When Isabelle answered the door, she assumed Nicole was the housekeeper she’d advertised for and left within seconds of her arrival.
What could Nicole do? She couldn’t leave Mrs. Cosgrove, who had been sitting in a wheelchair, alone, nor could she tell the poor woman why she was here. So she stayed and cleaned up and helped where she could.
Then Kip came striding up the sidewalk with his long legs, his eyebrows lowered over narrowed grey eyes shadowed by his cowboy hat, his mouth set in grim lines, and fear clutched her midsection.
She was about to come clean.
Then she saw the boys, and she knew beyond a doubt they were Tricia’s twins. Everything changed in that moment, but she couldn’t tell the Cosgroves who she was. Not yet.
She didn’t want her first introduction to the boys to be fraught with conflict. Because as soon as Kip and his mother, Mary, found out her true purpose for being here, there would be antagonism and battles.
“We have our own kittens, too,” Justin said, swinging her hand as if he’d known her for all of his five years.
Nicole tightened her grip on the boys’ hands, a surprising wave of love and yearning washing over her.
How could Tricia have left these boys? How horrible her life must have been to make that sacrifice? Why couldn’t Tricia have asked for her family’s help?
It was because of me, Nicole thought. I sent her away.
“There are five of them,” Tristan said, his innocent words breaking into the morass of guilt surrounding any memory of Tricia. “One of them died, though. Do you think that kitten is in heaven with my daddy?”
“I think so,” Nicole said, hesitantly. She didn’t want to destroy their little dreams of heaven or of the man they thought of as their father. But Scott wasn’t their father.
As for God? When Tricia left eight years ago, Nicole’s faith in God had wavered. When Nicole’s adoptive mother died of cancer three years after that, Nicole stopped thinking God cared.
God, if he did exist, was simply a figurehead. Someone people went to when they didn’t know where else to turn and even then a huge disappointment.
“How about we check out the kittens,” she said, brushing aside her anger. All that mattered was that she had found the boys.
“I don’t want to see the kittens,” Justin said with a pout. “I want to see the horses.”
“Uncle Kip won’t let us,” Tristan said, placing his hands on his hips. “You know that.”
“We won’t go into the corrals.” Justin tugged on her hand. “Uncle Kip won’t get mad if we just look.”
Nicole easily remembered Kip Cosgrove’s formidable expression. Best not cross him sooner than she had to. “Maybe another time,” she said. “We should go back to the house.”
“I want to see the horses.” Justin pulled loose and took off.
“Justin, come back here,” she called, still holding onto Tristan as Justin disappeared around the barn.
Nicole turned to Tristan. “You stay here, okay?” She spoke firmly so he understood.
Tristan nodded, his blue eyes wide with uncertainty.
“I have to get your brother.” She patted him on the shoulder, allowed herself a moment to cup his soft, tender cheek, then turned to get Justin.
Nicole ran around the barn in time to see Justin with his foot on the bottom rail of the corral. She ran over the uneven ground and caught him by the waistband of his blue jeans just as he took another shaky step up.
“I can go up myself,” he said, trying to pull free.
“If your uncle said no, then it’s no,” Nicole said, shifting her grip from his pants to his shirt. No way was she bucking Uncle Kip on this. She needed all her ammunition for a much bigger battle. “So let’s go.”
“What’s going on?” Kip’s deep voice, edged with anger, reverberated through the quiet of the afternoon.
Nicole’s heart stuttered at the latent fury in his voice.
Still holding on to Justin’s arm, she turned to see Kip standing behind her, Tristan beside him.
“Justin, get down from that fence. You and Tristan are to go back to the house right now,” Kip said, his tone brooking no argument. “Gramma is waiting for you.”
“I want to stay with Nicole. She said I could see the horses with her.”
Nicole was about to correct that when Kip spoke again.
“I need to talk to Miss Nicole,” he said. “Alone.”
His anger seemed extreme for the circumstances. That could mean only one thing. He knew about her momentary deception.
Time to come clean. She had seen the boys and was ready to face him down. She had Tricia’s will and the law on her side.
Justin jumped down and scampered around the barn, Tristan close behind.
Kip watched them leave, then walked toward her, his booted feet stirring up little clouds of dust. The utter stillness of the air felt fraught with uncertainty and a feeling of waiting.
He stopped in front of her, crossed his arms over his chest and angled his head to one side.
Fear trembled in her midsection, threaded with a peculiar awareness of him. She pushed her reaction aside and focused on the job she had come here to do.
“We need to talk,” he said quietly.
“I know—”
“I’ve decided to hire you,” he said.
This wasn’t what she had expected when he came storming around the barn, anger and fury in his eyes.
“I’ve got a lot going,” he said. “And I can’t stay on top of everything. I really could use your help.”
The appeal in his voice and the confusion of his expression created an answering flash of sympathy. When she first came into his house, she felt overwhelmed at the mess. When she saw poor Mrs. Cosgrove, trying to fold laundry from her wheelchair, she knew she couldn’t walk away.
So she pitched in and started cleaning. Mrs. Cosgrove’s gratitude made her momentary subterfuge seem worthwhile.
