by Riser, Mimi
Thank God…
Tyler rubbed his temples again. His headache was rolling into overdrive. “It’s a miracle no one was killed. That’s a big dog, isn’t it? A St. Bernard? And with a name like ‘Fang’…”
Chills ran down his spine. Was it too late to send the beast to obedience school? He was damned if he’d risk his nephews with a vicious dog. Why had anyone let the kids have an animal like that anyway?
And why the hell was Beanpole laughing so hard? Tyler glared at him, and the man laughed harder.
“No, no, you got it wrong,” Barry choked out between guffaws. “Fluffy is the dog. Fang is the cat.”
Of course. He should have realized that. Everyone knew cats chased dogs.
A dull thud sounded as Tyler’s forehead hit the polished surface of his desk. Why did the boys want to visit a theme park when they had a three-ring circus right here?
With a deep sigh, he hauled upright in his chair, pushed it back, and rose to his feet. It was time to meet his new wards. High time. Hiding up here didn’t help a damn thing. The longer he delayed, the worse he’d feel. He’d delayed too many years as it was. One last time he glanced at the photo in the little gold frame, and made a silent vow.
I’ll give them a good life, Steve, I swear. They’ll have it better than we did. I’ll give them everything, the best money can buy.
A well-meant promise, and one he could certainly afford to keep.
So why did he have a godawful feeling it wouldn’t be nearly enough?
Barry followed him to the door. “One other thing… Molly Leigh wants to talk to you. Privately.”
Leigh? Again? The woman who’d been his brother’s housekeeper or babysitter, or whatever the hell she was? Tyler jerked to a halt on the door’s threshold. Shit. He’d been refusing her calls all week. Couldn’t she take a hint? He didn’t want to talk to her. What was the point?
After meeting her, Gladys Patton had advised by phone that she considered Leigh to be unstable, a bad influence on the boys. Dangerous even. Patton said the woman was involved in some sort of occult crap, and the sooner Tyler removed his nephews from her care, the better they’d be.
The handwritten faxed report he’d gotten from his private investigator, George Farrell, backed up Patton’s assessment. Farrell hadn’t exactly deemed Leigh dangerous – but Farrell wouldn’t, of course, being a little on the shady side himself. You could trust the guy’s facts, but not his opinion.
And the facts said that Molly Leigh was a real flaky-cake, just the sort of new-agey tree-hugger that poor head-in-the-clouds Steve would have been involved with. Whereas feet-firmly-on-the-ground Tyler had zero tolerance for that sort. There could be only one reason for her pigheaded persistence. She wanted more money – and he’d offered her quite enough as it was. Six hundred thousand dollars! A hundred thousand a year for her six years of service.
Hell, legally he wasn’t obligated to give her a dime, but it seemed the decent thing to do. Regardless of what some said, he usually did try to do the decent thing, especially where woman were concerned. None of his ex-wives had complained about their settlements. So why should a chick he’d never met? And didn’t intend to.
Still, if it would shut her up…
“Tell her I’m unavailable,” he said. “But you can inform her that if she’ll stop calling, I’ll up the offer. Make it a million.”
Why not? He could afford it.
“Um, Ty…” Barry hesitated, a suspicious twitching at the corners of his mouth and a wicked glint in his eye.
The kind of glint that always made Tyler feel there was a whoopee cushion hidden somewhere in the room, and he was about to sit on it.
He braced himself. “What?”
“I don’t think she wants more money. I’m not sure she wants any money. I think she just wants to see you – to discuss the kids. She seems to really care about them.”
“And I don’t?” Tyler bristled. They were his nephews, damn it, the only family he had left. The woman had absolutely no claim on them, and from what he’d heard of her, he didn’t want her anywhere near them. Gladys Patton might be a tight-ass, but she was the kind of tight-ass Tyler understood. Proper. Orderly.
