“You look amazingly cheerful for someone who’s just spent the last forty-eight hours caring for babies with post-immunization fever and fussiness,” Lucille remarked when she came by Friday morning to help Wyatt out with the twins while Adelaide ran errands in town.
“It’s probably because I had such superior help from their daddy,” Adelaide teased.
Well, that and the number of times she and Wyatt had also managed to make love, she added silently. Sweet and tender, hot and passionate, slow and sensual. Their sessions had run the gamut. Leaving them both relaxed and happy and feeling surprisingly closer. Almost as if they were in love.
Wyatt winked. “What can I tell you, Mom? All those how-to articles you sent me really did the trick.”
“Something did.” Lucille grinned approvingly at both of them. “How long do you think your errands will take, Adelaide?”
“Not sure. I’m going to—” pick up the special-order Valentine’s Day gift I got for Wyatt and “—um, hit the grocery. The bank and the pharmacy. And I also want to check on the progress at my house.”
“I told her to take her time. She deserves a morning to herself.”
“I agree,” Lucille said.
Adelaide went over to the wind-up swings, knelt and kissed each drowsy infant in turn. Wyatt was there to give her a gallant hand up, so she did what she never did, went with her gut and kissed him, too.
Maybe things would work out, she thought, better than they had ever dreamed.
“Steak, potatoes, spinach and cream. That looks like the makings of a man-pleasing meal if I ever saw one,” Sage teased when she ran into Adelaide in the supermarket.
With the same needling affection, Adelaide checked out her sister-in-law’s shopping basket. “Roast chicken and all the fixings.” Plus saltines, ginger ale. “What might you be planning?”
Sage grinned. “Nick Monroe is coming over for a little early Valentine’s Day dinner.”
Adelaide hoped Sage didn’t get her heart broken again. She deserved someone who would put her first, above all else. “Where’s he going to be after that?”
“Sante Fe. Houston. Phoenix. Oklahoma City.”
“So he really is trying to take Monroe’s Western Wear national?”
“At least completely thoughout the southwestern United States.”
Adelaide thought about how happy her friend appeared whenever Nick was around. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s good for him.”
Adelaide said gently, “I meant for you.”
Sage waved off her concern. “We talk all the time. That’s not going to change. So. How are things with you and my big brother?”
“Good.”
“I’m glad. I’ve never seen him this happy.”
I’ve never been this happy. “Being blessed with twins—” and a daddy who doted on them as much as Wyatt did “—will do that for you.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Sage winked mischievously. “Plus a lot of other things.”
“Speaking of which,” Adelaide said, flashing a smile, “I’ve got to get back to the ranch.”
“Okay. Give everyone my love. I’ll see you at the Chili Festival.”
Adelaide checked out, then wheeled her basket out to the lot. She had just finished putting her groceries inside, and shut the cargo door, when she caught sight of the bumper sticker on her SUV: Grandpa Can Fix Anything.
Grandpa? Her children had no grandfather. Wyatt’s dad had passed, and hers was out of the country for good.
Wasn’t he?
Hands shaking, she got in her car and immediately called Kyle McCabe. “I have no idea how it got there,” she told the deputy detective.
“Did you have a bumper sticker prior to this?” he asked.
Adelaide’s nerves jangled. “No.”
“Is the bumper sticker magnetic?”
“Let me check.” Adelaide got back out of her SUV. Phone to her ear, she touched the colorful slogan on the bumper. “Yes. It is. You can peel it on and off.”
“Then it’s probably the sticker that was stolen off a car parked at the community center a few days ago. We’ve had a rash of sticker thefts the last week or so. All are ending up on other cars. Who gets what seems to be pretty random. So you’re probably the victim of a teenage prank, just meant to be a silly joke.”
Relief flowed through her. “Oh, thank heaven. I thought...”
“Have you had any more contact from your father?”
“No. Nothing.” Adelaide drew a deep breath. “Have you heard anything more?”
“Nope. The customs and immigration service and TSA have all been notified, but as I told you earlier, it’s not likely he’d try to come into the country legally.”
Adelaide tried to imagine her father catching a ride with a coyote who drove people across the border in the dead of night, swam the river or climbed a fence. All options seemed impossible. Which likely meant she was overreacting. “What should I do with the bumper sticker?”
