From Megan Maitland’s Diary

Dear Diary,

I’m worried about Ellie. Oh, not as the administrator of Maitland Maternity. No, what I’m worried about is the rest of her life. Mostly because there isn’t one.

Of all my children, Ellie is the one I would have chosen most likely to succeed. Her gifts are so obvious to me. I don’t understand why she can’t see them for herself.

I know it all goes back to that episode with Sloan Cassidy when she was in high school. Ellie’s always taken things so seriously. I'm afraid she took Sloan too seriously. And I did her a terrible disservice. I thought if I didn’t make a big deal of the whole thing, she wouldn’t either. But I was wrong. I should have helped her through that time. As it stands, I fear that the heart Sloan Cassidy broke has never healed.

But I’m not giving up hope. Especially now. I heard Sloan just came by looking for Ellie. I don’t dare hope that Sloan and Ellie can find what Ellie thought they had all those years ago. But if Ellie could see him again, as a mature adult, maybe, just maybe she could get over him and get on with her life. When it comes to Ellie, I care so very much….

Dear Reader,

There’s never a dull moment at Maitland Maternity! This unique and now world-renowned clinic was founded twenty-five years ago by Megan Maitland, widow of William Maitland, of the prominent Austin, Texas, Maitlands. Megan is also matriarch of an impressive family of seven children, many of whom are active participants in the everyday miracles that bring children into the world.

As our series begins, the family is stunned by the unexpected arrival of an unidentified baby at the clinic—unidentified, except for the claim that the child is a Maitland. Who are the parents of this child? Is the claim legitimate? Will the media’s tenacious grip on this news damage the clinic’s reputation? Suddenly, rumors and counterclaims abound. Women claiming to be the child’s mother materialize out of the woodwork! How will Megan get at the truth? And how will the media circus affect the lives and loves of the Maitland children—Abby, the head of gynecology, Ellie, the hospital administrator, her twin sister, Beth, who runs the day care center, Mitchell, the fertility specialist, R.J., the vice president of operations—even Anna, who has nothing to do with the clinic, and Jake, the black sheep of the family?

Please join us each month over the next year as the mystery of the Maitland baby unravels, bit by enticing bit, and book by captivating book!

Marsha Zinberg,

Senior Editor and Editorial Co-ordinator, Special Projects

Cassidy’s Kids
Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Tara Taylor Quinn’s first book, Yesterday’s Secrets, was published by Harlequin in October 1993. It received two Reviewers’ Choice nominations, and was a finalist for the RWA RITA Award. After nineteen titles in six years, there are over three million copies of Tara’s books in print. They have been nominated for several awards, and have appeared on many bestseller lists.

Tara Taylor Quinn’s love affair with Harlequin Books began when she was fourteen years old and picked up a free promotional copy of a Harlequin Romance in her hometown grocery store. The relationship was solidified the year she was suspended from her high school typing class for hiding a Harlequin Romance behind the keys of her electric typewriter. Unaware that her instructor loomed close by, Ms. Quinn read blissfully on with one finger resting on the automatically repeating period key. She finished the book in the principal’s office.

When she’s not writing, fulfilling speaking engagements or performing the many duties required by her position as regional director on the National Board of the Romance Writers of America, Ms. Quinn spends her time with her husband, and commutes to Arizona State University with her fourteen-year-old senior psychology major daughter, Rachel.

For Rachel Marie Reames, the heart and soul of my life;

And

Dana Mariah Bodell, my little soul mate:

Without the two of you, your sweet laughter, your company and encouragement, your inspiration and bowls of cottage cheese, this book would not have happened. Thanks, girls!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

THE BRIGHT SIDE was that nothing else could go wrong. Everything already had. At breakfast that morning, sitting in the same chair at the same dining room table she’d been sitting at almost since the day she was born, Ellie Maitland had had a panic attack. Out of the blue, she’d suddenly felt suffocated by that sameness, by the inadequacies that had shaped her life and which spelled out an entire future of more of the same. Her hands had started to tingle, and her feet, too, almost as though they’d all fallen asleep at once.

