Loe raamatut: «Babies in the Bargain»

Kira opened the manila folder and took out the newspaper article from the Denver Post.

It was a small piece about two Montana men—one an off-duty police officer and the other a Northbridge business owner—who had rushed into a burning house to rescue a family trapped inside. The two men had saved the family and then had gone back in for the pets only to have a beam knock Addison Walker unconscious and break Cutler Grant’s ankle. Still, Officer Grant had managed to drag the unconscious businessman to safety.

The name Addison Walker meant nothing to Kira.

But Cutler Grant—that was something else. Kira knew a Cutty Grant.

Could it be the same man who held the truth about her long-lost sister? Whether this would turn out to be a wild-goose chase or she was about to embark on an adventure with destiny, Kira had to find the injured cop. She owed it to her family and to herself.

Bottom line: this man was her only hope.

Dear Reader,

We’re smack in the middle of summer, which can only mean long, lazy days at the beach. And do we have some fantastic books for you to bring along! We begin this month with a new continuity, only in Special Edition, called THE PARKS EMPIRE, a tale of secrets and lies, love and revenge. And Laurie Paige opens the series with Romancing the Enemy. A schoolteacher who wants to avenge herself against the man who ruined her family decides to move next door to the man’s son. But things don’t go exactly as planned, as she finds herself falling…for the enemy.

Stella Bagwell continues her MEN OF THE WEST miniseries with Her Texas Ranger, in which an officer who’s come home to investigate a murder fins complications in the form of the girl he loved in high school. Victoria Pade begins her NORTHBRIDGE NUPTIALS miniseries, revolving around a town famed for its weddings, with Babies in the Bargain. When a woman hoping to reunite with her estranged sister finds instead her widowed husband and her children, she winds up playing nanny to the whole crew. Can wife and mother be far behind? THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT by Christine Flynn concludes with Prodigal Prince Charming, in which a wealthy playboy tries to help a struggling caterer with her business and becomes much more than just her business partner in the process. Brand-new author Mary J. Forbes debuts with A Forever Family, featuring a single doctor dad and the woman he hires to work for him. And the men of the CHEROKEE ROSE miniseries by Janis Reams Hudson continues with The Other Brother, in which a woman who always contend her handsome neighbor as one of her best friends suddenly finds herself looking at him in a new light.

Happy reading! And come back next month for six new fabulous books, all from Silhouette Special Edition.

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Babies in the Bargain
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICTORIA PADE

is a bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romance fiction, and mother of two energetic daughters, Cori and Erin. Although she enjoys her chosen career as a novelist, she occasionally laments that she has never traveled farther from her Colorado home than Disneyland, instead spending all her spare time plugging away at her computer. She takes breaks from writing by indulging in her favorite hobby—eating chocolate.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter One

Darkness hadn’t completely fallen when Kira Wentworth drove from farm-and-ranch land into the city proper of Northbridge, Montana, on Wednesday night. Still, most of the stores and shops that lined the small college town’s main thoroughfare were closed. Even the gas station was being locked up as she pulled into the lot.

“Excuse me,” Kira said from the window of her rental car to the attendant as he removed the key from the door and pocketed it. “Can I bother you for directions?”

“Nothin’s hard to find in Northbridge,” the teenage boy informed her as if she was asking a dumb question.

He did come to the side of her car, though.

“I’m looking for one-o-four Jellison Street,” she informed him.

The freckle-faced teenager didn’t have to think about it before he said, “That’s the Grant place. Officer Grant is laid up with a broken ankle so he should be there.”

The teenager gave her brief instructions. Then, without another word, he rounded her car to go to the single island and padlock the nozzle on the only gas pump.

“Thank you,” Kira called after him.

“Sure,” he answered, taking off on foot and leaving her behind without a second glance.

Kira rolled up the car window again and turned the air conditioner higher. Just the thought that she was within three blocks of her destination increased her stress level and made her hotter than even the mid-July temperature warranted.

Hoping the heat and the drive through the open countryside hadn’t made her look too much the worse for wear, she glanced at herself in the rearview mirror before heading out of the gas station.

