“Was?”
He snorted a laugh.
“What was the fight about?” she asked, surprised at his candor.
“What else? A girl. I was hitting on his girlfriend and for the life of me I can’t remember her name, but she had red hair, a cute little smile and a few other attributes as well.”
“And that’s what attracted you—her ‘attributes’?”
“And the fact that she was Mike Wilkins’s girlfriend.” His gray eyes twinkled. “I’ve always liked a challenge and a little competition never hurt, either.”
At that moment Molly came running up. “I want a quarter.”
“Why?”
“’Cause that kid—” she pointed an accusatory finger at a boy of eight or nine with spiky blond hair and freckles “—he says I need one to play the games.”
Nicole shot Thorne a knowing look. “Well, we don’t have any time right now. Go and get your sister and let’s order.”
“No!” Molly’s lower lip stuck out petulantly. “I want a quarter.”
“Listen, not tonight, okay? Now, come on—” Nicole glanced up at Thorne and sighed. “Excuse me for a second, would you?” She climbed out of the booth, made her way to the video machines and peeled Mindy from the chair on which she’d been standing. Mindy put up her kind of low-keyed fuss while Molly, ever more vocal, was bordering on being obnoxious.
“I want a quarter!” she demanded, stomping her little foot imperiously.
“And I told you that we couldn’t come here unless you behaved.” Nicole managed to get both girls onto booster chairs, one on her side of the booth, the other next to Thorne.
“I want French fries,” Molly stated.
“Oh, do you? Now there’s a surprise.”
“And a hot dog.”
“Me, too,” Mindy agreed. They managed to stay in their seats until the waitress, a slim teenaged girl in black slacks, crisp white shirt and red bow tie took their order. Then they were off again, making a beeline for the video machines as the restaurant filled up and conversation buzzed through the air.
“See what you’re in for?” Nicole’s gaze followed her children. “I might have two the same age, but you’ll have a newborn to deal with.”
“Just until Randi can take over.” He frowned and then settled back.
“I take it no one’s been able to locate the baby’s father?”
“Not yet. But we will.” Determination pulled at the corners of his mouth.
She was disappointed that he seemed so anxious to cast off his responsibility of temporary father, but, as the waitress returned with their drink order, she reminded herself that he was, after all, a confirmed bachelor, a man more interested in making money than making babies.
Thorne noticed the play of emotions that crossed her face and the way her teasing smile suddenly disappeared.
“The reason I called you was that I need your help,” he admitted. “We need a babysitter until Randi’s well enough to take care of J.R.”
“Oh.”
He tried not to notice the sexy way her front teeth settled against her lower lip as she watched her girls, or the seductive way her blouse gaped at her neckline, showing off just the hint of cleavage. She glanced at him and in that second, when her gold eyes met his, he felt the incredible urge to kiss her again—just as he always did.
“It shouldn’t be that hard to find someone suitable. I’m willing to pay whatever it takes.”
“Money isn’t the issue.”
“Of course it is.”
She rolled those expressive eyes and unwrapped her straw. “You still don’t get it, do you? It’s not about money.” Taking a long sip from her soda she thought for a minute. “That’s always been your problem, you know. Don’t you understand that you can’t go out and buy love? You can’t expect to find the most loving, caring babysitter just by offering her a few more dollars. People are who they are. They don’t change when you wave a check in front of their faces.”
“I know that, but most people perform for money.”
“You don’t want someone to perform, you want someone who cares. There’s a big difference. I’m not saying you don’t pay them well, of course you do. But first you find the caring, warm, loving person. Then you pay them what they’re worth to you.”
“Is that what you did?”
“Absolutely. I located Jenny through an advertisement I ran in the local paper. After interviewing a dozen or so women and looking at day-care centers, she called, we met and the rest is history. She’s a part-time college student and the nicest woman you’d ever want to meet. She’s warm, affectionate, wholesome and has a great sense of humor, which you need with kids. We work it out so that our schedules mesh. It takes some doing, but it can be accomplished.” The waitress came with their trays of food and Thorne helped Nicole round up the girls. Just as they sat down, Nicole’s pager went off. She glanced at the readout and frowned. “Look, I’ve got to make a call,” she said. “I’ve got a cell phone out in the car—would you mind watching the girls just a minute?”
Thorne lifted a shoulder.
“No, Mommy,” one of the twins cried.
“I’ll be right back. Promise. Mr. McCafferty will help you open the ketchup packets for your French fries.”
“Sure,” Thorne said, though the thought of being with two four-year-old dynamos was a trifle daunting. Nicole slid out of the booth, then clipped across the tile floor. The twins looked ready to bolt after her, but Thorne distracted them with their milk shakes. He unwrapped their plastic straws then pushed them deep into their cups.
While one twin tried to suck up the milk shake the other was busy trying to open ketchup packages. Again he assisted and then squirted the red sauce over the fries. “Nooo!” the little girl wailed. “I want to dip!”
“What?”
“I want to dip. I don’t want it on the top.” Her little face was screwed up in a scowl as she glared at her basket. The other twin was sucking like crazy, trying to draw the too thick milk shake up her straw.
