CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BESS WALKED DOWN the long airport concourse feeling as if she was walking on air. It had been a long two days, and she was tired, even if she did have a sense of accomplishment from her trip. She’d sold the account, and it would mean a big bonus. She knew just who she was going to spend it on, too.
She smoothed her neat beige suit and adjusted the matching scarf, sure that she looked younger than her thirty years made her feel. Her bright eyes and lush, waving honey-brown hair and radiant smile caught the eye of a man on the aisle, who leaned back against one of the pillars and stared at her with open delight.
Her dark eyes spared him a glance. He was a vision. Tall, powerfully muscled, dressed in a very becoming Western-cut suit in a light tan, with matching boots and a Stetson cocked over one eye. He made her knees wobble with that slow, sensual stare.
“Hello, pretty thing,” he murmured in a deep Texas drawl. “Looking for trouble?”
She darted a mischievous eye at him. “And if I am?”
“Well, here it comes.”
And he stood aside to let a small, dark-haired version of himself fling his small body at her, shouting, “Mommy, what did you bring me?” at the top of his six-year-old lungs.
“Quinn!” She laughed and dropped to her knees to meet the onrush, barely retaining her balance as she was overwhelmed by her son. Quinn Alexander had been something of a present, born on her twenty-fourth birthday. He still was a small surprise package.
“Careful, tiger,” Cade chuckled. “Don’t knock Mommy down.”
“Mommy’s very strong, thank you.” She grinned up at him. She stood up with Quinn in her arms, ignoring his questions long enough to kiss his father with two days’ loneliness in her warm mouth. “I missed you,” she whispered huskily.
He kissed her hungrily, oblivious of curious stares from passersby, his mouth smiling warmly against hers. “Two nights is too long,” he whispered. “Next time Quinn and I are going along.” He lifted their son out of her arms. “We’d better get sweetheart here home. He’s already turned two vendors’ hair gray.”
“My daddy’s big as a bear,” Quinn told his mother seriously as he held her hand and Cade’s on the way out of the airport. “Jenny says there’s a bear in her backyard, and it ate her dog.”
“Her dog ran away to keep from having bows tied on his tail,” Cade whispered over Quinn’s head, and Bess laughed.
“What did you bring me, Mommy?” Quinn moaned. “I’ve been ever so good, haven’t I, Dad?”
“That he has,” his father had to admit, his dark eyes beaming down on their son. “He helped me pay bills this morning.”
“I can imagine how. Have you heard from Mama?”
“She and your new stepfather are still on their honeymoon in Nassau. My mother wants us to come down to her house for lunch tomorrow.”
“How about Gary and Robert?”
“They’re sailing in the Gulf, as usual, with their wives.” Cade sighed. “My God, I’m the only working man left in the family.”
“They signed over their interest in Lariat when you bought them out year before last, darling,” Bess reminded him. “They’re making enough at their respective jobs to enjoy an occasional vacation.”
“I guess so. How was the presentation?” he asked with a smile.
His pride in her work never ceased to amaze her. She’d always thought him a particularly chauvinistic kind of man before they married, but he’d been supportive and had encouraged her at her job. She was already in the job Julie had once occupied. Julie herself was an executive vice president. Nell was married—to Mr. Ryker, for five years now, and they had two children.
“The presentation was a great success. But it’s going to be my last one for a while,” she said, smiling up at him while they tried to keep their son from taking their hands in opposite directions on the way to the car. “I want to take it easy for a few months.”
“Okay. If you want a vacation, we could—”
She glanced up at him dryly. “Cade, it isn’t exactly going to be a vacation,” she began. “Didn’t you say six years ago that you’d manage with just one heir?”
He stopped, staring at her over their son’s head. “Bess, you know what the doctors said. Once was a miracle...”
“So what is twice?” she asked, and tears of unbounded joy touched her eyelashes. “I fainted at the presentation,” she whispered. “They got a doctor for me.” She laughed through watery sniffles. “I’m pregnant!”