Now a man who looked like he could eat bullets and spit out the casings was launching an appeal for her help.
He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “So tell me what you want to get paid, and we’ll see if we can figure something out.”
Nicole held his gaze, and when he gave her a half smile, her heart shifted and softened. For a moment, as their eyes held, a tiny crack opened in her defenses, a delicate pining for something missing in her life. As quickly as it came, she sealed it off. Opening herself up to someone would cost too much.
Besides, he was the enemy. The one who stood between her and her beloved sister’s boys. When he found out who she was, the warmth in his eyes would freeze.
She took a breath and plunged in.
“You may as well know, I didn’t come to apply for the housekeeping position.” Nicole spoke quietly, folding her hands in front of her and forcing herself to hold his gaze. “I’m Tricia’s adoptive sister. Justin and Tristan’s aunt. I’ve come to take the boys.”
Chapter Two
Kip stared at the woman in front of him, her words spinning around his head.
Tricia’s sister? Come to take his boys? His brother’s sons?
“What are you talking about? What do you mean?” His heart did a slow flip as the implications of what she said registered.
He had come here to offer her a job, and when he saw Justin climbing the fence of the horse corral, he’d lost it. In front of his very attractive prospective employee.
Now, with his heart still pounding from seeing Justin up on the fence, he was sandbagged with this piece of information.
“When were you going to tell me that you weren’t applying for the job?” Kip growled, unable to keep his anger tamped down.
“I just did.” Nicole raised her chin and looked at him with her cool gray-green eyes. “I had no intention of fooling anyone.”
Kip gave a short laugh. “So how do you figure you’re taking the boys? How does that work?”
Nicole pressed her lips together and looked aw
ay. “It works because Tricia wrote up a will stating that our parents get custody and now she’s…now she’s dead.”
Kip took a step back, the news hitting him like a blow.
“What? When?” His poor nephews. How was he going to tell them?
Nicole didn’t answer right away, and Kip saw the silvery track of a tear on her cheek. She swiped it away with the cuff of her tailored jacket.
“Tricia died about three years ago. We found out a only few weeks ago.” Her voice sounded strangled, and for a moment Kip sympathized with her. The first few weeks after his brother Scott died, he could barely function. He went through the motions of work, hoping, praying, he could find his balance again. Hoping, praying the pain in his heart would someday ease. Hoping the guilt that tormented him over his brother’s death would someday be gone as well.
His brother had died only six months ago, and they had only recently found out about Tricia. Her pain must be so raw yet…
He pulled his thoughts back to the problem at hand. “Why did it take so long for you to find out about Tricia’s death?” he asked, steeling his own emotions to her sorrow.
“She hadn’t told anyone about her family. Apparently she had just come out of a drug-rehab program. Then she was going to find her boys.”
“Drug rehab?” Kip’s anger returned. “No wonder Scott came back with the boys.”
Nicole shot him an angry glance. “According to Tricia’s diary and letters, he took them away without her knowledge or permission. Tricia had moved out of the apartment she shared with Scott and had taken the boys with her. She had brought the boys to a friend’s place so she could go into rehab. She was in for two weeks, and when she came back to see the boys, Scott had taken them and was gone.”
Kip laughed. “Really.”
Nicole shot him a frown. “Yes. Really.”
“And you believe a drug user?”
Nicole’s frown deepened. “I truly believe that after the boys were born, Tricia had changed. I also believe my sister would not willingly abandon her children.”
“But she did.”
“Scott took them away from a home she had placed them in so she could get her life together.” Nicole drew in a quick breath. “Something he had no right to do.”
“How do you figure that?” Kip’s anger grew. “He was their father.”
“According to what Tricia wrote, the boys were born before she moved in with Scott. He wasn’t their father.”
Disbelief and anger battled with each other. “That I refuse to believe,” he barked. “My brother loved those boys. They are his. You can’t prove otherwise. Your sister is a liar.”
Nicole’s eyes narrowed, and Kip knew he had stepped over a line. He didn’t care. This woman waltzes into their lives with this complicated lie and he’s supposed to be polite and swallow it all? And then let her take the boys away?
Over his dead body.
“So how do you want to proceed on this?” Nicole asked, arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction.
Kip mentally heaved a sigh. For a small moment he’d thought this woman was the solution to part of his problems.
Not only was he was back to where he started, even if she was lying, he now had a whole new legal tangle to deal with.
Dear Lord, I don’t need anything else right now. I don’t have the strength.
He held her steady gaze, determined not to be swayed by the sparkling in her eyes that he suspected were tears. “The boys were left with me as per my brother’s verbal request,” he said. “I’m their guardian, and until I am notified otherwise, they’re not going anywhere and you’re not to come back here.”
He turned and walked away from the corral. The corral that brought back too many painful memories.
Well, add one more to the list. Somehow he had to tell his nephews that their mother, who had always been a shadowy figure in their lives, was officially dead. If he could believe what this Nicole woman had told him then he had to tell his mother that the woman they had thought was their salvation was anything but.
He shot a quick glance behind him.
