Oh, Babies!

Grant opened the nursery door and Evan and Claire followed him into the rainbow strewn room. Nervous, and out of her element, Kristen hung behind.

“Isn’t this a lovely nursery?” Claire said as she walked over to Kristen and casually slid one of the children into her arms, apparently thinking Kristen wouldn’t be so bold as to do something without permission. “This is Annie. She’s Chas’s child.”

Feeling the softness of the baby’s skin, smelling the sweet scent of baby powder, and looking into green eyes exactly like Angela’s, Kristen felt emotions so strong and so deep she struggled to control them. She cleared her throat, and focused her attention on what Claire had said. “Chas’s child?” she asked quietly.

Evan swung the little boy off the changing table and playfully tossed him to Claire, as he said, “Claire, here, came up with the bright idea that we’d need to do something a little out of the ordinary to make sure each child got special attention. So, we each took responsibility for one child. Cody is ours,” he said, pointing to the little boy Claire held. “Responsibility for Annie belongs to Chas, and Grant cares for Taylor,” he added, nodding toward the dark-haired little girl sitting on Grant’s lap.

When she looked at the beautiful baby, Kristen wondered how her fair-haired, pale-skinned sister could have had a child so dark, then her gaze collided with that of Grant and Kristen didn’t have to think any further. Taylor didn’t merely have Morris blood, she also shared blood with Grant—and right now Grant was their primary guardian. If Kristen wanted these kids, her fight was with him. From the wary look on his face, Kristen could almost believe that was the message he was sending her with his smoky, watchful eyes.

Except he didn’t know she was Taylor’s aunt. Which meant the expression was intended to convey something entirely different. The same thing he’d been inadvertently communicating all afternoon. The same thing she’d sensed ten seconds after he opened his door to her. They were attracted to each other. And because of her choice they were now living together. Obviously the situation didn’t please him.

If they behaved like mature, honorable adults, it wouldn’t be a problem, Kristen thought and glanced away. For her it was a no-brainer, not something she had to ponder or brood about.

Besides, she wasn’t worried about the attraction anymore. All she had to do was remember Bradley, how much she adored him, how hard it was to lose him, how raw the wounds of deprivation could be when you lost someone you cherished, and no man could be attractive to her anymore.

“Do you want me to stay and help show Kristen the ropes?” Claire asked Grant, bringing Kristen back to the matter at hand.

Grant caught Kristen’s gaze again. “No. You guys grab Cody and head on home. It’s been a long day for all of us. I’m sure Kristen and I can handle things alone.”

Kristen quickly, easily got the point of what he was telling her with his black, black eyes. He’d bided his time waiting for wedding guests to leave, waiting for Mrs. Romani to show Kristen to her room, and allowing Kristen a few minutes to change into comfortable clothes, but as soon as Claire and Evan left, he and Kristen would have a heart-to-heart chat. Since he hadn’t been able to get out of hiring her, he probably had every intention of laying down the law.

But it appeared that Evan and his wife were oblivious to the firmness of Grant’s voice because Evan said, “You know, Grant, there’s something I needed to discuss with you. Dad had an investment in the pension fund that doesn’t look right to me. If you’d give me ten minutes to run over the paperwork with you, you could study it and give me your opinion. If you agree with me, I’d like to sell this dog before the end of the month.”

As Evan and his wife walked to the nursery door, Grant cast a skeptical eye toward Kristen. “Can you handle both girls by yourself for a minute?”

Though her heart thumped wildly at the prospect of being alone with the babies, Kristen shrugged casually, “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

Still cautious, Grant placed Taylor into the play yard and headed toward the door. Claire turned and, with Cody’s hand, waved goodbye to Kristen and the girls, and the Brewsters exited, leaving Kristen behind with her two nieces and the echoing silence.

Glad that Grant had given her time to change into blue jeans and a sweater, Kristen sat Annie on the nursery floor, then reached into the play yard, pulled out Taylor and sat her beside her sister.

Leaning back on her haunches, Kristen stared at them. The girls were dressed in two-piece yellow pajamas with plastic-bottomed feet. Like a little lady, Taylor sat primly and smiled at Kristen. Annie, however, began to howl.

“Shh!” Kristen said quickly, afraid Grant would hear and return before she had a chance to get acquainted with the babies. She scooped Annie off the floor with one arm while reaching for Taylor with the other. “Darn it, Annie, you look so much like your mother, couldn’t you have been born with her sweet, sweet disposition? Did you have to turn out like me?”

As if actually understanding what had been said, Annie stopped wailing and peered at Kristen.

“Yes. That’s right. We share a gene pool. I’m your mother’s sister. There’s a very good possibility you could turn out exactly like me—except looking like your mother.”

This time, Taylor cocked her head and studied Kristen.

“And you,” she said to Taylor. “You look so doggone much like your half brother that it scares me. But at least you act like your mother.”

As if fully comprehending the discussion and happy at the prospect of being like her mother, Taylor smiled, then squealed with glee as she clapped her chubby little hands.

Kristen’s heart lurched. She squeezed her eyes shut to gather her wits before walking to the first available rocker. She felt like fate was reminding her that these kids knew nothing about their mother and would never know about their mother. She doubted the Brewsters could tell the children much since Angela hadn’t been in their family for very long.