“It don’t come,” she complained.
“Just try harder.”
“I am!”
“I don’t like it,” the first one insisted and Thorne seeing no other answer, took her hot dog, put it in his basket, then placed his cheeseburger in her basket and switched them. He handed her an opened packet of ketchup.
“You do it any way you want. Now—” he took the milk shake from the other girl’s hands and opening in the lid, used the straw to swirl the chocolatey goo “—that should help,” he said, replacing the lid and straw. “If it doesn’t work, just give it a little time, it’ll melt.”
“Where’s Mommy?” number one asked as she plopped a French fry into a pool of ketchup that she’d created.
“In the car making a call.”
“Is she coming back?”
“I think so,” he said and winked. The pixies tore into their food, pulling off the buns and squeezing more mustard and ketchup onto their hot dogs than was necessary but Thorne, not used to being around children of any age, decided to let them do what they wanted. By the time Nicole returned, they had condiments on their faces, hands, clothes and even in their hair.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“Minor emergency—nothing serious. I handled it. Oh, what happened?” she asked, eyeing her daughters.
“They ate.”
“Didn’t they give you bibs?” Her eyes fell to the tray where two plastic bibs were tucked.
“Didn’t see ’em.”
Sighing, she wiped one face, then the other before finally turning her attention to her own dinner. “You have a lot to learn,” she said, biting into her hamburger.
“That’s why I need a nanny.”
“Or two,” she sa
id.
“As I mentioned, I was hoping you could help me out in that department.”
“How?”
“Either you or your sitter might be able to give me the names of people who would be interested in a part-time or full-time job taking care of the baby. At least until Randi’s on her feet and able to care for him.”
“It’s a possibility,” she said, touching a napkin to the corner of her lips, then automatically wiping a smudge from one of her daughter’s cheeks.
“Don’t!” the little girl cried.
“Oh, Molly, don’t be such a grump.” Nicole was undeterred and soon, despite much cringing and grumbling, the little girl’s face was condiment-free and they were all digging into their food again.
Thorne watched Nicole with her daughters, how she joked with them and played with them even when she was disciplining them. She didn’t raise her voice, always paid attention when they spoke and pointed out their mistakes with a wink and a smile. It didn’t always work. The precocious one challenged her mother and the shier little girl sometimes didn’t speak and offered Nicole a cold shoulder, but throughout the meal one thing was clear—Nicole Sanders Stevenson, M.D., was one helluva mother.
Not that it mattered. He wasn’t looking for a woman who could raise children. Hell, he wasn’t even looking for a woman period.
Yet, for a reason he couldn’t name he still carried that damned ring his father had given him in his pocket.
Chapter 12
Thorne had never felt so awkward in his life. He’d just fed the baby and burped him and heard soft little sighs against his shoulder as he walked from the den to the living room and wondered how the hell he was going to get J.R. into his crib without waking him. The baby, bright-eyed and healthy, seemed the most content while being held, which was a worry.
A natural athlete, Thorne had been able to handle a wet football, rope a calf, ride a horse, or crack a baseball over the fence, but when it came to holding, feeding, burping and diapering a tiny infant, he was all thumbs.
Not that his brothers were any better at it. Matt had spent his life on the ranch and had dealt with everything from newly hatched chicks to orphaned lambs and foals who were rejected by the mares that gave them birth. He’d helped bring litters of puppies and kittens into this world. But when it came to helpless human babies, he, too, seemed out of place and incompetent. Slade was the worst. Although fascinated beyond belief with the baby, he seemed terrified to hold J.R. That part was downright ridiculous in Thorne’s estimation, though Matt was amused that his daredevil of a brother was frightened of the infant.
J.R.’s eyes blinked open.
Uh-oh.
Within seconds he started to put up a fuss and Thorne tried not to panic. “You’re all right,” he said, wondering how it was that mothers seemed to have some kind of natural rhythm while holding and swaying slightly as they held a child. He’d seen that same natural reaction through the glass window of the hospital when Nicole had cradled and fed the baby.
He tried to sway, felt like an ass and the baby started crying in earnest, wailing and turning red in the face. “Now, it’s okay,” Thorne reassured the child when he had no idea whatsoever was wrong with him. “Hang in there.”
Juanita’s footsteps echoed down the stairs. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said to Thorne’s utter relief.
A second later she appeared. “He is tired.”
“He was asleep.”
“Then why didn’t you put him in his cuna?”
“Because I couldn’t get to his cuna,” Thorne said, emphasizing the Spanish word, “without waking him up.”
“But you woke him up anyway.” She lifted a graying eyebrow as the baby cried louder than Thorne thought was possible.
“Believe me, I wasn’t trying to.”
“Here, let me have him. Come on, little one,” she said softly, prying him from Thorne’s stiff fingers. She began to murmur softly in Spanish as she carried the infant from the room and to Thorne’s mortification the baby started to quiet. Within minutes silence prevailed and Juanita, walking softly, returned.
“How do you do that?”
“Practice,” she said and smiled.
“Maybe I need lessons.”
