Babies in the Bargain Read online

  That brought Kira to her senses. “Who do you think I am?”

  “The journalism student from the college who’s doing the article on Ad and me. Isn’t that who you are?”

  That explained why he’d waved her in.

  Kira shook her head. “I’m not from the college,” she said. “I’m Kira Wentworth. Marla’s sister.”

  That sobered him instantly. In fact, it pulled his amazing face into a frown that put two vertical creases between his eyebrows.

  “Oh.”

  All the animation had drained from his voice and he didn’t say anything for so long that Kira felt inclined to fill the silence with the reason for her sudden appearance on his doorstep.

  “The Denver newspaper ran a little article about you and the other man saving a family from their burning house. It was the first time I had any clue about where Marla might be since the two of you left thirteen years ago. I’m here looking for her.”

  Cutty Grant closed his green eyes and Kira saw his jaw tense before he opened them again and sighed a sigh that sounded resigned but not happy.

  He pointed toward the living room and said, “Let’s go in there and sit.”

  Solemn. Kira knew whatever he was going to tell her couldn’t be good, and her grip on her purse turned white-knuckle as she did as he’d suggested and went into the living room that looked as if a cyclone had hit it.

  “Please. Sit,” he repeated when she went on standing even then.

  Kira conceded, passing up the littered sofa to remove a rag doll from the Bentley rocking chair that was at a forty-five-degree angle to the couch. She kept hold of the doll with her arms wrapped tightly around it, hugging it close as Cutty Grant joined her, sitting on the only clear spot on the sofa and raising his casted foot to a pillow on the coffee table in front of it.

  For what seemed like an eternity he didn’t speak, though. Or even look at her. Instead he kept his eyes on the cane, balancing it across his legs like a bridge.

  And in the silence it occurred to Kira that although she’d seen signs of infants and of Cutty himself, she hadn’t seen anything that would lead her to think her sister or her nephew were a part of the equation here. But she still hoped against hope that Cutty Grant was going to tell her he and Marla had divorced, that Marla had taken their son somewhere else, that he was a widower with two daughters because his second wife had died….

  But the minute he said, “I’m sorry,” Kira knew better and her heart sank. There was just something so ominous in his voice.

  “Marla and I had a little boy,” he told her then. “Your parents knew that so you must have, too.”

  “I knew you’d had a boy, yes,” Kira confirmed tentatively, as if, if she hedged, it might not make the worst true.

  “Then you probably knew he was autistic.”

  That surprised her. “No, I didn’t know that. I only knew Marla had had a son because I overheard my mother telling my father when the baby was born. They never told me directly—she was so thoroughly disowned that I wasn’t even to mention her name—and after that I never heard them talk about her or the baby again.”

  “There was an after that—” Disgust rang in his tone but he seemed to reconsider what he’d been about to say and changed course. “Anthony. We named him Anthony.”

  It was unabashed pain that Kira heard in Cutty’s voice then. Pain that etched his handsome face.

  “I’m really hoping this isn’t as bad as it seems,” she said when he let another long silence pass.

  Cutty Grant took a deep breath and shook his head to let her know in advance that her hopes were to no avail. “Seventeen months ago, it was February but we were having springlike weather, so Marla took Anthony into the front yard to get some fresh air. I don’t really know why, but for some reason Anthony ran between two cars that were parked at the curb. There was a truck coming. Going faster than it should have been. The driver didn’t see Anthony. Or Marla running after him…”

  It was difficult for Cutty to say what he was saying, and after another pause he finally finished. “The truck hit them both.”

  Kira hadn’t been prepared to hear that. Intellectually she’d realized that it was possible it was her sister who had left Cutty Grant a widower, but she hadn’t really believed it was true.

  “Marla is dead?” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And Anthony?”

  “He was killed instantly.”

  Through the tears that sprang to her eyes, Kira saw moisture gathering in those of the man across from her, too. But still she couldn’t help the accusing tone when she said, “And you didn’t let us know?”

  A flash of anger dried his eyes and when he answered her it was barely contained in his own voice. “Marla lived a few hours after the accident and one of the few things she said to me during the time she was conscious was that she didn’t want me to call her father. That she didn’t want him here. Even if she didn’t make it. I respected her wishes.” And it was clear that he’d had no desire himself to bring Tom Wentworth into the picture.

  “But I would have wanted to know,” Kira said quietly as she lost the battle to hold back her own tears and they began to trail down her face.

  Cutty Grant got up and limped out of the room, returning with a box of tissues that he held out for her.

  Kira accepted one, thanking him perfunctorily and wiping her eyes as she struggled with the complex emotions running through her.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, setting the tissue box on the coffee table and sitting down once more. “If it’s any consolation, not seeing you again after we eloped was the one thing Marla regretted.”

  It wasn’t much consolation. It didn’t take away all the years of missing Marla. Of wondering where she was. Of wishing she would call or write. Of longing to see her again, to be sisters again. It didn’t take away all the time since Kira had grown up and been out on her own when she’d wanted so badly to have Marla in her life and not had any way of knowing where she was.

