Claiming the Texan's Heart

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “You’re right.” Adelaide’s desire to be the best mom possible came into play. “They’re going to rely on us to be strong and steady and calm. Not just for shots. But throat swabs. And procedures...”

  Wyatt frowned, thinking about needles. “Stitches...”

  She winced. “Don’t even say that.”

  He shrugged, already trying to brace himself for the inevitable. “They’re kids. Some stuff is bound to happen. Someone is going to fall off a bike, or out of a tree...”

  “Oh my God. I remember when you broke your arm in third grade, playing Tarzan!”

  “Tumble off a diving board at the pool...”

  “That was Zane,” Adelaide commiserated fondly. “Showing off.”

  “Or cut her hand in the kitchen,” Wyatt recollected.

  “Sage.”

  Wyatt paused next to the car and waited for the door to read the keypad signal and automatically unlock. “Even Garrett—” the oldest son who in many ways could do no wrong “—conked the back of his head when he was inner-tubing down the Guadalupe.”

  “And let’s not forget Chance,” Adelaide murmured as they both secured the kids into their safety seats. “Who actually did wreck his dirt bike and split open a knee.” Straightening, she climbed into the front.

  He leaned forward and briefly let his forehead rest against hers. “It’s kind of a Lockhart family tradition.”

  “Not for me.” Looking as if she were thinking about kissing him, Adelaide moved back and fit the end of her safety restraint into the clasp.

  Aware this was not the time to start making out, he slanted her a glance. There was still a lot he didn’t know about her childhood. Particularly, the years before they’d met. “You never got hurt?”

  She shook her head. “I was far too cautious.”

  And in certain ways, Wyatt thought, she still was. Whether that worked to their advantage or disadvantage remained to be seen.

  * * *

  “I’m glad you were there with me today,” Adelaide told Wyatt hours later, when the full effects of the twins’ immunizations began to surface. “And I’m really glad you’re here now.” She would have hated to have to handle this alone, with both of the twins so fussy.

  Looking more like a family man than ever, with little Jake clasped gently in his arms, Wyatt got out of his man-size rocking chair and walked over to hers. He leaned down so she could put a hand to Jake’s too-rosy cheek. “What do you think? He feels really warm to me.”

  “To me, too.” Adelaide shifted the child in her arms. “What do you think about Jenny?”

  Wyatt touched her cheek with the back of his hand. He grimaced with worry. “She’s warm, too.”

  Adelaide went in search of the infant first-aid kit. “Do you know how to take their temperatures?”

  “Do I know!” Wyatt scoffed. At her skeptical look, he amended, “At least in theory.”

  She chuckled. What was it about men that made them reluctant to admit to any deficiencies? “Those articles your mother sent are coming in handy.” At least the ones about being a daddy. She hadn’t seen him reading up on being a husband. But then, she hadn’t read anything about being a wife.

  He watched her remove Jenny’s diaper and put her across her lap. “We really have to do it rectally?” He watched her coat the thermometer with petroleum jelly.

  “To get the best accuracy when they are this young. Which is yet another reason I’m glad you’re here with me.”

  He mugged at her joke.

  “It’s 99.9,” she read.

  “One hundred,” he declared.

  Adelaide consulted the printout they’d gotten from the pediatrician. “We don’t have to call the service if it’s under 100.4.”

  “Good.”

  “It also says we can give them baths to bring their temps down and make them more comfortable.”

  Wyatt sat again, Jake and Jenny snuggled against his chest. He hummed as he rocked, and the twins quieted almost immediately.

  Trying not to be distracted by the tender sight, Adelaide worked quickly to set up a bathing station on the kitchen island. “Good thing we have two baby bathtubs,” Adelaide said, returning, and then reaching out to lift Jake out of Wyatt’s arms.

  He stood with Jenny. “Good thing we have a man-size rocking chair. I kept getting stuck in yours.”

  Adelaide laughed, aware that what could have turned into an extended time of misery and tears had instead turned into a sweet, joyous time she would always remember. Wishing Lucille could see Wyatt the way she did, and know just how wonderfully adept he was at nearly everything he’d tried, Adelaide kissed his jaw. “Have I told you yet what a great daddy you are?”

  Grinning proudly, he leaned over to kiss her back. “In all the ways that count. Have I told you what a spectacular mommy you are?”

  She nodded.

  Now all they had to do was find a way to transfer the boundless love they felt for the kids to each other. And their family would be all set.

  Chapter 13

  “You look amazingly cheerful for someone who’s just spent the last forty-eight hours caring for babies with post-immunization fever and fussiness,” Lucille remarked when she came by Friday morning to help Wyatt out with the twins while Adelaide ran errands in town.

  “It’s probably because I had such superior help from their daddy,” Adelaide teased.

  Well, that and the number of times she and Wyatt had also managed to make love, she added silently. Sweet and tender, hot and passionate, slow and sensual. Their sessions had run the gamut. Leaving them both relaxed and happy and feeling surprisingly closer. Almost as if they were in love.

  Wyatt winked. “What can I tell you, Mom? All those how-to articles you sent me really did the trick.”

