Baby Before Business (Silhouette Romance) (14 page)

W
hen Madelyn left his house, Ty called Fran Baker, one of the two candidates he had chosen for the nanny position, and told her she had the job. Then he spent a nearly sleepless night, worried about Seth, worried about Madelyn, wondering why the hell so many people were dreamers.

Fran arrived the next morning at ten o’clock as they had agreed, and he brought Sabrina into the den and put her in her walker with some toys while they finalized her employment agreement.

He worked from home the rest of that week, as Fran and Sabrina got adjusted to each other, and he realized Madelyn had taught him to think of things like that. He told himself to stop relating everything to her, but everything in the house reminded him of her. When Fran laughed at something Sabrina did, he heard Madelyn. When he burned his morning toast, he remembered
Madelyn telling him any burned toast was his. When he bathed Sabrina to get her ready for bed, he realized Madelyn taught him the football hold.

She taught him everything he knew about babies. And PR. But she hadn’t taught him anything else because when it came to life, she was naive. She might know how to diaper a baby and get a reporter to see the good rather than the bad, but she didn’t yet realize that life was complicated. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t supposed to be fun. At least not for people like him.

And as for her saying he kept Cooper on a short leash…Well, that just made him mad. He couldn’t believe she had gall enough to insinuate that he didn’t have the right to keep track of his brother, and was glad—damned glad—she had gone. Or was going. He hadn’t been out of the house to officially hear that she’d actually left town. But she would. There really wasn’t enough work for a public relations person in Porter, and if she wanted a job, she would have to move to a big city. And he was not taking the blame. He had offered her the job she wanted.
She
refused it.

Ty spent so much time thinking about Madelyn, he was eager to get back to work the following Monday. His first order of business was straightening out Seth. He silenced the little voice that reminded him Madelyn and her interfering in his adult brothers’ lives was meddling, because it wasn’t. His brother was one-third owner of the most successful developer in his state. Only a fool would throw that away. Ty would not let another of his brothers live close to the poverty line, just because he was stubborn.

Ty had Joni call Seth into his office, and when Seth arrived he cut right to the chase. “What’s going on with you?”

Seth laughed and fell to a seat in front of Ty’s desk. “What’s going on with you is a better question. You haven’t been here in a week!”

“I was home getting Sabrina adjusted to her new nanny.”

“That confirms one rumor I heard at the diner. But I heard another, more interesting rumor. I attempted to confirm it, but Madelyn wouldn’t take my calls when I tried to reach her at her parents’ house.”

“If the rumor you heard is that Madelyn refused to work for us, then you’re batting two for two.”

Seth stared at him. “What did you do?”

Righteous indignation flooded Ty. “What do you mean what did
I
do?” This was why he meddled—if he really meddled. He wasn’t accepting that accusation just yet. He got the blame for everything that went wrong anyway. At least when he got involved, one of two things happened. Things either worked out or he deserved the responsibility for the failure. “How do you know she simply didn’t decide this job wasn’t right for her?”

“Because I know Madelyn.”

“Well, good for you, but I offered her the job and she refused it. So, it’s time to move on. I want to know what’s going on with you. Are you thinking of leaving?”

Before Seth could answer, the intercom on Ty’s desk buzzed and Joni’s voice came through the speaker. “Ty, there’s an attorney on line one.”

“Tell him I’m busy.”

“I already did. He said if you didn’t take his call, there would be a court order on your desk before noon.”

“A court order? For what?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Damn it!” Ty grabbed the receiver and punched the button for line one. “What?”

“Mr. Bryant, this is Gil Montrose. I represent your brother Cooper. He’s asked me to remind you that you promised not to interfere in his life.”

“I’m not interfering in his life!” This one he knew with absolute certainty. He might keep track of Cooper’s whereabouts, but he hadn’t
done anything.
He simply watched sadly as his brother struggled.

“Then perhaps you would like to explain why there’s a private investigator asking about him.”

Because Ty’s source of information about Cooper was not a private investigator, he calmly said, “I have no idea.”