  “I tried to find her,” Kira said through her tears, not really understanding why it was suddenly important to her that he know. “My parents said they didn’t have any idea where she was—”

  “That was a lie.”

  Kira had suspected as much but she couldn’t force them to tell her.

  She didn’t say that to Cutty, though. She just continued. “I went to three private investigators but I couldn’t afford their fees. I even tried different things on the Internet. But no matter what I did, I came up empty.” As empty as she’d felt so much of the time after Marla had left. “I know we weren’t related by blood, but she was still my sister. We shared a room from the time I was three years old. And, I don’t know, I guess rather than being rivals or fighting with each other, we sort of banded together…” Kira’s voice trailed off before she said too much.

  But Cutty picked up the ball where she’d dropped it and said, “Does your father know you’re here now?”

  Kira finally managed to stop the flow of tears and dabbed at her face with the tissue. “He and my mom were killed a year ago in a freak accident. They were coming home from a day in the mountains when there was a rock slide onto the road. They were hit by a boulder that came right down on the car. They both died instantly.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said once more. “Your mother was a nice enough woman.”

  That was true. It was just that nice hadn’t had any potency against the strong will of the man she’d married. The man who had adopted her three-year-old daughter.

  But that seemed beside the point now. Kira had come here hoping to find the sister she’d so desperately wanted to reconnect with. Hoping to find family. And it suddenly struck her that the only chance of that might be in Cutty Grant’s twins.

  “The article said you have eighteen-month-old daughters,” she said then.

  “Upstairs asleep as we speak,” he confirmed, a brighter note edging his voice at the mere mention of them.


  “Marla’s babies?”

  “Yes. They were barely three weeks old when the accident happened.”

  “My nieces,” Kira said, trying it on for size because blood or no blood, if they were Marla’s babies, Kira felt a connection to them.

  “I guess so,” Cutty conceded.

  “I’d like to meet them. Get to know them. Would you let me?” she said impulsively and without any idea how she might go about that.

  Cutty’s frown from earlier reappeared and he didn’t jump at the idea. Instead he said, “Like I said, they’re asleep.”

  “I know. But…”

  And that was when, completely out of the blue, the mess in the room caught her attention again and an idea popped into her head.

  “What if I took the place of that woman you were talking to on the phone a few minutes ago?” she said before the notion had even had a chance to ferment.

  “Betty? What if you took Betty’s place?” He sounded confused and leery at the same time.

  “You said she took care of the twins and helped around the house, and without her—and with you needing to stay off your ankle—you’re obviously in a bind. So what if I did it? I’d like to help and that way I could get to know the babies. Bond with them.”

  The more Kira considered this, the better it sounded to her.

  But from the look on Cutty’s face it wasn’t having the same effect on him.

  “Don’t you have a job or a husband or a boyfriend or something you need to get back to?”

  “No, I don’t. In May I finished my Ph.D. in microbiology. I’m going to start teaching at the University of Colorado for the fall semester, but that doesn’t begin until the last week in August. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with myself until then but that means I’m free.”

  “No husband or boyfriend, either?” he asked, and Kira couldn’t tell if he was looking for an out for himself or satisfying his own curiosity.

  “No, no husband or boyfriend. I have one really close friend—Kit—but she can get along without me. Plus she’ll bring in my mail and water my plants for me, so it won’t be any problem for me to stay.”

  “You really want to spend your summer vacation picking up after us? Changing diapers?” Cutty asked skeptically.

  “I really do,” she said, hating that she sounded as desperate as she felt. “I admit that I don’t have any experience with kids,” she confessed because it seemed only fair to let him know what he was getting into. “But when it comes to cleaning—”

  “You’re Tom Wentworth’s daughter,” Cutty supplied. “I don’t know, I like things casual.”

  “Casual is good. I can be casual.” Although she wasn’t quite sure what casual housekeeping and child care meant.

  But still he didn’t look convinced. In fact, he looked downright dubious and as if he was on the verge of saying thanks, but no thanks.

  Why would he, though? It was clear he needed help and she was offering it.

  Unless maybe he still harbored resentment toward her family for the way things had played out that night thirteen years ago when he’d come with Marla to tell their parents that he’d gotten their seventeen-year-old daughter pregnant.

  “You know,” Kira ventured, “I didn’t have anything to do with what went on between you and my father. I know how ugly it got. He sent me to my room but I was hiding on the stairs, listening to what went on. He was a difficult man—”

  “That’s an understatement. He was a tyrant.”

  Kira didn’t dispute that. “But nobody can change the past and now he’s gone and so is Marla. But there are your twins. And me. I lost all these years that I could have had with Marla, with Anthony, and I can’t get them back. But I could have a future with the twins. If you’ll just let me.”

  She hated the note of pleading that had somehow slipped into her tone.

