SUSAN MEIER - Oh, Babies!

“Maybe you should.”

He stared at her. “How?” he asked incredulously. “Should I take a Gallop poll?”

She laughed at him again and his eyes narrowed. He should be angry with her for laughing at him. Instead he felt only breathless relief that he could actually talk about his burdens with an objective, independent listener.

“No, but you could try looking around every once in a while. Check for a grimace or a frown. Ask your brothers for an opinion here and there.”

“I do ask for my brothers’ opinions.”

“Do you take them into consideration?”

“Of course, I take…” He stopped. He honestly didn’t really know if he ever took his brothers’ opinions into consideration. He listened to them, then tossed them into the vat of information stored in his brain, which he assimilated in a certain fashion, then used to make decisions as he needed them.

“You don’t know, do you?” Kristen asked archly.

He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck again. What was he doing, confiding in a stranger? Yes, he knew it felt good to have somebody to talk with, especially someone objective, but this woman was only objective because she was a newcomer to his household. She was also an employee. No smart boss confided in his employees.

“No, I don’t know,” he replied. “And this conversation is over.”

“Can’t handle it?”

“No. It’s none of your business,” Grant corrected, rising and walking to a crib. “I’ve known you eight hours and I’ve already told you my deepest, darkest secrets.”

Following suit, Kristen also took her baby to a crib. “If those were your deepest, darkest secrets, Grant Brewster, you’ve got to get a life.”

The words sent an odd chill up Grant’s spine because they were exactly the thoughts he’d been having as he watched his baby brother get married.

Careful, cautious, he faced her. In her little pink sweater and a pair of loose-fitting jeans that knew exactly which parts of her anatomy to hug, Kristen Devereaux didn’t have a clue how much he really wanted to have a life—or at least some good old-fashioned excitement—with her.

Kristen seemed too damned young to have been married. She seemed too damned young not to have any family but a cantankerous old bat housekeeper she didn’t know. She seemed too damned young to be wise, and wonderful…and widowed.

Actually she was probably too damned young for him.

He took a long breath and blew it out. “Let’s go,” he said, motioning to the door. “Though the triplets usually sleep through the night now, there are no guarantees. There’s a monitor in your room and one in mine. First one to awaken has to get the kids. That’s the rule. So, I suggest that you go straight to your room and go straight to bed.”

Boy, he wished he hadn’t said that. Instant, graphic images of her sliding between satin sheets came to mind. He could see her hair fanned out on a pillow. He could envision her face softened in sleep. He could feel her nestled against him.

Oh, great! As if he needed to remind himself of the last image.

“Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to shower—” in cold water “—and then I’m going straight to bed.”

He said the last as he led her into the hall and more or less pointed her to the bedroom she’d been assigned.

But as he shuffled off as if his feet were on fire, Kristen dallied in going to her room. When she heard his door shut with a very distinct and final click, she pivoted and ran down the hall, down the steps of the spiral staircase, through the foyer and kitchen and to Mrs. Romani’s door.

It opened immediately.

“Well?” the gruff-voiced housekeeper asked as she granted Kristen entry.

“I think everything went okay. But I didn’t actually make up a story like you told me to. We started talking and before I knew it I was explaining that my husband and sister had died.”

Mrs. Romani gasped in horror.

“I didn’t go into any kind of detail and he assumed that because my family had died I’d come looking for a long, lost relative—you.”

“ He came up with that?”

Kristen nodded.

Mrs. Romani grinned. “Oh, that’s rich.”

But Kristen frowned. “I don’t like fooling him. I don’t like fooling anybody.”

“That’s why this is so rich,” Mrs. Romani said, patting Kristen’s hand. “ You never told him anything. He made assumptions. Now we don’t have to make up a story. We can more or less behave like strangers getting to know each other, which we are. And we also don’t have to worry that he’ll ask too many questions because you told him you lost your family, and he’s very sensitive about loss.”

Kristen licked her suddenly dry lips. “I know.”

“He confided in you?”

“Little things. Bits and pieces,” Kristen clarifed uncertainly.

“Well, now,” Mrs. Romani said, and with a satisfied smirk directed Kristen to the door. “Sounds like everything will run smooth as clockwork. I don’t have anything to worry about. And you don’t have anything to worry about.”

But she did, Kristen thought, sneaking back to her room. She wasn’t a person who was built for deception, and she especially didn’t like deceiving someone as burdened as Grant Brewster. But more than that, they had feelings for each other. Not only were they instantly attracted, but they were instantly empathetic, because they’d gone through some similar situations. When he discovered who she was he was going to be insulted and angry, unless she kept their relationship distant or, if possible, nonexistent from this point forward so his level of betrayal would be lower than it would be if they became friends.

Since that was the logical choice, that’s what she intended to do. Keep her distance. Avoid becoming friends. Ignore the attraction.

Kristen had the girls dressed in bright pink sweat suits and was feeding them breakfast when Grant came downstairs the next morning. Everything was under control until she looked up at the kitchen doorway in which he stood, then the spoon she held stopped midway to Taylor’s open mouth.

Not only was he wearing a neat black suit, white shirt and paisley tie, but he had shaved his beard. His beard. The one thing about him that could be construed as even remotely unattractive was gone. Replaced by a clean, smooth face of angles and planes so handsome and male that Kristen’s heart skipped a beat.

He caught her gaze and gave her a casual smile, but Kristen only stared at him.

“Good morning,” he said and walked into the room. “I saw that you had the kids up so I just got myself dressed. I hope it wasn’t a problem.”

“The children got me up about an hour ago,” Kristen said as she slid a spoonful of oatmeal into Annie’s mouth. Shaving his beard had taken her by surprise, but her reaction to him wasn’t new. The night before she’d decided to handle this, and she would. “Mrs. Romani helped me with breakfast.”

“I helped her prepare breakfast,” Mrs. Romani corrected, because—Grant knew—his short housekeeper with the overbleached hair and a sharp, crackly voice from cigarettes had no intention of letting anyone get the wrong impression. “As far as those babies go, she’s handled everything herself.”

“Really?” Grant asked, striding to the coffeepot, sternly stifling the tingles of awareness that were beginning to expand in his stomach. With Kristen’s sleep-tousled hair, and her curves clearly outlined by the soft flannel of her yellow robe, not only did she look cuddly and beautiful, but her genuine interest in the babies gave her an allure that couldn’t be matched by mere physical beauty.

But though the tingles of awareness yearned to turn into full-scale sexual arousal, Grant was determined not to let them. Kristen Devereaux was a woman with problems. He might not have clearly realized that the night before, but in the light of day everything had made perfect sense. She understood him because she understood loss. He was grieving his father, regretting his mistakes. She was grieving her husband and her sister. They were an emotionally wounded duo, who definitely, positively, absolutely shouldn’t get involved.