Nicole stood by the corral fences, her head bent and her arms crossed over her midsection. Dusty fragments of sunlight gilded her hair and in the silence he heard a muffled sob.
Sympathy for her knotted his chest. Regardless of what he felt, she’d found out about her sister’s death only a few weeks ago. Not long enough for the pain to lose that jagged edge. Not near long enough to finish shedding the tears that needed to spill.
For a moment he thought he should go over to her side and offer her what comfort he could. Then he stopped himself.
She wants to take the boys away, he reminded himself. She claimed they weren’t his nephews. And that reminder effectively doused his sympathy.
“I’m sorry, Nicole, but I’d like you to leave,” he said, hoping his voice projected a tiny bit of sympathy.
She drew in a shuddering breath and looked up, a streak of mascara marring her ethereal features.
“I have pictures,” she said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I can prove who I am.” Nicole wiped at her cheeks with the tips of her fingers, a delicate motion belying the strength of conviction in her voice. “I also have a signed letter from my sister along with a copy of her last will and testament.” Nicole took a few steps toward him, wrapping her arms around her waist. “So I’m not without ammunition myself.”
“I’d like to see all that.”
“Fine.” She walked past him, the scent of lilacs trailing behind her.
Kip followed her as regret lingered a moment.
She was a beautiful woman. When he still thought of her as his future housekeeper, he had thought having her around every day might have been a distraction. He was lonely, she was beautiful. Maybe not the best mix.
But now?
Right now she was a complication he didn’t know how to work his way around.
She yanked a key ring out of her coat pocket, pointed it at the car and unlocked the door. Ducking inside, she pulled out a briefcase, which she set on the trunk of the car.
Kip came closer as she drew an envelope out of the case, opened it and took out a picture.
“This is my sister, the boys and your brother. I think the boys are about six months old there.”
Kip took the laminated photo, and as he glanced at it he felt as if spiders scuttled across his gut.
The picture was identical to one he’d had blown up, then framed and hung in the boy’s room. The only picture the boys had of their mother.
As he handed the picture back, sorrow mixed with his anger. Two of the people in the picture were dead. The boys were officially orphans.
Nicole tucked her hair behind her ears, tugged on her jacket and looked him in the eye. “I’m leaving your ranch like you asked me, but I’m not going far. I have a room in a motel in Millarville and I intend on coming here every day to see my nephews.”
“I’m not discussing anything to do with the boys without my lawyer present. So until then, as I said before, I’d like you to stay away.”
She looked like she was about to protest, then gave a delicate shrug. “Fine. When do you want to see your lawyer?”
Never. He had cows to move to other pastures. A tractor to fix, a stock waterer to repair and a sister who would be peeved when she discovered they didn’t have a housekeeper after all.
“Tomorrow,” he said, mentally cringing. He’d just have to work later in the evening to make up for lost time. Hopefully he could get in with Ron, his lawyer. If not, well, she’d have to wait.
“What’s his name and number?” She pulled out a phone, then punched in the information he gave her. “And what time?” she asked, looking up.
“I’ll give you a call.” He wondered what Ron would have to say about the situation.
Nicole put the phone away, then reached into a side pocket of the briefcase she had taken the papers from.
>
She pulled out a business card and handed it to him.
He glanced down at the name embossed on the card.
Nicole Williams. Director, Williams Foundation. The information was followed by several numbers—home, office, fax, cell—and an email address and a website.
Very official and a bit intimidating.
“Director of the Williams Foundation?” he asked, flicking the card between his fingers.
“My adoptive parents started it.”
“Adoptive?”
“Brent and Norah Williams adopted me when I was eight,” Nicole said, her voice matter of fact. “My father started the nonprofit in memory of my adoptive mother.”
“Admirable.” He tucked the card in the back pocket of his worn jeans, hoping this wasn’t the pair with the hole in the pocket. “I’ll let you know what’s up.”
“Can I come tomorrow to see the boys?”
“Let’s wait to see what my lawyer says.”
Nicole squeezed the top of her briefcase, averting her eyes. “They’re my nephews too,” she said quietly. “My sister’s boys.”
“Boys she abandoned, that no one bothered to find.”
Nicole’s eyes grew hard. “They were taken away from her. The lack of communication is hardly my fault considering we found out about these boys only a few weeks ago.”
Kip was about to say something more when a truck turning onto the yard caught his attention. Isabelle.
His younger sister pulled up beside Nicole’s car, putting it between her and her brother. A strategic move he thought, fighting his anger and frustration with her.
“Hey, Nicole. How’d things go today?” Isabelle called out as she jumped out of the truck. “Had to get groceries,” she said to Kip holding up a solitary plastic bag as if to underline her defense.
“Dressed like that?” Kip asked, eyeing her bright red lipstick, snug T-shirt that sparkled in the sunlight and her too-tight blue jeans.
Isabelle’s face grew mutinous. “I didn’t think I had to stick around here. Especially since Nicole showed up.” She pulled another bag out of the truck and flounced up the walk to the house, her dark hair bouncing with every step.
Cowboy Daddy Page 2