes were a cool and startling contrast against his darkly tanned skin. Though his lips were compressed in a thin line at the moment, she got the impression of chiseled fullness. There was money and city polish written from the toes of his brown Italian loafers to the top of his expensive haircut.

“If you’re looking for a racehorse, I’m not inclined to sell. A few months ago, I did let a five-year-old go in a claiming race, but the ten I have now are all young and,” she flashed him a charming smile, “fast.”

Wyatt hadn’t been ready for the sight of this woman, nor the sexy tilt of her berry colored lips. He’d been expecting a cowgirl of course—what else would one find on a ranch?—but all the cowgirls he’d ever seen in Houston wore skin-tight blue jeans, overdone makeup and big hairdos.

But this girl, or more rightly this slip of a woman, sitting astride the nervous thoroughbred was nothing like that. She was wearing jeans all right, but they were black and loose fitting with the hems tucked into a pair of brown western boots that had intricate stitching on the tall tops. An old gray rugby shirt served as her blouse. In spite of the cool air, the neck was unbuttoned and the sleeves were pushed up to her elbows to show a pair of slender but strongly muscled forearms. Her straight hair was the color of rich burgundy wine. White the crown was covered with a red baseball cap, the cape of it lying against her back shone like red silk in the morning sun.

There was no makeup or artificial color to be found on her face, yet she looked anything but pale. The wind had blushed her cheeks and lips and her deep green eyes glittered like twin emeralds as she looked down at him from her lofty perch on the horse’s back.

“Actually,” he said, “I’m…not looking to buy a racehorse.”

Her winged brows arched at him. “Oh. Then you’re here about a bull. Well, you’ll have to see my sister, Rose.”

“I’m not here about a bull, either. I’m here…” He paused as he realized all the things he’d planned on saying, all the questions his mind had dwelled on these past weeks, were fast slipping away as he looked up at Chloe Murdochs face. She was nothing like the woman he’d thought he’d be dealing with, and the difference had thrown him.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“I’m here to talk to you.”

The chestnut was hot and if Chloe didn’t keep him moving while he cooled down, his muscles would be stiff tomorrow. She had no intention of letting that happen, no matter what business this man wanted to discuss.

“You’ll have to let me put Banjo on the walker.”

She reined the horse away from him and headed over to the stable. Wyatt followed, carefully stepping around piles of horse manure as he went.

At the stable, Chloe jerked off the small racing saddle, tossed it over the fence, then led the tall chestnut over to where three other horses were being mechanically led around a large circle.

After she’d fastened Banjo’s lead rope to one of the free arms and put the horses in motion again, she walked over to the stranger and extended her hand to him.

“Sorry about the interruption, er—Mr. Sanders, is it?”

Wyatt hadn’t planned on shaking Chloe Murdock’s hand, but he found it impossible to rebuff her. The genuine warmth he sensed about her compelled him to remain a gentleman.

“Yes,” he answered. “It’s Sanders. Wyatt Sanders.”

She had a healthy grip for someone with such a small hand. He could feel calluses on her palms, something he’d never encountered on a woman before. But then he’d never known any woman who actually did manual labor such as this one obviously did.

“Well, Mr. Sanders, what can I help you with today? Are you looking for land in this area?”

Her assumption put a quirk of amusement on his lips. “What makes you think that?” he found himself asking.

Chloe shrugged as she once again eyed him with open curiosity. “You’re obviously not from around here. I thought you might be in real estate.”

The wind was playing with her shoulder length hair, whipping a few strands across her face. She had pale golden skin, he noticed, with one freckle a fraction above the edge of her upper lip.

He forced himself to drop her hand, but his eyes refused to leave her face. Incredibly, she was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. “I’m an oilman from Houston, Texas,” he told her.

She smiled at that and Wyatt felt something inside him jerk as though he’d been stung by an arrow.

