Kate muttered something under her breath. It might have been a swear word, but Hannah couldn’t be sure. “Who says he doesn’t have it in him?”
“He says it. Often.”
“Oh, wonderful. And you believe him?”
Hannah squirmed in the big chair. “I…well, why shouldn’t I? He made it very clear to me that he’d never settle down. And then…oh, Kate. There really have been so many women…”
“So? He was looking for the right woman.”
“I guess so. And it was obviously a worldwide search.”
“Hannah, he’s not looking anymore.”
Hannah knew she must be losing her mind—because she found that Kate was starting to convince her. “You really think so?”
“My brother would hate that I know him so well. But I do. You’re the one for him, Hannah. No one else will do. He’s a goner. Done for. If you don’t go back to him, he’ll never find the happiness we both know he deserves.”
Hannah spent a number of seconds staring at the shiny leaves of her favorite rubber plant. Finally, she looked at Kate again. “I suppose he’s seen that awful article in Inside Scoop.”
Kate let out a very ladylike snort. “We all saw it.”
“I was afraid he might think—”
“Hannah. No way. We know you had nothing to do with that—although I have to admit, it was that stupid article that decided me.”
“Decided you?”
“To get over here and talk to you. He loves you, Hannah. And I think you love him. Am I right?”
“Oh, Kate…”
“Hannah, don’t blow this. Don’t throw love away.”
Something in Kate’s eyes made Hannah long to ask if Cord’s sister spoke from experience—but then something else told her that Kate wouldn’t answer such a question, anyway.
Kate kicked off her fuchsia wedgies and gathered her feet to the side. “Did you tell him that you love him?”
“Of course not.”
“First and major mistake. You’ll have to fix that.”
“I will?”
“Absolutely. Tell him you love him. And after that, tell him you want to marry him—and if it makes you feel better, tell him he has to promise to give up all the other women for good. Ask him to put it in writing, in a prenup.”
“Kate!”
“What?”
“How could you even suggest such a thing? I would never ask for a prenuptial agreement. It says ‘forsaking all others’ right in the wedding vows. Where I come from, that is more than enough.”
“So fine. In any case, you’ll have his promise. My brother keeps his promises. I can vouch for that.”
“I would never want to force a promise like that out of him.”
“Well, all right, Hannah. Then don’t. Just…wing it. Just start with ‘I love you.’ That’s all you really need to say anyway. You tell my brother that you love him, and I swear to you, all the rest of it will fall right into place.”
Chapter Twenty
“Cord.” A slender hand closed over his arm.
He looked up into Jerralyn Coulter’s sultry eyes.
They stood in one of the food tents, near a table piled high with tempting delicacies. The Independence Day bash was in full swing. It was shaping up to be the best one ever. Emma had outdone herself. He could hear the band, outside the tent, at the bandstand on the east lawn, not far from the pool. They were playing “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
Jerralyn moved closer. Her scent came with her: musky and expensive. “I’ve missed you,” she murmured, for his ears alone. “I’ve wanted to call you. But a woman does have her pride…”
She stared up at him with the kind of smoldering look that at one time would have had him inquiring if she’d care to check out the view from his bed/sitting room. Now, that look did nothing for him—except to inspire a vague feeling of sadness. He missed Hannah.
And damn it, why the hell did every transaction, every interaction, every single thought that went through his head always manage to lead him right back around to Hannah?
Was it always going to be like this?
Damned if he hadn’t started to think that it might.
He told Jerralyn, as quietly and kindly as he could, “You flatter me. Don’t. Find someone else.”
Her smooth brows drew together. “You don’t mean that. You’ve just been…distracted. I heard about your little girl. And I want you to know that I—”
“Jerralyn, I do mean it. Don’t.”
Her eyes widened. “There’s someone else, isn’t there?”
He gave her a rueful shrug—and told the truth, though not the whole truth. “I’m afraid so.” Jerralyn didn’t have to know that he’d lost that someone else.
Jerralyn stared at him for several uncomfortable seconds. Then she muttered something low and crude, tossed her half-filled plate on the table beside them and flounced away.
Cord didn’t hang around to watch her go. It was too depressing, that he’d ever been involved with her in the first place. He felt rotten about it.
He felt rotten about all of them, all the women he’d wined and dined and taken to his bed and eventually grown tired of. What the hell had been the point? He didn’t even remember anymore.
He just wanted Hannah. To talk to her. To hear her laugh. To walk with her under the sweet gum trees…
He left the tent, which was air-conditioned, for the sweltering Texas heat outside. Emma had mist-makers going, of course, all over the grounds, devices that spewed a fine, cool spray. They helped, cooling the skin as the mist evaporated. But this was summer in Texas, after all. A man could air-condition his house and his party tents. But there was only so much that could be done about the great outdoors.
Cord grinned to himself, thinking that maybe, on second thought, he’d just mosey right back into that cool tent.
He was just about to turn, when he saw her.