“If you have time, it’d be great if you could drop it off at the station. You can just leave it at the front desk. They’ll see it’s returned to the original owner.”
Glad nothing was happening to disrupt her life after all, Adelaide climbed back behind the wheel. “Thanks, Kyle.”
“And Adelaide? If anything else seems out of the ordinary, don’t hesitate to notify me.”
“Thanks for coming over to help out today,” Wyatt told his mom while they sat down to give the twins their midday feedings.
Lucille settled Jenny in her arms and offered her the bottle. “You know, you still have time to go out and get Adelaide something nice for Valentine’s Day.”
The assumption he was still a screwup stung. Wyatt threw a burp cloth over his shoulder. “You really think you have to micromanage me in the husband department?” He’d blown off the articles Lucille had sent on how to be a good spouse, but somehow, this was different. It harkened back to his childhood, when Lucille had felt the need to shadow only one of her children.
“You don’t exactly have a normal marriage.” She paused meaningfully. “A really nice gift might help.”
So would a lack of maternal interference in his love life. “I’ve got it covered, Mom,” he said gruffly. He had not only figured out what he was going to give Adelaide, he knew where he was going to get it and when he was going to gift it to her, too.
“That’s good to hear.”
Wyatt moved his son to his shoulder for a burp. “But there is something I’d like to discuss with you. Adelaide and I talked to the pediatrician about the possibility of the twins developing learning disabilities.”
Lucille did the same with Jenny. “I know you told your brothers and sister about your dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia.”
He studied the stiff set of his mother’s lips. “You don’t approve?”
Lucille sniffed. “I don’t see it as necessary, especially now, with you doing so well. Your father and I went to a great deal of trouble to keep you from being adversely labeled.”
When Jake burped, Wyatt offered him his bottle again. He slanted his mother a glance. Although she’d come over to care for the babies, she still wore a silk-wool sheath, cashmere cardigan and heels. “Why did you do that?”
“Having come from modest rural backgrounds, we knew what it was like to be discounted unfairly. We worried the same would happen to you, and we didn’t want you to be denied any opportunities because of your learning disabilities. Especially when we had the means to see you overcame them, privately.”
Wyatt sensed there was more. “And you and Dad didn’t want it known, either.”
Lucille cuddled Jenny lovingly. “The rich get extra scrutiny, Wyatt. If it had been publicly known, people would have said you didn’t belong at Worthington Academy.”
The premiere Dallas school for the elite. “Maybe because I didn’t.”
“You had so many accommodations there.”
Silence fell.
“Do you know how many children with reading and writing and math challenges never graduate from high school, never mind go on to college?”
Wyatt tipped the bottle so Jake could get the last of the formula. “Too many. And the term is learning disabled, Mom. LDs are nothing to be embarrassed about. Nothing to hide.”
“Your father and I worked very hard to protect you.”
And she still was, even though he no longer needed it.
“I’m not going to apologize for that,” Lucille continued stiffly.
Wyatt turned to see Adelaide standing in the doorway, groceries in her arms. His sister-in law, Hope, was right beside her. Clearly, they had both overheard. And wished they hadn’t.
Adelaide walked in. “Sorry to interrupt, but Hope needs to talk to us.”
The other woman shrugged out of her coat and plucked a computer tablet out of her bag. “Another story has surfaced in the tabloid press. We didn’t plant it.”
She brought it over for everyone to see.
The screen was filled with a series of grainy photographs of Adelaide and Kyle McCabe in his sheriff’s department uniform. The two were standing outside the WTWA/Lockhart Foundation building in Laramie, talking intently. Another showed Kyle lifting the McCabe’s baby pram out of his truck and showing Adelaide how it went from the collapsed state to a fully extended buggy, big enough for multiple infants. Another of Kyle and Adelaide smiling, hugging. Wyatt had been standing off to the side when that happened, but he’d been cut out of the picture. And later was shown standing alone.
The story beneath was both damning and salacious: Smythe-Lockhart marriage already in trouble as Adelaide resumes love affair with legendary Texas lawman Kyle McCabe, leaving husband Wyatt Lockhart out in the cold.
Reading it, Wyatt snorted.
Adelaide blushed in distress. “Obviously, this was taken the other day.”
“But not by Marco Maletti,” Hope said. “He wasn’t even in Laramie. He was off in Houston, chasing another story.”