“A Texas oilman,” she repeated with faint amusement. “What are you doing out here in New Mexico? Looking to buy or lease the mineral rights in this area? I wasn’t aware this part of the state had petroleum resources. ‘Course, I know there’s the big Conoco field over by Eunice and there’s oil down at Lordsburg, but you’re talking at least a couple of hundred miles from here. And that’s all desert land. You’re in the mountains now.”

So Wyatt had noticed. One minute he’d been in the desert, then before he’d realized it the terrain had changed, and he’d been winding through forested mountains and lush green valley floor. The change in landscape had surprised him almost as much as the sight of Chloe Murdock. “I’m not here looking for oil. It’s something more personal.”

Her eyes narrowed at his evasiveness. “Personal? Dear God, I hope you’re not going to tell me it has something to do with my father Tomas,” she said without preamble.

“It does. In a way,” he said and was struck by how much he wanted to avoid the issue that had brought him to this ranch and this woman. It would have been pleasant to simply talk to her a few more minutes.

“Look, Mr. Sanders, my father has been dead for several months. I’m not trying to make excuses, but whatever he owes you, we didn’t know about it. We’ve been trying to pay off his debts, but for right now, all I can say is you’ll just have to stand in line and wait your turn.”

The memory of Belinda’s coffin being lowered into the ground suddenly flashed through Wyatt’s mind. “What your father owes me could never be repaid.”

“I beg your pardon?”

His gray eyes clashed with the spark of her green ones. “You heard what I said. Your father took something from me that can’t be compensated.”

Chloe was fast losing her patience with this man. He’d obviously come here for money. Why didn’t he just spit it out and be done with all this dallying around?

“I’ve always heard Texans go at things at a slower pace, but do you think for this one time you could speed things along and get to the point? I have lots of work waiting on me and the morning is already half gone.”

His jaw clenched. “Your father can’t give my sister back to me,” he said tightly.

Chloe drew in a sharp little breath. “Who are you?”

He took a step closer. “I told you who I was.”

Her full lips twisted at his response. “An oilman from Houston. So what connection do you have with me or this ranch?”

Her voice, which up until a moment ago had been warm and lilting, was now sharp-edged and demanding. “My sister was Belinda Waller and your father killed her,” he said flatly.

The first spill Chloe had taken on the galloping track had knocked the wind from her lungs and scrambled her senses. For several minutes she’d been unable to tell if the ground was really the sky or visa versa. Hearing Belinda Waller had a brother left her feeling as though she’d just taken another walloping fall.

“My father didn’t kill anybody,” she finally managed to say. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”

Turning, she left him standing on the muddy hillside. She knew he would follow her. He hadn’t come all this way to let things go at that. But Chloe was too shaken, too stunned to simply stand stock-still while the man bored holes in her with those cold gray eyes.

“I’m not going to be put off, Ms. Murdock. We have things to talk about.”

She glanced over her shoulder to see he’d joined her in the long, dim stable. For a moment all Chloe could think was that he looked like an alien standing there on the wood shavings in his crisply ironed cotton and softly worn leather. He wasn’t from this world, so why had he come here?

With a flip of her wrist, she jerked the baseball cap from her head and shook her hair back from her face. “Then talk. Who’s stopping you?”

His teeth ground together as he watched her slap the cap back on her head, then toss a shovel into a wheelbarrow and push it into an empty stall.

“I’d think you’d have the courtesy to go up to the house and give me your undivided attention.”

Chloe didn’t bother to look at him. Instead, she scooped up a shovelful of dirty wood shavings and horse manure. “I don’t have time to go through social niceties with you. And even if I did, I wouldn’t.”

Oilmen, even the ones like himself who worked in plush offices and drove Mercedeses, were used to blunt, rough talk interspersed with a wide range of four-letter words. It went with the business. But that was from his male counterparts. The women he encountered were always full of sugar and ready to give him all the attention he wanted. He couldn’t believe Chloe Murdock was dismissing him as though he were no better than the stuff she was tossing into the wheelbarrow.