Her mascara hadn’t left smudges around her blue eyes, and light mauve lipstick still stained lips that weren’t too thin or too thick. But despite the fact that she’d reapplied blush in the Billings Airport when she’d landed, her skin looked pale again.

“It might not even be the same guy,” she reminded her reflection. “This could still be a wild-goose chase.”

But the reminder didn’t help much. She continued to feel as if she had butterflies in the pit of her stomach, and if the pallor of her skin wasn’t enough, there was further proof of her nervousness in the fact that somewhere during the drive from Billings she’d tucked her hair behind her ears—a habit her father had detested.

She hurriedly took a comb from her purse—as if Tom Wentworth might appear at any moment to punish her for the infraction—running it through the precision-cut, shoulder-length, straight honey-blond hair until every strand was right where it belonged.

Then she replaced the comb, reapplied blush to her high cheekbones, tugged at the collar of her white blouse to make sure it was exactly centered at her throat and plucked a single string from the right leg of her navy-blue slacks.

Not perfect, she judged as she took another look at herself in the mirror, but at least she was presentable and it was the best she could do under the circumstances.

She noticed then that the clock on the dashboard read five minutes after nine and it occurred to her that she probably shouldn’t waste any more time. She didn’t know much about small-town life, but if even the gas station was closed already, maybe everyone went to bed early, too. And she didn’t want to risk having to wait another day to find out what she’d come to find out.

She put the sedan back into gear and pulled out of the station, taking a right at the only stoplight, and then a quick left after that onto Jellison.

What she found there was a nice neighborhood shaded with tall elm, oak and maple trees lining the street on both sides. Beyond the trees at the curb were medium-size frame houses that looked as if they’d all been pressed through the same cookie cutter in 1950.

The two-story, wedding-cake-shaped houses with the covered front porches were distinguished from one another only by the different earth-tone colors they’d been painted, the outside shutters and flower boxes that had been added to several of them, and the yards—some with elaborate landscaping and others with only well-tended lawns.

The address she was looking for came into view on the fourth house from the corner—that one had tan siding, white shutters and a wooden swing hanging from chains on the left side of the porch.

There was a black-and-white SUV parked in the driveway with Northbridge Police stenciled on the sides and back. There weren’t any cars parked in front, though, so Kira pulled to a stop at the curb.

Before she turned off the engine she took the manila folder from the passenger seat and opened it. Inside was the newspaper article from Sunday’s Denver Post that she’d cut out and laminated.

It was a small piece about two Montana men—one an off-duty police officer and the other a Northbridge business owner—who had rushed into a burning house to rescue a family trapped inside. The two men had saved the family and then had gone back in for the pets only to have a beam knock Addison Walker unconscious and break Cutler Grant’s ankle. Still, Officer Grant had managed to drag the unconscious businessman to safety.

The name Addison Walker meant nothing to Kira.

But Cutler Grant—that was something else. Kira knew—sort of—a Cutty Grant.

There wasn’t much information about the two men in the pictureless piece, but it did say that Cutler Grant was a widower with eighteen-month-old twin daughters.

That was a surprise. The Cutty Grant Kira knew had married her older sister and they’d had a son. A son who would be twelve years old by now.

So maybe this really was a wild-goose chase and the Cutler Grant in the newspaper wasn’t the same Cutty Grant she knew.

But what she was hoping was that this was the same man. That she’d find out that the wife who had left him a widower with eighteen-month-old twins was his second wife. And that he would be able to tell Kira where to find Marla and their twelve-year-old son.

Kira put the slip of paper neatly back into the folder and replaced it on the passenger seat.

Then she turned off the car.

Ignoring the tension that tightened her shoulders, Kira picked up her leather purse and took it with her as she got out.

The scent of honeysuckle was in the air as she headed for the door. Light shone through the windows of the lower floor and the front door was open—probably to let in the cooler evening air—so apparently the occupants of 104 Jellison Street were still awake.

She climbed five cement steps to the porch. As she approached the door she could see through the screen. There was a man sitting on an antique chair, talking on the phone.

