Lifestyles of the Witch & Famous (2 page)

“Oh, no.” Barry held up his hands and shook his head. “You’re not gonna pin that one on me. I have enough to do taking care of you.”

“Aw, c’mon. It’ll only be for a few days.”

“No. They’re
your
nephews, Ty. You wanted them. Now you deal with them.”

Tyler fought an infantile urge to slink under his desk and hide. Barry was right – as usual – but Tyler had never been so scared in his life. These were
Steve’s
kids. Kids he hadn’t even known about.

Because you never bothered to find out. Because you were too angry, and then too proud to contact your only sibling. Because you expected him to make the first move.

He’d wanted Steve to come crawling home like the Prodigal Son, admitting the error of his ways. He’d never even known that for the last six years little brother hadn’t been able to crawl anywhere. Steve had been flat on his back or in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down.

Dear God…

The dull ache inside him became a sharp pain – a knife twisting in his heart, a cold fist squeezing his gut. His gaze held Barry’s, and he knew he must look desperate. Him. Big tough Tyler James, cringing like a whipped dog.

“I don’t know what to say to them. How can I explain…” Shit, he sounded pathetic.

“Well, ‘hello’ is always a good start.” When the quip fell flat, Barry blew out his breath, rose and strode around the desk.

Warily, Tyler watched his approach. Beanpole wasn’t going to hug him, was he? Tyler really hated that touchy-feely “real men
do
cry” crap his assistant spouted sometimes.

“Put your arm around me, and I’ll break it,” he warned. “I don’t want comfort.” He didn’t deserve comfort. He’d let Steve suffer when he might have done so much to help. “I deserve to have my ass kicked,” he muttered.

Barry’s warm hazel eyes gazed down at him, sympathetic but firm. “I’ll be happy to oblige if it’ll make you feel better.”

Tyler flipped him a bird. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you.”

The buzzing of the private in-house phone interrupted them. Tyler stared at it in sudden horror.

Barry reached past him to answer it. “Yeah?… Hey there, Rick, what’s up?” He listened a moment. “Uh-huh.” He listened some more. “Well, is anyone hurt?”

Hurt?
Tyler tensed.

“Chill,” Barry mouthed to him, silently. “I meant are the
kids
okay?” he said to Rick. “The crew are grown men. Surely they can tolerate a few scratches. It’s only a house cat, right? Not like they were mauled by lions.”

Barry’s brows pulled together into a frown. “What do you mean, I haven’t seen the cat yet? How big can it be?” His eyes widened. “Really? Wow… Hey, watch your mouth. I don’t care what the security team says. If they didn’t want to spend the flight chained to the toilet, they shouldn’t have let the boys play with their handcuffs… Yeah, I realize they didn’t expect the dog to eat the keys.”

Impatiently, he drummed the fingers of his free hand on the desk. “Look, calm down, we can have the jet hosed out later, okay? Just catch the bird, put it back in its cage, and send them up here.” The drumming stopped, and the frown returned. “Don’t tell me ‘easier said than done.’ Use a butterfly net if you have to… No, on the
bird
, you moron, not the kids… Right, and have Hanson bring them to the poolroom. At least there we won’t have to worry about replacing the carpet if the dog has any more accidents.”

The conversation continued another moment while Tyler listened with the fist in his stomach gripping tighter and tighter. Three boys and their pets… What had he been thinking bringing them here? He was way out of his element with this scene, and Barry was right. Again. Tyler
was
a fuss-budget. He liked things clean, neat, orderly. Kids and animals usually meant the opposite. Already he could hear the clatter of his well-structured world toppling around him. He was in deep doo-doo, and he knew it.

He looked at the photo on his desk – saw the smile of a blond angel – and knew also that he had no other choice. Tyler wanted these kids, whatever the cost. They were all he had left of Steve.

The end of the phone call brought his gaze back to Barry. “So…” He was almost afraid to ask. “Is everything okay?”