“Mr. Bryant, it will only take me a few phone calls to find out who hired him, so stop pretending…”

“No! You stop! I made a promise to my brother five years ago that I would not interfere in his life and I not only do not interfere in his life, I also didn’t send an investigator to check on him.”

With that Ty slammed down the phone, and when he looked at his brother, Seth was cringing.

“You’re the one looking for Cooper, aren’t you?”

“Yes. But it sounds like you already know where he is. Like you’ve always known.”

At the accusing tone of Seth’s voice, Ty groaned. “Damn it, Seth, what was I supposed to do? I had to
make sure he was okay, but he doesn’t want us in his life. I couldn’t tell you where he was.”

“Were you afraid I’d just go and visit him someday?”

“Yes. He doesn’t want us visiting him and I felt that if you knew where he was you might some day get in a mood and go to Texas.”

“Well, thank you very much for trusting me and treating me like an adult.”

Ty jumped out of his seat to pace. “Don’t you start, too!”

“What do you mean, don’t start, too?” Seth asked, his voice sounding angry. “Who else have you been talking with about Cooper?”

“I talked with Madelyn!” And now he could hardly remember why. Confiding in her came so naturally that he’d told her way too many of his secrets and now he didn’t remember how Cooper had come into conversation to defend himself to Seth.

Seth studied Ty for a second. “You told Madelyn about Cooper?”

Ty sighed. “Didn’t I just say that?”

“You told her, but you wouldn’t tell me?” Ty returned to his seat. “I’m not going over this again.”

Seth stared at him. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

“What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You have two brothers who are adults. Yet, you haven’t really let me out of your sight much in the past fifteen years and somehow or another you’re monitoring Cooper.”

“All right. When you put it like that it sounds as if I’m some kind of overbearing big brother, and it’s not
like that,” Ty said, totally aggravated now. “But you know what? It doesn’t matter if I was overbearing or not. I’m done. If you two want to be responsible for yourselves, I will let you.”

Seth grinned. “Well, thanks.”

Furious, Ty returned to his chair. He absolutely was not saying you’re welcome. Seth made him feel like an idiot for caring for his own brothers, but he wasn’t an idiot. He was responsible. In a week or a month, Seth would see…

What? Ty unexpectedly wondered. Seth was thirty. Nothing was going to happen to him if Ty backed off.

He picked up his pen, then tossed it down again. “All right. Look, I get it. I’ve been a little too present in your life.”

“And Cooper’s?”

He shook his head. “No. I really have stayed out of Cooper’s life. I just sort of keep tabs.”

“Well, stop that, too.”

“Seth, I offered him one-third of our company and he threw it back in my face. I’ve been holding his share of the profits in an account that’s his to use. He said he doesn’t want it, but he’s just barely living above the poverty line. He
needs
it.”

“He was really mad when he left.”

Ty nodded. “And apparently he’s still mad.”

“So maybe we should figure out a way to make him unmad. There’s got to be a way we can get him to take the money.” Seth paused and drew a quick breath. “Especially if he needs it.”

“He does, but in the past five years I haven’t thought
of a way to get him to accept an apology, let alone take his money.” Ty paused. He hadn’t had any luck with Cooper, but Seth had always had a closer relationship with their middle brother. He quietly added, “Maybe you should give it a shot.”

Seth grinned. “Maybe I should.” He rose from his seat.

“Okay, but no more private investigators,” Ty said. “Cooper lives in Texas. He bought a ranch with a friend, but it’s mortgaged to the hilt. He drives a truck to pay the mortgage. That’s about all I know and about all you get to work with to figure out how we can get him to take his share of the company.”

“That’s good enough!” Seth said, then left the office.

And silence echoed around Ty. It didn’t feel weird to give Seth the assignment of figuring out a way to get Cooper to take his share of the company profits. It felt right. It also felt right to take a step back from Seth’s life. After all, Seth was thirty and Ty had another Bryant to raise in Sabrina. It wasn’t like he needed to be interfering in his adult brothers’ lives to keep himself entertained. He wouldn’t be bored.

He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Actually, with all the honesty that had floated around his office in the past few minutes, he felt compelled to admit, if only to himself, that he was bored. It was why he’d sent Orelia Makin to Boston. Negotiating had lost its appeal. Even building had lost its appeal. He didn’t intend to stop. But he just didn’t get the big kick out of running the company that he had in the past years.

