Tara Quinn - The Cowboy's Twins

But they were seven. And it was TV.

Not sure if he was praying that the kids were there or not, he sped up, his boots kicking up dust on the dry ground as he switched course.

“Today I’m giving you my best peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” Cocking his head, Spencer picked up his pace even more as he heard his daughter’s voice coming out loud and clear from a location that was still some distance away.

A mixture of stunning relief—they were safe!—and tense disappointment—they’d not only disobeyed him, they’d involved the one place on the farm he wanted them the least—flooded him. No one had prepared him for the emotional roller coaster of parenting.

“I have the best bread—white—and I have two pieces of it...” He’d always served his kids wheat bread because it was healthier, but Betsy had white bread at home, and when they ate there...

His step grew heavier, frustration growing right along with dread. He’d heard that the Family Secrets crew had gone into town for the afternoon and evening—and had been relieved to have the place to himself. If Tabitha had found a way to make a mic work, he could only imagine the damage Justin had done.

Was doing.

“I have peanut butter—just the butter part, no peanuts.”

She liked it smooth.

“And jelly—we use grape because Daddy likes it best, not jam with the lumps in it.” The note of authority in her childish voice was growing in leaps and bounds.

Spencer started to leap, too, or at least it felt that way as he took the last few yards at a dead run.

He couldn’t afford to repair an entire studio.

Nor did Family Secrets have time to build another one. Contestants were due to arrive the next day.

Rounding the corner in the barn, his worst imaginings became reality. There was Justin, sitting at what could only be some kind of sound board—or control center. His hands were on knobs. Turning.

“I take a knife, this kind, because I’m not allowed to use the sharp ones...” Tabitha’s voice was loud and clear—far too loud and clear—coming from somewhere on the other side of a temporary wall. He didn’t want to think of the mess she was making.

He’d seen her “cook.”

Justin hadn’t noticed him yet, and Spencer had to rein himself in before he approached his recalcitrant son. The boy had gone too far this time.

He was going to be meting out some serious discipline.

As soon as he trusted himself not to lash out first.

His good day had just gone really, really bad.

* * *

“JUSTIN GERALD LONGFELLOW, please take your hand off that board. Now.”

Natasha froze. And watched as seven-year-old Tabitha, with a rather large glob of peanut butter dangling from her table knife, stopped moving, as well. Rising from her seat in the middle row of the bleachers in their makeshift studio, Natasha kept her eye on the child but spoke into the headset she was wearing.

“Justin, are you okay?” She hadn’t recognized the voice she’d just heard issuing an order to the boy in what could only be termed a threatening tone.

But then, the only men she’d spoken to on the farm, other than her own crew members, were Spencer Longfellow and the cowboy, Bryant.

“No, ma’am.” She’d known the child only for about an hour, but long enough to tell her that the vulnerable tone in his voice was not common.

“Who are you talking to?” The male voice came again. But Natasha recognized it that time.

“Spencer?” she called as she rounded the corner of the wall in back of the stage. Locating the control booth behind the stage had not been anyone’s first choice, but for remodeling cost effectiveness and electric concerns, they’d made the decision to put it there. Monitors allowed views of the stage from every angle. Monitors that were not currently turned on.

“Natasha?” The cowboy in dusty, faded jeans, a red plaid shirt and the inevitable boots stood there, his gaze piercing as he looked between her and his son.

“I’m so sorry...” Words came tumbling out of her mouth. “It didn’t occur to me that I should have told you I was keeping them awhile,” she said. “It should have. I apologize.”

His frown deepened. The opposite of the effect for which she’d been aiming.

“Tabitha? You can join us.” Spencer’s tone, though not as fierce, still remained unrelenting.

The little girl, knife still in hand, though free of peanut butter, came around the corner of the stage. She didn’t walk down the steps.

And Natasha’s heart gave a little twitch. She’d told both children they weren’t to climb those stairs unattended because the safety rail had been defective—the wrong size had been sent—and the new one wasn’t being installed until the morning.

Moving forward, she took Tabitha’s hand and held on while the girl slowly descended the four steps to the linoleum laid temporarily on the barn’s dirt floor.

“I’m sorry, too, Daddy,” Tabitha said. But while Justin’s face was pointed at the floor, his sister’s nose pointed straight at their father. Natasha’s heart noted that, too.

What in the heck was wrong with her, getting emotional all of a sudden? These children were interlopers who’d interrupted her only afternoon with solo access to the studio. She had much to do to satisfy herself that the set was ready to welcome contestants the next day.

And...

“I’m disappointed in you,” Spencer said, the words clearly delivered to his daughter. Her lower lip quivered.

“Wait.” Natasha couldn’t stand back, in spite of her self-admonition to do so. “It’s not her fault...”

She knew she’d made a mistake before his gaze landed on her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“What did I tell you two about this barn?” he asked.

“Not to go here,” Tabitha answered, still looking right at him.

“Justin?”

With his chin to his chest, the boy mumbled, “Stay away.”

“You have Ms. Stevens apologizing for you, but I’m fairly certain that she didn’t pick you up and carry you to this barn, did she?”

“No.” Justin spoke, though he didn’t look up to see that his father was pinning him with that stare.

“You walked here.”

“Yes.”

“Even though I told you not to.” He glanced at Tabitha then, too.

“We didn’t walk, Daddy,” she said, her big brown eyes solemn as she shook her head of long, tangled hair.

“You didn’t.”

“No, Daddy, we ran.”

“You ran over here?” The little girl had his full attention. “Even though you know I expressly forbade you to be here?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

In that second, Natasha’s feelings of protectiveness toward the children changed to sympathy for the man standing there in front of them. He was clearly perplexed.

And alone in his parenting responsibilities.

She could only imagine... No, she couldn’t even imagine trying to run a ranch and be the sole parent of two hooligans with acres and acres spread before them...tempting them...

“Because I was chasing Justin.”

Spencer’s brow cleared. For the second it took him to face his son. Down on his haunches, he placed his face within inches of the boy’s.

“Is this true, Justin?” Spencer’s tone was soft now but, Natasha imagined, no less menacing to his seven-year-old son.

“Course. Tabitha doesn’t lie...”

Implying that the boy did?

“You deliberately disobeyed me,” Spencer reiterated.

The boy nodded.

“You weren’t chasing a butterfly...there was no frog hopping in this direction...you didn’t think you’d heard a cow...you weren’t lost...”

The ease with which the words came gave Natasha the idea they were all excuses Spencer had heard before.