Stella Bagwell - The Tycoon's Tots

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.