The Tycoon's Instant Daughter

by Christine Rimmer

  Hannah thought she understood. “It was a thrill for you and Rafe, I’ll bet. To have your big brother with you all summer long.”

  Cord shot her a look. “A thrill? We were eighteen years old.”

  “Oh, right. Big men.”

  “We thought so.”

  “So you played it cool, but deep in your hearts…”

  “Hell. All right, we were thrilled.”

  “And tell me. What was your brother doing in a small South American country in the first place?”

  “The usual. Fighting somebody else’s war.”

  “He’s a soldier?”

  “He’s a merc.”

  “A merk?”

  Cord grinned. “A soldier for hire, as they say.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. My big brother is a mercenary, a fact that has always driven the old man right up the wall—but then again, everything about Jack has always driven my father right up the wall.”

  “Jack was the rebellious type?”

  “I suppose you could say that—not that he didn’t have a damn good reason to be.”

  “You’re implying that your father was hard on your older brother?”

  “No. My father was hard on the rest of us. He was—and is—nothing short of merciless when it comes to Jack.” Cord paused again, and then slanted her a glance with suspicion in it. “Why am I telling you all this?”

  “Because I’m interested. And people say I’m easy to talk to.”

  “I never would have guessed it. Until very recently.”

  “You saw one side of me—the side that had to make sure Becky got everything she needed.”

  “And are you sure now?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  He shook his dark head. “You don’t give an inch, do you?”

  “I said I’m getting there.”

  They had stopped walking again, there on the path, under the shade of a sweet gum tree. The sun shone down through the leaves, creating patterns of brightness and shadow, bringing out hints of warm brown in his dark hair, glinting off the silver strands at his temples. His eyes gleamed at her.

  A breeze stirred the branches overhead. Something touched her hair, near her ear. She started to lift her hand, to brush it away.

  He said, “Wait…”

  She froze. His eyes…

  All the words for blue went tumbling through her mind. Cerulean, indigo, sapphire, cyan.

  “It’s a leaf,” he whispered. “A leaf in your hair…”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “No.” He caught her hand.

  His touch was light—but not his grip. She couldn’t have broken his hold if she had wanted to. It was warm, his hand. Hot, even. Yes. Hot. The heat moved out. Starting from where he was touching her, radiating through her hand, out the tips of her fingers. And the other way, too.

  Down her arm to her elbow, up to her shoulder and over, across her collarbone, down the other arm.

  Down.

  Yes, it was going all through her.

  Down into the very center of her.

  She sighed, though she knew she shouldn’t have. She could hear Becky making baby talk, chattering away in nonsense syllables.

  And the words for blue were still with her, a low chant inside her mind. Azure, aquamarine, navy, cobalt—and that exotic one, the one that started with an L. What was that one? Oh, yes. Lapis lazuli.

  He said, “Let me…”

  And all she could make herself do was nod.

  Chapter Six

  It was nothing, she kept trying to tell herself later.

  A leaf in her hair.

  A teasingly gallant gesture on the part of a man who enjoyed women more than he ought to.

  Nothing. He freed the leaf, held it out for her to see, five-pointed, turning gold, the points curling inward like the wrinkled fingers of an aged hand.

  “Just a leaf,” he said again.

  And then he dropped it to the path. She stared down at it, feeling the heat in her face, thinking that the day, too warm before, had suddenly become downright hot.

  Too hot.

  Becky started to fuss.

  Hannah saw her opportunity to escape and went for it. “She probably needs changing. We should go back.”

  “We haven’t even reached the gardens yet.”

  She looked at him then. Right into his eyes, thinking, just blue. That’s all. Blue.

  Forget all those other words for it. Forget I ever thought of them. “I want to go back.”

  For a moment that seemed to last forever and a day, he looked at her. It felt terribly intimate, the way that he stared. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself. As she had been once. So young. So alone. So hungry for…connection. For someone to call her own. She had trusted unwisely. And the cost had been very high. Almost high enough to destroy her. That couldn’t happen again. And it wouldn’t. She knew better now.

  She reached for the stroller, pushed it around in a circle, to take the crying baby back to the house. But Cord Stock-well was blocking the path.

  Her heart had set up a ruckus inside her chest and she was sweating, suddenly, clammy and uncomfortable beneath her arms, under her breasts.

  “You’re in the way,” she said.

  “Don’t you want to see the pond where my mother and my uncle drowned?”

  She blinked, sure she hadn’t heard him right. “I don’t…what?”

  And maybe she hadn’t, because the next thing he said, quite mildly, was, “Never mind. You’re right. It’s time we went back.”

  He moved out of the path and fell in step with her as she pushed the stroller toward the edifice of brick and gleaming white masonry that loomed so large against the Texas sky.

  Hannah saw two nanny candidates that afternoon. They both seemed nice enough. And they had good references.

  But neither was quite right.

  The older one, a Mrs. Henchly, came across as just a tiny bit cold. And the younger one, Alicia Midland, had a nervous habit of crossing one leg over the other and bouncing her foot as she talked. Hannah wondered if Becky might pick up such a habit, if she were exposed to it on a round-the-clock basis.

