Babies in the Bargain

by Victoria Pade

  It was just after 5 a.m.

  He doubted he would be able to sleep anymore but he didn’t want to get up, either, so he cupped his hands under his head and stared at the ceiling.

  He still couldn’t believe that Kira Wentworth had shown up.

  Marla’s sister.

  He’d only seen her once before. Actually, he’d only met her mother and father one time, too. But while Tom Wentworth’s face was one Cutty would never forget, he had barely glanced at Kira before her adoptive father had ordered her to her room that night thirteen years ago. So there was no way Cutty had recognized her. If he had he might not have been so willing to let her come into his home. Her or anyone connected to Tom Wentworth.

  Tom Wentworth.

  Yeah, meeting him just once had been enough. More than enough, Cutty thought.

  Marla’s father hadn’t wanted Marla to date in high school so she’d only seen Cutty on the sly. They’d made arrangements through friends; they’d met at the movies or the shopping mall; they’d seen each other at school functions. And always they’d had to keep an eye out for anyone who might report back to the controlling father, who ran his household with an iron fist.

  But six months into dating, Marla had realized she was pregnant.

  Cutty didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone as afraid of anything as she’d been to tell her father.

  Two seventeen-year-olds facing a nearly three-hundred-pound mountain of mean—the memory was still fresh in Cutty’s mind.

  To say it had been an ugly scene was an understatement. Tom Wentworth hadn’t even wanted Cutty in the house. He’d hit the ceiling at just the sight of a boy there with his daughter. But Marla had insisted that they all needed to talk. Then she’d told her father what they’d come to tell him.

  And all hell had broken loose.

  Cutty still couldn’t believe the way Tom Wentworth had exploded. It was as if a bomb had gone off in that living room. He’d screamed that Marla was a whore. A tramp. A good-for-nothing slut. And worse.

  There hadn’t been much Cutty could do during the tirade. Nothing much anyone could do but sit under the rain of hurtful, hateful words. But when Tom Wentworth had begun to demand that Marla have an abortion, Cutty had stood up to him. He’d told Tom Wentworth that Marla didn’t want to have an abortion.

  And Tom Wentworth had nearly beaten him to a pulp.

  A few good punches of his own had saved Cutty, but after that he’d been afraid to leave Marla there alone with her enraged bull of a father. So Cutty had taken Marla with him and left, not having any idea what he was going to do with her.

  And a baby.

  The sun began to make its rosy entrance through Cutty’s bedroom curtains, and for a while he watched it, trying not to relive those early emotions that could still creep up on him every now and then. He’d been just a kid himself. A scared kid. With no one close by to turn to. He’d felt responsible. Overwhelmed. Terrified. He hadn’t known what the hell he was going to do….

  Lying there wasn’t getting him anywhere, he decided suddenly and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He sat up on the edge, gripping the mattress and let his head drop forward.

  Tom Wentworth had washed his hands of Marla—that’s what he’d told her when she’d tried to call him the next day in hopes that he might have cooled off. She was on her own. He didn’t care what happened to her.

  Her adoptive mother had packed some of her clothes and sneaked them out to her because her father had said she wasn’t even entitled to those.

  And that had been that.

  At least for a couple of years until Marla had gone behind Cutty’s back. But that had been that in terms of Cutty and the Wentworths.

  Until now.

  Now when Kira Wentworth had shown up on his doorstep.

  He really had thought she was the journalism student when he’d first caught sight of her coming up his porch steps. The journalism student had already interviewed his friend Ad, and Ad had told him she was slightly older than the average college student. That she was thin. Pretty. Blond.

  Kira Wentworth fit that description. Although the minute he’d laid eyes on her he’d thought that he wouldn’t say she was merely pretty. Kira Wentworth was beautiful. And her hair wasn’t just blond. It was the color of honey shot through with sunlight. Plus she had skin like alabaster. And the softest mouth he’d ever seen. And a small, streamlined nose. And those eyes! They were the blue of a summer sky on a cloudless day. Not to mention that for a petite woman she had a body that wouldn’t quit….

  So, okay, he couldn’t deny that that first sight of her had stirred things inside him that hadn’t been stirred for a long, long time. But how confusing was it that the first person he’d been attracted to, since he seemed to have gotten his head together again after Marla’s and Anthony’s deaths, was a Wentworth?

  Incredibly confusing, that’s how confusing it was.

  Rationally, Cutty knew there was no reason to hold a grudge against Kira Wentworth. But that had been his reaction when she’d told him who she was. In spite of his initial attraction to her. He’d been tempted to kick her out of his house. What had gone through his mind was that he didn’t want any Wentworth anywhere near him because with any Wentworth came the potential for contact with Tom Wentworth. Or the effects of having been raised by him.

  But Cutty hadn’t wanted to be a hard-ass, so he’d tried to curb the feelings.

  And apparently he’d been pretty successful, since only a few minutes later his heart had gone out to Kira when he’d told her about Marla and Anthony and witnessed the blow that struck.

  He’d been so successful at curbing his negative feelings that he’d even been tempted to comfort her with a hug.