He caught sight of her, and without missing a beat, he motioned for her to come inside.

Who did he think she was? Kira wondered, staying rooted to that spot, unsure whether or not to actually go inside.

Although his looks had matured, she could tell that this man was the Cutty Grant she was looking for. But she knew there was no way he recognized her. The one and only time he’d seen her had lasted a total of ten minutes before she’d been dispatched to her room. Besides, she looked completely different than she had then.

But when she remained on the porch, he motioned to her even more insistently, and she didn’t know what to do but oblige him. So she opened the screen and went in.

“Betty, we’ll be okay,” he was saying into the phone. “Family comes first. You have to take care of your mother.”

Kira didn’t want to appear to be listening so she kept her eyes on the floor. The floor where he had one foot stretched out in front of him. One big, bare foot with a white cast cupping his heel and disappearing under the leg of a pair of time-aged blue jeans that hugged a thigh thick enough to be noteworthy.

She tried to keep control of her eyes but they seemed to have a mind of their own and continued up to the plain white crew-neck T-shirt that fit him like a second skin and left no doubt that he was in good enough shape to have dragged a full-grown man out of a burning building. His chest and shoulders were that substantial, bulging with toned muscles. And his biceps were so big they stretched the short sleeves of the T-shirt to the limit.

“No, don’t do that.”

For a split-second Kira thought he might be talking to her, and she glanced quickly to his face.

But he was still talking into the phone. “You can’t take care of things here and take care of your mom, too,” he said.

In fact he wasn’t even looking in Kira’s direction. His focus really was on the floor where hers had begun, and he didn’t seem aware that Kira’s gaze was on his face now. Somehow that made it more difficult to lower her eyes and instead she was left studying the changes in him.

The seventeen-year-old boy she remembered had been cute enough to make her jealous of her older sister. Yet the boy was nothing compared to the man.

The grown-up Cutty Grant had the same sable-colored hair only now he wore it short all over and messy on top rather than long and shaggy.

It wasn’t only his haircut that had changed. His face had gone from boyishly appealing to ruggedly striking. His very square forehead had become strong. His distinctive jawline and straight, slightly longish nose were more defined, and every angle and plane of his face seemed more sharply cut.

His upper lip was still narrow above a fuller bottom lip, and when he smiled at something the person on the other end of the phone said, two grooves bracketed either side of that mouth, which had gained a certain suppleness. And an indescribable sexiness, too.

His deep-set eyes hadn’t undergone any alteration with age—they were still a remarkable shade of green unlike any other eyes Kira had ever seen. Dark green, the color of Christmas trees. Evergreen trees. And all in all, Kira thought that she’d never even met a man as head-turningly handsome as the adult Cutty Grant.

“Yes, the place is a mess, but Lucinda had no business reporting that to you,” he said then.

Kira needed an excuse to tear her eyes away from him and that gave it to her. She forced herself to look from him into the living room.

She didn’t know about the rest of the place but that room was definitely in disarray. There were toys on the floor, on the end tables, on the brown tweed sofa, even on the desk in the corner. There were children’s clothes strewn here and there, including one tiny pair of pink shorts hanging over the lampshade of a pole lamp in the corner. There were unused diapers spilling from a sack on top of the television in the entertainment center. There was a plate with the crusts of a sandwich left on it, a half-empty glass of milk, and another smaller glass overturned in a puddle of orange juice on the oak coffee table. And there was just an overall air of clutter everywhere that sparked an urge in the meticulous Kira to put it all in order.

But of course she resisted that urge.

“I mean it, Betty. Forget about us until she’s better. The girls and I will manage.”

Kira noticed then that there was even debris on the stairs—more toys, more baby clothes, a sock that must have belonged to Cutty, and it occurred to her that no matter what he was telling the person he was talking to, he wasn’t managing very well.

But in spite of that he insisted, “Really, you don’t have to come by here in the morning before you pick up your mom from the hospital—”

There was a pause while the person on the other end interrupted him to say something, and whatever it was it apparently convinced him because he sighed and said, “Okay, but then that’s it. An hour tomorrow morning. After that, I don’t want to see you around here until your mom is a hundred percent better. If nothing else I’ll get Ad over to help.”

