The Cowboy's Twins

He had said that. He couldn’t remember when. Or why. But he vaguely remembered making the promise.

“Yes, I did. If she’d had a boy then Justin would name her.”

Satisfied, Tabitha wet her brush and stuck it in her mouth.

“Toothpaste?” Spencer gave her the look. The one with eyebrows raised, warning that a child wasn’t going to get away with something.

“I’ve got toothpaste, see?” Justin held out his brush, turning lips smeared with goo up at Spencer. And dripping a blob of blue on the linoleum floor while he was at it. Which was why Spencer had installed the linoleum over the old wood floors when he’d remodeled the bath for the twins to share. He didn’t want to have to worry about spills and other little things.

Making a mental note to wipe up the blob later, Spencer nodded. He didn’t care about drops on the floor. What he cared about was that the twins loved the ranch, their home, as much as he did.

That they felt the same sense of excitement—of security—that he’d always felt there.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, doing a quick mental rearrangement of his morning. “You two finish brushing and grab your backpacks.” He picked up Tabitha’s hairbrush and started in on the morning ritual of getting the tangles out of her long, dark hair, remembering to be gentle on the ones that invariably rested at the base of his little girl’s neck. She winced.

He winced, too. Waiting for the morning when he could get through this part without hurting her.

“Lunches are made,” he continued. “So if everyone is on his best behavior—” said for Justin’s benefit “—we’ll take a walk over to say good morning to Ellie.”

“We’ll miss our bus.” Tabitha spoke with her brush in her mouth, leaving spots of toothpaste on the mirror as she met his gaze in the glass.

“I’ll drive you to school this morning.” He had no need for a trip to town but welcomed the idea of being away from the ranch for a couple of hours.

And he made no pretense to himself about the reason for that.

He wanted to spend as little time as possible with the city girl who’d invaded his space.

In more ways than one.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_27528dfa-cb3c-526d-a2c0-b36cddf50aef)

THE PEAL OF her old-fashioned ringtone woke Natasha from a sound sleep. Not sure where she was at first, Natasha reached an arm toward the side table, pulling herself to a sitting position.

Her mother called only when she had something important to say. And the ringtone was reserved exclusively for the woman who’d birthed her thirty-one years before.

Birthed. She knew, firsthand, what that meant.

By the time her eyes were fully open and focused on the paneled walls of the cabin’s master bedroom, Natasha had regained full faculties. And memories of helping to bring a calf into the world came flooding back.

“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” She forced cheer and wakefulness into her tone. Susan Stevens wouldn’t approve of sleeping past six—no matter that she’d not made it back to bed until sometime after four that morning.

The red digital numbers glaring at her from the nightstand let her know that she was over two hours late getting up.

By her mother’s standards. Which had been firmly indoctrinated as her own...

“How are you, dear?” Polite conversation meant that her mother was displeased. Or worse, disappointed. Now she felt like a real slough off.

Searching her brain for what she could possibly have done to earn this, she came back to the time. Had her mother already called once? Had she slept through the ring?

“I’m fine, Mom,” she said, standing beside the bed to ensure that her blood was flowing and she sounded busy.

It was half past eleven in New York City. Her mother would have already handled a full calendar that morning and would be off the bench for the next hour and a half before her afternoon calendar began.

Susan wouldn’t think ill of her for not taking her call. It was understood that they were both busy women. Missing a call was to be expected...

Which meant her own sleeping habits had nothing to do with her mother’s displeasure.

Maybe a case had gone bad. As a superior court judge on the criminal bench in a city like New York, Susan led a less-than-peaceful life.

She lived in a less-than-peaceful city.

So had Natasha...until...

“The new season of the show starts in a couple of days,” Susan stated, as though Natasha didn’t know her own schedule. Because she wanted Natasha to know that she knew. That she kept track.

Her way of saying that she cared.

“I’m already at the ranch,” Natasha said, collapsing to the side of the bed. She told her mother about Ellie. About birthing the cow. And when Susan asked how she was going to integrate the experience into her show, a fifteen-minute conversation followed. A good, meaty, mind-melding conversation.

Between mother and daughter. Two high-powered women whose minds were simpatico.

“So...how’s Stan?” Natasha asked, after their brainstorming morphed into a series of ideas, a plan, that pleased them both.

When she was up and ready, Bryant’s wife was going to be doing a walk-through with her of the staging and kitchens that had been built in a tractor barn on the property. The pantry and green room. Now that she was awake, she was eager to get to it.

“That’s what I called about...”

Back straightening, Natasha slowed her thinking. Had something happened to her mother’s long-term companion? While not technically her father, Stan had been in their lives for over a decade, and...

“What’s wrong? Is he ill?”

The appeals court judge had been in perfect health when she’d visited her mother over Christmas. But that had been...nine months ago.

“No...to the contrary, he’s more physically fit than he’s been in years,” Susan said. A note in her mother’s voice gave her concern. Or rather, a lack of any particular one did.

“He’s taking an early retirement,” Susan continued, her words even. Emotionless.

“But...he’s only, what, fifty-one?” Her mother had thrown a high-powered fiftieth birthday bash for him. The guest list had included most anyone who was anyone in power in the city. Natasha had flown home to New York to oversee the caterer her mother had hired for the occasion.

“Fifty-two. And he’s decided that he wants to sail around the world,” she continued. Natasha sat frozen on the bed. She couldn’t tell if her mother was being literal. Normally she’d have been able to tell.

“Wow.” Not her best articulation, but she was shocked. To the bone. “I thought he’d die at ninety-five, still on the bench,” she half murmured.

“I know. Me, too.”

Just as her mother planned to do...

Unless... With a surge of...she didn’t know what exactly—an emotion that felt a lot better than the disbelief and uncertainty weighing her down—she entertained the thought that had struck.