The Tycoon's Tots, page 10
Wyatt wasn’t stingy or greedy. In fact, he gave large sums of money to different charities throughout the year. But being rich had made him a target. And more often than not, he’d had to learn the hard way that people weren’t really interested in him, but only what he and his money could do for them.
Maybe Chloe would never be that way. But she was hurting for funds. She might be sorely tempted to use him, and he couldn’t let himself give her that chance.
“Where do you buy your firewood? In Ruidoso?”
An odd look crossed her face. “Buy it? I don’t buy it, I take the chain saw and the four-wheel drive up the mountain and cut it myself.”
Wyatt was so taken aback by her answer he could only stare at her.
Finally, she wiped a finger at the corner of her mouth. “What’s the matter? Do I have something on my face?”
No, he did and it was usually called egg. Thank God, she couldn’t know what he’d just been thinking. “No— uh—I’m sorry if I was staring. I was just…” He got up and went over to the fireplace and stacked several logs on the cold grate. “Well, just don’t worry about the firewood,” he said gruffly. “I’ll help you cut it.”
He wouldn’t be here long enough for that, Chloe thought, but she didn’t say anything as she watched him stick a match to the kindling. She certainly didn’t want Wyatt thinking she was so miserly she sat around in a cold house.
Before long, flames were licking at the logs, radiating heat out over the sitting area. Wyatt stood to one side of the hearth, listening to the snap of the pine and the baby talk the twins were swapping with each other. There were no honking horns or squealing tires, no sirens or shouts from noisy neighbors.
Out here, the only sounds to be heard were the wind whispering through the pines, the occasional nicker of a horse and once, before Chloe had come in from the stable, he thought he’d heard the distant howl of a coyote or wolf. Altogether it was a lonely but peaceful silence and nothing like he’d ever experienced before.
“What do you normally do in the evenings like this?” he asked Chloe.
She was curled up on one end of the sofa, her head resting against the back. At first glance her beauty was the thing he noticed, but on closer inspection he recognized the paleness of her face, the shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.
She should be living in a gentle, tropical climate where she wouldn’t have to work in the bitter cold or dry, blistering heat, Wyatt thought. Did she never long for an easier life?
“Rest,” she said. Then realizing how that must sound to him, she added, “Sometimes my sisters and their families come over. We eat and play cards and visit. And other times, after the twins are asleep, Aunt Kitty and I watch a movie on the VCR or read.” She didn’t go on to tell him that most evenings there was laundry to be folded and put away, the kitchen to be cleaned and the babies to be bathed and put to bed.
She instinctively knew that Wyatt had come from a family where there had always been housekeepers to do such manual chores. The women he knew could probably sit around the house in their “good” clothes, read fashion magazines and eat bonbons. Chloe wouldn’t mind having a little extra help now and then. But she didn’t want a life of leisure.
Wyatt glanced at the television set in the corner of the room. During the times he’d been out here to the ranch, he had yet to see it on. “You don’t watch TV?”
She shrugged. “The news and weather. It’s hard to keep up with a story while the twins are awake. The first thing you know you’re chasing one of them or changing a diaper and,” she smiled wanly, “you’ve missed part of the plot.”
Somehow he knew that didn’t bother Chloe. She was a woman who obviously put entertainment as the least important of her needs.
Sighing, he stepped off the hearth and walked over to the long paned windows that overlooked the front yard. In the daylight a high mountain range could be seen rising to the north, but tonight it was so dark even the pines shading the yard couldn’t be discerned.
From the couch, Chloe watched Wyatt staring out the windows. She knew he was restless. This isolated place, as he’d called it, was probably boring him silly. But Chloe hardly knew what to do about it. She wasn’t forcing him to stay. If he wanted to leave, all he had to do was get his things and go.
“It looks very cloudy out tonight. Is it possible for it to snow around here at this time of the year?”
“It’s mid-September. In the higher elevations like here on the ranch, anything is possible. We have had a snow flurry in August before.”
He smiled and shook his head in disbelief. “We’re in the middle of hurricane season at home and it’s still as hot as a firecracker.”
He moved away from the windows and went over to the twins. Squatting down on his bootheels, he murmured something to the babies, then stacked the scattered blocks in a pyramid between their chubby little legs. The minute he finished, Adam took one healthy swat at the structure and sent the whole lot tumbling down.
Upset by her brother’s rowdy attitude, Anna began to pucker up and cry. Wyatt lifted the little girl from the floor and cuddled her in his arms.
“I know, sweetheart,” he crooned to her. “Your brother is an ornery little thing. When he gets older we’re going to have to teach him some manners.”
Anna bellowed louder and pointed her arm at her brother, who was happily banging the plastic blocks against the tile floor.
Wyatt carried Anna over to a swivel rocker and sat down with her. “Here,” he told the baby, “I’ve got something you can play with.”
Chloe watched him fish in the front pocket of his jeans. After a moment he pulled out a beautiful pocket watch on a chain. He swung it temptingly in front of Anna, then allowed her tiny fist to grab it. Naturally, the little girl took the timepiece straight to her mouth.
“Wyatt! She’ll ruin your watch,” Chloe exclaimed.
“It won’t hurt her, will it?”
“No. But she’ll get it wet.”
“It’s waterproof. Besides, if it stops running I can always buy another one and let the twins have this one for a toy.”
Chloe groaned inwardly. The twins would be rotten once he left here, she thought, and then her mind froze with dawning reality. How could she have forgotten, even for a moment, that Wyatt planned to take the twins back to Houston with him? Because just for a moment she’d imagined the four of them as a family. She and Wyatt taking care of the twins together. Always. What was the matter with her? Had she gone crazy?
