The Texas Cowboy's Quadruplets

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Walter nodded, looking just as concerned. “And right now, rightly or wrongly, she feels the very same thing is happening to you.”

  * * *

  Walter’s last words before they hung up ten minutes later—Chase is there to help you, Mitzy, let him—resonated with Mitzy throughout the rest of the afternoon.

  She thought about texting him and telling him not to come by for the 8:00 p.m.-to-midnight shift, but couldn’t quite make herself do it.

  The part of her that had been hurt before by him, the part that had played second fiddle to his business goals and ambitions, had to see if the same thing held true now.

  So she bathed her boys early. One at a time. And somehow managed to use her system to do it all by herself. Without a tear being shed in the process.

  Well, if you could discount the ones welling up inside her, that was.

  Finished, she was just about to feed her four boys when the doorbell rang.

  Chase stood on the doorstep. A cold front was blowing in. He looked as sexy as ever, with his cheeks ruddy from the cold winter weather, his hair windblown, his smoky-blue eyes intent. His cashmere sweater and dark jeans hugged the masculine lines of his body, and the collar of his suede jacket was turned up against his throat. The multicolored Christmas lights he’d helped string across her porch framed him spectacularly, evoking the wonder of the season.

  Without warning, a rush of optimism flowed through her. Yes, she had huge problems but this was also the season for miracles.

  As Chase caught sight of her, pleasure lit his handsome features. “I hope this isn’t the part where you shoo away the messenger,” he quipped.

  Was she glad or unhappy to see him?

  Mostly, Mitzy decided, she was feeling relieved.

  Because he hadn’t quite given up on them.

  Just as she hadn’t quite given up, either.

  “Of course not,” she joshed back. “My manners are better than that.” She chuckled. “Usually, anyway.” Chase did have a way of getting under her skin like no one else ever had, or, she suspected, ever would. She stepped back to usher him inside.

  Chase is there to help you, Walter had said. Let him...

  He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it up. “How are the little dudes this evening?” he asked amiably.

  “Ready for their eight p.m. bottles. Or at least they will be when they wake up. They drifted off again, after their baths.”

  “Can I help?”

  Mitzy walked over to the bassinets. All four had their eyes shut, but there was a little shifting here and there. Which meant they’d be awake soon.

  She led the way into the kitchen and slid the bottles into the warmers to heat. “I’m sure they’d love that.”

  Chase caught her hand and turned her to face him. “What about you?” he rasped as she collided with the hard sinew of his tall body. His eyes darkened mysteriously. “Would you love that?”

  Emotion welled. The uncertainty from years before came back to plague her. She swallowed, cautioning, “Chase...”

  “I know this is difficult for you, Mitzy. Your dad knew it would be. Buck Phillips, the rest of the employees, know it, too.”

  Tears blurred her eyes. “I feel like I’m letting everyone down.”

  “You’re not,” he assured gruffly.

  She wished she could believe that. And yet...

  Silence fell.

  Chase tucked his hand beneath her chin and lifted her gaze to his. Sober, yet encouraging, too. “Will you trust me to do as your father asked, in the way that he asked me to do so?” His low gravelly voice sent a thrill down her spine. “That ensures his company and legacy go on as proudly as it always has, the MCS employees’ interests protected, too?”

  Mitzy forced herself to momentarily put aside her fear of failure and do as everyone else had advised. “All right,” she said finally. “If you put together an offer, I’ll seriously consider it.”

  “That’s all I’m asking.” He smiled with brisk assurance.

  But was it?

  Mitzy wondered.

  * * *

  To Mitzy’s disappointment, Chase was gone the rest of the week. She understood he had to be in Dallas–Fort Worth to put together the deal with the bank and his board of directors.

  They spoke every night on the phone.

  She still missed him.

  More than when they’d ended their engagement.

  And that scared her, too.

  What had she done in opening herself up to this kind of pain again? And so quickly?

  Had she been someone she was counseling as a social worker, Mitzy would have read herself the riot act.

  She was still grieving the loss of her father, and therefore very vulnerable.

  She had four infants to focus on.

  A steady, secure life she’d spent a decade building.

  And now, on a romantic whim and the unexpected, unusual need to be suddenly rescued, she was considering all sorts of things that would have been unthinkable less than a month before.

  All those were big trouble signs.

  Countered by the feelings Chase always engendered inside her.

  The truth was, she wanted this to work out.

  She needed them to find a way to be together, as they hadn’t before. And most of all she yearned for a complete family for her sons, the kind she had given up on when she signed up to have the babies on her own, via AI.

  Chase had changed that.

  He had shown her what it would be like to have a man by her side as she brought up her children.

  She wanted that, more than was comfortable to admit.

  So, while he was gone, she busied herself by alternately taking care of the quads and baking cookies for the MCS party. She even spent some time working on Chase’s Christmas gift—the memorabilia album that she had lovingly assembled, chronicling their early years together to the present.

