One Night, Two Heirs

by Maureen Child

  Six

  During the next week, Rick got reacquainted both with the woman he had spent the last three years thinking about, and with his home.

  The Pruitt ranch, under foreman John Henry’s steward ship, had continued to thrive. The herd of beef cattle was healthy and growing, and the acreage set aside for raising grain was more productive than he had a right to expect. John had done a hell of a job and Rick was grateful. Knowing his home was in good hands had made it possible for him to follow his own dream of service.

  Now, though, he was back and he had to decide for himself if his dreams hadn’t changed. Evolved.

  Rick’s life was more full than he’d ever experienced before. He had once thought that being a marine was the toughest job on the planet. But that was before he became a father. For the last several days he had spent as much time with them and Sadie as he could. Every time he saw those twin smiles beaming at him, his heart wrenched in his chest. It was lowering to admit just how his daughters had him wrapped around their tiny fingers.

  There was nothing he wouldn’t do for them. Nothing he wouldn’t face for them. Their smiles were a benediction. Their laughter the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

  Rick had never really thought about becoming a father. And now that it had happened to him, he realized just what a responsibility it really was. Loving a child—a family—was an anchor he didn’t believe professional soldiers could afford. That lesson had been brought home to him all too clearly on his last tour.

  And the guilt that gnawed on him every second of every day was a constant reminder.

  Now, though, he was looking at the situation from a whole different angle. There were two people in the world, alive and breathing because of him and Sadie. Those girls…they needed a father. They needed him.

  His children should be able to depend on him. To know that he would be there for them. And how the hell could he do that if he was ten thousand miles away, slinking through a desert with a pack and a gun?

  Then there was Sadie herself. His feelings for her went deeper than he wanted to admit, but damned if he’d ever call it love. Still, she was a part of him now, as much as the girls were, and he didn’t know what the hell to do with that information.

  Standing out on the ranch house’s wide front lawn, he looked at the place where he’d grown up and felt a stab of affection. The heart of the house was more than a hundred years old. Built by the first Pruitt to settle here—back when Sam Houston was still in charge of Texas.

  That small cabin had eventually been added on to with wood, stone and brick until the house itself had sprawled across the land, meandering weirdly with walls jutting out at odd angles. His mother had once told him that when she first saw the ranch house, she thought it had looked like an enchanted cottage. To cement that notion, Rick’s father had added a stone tower to the end of the house for his wife to use as a sewing room.

  Rick’s gaze moved over that tower now and he half expected to see his mother standing in one of the windows waving at him. The fact that she never would again hit him like a fist to the chest. He hadn’t been here when she died. Hadn’t been able to say goodbye. And that would always haunt him.

  Had he given up too much in service to his country? Was it time to step back and let others take over the duties he had always held so dear? Hard to know. Hard to choose which part of your heart to listen to.

  Which was why being here was both a balm and a curse. Being on the ranch again fed his soul. Knowing that he might be leaving it again tore at him.

  “You look like a man with a lot on his mind.”

  Rick turned to watch John Henry walk up to him. The older man was in his sixties, but stood as straight and tall as a man forty years younger. His hair was liberally streaked with gray and the moustache drooping over his upper lip was white as snow. The corners of sharp blue eyes was deeply grooved from too many years squinting into the sun and his skin was as tanned as old leather.

  John Henry was as much a part of the ranch as Rick himself was. Maybe more so, Rick thought now, since the other man was here, taking care of business while he himself was running all over the world taking care of everyone else’s concerns.

  “Plenty to think about,” Rick admitted.

  “Anything you want to talk over?”

  Rick smiled. John had been on the ranch since Rick was a kid. He was as close to a father as Rick had now and though he appreciated the offer, he didn’t see any point in talking about things he hadn’t gotten straight in his own mind yet.

  “Nope.”

  “You always were the closed mouth sort,” John mused and turned his gaze on the house, too. “It’s a good place, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “But a house needs people living in it. A family. Making memories. It’s not good for a house like this to stand empty too long.”

  “Real subtle,” Rick said with a half smile.

  “No point in being subtle. If I’ve got something to say, I just come out and say it.”

  Rick sighed. John had been warming up to this for a week, he knew. “Let’s hear it.”

  The older man scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck. “You know I was just as proud of you as your folks were when you joined the Corps.”

  “I know that.”

  “But that said,” John told him quietly, “there’s a time for leaving home and there’s a time for coming back.”

  He frowned, shifting his gaze to his mother’s window again. If he hadn’t left the last time, he’d have been here when Sadie found out she was pregnant. He’d have been here for his mother before she died. Maybe she wouldn’t have died.

  But the world of ifs was a crowded one with too many possibilities and no changes. Looking backward only fed regrets and that didn’t help a damn thing.

  “I’m just saying,” John continued, “your mom was real excited to know that Sadie Price was going to have your baby.”

  Rick snapped him a hard look. “Mom told you?”

  “’Course she told me. And Elena. Who the hell else did she have to tell?”

  “How about me?” he demanded, as a spurt of anger shot through him. “I’m standing here wishing I’d been here for Mom. For Sadie. And now I find out that not only my mother knew about the twins, but you and Elena did, too? Don’t you think somebody should have told me that I was going to be a father?”