Wyatt walked back and forth with Jake in his arms. He patted his son’s back gently. “Then who...?”
“An amateur who asked to be paid via an online money service with a shady reputation. At least that’s what my contact at the tabloid claims. It’s why the photos are so bad. But you can see they are authentic because this actually happened. Kyle did stop by to see Adelaide when she was in town the other day.”
“So we’re being followed by another paparazzo?” Wyatt theorized grimly.
“Or a wannabe,” Hope concluded. “All we know for certain is that this person wants the story to take a salacious turn.”
Adelaide looked like she was going to cry. “Oh no.”
“So now what?” Wyatt asked the highly efficient scandal manager.
Hope shut her tablet. “We stick to our plan. And keep feeding interesting, touchy-feely photos and positive stories to the tabloid press until interest fades.”
“Has anyone told Kyle McCabe?” Adelaide asked grimly.
Hope shook her head. “Not that I know of. I was alerted because I follow these things as part of my job.”
“I’ll do it,” Adelaide said. Before anyone else could offer, she grabbed her phone and stepped outside.
Adelaide came back in, just as Hope and Lucille were leaving Wind River. “Talk to Kyle?” Wyatt asked.
She nodded tersely and walked over to the dual Pack ’N Plays. The twins were sound asleep. She stared down at their angelic faces, a faint smile on her face, admitting quietly, “He agreed with Hope, that it was likely the work of someone hoping to cash in or become part of the story, even vicariously.”
He followed her into the kitchen. “Was that all he said?”
“Aside from the usual, if anyone bothers us, notify law enforcement? Yes.” She took two thick hand-trimmed porterhouse steaks out of the package and put them into a glass baking dish. Then, turned to look at him, the walls going up around her heart as quickly and sturdily as ever. “Why?” she bit out.
Working to corral his disappointment, Wyatt came close enough to inhale her familiar womanly scent. “I’m just wondering why you stepped outside to make the call.”
Her head bent over the task, Adelaide seasoned the steaks with a spicy dry rub. “Because I feel like this is my problem to solve,” she retorted stubbornly.
Once again, she was pushing him away. “I disagree,” he countered quietly.
Her slender form stiff with tension, Adelaide swung back to face him. “If it weren’t for what my dad did, no one would give two spurs whether our two families get along or not. Yes, people who know us would be interested to find out we are married and have twins, but the news wouldn’t be written up in the press. We wouldn’t be forced to fight fire with fire and or have unknown paparazzo stalking us and anyone else who came into our path.”
“Like Kyle McCabe.”
Turbulent emotion filled her eyes. Her lower lip trembling, she admitted even more miserably, “Not to mention the fact that your entire family is now stuck doing damage control, right along with us!”
“They don’t mind. I don’t mind.”
“Well, I do!” She threw up her hands in frustration. “I hate the fact that my family has caused your family so much pain!”
“What happened last summer at the foundation is over, Adelaide.”
She sighed, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “Don’t you see?” she whispered, rubbing her temples. “It’ll never be over. Never!”
“Yes,” he said firmly, “it will.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to believe him.
Luckily, her guilt and remorse about the past were things he could ease. Closing the distance between them, he wrapped his arms around her waist.
“First of all, you’re part of the Lockhart clan, too, now. And thanks to our marriage, have been for years. Even if we didn’t know it.” He buried his face in the fragrant softness of her hair, kissed her temple.
He paused to give her a long reassuring look. “Second, you don’t need to handle any of this alone. Not anymore. Not even the apologies.”
Adelaide gulped. Her eyes glistened moistly. “I was trying to protect you.”
Her vulnerability broke his heart. Wanting to do everything and anything he could to ease her hurt, Wyatt brought her closer still. “I don’t need your protection,” he told her gruffly.
He was strong enough to shield all of them from whatever came their way. He threaded one hand through her hair, looked down at the fiercely loving expression on her face. “What I need...what I have always needed...and wanted, Addie...is just you.”
Relief softened her slender frame. “Oh, Wyatt,” she admitted softly, “I need and want you, too.” She stroked her hands through his hair. “So much...”
He lowered his head, and kissed her passionately. To his delight, she kissed him right back, clinging to him with all she had, until all the walls she’d just erected came down, and the last of her inaccessibility faded.