Whoever he was talking to said something that made Cutty Grant laugh a deep, throaty laugh that sounded so good it was almost sinful.

Then he said, “Yeah, I know, Ad isn’t any more domestic than I am, but he can get more done with a bump on the head than I can with a bum ankle that’s supposed to be elevated all the time. Just don’t worry about it. Now I have to go. I have company. I’ll see you in the morning. But only for an hour,” he added, slowly enunciating each word for emphasis before he said goodbye.

The minute he hung up he turned his attention to Kira. “Sorry about that. That was the woman who usually helps me out around here with the babies and the housekeeping. Her mother herniated a disc in her back and she’s fretting about leaving me in the lurch. She knows I’m not good for much when I’m supposed to stay off the foot,” he said, pointing to his injured ankle.

Kira watched him stand and take a cane that was braced against the wall beside him.

Even leaning his weight on the cane he still stood at least six foot two and if Kira had thought his physique was impressive when he was sitting down, it was even more impressive when he was upright. There was definitely nothing boyish in that big, powerful tower of a man and it left Kira slightly dumbstruck.

Not that he seemed to notice as he continued. “So. Here you are. I could have sworn we said Thursday night between eight and nine to make sure the babies were asleep or I wouldn’t have returned Betty’s phone call.”

That brought Kira to her senses. “Who do you think I am?”

“The journalism student from the college who’s doing the article on Ad and me. Isn’t that who you are?”

That explained why he’d waved her in.

Kira shook her head. “I’m not from the college,” she said. “I’m Kira Wentworth. Marla’s sister.”

That sobered him instantly. In fact, it pulled his amazing face into a frown that put two vertical creases between his eyebrows.

“Oh.”

All the animation had drained from his voice and he didn’t say anything for so long that Kira felt inclined to fill the silence with the reason for her sudden appearance on his doorstep.

“The Denver newspaper ran a little article about you and the other man saving a family from their burning house. It was the first time I had any clue about where Marla might be since the two of you left thirteen years ago. I’m here looking for her.”

Cutty Grant closed his green eyes and Kira saw his jaw tense before he opened them again and sighed a sigh that sounded resigned but not happy.

He pointed toward the living room and said, “Let’s go in there and sit.”

Solemn. Kira knew whatever he was going to tell her couldn’t be good, and her grip on her purse turned white-knuckle as she did as he’d suggested and went into the living room that looked as if a cyclone had hit it.

“Please. Sit,” he repeated when she went on standing even then.

Kira conceded, passing up the littered sofa to remove a rag doll from the Bentley rocking chair that was at a forty-five-degree angle to the couch. She kept hold of the doll with her arms wrapped tightly around it, hugging it close as Cutty Grant joined her, sitting on the only clear spot on the sofa and raising his casted foot to a pillow on the coffee table in front of it.

For what seemed like an eternity he didn’t speak, though. Or even look at her. Instead he kept his eyes on the cane, balancing it across his legs like a bridge.

And in the silence it occurred to Kira that although she’d seen signs of infants and of Cutty himself, she hadn’t seen anything that would lead her to think her sister or her nephew were a part of the equation here. But she still hoped against hope that Cutty Grant was going to tell her he and Marla had divorced, that Marla had taken their son somewhere else, that he was a widower with two daughters because his second wife had died….

But the minute he said, “I’m sorry,” Kira knew better and her heart sank. There was just something so ominous in his voice.

“Marla and I had a little boy,” he told her then. “Your parents knew that so you must have, too.”

“I knew you’d had a boy, yes,” Kira confirmed tentatively, as if, if she hedged, it might not make the worst true.

“Then you probably knew he was autistic.”

That surprised her. “No, I didn’t know that. I only knew Marla had had a son because I overheard my mother telling my father when the baby was born. They never told me directly—she was so thoroughly disowned that I wasn’t even to mention her name—and after that I never heard them talk about her or the baby again.”