“Dios, all you brothers do. And probably Señorita Randi as well. How is she going to take care of the baby, write her columns, finish her book and get well?” She shook her head as she headed to the kitchen.
“There is no book,” Thorne said, following her down the hallway. “Remember, that was always just her dream. Nothing ever came of it.”
“But she said that she would write one. I believed it. She will be rich and famous one day. You will see.” She scrounged in the refrigerator, muttered something under her breath and reached inside where she found a package, opened it and looked at Harold who lay on a rag rug near the back door. “I saved this soup bone for you,” she told him as the crippled dog climbed to his feet and wagged his tail. “But you take it outside.” She tossed the bone to the dog and looked over her shoulder at Thorne. “There is a book.”
“I hope so,” Thorne said, but nearly dismissed the idea. Randi had talked about writing the Great American Novel ever since she was fifteen. To his knowledge she hadn’t written the first sentence much less a chapter or two. There was nothing to it, he told himself, but made a mental note to mention Randi’s pipe dream to Striker. Why not? It certainly wouldn’t hurt.
* * *
Nicole climbed out of the bathtub and stepped into her robe. The twins were asleep, the house quiet. Cinching the belt, she padded to the kitchen and heated a cup of cocoa. Patches, curled on a cushion of one of the café chairs at the table, opened one eye and yawned, showing off needle-sharp teeth before resting his chin on his paws again. The microwave dinged and Nicole picked up her cup to carry into the living room where a fire still burned in the grate. Scarlet coals glowed brightly and the fire popped and hissed.
Sipping from her cup, Nicole settled into a corner of her love seat and flipped through a parenting magazine. She’d just started reading an article on a toddler’s stages of life when she noticed the column—advice for the single parent, written by R. J. McKay. Why it caught her eye, she didn’t know, but she began reading the text and an eerie sensation crawled up her spine. It was written with a light hand and ironic style that was identical to that in the columns she’d read by Randi McCafferty. But no one had ever mentioned that Randi had expanded her column from newspapers to magazines. Not that it wasn’t common.
She sipped her cocoa and started rereading the article when she heard a vehicle ease down the street. The engine slowed, then died in front of her house and when she twisted to peek through the blinds she spied Thorne striding up her front walk.
Her pulse leaped at the sight of him and then she remembered that she was wearing only her robe. On her feet in an instant, she started for the bedroom just as she heard the doorbell ring.
“Damn.” She hesitated then walked back to the door and swung it open. Wind ruffled his hair and billowed her skirt as it swept into the room. “Well, Mr. McCafferty, this is a surprise.”
A cocksure smile stretched across his lips as his gaze traveled the length of her. “A good one, I hope.”
“That depends,” she teased, unable to stop herself.
“On?”
“You, of course.”
He didn’t wait. In half a heartbeat he crossed the threshold, his arms were around her and his cold lips found hers. Icy wind swirled around them and just before she closed her eyes and he kicked the door shut, she saw the first few snowflakes fall from the night-dark heavens.
But the snowfall was instantly forgotten. The pressure of his lips was insistent and her heart went wild, pounding out of control, thundering in her ears.
Warmth invaded her limbs and d
esire slowly uncoiled deep within her. He backed her against the foyer’s wall and she willingly complied, winding her arms around his neck, parting her lips, thrilling to the cool, welcome touch of his skin against hers. He smelled of the outdoors—pine laced with the traces of some musky cologne. His body was hard, tense muscles strong as they pressed intimately against hers. This was a mistake. She knew it, but couldn’t resist the sweet seduction of his touch, the tingle his lips evoked.
His hands found her belt and as if he had all the time in the world he continued to kiss her as he loosened the knot. His tongue touched hers, flicking and tasting, causing her head to swim. She could barely breathe as her robe parted and with cold, callused fingers he lifted one breast in his hand. Her nipple puckered expectantly and deep inside she turned liquid.
“Oh, Nicole,” he murmured against the shell of her ear. Desire was throbbing through her and emotions she didn’t pause to understand raced through her mind. “We’re alone?” His voice was low and husky.
“No.” She shook her head and had trouble finding her voice. Lust pulsed through her veins. “The twins are here.”
“Asleep?”
She nodded as his fingers scraped along the front lapel of her robe, touching her skin so lightly she wanted to scream. “It’s…it’s all right,” she said though she wasn’t thinking clearly, couldn’t concentrate on anything but the want of him.
“Good.” He kissed her again and reaching down, placed an arm beneath her knees and lifted her from her feet. As if she were nearly weightless he carried her down the short hallway past the girls’ room to her bedroom—a private sanctuary where, heretofore, no man had ever been allowed to enter.
Somehow he managed to close and lock the door before placing her on the bed. Beneath her old hand-pieced quilt, the mattress sagged under their combined weight. “Wh-what’s got into you?” she asked as he pushed the robe off her shoulders.
He stopped, his hands unmoving for a second as his silvery gaze found hers. “You, Doctor.” He leaned forward and kissed her slowly on the lips. “You’ve gotten into me and I can’t seem to do anything about it but this.”