In The Tycoon's Bed: One Night, Two Heirs. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ Rick. “This time, it wouldn’t be only me paying the price. And I won’t risk putting my girls into an unhappy home.”

      “You think I would risk that?” Rick picked up a piece of banana and handed it to Wendy. “I only want what’s best for them.”

      “And I believe you,” Sadie said. “We just disagree on what’s best.”

      He laughed shortly. “You think you’ve got your mind made up about me,” he said after a long moment, “but things change, Sadie.”

      “I’m not going to change my mind,” she warned.

      “Don’t make statements that are going to be hard to back down from when I finally convince you to see things my way.”

      “Are you always this confident?”

      “When I know I’m right,” he assured her.

      A squeal of sound shattered their conversation and had Sadie’s ears ringing. Wendy cried for her mommy and Gail crawled to her father and scrambled up onto his lap.

      The mayor stood on a hastily built stage at one end of the square. Tapping and blowing into a microphone, the feedback was loud enough to tear paint from walls.

      “Sorry about that noise,” the mayor said, “but I think we’ve got it whipped now.”

      The crowd stirred, then settled down as they waited for the inevitable speeches. Sadie’s gaze slid to Rick. He had one arm wrapped around Gail’s sturdy little body and jiggled her instinctively to keep her happy.

      He did that so easily, Sadie thought with a sigh. He had stepped into fatherhood so smoothly, it was as if he had been with the twins since the beginning. And if he had, she wondered, how would things be different now?

      Might they have already become the family he claimed to want?

      “I know,” the mayor called out, his voice echoing weirdly through the speakers, “that none of you came to listen to speeches …”

      “That won’t stop you, Jimmy,” someone in the crowd shouted.

      “That’ll be enough outta you, Ben,” the mayor chided with a smile. “I’ll make this short. But since we’re all here and since it’s our country’s Day of Independence, I wanted to take the time to honor a few of our own.”

      A ripple of applause skittered through the crowd. Hesitant, since no one was sure what the mayor was up to yet.

      Then he let them all know.

      “Rick Pruitt?” Mayor Jim called. “I know you’re here son, so come on up to the stage, will you?”

      Frowning a little, Rick set Gail down on the blanket. His features went dark and his eyes were suddenly shadowed. Dutifully, though, he shrugged, then walked through the other picnickers toward the stage. Meanwhile, the mayor went on with his small roll call.

      “Donna Billings. Frank Haley and Dennis Flynn, you come on up here, too.”

      Sadie’s gaze locked on Rick as he walked up the steps to take his place on the stage. The other people who had been called up stood alongside him, each of them in uniform. They all looked as uncomfortable with the attention as Rick did.

      Then the mayor announced, “How about we give a big Royal round of applause for our very own finest. Let’s thank them all for their service to us and our country.”

      As the gathered townspeople erupted into wild shouts and thunderous applause, Sadie felt a chill of pride ripple along her spine. From across the square, Rick’s gaze locked with hers and she knew that he had been right. If she wasn’t careful, he might just change her mind.

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 СКАЧАТЬ