Babies in the Bargain

by Victoria Pade

  Kira opened the manila folder and took out the newspaper article from the Denver Post.

  It was a small piece about two Montana men—one an off-duty police officer and the other a Northbridge business owner—who had rushed into a burning house to rescue a family trapped inside. The two men had saved the family and then had gone back in for the pets only to have a beam knock Addison Walker unconscious and break Cutler Grant’s ankle. Still, Officer Grant had managed to drag the unconscious businessman to safety.

  The name Addison Walker meant nothing to Kira.

  But Cutler Grant—that was something else. Kira knew a Cutty Grant.

  Could it be the same man who held the truth about her long-lost sister? Whether this would turn out to be a wild-goose chase or she was about to embark on an adventure with destiny, Kira had to find the injured cop. She owed it to her family and to herself.

  Bottom line: this man was her only hope.

  Dear Reader,

  We’re smack in the middle of summer, which can only mean long, lazy days at the beach. And do we have some fantastic books for you to bring along! We begin this month with a new continuity, only in Special Edition, called THE PARKS EMPIRE, a tale of secrets and lies, love and revenge. And Laurie Paige opens the series with Romancing the Enemy. A schoolteacher who wants to avenge herself against the man who ruined her family decides to move next door to the man’s son. But things don’t go exactly as planned, as she finds herself falling…for the enemy.

  Stella Bagwell continues her MEN OF THE WEST miniseries with Her Texas Ranger, in which an officer who’s come home to investigate a murder fins complications in the form of the girl he loved in high school. Victoria Pade begins her NORTHBRIDGE NUPTIALS miniseries, revolving around a town famed for its weddings, with Babies in the Bargain. When a woman hoping to reunite with her estranged sister finds instead her widowed husband and her children, she winds up playing nanny to the whole crew. Can wife and mother be far behind? THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT by Christine Flynn concludes with Prodigal Prince Charming, in which a wealthy playboy tries to help a struggling caterer with her business and becomes much more than just her business partner in the process. Brand-new author Mary J. Forbes debuts with A Forever Family, featuring a single doctor dad and the woman he hires to work for him. And the men of the CHEROKEE ROSE miniseries by Janis Reams Hudson continues with The Other Brother, in which a woman who always contend her handsome neighbor as one of her best friends suddenly finds herself looking at him in a new light.

  Happy reading! And come back next month for six new fabulous books, all from Silhouette Special Edition.

  Gail Chasan

  Senior Editor

  Babies in the Bargain

  Victoria Pade

  Books by Victoria Pade

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Breaking Every Rule #402

  Divine Decadence #473

  Shades and Shadows #502

  Shelter from the Storm #527

  Twice Shy #558

  Something Special #600

  Out on a Limb #629

  The Right Time #689

  Over Easy #710

  Amazing Gracie #752

  Hello Again #778

  Unmarried with Children #852

  *Cowboy’s Kin #923

  *Baby My Baby #946

  *Cowboy’s Kiss #970

  Mom for Hire #1057

  *Cowboy’s Lady #1106

  *Cowboy’s Love #1159

  *The Cowboy’s Ideal Wife #1185

  *Baby Love #1249

  *Cowboy’s Caress #1311

  *The Cowboy’s Gift-Wrapped Bride #1365

  *Cowboy’s Baby #1389

  *Baby Be Mine #1431

  *On Pins and Needles #1443

  Willow in Bloom #1490

  †Her Baby Secret #1503

  †Maybe My Baby #1515

  †The Baby Surprise #1544

  His Pretend Fiancée #1564

  **Babies in the Bargain #1623

  Silhouette Books

  World’s Most Eligible Bachelors

  Wyoming Wrangler

  Montana Mavericks:

  Wed in Whitehorn

  The Marriage Bargain

  The Coltons

  From Boss to Bridegroom

  VICTORIA PADE

  is a bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romance fiction, and mother of two energetic daughters, Cori and Erin. Although she enjoys her chosen career as a novelist, she occasionally laments that she has never traveled farther from her Colorado home than Disneyland, instead spending all her spare time plugging away at her computer. She takes breaks from writing by indulging in her favorite hobby—eating chocolate.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter One

  Darkness hadn’t completely fallen when Kira Wentworth drove from farm-and-ranch land into the city proper of Northbridge, Montana, on Wednesday night. Still, most of the stores and shops that lined the small college town’s main thoroughfare were closed. Even the gas station was being locked up as she pulled into the lot.

  “Excuse me,” Kira said from the window of her rental car to the attendant as he removed the key from the door and pocketed it. “Can I bother you for directions?”

  “Nothin’s hard to find in Northbridge,” the teenage boy informed her as if she was asking a dumb question.

  He did come to the side of her car, though.

  “I’m looking for one-o-four Jellison Street,” she informed him.

  The freckle-faced teenager didn’t have to think about it before he said, “That’s the Grant place. Officer Grant is laid up with a broken ankle so he should be there.”

  The teenager gave her brief instructions. Then, without another word, he rounded her car to go to the single island and padlock the nozzle on the only gas pump.