“Hey, El, I saw that you picked up my dry cleaning again—”

Her twin sister’s voice seemed to be coming through a megaphone rather than from across the table.

“—you didn’t have to do that.”

“I knew you’d forgotten, and I had to drive by that way, anyway,” Ellie replied. Focusing on something as mundane as the laundry helped a bit. But only until she looked down again.

Staring at the newspaper in front of her, at yet another article subtly hinting that Eleanor Maitland might not be up to her recently appointed position as administrator at Maitland Maternity Clinic, Ellie had to concentrate to keep the words from blurring. She was losing it. Twenty-five years old and falling apart.

“Ignore them, Ellie.” The soft feminine voice was laced with the steely determination that had seen Megan Maitland through her own lifetime of disappointments and joys.

Grasping the business section of the large Texas newspaper between cold fingers, Ellie finally looked up from the hurtful words. “They’re like vultures, Mom, waiting for me to fail.”

“So?” Megan’s dark blue eyes didn’t waver as they met the troubled look of her second-youngest-by-eleven-minutes daughter.

“They think I only got this job because I’m your daughter.”

“So?”

“Is it true?” Ellie asked, bracing herself.

Beth, her twin, scoffed.

“What do you think?” Megan’s expression was shrewd.

“I have goals, Mom. And a clear sense of our mission.”

Megan nodded and smiled. “I know.”

“No one else would have hired me so young for a position of such stature.”

“Probably not.”

“And certainly not while I’m still a semester away from my master’s degree.”

“You’re going to night school. You’ll have your degree before the fiscal year ends.”

Ellie flushed under her mother’s loving gaze. No matter how often Ellie fell short of being everything a Maitland should be, Megan continued to love her. “I won’t let you down,” she whispered, afraid she was really going to make a fool of herself and cry.

Ellie never cried. At least not where anyone in her family could see.

“I know you won’t,” Megan said.

And that had been that. Ellie, the ugly duckling baby Maitland, might not feel she was an asset to the family, but they were generous enough to love her anyway. And she had just enough Maitland blood running through her veins to make certain that she didn’t let them down. At least not professionally.

Which was why, sitting at her desk later that morning, she refused to back down when the man who serviced their current piping system tried to convince her not to invest in a new, upgraded one. Maitland Maternity, the clinic founded by her mother and late father almost twenty-five years ago, had outgrown its present system, and Ellie would not put the clinic’s patients—or reputation—at risk.

Once the man had left, she turned back to the financial statements Drake Logan, Maitland’s VP of finance, had left her.

“Ellie—?”

At the sound of the voice she froze. She’d been wrong. Things could get worse.

“—I’m sorry to barge in, but the phone just seemed so cold after all this time.”

Heart pounding, Ellie stared at the handsome man standing in her doorway. He wasn’t supposed to just show up at her office. He wasn’t supposed to show up at all. She’d gotten over him years ago. Wasn’t ever going to have to see him again.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” It was the only thought she had.

Forcing herself, she rose, offered her hand, pretended that warm touch of his calloused fingers did nothing to her.

The only plausible reason she could come up with for his sudden appearance was that he and his wife, Marla, needed the clinic’s services.

“You look great!” he said, admiration in his voice and in the steady brown gaze that was taking in every inch of her.

“So do you.” Gorgeous. Incredible. And in her office. Damn him.

“You’re the boss now, huh?” he asked. He looked around her big office, but only briefly, then his eyes focused back on her.

Nodding, Ellie started to sweat. Seeing him after all this time couldn’t mean anything to her. He couldn’t mean anything to her.

“I knew you’d make it to the top quicker than anyone,” he said, his voice full of easy camaraderie.

“Why are you here?” she blurted, feeling the need to get rid of him before she made a fool of herself and hugged him or something. Maybe he’d forgotten their last, devastating conversation, but she hadn’t. It had shaped every day of her life since.

“I need a favor.”

His voice was sexier than she remembered it. Deeper. “What’s it been, ten years?” she asked, trying to smile in spite of the tension. He actually thought that he could waltz in after all this time, and she’d be waiting to do his bidding.