“There was an after that—” Disgust rang in his tone but he seemed to reconsider what he’d been about to say and changed course. “Anthony. We named him Anthony.”

It was unabashed pain that Kira heard in Cutty’s voice then. Pain that etched his handsome face.

“I’m really hoping this isn’t as bad as it seems,” she said when he let another long silence pass.

Cutty Grant took a deep breath and shook his head to let her know in advance that her hopes were to no avail. “Seventeen months ago, it was February but we were having springlike weather, so Marla took Anthony into the front yard to get some fresh air. I don’t really know why, but for some reason Anthony ran between two cars that were parked at the curb. There was a truck coming. Going faster than it should have been. The driver didn’t see Anthony. Or Marla running after him…”

It was difficult for Cutty to say what he was saying, and after another pause he finally finished. “The truck hit them both.”

Kira hadn’t been prepared to hear that. Intellectually she’d realized that it was possible it was her sister who had left Cutty Grant a widower, but she hadn’t really believed it was true.

“Marla is dead?” she whispered.

“I’m sorry.”

“And Anthony?”

“He was killed instantly.”

Through the tears that sprang to her eyes, Kira saw moisture gathering in those of the man across from her, too. But still she couldn’t help the accusing tone when she said, “And you didn’t let us know?”

A flash of anger dried his eyes and when he answered her it was barely contained in his own voice. “Marla lived a few hours after the accident and one of the few things she said to me during the time she was conscious was that she didn’t want me to call her father. That she didn’t want him here. Even if she didn’t make it. I respected her wishes.” And it was clear that he’d had no desire himself to bring Tom Wentworth into the picture.

“But I would have wanted to know,” Kira said quietly as she lost the battle to hold back her own tears and they began to trail down her face.

Cutty Grant got up and limped out of the room, returning with a box of tissues that he held out for her.

Kira accepted one, thanking him perfunctorily and wiping her eyes as she struggled with the complex emotions running through her.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, setting the tissue box on the coffee table and sitting down once more. “If it’s any consolation, not seeing you again after we eloped was the one thing Marla regretted.”

It wasn’t much consolation. It didn’t take away all the years of missing Marla. Of wondering where she was. Of wishing she would call or write. Of longing to see her again, to be sisters again. It didn’t take away all the time since Kira had grown up and been out on her own when she’d wanted so badly to have Marla in her life and not had any way of knowing where she was.

“I tried to find her,” Kira said through her tears, not really understanding why it was suddenly important to her that he know. “My parents said they didn’t have any idea where she was—”

“That was a lie.”

Kira had suspected as much but she couldn’t force them to tell her.

She didn’t say that to Cutty, though. She just continued. “I went to three private investigators but I couldn’t afford their fees. I even tried different things on the Internet. But no matter what I did, I came up empty.” As empty as she’d felt so much of the time after Marla had left. “I know we weren’t related by blood, but she was still my sister. We shared a room from the time I was three years old. And, I don’t know, I guess rather than being rivals or fighting with each other, we sort of banded together…” Kira’s voice trailed off before she said too much.

But Cutty picked up the ball where she’d dropped it and said, “Does your father know you’re here now?”

Kira finally managed to stop the flow of tears and dabbed at her face with the tissue. “He and my mom were killed a year ago in a freak accident. They were coming home from a day in the mountains when there was a rock slide onto the road. They were hit by a boulder that came right down on the car. They both died instantly.”

“I’m sorry,” he said once more. “Your mother was a nice enough woman.”

That was true. It was just that nice hadn’t had any potency against the strong will of the man she’d married. The man who had adopted her three-year-old daughter.

But that seemed beside the point now. Kira had come here hoping to find the sister she’d so desperately wanted to reconnect with. Hoping to find family. And it suddenly struck her that the only chance of that might be in Cutty Grant’s twins.

“The article said you have eighteen-month-old daughters,” she said then.

“Upstairs asleep as we speak,” he confirmed, a brighter note edging his voice at the mere mention of them.

“Marla’s babies?”

“Yes. They were barely three weeks old when the accident happened.”