Barry gave his characteristic shrug. “Could be worse. It seems your nephews, um, redecorated the jet, but nothing that can’t be fixed. They’re creative kids, invented a new game on the way. ‘Hijacker,’ they called it. Took Ms. Patton hostage and demanded the pilot change course for Disney World.” He chuckled.

Tyler didn’t. Naturally the boys would prefer a trip to the Magic Kingdom over an uncle they didn’t know from Adam. He couldn’t possibly have hoped they’d be looking forward to meeting
him
, now could he?

“Well, at least that explains why she quit.” He forced a smile. “What else?” There had to be more.

“Not much.” Barry leaned back against the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “Just a little excitement in unloading. One of the twins let the Myna bird out of its cage. Fluffy chased it, then Fang chased him and ended up taking on all comers when they tried to stop him. Everything’s cool now though. No real damage done.”

Thank God…

Tyler rubbed his temples again. His headache was rolling into overdrive. “It’s a miracle no one was killed. That’s a big dog, isn’t it? A St. Bernard? And with a name like ‘Fang’…”

Chills ran down his spine. Was it too late to send the beast to obedience school? He was damned if he’d risk his nephews with a vicious dog. Why had anyone let the kids have an animal like that anyway?

And why the hell was Beanpole laughing so hard? Tyler glared at him, and the man laughed harder.

“No, no, you got it wrong,” Barry choked out between guffaws. “
Fluffy
is the dog. Fang is the
cat
.”

Of course. He should have realized that. Everyone knew cats chased dogs.

A dull thud sounded as Tyler’s forehead hit the polished surface of his desk. Why did the boys want to visit a theme park when they had a three-ring circus right here?

With a deep sigh, he hauled upright in his chair, pushed it back, and rose to his feet. It was time to meet his new wards. High time. Hiding up here didn’t help a damn thing. The longer he delayed, the worse he’d feel. He’d delayed too many years as it was. One last time he glanced at the photo in the little gold frame, and made a silent vow.

I’ll give them a good life, Steve, I swear. They’ll have it better than we did. I’ll give them everything, the best money can buy.

A well-meant promise, and one he could certainly afford to keep.

So why did he have a godawful feeling it wouldn’t be nearly enough?

Barry followed him to the door. “One other thing… Molly Leigh wants to talk to you. Privately.”

Leigh?
Again?
The woman who’d been his brother’s housekeeper or babysitter, or whatever the hell she was? Tyler jerked to a halt on the door’s threshold.
Shit.
He’d been refusing her calls all week. Couldn’t she take a hint? He didn’t want to talk to her. What was the point?

After meeting her, Gladys Patton had advised by phone that she considered Leigh to be unstable, a bad influence on the boys.
Dangerous
even. Patton said the woman was involved in some sort of occult crap, and the sooner Tyler removed his nephews from her care, the better they’d be.

The handwritten faxed report he’d gotten from his private investigator, George Farrell, backed up Patton’s assessment. Farrell hadn’t exactly deemed Leigh dangerous – but Farrell wouldn’t, of course, being a little on the shady side himself. You could trust the guy’s facts, but not his opinion.

And the facts said that Molly Leigh was a real flaky-cake, just the sort of new-agey tree-hugger that poor head-in-the-clouds Steve would have been involved with. Whereas feet-firmly-on-the-ground Tyler had zero tolerance for that sort. There could be only one reason for her pigheaded persistence. She wanted more money – and he’d offered her quite enough as it was. Six hundred thousand dollars! A hundred thousand a year for her six years of service.

Hell, legally he wasn’t obligated to give her a dime, but it seemed the decent thing to do. Regardless of what some said, he usually did try to do the decent thing, especially where woman were concerned. None of his ex-wives had complained about their settlements. So why should a chick he’d never met? And didn’t intend to.

Still, if it would shut her up…

“Tell her I’m unavailable,” he said. “But you can inform her that if she’ll stop calling, I’ll up the offer. Make it a million.”