  “Something did.” Lucille grinned approvingly at both of them. “How long do you think your errands will take, Adelaide?”

  “Not sure. I’m going to—” pick up the special-order Valentine’s Day gift I got for Wyatt and “—um, hit the grocery. The bank and the pharmacy. And I also want to check on the progress at my house.”

  “I told her to take her time. She deserves a morning to herself.”

  “I agree,” Lucille said.

  Adelaide went over to the wind-up swings, knelt and kissed each drowsy infant in turn. Wyatt was there to give her a gallant hand up, so she did what she never did, went with her gut and kissed him, too.

  Maybe things would work out, she thought, better than they had ever dreamed.

  * * *

  “Steak, potatoes, spinach and cream. That looks like the makings of a man-pleasing meal if I ever saw one,” Sage teased when she ran into Adelaide in the supermarket.

  With the same needling affection, Adelaide checked out her sister-in-law’s shopping basket. “Roast chicken and all the fixings.” Plus saltines, ginger ale. “What might you be planning?”

  Sage grinned. “Nick Monroe is coming over for a little early Valentine’s Day dinner.”

  Adelaide hoped Sage didn’t get her heart broken again. She deserved someone who would put her first, above all else. “Where’s he going to be after that?”

  “Sante Fe. Houston. Phoenix. Oklahoma City.”

  “So he really is trying to take Monroe’s Western Wear national?”

  “At least completely thoughout the southwestern United States.”

  Adelaide thought about how happy her friend appeared whenever Nick was around. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s good for him.”

  Adelaide said gently, “I meant for you.”

  Sage waved off her concern. “We talk all the time. That’s not going to change. So. How are things with you and my big brother?”

  “Good.”

  “I’m glad. I’ve never seen him this happy.”

  I’ve never bee
n this happy. “Being blessed with twins—” and a daddy who doted on them as much as Wyatt did “—will do that for you.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Sage winked mischievously. “Plus a lot of other things.”

  “Speaking of which,” Adelaide said, flashing a smile, “I’ve got to get back to the ranch.”

  “Okay. Give everyone my love. I’ll see you at the Chili Festival.”

  Adelaide checked out, then wheeled her basket out to the lot. She had just finished putting her groceries inside, and shut the cargo door, when she caught sight of the bumper sticker on her SUV: Grandpa Can Fix Anything.

  Grandpa? Her children had no grandfather. Wyatt’s dad had passed, and hers was out of the country for good.

  Wasn’t he?

  Hands shaking, she got in her car and immediately called Kyle McCabe. “I have no idea how it got there,” she told the deputy detective.

  “Did you have a bumper sticker prior to this?” he asked.

  Adelaide’s nerves jangled. “No.”

  “Is the bumper sticker magnetic?”

  “Let me check.” Adelaide got back out of her SUV. Phone to her ear, she touched the colorful slogan on the bumper. “Yes. It is. You can peel it on and off.”

  “Then it’s probably the sticker that was stolen off a car parked at the community center a few days ago. We’ve had a rash of sticker thefts the last week or so. All are ending up on other cars. Who gets what seems to be pretty random. So you’re probably the victim of a teenage prank, just meant to be a silly joke.”

  Relief flowed through her. “Oh, thank heaven. I thought...”

  “Have you had any more contact from your father?”

  “No. Nothing.” Adelaide drew a deep breath. “Have you heard anything more?”

  “Nope. The customs and immigration service and TSA have all been notified, but as I told you earlier, it’s not likely he’d try to come into the country legally.”

  Adelaide tried to imagine her father catching a ride with a coyote who drove people across the border in the dead of night, swam the river or climbed a fence. All options seemed impossible. Which likely meant she was overreacting. “What should I do with the bumper sticker?”

  “If you have time, it’d be great if you could drop it off at the station. You can just leave it at the front desk. They’ll see it’s returned to the original owner.”

  Glad nothing was happening to disrupt her life after all, Adelaide climbed back behind the wheel. “Thanks, Kyle.”

  “And Adelaide? If anything else seems out of the ordinary, don’t hesitate to notify me.”

  * * *

  “Thanks for coming over to help out today,” Wyatt told his mom while they sat down to give the twins their midday feedings.

  Lucille settled Jenny in her arms and offered her the bottle. “You know, you still have time to go out and get Adelaide something nice for Valentine’s Day.”

  The assumption he was still a screwup stung. Wyatt threw a burp cloth over his shoulder. “You really think you have to micromanage me in the husband department?” He’d blown off the articles Lucille had sent on how to be a good spouse, but somehow, this was different. It harkened back to his childhood, when Lucille had felt the need to shadow only one of her children.

  “You don’t exactly have a normal marriage.” She paused meaningfully. “A really nice gift might help.”

  So would a lack of maternal interference in his love life. “I’ve got it covered, Mom,” he said gruffly. He had not only figured out what he was going to give Adelaide, he knew where he was going to get it and when he was going to gift it to her, too.

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Wyatt moved his son to his shoulder for a burp. “But there is something I’d like to discuss with you. Adelaide and I talked to the pediatrician about the possibility of the twins developing learning disabilities.”