  So she thanked both applicants and sent them on their way.

  After they left, she wondered if she was being too picky. Probably. But then again, when it came to Becky, how could she go wrong by wanting the best? And this was only the first day of interviews, after all. She’d see several applicants tomorrow. No doubt the right one would be among them.

  Cord stayed away for the rest of the day. That was just fine with Hannah. Those moments beneath the sweet gum tree had unnerved her. She kept telling herself she was reading way too much into the incident. But then she’d recall the way he’d looked at her, the heat in his touch—and in his eyes…

  No. The more he stayed away, the better, as far as she was concerned.

  She needed to find the nanny, the right nanny, that was all. And then she wouldn’t have to worry about Mr. Cord Stockwell anymore.

  Still, she did wonder about him.

  Had he really said that, about his mother and his uncle drowning in the pond? Or had she only imagined it?

  No. She couldn’t have imagined it. No way would her mind just dream up something like that.

  He had said it.

  But was it true?

  It probably wouldn’t be that difficult to find out. A double drowning in a prominent family would surely have made the Morning News.

  She could ask around. The Stockwells were the next thing to royalty in Grandview. Maybe one of the maids could tell her, if she just casually inquired—

  Hannah stopped herself.

  Just cut those thoughts off cold.

  She’d been very careful when Becky came to her to adhere to a policy of strictest confidentiality. All the children in her care—and their families for that matter—deserved to have their privacy protected. Since the Stockwells had such a high public profile, Hannah had been even more carefu
l than usual in this case. The news that Cord Stockwell had a daughter by the now-deceased Marnie Lott was bound to leak out eventually, but no one would ever be able to say that they had heard it from Hannah Miller.

  No. She would not start gossiping about Cord or his family now.

  However…

  Maybe she had been just a little lax in her research. Maybe, for Becky’s sake, she should have dug a little deeper into the background of the Stockwell family. She could pay a visit to the library, take a look at a few back issues of the Morning News on microfiche…

  She caught herself again, and muttered aloud, “For heaven’s sake, why not just ask the man? He’s answered every other question you’ve asked him up till now.”

  Maybe she ought to be just a little bit honest with herself here. Whatever had happened to his mother and his uncle in the past had no bearing on Cord Stockwell’s current ability to take care of his child. It was nothing that called for research.

  Hannah was simply curious, that was all—about Cord Stockwell’s family. And about the man himself.

  She wanted to know more about him.

  And that worried her. It worried her a lot.

  Cord called Jerralyn that afternoon.

  He made a date with her for dinner that evening—at her house. It seemed a very good idea to him, to spend a little time with Jerralyn. She could be extremely diverting.

  And he needed a little diverting—from what, he wasn’t even going to let himself think about.

  He worked until eight on a number of different projects. And then he went upstairs to shower and change. It was after nine when he knocked on the door of Jerralyn’s house in exclusive Turtle Creek.

  She had set a fine table. There was filet mignon and slivered carrots with almonds. Cord had brought a couple of bottles of good Merlot. They ate by candlelight. After the meal, they sat in her living room, sipping more wine, talking.

  Eventually Jerralyn set her wineglass on the coffee table and leaned close. “I’ve been waiting for this moment all day,” she whispered. She smelled of expensive perfume and something else, something that up until now had excited him, a hot scent, and a willing one.

  He set his own wineglass aside and kissed her.

  The kiss went on for a long time. But it was no use. Somehow, he couldn’t quite manage to lose himself in it.

  Strange. Jerralyn was a gorgeous, clever, extremely sexual woman. She should have held his interest for at least a month or two. But now his mind kept wandering, kept leading him off to other places. Like the nursery, where his baby girl was probably sleeping right now, sighing, turning her little face toward the wall.

  He should have stopped in there, this evening, before he came here. He’d wanted to stop in there. Too damn much.

  There lay the problem.

  The nursery held…other attractions, beyond his beautiful little girl.

  Dangerous attractions.

  A saucy tongue. Wide green eyes. Chestnut hair. Slim bare feet…

  What the hell was going on here? He didn’t get it. The social worker was not his type. Not his type at all. Too wholesome, too mouthy, too plain old down-home. And to make the situation doubly impossible, she worked for him.

  The woman in his arms—who was exactly his type—pulled away. “Cord. What is it?”

  He realized he couldn’t stay. “I’m sorry, Jerralyn.” He stood. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Forgive me.” He turned for the door.

  “Wait.”

  He looked back at her and found himself thinking in a distant way that she really was stunning—in a shell-pink slip dress that barely covered the essentials, her long blond hair falling over her shoulders, her perfect face flushed, her lips soft and full.

  She said, “If you leave this house now, Cord Stockwell, don’t even let yourself imagine that I’ll ever speak to you again.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. But I certainly understand. Good night, Jerralyn.”