Tell Wyatt how it really is with you. Justine’s suggestion crept into Chloe’s mind like an insidious snake looking for a crack to wiggle through. What would he really think if she told him she was unable to bear children? Chloe asked herself, then silently cursed as she imagined his response.
He’d pity her, no doubt. Like Richard, he’d probably even go on to tell her what a shame and what an unfair thing to have happened to her. But in the end, he’d say her condition had nothing to do with the twins’ future security. Wealth and their chance to have it meant far more to Wyatt than Chloe being childless for the rest of her life. And maybe he was right, she thought glumly. Maybe she was the one being selfish and narrow minded.
“Chloe? What’s the matter?”
She looked at him blankly and he said, “You’ve got a horrible frown on your face. Do you have a headache?”
As far as she was concerned Wyatt wasn’t just a headache, he was a full-blown migraine, the kind that hung on for days. “No. I was just…thinking about something.” She got to her feet before he could press her. “I’m going to go clean up the kitchen. Think you can handle the twins for a few minutes?”
She was too tired to be doing the dishes, but he bit down on the words. What was the use of pointing out something she already knew? Especially if he wasn’t going to do anything to change her plight? The questions made him so uncomfortable he actually shifted in the chair.
“Why don’t you let me clean the kitchen and you watch the twins?” he suggested.
Chloe shook her head and smiled. “You’ve got Anna pacified and Adam seems to be behaving himself for the moment. Let’s not rock the boat. When I finish in the kitchen, I’ll come back and get them ready for bed.”
A half hour later both twins were sound asleep. Wyatt laid them side by side in the playpen, then covered them with a soft blanket.
In the kitchen he found Chloe dust mopping the floor. The dishes were done, the countertops and cook range cleaned. She’d obviously been busy since she’d left him in the living room.
“Where are the twins?” she asked when she looked up and saw him walking toward her.
“Both asleep. In the playpen.” He let out an audible breath. “It’s like two little tornadoes have shut down.”
Leaning on the mop handle, she smiled at him. “I guess for a person who’s never been around babies before, you had a double shock treatment today.”
He grinned. “I never stopped to consider how totally dependent babies are. You can’t turn your back or leave them alone for one minute.”
“That’s true.”
He glanced toward the cabinet and the coffeemaker. “Would you mind if I made another pot of coffee? I’ll clean up the mess.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” she said as she went back to her sweeping. “I want you to make yourself at home here.”
She went back to her mopping, and Wyatt began to gather the coffee fixings. While he worked Chloe’s comment lingered with him. Make yourself at home. It was funny how different that word felt to him now. During the years he’d been growing up, home had been a mammoth two-story house in the old, moneyed section of Houston. Wyatt had grown up having most anything he wanted. The best clothes and a roomful of anything a young boy might want to entertain himself. He’d been in Little League, Scouting and summer camps. Then later he’d advanced to motorcycles, cars, girls and college.
His father had provided him with the best of everything and along the way instilled in him a hard-driving ambition that had gotten him where he was today.
But as far as the Sanders mansion feeling like home, he couldn’t say. At the time he’d called it home and he’d known it was a place he could always come back to if need be. Yet it had never felt like this place. There hadn’t been babies or messes or laughter or eating in the kitchen. There hadn’t been a woman around to nurture or love him. The way Chloe loved the twins.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Chloe returning the dust mop to the pantry. “You will join me for a cup, won’t you? Or does the caffeine keep you awake?”
She could have told him he was far more potent than caffeine.
“It doesn’t make any difference if I drink coffee or not. I…don’t sleep very well.” And she expected she was going to sleep even less now that he was in the house. How could she close her eyes and go to sleep when she knew he was in bed across the hall from her and that the two of them were alone?
“What time do you get up in the mornings?” he asked.
“Four-thirty. But that doesn’t mean you have to. The twins usually don’t wake until six or so.”
Seeing the coffee had finished dripping, he poured two cups and carried them over to the table. Chloe followed and took a seat kitty-corner from him.
“Maybe you’d better go over your schedule with me,” Wyatt suggested. “Otherwise, I’m going to be totally lost.”
“There’s not that much of a schedule around here,” she told him. “I get up, get dressed and go to the stable to feed, then come back and eat breakfast. Afterwards, I go back to the stable to start exercising. Since I have ten horses at the present, I get half of them galloped by lunchtime, the other half by mid-afternoon. Then later in the evening, before it’s time to start feeding again, I muck out the dirtiest of the stalls.”
“When do you ever have time to do anything else?” he asked, amazed at her daily ritual.
She shrugged and sipped her coffee. “I have to let things go undone. Or Rose and Emily take over for me.”
Coffee glistened on her pink lips and without warning, he was thinking of this morning when he’d kissed her. And she’d kissed him back. The taste of her was still with him, niggling at him, reminding him how good it would be to simply touch her hand, if nothing else. He’d never in his life felt such a physical longing for anyone and the fact left him feeling strangely vulnerable.
“If you do all you say you do, what is there left around the place for Rose to do?”
She laughed softly. “I know to someone who isn’t familiar with ranch work it seems like things move slowly and there couldn’t be much to do other than watch the cows graze in the pasture, but believe me, there is. After Daddy died, Rose and I split the work accordingly between us. She’d always worked with the cows and me the horses so we kept things that way. She has several hundred head of cattle to keep up with over several thousand acres of land. During the winter, feed and hay have to be hauled for miles across rough pastureland. She has to ride fenceline. And on a spread this large, that means hundreds of miles of it. The windmills also have to be checked periodically and there’re always sick animals to be doctored, heifers needing help calving. The list goes on and on. It’s a never-ending job.”
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.