“My nieces,” Kira said, trying it on for size because blood or no blood, if they were Marla’s babies, Kira felt a connection to them.

“I guess so,” Cutty conceded.

“I’d like to meet them. Get to know them. Would you let me?” she said impulsively and without any idea how she might go about that.

Cutty’s frown from earlier reappeared and he didn’t jump at the idea. Instead he said, “Like I said, they’re asleep.”

“I know. But…”

And that was when, completely out of the blue, the mess in the room caught her attention again and an idea popped into her head.

“What if I took the place of that woman you were talking to on the phone a few minutes ago?” she said before the notion had even had a chance to ferment.

“Betty? What if you took Betty’s place?” He sounded confused and leery at the same time.

“You said she took care of the twins and helped around the house, and without her—and with you needing to stay off your ankle—you’re obviously in a bind. So what if I did it? I’d like to help and that way I could get to know the babies. Bond with them.”

The more Kira considered this, the better it sounded to her.

But from the look on Cutty’s face it wasn’t having the same effect on him.

“Don’t you have a job or a husband or a boyfriend or something you need to get back to?”

“No, I don’t. In May I finished my Ph.D. in microbiology. I’m going to start teaching at the University of Colorado for the fall semester, but that doesn’t begin until the last week in August. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with myself until then but that means I’m free.”

“No husband or boyfriend, either?” he asked, and Kira couldn’t tell if he was looking for an out for himself or satisfying his own curiosity.

“No, no husband or boyfriend. I have one really close friend—Kit—but she can get along without me. Plus she’ll bring in my mail and water my plants for me, so it won’t be any problem for me to stay.”

“You really want to spend your summer vacation picking up after us? Changing diapers?” Cutty asked skeptically.

“I really do,” she said, hating that she sounded as desperate as she felt. “I admit that I don’t have any experience with kids,” she confessed because it seemed only fair to let him know what he was getting into. “But when it comes to cleaning—”

“You’re Tom Wentworth’s daughter,” Cutty supplied. “I don’t know, I like things casual.”

“Casual is good. I can be casual.” Although she wasn’t quite sure what casual housekeeping and child care meant.

But still he didn’t look convinced. In fact, he looked downright dubious and as if he was on the verge of saying thanks, but no thanks.

Why would he, though? It was clear he needed help and she was offering it.

Unless maybe he still harbored resentment toward her family for the way things had played out that night thirteen years ago when he’d come with Marla to tell their parents that he’d gotten their seventeen-year-old daughter pregnant.

“You know,” Kira ventured, “I didn’t have anything to do with what went on between you and my father. I know how ugly it got. He sent me to my room but I was hiding on the stairs, listening to what went on. He was a difficult man—”

“That’s an understatement. He was a tyrant.”

Kira didn’t dispute that. “But nobody can change the past and now he’s gone and so is Marla. But there are your twins. And me. I lost all these years that I could have had with Marla, with Anthony, and I can’t get them back. But I could have a future with the twins. If you’ll just let me.”

She hated the note of pleading that had somehow slipped into her tone.

And Cutty Grant must not have liked it much, either, because she saw his jaw clench suddenly and his voice turned tight. “I’m really not the bastard your father thought I was. The kind of bastard who would keep you from knowing your nieces.”

“I didn’t—I don’t—think you’re that. I just know there have to be hard feelings—”

“Harder than you’ll ever know. But I’m well aware of the fact that you were only a kid, that you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Then will you let me stay?”

Again he didn’t answer readily, and she knew he wasn’t eager to agree even if he did need the help.

But in the end she thought that he might have wanted to prove he wasn’t a bad guy, that he wasn’t punishing her for something she’d had nothing to do with, because he said, “I suppose we can give it a try.”

Kira was so happy to hear his decision that she couldn’t help grinning. “Shall I start right now?” she asked with a glance at the clutter all around them.

“It’ll all wait for tomorrow.”

In that case Kira thought it was probably better to get out of there before he changed his mind.

“Then if you’ll tell me where I can find a hotel or a motel I’ll get a room and be back first thing in the morning.”

Again he let silence reign as he seemed to consider something before he answered.