If Patton said Leigh was a dangerous influence, he’d accept her word on that. Especially since it matched his own intuition. For some reason just the name “Molly Leigh” set off warning bells inside him. Why, he didn’t know. But he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Well, I don’t want to see her,” he said. “And if she calls anymore, I don’t even want to know about it. Tell her to just take the damn money and…and go hug a tree!”
Fuming, he stepped through the door. A firm hand on his shoulder stopped him and spun him around. It was Barry’s turn to bristle apparently. Tyler had sometimes suspected the man had a few “tree-hugging” inclinations of his own, but he’d avoided asking since they always had plenty of other things to argue about. He quirked an eyebrow at his assistant’s tight-lipped expression, then felt a prickle of apprehension as those lips curled into a merciless grin.
“Tell her yourself,” Barry said. “She ought to be in the poolroom by now with the boys. Waiting for you.”
Chapter 2
Pool? You could float a yacht on that thing!
Molly tightened her grip on the struggling tomcat as she stepped through an archway into a high glass-domed courtyard that looked bigger than the Astrodome. Hell, it might be bigger than the Superdome.
Three small boys and a large dog pressed in behind her, all hanging close, all of them stunned silent – except Fluffy who was panting up a storm. She didn’t blame them. What could anyone say?
That was no pool before them. It was a lagoon, complete with waterfall, white sand beach, tropical flora and palm trees. Palm trees, for godssake, twenty feet high if they were an inch. Their feathery fronds swayed gently in an artificial breeze. The trees were possibly artificial, too, but they were darn good replicas. She stared up into them, half expecting to see automated parrots and toucans roosting in the greenery. Why not? The scene had everything else.
Good Goddess, the man’s built Tahiti in the center of his house.
Fang scrambled out of her arms, and she didn’t bother to retrieve him.
Have at it, tiger-boy.
The twins giggled while he scampered to the center of the sand, sniffed around, then scratched out a depression and squatted over it, obviously pleased as punch.
“Wow,” she could almost hear him say, “this is the biggest cat box I’ve ever seen!” He was in heaven.
Molly wasn’t. The section of the mansion they’d passed through to get here had given her cold chills with its opulent size and décor. This…this poolroom set her teeth on edge. It went beyond opulence. It was downright decadent. What was the power consumption for the air-conditioning and fans in here? How much water did that ocean of a pool require?
Too much. And in arid West Texas no less, where there was hardly enough water to go around in the first place. It was sinful. All this for one man’s private retreat. A retreat he used only a few weeks a year, according to the paparazzi he was so fond of slugging. They said he’d built it as a “honeymoon hideaway” for his first wife. Or was it his fourth?
Was that the Italian actress or the Swedish model? The fashionista?
Honestly, even the celebrity sites couldn’t keep his marriages straight. How many had there been? Six? Seven?
Whatever.
If he’d wanted a tropical paradise, why hadn’t he just bought an island? Seemed like it would have been simpler than this. Cheaper, too, no doubt. But cost wouldn’t be an issue for him, would it? Control was, Molly guessed. Here he could orchestrate every detail of the setting – just the way he liked to control lives, it seemed.
Her stomach knotted. The place was beautiful – if you went for this sort of thing, which she didn’t – but it was almost too perfect. Pristine. There was a sterile quality to it. It wasn’t real. What a stupid waste of precious natural res
ources, not to mention the personal resources involved. With all the suffering and need in the world, couldn’t Tyler James think of anything better to do with his wealth?
Steve would have been appalled by this estate. More than appalled. Ashamed. He must have been heartsick to think of his own roots. How godawful ironic and sad. No wonder he’d barely spoken of those roots, never even hinted he had a brother, let alone who that brother was. James was a common name, after all. Who would have thought to tie the gentle artist-ecologist to the hard-hitting Tycoon Tyler? Where the latter obviously cared squat for the natural world, the former had fought to preserve it. How could two brothers be such polar opposites?
“Miss?”
Molly jumped at the voice, then realized it was only the butler, Hanson, who’d ushered them in here. She’d forgotten he was still near. She turned to see him standing at attention just inside the arched entranceway, his expression carefully blank, his dark suit impeccably tailored and pressed.