“God.” He drew her close, wrapping her up against him, his free arm around his son, who was looking up curiously at them. “God, what a homecoming present,” he whispered with the breath knocked out of him as he stared down at her with aching tenderness and love.
“I want a girl this time,” she said laughing. She smiled down at young Quinn and touched his face gently. “We’re going to have a new baby, young man,” she told him. “And you and Daddy and I will take very good care of her.”
“Him,” Quinn said. “I want a baby brother.”
“I’ll settle for whatever I get, and so will you,” Cade told him with a chuckle. He ruffled the hair that was already as dark as his own. “Although you were and are the light of my life, young man.”
“I’m not a light,” Quinn muttered grumpily.
Bess bent to kiss him. She looked up at Cade with a radiance in her eyes that almost blinded him.
“Six wonderful years,” she whispered. “And now this. It’s scary, so much happiness.”
“Scary,” he agreed. He sighed heavily. “I never dreamed we’d have two of them. A matched set. Our mothers will be ecstatic.”
“Yes. They’re better friends than ever these days.”
“Because Gussie told Mother the truth finally,” he added. “I had to browbeat her into it, but I told her that secrets were much more damaging than the truth was. So she gave in, years too late. Mother already knew that Dad was a philanderer.”
Bess’s lips parted. She remembered what Elise had told her, but she hadn’t let Cade know. She had to pretend surprise. “She knew about your father’s affairs?”
“That’s right. Someone had told her long ago. She pretended that she didn’t know in order to protect Gary and Robert and me.” He looked down at Quinn contemplatively. “I guess we’ll be doing similar things for him, when he’s older. And for this other one,” he said softly, touching her belly.
“What other one?” Quinn frowned.
“The one who’s going to look like you,” his mother told him. She brushed back his unruly hair. “Your brother or sister.”
“Where is she?” Quinn asked, looking around.
“Well?” Bess asked, lifting her eyebrows at Cade.
He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “We’ll talk about it at home, son,” he said, glancing around them at the crowd of people. “Where we left that chocolate ice cream we had—”
“—for breakfast.” Quinn nodded. “It was good, wasn’t it, Daddy? And the cake—”
“Cake!” Bess exclaimed, wide-eyed. “You fed our child cake for breakfast?!”
“Well, ice cream, too.” He shrugged. “Honest to God, honey, you know I can’t cook!”
“Cake and ice cream!”
“Chocolate.” Quinn grinned. He pulled at her hand. “Let’s go home, Mommy, and you can have some, too.”
“Not for lunch.” Cade shuddered. “We’ll eat the rest of the cookies instead,” he added with a grin at Bess.
“I can see that I didn’t come back a minute too soon,” she said. “We’ll stop by the store on the way home and get some ham and some salad fixings...”
“Yuck!” Quinn said. “Me and Daddy don’t want that awful stuff.”
Cade looked at Bess and smiled slowly. “Yes, we do,” he said. He pulled Bess close against his side. “As long as Mommy’s here to fix it for us. Right?”
“Right.” Quinn sighed. He winked up at his mother. She tightened her hold on his small hand as Cade guided them out of the terminal into the bright summer day. As Bess lifted her soft, dark eyes to her husband’s, the radiance in her face made him catch his breath.
“Is something wrong?” she asked softly.
He laughed at his own reaction to her. He was denim to her lace, he thought, studying her. But in all the important ways, all the good ways, they were as alike as two people could get.
“No,” he said, smiling slowly. “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.” He linked his fingers into hers and lifted Quinn Alexander Hollister in his arms to carry him across the street. And his thoughts were warm and satisfying.
* * * * *
Be sure to check out
Diana Palmer’s next book in her WYOMING MEN series,
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Meredith Grayling is the target of a killer.
And only rugged
cattle rancher Ren Colter can protect her.
Turn the page to get a glimpse of
.