  John didn’t even blink in the face of Rick’s anger. Instead, he frowned. “Yeah, I did think you should be told. But your mother didn’t want you distracted while you were over there. She about wore out her knees praying for you every night and she thought that if you knew about the babies that you wouldn’t be focused and could end up getting hurt. Or worse.”

  The mention of his mother’s prayers quelled the fiery anger inside him with a bucket of guilt as effective as ice water. But he had to ask. “When she died, why didn’t you write and tell me about the girls then? I could have come home.”

  “For how long? A two-week leave? Then you head back to a combat zone? What would have been accomplished?” John shook his head and scraped one work-worn hand across a hard jaw covered with gray stubble. “No. Your mother was right not to tell you. Wasn’t my call to go against her wishes.”

  “Fine,” he muttered, realizing that this was an ancient argument and nothing would be changed by it, anyway.

  Besides, maybe John was right. Who the hell knew? He could admit that finding out about his mother’s death while he was overseas hadn’t been an easy thing. Discovering the truth about the girls might have been even harder to take. “Doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. Point is, I’m home now. I know about the twins, now.”

  “Yeah. The question is, what’re you going to do about it?”

  “Wish I knew,” Rick told him.

  “Well,” John said, slapping him on the shoulder, “while you’re thinking, why don’t you ride out with me to check the herd. Get your mind on something else. Maybe the answer will come to you when yo
u’re not trying so hard to find it.”

  Rick grinned. “This just an excuse to get me back in a saddle?”

  “Damn straight. Want to see if all that walking you do as a marine has made you forget how to ride a horse.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Rick assured him. “But Sadie and the girls are coming here for dinner, so I can’t be out long.”

  “Then we better get moving. Unless like I said, you don’t feel comfortable on a horse anymore.”

  “You want to see comfortable?” Rick steered the older man toward the stable. “I’ll race you out to the north pasture.”

  “What do I get when I win?” John asked.

  Rick laughed and, damn, it felt good. The summer sun was shining. Sadie and his daughters would be there soon. He was home, on land that called to his soul, and for the first time in a long time, he began to think that home was right where he belonged.

  “Castle!”

  “It’s not a castle, sweetie,” Sadie whispered to Wendy as she set the little girl down beside her sister. Then Sadie picked up the stuffed diaper bags and looked up at Rick’s ranch house.

  “Is castle,” Gail insisted.

  “Okay,” Sadie said on a sigh, surrendering to the inevitable. After all, there was a stone tower at one end of the huge house and that was clearly enough for two girls who enjoyed storybooks about princesses at every bedtime.

  Wendy clapped her little hands and took off running. Quickly, Sadie shouted, “Wendy, freeze.”

  The little girl stopped so suddenly, she toppled over, landing on her knees and palms. Her lip curled, her eyes scrunched up and a low-pitched wail slowly built to a scream.

  “Hey now!” Rick came out of the house and sprinted across the lawn toward his fallen daughter. Before Sadie and Gail had taken more than a few steps forward, he had the little girl swept into his arms and was soothing her out of her tears.

  “You okay, sweet thing?” Rick asked, wiping away tears with his thumb.

  “Falled down,” Wendy said and dropped her head onto his shoulder with a dramatic slump.

  “I know, baby girl,” he soothed, running one hand up and down her narrow back while his gaze searched for and found Sadie’s. “But you okay now?”

  “Okay,” she said, lifting her head then patting his cheek. “Down,” she ordered.

  As he set one daughter down, Gail held her arms up to him. “Up.”

  “Tag teaming me?” he asked with a smile as he lifted the little girl.

  “Welcome to my world,” Sadie told him ruefully.

  How could a man look that sexy while holding a child? Sadie’s body was humming, her blood simmering and the low, deep-down ache she’d been carrying around for days began to pulse in time with her heartbeat.

  “Happy to be here.” His voice was low, a soft touch on her already ragged nerve endings.

  Honestly, after being around him so much for the last week, Sadie was in sad, sad shape. Oh, she still wouldn’t consider marrying a man who only wanted her because she had given birth to his children. But she wasn’t above admitting just how badly she wanted him.

  And that was a dangerous feeling.

  He was a marine. Trained to spot his opponent’s weakness. She sighed to herself. Judging by the wicked gleam in his eye, he was doing just that.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said after a long moment filled only with the twins’ excited jabbering.

  Those eyes of his were really lethal weapons, she thought. So dark. So deep. Filled with old pains and secrets, so much so that any woman would be tempted to get closer. To discover the man within. To do just what she had done three years ago, Sadie reminded herself sternly.

  She remembered it all so clearly, it could have happened the day before. Sadie had been at Claire’s restaurant, trying to look as though she didn’t mind eating alone. Rick had walked in, strolled over to her table and asked if he could join her.

  She had been so lonely, so…lost, that she had said yes. For once in her oh-so-proper life, Sadie dropped her shields, lowered her guard and had allowed the real her to come storming out to play. She had held nothing back that night and, in return, she had experienced real passion. Real fire.

