Читать книгу Twins For The Texas Rancher - Marin Thomas - Страница 9
ОглавлениеLogan glanced at the clock on the wall and rubbed his eyes. Five a.m. He pushed himself out of the rocking chair and stretched until the twinges and aches disappeared. He was only thirty-two and suspected he’d be in worse shape if he’d continued rodeoing all these years. At least the aches and pains would have been worth it. After his father had been struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver while changing a flat tire on the side of the road and his grandfather fell off the wagon, Logan had stashed away his rodeo gear and returned home to ride fence and feed cattle.
If Gunner didn’t waltz into the office by six, he’d lock the doors and take off. His brother had been keeping honeymoon hours since he and Lydia returned from Vegas. Married. Logan shook his head in disbelief that his baby brother—the family goof-off, the guy who’d boasted he’d never let a woman catch him—hadn’t only gotten married, but he was going to be a father.
Speaking of kids... Logan’s thoughts switched to the Stagecoach room and Sadie. The top of the blue-eyed blonde’s head barely reached his shoulder, but one glance at her curvy hips and full bosom and there was no mistaking she was a full-grown woman.
And a mother of twins.
The boys were a handful. Tommy reminded Logan of himself as a kid—always on the go. Tyler was more like the middle Hardell brother, Reid—quiet and watchful. No one ever knew what Reid was thinking, but he was always aware of what was going on around him.
Logan prepared a fresh pot of coffee in case any of the guests wanted a cup before hitting the road, and then he went into the small bathroom in the hallway and opened his dopp kit. After he erased his five-o’clock shadow with his electric shaver, he brushed his teeth and gargled with mouthwash. Back in the office, he stared out the window. The sun was beginning to rise and it looked like someone had taken a giant brush and painted a swath of pink across the horizon.
C’mon, Gunner. Get out of bed.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something race past the rooms outside. He opened the lobby door just in time to see the backside of a little person tearing around the corner of the motel.
Tommy.
What was the kid doing up this early in the morning? Logan left the office, glancing down the sidewalk to the Stagecoach room. From across the parking lot it looked as if the kid had left the door cracked open. Logan doubted Sadie even knew her son had escaped. When he walked behind the motel he found Tommy, his pajama bottoms still on backward, standing on the playground swing.
As soon as the boy realized he wasn’t alone, he shouted, “Uncle Logan, push me!”
Uncle Logan. The moniker squeezed his heart and not in a good way. Logan walked behind the swing. “Sit down and I’ll give you an underduck.”
The boy dropped to the seat. “What’s an underduck?”
“Hold on tight, and I’ll show you.” Logan pulled the swing back, then ran forward, pushing the seat up and over his head. Tommy squealed. “Do it again, Uncle Logan!”
He ignored the command and said, “You’re awake awful early this morning.”
No answer.
“Is your mother up?”
“I don’t know.”
He had a feeling Tommy’s standard response to most questions was I don’t know. “Are you hungry?”
“Mom said we could have doughnuts for breakfast ’cause we went to sleep fast.”
Logan expected Sadie to appear any moment, searching for her son. But five minutes had passed and she hadn’t made an appearance.
“I wanna stop, Uncle Logan.”
He stepped forward and caught the swing. “C’mon, I’ll walk you to the room.”
“I don’t want to go back to sleep.”
Logan hadn’t only noticed how pretty Sadie was last night when she’d checked her and the boys into the motel. He’d also noted the dark circles beneath her eyes. The drive from Wisconsin to Texas had exhausted her. “Tell you what,” he said. “You and I will go get the doughnuts.” And let your mother and brother catch up on sleep.
Logan took Tommy’s hand and returned to the office, where he wrote two sticky notes explaining that he and Tommy had gone down the road to the Valero to buy everyone breakfast. He stuck one note on Gunner and Lydia’s door and the other one, which had his cell phone number on it, against the inside of Sadie’s door before he quietly closed it all the way.
“What about my booster seat?” Tommy asked when Logan opened the door of his pickup. His gaze swung to the white minivan. The safety seats were locked inside.
“I think I have something that might work. Follow me.” He and Tommy went behind the desk and down the hallway to the storage closet. “I bought this for my brother and your aunt’s baby.” Logan pulled the tarp off a box. “This is the Cadillac of all car seats, kid.” Logan had spent a small fortune on the contraption that claimed to be a five-point-harness seat and later converted into a booster seat once a kid reached forty pounds. “How much do you weigh?” he asked.
Tommy shrugged, then pointed to the image on the box. “That’s a baby. I’m not a baby.”
“I think this will work for a short trip.” He opened the box and removed the seat, then detached the top portion meant for younger kids and infants. “Let’s see if I can figure out how to install the booster seat.”