Not that she could blame him completely. Practically every girl in their high school—Ellie included—had done just that. Sloan was definitely one of God’s gifts to the world’s female population, though one with a cruel twist when it had come to Ellie.

“’Bout that,” he said. He didn’t appear to be the least bit contrite about the ten year lapse, though age seemed to have taken the edge off his supreme self-confidence. “I’ve wanted to stop in many times, Ellie, to see you.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I figured it was best just to leave well enough alone.”

Which was just about the best non-answer she’d ever heard.

“Until now,” she reminded him.

He shrugged. “I’m in trouble, and you’re the only one I know of who can help.”

She wasn’t going to be party to his and Marla’s family problems. No matter how nicely he asked.

Leaning forward, resting her thighs against her desk, Ellie crossed her arms over her chest. “So how’ve you been?” she asked, and then made herself continue, “How’s Marla?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He didn’t take his eyes off her. “She’s in New York.”

She hadn’t heard about that. But then, lately she’d been concerned about the problems in her own family.

“What’s she doing in New York?” Is she still your wife?

“Trying to act, last I heard.” His eyes continued to assess her. “We were divorced six months ago.”

Ellie sat down. Hard. Sloan was divorced. No one had told her.

“Y-you said you had a favor to ask.”

Divorced, he was more dangerous than ever. She had to get rid of him. To focus on what mattered. Her goals. The clinic. Getting through the day.

“I know it’s presumptuous, me coming in here like this after all this time, but I’m at my wits’ end, Ellie, and I don’t know where else to turn. We were pretty special friends once.”

Opening her mouth to grant him whatever he asked, Ellie bit her tongue, instead. She was working day and night trying to prove herself—and going to night school besides. She didn’t have time to spare for him. Or to risk another broken heart. Sloan Cassidy had had his chance.

“I’d never ask for myself—” Sloan’s big brown eyes were imploring her, and his body made an imposing figure in skin-tight, earth-worn denim and a corduroy shirt that fit his cowboy bulkiness to perfection.

“But the girls are getting so out of hand that if I don’t do something soon, it may be too late.”

The girls? Ellie swallowed, glad she’d bitten her tongue. Even after ten years, hearing about Sloan’s relations with the opposite sex still hurt. There’d never been just one girl in love with him, panting after him: there’d never been fewer than a dozen.

“What, exactly, is it you want from me?” She was curious, that was all. And maybe a bit of a masochist. Entertaining visions of herself posing as Sloan’s fiancée long enough to ward off the troublesome women, Ellie almost smiled again.

“Just some pointers, Ellie. Teach me how to raise them.”

“Raise them?”

“You know how I grew up, El. My own folks didn’t set such a hot example. I’d already been having trouble getting the dad stuff down right. I’m a complete failure at the mom part.”

Mom? Dad? Feeling a resurgence of the panic attack from earlier that morning, Ellie forced her fingers to relax their grip on the arms of her chair. “Just how old are they?” she asked. Sloan was a father? More than once? Somehow she’d just never pictured homecoming-queen, cheerleader-captain Marla having babies. Not even for Sloan.

“Eighteen months.” He looked desperate, standing there in front of her. Desperate and needy. Which was the only reason Ellie didn’t have him removed from her office.

“And?” He’d said girls, plural.

“That’s it. I have eighteen-month-old twin daughters who are holy terrors, and not particularly happy, either.”

The catch Ellie felt in her chest must be part of the panic attack she was fighting. It had absolutely nothing to do with the mention of Sloan and daughters in the same sentence. There was no reason why she should feel a longing at the mention that they were twins. Or a kinship, either.

“I have no idea what to do for them.”

Ellie didn’t do kids. Period. They weren’t in her five-year plan. She had to stay focused. To keep her mind on the things she could have, and off the things she couldn’t. To control what little about her life she could control.

“What makes you think I could help?” she asked as if from outside herself—morbidly curious, she supposed.

Sloan’s gesture encompassed her office and the clinic outside her door. “You’re in the baby business.”

“Wrong.” She shook her head. “I’m in the administration business.” She left the baby part of the Maitland family business to those who were qualified.

His eyes narrowed as he watched her fiddle with a mechanical pencil on top of her desk. “You’re a twin.” The words were softly spoken.