“I didn’t come here to fight with you,” he said, trying his best to hold onto his temper.

“After what your sister did to my family, I can’t believe you had the gall to come here at all.”

Wyatt didn’t know what had come over him. Any other time, he would have taken hold of her shoulder and physically made her turn and face him. Instead, he found himself staring, fascinated by her rounded behind as she bent over the shovel, the fluid movements of her body as she pitched another scoopful.

“Flinging accusations at each other isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he said.

“I can’t say I want to get anywhere with you,” she said with a strained grunt as she forced the shovel point down through the packed shavings.

“You’re not making this any easier for either of us.”

Anger surged through Chloe, but she tried to take it out on the shovel instead of him. “Believe me, Mr. Sanders, nothing has been easy since my father died. And as for anyone killing anybody, I’d say your sister was the major contributor to the heart attack that killed Tomas. She was blackmailing him, you know. Milking him of his money, and his self-respect. What kind of woman would do that?”

“I think—”

Before he could say more, Chloe flung the shovel to the ground and whirled on him. Her eyes were shooting sparks as hot as her auburn hair. “Tell me, Mr. Sanders, what sort of woman would leave two little helpless babies on a porch and never look back? She didn’t care if they lived or died, so don’t come here whining about the loss of your sister. You’ll not get sympathy from me or anyone else on this ranch!”

Since he’d learned of Belinda’s death, Wyatt had been full of outrage and pain. He hadn’t stopped to think the Murdock family might be feeling as injured as he.

“I’m not looking for sympathy. Especially from you. I’ll be the first to admit that Belinda had her problems. I didn’t know about the twins or anything. Not until—” he paused and drew in a heavy breath “—it was already too late. But whatever her faults, she didn’t deserve to die in a mental hospital for criminals!”

Chloe could see real grief on Wyatt Sanders’s face and it touched her in spite of who he was and all that Belinda had done to her family. “I didn’t want your sister to die. None of my family wanted any such thing to happen.”

“Maybe not. But your father was the reason she was in trouble with the law in the first place.”

Chloe’s jaw dropped. The man was obviously as crazy as his sister had been. “How could you possibly think such a thing? Your sister was a dangerous, unstable woman. I’m sorry if that pains you, but that’s the way it was.”

Tight-lipped, he said, “My sister would never have been prompted to do the things she did if your father hadn’t seduced her and ruined her life.”

Chloe had always been cursed with a quick temper. Growing up, she’d often been punished for her angry outbursts. Ladies don’t fight, her mother had gently scolded Chloe when she’d come home one afternoon from grammar school with a fat lip. It hadn’t made any difference to Lola when Chloe’d tried to explain she’d punched the playground bully in the face because he’d been calling her best friend ugly names.

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.

Chapter Two

Now 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.

Chapter Three

“Wyatt, sugar, I can understand how cute and sweet your sister’s babies are, but I don’t believe you’ve stopped to consider what sort of care and responsibility it would take to raise them to adulthood. Not to mention the expense.”

Wyatt gazed out the Ruidoso motel room window as Sandra’s voice droned in his ear. It had been several hours since his encounter with Ms. Chloe Murdock, and he was still smarting from her high-handed attitude. He’d called Sandra back in Houston, thinking she would understand and commiserate with him. But so far she wasn’t making him feel a bit better.

He’d met her through a mutual friend and had found her blond, blue-eyed looks and classic taste in clothes reminiscent of a young Grace Kelly. He’d dated her a few times and the idea of proposing marriage to her had once crossed his mind. Not because he’d been in love with her. He hadn’t been. In fact, Wyatt was sure he’d never felt the real thing. He wasn’t even sure it existed. But he and Sandra had got on well enough and, though she liked money, she never put any emotional demands on him. Since he’d turned thirty the idea of marrying was starting to appeal to him, and he’d thought they might make a compatible team.