It took several tries and a few swallowed cusswords before Logan had the contraption secured in the back seat and Tommy strapped in.
“You look like a trussed-up turkey.”
“I look like a baby.” The boy’s mouth turned down in a pout.
Logan ignored him and climbed behind the wheel. The Valero was ten miles down the road and Tommy talked the entire fifteen-minute drive. By the time he parked in front of the convenience mart, Logan’s ears were hurting. It wasn’t until they entered the store that he saw his sidekick was barefoot. “What happened to your shoes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me see your foot.”
Tommy grabbed a fistful of Logan’s jean and balanced on one leg while he lifted the other. The bottom of his foot was as black as the ink hospitals used on newborns to take their footprints.
“Can I have candy?” Tommy asked.
Logan didn’t know if Sadie allowed the boys to eat candy, so he played it safe. “No candy. You’ll get your sugar fix with the doughnuts.” They stopped at the pastry display next to the soda machine. “What kind do you like?”
“I like ’em all.”
“We’ll get a couple of each.” He filled two bags with a dozen and a half doughnuts, then grabbed four bottles of milk from the refrigerator and set their purchases on the checkout counter. “How’s it going, Elmer?” The elderly man had worked at the Valero for the past five years.
“Where’d you pick up your friend?” Elmer smiled at Tommy.
Tommy spoke first. “How much money did the tooth fairy give you?”
Elmer’s sagging jowls swallowed his chin. “What are you talkin’ about, kid?”
“The tooth fairy leaves a dollar under my pillow for my tooth.”
Elmer flashed his empty gums. “I didn’t get nothin’.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I got my front teeth knocked out in a bar fight and I never did find them.”
Tommy stepped on the candy shelf in front of the checkout and hoisted himself onto the counter. “You shoulda wrote the tooth fairy a note like my mom did.”
Elmer scratched his balding head. “You don’t say?”
“I lost my tooth at recess and I couldn’t find it, but my mom wrote a note and the tooth fairy still came.”
“Next time one of my teeth gets knocked out of my mouth, I’ll give that a try,” Elmer said.
“My mom can write you a note. She writes good notes.”
Elmer chuckled and rang up the doughnuts and milk, then Logan slid his debit card through the machine.
“My mom’s good at lots of stuff ’cause my dad doesn’t live with us. He’s moving to Balkimore.”
Elmer’s fuzzy eyebrows fused together over his nose.
Logan scooped his yappy partner off the counter, then handed him one of the pastry-filled bags. “Have a good day, Elmer.” He opened the door for Tommy and they left the store.
“Can I eat a doughnut in the car?” Tommy asked after Logan buckled him into the booster seat.
Logan’s brother and sister-in-law wouldn’t appreciate him gifting them a dirty car seat, but faced with the prospect of Tommy’s chatter all the way back to the motel he decided to take his chances and keep the kid’s mouth busy chewing rather than talking. “Go ahead and have a doughnut.”
The only noise on the return ride was the country music playing on the radio. As the pickup approached the motel a few minutes later, Logan spotted Sadie standing outside her room, arms crossed, her flip-flop tapping the cement. As soon as she saw the pickup, she marched across the parking lot, her blond hair swaying in rhythm with her hips.
“I think we’re in trouble, buddy.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. Tommy’s cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk’s.
“What happened?” he asked, giving Logan an eyeful of pulverized doughnut and raspberry filling.
“I don’t think your mother’s happy we took off without her.” Sadie wasn’t dressed to go anywhere in a nightshirt that ended just above her knees. The baggy material did nothing to conceal her figure and Logan couldn’t help appreciating her womanly curves.
Logan shifted into Park and pulled the key from the ignition, all the while keeping his gaze on Sadie. He doubted she had any idea that he could see the shadow of her bikini panties and the outline of her breasts beneath the blue shirt. He forced himself to look away from the bouncing temptation. “C’mon, kid. Time to face the music.” He hopped out and opened the back door, then helped Tommy to the ground.
“Thomas James McHenry.” Sadie cornered her son against the side of the truck. “You know you’re never supposed to wander off without telling me.”
Tommy’s eyes crossed as he watched his mother’s finger wag in front of his nose.
Then her finger pointed at the ground. “Where are your shoes?”
Tommy dropped his gaze and stared at his feet as if he expected his toes to answer his mother.
“And you—” Sadie glared at Logan. “How could you just take off with my son and not tell me first?”
“I left a note on the—”
“I don’t care about a note.” Sadie’s voice rose in pitch and Logan worried that she’d wake the guests in the other rooms. “We may be distantly related now, but I hardly know you and my sons don’t know you at all.”
“Mom.” Tommy tugged on Sadie’s shirt. “How come you’re yelling at Uncle Logan?”
