The Tycoon's Tots (13 page)

If he didn't love her so much he would have been furious. As it was, his heart was aching at the suspicious doubt on her face. She'd been hurt. So very hurt. But he shouldn't have to pay for another man's mistake.

“I've already told you the babies will always be yours. If it will make you feel better, I'll sign a legal document saying so.”

“But there wouldn't be any point, would there be, if you and I were married?”

“No, but—”

“See. This is nothing but an easy arrangement for you!”

Helpless anger shot through him, and he gave her a little shake. “God help me, nothing about loving you has been easy, Chloe! You've fought me every step of the way. And I think it's about time you quit!”

Before she could fling another word back at him, Wyatt was kissing her. His mouth was searching and demanding, turning her whole body into a heated torch. She tried to resist him, tried to send her mind to a place faraway from his arms, but she could do neither. Whether she trusted
him or not, she loved him utterly. To touch him like this was pure heaven.

“Wyatt, oh, Wyatt,” she said with a groan as his teeth nibbled on her earlobe. “You don't understand what you're doing to me.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” he whispered as his fingers found the buttons on her flannel shirt. “Because you're doing the same thing to me.”

“I couldn't be. You…you're scaring me.”

His fingers stilled between her breasts. His head reared back far enough to look at her. “Scaring you? Oh, Chloe, don't you know I would never hurt you?” His eyes widened as another thought struck him. “Haven't you ever…” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Have you never had a lover?”

Chloe's eyes dropped to where his shirt opened at the neck. Black hair peeked through the edges of the material, and Chloe's fingers itched to touch him there, to push aside his shirt and run her hands across his chest.

“No. Richard spoiled my appetite for a man. Besides, I'd never have casual sex. I'm just not made for it.”

Her admission both stunned and thrilled him.

“I didn't know. I didn't realize there were actually women who waited until marriage anymore.”

Her face flaming, she turned her gaze to a spot across the room. “You must really be thinking I'm a freak now. A virgin and sterile to boot.”

“Chloe!”

She refused to look at him. He caught her face and turned it to his. Moisture glistened in her eyes, and Wyatt knew in that moment he would never love anyone as he did Chloe. His heart was bursting to comfort her, love her, fill her with passion.

“I wish you wouldn't degrade yourself that way. I think you're beautiful and wonderful.”

Her hands covered her face as tears slipped down her cheeks. “Right now you do. But that wouldn't last long.”

“Tell me why.”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “I told you a moment ago you were scaring me. I wasn't talking about the idea of making love to you. You scare me when you start trying to change my thinking, my planning, my whole way of life. I've had everything settled in my mind for three or more years now. Ever since Richard opened my eyes.”

He lifted his face to the ceiling and muttered something under his breath. “Just tell me where the bastard lives, Chloe! I think I'm going to go bash his head in!”

“Why? For being honest with me?”

“No! For hurting you. For being selfish and an insult to the male gender.”

She walked over to the fireplace. The pine was crackling and throwing off heat, but she'd never felt so cold in her life.

“Wyatt, can you see it's not just about my inability to have children?” she asked him, then not waiting for him to answer, she went on. “We're from opposite sides of the track, Wyatt. You haven't mentioned living here, but God knows if you did, you'd probably go stark raving mad before two months were out.”

“I'll go mad if I have to go back to Houston without you.”

“You know I couldn't live in Houston. This is where all my family is. It's my home, a legacy from my parents. That's why I'm fighting so hard to keep it.”

“I wouldn't dream of asking you to leave the Bar M.”

“Then you're telling me you could live here?”

“I guess you can't believe I've come to appreciate the place.”

No. She couldn't believe it. Especially when she remembered
how when he'd first arrived, he viewed the place as little more than a dump.

“Actually, I can't,” she said, then sighed, hoping it would help the pain in her chest go away. “Wyatt, your work is in Houston. You're a man who is accustomed to wheeling and dealing.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but Chloe held up a hand. “I realize your office is able to manage without you for a few weeks. But before too long you're going to be needed there.”

“And I'm not needed here. Is that what you're trying to tell me?”

The pain on his face was so real, Chloe could do nothing but go to him, fling her arms around him and bury her face against his shoulder. “Of course I need you. The twins need you. I love you. Surely you know that by now.”

He didn't. But it was like being given a slice of heaven to hear it now.

“Then why are you arguing with me, Chloe?” His arms circled around her, held her trembling body tight against his.

“Because this is all wrong. It would never work. And I don't want to go through the agony of having you and then losing you.”

He eased her head back and kissed her desperately. “And I don't want to go through the agony of never having you,” he mouthed against her cheek. “Of never knowing how wonderful our life together could be.”

Maybe it would be wonderful for a while. But how would he feel when he began to see the children of Roy and Justine, and Harlan and Rose, who already had a suspicion she might be pregnant. He would feel cheated. And eventually he would begin to blame her. Maybe not consciously, but the feeling would be there just the same.

Chloe couldn't stand that. She couldn't bear cheating him out of life's greatest gift. She loved him too much.
Perhaps one day he would realize what she was giving him now and thank her for it.

Even though there were tears on her face, she looked into his eyes and smiled. “One day you'll find someone who will make you happy, Wyatt. She'll give you love and children and she'll know how to live around moneyed people. She won't wear boots and spurs and have horse hair sticking to the seat of her pants.”

“Is that what you think will make me happy? If it is, you don't know me at all.”

The tearful smile on her face was the saddest thing Wyatt had ever seen. “No. It's you who don't know yourself.”

Hoping his lips could persuade where his words could not, he bent his head and kissed her. She closed her eyes, held herself to him, tasted the love on his lips until her heart could stand no more. Then with a muffled sob, she slipped from his arms and ran to her room.

