The Cowboy's Twins

“I’m disappointed in you,” Spencer said, the words clearly delivered to his daughter. Her lower lip quivered.

“Wait.” Natasha couldn’t stand back, in spite of her self-admonition to do so. “It’s not her fault...”

She knew she’d made a mistake before his gaze landed on her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“What did I tell you two about this barn?” he asked.

“Not to go here,” Tabitha answered, still looking right at him.

“Justin?”

With his chin to his chest, the boy mumbled, “Stay away.”

“You have Ms. Stevens apologizing for you, but I’m fairly certain that she didn’t pick you up and carry you to this barn, did she?”

“No.” Justin spoke, though he didn’t look up to see that his father was pinning him with that stare.

“You walked here.”

“Yes.”

“Even though I told you not to.” He glanced at Tabitha then, too.

“We didn’t walk, Daddy,” she said, her big brown eyes solemn as she shook her head of long, tangled hair.

“You didn’t.”

“No, Daddy, we ran.”

“You ran over here?” The little girl had his full attention. “Even though you know I expressly forbade you to be here?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

In that second, Natasha’s feelings of protectiveness toward the children changed to sympathy for the man standing there in front of them. He was clearly perplexed.

And alone in his parenting responsibilities.

She could only imagine... No, she couldn’t even imagine trying to run a ranch and be the sole parent of two hooligans with acres and acres spread before them...tempting them...

“Because I was chasing Justin.”

Spencer’s brow cleared. For the second it took him to face his son. Down on his haunches, he placed his face within inches of the boy’s.

“Is this true, Justin?” Spencer’s tone was soft now but, Natasha imagined, no less menacing to his seven-year-old son.

“Course. Tabitha doesn’t lie...”

Implying that the boy did?

“You deliberately disobeyed me,” Spencer reiterated.

The boy nodded.

“You weren’t chasing a butterfly...there was no frog hopping in this direction...you didn’t think you’d heard a cow...you weren’t lost...”

The ease with which the words came gave Natasha the idea they were all excuses Spencer had heard before.

“No.”

“Then why?”

She supposed he had to do this. Had to call the boy out in front of her so he’d learn his lesson. Still, she wished he’d take his disciplining home.

“I smelled the cookies.”

Spencer’s gaze turned unexpectedly in her direction, catching the grin that had sprung to her face. She wiped it away. Immediately. But suspected she hadn’t been quick enough.

“You were baking cookies?” he asked. And the twinkle in his eye made her heart twitch again.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_6877a135-32fb-5bfe-828c-c6da3b2639ff)

SPENCER STILL WASN’T sure how it happened, but he ended up staying at the studio, eating the best chocolate chip cookies he’d ever had and watching while his children continued to help Natasha Stevens with the independent sound check she’d been running.

She’d explained that her crew ran the official checks. And that since the very beginning, she had run one of her own, as well. Because it set her mind at ease to know firsthand that everything was running properly.

Tabitha had been the one to explain that she and Justin were working for her for free as punishment for trespassing and stealing cookies.

And then he’d been hoodwinked into inviting her to share their dinner with them. He’d promised them hamburgers, camp potatoes and grilled corn because it was Friday night and they didn’t have school the next day. He’d also promised roasted marshmallows over the fire pit.

With her crew gone for the night, it had seemed churlish to make a big deal out of his kids’ invitation to her to their Friday soiree.

He just hadn’t expected her to hang around after the kids went to bed.

He’d left the fire burning, because it was a nice night, and he’d intended to come back out with his tablet and get some work done.

The kids had said good-night to her. He’d nodded his goodbye.

And yet when, fifteen minutes later, tablet in hand, he’d carried a cup of coffee out to the fire pit, there she was, still sitting in the sling chair she’d occupied during dinner. Elbows on her knees, she was leaning forward, her hands folded, and dangling by the warmth of the fire. The formfitting, long-sleeve black shirt she was wearing outlined a perfect female form.

Attraction flared for the instant it took him to clamp down hard on it.

“I didn’t expect you still to be here.” He tried to come off as cordial, enough so that she could think he was pleasantly surprised to find himself still in possession of her company.

But even to his own ears, he sounded surly.