Sadie ignored her son but lowered her voice. “It’s inexcusable that you drove Tommy somewhere without securing him in his booster seat.”
Logan doubted Sadie would allow him to get a word in edgewise if he tried to defend himself, so he reached behind Tommy and opened the pickup door.
Sadie’s eyes widened. “Where did—”
“I bought it for Gunner and Lydia’s baby. It’s top-of-the-line. Fits newborns and older kids.”
She rubbed her brow before looking him in the eye. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but I panicked when I woke and Tommy wasn’t in bed with Tyler.” She ruffled Tommy’s hair. “This guy has wandered off before and each time I lose ten years off my life.”
“I’m sorry. I should have waited until you’d woken and asked permission to take him with me.” His apology earned him a half smile from Sadie.
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Can you write a note to the tooth fairy?”
The question caught Sadie off guard and she lowered her finger. “What?”
“Elmo lost his teeth, but he can’t find them and he needs a note so the tooth fairy can give him two dollars.”
“Elmer,” Logan corrected, keeping a straight face. “Not Elmo.”
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Uncle Logan bought us doughnuts.” Tommy held up the bag.
“I see that.” Her gaze shifted to Logan. “When did he leave the room this morning?”
“A little after five thirty, I found him playing on the swings.”
“I told Uncle Logan you said we could have doughnuts for breakfast,” Tommy said.
“There isn’t a doughnut shop in Stampede, so we drove down to the Valero. Elmer works in the convenience store.”
“Mom?”
“What?”
“I gotta pee.”
“Go!” Sadie pointed to their motel room and Tommy took off running. “That boy will be the death of me yet.”
“Where’s Tyler?”
“Still sleeping.” Her gaze followed Tommy across the lot. “Or he was.”
Tyler stood in the open doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
Right then Gunner stepped from room 1, wearing only his boxers. “What’s all the commotion out here?” His gaze traveled over Sadie, then he looked at Logan and grinned. “You get lucky last night, big brother?”
* * *
OH. MY. GOD.
Sadie crossed her arms over her chest, hoping to hide her unharnessed boobs. She’d been in such a panic when she woke up, and after finding Logan’s note on the door, she’d forgotten she was wearing only a pair of panties and a flimsy nightshirt. This was not how she’d planned to dress when she saw Lydia and Gunner this morning. Before Sadie found her voice, squealing tires startled her. Logan grasped her arm and stepped in front of her, shielding her from view. An old pickup that looked like it had been unearthed from a junkyard turned into the motel and veered toward the office. A minute later, Aunt Amelia’s 1958 white Thunderbird convertible pulled alongside the clunker.
“We’ve got trouble,” Logan said.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Just watch. You’ll see.”
Aunt Amelia got out of her car and marched toward the jalopy, unaware of the onlookers. “Emmett Hardell, you are the orneriest man alive.”
Logan’s grandfather hitched his pants, then balled his hands into fists. “I let you run roughshod over me once, but I’m done playing party to your foolish ideas.”
Amelia spread her arms wide. “Look at this motel. There are five vehicles parked in the lot. If you believe making money is foolish, then maybe you should spend your final days hiding under a rock.”
“Oh, dear,” Sadie whispered.
“Wait. It’ll get better.” Logan reached behind him and brushed his fingers against the back of Sadie’s hand, his warm touch distracting her.
“If I could find a rock right now, I’d—”
“Grandpa.” Gunner approached the elderly couple. “I thought you two kissed and made up.”
Lydia had told Sadie and Scarlett that their wealthy aunt had been feuding with Emmett Hardell, the mayor of Stampede, over her desire to revitalize the town and she’d finally taken matters into her owns hands. Apparently Amelia had another idea up her sleeve after she’d convinced Emmett to spruce up his motel.
“If I didn’t know better,” Gunner said, strutting forward, “I’d think all this arguing is nothing more than foreplay.”
Sadie sucked in a quick breath.
“You watch your mouth, grandson.” Emmett glared at Gunner.
“Lydia said they dated in high school.” Sadie peered around Logan’s broad shoulder.
“We can’t figure it out,” Logan said. “One second they like each other and the next they’re scratching each other’s eyes out.”
Emmett pointed at Amelia. “She’s up to her old shenanigans again.”
Aunt Amelia raised her hands and lifted her face to the sky as if God would save her from the geezer. “I’m trying to better this town.”
“I let you talk me into fixing up a perfectly good motel and now you want me to put some stupid tourist attraction on my ranch.”
“People need something to do when they visit Stampede.”
Emmett jabbed his finger in the air. “We don’t need strangers running loose kicking up more dust in this town.”
Sadie was so focused on the arguing couple that she didn’t notice Tommy had walked up to the pair until her son patted Emmett’s leg.