  Well, more than a hug. What he’d really been inclined to do was take her in his arms, learn what it would feel like to have her head pressed to his chest, her body against his….

  But she’s a Wentworth, he’d reminded himself to chase away that urge.

  Or at least to resist it. The urge hadn’t exactly gone away, he just hadn’t acted on it.

  In fact, he’d still been struggling with it when she’d offered to come in and care for the twins. And him.

  He hadn’t expected that and once more his emotions had taken a swing toward the negative. He’d instantly imagined another Wentworth in his house. He’d flashed on the way things had been. On the way they could be again.

  Cutty closed his eyes and shook his head as if that would get rid of the thoughts that he felt guilty for having had the night before and again now. Thoughts of Marla. Of life with Marla.

  But guilty or not, the bottom line had been he really hadn’t been thrilled with the prospect of Kira stepping in for Betty.

  After all, she’d been raised by the same man Marla had. And there she’d been, with the ink barely dry on her Ph.D. as a clue to the likelihood that she was an overachiever, not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in her clothes, her makeup flawless, her posture perfect, and Cutty hadn’t had a doubt she was cut from the same cloth Marla was.

  So no, he hadn’t wanted Kira’s help.

  Only she’d made him feel like a heel for denying, not only the help she was offering, but for denying her the chance to meet the twins. To get to know them. To be a part of their lives.

  They were her nieces, after all, and Cutty had known that if Marla had been there she would have welcomed Kira with open arms—both for herself and for the girls. He’d known that Marla would have wanted her younger sister to know her daughters.

  So he’d caved.

  Cutty opened his eyes and sighed, disgusted with himself. Just when he’d thought his life was finally settling down, here he was in a muddle of conflicting thoughts, conflicting feelings again. And for about the tenth time, he asked himself if he’d really accepted her help as temporary nanny and housekeeper because it was what Marla would have wanted, or if he’d had some kind of attraction to her. In spite of himself.

  He hoped he’d onl
y accepted her help because it was what Marla would have wanted.

  Sure he’d told Ad a couple of weeks ago that he thought he was finally ready to get back into the swing of things again. But slowly. Cautiously. With great care and consideration given to exactly who—and what—he let into his life again.

  And a pair of blue eyes—no matter how incredible a blue they were—didn’t change that.

  He grabbed his cane from where it rested against the nightstand and got to his feet.

  Kira would do the same job Betty did, and he would make sure his relationship with her was no different than the relationship he had with Betty—purely friendly.

  And that was all there was to it.

  Because while he might have finally made it over the hump of grief and been ready to restart his life, it wouldn’t be with Kira Wentworth.

  What he was ready for was an ordinary, everyday woman who took things in stride, who knew when to put on the full-court press and when not to, who knew the value of people over the value of appearances, who stopped long enough to smell the flowers.

  And he didn’t think for a minute that Dr. Overachiever Microbiologist Kira Wentworth was that woman.

  After a restless night, Kira was awake before her alarm went off. The moment she remembered where she was and what she was slated to do today, she was too antsy to linger in bed. She got up and went into the bathroom for a quick shower.

  The sun was just dawning when she came out of the bathroom and stood in front of the armoire to survey the clothes she’d brought with her. She didn’t have the slightest idea what was involved in taking care of eighteen-month-old babies, which meant she wasn’t sure what to wear. But she was sure that she wanted it to be just right.

  Not that she thought her nieces would even notice what she had on, but she so desperately wanted them to like her that every detail of this first meeting seemed important.

  Maybe something bright, she thought, taking out a red silk shirt.

  Or was that too bright? Would it scare them?

  Maybe.

  She replaced the shirt in the armoire and continued the search.

  Definitely not the black high-necked blouse, she decided when that was the next thing that caught her eye. Black was too austere. It might send the message that she wasn’t accessible and the last thing she wanted was for her nieces to see her as standoffish.

  And white might make her look too washed out, so she decided against the white rayon cap shirt, too.

  Kira was tempted to wear the flowered sundress with the full skirt but she wasn’t sure if that was practical. Although she did give it a second look when it also occurred to her that this was essentially her first day on a new job and making a good impression was probably not a bad idea.

  But the impression she was thinking of making with the dress was on Cutty and the moment she realized that was what was dancing on the edges of her mind she shied away from the sundress for sure.

  She wasn’t in Northbridge to impress Cutty. Her goal was connecting with the babies—only with the babies—and she wouldn’t let herself be distracted from that. Not even by a pair of deep, dark green eyes that had longer, thicker lashes than any man should be entitled to.

  No, she wasn’t even going to think about him. Wasn’t that what she’d told herself the night before when she’d had so much trouble getting to sleep because every time she’d closed her eyes he was there, in her thoughts? There was one reason and only one reason she’d come to Montana and that was to try to have what remained of her family in her life again. And what remained of her family were the twins. Cutty was merely incidental. To her at least. He was just the person she had to go through to get to her nieces.

  So what was she going to wear? she asked herself.

  She forced herself to focus on the clothes in the armoire. To concentrate.

  What about the linen slacks and the short-sleeved yellow silk blouse with the banded collar?