Figuring it was time they took advantage of the peaceful interlude, Wyatt caught her beneath her knees. “And now, as long as the twins are still sleeping,” he teased, sweeping her gallantly up into his arms. He waggled his brows. “I have in mind something equally ‘relaxing’ we adults can do...”
She laughed shakily as he carried her up the stairs and dropped her down on the center of her queen-size bed.
“Mine?” she teased, knowing he liked space when he made love to her.
“This was closer,” he told her gruffly. When she looked at him like that, all soft and sexy and needy, he couldn’t wait any longer.
He stripped off her boots, jeans. Knelt on the bed to help her out of her pants, sweater and bra. She gasped as he kissed her again, ravenously, his hands discovering the deliciousness of her curves. Her nipples beading against the center of his palms, he moved lower. Past her navel. Lower still.
She arched as he caught the elastic edge of her panties in his teeth and brought it down. In a shockingly short time he had her naked and crying out.
His own body thrumming with need, he stripped down, found a condom and joined her on the bed.
“Let me.” Trembling, she rolled it on, then pushed him onto his back and swung her body lithely over his. Joyously, she moved to take him all the way inside. As their bodies merged, her eyes filled with an emotion that was as elusive as it was deep. The nameless ache within him spread, infiltrating his heart. Turning her, he moved over top of her, their mouths connecting as intimately as their bodies. Tongues twining, they kissed and kissed. His hands slid beneath her hips and he lifted her, going deeper, slower, then deeper again. With a soft, low groan, she rocked against him erotically, breathlessly. She shuddered in his arms. He plummeted right after her. They clung together, sharing the ecstasy, the peace.
Worried his weight might be too much for her, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him. Cuddling her close, he kissed her temple, ear, cheek. “For the record,” he whispered, savoring the increasing intimacy between them, “I adore you, too.”
Adelaide would have liked nothing more than to stay wrapped in his arms, their naked bodies entwined. But she had promised herself she was going to make him dinner. And with the twins newly asleep—five o’clock fast approaching—she needed to get started.
“Where are you going?” he asked huskily as she eased out of his arms.
Damned if the sight of him, sprawled naked in her bed, wasn’t the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. She pulled on her panties and secured her bra. with him watching lustily all the while.
“I got steaks. Remember?”
When she bent to pick up her pants, a small velvet jeweler’s box tumbled out onto the floor.
He lifted a brow. “What have we here?”
Maybe there would be less pressure if she gave it to him now.
“Your Valentine’s Day gift.” She sat on the edge of the bed, pretending a casual ease she couldn’t begin to feel. She searched his eyes. “Want to open it now?”
“It’s February 12. I haven’t had time to pick up your gift yet.”
“So we’ll draw out the pleasure.”
His big body relaxed. “Well, now I’m curious.”
“It’s also sort of a fun anniversary gift,” she added nervously as he took the gift box. She hoped she hadn’t overstepped. “Practical, too. In the sense that maybe if we use them, we’ll get less questions at places like the pediatrician’s office. At least for the time being.”
His brow lifted.
Adelaide drew a breath. “I’ll be quiet now.”
Grinning sexily, he opened the lid. Looked inside at the two identical twisted tin-and-sterling-silver tenth anniversary rings that could easily double as wedding bands.
One for her.
One for him.
There was a moment when he didn’t move. At all. A moment where she wished they had never made a promise to consciously uncouple and then split up when the twins were older and the time was right.
But they had.
And with the secret she was still keeping from him, her father still on the loose, maybe even edging closer right this very second, she couldn’t ask him to put a halt on any divorce plans and really try to make their marriage work.
Then he looked up at her, his eyes dark with desire, and something else she couldn’t identify.
Something he, too, seemed reluctant to suggest, for fear it would somehow jinx the closeness they were already feeling, with every moment that passed.
“It’s just for now,” she said hastily.
“For appearances,” he confirmed, his expression even more tender, yet inscrutable.
“And fun.” And love... Because she was falling in love with him, all over again. And unless she was mistaken, he was beginning to want much more from her than they’d already agreed upon, too...
“This,” he said gruffly, as he slipped the larger band on his left hand, then put hers on her ring finger, “is a gift as perfect as you.”
There was only one problem with that, she thought, as Wyatt laid her down and made sweet and tender love to her all over again.
They had a lot going for them. A lot. But she wasn’t perfect. Not even close. Or she wouldn’t still be forced to keep so much from him.