  It was almost eleven when he reached the mansion. He’d driven the Aston Martin that night. He left the car in the front driveway for one of the chauffeurs to deal with and entered the house through the main entrance, beneath the South Portico. Inside, he proceeded up the circular central stairway, then on through the big upper hall, and finally down the slightly narrower corridor with the row of doors to the nursery on one side and his sitting room on the other.

  All three nursery doors were shut—the one to the nanny’s room, and the playroom and Becky’s bedroom door as well. Anger flared inside him when he saw all those shut doors. Shut against him. Or at least, it felt that way right then.

  There was only one remedy for a shut door, he decided: to open it. He chose Becky’s bedroom, grasping the brass handle, turning it, pushing the door wide.

  The room was dim, but not dark. The little carousel lamp over the changing table cast a soft pool of light across the star-dusted rug.

  Ms. Miller sat in the rocker. If she’d been rocking a moment ago, she wasn’t now. She sat very still, regarding him through wary eyes, her hair like a soft dark cloud around her pale face. She wore her white gown and her green robe and, as usual, nothing on her feet. She held Becky in her arms. His little girl was avidly sucking at a bottle.

  He stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him. “I’d like to feed her.” He approved of the tone of his own voice. None of the anger and frustration he felt could be heard in it at all. He sounded calm, confident.

  Like the one in command—which he was.

  Ms. Miller stood. He went to her. She passed him the baby. It was a little awkward, but they managed it without Becky ever losing her greedy grip on the nipple. During the exchange, his right hand grazed a soft left breast. The contact sent heat sizzling through him.

  She must have felt it, too. He heard her quick, indrawn breath—which she released a moment later, slowly, with care.

  Once he had Becky, Ms. Miller edged to the side, out of his way. He turned and took her place in the rocker.

  She stood a few feet away. She looked slightly lost, as if she didn’t know quite what to say.

  Fine. Let her look just a little bit lost. She’d always been too sure of herself by half, anyway.

  He gazed down at his daughter. That girl knew how to eat, her tiny mouth working away, an expression of near-ecstasy on her sweet little face. He smiled at her, readjusted the bottle a fraction higher, so the formula would drain more freely.

  Ms. Miller chose that moment to speak. “Well, if you’re all right, I’ll just—”

  He looked up, into those green eyes. What was it he saw in them? Apprehension? A hint of panic? Good. “Got a diaper?”

  “Of course.”

  She took the one from her shoulder and handed it to him. He let her hold it out for a few awkward seconds before he took it from her, enjoying her discomfort more than any decent man would. He smoothed it in place on his own shoulder. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Now, if you—”

  He had no intention of letting her leave just yet. “Any luck this afternoon?”

  “Luck?”

  “You said you had interviews.”

  “Oh. Yes. Two.”

  “And?”

  “They were…not quite right.”

  “Neither of them?”

  “Yes. I mean, no. They weren’t.”

  “Well. You’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

  “Yes, I’m sure of that.”

  He looked down at Becky again.

  And Ms. Miller said, “Well, I suppose I’ll just—”

  No, he thought. You won’t. “Are you taking Becky out walking again, tomorrow?”

  “I—”

  “We should go earlier, I think. It’ll be cooler.”

  “Um, we?”

  “Say, around nine-thirty?”

  “I…”

  “It’s settled then.” He gave her a smile. Her pretty mouth stretched in res
ponse, stiffly, unwillingly. He said,

  “Maybe we’ll make it all the way to the pond tomorrow.”

  She blinked. “The pond?”

  “Yes. The pond.” He knew damn well what she was thinking. “Go ahead. Ask.”

  “I…” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, worried it, then let it go. “Well, it…surprised me, what you said this morning.”

  “About my mother and my uncle?”

  She nodded. She had her arms wrapped around herself, a defensive stance. But she was curious. She wanted to know more. For the moment, she’d forgotten all about leaving.

  He hid his self-satisfied smile. “It’s the truth. Or at least, it’s what my father always told us. It happened almost thirty years ago—twenty-nine, to be exact. Kate was just a year old. Rafe and I were four, Jack was six.”

  Her eyes went darker. He saw tenderness there. “You were all so young. It must have been awful for you.”

  He let her expression of sympathy pass without remark. “They were out in a rowboat together. There were rumors that they were lovers, sneaking off to steal a few moments alone.”

  Cord watched her smooth throat move above that innocent white ruffle as she swallowed. “Your mother and your uncle…?”

  “Yes. Lovers. Or at least, that’s how the story goes. Uncle Brandon was my father’s twin, did you know?”

  “No. I…I’ve never heard any of this before.”

  “Twins seem to run in the family.”

  “That’s right. Like you and your brother, Rafe.”

  He nodded. “The boat must have capsized.”

  “Must have?”

  Becky had drained the bottle. She pulled off the nipple and her little face screwed up, an expression Cord already recognized as one of discomfort—or possibly displeasure.

  “Here,” said Ms. Miller, extending her hand.

  He gave her the bottle, and then lifted Becky to his shoulder. She snuggled up, her little body relaxing now that he’d put her in a better position. Within seconds, she burped.

  He gently rubbed her back—and dished out a little more family dirt for Ms. Miller to ponder. “The bodies were never found.”