The perfect English butler.
On a Texas ranch.
Of course, it wasn’t really a ranch, no cattle or anything. There was plenty of open prairie around it, but otherwise the place looked more like a palace. Lots of marble and mirrors and gilt. She’d noticed everyone called it the Ranch though. Maybe because the “Taj Mahal” had already been taken.
“My apologies, miss. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Hanson inclined his head in a small bow, then held aloft the recently recaptured Myna, secure once more in its large cage. “I was wondering where you wished me to put this.”
“Up your arse,” the Myna said in a Cockney-accented gravelly male voice. Goddess knew where he’d learned it. He’d come to them with a full repertoire of sayings and sounds, and added to it daily.
Molly offered the butler a weak smile. He seemed a nice man, despite his unfortunate choice in employers.
“Sorry. The Admiral doesn’t mean it personally.” A lie. She’d always suspected Admiral Byrd knew exactly what he said.
Hanson likely suspected the same thing. His stiff mask cracked into the tiniest of grins. “Even if he did, miss, I’ve been told worse.”
Without waiting for instructions, he marched forward and deposited the cage on a bamboo table set between matching chairs under one of the palms. Molly followed with the twins in tow, both hanging on to her skirt. She’d told them to hang on when they entered the house, because her arms were full of Fang at the time, and she hadn’t wanted the boys running off in all directions. The fact they were still firmly attached proved how nervous they were. It would take a crowbar to pry them off her now.
The flight here had been an adventure for them, a lark. Too much of a lark perhaps, but that was hardly her fault. Ms. Patton had told her not to interfere.
So Molly hadn’t. Nuff said.
Uncle Tyler’s house, however – the biggest “house” they’d ever seen – intimidated the kids. Knowing they’d soon meet Uncle Tyler himself had regressed the twins to the clingy phase they’d gone through at age four when she’d put them in nursery school. Jeremy and Josh had adjusted, eventually, to being separated from her a few hours a day, but Molly never had. Nursery school ended up being more anxiety than it was worth, so she hadn’t enrolled them the following year, and had been home-schooling all three boys ever since.
Steve had approved. She had a college degree in physical education and teaching experience of one sort already. Adding academic subjects to her repertoire was no big deal.
Molly sighed. She and Steve had been right in sync when it came to raising the kids. They’d been right in sync on most things. She should have married him. Not the first time he asked. If she’d married him then, these beautiful boys would never have been born. But after Kara died…sweet, generous Kara… She should have accepted his second proposal. Or the third, or fourth…
It became a running joke, him proposing, and Molly putting him off. But there had been no laughter when he first reinstated the subject. Only Steve’s eyes filled with pleading, and hers filled with tears because she couldn’t bring herself to say yes. The memory still haunted her. She glanced at Stevie Jr. hanging on to Fluffy’s leash with both hands, and heard his father’s voice in her head.
“I can’t get down on my knees to beg you this time, Molly, but you’re part of this family, you know that. Shouldn’t we make it legal? The kids love you, and… God help me, so do I. I’ve never stopped. I know it’s unfair of me to offer you half a man. I can’t give you the kind of love I once could. But my heart and mind still work. Everything I have left is yours. Please say that’s enough. Please…will you marry me, Molly Leigh?”
Right on cue, as though he’d pulled the memory straight out of her mind, the Myna bird began singing in Steve’s clear tenor, “‘Now some had jew-els in their hair, like morning stars did shine. But Molly did surpass them all with but her glitterin’ eyes’…”
Ten-year-old Stevie winced at hearing the mimic of his father’s voice, but the twins crowded in closer, sandwiching Molly between them in a hug, and shrilled out the chorus – off key and at the top of their lungs – just like they always did. Programming. Not even their awe at the alien surroundings could deter them from what had become almost a family ritual. Their daddy had trained them well.
“‘An’ we’re all gang east and west, we’re all gang aye-a-glee!’” They squeaked on the ee. “‘We’re all gang east and west, a-courtin’ Molly Lee!’”