  Comfortable but not sloppy. A little color but not too much. Sort of casual—because Cutty had made that odd comment about how he liked things casual—whatever that meant. So, okay, the linen slacks and the yellow blouse it was, she decided.

  The slacks that made her rear end look good.

  Not that that was a factor in her choosing them, she swore to herself. It was just a coincidence.

  She took the pants and the shirt to the bed and laid them out before she turned to the small dressing table to do her hair and makeup.

  Although she would ordinarily have worn her hair loose on the first day of a new job, for this particular job she thought it should probably be kept under control. That meant pulling it away from her face. A French knot seemed too stiff and formal, but she thought that a ponytail might be just the ticket. So she brushed her hair, pulling it tightly back and tying a pale yellow scarf around it to keep it there.

  Once she was finished with her hair she applied a little blush, mascara and lipstick. Then she returned to the bed to put on the clothes she’d chosen before pulling on trouser socks and loafers, and concluding that she was ready to face the day and this new undertaking.

  Ready and eager.

  “To meet the twins,” she said out loud, as if someone had accused her of being eager for more than meeting her nieces.

  And that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t eager to see Cutty again, she tried to convince herself. How could she be eager to see the person who would no doubt be watching her every move, judging her, comparing her to Marla?

  Of course she wasn’t looking forward to that. Even if the person doing the judging had turned into a staggeringly handsome man.

  Aunt Kira, I’m just here to be Aunt Kira.

  Aunt Kira.

  And Marla had been Mom…

  That seemed so strange.

  Whenever Kira thought of her sister she thought of the age Marla had been the last time Kira had seen her—seventeen. Just a teenager.

  But Marla had grown up. She’d been a wife. A mother.

  And now she wasn’t just out in the world somewhere where Kira had hope of finding her again. Now she was lost to Kira forever. Tears flooded her eyes. Tears for her lost sister, for her lost nephew.

  Kira knew there was nothing she could do to bring back either of them and reminded herself that there were still the twins. Marla’s twins. And if she couldn’t have Marla, if she couldn’t ever know Anthony, at least she could maintain her connection with her sister through those babies.

  Which was exactly what she intended to do, she vowed as she left the dressing table to make the bed, fighting the longing that things had been different. That her family hadn’t ended up the way it had.

  And not just because it would have been nice to have had Marla and Anthony in her life. If things had been different and Marla hadn’t been estranged from them all it might have also been easier for Kira to think of Cutty Grant as her sister’s husband, as someone who was off-limits.

  As it was, she didn’t have any sense of him as family. Maybe that was part of why it was so difficult to get past how attractive he was. So difficult not to notice it. Not to be affected by it the way any woman would be affected by it.

  She was determined not to be, though, Kira told herself forcefully. She was going to have with the twins what she’d missed with Anthony. To be Aunt Kira now, even if she hadn’t been before.

  Aunt Kira, she thought, moving into the tiny bathroom to straighten it. Nothing but Aunt Kira.

  And she meant it, too.

  It was just that it would have been so much easier just to be Aunt Kira if Cutty wasn’t going to be right there with her every minute. Right there where all she would have to do was look up to see his face. Those eyes. That big, hard body…

  But she wasn’t going to let herself be affected by it. She wasn’t. She really wasn’t.

  She was going to do the best she could to take care of the twins, to get to know them, to earn their love, and in the process she was also going to keep their father nothing more th
an a sidebar to her relationship with them.

  She was going to make sure of that if it was the last thing she ever did.

  It was just that it might not only be the last thing she ever did.

  It also might be the hardest…

  Kira left the apartment at 6:45.

  As she crossed the yard she wondered if Cutty would be awake yet or if he stayed in bed until the twins woke him. If that was the case and she couldn’t get into the house, she had every intention of waiting outside the back door on one of the patio chairs just to make sure that she was there the minute she was needed.

  But when she got to the house the back door was open and through the screen she could smell bacon frying and see Cutty sitting at the kitchen table—his foot propped on a second kitchen chair. There were also two babies in matching high chairs on the other side of the table, and a short, plump, older woman who was setting bowls on the high chairs’ trays.

  Kira felt a sinking feeling at the thought that she was already late. That someone else had had to come in to do the job she’d volunteered for.

  But she didn’t want to make it any worse by wasting time standing there looking in from outside, so she knocked on the screen door’s frame.

  Cutty looked away from the twins and that first glance of those evergreen eyes sent the oddest sensation through Kira. It was like a tiny jolt that skittered across the surface of her skin.

  “Come on in,” Cutty encouraged.

  Kira opened the screen and went in, apologizing as she did. “I’m sorry if I’m late. I thought you said seven was early enough to get here and it’s not even that yet.”

  “I did say seven was early enough,” Cutty responded. “But Betty—this is Betty Cunningham,” he interrupted himself to do the introductions. “Betty, this is Kira, Marla’s sister. Anyway, Betty came over early on her way to the hospital to get her mother, and I dropped the cane coming down the stairs and woke the girls, so here we are.”

  Betty had waited for him to finish, but just barely before she came to stand directly in front of Kira to wrap her arms around her and give her an unexpected hug. “It’s so nice to meet our Marla’s sister.”