She stood twenty yards away, wearing a sleeveless lemon-yellow dress that skimmed her curves and ended just above her pretty knees. She was talking to Kate. They were laughing together…
What the hell? It wasn’t enough that he thought of her constantly? Now he’d begun to hallucinate that he was actually seeing her?
Must be the heat.
He shut his eyes, counted to three and opened them again.
She was still there.
My God, he thought. She’s real.
Right then, a hand closed on his shoulder. “Cord. Great party. You Stockwells have done it again.”
He started to jerk away—and caught himself just in time. “Senator, glad you could come…”
It took him a good two minutes to get away from the politician. And by then, Hannah—and Kate—had vanished. He went looking, following the winding path under the trees. It wasn’t long until he found her again—or he thought he did. He saw a flash of yellow at the entrance to the formal gardens.
He followed after, moving fast, though she had disappeared around a bend in the path. He walked even faster, catching up just enough that he saw her again.
Definitely. Hannah.
He said the name aloud. “Hannah.”
She stopped. And she turned.
And damn it if she didn’t smile.
He moved toward her, feeling as if he walked in some dream, never letting go of her eyes, sure that if he did, she would vanish again.
When he reached her side, he realized that he didn’t have a clue what to say. She was just so beautiful, in that yellow dress, with her chestnut hair shining in the spots of sunlight that filtered down through the trees.
And he felt…
There was only one word for it: shy. He couldn’t believe it. Never in his life had he been shy with a woman.
“Will you walk with me?” He offered his arm.
And she took it. The feel of her, brushing against him, and the touch of her hand on his arm, was everything to him. Nothing had ever meant so much.
They went on, through the garden, o
ut under the rose arbor gate, and onto the lawn that sloped down to the pond.
“It’s so hot,” she said. “Let’s go out and sit on the dock. We can take off our shoes and put our feet in the water.”
Take off our shoes…
He hardly dared to breathe. She would take off her shoes in his presence again.
That had to be a good sign, didn’t it?
He followed where she led him, to the end of the dock, where he dropped down beside her. He got rid of his shoes and socks and rolled up his slacks as she shucked off her yellow sandals. Together, they swung their feet out over the water.
Their toes barely touched the surface. It was a hot summer, and would get hotter. The water level dropped just a little every day.
“It’s a reach,” she said, laughing. She dipped her toe in, scooping up water drops, sending them splashing. He drank in her laughter. He was a drowning man, going under, into those shining leaf-green eyes…
He leaned toward her a little, and she leaned toward him. “Hannah…”
“Yes, Cord?”
“Hannah, I—”
The sound of footsteps rushing toward them down the dock cut him off before he could get out the crucial words.
They turned together. Yolanda, one of the day maids, hurried toward them. “Mr. Cord, Mr. Caine is calling for you. He is very bad. He wants you to come to him. Right away.”
He almost said no. Forget it. Let him holler all he wants, I’m not leaving this dock. I’m not leaving this woman…
He couldn’t leave her. If he did, she might just disappear from his life all over again.
She leaned even closer to him. The scent of her taunted him. How had he lived without her—the sight of her, the smell of her…
“Go on,” she said. “I’ll wait for you in Becky’s room…if that’s all right?”
Somehow, he managed to nod. “Yes. All right. Becky’s room. I won’t be long.”
“Take as long as you need.”
Caine was shouting when Cord entered his rooms. “I want my son! Where the hell is my son?”
Cord went right to him, sent the nurses away, and listened to him rant and rail.
He tried, once he got Caine settled down just a little, to get some scrap of new information about Madelyn and Brandon, and about the land deal. Caine wouldn’t even reply when Cord tried to prod him into saying something about the letters from Gabriel Johnson.
But the old man did mutter, “You’ll have to ask Clyde Carlyle,” when Cord asked about Madelyn.
Eventually Caine closed his eyes and drifted off into a fitful slumber. Cord rang for the nurses.
Jack, Kate and Rafe were waiting out in the hallway when he left his father’s suite.
Kate said, “Look who’s home.”
Cord lifted an eyebrow at Rafe. “About time, little brother.”
Rafe shrugged. “Hannah told Kate you’d been called by the old man. Is he all right?”
“No,” said Cord. “But he’s not dying. Not today, anyway.”
“Did you get anything new out of him?”
“He mentioned Clyde Carlyle by name. Said we should ask him, if we wanted to know where Madelyn was.”
“Anything else?”
“Sorry. That’s all.”
Jack spoke then. “I’ve got some news. We found out who let the photographer onto the grounds. It was one of the gardeners. The head gardener caught him out by the north gate a couple of weeks ago, a place he had no business being. The head gardener mentioned the strange behavior to Emma, and she remembered it when I talked to her. I had a few words with the man in question. He confessed that he’d taken five thousand dollars to sneak a photographer through the gate.”
“He’s fired,” said Cord.
Jack nodded. “I escorted him out personally.”
Rafe looked confused. Quickly Kate filled him in on what had happened in his absence.
Once he had the story, Rafe said, “Good work, Jack.”
Jack grunted. “It’s a hell of a lot better than I’ve done trying to gather more clues about Gabriel Johnson—not to mention the fates of our mother and uncle and possible brother or sister.”