But he’d quickly learned Sandra wasn’t wife material for him or any man. Her career consumed the bigger part of her time, and since Wyatt had started talking about bringing the twins home to live with him, he could see that motherhood was not her forte either. Thank goodness, he and Sandra were no more than good friends now.

“I know babies require a lot of care, Sandra. But I have the money to provide them with a good nanny, and later on a college education. I can give them most anything they’ll need to have a relatively good life. And I think I owe them that much.”

“I can’t see that you owe them anything, Wyatt. Sure, they’re your sister’s kids, but that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your life for them.”

His brows drew together at her insensitive comment. The idea that all women were born with maternal instincts was a bunch of malarkey. Sandra had just proven it. And then there was his mother, whom he hadn’t heard a word from in the past twenty-six years. Dear Lord, had Belinda been just as uncaring of her twins? No, he didn’t believe it for a minute.

“I’d hardly call it a sacrifice, Sandra. I happen to like babies and children. I’ve always wanted some of my own.”

Sandra chuckled. “That’s hard to believe, Wyatt. You’ve never even talked about wanting to be a husband, much less a father.”

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. I just haven’t found the right woman.”

She laughed again. “I guess that means I was never in the running.”

He grimaced. “You and I both know you’d make an awful wife and mother, Sandra.”

She groaned with good humor. “You’re right. I’m a career woman. Period. But what about this Chloe Murdoch? You haven’t said that much about her. Does she seem like the mothering sort?”

Instead of the mountains, Wyatt was suddenly seeing Chloe’s pale golden skin and deep red hair, the fierce look in her green eyes when he’d talked about taking the twins home with him. Yes, she was a mother at heart. It was the very thing about her that bothered him the most.

Later that evening, when Rose arrived at the Bar M to help Chloe with the evening chores, her thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, Emily, was with her.

The moment the girl stepped down from the pickup truck, Chloe gave her a tight, affectionate hug. “Don’t tell me your mother is making you work this evening,” Chloe teased. “You know, if you let her, she can be a real slave driver.”

Emily cast Rose a loving smile. “No, she never makes me do anything. She always asks. But I volunteered this evening. I wanted to see for myself how Martin was doing.

Chloe waved a hand toward the calf’s pen. “He’s getting fat and slick and sassy. If you want to give him his supper, his bottle is in the feed room.”

“I would!”

Emily hurried away, leaving the two sisters standing on the worn foot-path leading to the stable.

“Aunt Kitty called and told me all about Mr. Sanders,” Rose said gravely. “Does Justine know?”

Chloe nodded. “I saw her this afternoon. She’s going to have Roy run a check on him.”

“What do you think she’ll find?”

Ever since Chloe had left Justine’s house, she’d been asking herself the very same thing. “I’m afraid Roy won’t find anything out of order.”

“So the guy seems respectable.”

Respectable? Chloe could think of a dozen other ways to describe the man. Cool, slick, insensitive and arrogant.

“On the surface,” she told Rose. “But who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll turn out to be a piece of trash.”

“Chloe!” Rose gently scolded. “That’s an awful thing to say.”

Chloe started walking in the direction of the stable. Rose followed, her long legs easily keeping up with Chloe’s shorter, quicker strides.

“Chloe, have you stopped to think that Adam and Anna are his relatives, too? It can’t be easy for the man having his sister die a drug-related death. And in a facility for the criminally insane, to boot.”

Chloe rolled her eyes at her sister. Like Justine, Rose was a beautiful woman. Tall and slender with long, wavy chestnut hair, she had a quiet gracefulness about her that Chloe had always admired. She was smart and strong and steady and Chloe had been thrilled a few months ago when she’d finally fallen in love and married. Yet there were times Chloe wanted to shake Rose’s composure.

“Rose, surely you haven’t forgotten the woman nearly killed you and Harlan!”

“I don’t know that she was intentionally trying to kill us,” Rose said thoughtfully. “There wasn’t any way she could have known we were riding fence when she started that fire. I think her plans were simply to kill our cattle and destroy our pasture-land. Not murder us.”