  “Thank you,” Kira called after him.

  “Sure,” he answered, taking off on foot and leaving her behind without a second glance.

  Kira rolled up the car window again and turned the air conditioner higher. Just the thought that she was within three blocks of her destination increased her stress level and made her hotter than even the mid-July temperature warranted.

  Hoping the heat and the drive through the open countryside hadn’t made her look too much the worse for wear, she glanced at herself in the rearview mirror before heading out of the gas station.

  Her mascara hadn’t left smudges around her blue eyes, and light mauve lipstick still stained lips that weren’t too thin or too thick. But despite the fact that she’d reapplied blush in the Billings Airport when she’d landed, her skin looked pale again.

  “It might not even be the same guy,” she reminded her reflection. “This could still be a wild-goose chase.”

  But the reminder didn’t help much. She continued to feel as if she had butterflies in the pit of her stomach, and if the pallor of her skin wasn’t enough, there was further proof of her nervousness in the fact that somewhere during the drive from Billings she’d tucked her hair behind her ears—a habit her father had detested.

  She hurriedly took a comb from her purse—as if Tom Wentworth might appear at any moment to punish her for the infraction—running it through the precision-cut, shoulder-length, straight honey-blond hair until every strand was right where it belonged.

  Then she replaced the comb, reapplied blush to her high cheekbones, tugged at the collar of her white blouse to make sure it was exactly centered at her throat and plucked a single stri
ng from the right leg of her navy-blue slacks.

  Not perfect, she judged as she took another look at herself in the mirror, but at least she was presentable and it was the best she could do under the circumstances.

  She noticed then that the clock on the dashboard read five minutes after nine and it occurred to her that she probably shouldn’t waste any more time. She didn’t know much about small-town life, but if even the gas station was closed already, maybe everyone went to bed early, too. And she didn’t want to risk having to wait another day to find out what she’d come to find out.

  She put the sedan back into gear and pulled out of the station, taking a right at the only stoplight, and then a quick left after that onto Jellison.

  What she found there was a nice neighborhood shaded with tall elm, oak and maple trees lining the street on both sides. Beyond the trees at the curb were medium-size frame houses that looked as if they’d all been pressed through the same cookie cutter in 1950.

  The two-story, wedding-cake-shaped houses with the covered front porches were distinguished from one another only by the different earth-tone colors they’d been painted, the outside shutters and flower boxes that had been added to several of them, and the yards—some with elaborate landscaping and others with only well-tended lawns.

  The address she was looking for came into view on the fourth house from the corner—that one had tan siding, white shutters and a wooden swing hanging from chains on the left side of the porch.

  There was a black-and-white SUV parked in the driveway with Northbridge Police stenciled on the sides and back. There weren’t any cars parked in front, though, so Kira pulled to a stop at the curb.

  Before she turned off the engine she took the manila folder from the passenger seat and opened it. Inside was the newspaper article from Sunday’s Denver Post that she’d cut out and laminated.

  It was a small piece about two Montana men—one an off-duty police officer and the other a Northbridge business owner—who had rushed into a burning house to rescue a family trapped inside. The two men had saved the family and then had gone back in for the pets only to have a beam knock Addison Walker unconscious and break Cutler Grant’s ankle. Still, Officer Grant had managed to drag the unconscious businessman to safety.

  The name Addison Walker meant nothing to Kira.

  But Cutler Grant—that was something else. Kira knew—sort of—a Cutty Grant.

  There wasn’t much information about the two men in the pictureless piece, but it did say that Cutler Grant was a widower with eighteen-month-old twin daughters.

  That was a surprise. The Cutty Grant Kira knew had married her older sister and they’d had a son. A son who would be twelve years old by now.

  So maybe this really was a wild-goose chase and the Cutler Grant in the newspaper wasn’t the same Cutty Grant she knew.

  But what she was hoping was that this was the same man. That she’d find out that the wife who had left him a widower with eighteen-month-old twins was his second wife. And that he would be able to tell Kira where to find Marla and their twelve-year-old son.

  Kira put the slip of paper neatly back into the folder and replaced it on the passenger seat.

  Then she turned off the car.

  Ignoring the tension that tightened her shoulders, Kira picked up her leather purse and took it with her as she got out.

  The scent of honeysuckle was in the air as she headed for the door. Light shone through the windows of the lower floor and the front door was open—probably to let in the cooler evening air—so apparently the occupants of 104 Jellison Street were still awake.

  She climbed five cement steps to the porch. As she approached the door she could see through the screen. There was a man sitting on an antique chair, talking on the phone.

  He caught sight of her, and without missing a beat, he motioned for her to come inside.

  Who did he think she was? Kira wondered, staying rooted to that spot, unsure whether or not to actually go inside.

  Although his looks had matured, she could tell that this man was the Cutty Grant she was looking for. But she knew there was no way he recognized her. The one and only time he’d seen her had lasted a total of ten minutes before she’d been dispatched to her room. Besides, she looked completely different than she had then.