“Time to take action,” Rafe said. “I’ll talk to Caroline tomorrow.”
Kate was grinning. “And you, Cord Stockwell, had better head for the nursery. Someone special is waiting there.”
Cord detoured to his bedroom, briefly. Then he went to the nursery, where he found Hannah with his daughter in her arms. She passed the baby to Bridget and shyly held out her hand.
“Let’s go to the sitting room.”
They went across the hall and into the room where he’d first asked her to take care of his daughter, the room where they’d said their “final” goodbyes. He didn’t offer her a seat this time. Instead he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, long and hard and thoroughly.
Finally, breathlessly, she pulled away—but only to look up at him with those shining eyes and declare, “I love you, Cord. With all of my heart. And…I’m so sorry I left you. I was just so afraid. To give my heart. To take a chance it might get broken again.”
He wanted to tell her that he understood, it was all right—as long as she swore she was here to stay now.
He started to speak, to say those important things. But she put her soft fingers against his lips. “I want you to know. I’ve learned something. I’ve learned that I don’t want to live without you if I don’t have to—not without you or without Becky. And I want to ask, if there’s any chance in the world that you might feel the same way…”
He opened his mouth again—to tell her exactly how he felt.
But she said, “Shh. Wait. I…”
“Damn it, Hannah. What?”
“I was wondering if, maybe, we could start again. Take it slowly. I wouldn’t expect marriage, not at first. I would want to give you time to get used to the idea of being tied down. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for you as you think it would be. After all, you’ve turned out to be such a very fine father, when I know you were real nervous about that at the first. Maybe you’ll find out that…” She seemed unsure of how to go on.
He couldn’t help smiling. He knew it was a pretty smug smile. “Maybe I’ll find out what?”
Her sweet face was a warm pink. “Oh, I am making a darn fool of myself. I just…wanted to say that I am in love with you, Cord Stockwell. That I’d like to try to make a life with you.”
“You would?”
Hannah gazed up at him, at this man that she loved. He was smiling at her, one of those devastating smiles of his—the kind that stole her breath right out of her chest and made her heart pound so hard it felt like it just might explode.
He took a box from his pocket—a small blue one tied with a white ribbon—and he handed it to her. With slow care, she untied the ribbon. There was a little blue pouch inside. And inside that pouch, a pin. A pin shaped like a starfish. It was studded with round blue stones and had a blood-red ruby right at its center.
“It’s not a ring,” he said, sounding so sweet and regretful. “If I’d known you were coming back today, I would have gotten you a ring.”
“I love it.”
“You do?”
She couldn’t resist slanting him a look of teasing suspicion. “But what about my nightgown?”
“You can have it whenever you want it—as long as you only wear it for me.”
She did like the sound of that. “Only for you,” she whispered, staring into his eyes. “Help me…”
He pinned the starfish to the shoulder of her dress and declared with tender solemnity, “I love you, too, Hannah. More than you’ll ever know. And it took me a while to figure it all out, but I understand now. It doesn’t matter what my father did, the mistakes he made, the love he never really found. I don’t have to be like him. I can give you my word and know I will keep it. There’s not going to be anyone else, Hannah. How could there be, now that there’s you?”
She gazed up at him, her
heart full to bursting with pure joy.
He went on. “I want marriage. With you. I’m not going to settle for anything less. And I want it soon. I don’t want to waste another minute of my life without you at my side. Will you marry me, Hannah?”
She did not have the words to say what was in her heart. So she simply continued to gaze at him, all of her love in her eyes.
“Damn it, say yes.”
So she did, with feeling. “Yes, Cord. Oh, yes.”
It was all Cord Stockwell needed to hear. He pulled her close and lowered his mouth to hers, thinking as he kissed her that a miracle had occurred. Somehow, in the process of claiming a daughter he hadn’t even realized existed, he had stumbled onto happiness. Happiness in the form of Ms. Hannah Waynette Miller, the only woman in the world who could turn the Lone Star State’s most notorious playboy tycoon into a man with forever on his mind.
Epilogue
Later, as fireworks blazed in the Texas sky, Rafe Stockwell watched his twin and Hannah.
Cord stood behind his bride-to-be, his arms wrapped around her. Hannah glanced back at him. The two exchanged the kind of look only those long-gone in love can share.
For some reason, that look had Rafe thinking of Caroline Carlyle, though why the hell it should was a mystery to him. The woman had dumped him, after all.
Still, he had to admit, at least to himself, that he felt some…anticipation, at the thought of seeing her again. And he was curious, too, to meet the man she’d dumped him for, the one she’d said she planned to be spending a lot of time with in the future.
Tomorrow, he thought, turning from the lights exploding in the sky. Tomorrow, he’d drop in at the offices of Carlyle and Carlyle.
And he and Caroline could have a nice, long talk.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Christine Rimmer for her contribution to the STOCKWELLS OF TEXAS series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6213-7
THE TYCOON’S INSTANT DAUGHTER
Copyright © 2001 by Harlequin Books S.A.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
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