Why not? He could afford it.

“Um, Ty…” Barry hesitated, a suspicious twitching at the corners of his mouth and a wicked glint in his eye.

The kind of glint that always made Tyler feel there was a whoopee cushion hidden somewhere in the room, and he was about to sit on it.

He braced himself. “What?”

“I don’t think she wants more money. I’m not sure she wants
any
money. I think she just wants to see you – to discuss the kids. She seems to really care about them.”

“And I don’t?” Tyler bristled. They were
his
nephews, damn it, the only family he had left. The woman had absolutely no claim on them, and from what he’d heard of her, he didn’t want her anywhere near them. Gladys Patton might be a tight-ass, but she was the kind of tight-ass Tyler understood. Proper. Orderly.

If Patton said Leigh was a dangerous influence, he’d accept her word on that. Especially since it matched his own intuition. For some reason just the name “Molly Leigh” set off warning bells inside him. Why, he didn’t know. But he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Well,
I
don’t want to see her,” he said. “And if she calls anymore, I don’t even want to know about it. Tell her to just take the damn money and…and go hug a tree!”

Fuming, he stepped through the door. A firm hand on his shoulder stopped him and spun him around. It was Barry’s turn to bristle apparently. Tyler had sometimes suspected the man had a few “tree-hugging” inclinations of his own, but he’d avoided asking since they always had plenty of other things to argue about. He quirked an eyebrow at his assistant’s tight-lipped expression, then felt a prickle of apprehension as those lips curled into a merciless grin.

“Tell her yourself,” Barry said. “She ought to be in the poolroom by now with the boys. Waiting for you.”

Chapter 2

Pool?
You could float a yacht on that thing!

Molly tightened her grip on the struggling tomcat as she stepped through an archway into a high glass-domed courtyard that looked bigger than the Astrodome. Hell, it might be bigger than the Superdome.

Three small boys and a large dog pressed in behind her, all hanging close, all of them stunned silent – except Fluffy who was panting up a storm. She didn’t blame them. What could anyone say?

That was no pool before them. It was a
lagoon
, complete with waterfall, white sand beach, tropical flora and palm trees. Palm trees, for godssake, twenty feet high if they were an inch. Their feathery fronds swayed gently in an artificial breeze. The trees were possibly artificial, too, but they were darn good replicas. She stared up into them, half expecting to see automated parrots and toucans roosting in the greenery. Why not? The scene had everything else.

Good Goddess, the man’s built Tahiti in the center of his house.

Fang scrambled out of her arms, and she didn’t bother to retrieve him.

Have at it, tiger-boy.

The twins giggled while he scampered to the center of the sand, sniffed around, then scratched out a depression and squatted over it, obviously pleased as punch.

“Wow,”
she could almost hear him say,
“this is the biggest cat box I’ve ever seen!”
He was in heaven.

Molly wasn’t. The section of the mansion they’d passed through to get here had given her cold chills with its opulent size and décor. This…this
poolroom
set her teeth on edge. It went beyond opulence. It was downright decadent. What was the power consumption for the air-conditioning and fans in here? How much water did that ocean of a pool require?

Too much. And in arid West Texas no less, where there was hardly enough water to go around in the first place. It was sinful. All this for one man’s private retreat. A retreat he used only a few weeks a year, according to the paparazzi he was so fond of slugging. They said he’d built it as a “honeymoon hideaway” for his first wife. Or was it his fourth?

Was that the Italian actress or the Swedish model? The fashionista?

Honestly, even the celebrity sites couldn’t keep his marriages straight. How many had there been? Six? Seven?

Whatever.

If he’d wanted a tropical paradise, why hadn’t he just bought an island? Seemed like it would have been simpler than this. Cheaper, too, no doubt. But cost wouldn’t be an issue for him, would it?
Control
was, Molly guessed. Here he could orchestrate every detail of the setting – just the way he liked to control lives, it seemed.