And that was why he decided he couldn’t stay in the office that morning. With his brothers’ lives out from
under his care, Sabrina very squarely in his care, and Seth figuring out a way to get the situation with Cooper straightened out, his life was suddenly totally different from what it had been only the month before. It wasn’t exactly empty, but it wasn’t in sync, either.

He knew he needed to think this through. He left the Bryant Building, got into his SUV and simply started driving. He didn’t know where he would go or what he would do, but after only a few blocks he understood what he was feeling. He had time on his hands and mental energy. And the thing that kept popping into his head was that he now had time for everything Madelyn wanted.

He gripped the steering wheel. Even talking to Madelyn would open the doors to things he wasn’t sure he could handle. She didn’t just want to spend time with him. She wanted him to love her. And all along he’d told her he didn’t think he could love anybody. Talking with Seth, giving him the burden of getting Cooper to accept his share of their profits, hadn’t changed that. A relationship with somebody like Anita could ruin a man for life. How fair would it be to drag Madelyn into a relationship when he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t hurt her?

Still, he found himself driving on her parents’ street, and to his horror he watched her pulling out of the driveway. She turned her little blue car in the opposite direction and didn’t see him, but Ty saw that the back of her car was packed with her possessions.

She was leaving.

He let her get far enough ahead of him that she
wouldn’t see he was behind her, and followed her. Twice, he nearly turned off onto a side street to get away from her because he had no clue what he intended to say or do if she realized he was following her and confronted him. But though he kept going slower, staying as far behind as he could, he couldn’t turn away. Eventually she pulled into the convenience store for gas. By the time Ty reached the store, she was standing by the pumps, shoving her credit card into the little slot.

Without allowing himself to think through what he would say or even what he wanted, he swerved his SUV into a parking space in front of the store, jumped out and walked over to her.

“Hey.”

Madelyn pushed a wayward strand of hair out of her face. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be working?”

“I just had a talk with Seth.”

She grimaced. “Oh, yeah? How did it go?”

“He asked me to stop meddling in his life.”

She grimaced again. “Ouch.”

“Yeah, but a funny thing happened as we were talking. Things I thought were okay to do for my brothers I suddenly realized were overbearing.”

Madelyn smiled smugly. “Really?”

“Don’t gloat. Once I admitted Seth was right and that I kind of did take on all the responsibility for everything myself, I told him where Cooper was. I told him that the real deal with our middle brother was that he was broke and we had to figure out a way to get him to accept his
share of the profits of Bryant Development. And I gave Seth the job.”

“You gave him the job of fixing the situation with your brother?”

“Yeah, pretty freaky, isn’t it?”

Madelyn laughed. “Yeah!”

Ty nodded at her packed car. “Where are you going?”

“Atlanta.”

“You haven’t changed your mind?”

Though Ty thought she would laugh, she looked away, and he saw a sheen of tears come to her eyes. “No.”

His chest tightened. It was his moment of truth. Though he didn’t think he was ready for everything she wanted, he couldn’t let her leave, either. “Why don’t you take the PR position?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Look, you did a great job with the day-care presentation and the reporter. Let’s just start by officially giving you the position as director of PR—” he caught her gaze “—and see what happens with everything else.”

She shook her head again. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Frustration ricocheted through him. They were back to where they always were. “Please don’t tell me you want me to love you.”

“I want you to love me.” She pulled the hose from her gas tank and replaced it in the pump. “You do, you know.”

He stared at her, completely amazed she had ever had the audacity to call
him
stubborn.

“But you don’t want to say it because you’re afraid of taking a risk.” She pulled a paper towel from the container beside the windshield washer fluid and began
wiping the grime from the gas pump off her palms. “But that means you put me in a situation where
I
have to risk. I’ve already explained that taking that job when you don’t love me puts me in an awkward position. Because I love you, if I come to work for you, I will look like a pathetic loser pining after a man who can’t love her. The only way this works, the only way I can stay—” she caught his gaze “—is if you love me.”