  Lucille did the same with Jenny. “I know you told your brothers and sister about your dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia.”

  He studied the stiff set of his mother’s lips. “You don’t approve?”

  Lucille sniffed. “I don’t see it as necessary, especially now, with you doing so well. Your father and I went to a great deal of trouble to keep you from being adversely labeled.”

  When Jake burped, Wyatt offered him his bottle again. He slanted his mother a glance. Although she’d come over to care for the babies, she still wore a silk-wool sheath, cashmere cardigan and heels. “Why did you do that?”

  “Having come from modest rural backgrounds, we knew what it was like to be discounted unfairly. We worried the same would happen to you, and we didn’t want you to be denied any opportunities because of your learning disabilities. Especially when we had the means to see you overcame them, privately.”

  Wyatt sensed there was more. “And you and Dad didn’t want it known, either.”

  Lucille cuddled Jenny lovingly. “The rich get extra scrutiny, Wyatt. If it had been publicly known, people would have said you didn’t belong at Worthington Academy.”

  The premiere Dallas school for the elite. “Maybe because I didn’t.”

  “You had so many accommodations there.”

  Silence fell.

  “Do you know how many children with reading and writing and math challenges never graduate from high school, never mind go on to college?”

  Wyatt tipped the bottle so Jake could get the last of the formula. “Too many. And the term is learning disabled, Mom. LDs are nothing to be embarrassed about. Nothing to hide.”

  “Your father and I worked very hard to protect you.”

  And she still was, even though he no longer needed it.

  “I’m not going to apologize for that,” Lucille continued stiffly.

  Wyatt turned to see Adelaide standing in the doorway, groceries in her arms. His sister-in law, Hope, was right beside her. Clearly, they had both overheard. And wished they hadn’t.

  Adelaide walked in. “Sorry to interrupt, but Hope needs to talk to us.”

  The other woman shrugged out of her coat and plucked a computer tablet out of her bag. “Another story has surfaced in the tabloid press. We didn’t plant it.”

  She brought it over for everyone to see.

  The screen was filled with a series of grainy photographs of Adelaide and Kyle McCabe in his sheriff’s department uniform. The two were standing outside the WTWA/Lockhart Foundation building in Laramie, talking intently. Another showed Kyle lifting the McCabe’s baby pram out of his truck and showing Adelaide how it went from the collapsed state to a fully extended buggy, big enough for multiple infants. Another of Kyle and Adelaide smiling, hugging. Wyatt had been standing off to the side when that happened, but he’d been cut out of the picture. And later was shown standing alone.

  The story beneath was both damning and salacious: Smythe-Lockhart marriage already in trouble as Adelaide resumes love affair with legendary Texas lawman Kyle McCabe, leaving husband Wyatt Lockhart out in the cold.

  Reading it, Wyatt snorted.

  Adelaide blushed in distress. “Obviously, this was taken the other day.”

  “But not by Marco Maletti,” Hope said. “He wasn’t even in Laramie. He was off in Houston, chasing another story.”

  Wyatt walked back and forth with Jake in his arms. He patted his son’s back gently. “Then who...?”

  “An amateur who asked to be paid via an online money service with a shady reputation. At least that’s what my contact at the tabloid claims. It’s why the photos are so bad. But you can see they are authentic because this actually happened. Kyle did stop by to see Adelaide when she was in town the other day.”

  “So we’re being followed by another paparazzo?” Wyatt theorized grimly.

  “Or a wannabe,” Hope concluded. “All we know for certain is that this person wants the story to take a salacious turn
.”

  Adelaide looked like she was going to cry. “Oh no.”

  “So now what?” Wyatt asked the highly efficient scandal manager.

  Hope shut her tablet. “We stick to our plan. And keep feeding interesting, touchy-feely photos and positive stories to the tabloid press until interest fades.”

  “Has anyone told Kyle McCabe?” Adelaide asked grimly.

  Hope shook her head. “Not that I know of. I was alerted because I follow these things as part of my job.”

  “I’ll do it,” Adelaide said. Before anyone else could offer, she grabbed her phone and stepped outside.

  * * *

  Adelaide came back in, just as Hope and Lucille were leaving Wind River. “Talk to Kyle?” Wyatt asked.

  She nodded tersely and walked over to the dual Pack ’N Plays. The twins were sound asleep. She stared down at their angelic faces, a faint smile on her face, admitting quietly, “He agreed with Hope, that it was likely the work of someone hoping to cash in or become part of the story, even vicariously.”

  He followed her into the kitchen. “Was that all he said?”

  “Aside from the usual, if anyone bothers us, notify law enforcement? Yes.” She took two thick hand-trimmed porterhouse steaks out of the package and put them into a glass baking dish. Then, turned to look at him, the walls going up around her heart as quickly and sturdily as ever. “Why?” she bit out.

  Working to corral his disappointment, Wyatt came close enough to inhale her familiar womanly scent. “I’m just wondering why you stepped outside to make the call.”

  Her head bent over the task, Adelaide seasoned the steaks with a spicy dry rub. “Because I feel like this is my problem to solve,” she retorted stubbornly.