Snuggling both girls against her, Kristen leaned back on the rocker. She hadn’t known about these children until she received a letter from Angela’s lawyer announcing that he was withdrawing as counsel in Angela’s claim for the Morris family ranch. Holding the girls close, Kirsten experienced strange, compelling feelings. These babies weren’t merely all she had left, they could easily become the meaning and purpose for her existence. After her husband Bradley’s death, her life was nothing more than day-to-day emptiness, but with the knowledge that she needed to be the mother to her sister’s three children, something wonderful had been born in her. More than a reason to live, a reason to be happy. A reason to rejoice.

But custody of the kids belonged to men she didn’t even know in a state two thousand miles away from her home. They were rich, they were powerful, and she only owned the clothes on her back.

The fight, if it came down to that, would not be a fair one, and she understood why Mrs. Romani had suggested Kristen demonstrate to this family that she was a good, kind, generous person before she not only revealed who she was but also announced that she needed to take these children to Texas.

At the sound of the nursery doorknob turning, signaling Grant’s return, Kristen became fully alert. One swift frown got the attention of the squirming babies on her lap. “Things are strained enough between us already,” she quickly whispered. “If your brother thinks you’re misbehaving for me, he might ask me to leave.”

Though she thought her rationalization explained everything sufficiently that the girls would obey, Taylor then let out with a squeal and immediately thereafter Annie followed suit. “Shh!” she admonished quietly.

“Don’t waste your breath,” Grant said, closing the door behind him. “They’re wound-up from all the attention at the wedding. But more than that, they won’t listen to you because you’re new.”

He added the last as he scooped Taylor from Kristen’s lap. In one smooth motion, he raised her above his head, then swung her down far enough that he could blow on her belly. The action caused Taylor to squeal.

Terrified for the baby’s safety, Kristen gaped at him. “What the heck is that?”

“It’s called playing,” Grant replied, then swung Taylor over his head again.

Kristen bounced from her seat ready to rescue the little girl, but when she realized Taylor was squealing with delight, not fright, she stopped dead in her tracks. “She likes that?”

Grant cast a curious glance at Kristen. “She expects this from me.”

“She expects to be roughhoused?”

“She expects to be played with,” Grant corrected with a laugh, then shifted the little girl into the crook of his arm and reached into the small refrigerator in the corner of the room and pulled out a baby bottle. He tossed it to Kristen.

Only through the grace of God and good reflexes did she catch it.

“Feed Annie.”

She looked at the bottle, then the baby, then back at Grant again. But preoccupied with grabbing another bottle, kicking the refrigerator door closed and carrying Taylor to a rocker, he didn’t seem to see that she didn’t know what to do.

As he sat, Kristen saw that he noticed she hadn’t moved and he sighed heavily. “Slide the nipple into her mouth,” he suggested evenly.

“I was just a little shell-shocked from having a bottle tossed at me,” Kristen said, trying to cover for the fact that she’d never given a baby a bottle before. She’d seen mothers feed babies, dress them, diaper them. She watched all her friends have children and begin to raise them, but she hadn’t actually done any of the baby work with or for them.

“Whatever,” Grant said, sliding the nipple of the bottle into Taylor’s mouth, then relaxing against the back of his rocker. Without another word, he closed his eyes.

Because she’d been primed for a fight or a lecture, Kristen frowned as she gave the bottle to Annie and got comfortable in her rocker. Confused, but guessing that Grant’s brother might have cautioned him against saying anything that might lose their “nanny,” she covertly studied Grant.

Eyes closed, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and restfully lounging in the rocker, he was casually gorgeous, but also the epitome of a well-practiced dad. He could have been the babies’ father. In fact, he should have been the triplet’s father. Somewhere in his mid-thirties, Grant was probably closer to Angela’s age than Norm Brewster had been.

Remembering her own shock at being told in Arnie Garrett’s letter that Angela had had triplets with someone from a different generation, Kristen couldn’t even speculate on the Brewster brothers’ reaction. How would the grown children of an elderly man take the news that they had infant siblings? Surely they didn’t rejoice. Second families were always a little hard to take and with the addition of more people into this particular bloodline, the Brewsters would also have to share their inheritance. Nine chances out of ten, they’d been angry with their father—probably furious—when these children were born. And now they were forced to raise the same kids whose very existence had cut their net worths in half.

“Do you resent these kids?” she blurted into the quiet room, too appalled that the Brewsters might mistreat the babies to think clearly, but simultaneously regretting being nosy. Recognizing she had to somehow cover that slip, she added, “Your father must have married a woman a lot younger than he was to have babies. So, you couldn’t have been happy.”

Still not opening his eyes, Grant said, “Mrs. Romani filled your head with the village gossip, I see.”

“She didn’t say anything,” Kristen said, then paused, realizing it was true. The only thing that had really concerned Mrs. Romani was that Kristen understood Grant Brewster wasn’t an easy man to get along with. From his blunt assumption, she was beginning to see why. “I’m just curious.”

“All right,” he said. Sighing heavily, he opened his eyes and faced her, never once jostling or disturbing the baby he was feeding. “You’re going to hear it eventually anyway, so I’ll tell you that I wasn’t pleased when my father remarried two months after my mother died. I threw a fit, left town, dragged my brothers with me and didn’t return until my father died.”