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Courtin’ Molly Lee…
Tyler’s chest constricted. Several strides into the domed courtyard, and the sound of his brother’s voice halted him in his tracks, struck him like a sledgehammer. He didn’t believe in ghosts, so the singing must have come from something electronic. Maybe Leigh planned to rattle him with a recording of Steve.
If so, she’d succeeded.
Shit.
Except, that was probably just a practice shot – making sure her tape player or whatever worked. She didn’t know he was here yet. Tyler had entered the vast enclosure through a door at the far end and stopped behind a screen of tropical vines, close enough for a little reconnaissance, yet not enough to be noticed or heard. From where he stood, he’d be able to see the beach, but those on it wouldn’t see him unless they stared straight at him. More likely they’d be watching the archway instead, expecting him to use the main entrance.
He leaned forward and peered through the greenery – saw a blond boy of about ten, hanging on to a monster dust mop’s leash.
A boy who looked just like Steve had at that age.
The pain in Tyler’s chest increased. This was going to be even harder than he’d anticipated.
Then he saw the woman at the center of the scene, and things got hard all right. Well, one thing did anyway. Hard, in fact, took on a whole new meaning.
Ouch.
Now Tyler knew why her name prickled his back hairs. It was the same as in that old Scottish ballad Steve used to sing, just one of many songs. Steve was always singing, laughing, joking…
Okay, so little brother had found himself a real life Molly Lee. So what? Just a coincidence, no more. It shouldn’t seem such a big deal.
Except the woman herself was.
A very big deal.
Gazing at her, Tyler felt more than his back hairs prickling, and he only had a rear view. Ah, but what a rear. Hair like a gold waterfall tumbled in soft waves over her shoulders and nearly to her waist – a perfect hourglass-figured waist that flowed into ripe rounded hips and ass. He could see the lines of her form by virtue of the little boys stuck to her sides, molding her skirt against her.
Oh, to be six years old again and have that kind of license. Tyler was grateful to and envious of the children in the same breath. If the front view was as good as the back, he had a major complication on his hands.
Such as how to keep his mind focused on getting rid of her while the rest of him wanted to get her naked and into bed. The mythical Molly Lee of the ballad couldn’t have been half as
enticing as the one he saw now.
“Rowrrr…” Standing a little before him and to the side, Barry let out a throaty growl. “That’s Patton’s witch? The one she thinks is practicing some kind of voodoo-hoodoo or something?” he whispered. “I don’t know about you, buddy, but if Ms. Leigh wants to cast any spells on me, I’m going to let her.”
Tyler pierced him with a sharp look, and took care to keep his own voice low. “Don’t you have anything else you could be doing right now?”
“Well, since you ask… No.”
“Then find something.” Elbowing past him, Tyler started to step through the vines.
“Okay, I guess I could start calling the agencies to see about a replacement for Patton,” Barry offered agreeably. Too agreeably? “It’s Saturday, but I imagine I can drum up someone.”
Tyler paused in mid-step. Oh, what an awful idea he had. Someone should whack him with a two-by-four. Then again… “Um, let’s hold off on the agencies till Monday. Maybe we won’t need a replacement.”
Maybe they already had one?
What if he offered Leigh the job?
“Uh-oh.” Barry’s eyes went wary. “I know that look, boss-man. And it always scares me. What are you thinking?”
Something very stupid probably.
Tyler shoved his hands into his pockets, and struck a casual pose, hoping to appear innocent. Knowing he failed. Innocence wasn’t one of the things he did well. He continued the effort though. Never let it be said he gave up easily.
“That maybe I’ve” – he cleared his throat – “um, been a bit hasty about Ms. Leigh.”
“Hasty? You? Never!”
Sarcastic son of a bitch, wasn’t he? Also lucky that men striving for the guileless look don’t generally hit people.
Tyler shoved his hands deeper instead, and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “What? I can’t change my mind? I’m just thinking I might have judged her too harshly, that’s all. I’m trying to be fair about this.”