  It was sweet and sentimental. Just the way she hoped their future would one day be.

  * * *

  Chase sat at the table in his downtown loft, going over the deal with his mother, who had come to Fort Worth to do some holiday shopping. And, per his urgent request, stopped in to meet with him.

  “Just give me the bottom line,” he urged, figuring if anyone could find another way, it would be his brilliant tax-and-business attorney parent.

  Rachel sighed and sat back in her chair. “As you can see, the date of the sale is going to make a huge difference in the financials.” She paused to point out several different sets of numbers. “You don’t have a choice, and neither does the board, if you want to maximize capital and turn the business around.” She peered at him. “Surely, your own team of lawyers and accountants have already told you this.”

  Chase rubbed at the tense muscles at the back of his neck. “They have.”

  Rachel lifted a brow. “Then...?”

  Chase shrugged. “I was just hoping for a different option.” The kind of miracle that would put both him and Mitzy on the same page.

  Rachel took another sip of hot chamomile tea, guessed, “You don’t think Mitzy is going to like the required timeline.”

  Tension knotted Chase’s gut. Which was unusual. Usually, he did not allow himself to get emotional about a business deal. “I know she won’t.”

  “Given a little time, she’ll understand.”

  Would she? Chase tried to picture that but couldn’t quite make it happen. He stood and went over to the sink to pour his own tepid black coffee down the sink. He forced himself to be as pragmatic as the situation required. “She may eventually be relieved to not worry about running the business, even from afar, though.”

  “Even happy about it,” Rachel predicted.

  That was a stretch. Chase shook his head. He looked at the Christmas photo of Mitz
y and the quads he had taken on her bed. She had made it into a Christmas postcard for her friends. And given him a couple of the extras. One was tucked in a clear pocket in his briefcase, the other on the fridge at his ranch house.

  He turned back to his mom, aware she was still waiting for his assessment. “I don’t think she’s going to be anywhere near ecstatic.” Even though he had made sure that she and her children would benefit financially, too.

  Rachel’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”

  Because he knew there was one aspect of the deal not in the financials his mother had just reviewed that Mitzy was going to find very hard to take. Especially when she already felt crushed and humiliated by her own naïveté and MCS’s near bankruptcy.

  Rachel waited.

  With a reluctant grimace, Chase explained, “She’s going to be upset because she thinks she always knows what’s best, and most of the time she does...”

  “Just not in the business world,” his mother interjected quietly, getting up to reheat her tea.

  Chase moved aside. “It’s not her thing. Any more than it really was Gus’s.” He watched his mother punch the beverage button on the microwave. “I mean, both are...were...incredibly talented, intuitive people, but when it comes to making the hard decisions that business sometimes required...”

  “She can’t do it.”

  Chase felt another punch in the gut. “Not so far.”

  His mother removed her mug. “Probably not ever?”

  Reluctantly, Chase forced himself to admit this was so.

  Another silence fell. Rachel studied him over the rim, putting two and two together. “You think she will blame you for having to do it?”

  He forced himself to be as optimistic as he always was when a long-held goal was within reach. Yes, there would be a few difficult moments. Incredibly difficult moments. But they would get past them. He had taken steps to see to that.

  Figuring he could use his mother’s advice on this, too, he went to get the Christmas gift he had prepared for Mitzy. One that would allow her the kind of choice she would not have in the business deal.

  “I’m hoping, when Mitzy has time to think about it, that she will see the MCS transaction as the beginning to the future we always should have had. And to that end...” He brought the present he was planning to give to Mitzy to the kitchen island.

  As Rachel studied the two sets of plans and saw what he was proposing, she put her hand over her heart. “Oh, Chase...” She looked as overcome as he felt in that moment.

  And then cautiously reserved.

  Once again, in his eagerness to get ahead, he felt he might have made a mistake. He continued reading his mom’s expression. Sighed. “Too much?”

  Rachel regarded him with the no-holds-barred maternal honesty for which she was known. “Given what else you’re about to do...what I imagine you have to do... I think you’re walking a tightrope with absolutely no safety net beneath you.”

  Chase swallowed, aware that once again he had been put in an impossible situation. Forced to choose between what he knew in his heart was the only way to save a company otherwise doomed for failure, and the most important person in his life. “She still cares for me, Mom.” Still wants a life with me, as much as I want one with her. “I can feel it.”

  Rachel gently patted his arm. “I saw that, too, the day we were all together cutting down our Christmas trees at your ranch.”

  But was that devotion going to be enough?

  Chase had to hope it was.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I don’t understand,” Mitzy said, meeting Chase outside the large Victorian on Spring Street that—because of its neglect—had been on the market for the last six months, nary a buyer in sight.

  She peered at him in confusion. “Why did you send Lulu and Bess over to babysit and ask me to meet you here this morning? When you and I haven’t seen each other since Tuesday.” A fact that hurt her immensely, even though she knew he had been busy working on a solution for her family business.