  But when she remained on the porch, he motioned to her even more insistently, and she didn’t know what to do but oblige him. So she opened the screen and went in.

  “Betty, we’ll be okay,” he was saying into the phone. “Family comes first. You have to take care of your mother.”

  Kira didn’t want to appear to be listening so she kept her eyes on the floor. The floor where he had one foot stretched out in front of him. One big, bare foot with a white cast cupping his heel and disappearing under the leg of a pair of time-aged blue jeans that hugged a thigh thick enough to be noteworthy.

  She tried to keep control of her eyes but they seemed to have a mind of their own and continued up to the plain white crew-neck T-shirt that fit him like a second skin and left no doubt that he was in good enough shape to have dragged a full-grown man out of a burning building. His chest and shoulders were that substantial, bulging with toned muscles. And his biceps were so big they stretched the short sleeves of the T-shirt to the limit.

  “No, don’t do that.”

  For a split-second Kira thought he might be talking to her, and she glanced quickly to his face.

  But he was still talking into the phone. “You can’t take care of things here and take care of your mom, too,” he said.

  In fact he wasn’t even looking in Kira’s direction. His focus really was on the floor where hers had begun, and he didn’t seem aware that Kira’s gaze was on his face now. Somehow that made it more difficult to lower her eyes and instead she was left studying the changes in him.

  The seventeen-year-old boy she remembered had been cute enough to make her jealous of her older sister. Yet the boy was nothing compared to the man.

  The grown-up Cutty Grant had the same sable-colored hair only now he wore it short all over and messy on top rather than long and shaggy.

  It wasn’t only his haircut that had changed. His face had gone from boyishly appealing to ruggedly striking. His very square forehead had become strong. His distinctive jawline and straight, slightly longish nose were more defined, and every angle and plane of his face seemed more sharply cut.

  His upper lip was still narrow above a fuller bottom lip, and when he smiled at something the person on the other end of the phone said, two grooves bracketed either side of that mouth, which had gained a certain suppleness. And an indescribable sexiness, too.

  His deep-set eyes hadn’t undergone any alteration with age—they were still a remarkable shade of green unlike any other eyes Kira had ever seen. Dark green, the color of Christmas trees. Evergreen trees. And all in all, Kira thought that she’d never even met a man as head-turningly handsome as the adult Cutty Grant.

  “Yes, the place is a mess, but Lucinda had no business reporting that to you,” he said then.

  Kira needed an excuse to tear her eyes away from him and that gave it to her. She forced herself to look from him into the living room.

  She didn’t know about the rest of the place but that room was definitely in disarray. There were toys on the floor, on the end tables, on the brown tweed sofa, even on the desk in the corner. There were children’s clothes strewn here and there, including one tiny pair of pink shorts hanging over the lampshade of a pole lamp in the corner. There were unused diapers spilling from a sack on top of the television in the entertainment center. There was a plate with the crusts of a sandwich left on it, a half-empty glass of milk, and another smaller glass overturned in a puddle of orange juice on the oak coffee table. And there was just an overall air of clutter everywhere that sparked an urge in the meticulous Kira to put it all in order.

  But of course she resisted that urge.

  “I mean it, Betty. Forget about us until she’s bette
r. The girls and I will manage.”

  Kira noticed then that there was even debris on the stairs—more toys, more baby clothes, a sock that must have belonged to Cutty, and it occurred to her that no matter what he was telling the person he was talking to, he wasn’t managing very well.

  But in spite of that he insisted, “Really, you don’t have to come by here in the morning before you pick up your mom from the hospital—”

  There was a pause while the person on the other end interrupted him to say something, and whatever it was it apparently convinced him because he sighed and said, “Okay, but then that’s it. An hour tomorrow morning. After that, I don’t want to see you around here until your mom is a hundred percent better. If nothing else I’ll get Ad over to help.”

  Whoever he was talking to said something that made Cutty Grant laugh a deep, throaty laugh that sounded so good it was almost sinful.

  Then he said, “Yeah, I know, Ad isn’t any more domestic than I am, but he can get more done with a bump on the head than I can with a bum ankle that’s supposed to be elevated all the time. Just don’t worry about it. Now I have to go. I have company. I’ll see you in the morning. But only for an hour,” he added, slowly enunciating each word for emphasis before he said goodbye.

  The minute he hung up he turned his attention to Kira. “Sorry about that. That was the woman who usually helps me out around here with the babies and the housekeeping. Her mother herniated a disc in her back and she’s fretting about leaving me in the lurch. She knows I’m not good for much when I’m supposed to stay off the foot,” he said, pointing to his injured ankle.

  Kira watched him stand and take a cane that was braced against the wall beside him.

  Even leaning his weight on the cane he still stood at least six foot two and if Kira had thought his physique was impressive when he was sitting down, it was even more impressive when he was upright. There was definitely nothing boyish in that big, powerful tower of a man and it left Kira slightly dumbstruck.

  Not that he seemed to notice as he continued. “So. Here you are. I could have sworn we said Thursday night between eight and nine to make sure the babies were asleep or I wouldn’t have returned Betty’s phone call.”