  They shared dinner, then a walk around the lake, then a drive to a hotel in Midland, then hours of amazing sex. And over the course of that incredible night, Rick had taught Sadie that her ex-husband had been wrong when he accused her of being a frigid ice queen.

  Memories rushed through her mind with a staggering force that left Sadie breathless. Image after image rose up within her, bringing back every second of that long-ago night until Sadie practically vibrated with need.

  She dragged air into her lungs and forced herself to keep her gaze locked with his. She had succumbed to those eyes and that mouth once. She wasn’t going to do it again. She was stronger than her need.

  “The girls have been looking forward to coming,” she said, stroking one hand across Wendy’s soft curls.

  Thank God she had the twins with her, she thought. They would be her safety net. She and Rick couldn’t very well indulge in hot, steamy, wonderful, frenzied sex with their daughters in attendance, now could they?

  Oh, yeah, she thought. Sad, sad, shape.

  “Not you though, huh?”

  “This isn’t about me,” Sadie told him, even while her mind was taunting, liar, liar. Of course she had been looking forward to seeing him. He was all she thought about lately. The man filled her mind while she was awake and starred in her dreams when she managed to sleep. “Babe, it’s all about you.”

  She stiffened. “I told you once, don’t—”

  “—call you baby.” He grinned. “I didn’t. Called you babe.”

  “That’s the same thing,” she told him, but couldn’t quite seem to keep her lips from twitching.

  No other man she had ever known had teased her, flirted with her, treated her like…a woman. Most men around here were so deferential, all they saw was the Price name, never Sadie herself.

  “How about darlin’ then?” he asked, deliberately drawing out the word until it became a deep, Southern caress.

  “How about we stick with Sadie?”

  He shrugged and smiled again. “That’ll do. For now.”

  She took a breath, hoping to steady herself. Instead, she got a whiff of freshly showered male and felt her ragged nerve endings fray just a little bit more.

  “How about we go inside?” That delectable smile of his curved his mouth in invitation. “I want to show the girls their room.”

  He was already headed for the house, Gail on his hip, Wendy’s hand tucked into his when his words finally settled in Sadie’s mind.

  “Their room?”

  “Cozy as two kittens, aren’t they?” he asked, fifteen minutes later, his gaze never leaving the two little girls.

  “Why wouldn’t they be?” Sadie shook her head as she looked around the pink-and-white splendor.

  Twin youth beds, guardrails in place, were covered by lacy white quilts with pink scrolling spelling out each girl’s name in flowing script. White dressers stood alongside each girl’s bed and a collection of stuffed animals sat perched on little-girl-size rocking chairs. Pink curtains hung at the wide windows that were also gated for safety. There were matching toy boxes, two rocking horses and two identical castle playhouses, complete with tiny dolls and furniture.

  The walls were white, with a mural of spring flowers sprouting up from the gleaming wood floor. A rose-colored braided rug in the center of the room provided warmth and comfort. As if even Heaven approved of what Rick had done here, sunlight speared into the room, dazzling it all with a golden glow.

  He had only known about the twins’ existence for two weeks and yet he’d managed to create a little girl’s paradise. She should be pleased, she knew. Instead, a pang of worry reverberated inside her. This was permanence. Rick was making an important statement here. Letting not only his daughters but Sadie know that he was going to be a part of their lives fr
om here on out.

  “You like it?” he asked, shattering her thoughts and dragging her gaze back to his.

  “What’s not to like?” Sadie walked farther into the room and watched her girls delightedly exploring. “How did you get all of this done so quickly?”

  “Amazing what enough money in the right hands can accomplish.” He leaned against the doorjamb, folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes on her.

  A flicker of heat skittered through her system under that watchful stare. “Why?” she asked. “Why do this if you’re leaving again? By the time you get back, they’ll be too old for this room.”

  He frowned and his eyes darkened. “I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do, but whatever it is, the girls will be a part of my life. I wanted them to have a place here. To know this ranch as home.”

  “Their home is with me,” Sadie said quietly with a quick glance at the girls as they squabbled over the stuffed animals.

  “Could be with both of us,” he pointed out.

  “Don’t start again, Rick,” she said with a shake of her head. “We’ve been down that road too many times already.”

  “And never really talked about it.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  When the girls scampered into an adjoining room, Sadie grabbed at the excuse to halt her conversation with Rick and called out, “Hold on, you two….”

  “Don’t worry,” Rick said quickly, reaching out to take her hand. At the first touch of his skin to hers, Sadie sucked in a gulp of air. She felt his reaction as strongly as her own and she knew that whatever else lay between them, the sexual heat was still burning fiercely.

  He gave her hand a squeeze and released her reluctantly. “Nothing in here can hurt them. I had experts come in and baby-proof the place. Hell, the whole house has had a toddler remodel.”

  Sadie curled her fingers into a fist to keep from reaching out to him again just to feel that sizzle of heat. Nodding to him, she relaxed her guard on the girls a little.

  She’d already noticed the window gates and the plugs in the electrical outlets. And she had to admit that, even with the worry over Rick trying to swoop her girls out from under her, she was touched that he’d gone to so much trouble. But still… “What’s in that room?”