For the next two days the weather stayed abnormally cool, but dry. Chloe was able to throw herself into her work and stay out of the house as much as possible.

Wyatt knew she was deliberately avoiding him, but he didn't try to push himself on her. He could see she was in mental agony over all that he'd told her, and he figured the most he could do was give her time to sort it all out in her mind.

But how much time he had left here on the ranch was something he was no longer sure about. Kitty had unexpectedly returned home this morning and although the older woman still had a walking cast, she was able to maneuver herself around the house pretty well. Kitty seemed eager and, if not completely ready, then partially able to take over her job again.

Wyatt had never felt so useless or unwanted in his life, and he knew he couldn't continue to mope around this
place waiting for Chloe to figure out the two of them should be married. He had to do something to wake her up.

He found Kitty at the kitchen table playing solitaire with a dog-eared deck of cards. He pointed out a play to her, then asked, “Do you think you could manage the twins for awhile?”

“Sure. If they wake up and start running all over the house, I'll put them in their playpen.”

He gave her a grateful wink. “I think I'll go down to the stable and see if I can be any help to Chloe.”

The older woman's brows lifted with surprise. “You think she'll let you help her? She's been awfully testy that I can see.”

Wyatt reached for a jacket hanging on a peg near the back door. “She's mad because I asked her to marry me.”

Kitty didn't seem a bit surprised. In fact, she chuckled and said, “Then you'd better make her glad.”

“And how does anyone make Chloe glad? I've never seen a more bull-headed woman.”

Kitty nodded. “Yep. She gets that from her daddy. Once Tomas made up his mind about something it was hell to change it.”

“Well, I'm going to try my best to change Chloe's,” he said, then walked a few steps back over to Kitty. “How would you feel about having me around her permanently?”

A sly smile on her face, Kitty waved Wyatt toward the door. “Go do what you can do with Chloe. I don't want to lose a good cooking partner.”

The afternoon sky was overcast, the wind cold and sharp as Wyatt walked to the stable. Yesterday Rose and Harlan had penned several head of cattle to vaccinate and dehorn them. But the two of them had finished the work early this morning and the pens were now empty, except for Martin, the orphaned calf.

He found Chloe cleaning out a horse stall at the end of the stable. Her flannel shirt was rolled above her elbows and her face grimaced with strain as she tossed a shovel of dirty hay and wood shavings into the wheelbarrow.

“How about letting me do that for a while?”

She looked up to see Wyatt standing at the open door of the stall. He was wearing an old denim jacket and a pair of cotton work gloves. Her heart ached at the sight of him.

“I'm doing okay.” She bent to scoop up another shovel full.

“Give me the shovel and sit down for a while.”

“I said I'm doing okay. Who's taking care of the twins?”

“They're both asleep. Kitty says she can manage without me for a while.”

Chloe frowned. “Her leg is in a cast. How do you think she can run down two babies who've just found their legs and want to run all over the house?”

Wyatt knew it wasn't the babies or Kitty she was really concerned about, it was herself. She didn't want to face him, or her feelings. But that was too bad. He'd tried to be gentle, he'd tried to give her time to think. He'd tried to love her. It was time she dealt with him.

He folded his arms across his chest. “I came down here to help you. And don't try to tell me you don't need it,” he added as she opened her mouth to butt in. “I haven't forgotten you told me you once had five wranglers around here to work the place. You and I only make up for two.”

She continued to dig to the bottom of the dirty stall. “Rose is over in the cattle barn.”

“So that makes three. We're still short.”

Seeing he wasn't going anywhere, she tossed the shovel onto the wheelbarrow and planted her hands on her hips.

“You're deliberately trying to make me angry, aren't you?”

He smiled because he couldn't help it. She looked so beautiful when her green eyes snapped and her cheeks flamed as red as her hair.

“I don't have to try to make you angry, Chloe. You seem to manage to get that way all by yourself.”

She felt awful. But dammit, she was about to crack and he knew it! She'd had so many worries, so many problems to deal with. And now she'd fallen in love with a man she couldn't marry. He knew how she felt about him. Was he down here trying to rub salt in her wounds? Why couldn't he go on and let her hurt in peace?

“I'm sorry, Wyatt. I do appreciate your offer. But I think it would be better if you went back…to the house.”

He stepped into the stall with her, and Chloe's heart nearly stopped altogether. If he touched her now, she didn't know what she would do.

“Were you going to say Houston?”

The thought had crossed Chloe's mind. Both of them would be better off once he was gone. He could find someone else and she could…well, she could try to forget.

“Kitty is back. And I'm sure if you really thought about it, you'd realize you're ready to go.”

He frowned at her. “Have you always tried to tell other people what to do, what they're thinking?”

“I don't try to tell people what they're thinking! That's crazy!”

“You're right. It is, so why are you?”

She drew in a bracing breath. “Because you're different, you don't seem to know your own mind.”

He laughed. “So you have to tell me, huh? Well, I've got a newsflash for you, Chloe. I do know my own mind, and what's more you're wasting your time and mine by trying to change it.”

The steely-eyed look on his face set her heart to a throbbing gallop. In an unconscious act of defense, she picked up the shovel and jabbed it in the ground in front of her.

“What do you mean?”

He stepped up to her, took the shovel handle from her hands and tossed the tool in the corner out of the way.

“I'm not going back to Houston, Chloe. That's final. I'm staying here, and we're getting married. Like two normal people in love.”

Her mouth fell open. “You can't just…refuse to leave!”

“I just have. What's more, Kitty doesn't want me to go. And I don't think the rest of your family does either.”

He was right about that. None of her family wanted Wyatt to leave. They all liked him and thought he should stay here close to the twins. But Chloe was the one living with him! And that had to stop! It had to! Before she lost control and gave in to him.