“You’ve too generous a heart, Rose,” Chloe said with a groan.

Rose shrugged. “The woman is gone, Chloe. I guess I can afford to be a little forgiving.”

Chloe’s lips compressed to a grim line. “Well, her brother isn’t gone,” she said. “And I have a feeling he’s going to be a much more formidable foe than Belinda Waller ever was.”

Beneath the brim of her battered felt hat, Rose’s pale green eyes grew wide with concern. “Why do you say that? Is the man deranged?”

“No. Wyatt Sanders isn’t deranged. He’s determined.” And Chloe desperately dreaded the moment she would see him again.

The next afternoon, Chloe decided to give Kitty a break from baby-sitting and herself a chance to spend a bit of time with the twins away from the ranch. After spending all night and the bigger part of the morning worrying and wondering about Wyatt Sanders and his threat to take the twins, she hoped a drive into town would cheer her dismal thoughts.

The day was sunny and very warm for early September, just the sort of weather that made her want to forget about work and simply stare up at the blue New Mexican sky. Something Chloe rarely got to do these days.

Before her father, Tomas, had died, there had been at least five wranglers to help work the ranch. Now there were only herself and Rose and Rose’s husband, Harlan, to see that everything got done.

Many nights Chloe lay awake too tired to sleep. During those times, she’d often thought about her father and how things had changed so drastically since his death. He’d not only left Chloe and her sisters with a pair of siblings, he’d left them very nearly broke. Chloe figured she should hate him for what he’d done, but she couldn’t. Good or bad, he was her father and she’d loved him fiercely.

Was that how Wyatt Sanders felt about his sister? Chloe wondered as she drove herself and the twins west toward Ruidoso. Was he blind to Belinda’s evil doings because she’d been his sister, or did he simply not know all the fear and damage she’d caused?

Whatever the case, Chloe wished she could be more forgiving, like Rose. She knew it wasn’t healthy to hold on to her anger. But she feared if she ever let herself weaken toward Wyatt Sanders, he’d find her soft spot, then batter it until she finally surrendered.

No, the best way to handle Wyatt Sanders, she decided, was to be cool and steadfast.

Wyatt was in his car, traveling down Mechem Drive, when he spotted the redheaded woman pushing a doubleseated baby stroller across the parking lot

Even though she was wearing a skirt and her hair was pulled neatly to the back of her head, he could tell it was her. She had that quick, snappy walk that made her curves jiggle in a most feminine, distracting way.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, he jammed on the brakes and flipped on the turn signal. Chloe Murdock obviously hadn’t come to town to see him, but she was going to, whether she liked it or not.

By the time Wyatt turned off the highway and parked the car, she was very nearly to the entrance of the grocery market. He called her name and she glanced over her shoulder. The moment she saw it was him she lifted her chin defensively.

“What do you want?” she asked as he drew within a few steps of her.

Wyatt shouldn’t have been surprised by her blunt question. After all, yesterday he hadn’t been all that congenial to her. But her coolness still managed to stop him in his tracks.

“I was driving down the street and happened to see you. I thought we might talk.”

“I’m busy.”

“I have a feeling you’re always busy,” he said, his eyes making a quick search of her face. She had a touch of makeup on today, the soft pink color on her lips matched the color of her sweater. She looked so enchanting he found it difficult to remember she was the enemy.

“Your feeling is right.”

Wyatt stepped to the front of the stroller for a better look at the twins. They were each dressed in bright printed T-shirts and denim overalls. The boy was wearing a baseball cap and the girl a floppy bonnet with a daisy pinned to the brim. Both children were mesmerized by the activity in the parking lot and paid little attention to him.