  With a beleaguered sigh, she finished indignantly, “And we have the holiday party at MCS this afternoon!”

  “I know you have a lot on your agenda this morning, darlin’.” Chase slid his hand beneath her elbow and led her up the walk. Inside the empty home, all the lights were on. “We still need to talk business, too.”

  She blinked as he escorted her across the threshold. “Regarding MCS?”

  His gaze steady, he shut the door behind them. “Yes.”

  All she knew thus far was that he had managed to secure the holiday bonuses for her employees, to be given out this afternoon at the conclusion of the party, as per usual.

  He led her through the formal rooms at the front of the home. “But I really wanted to show you this first.”

  He hadn’t dropped his hold on her and her body warmed beneath his touch. “Why?”

  “Because I’m thinking of buying and renovating it.”

  Her midriff fluttering, she stepped back. “What about the Knotty Pine?”

  He lifted one broad shoulder in a careless shrug. “I haven’t decided yet. I may keep it as an investment. And rent it out. Or use it as a weekend retreat. Sort of depends on how you feel.”

  How she felt? Since when did he ask her advice on anything? Never mind something this important!

  Expression serious, he led her through a hall lined with hideous purple wallpaper toward the kitchen. Blueprints were stretched over every ancient countertop. He led her to the first set of plans. “This is what could be done with the home you inherited from your dad, if you want to stay there as the boys grow. But the backyard is kind of small already, so if you expand, it’ll be cut back to near nothing. Which could be a problem with four active children.”

  “Okay.”

  He guided her to the next set of renovation plans. “Over here, we have plans for this house. It’s got seven bedrooms and three baths upstairs. A half bath and five rooms downstairs that could be configured however you like—but the architect suggested we do two studies, a dedicated playroom and then make the rest into one large kitchen-dining-family area.”

  He led her to the bay window overlooking the backyard, which was overrun with weeds and a set of extremely overgrown magnolia bushes that served as a fence. “It would need new landscaping, of course. But, as you can see, there’s also room for a garden and a nice play area for the boys out back.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She still had no idea what he was getting at.

  He turned back to her, hands lifted expansively. Grinned. “Merry Christmas! Depending on what you choose, I can do either, or both if you’re not ready for us to move in together yet.”

  Mitzy blinked. Chase had a reputation for moving full steam ahead when he really wanted something. But even for someone as blatantly ambitious as he was, this was way too much. “You’re asking us to cohabit,” she ascertained slowly, her emotions in turmoil.

  His eyes narrowed. “I think it would be better for the boys, since we live in Laramie, if we got married or at the very least engaged, but again, that’s up to you.” He studied her patiently. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  What if I want you to love me? she thought wistfully. What if I want you to stop acting so scary resolute, as if everything is already decided? When, in truth, because of all that was left unresolved, nothing was.

  She took his hand, and feeling the need for some air, led him through the rickety screen door to the wraparound porch overlooking the backyard.

  Glad she had yet to put on her party clothes and was still in jeans, boots and a zip-up fleece, she guided him to an old glider with a faded vinyl cushion seat. She sat down and patted the place beside her.

  He took a seat, too.

  She took his hand, aware she had seen this kind of panic often in her line of work. It usually happened when a person’s entire
life was about to blow up, and they knew it, even if they couldn’t admit it.

  “Before we decide any of that...” Although she already knew what she was going to say to his incredibly misguided proposal—no!—she counseled, “We need to back up. Let’s start with the easiest thing. The business. Did the McCabe Leather Goods board of directors agree to fund the revitalization and purchase of Martin Custom Saddle before the end of the year, so MCS’s future will be secure?”

  “Yes. As I told you, they also agreed to pay out the end-of-year bonuses. I have the bank checks in my briefcase. As well as the purchase papers you will need to sign before I can give those out.”

  Mitzy laid a hand across her heart. “Well, that’s a relief.” The MCS employees would have a merry Christmas, after all.

  He tightened his hand on hers, stood. “There were a few more stipulations, though.”

  Her pulse escalating once again, she waited.

  “They want new leadership and I agree with them. To turn the company around, we will need to bring in someone to swiftly implement all the changes and run the business.”

  She didn’t like his brisk, all-business tone. “You’re replacing Buck Phillips?”

  “Putting him in another role, one he is more suited for.”

  Suddenly needing her space, she stood and moved a short distance away. She spun back to face Chase. “Will there be a reduction in his salary?”

  “No.” Chase stood, too. He moved toward her amiably. “Everyone is going to make the same salary as they were making before, with a possibility of a raise when we successfully turn the business around.”

  Relief rushed through her. “Okay.”

  “We’re firing you.”

  She took in his impassive expression. Surely, she couldn’t have heard right. “What did you just say?”

  “The board of directors is mandating a new CEO from outside the company be put in place to run the revitalization, so we’re firing you.”

  “We,” she repeated numbly. So Chase included himself in this decision?

  Chase nodded. “It’s common practice in situations like this.”