  And Cutty Grant must not have liked it much, either, because she saw his jaw clench suddenly and his voice turned tight. “I’m really not the bastard your father thought I was. The kind of bastard who would keep you from knowing your nieces.”

  “I didn’t—I don’t—think you’re that. I just know there have to be hard feelings—”

  “Harder than you’ll ever know. But I’m well aware of the fact that you were only a kid, that you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Then will you let me stay?”

  Again he didn’t answer readily, and she knew he wasn’t eager to agree even if he did need the help.

  But in the end she thought that he might have wanted to prove he wasn’t a bad guy, that he wasn’t punishing her for something she’d had nothing to do with, because he said, “I suppose we can give it a try.”

  Kira was so happy to hear his decision that she couldn’t help grinning. “Shall I start right now?” she asked with a glance at the clutter all around them.

  “It’ll all wait for tomorrow.”

  In that case Kira thought it was probably better to get out of there before he changed his mind.

  “Then if you’ll tell me where I can find a hotel or a motel I’ll get a room and be back first thing in the morning.”

  Again he let silence reign as he seemed to consider something before he answered.

  “If you aren’t particular about the ambience you can stay out back. Where Marla and I lived when we first got here.”

  “No, I don’t care about the ambience. And it’s probably better if I’m close by.”

  He didn’t look convinced of that but he didn’t rescind the offer.

  “Do you have a suitcase somewhere?” he asked instead.

  “Out in the rental car.”

  “Why don’t you go get it and I’ll show you the accommodations?”

  Kira didn’t waste any time complying. She hurried out to the car, retrieved her bag from the trunk and went back inside.

  Cutty didn’t get to his feet until she was there. Then he did, leading the way from the living room through an open archway into a kitchen that was a disaster all its own.

  He held the back door open for her, and she stepped into the small yard ahead of him, coming face-to-face with what looked to have been a garage once upon a time.

  “This whole place belonged to my uncle Paulie. He converted the garage into an apartment for Marla and me, and added another garage to the side of the house later on.”

  “So this is where you lived after you eloped?” Kira asked as they crossed the few feet of lawn and Cutty opened that door for her, too.

  “Until my uncle died and left it all to us. Then we moved into the house. It’s been fixed up and refurnished. Ordinarily I rent it to students from the college. But since it’s summer vacation it’s empty.”

  Cutty reached in and flipped a switch. Three lamps went on at once, illuminating an open space arranged as a studio apartment.

  There were no walls, so only the furnishings determined what each area was used for. A double bed and an armoire delineated the bedroom. A small sofa and matching armchair, a coffee table and a television designated the living room. And some kitchen cupboards, a sink, a two-burner stove with a tiny oven, a refrigerator and a small table with two chairs made up the kitchen.

  “That door alongside the armoire will put you into the bathroom,” Cutty explained without going farther than the doorway. “There’s a tub with a shower in it but the water heater is pretty small so if you do a lot of dishes you’ll want to wait half an hour before you take a bath.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  What she wasn’t sure of was why he had that dubious look on his face again, as if he was having second thoughts about this whole arrangement.

  But if he was, he didn’t say it.

  Instead he said, “The girls are usually awake by seven.”

  “Seven. I’ll be over before that,” Kira said enthusiastically.

  Cutty nodded his head. “There are towels in the bathroom. Sheets in the armoire. If you need anything before the morning—”
/>   “I’ll be fine.”

  He nodded again, which bothered Kira. If he didn’t want to go ahead with this, why didn’t he say something?

  But all he said was, “Good night, then.”

  “See you first thing in the morning,” Kira assured, moving to the door to see him out.

  He turned to go without another word, leaving her with a view of his backside.

  And although, as a rule, men’s rear ends were not something she took notice of, it only required one glance to recognize that his was a great one.

  A great rear end to go with the rest of his great body and his great face and his great hair.

  Not that any of that mattered, because it didn’t, she was quick to tell herself. She was only staying there for the babies, and anything about Cutty Grant was purely incidental.

  Except that, incidental or not, she went on taking notice until Cutty Grant disappeared inside his house.

  Chapter Two

  Cutty had a hell of a time falling asleep Wednesday night and when he woke up before dawn Thursday morning it was aggravating to find his mind instantly on the mental treadmill that had kept him from sleeping in the first place. The treadmill Kira Wentworth’s appearance on his doorstep had caused.

  She’d really shaken things up for him, and as he rolled onto his back and tried to fall asleep again, he didn’t feel any more sure of his decision to let her stick around.

  He’d never expected to see any Wentworth again. Not after so many years and not when he was persona non grata in the extreme with Tom Wentworth.

  Tom Wentworth who was the only Wentworth he ever really thought about when he thought about the family Marla had been estranged from. But then her adopted mother and adopted sister were just specks in the shadow Tom Wentworth cast, so it wasn’t surprising that they wouldn’t be uppermost on his mind for the last thirteen years.

  Cutty opened his eyes and looked at the clock on his nightstand.