“Busy or not, Ms. Murdock, we’re going to have to talk at some point in time.” He lifted his gaze from the twins to look at her. “I’m a working man myself. I can’t stay away from my office indefinitely.” But he would stay as long as he could. As long as it took to make this woman see that the twins belonged in Houston where he could give them everything they needed.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, then silently thanked God Rose wasn’t here. Her sister hated it when Chloe was smart mouthed to anyone. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

To Chloe’s surprise, he smiled and as she took in the sexy curve of his lips, the white glint of his teeth and the crinkles at the corners of his gray eyes, she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of man he might be under more normal circumstances.

“No, you shouldn’t have,” he agreed. “But then I said a lot to. you yesterday that I probably shouldn’t have, either. So we’ll call things a draw.”

Even though Chloe had a short temper fuse at times, she normally liked people and got on with them quite well. Maybe if she could put her anger aside for a while, she might be able to reason with this man. That was the first course Rose and Justine thought she should take. And what could simply talking to the man really hurt?

“I had planned to take the twins for ice cream after I finished buying groceries. If you’d like to meet us at Fred’s in,” she glanced at her wrist watch, “about twenty minutes from now, I could talk then.”

It was much more than Wyatt expected to get from her and he wondered what had brought on the sudden change of heart. A moment ago, he could have sworn she was going to tell him to get lost or go talk to her lawyer.

“I’ll be there. Where is it?”

“Just stay on this main thoroughfare.” She inclined her head toward the street behind his shoulder. “Go down the mountain about three or four blocks toward the older part of town. Fred’s is a small place on the left.”

“Thank you, Ms. Murdock.”

The sincerity in his voice and on his face took her by complete surprise and for a moment she didn’t know what to say.

“No one calls me Ms. Murdock,” she told him. “Please call me Chloe.”

He smiled again and she felt her heart give a foolish little lurch.

“Okay, Chloe. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

She nodded in agreement, then pushed the stroller on toward the entrance of the grocery market. But for some crazy, unexplainable reason, it was a struggle for Chloe not to look over her shoulder and watch him walk back to his car.

Chapter Four

When Chloe entered Fred’s a half hour later, Wyatt Sanders was already seated at a window booth which overlooked the encroaching woods at the back of the building.

As she and the twins approached the booth, he stood and said, “I see you made it. Thank you for coming.”

He was smiling again, and that bothered Chloe. Mainly because it seemed so genuine and she wasn’t quite ready to believe in this man’s sincerity. “My shopping took a little longer than I anticipated. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

The smile deepened and Chloe felt an urgent need to draw a deeper breath.

“I have nothing else to do,” he said, then looked down at the twins. “Where are the babies going to sit?”

Chloe glanced over her shoulder to a spot where the high chairs were usually stored. She was thankful there were two empty ones. “If you’ll be kind enough to get a couple of those high chairs, we’ll put them at the end of the table.”

Wyatt fetched the chairs and Chloe quickly strapped each baby inside. Both children seemed to know they were in store for a treat. They each squealed with excitement and pounded the trays across their laps with chubby hands.

Chloe had just taken a seat across from Wyatt when a waitress arrived. Chloe quickly ordered a hot fudge sundae for herself and a bowl of vanilla ice cream for the twins. Wyatt simply wanted coffee.

After the woman had left, Wyatt said, “I really do appreciate your meeting me like this. I know it’s not something you particularly wanted to do.”

No. Meeting Wyatt Sanders for any reason wasn’t on her list of want-to-dos. But had she really had a choice in the matter?

“Whatever you might think, I’m not insensitive to the fact that the twins are your niece and nephew.”

His dark brows rose with faint surprise. “Well, whatever you might think, the fact that I’m their uncle means a lot to me.”

Her eyes connected with his and she felt a jolt rock her all the way down to her toes. “Your being here proves that to me,” she said, then deliberately turned her attention to the twins, who were still making a loud but happy ruckus.

Wyatt was trying hard not to stare at the soft profile of her face, when she turned back to him and asked, “Have you ever been to this part of the state before?”