“If I yell,” Tommy said, “I have to sit in a time-out.”
Amelia smiled. “What’s your name, young man?”
“Tommy.” He pointed at the last motel room. “That’s Tyler. We’re twins.”
“Oh my goodness.” Amelia pressed her hand to her chest and looked at Emmett. “These are Sadie’s boys.”
“Hello, Aunt Amelia.” Sadie waved, her face burning as if she’d left her glycolic facial mask on too long.
The door to room 1 opened and Tommy shouted, “Aunt Lydia!” He raced over to her and she bent to hug him.
“Hey, kiddo, it’s great to see you.” Lydia glanced down the sidewalk, and when she saw Tyler hanging out in front of room 6, she smiled and said, “Come give me a hug, Tyler.” He ran into Lydia’s arms. “I’ve missed you guys.” She took their hands and walked over to Gunner. “This is your uncle Gunner. He and I are married now.”
“Who’s Tommy and who’s Tyler? I can’t tell you guys apart,” Gunner said.
“That’s ’cause we’re twins.” Tommy looked at his brother. “Right?”
Tyler’s head bobbed.
“We didn’t expect you until later today.” Aunt Amelia looked at Sadie.
“I decided to drive straight through, but we didn’t get in until after midnight.” She offered Emmett an apologetic smile and crossed her arms in front of her. “This morning Tommy left the room without telling me and then—”
“It’s my fault,” Logan said. “Tommy woke before the others and we drove down to the Valero to buy doughnuts without telling Sadie.”
Gunner whistled low between his teeth and Logan shot him a dirty look before he spoke to the boys. “Hey, Tyler, come over here and get something to eat.” He reached into the truck for the bag of doughnuts and then opened the caps on the milk bottles and handed them to the boys.
“I can’t believe how much they’ve grown.” Amelia clapped her hands and smiled. “And they’re talking in full sentences now.”
Lydia visibly struggled not to laugh. “How long are you staying in town, Sadie?”
Couldn’t the details wait until she was dressed? “I haven’t decided.”
Amelia glanced at the boys, who sat on the ground, licking their sticky fingers. “Lydia said Peter decided to move to Baltimore with his girlfriend.”
Sadie didn’t want to air her problems in front of Logan and his family. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“You never did tell me the reason for your spur-of-the-moment decision to visit Stampede.” Her aunt refused to drop the subject.
Sadie might as well come clean. She curled her toes against her rubber flip-flops and said, “I lost my job.”
Lydia’s gasp echoed in Sadie’s ears, but it was Logan’s warm look of sympathy that reached deep inside her and hugged her heart. In the space of fifteen minutes this man had angered, frustrated and annoyed her, yet right now as she gazed into his eyes, she couldn’t remember why. She felt her body sway toward him, as if she trusted he would steady her from the inside out.
“What happened?” Aunt Amelia asked.
It took all of Sadie’s willpower to break eye contact with Logan. “I’d prefer to have clothes on before we discuss this.”
Her aunt’s eyes widened as if she’d just realized Sadie wore a nightshirt. Amelia looked at Emmett. “Expect a visit later this afternoon from me and Sadie.”
“What for?” Emmett said.
“If I tell you, you’ll run off and hide.” Amelia nodded to Logan. “Make sure your grandfather stays put at the ranch until we arrive.”
“Aunt Amelia,” Sadie said. “I have the boys and—”
“Lydia will watch the twins. They can play in the attic while we’re gone,” Amelia said.
“I have an appointment with a client this afternoon, Aunt Amelia,” Lydia said.
Aware of everyone’s eyes on her, Sadie caved in. “The boys will have to come with us, then.” She could only hope Tommy didn’t stir up trouble.
Emmett grumbled under his breath, then glared at Amelia. “Is this a one coffeepot or two coffeepot visit?”
“Two,” Amelia said. “But make it strong because you might not like my idea.”
Emmett climbed behind the wheel, shut the door, then poked his head out the open window. “When have I ever liked one of your ideas?” He turned the key in the ignition and the engine backfired. Amelia jumped, then smacked her hand against the pickup’s tailgate before getting into her car.
The old people drove off, turning their vehicles in opposite directions when they entered the highway. Sadie looked at Lydia. “Will you please watch the kids while I change clothes?”
“Of course.” Lydia joined the boys on the ground and helped herself to a doughnut.
Sadie had been on autopilot since losing her job, and not until this very moment—while she stood with her hair a snarled mess, wearing an unflattering nightshirt and no makeup in front of a handsome single man—did her resolve waver. Tears burned her eyes and she knew if she didn’t walk away right then, she’d break down. With a curt nod she strode back to the Stagecoach room, wishing she could jump on John Wayne’s horse and ride into a sunset all by herself.
