NATASHA WORKED UNTIL midnight Wednesday. Making up for time away that morning. And getting ahead, too. She was up at five and in the office by six the next day, too, so she could finish up business. Her bag was packed and in the car. Arrangements were made for Lily.
With everything done, there was no reason not to head back to the ranch Thursday evening rather than lose valuable work time on Friday traveling across the desert. Spencer should have a signed contract for her. And she had work to do to make the barn studio a more permanent working space.
They’d need flooring and a real stage, not the wood-veneered metal breakdown one they were currently using. And she wanted a proper office.
Spencer didn’t know she was coming. She didn’t report to him. And didn’t want to create an expectation that could be difficult to maintain. If she was going to lease the right to the studio on his property, she needed complete autonomy.
And yet, as she made her way to the ranch, she thought about him and his kids. The sunset over the mountains in the distance was glorious, bathing desert growth in shadows and color. Still, it didn’t hold her attention as it once might have.
Nor did thoughts of the various contestants in the ranch segment. Normally she got to know her contestants like friends.
This time they were like pegs in a cribbage board. Necessary to the play, but otherwise anonymous.
The fact might have bothered her if she had the mental faculties to focus on it. Instead, she thought about… Spencer and his kids.
Had he told them they had a grandma who wanted to meet them?
Did he see the good in that for them? Aside from the danger of losing them to her. But he wasn’t going to do that. He’d marry. The kids’ home life would be secure, well-rounded. And they could have a grandma to spoil them occasionally.
Would her mother have spoiled any kids Natasha might have had?
She couldn’t see it.
Maybe because she couldn’t see herself with kids.
Pulling onto the ranch just after dark, she debated taking the road straight to the studio. Not because she planned to work there that night. But because then she could take the back way to her cabin without shining her headlights directly on the main house, disturbing Spencer.
Or letting him know she was there?
Mostly she wanted to avoid the sight of the white pickup truck parked out front…
The thought shocked her. Why would she care about that truck? She was the one who’d suggested Spencer get married.
She just hadn’t thought…
Well, what had she thought?
When no ready answer presented itself, Natasha turned her SUV toward the main house. She was going to tackle this problem just as she did everything else in her path.
Head-on.
* * *
THE TRUCK WASN’T THERE. Lights were on in the front room. And in the back, too, from what she could tell through the big front window.
School-night bedtime was still half an hour away.
And there was no town car in the drive.
Not that she’d expected there would be. The kind of threat Claire Williamson posed would be months in the developing.
Spencer would be married long before then. Nothing was going to unravel for this little family.
Not that it was any of her concern.
She slowed as she neared the house. Kids lived there. Daisy Wolf was puppy enough to be unpredictable. And she didn’t want to hurt anyone.
Still yards away, she saw the front door open, and a child came barreling out. Justin. What gave him away was how he tripped over his foot.
Tabitha was only one step behind her brother. “Natasha!”
She heard the kids’ happy hollers even with her windows closed.
Spencer wouldn’t want her to hurt his kids’ feelings by driving on past, so she pulled to a stop. Rolled down her window. But then got out.
Someone had to stop Justin from hurling himself into the darkness. She caught him, feeling his arms around her neck, holding him tight so they didn’t fall, before setting him back down. Tabitha’s arms around her hips came out of nowhere. She held on to the girl to steady them both.
She held on longer because she wanted that hug more than she’d admit.
She wasn’t a hugger. Never had been. This was unsettling.
“I been practicing every night, haven’t I, Tabitha?” The boy was jumping up and down beside them even before Natasha let Tabitha go.
“Yes, and he is pretty good,” Tabitha said, grinning. “But he doesn’t like lots of stuff,” she said, her expression serious. And then not as she asked, “You want to dunk doughnuts? We’re dunking doughnuts with Daddy.”
Natasha looked up. Spencer was halfway across the yard. His back to the lights coming from the house left his face in complete shadow, so it was impossible to tell what kind of mood he was in.
Or how displeased he’d be with her impromptu addition to family snack time.
“Natasha wants to dunk doughnuts, Daddy!” Justin said, his voice about three octaves above normal.
“She didn’t say that yet, Justin. Do you want to dunk, Natasha?” Tabitha tugged on her hand.
“It’s up to your daddy,” she said, knowing that putting the onus on him wasn’t the way to endear herself. But she wasn’t going to disappoint these kids. They were just too cute.
And the light in her heart they left in their wake was proving impossible to resist.
“You dunk, you eat,” Spencer said, reaching them. He didn’t sound mad.
So she joined them.
* * *
SPENCER COULDN’T TELL what Natasha was thinking when she discovered that his doughnuts turned out to be little O’s of oat cereal. When the twins had been little, the O’s had been a lifesaver pretty much every day. In the truck on the way into town, on a high-chair tray while he cooked dinner, sitting in front of the television set watching football…
Now that they were “grown up,” as Tabitha put it, they needed grown-up O’s. She’d been trying to get him to buy sugared cereal when she’d made the announcement.
He’d come up with a distraction meant to be a onetime thing that had escalated into a family tradition. The first time, he’d had her dunk her plain oat O into a blob of jelly he’d had on a spoon. That had evolved to evenings of finding different things to dunk into. They had their favorites, which he’d occasionally put out on the table in little bowls. The three of them would dunk while they did their homework. Or colored. Or had family talks.
That night he’d given them bananas that he’d put in the blender with milk. Some chocolate syrup. And a bit of Betsy’s strawberry jam.
The kids fought over who got to sit next to their guest. She put herself at the end of the table and had them sit opposite each other. He sat in his usual seat at the other end.
“You can’t lick your fingers and put them back in the bowl,” Tabitha explained as she leaned over the bowls of dunking sauces. “See, you do it like this…” She demonstrated how she dunked her O and then dropped it into her mouth without letting her fingers touch her lips.
“I do it like this.” Justin, on his knees on the chair and with both elbows on the table, leaned forward and grabbed a piece of cereal. He dunked it, dropped it on his paper plate and then hooked it with a toothpick, putting it into his mouth.
Spencer locked his lips together. His kids, especially Justin, took offense when they thought he was laughing at them.
“Now you try,” Tabitha said, pushing hair out of her face with the back of her hand. He was going to have to get that mop under control. No one on the farm cared if her hair was a tangled mess by the end of the day, but there was no way he was giving Claire that image to take to court.
For fifteen minutes, Natasha played along with the kids. She dunked. She ate. And when her fingers automatically touched her lips, Tabitha, who always watched, caught her and made her go wash her hands before she could dunk again.
Eventually they remembered that Spencer was there. And made him dunk, too. He was happy to comply.
Happy, period.
Happier than he’d been all week.
Funny what a little dunking doughnuts could do for a guy.