“No. I’ve done a lot of traveling in the past few years, some of it overseas, but I must admit I’ve never been here before.”

The waitress appeared with their orders. After she’d placed them on the table and left, Wyatt went on, “Until I was notified of her death, I really had no idea my sister was in New Mexico. The last time I spoke to her, she told me she was in Vail, Colorado, and that she was planning on taking an extended vacation to Europe. That was over a year ago. Since then I tried contacting her at several of her old addresses, but I never heard a word.”

Like judging good horseflesh, Chloe could usually tell when a person was lying outright. In this case, she believed Wyatt was being entirely truthful.

Picking up a plastic spoon, she offered Anna a bite of the ice cream. Once the little girl had downed it, she did the same for Adam.

“Didn’t that worry you?” she asked Wyatt. “Not hearing from Belinda at all?”

Shrugging, Wyatt sipped his coffee, then said, “I wasn’t particularly uneasy about it. You should understand that my sister was…well, you might say she was a free spirit of sorts.”

“You didn’t see her often?”

He lowered his coffee cup onto the tabletop. “Not after she divorced. She moved away from Houston and traveled from place to place. I think that helped her get over the break from her husband. At least that’s what she implied.”

Chloe couldn’t help but be intrigued by this man and the woman who had turned her father’s head. “But Vail and Europe? How could she live like that? I know my father was sending her money. But not that sort of money!”

It didn’t take Wyatt but a moment to see what a chore it was to feed two babies at once. He motioned his head toward the bowl of ice cream.

“You’re never going to get to take a bite of your sundae. Why don’t you let me feed Adam?”

Him feed a baby? She shot him a skeptical look. “Do you know how to feed a baby?”

His tanned face took on a ruddy tinge. “Well, I haven’t ever actually fed one, but it doesn’t look that complicated. Just stick the spoon up to his mouth and let him do the rest.”

It was on the tip of Chloe’s tongue to turn down his offer. But for some reason, the idea struck her that it might do him good to see what caring for a baby, even in this small way, would be like.

Deliberately, she tucked more napkins around the neck of Adam’s T-shirt and overall bib, then handed Wyatt another spoon. “Okay, you’re welcome to give it a try,” she told him.

Eager, but tentative, Wyatt scooped up a spoonful of ice cream and stuck it up to Adam’s lips. At first the boy was so intrigued by the idea of being fed by a stranger, he merely stared, mouth closed, at Wyatt.

“What’s the matter with him? He was eating fine for you.”

Chloe kept a smug smile to herself. “He doesn’t know you. Would you let a stranger poke something into your mouth?”

Wyatt frowned as he watched little Anna open her lips and smack the ice cream from Chloe’s spoon.

“Okay, young man,” he said to the cherub-faced little boy. “I’m your Uncle Wyatt. I’m not a stranger. It’s perfectly safe to eat what I give you.”

Adam cocked his head to one side, looked at his sister and Chloe, then burst out with a string of coos and giggles.

Wyatt lowered the spoon. “He thinks I’m funny.”

Chloe chuckled softly. “He thinks you’re different.”

He glanced across the table at her. She was feeding herself now, digging the thick fudge off the bottom of the plastic bowl. Even though she ate daintily, he could see she was relishing every bite. It was a refreshing sight for Wyatt. Most of the women he knew considered picking at a plate of lettuce and bean sprouts to be eating a meal.

“Are the twins not used to being around men?” he asked.

“My brothers-in-law, Harlan and Roy, see the twins most everyday,” she assured him, then motioned her head toward the spoon of melting ice cream in his hand. “Offer it to him again. He’s had time to think about you now.”

“All right, little buddy,” he said to Adam. “Here it is. Don’t just look at it. Eat it.”

Adam complied this time and Wyatt breathed a sigh of relief. He was a grown man and he’d been assuring this woman the twins would be better off in his care. It wouldn’t look good if he couldn’t even manage to feed the baby a spoonful of ice cream.

“You were wondering about Belinda’s finances,” he began, as Adam continued to eat the ice cream from the spoon. “Well, at one time my sister had enough money to go to Europe or wherever she wanted.”

“You say she had the money at one time. When was that?” she asked as she continued to feed Anna.

Chloe’s question caused his features to tighten, but then Adam smacked his lips, and Wyatt looked at the baby and smiled.

“My father was an executive for a big petroleum firm in Houston. When he died, my sister and I inherited money and stocks. Enough to leave us both quite secure. I never worried or wondered if Belinda was squandering her part. When we talked, she always assured me her finances were doing fine. That she was doing fine. But now…” He let out a rueful sigh. “I don’t know what happened. If she left any of the money or stock certificates somewhere in a bank, I can’t find it.”

“From what Roy—you remember I told you the sheriff is my brother-in-law?” Wyatt nodded and Chloe went on, “Well, Roy said it appeared to him that Belinda was barely scraping by. The last few places she’d lived in were… rattraps.”

Wyatt shook his head. “I don’t disbelieve your brother-in-law. I’m not going to dispute what he apparently saw firsthand. I just find it…incredible to think Belinda was broke. I realize she liked to travel and entertain. And she was never stingy when it came to her friends, but she wasn’t stupid. I can’t imagine her wasting all that money. It was her security.”

When Chloe had first agreed to meet with Wyatt, she hadn’t necessarily expected to be discussing Belinda. She’d figured the only thing this man wanted to say to her was that he wanted the twins and meant to get them at any cost. But now, as she looked across the table and watched him awkwardly spooning ice cream into Adam’s mouth, she could see a sadness in his eyes that told her he was a man alone. And that touched her more than anything he could have said.

“I wish there was something I could tell you,” she said to him. “But you see, our father…well, we didn’t know anything about Belinda. What little we do know about her is what she told the authorities. She said she met Daddy at the racetrack here at Ruidoso Downs.”

His lips twisted with wry fondness. “That sounds true enough. Belinda liked to play the horses.”

“So did Daddy.” She absently dipped into her sundae as memories of Tomas welled up inside her. He’d been a big burly man full of humor and a zest for life. She hadn’t known any other man who had loved horses as much as her father. Nor would she ever find a man who would love her as much as he had. The ache of missing him was still like a knife blade in her heart.

Glancing up at Wyatt, she asked, “Do you have a mother?”

Adam appeared to be full of ice cream. Wyatt put the spoon down and gently wiped the boy’s mouth with the corner of a napkin.

“My mother left when I was very young.”

“Left? You mean she passed away?”

His handsome mouth twisted as though her question had left acid on his tongue. “No. I mean she left. Literally. Walked out and never came back.”

Even though Chloe had no reason to be embarrassed, she was. Splotches of red heat filled her cheeks.

“I shouldn’t have asked. But since the twins’ grandparents are gone on my side I was curious.” She dipped her spoon into the melting sundae. “I guess not having grandparents isn’t the end of the world.” But having a mother desert you would be, Chloe thought sadly.

He sighed. “I suppose there might be ways of tracing my mother, but that could take years. And what would be the point? She didn’t want me or Belinda. She certainly wouldn’t be interested in grandchildren.”

Dear God, were there really women in this world like that? Of course she’d heard stories on the news, but still it was so difficult for her to imagine any woman turning away from her own children.

“So it’s been just you and Belinda? You don’t have any other family?”

He shook his head. “My father was an only child. We never knew any of our mother’s family.”

She kept her eyes on the tabletop. “You’re…uh, not married?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Chloe glanced up to see a faint frown marring his forehead. “What’s the matter? You’re divorced?”

“No. I’ve never been married.” He picked up his coffee cup. “I was just wondering why you asked.”

Chloe shifted on the padded bench and wondered why her heart was behaving as if she’d just run a mile. “Because I…wondered if perhaps you had a wife back home who wanted the babies.”

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