And Sloan knew how hard that had been for her, Ellie thought. Growing up in the shadow of her beautiful, vivacious sister. She shrugged. “Doesn’t make me an expert on raising children.”

Placing both hands on her desk, Sloan leaned forward until his eyes were almost level with hers. She could smell the musky scent of his aftershave, mixed with leather and outdoors and all that was Sloan. “Please, Ellie, at least think about it?”

This had to stop. “I can’t, Sloan.”

“Just think about it,” he said again, straightening. “At least meet them, then see how you feel.”

“No!” She stood, smoothing the skirt of her practical business suit, forcing herself to calm down. “I really don’t have time right now to take on another project, Sloan.” She spoke with every ounce of authority she possessed. And hoped it was enough.

Ellie wasn’t as relieved as she might have been when, without another word, Sloan nodded, turned and left. His last discerning glance haunted her for the rest of the afternoon, and she had an awful feeling he would be back.

THOSE DAMN INCREDIBLY blue eyes tormented Sloan as he turned his pickup truck away from Austin toward the open road and the relative safety of his ranch. Ellie’s eyes were still as filled with determination as they’d been when he’d known her ten years ago. Still emanating an intelligence that was intimidating, or challenging, depending on how you chose to look at it. Sloan, fool that he was, had always been more prone to rising to a challenge than wisely giving in to intimidation.

Ellie—still as sexy as ever.

All they’d ever been was friends. Great friends. On his side, best friends. Ellie had never known how he’d lusted after her. He’d made certain she’d never known.

Swerving so hard his tires shot gravel up past the roof of the truck, Sloan came to a sudden stop in the parking lot of a tavern he hadn’t visited in years. Ariel and Alisha were safe with Charlie’s sister for the afternoon. Their father needed a drink.

Too bad his housekeeper’s sister had to go back home to Arizona at the end of the week. Too bad she was already married and seventy years old.

Up at the bar a few minutes later, a cold mug of beer clasped in his fist, Sloan amended that last thought about Charlie’s sister, Mary. Too bad she was married. Seventy years old wasn’t a problem.

Right. And maybe cow manure could fly.

WHY DIDN’T THE CRYING STOP?

Rolling over groggily, raising a hand to push the cropped strands of dark hair out of her face, Ellie groaned. The family mansion was just too small for both her and the mystery baby. Only two months old, he still wasn’t sleeping through the night.

Consequently, neither was Ellie.

It was hard to get used to having a baby in the house, but the tiny boy had been abandoned on the steps of the clinic with a note claiming he was a Maitland, too, and Megan’s heart had gone out to the infant. She’d been made his foster mother until the child’s real parents were found.

Ellie winced. Her brothers had become prime suspects as the baby’s father, though she couldn’t make herself believe any of them had really created the disruptive human being down the hall.

She rolled over again and tried to ignore the baby’s cries, but they grew louder, more urgent. And it suddenly dawned on Ellie why that was.

She was in charge.

Amy, the nurse her mother had hired to care for the baby, was out of town for a couple of days for a family emergency. And Beth and Megan were out, probably until dawn, at a high-profile fund-raiser Ellie had begged not to attend. With all of the negative publicity Maitland Maternity had suffered through in the past month, it was imperative that the family be represented. But not by Ellie. She was still under close scrutiny after her appointment as the clinic’s administrator, and with her lack of sophisticated wit, and no typical Maitland knock ’em dead looks to make up for the lack, she’d been afraid of doing more harm than good. Or at least, that had been her excuse. She’d really just wanted a quiet night at home to regroup after the day she’d had.

Ellie dragged herself out of bed and slogged down the hall to the nursery Megan had set up in the wing Beth and Ellie shared at Maitland Mansion. “I’m coming,” she called to the hostile baby, picking up her pace a bit. After all, it wasn’t the little guy’s fault he’d had such rotten luck in life.

Unless, of course, he’d carried on this way right from the start and his poor mother had been as hopeless as Ellie in knowing how to quiet him.

“Shh, Cody,” she demanded as she entered the nursery, the air warm on legs left bare by her cotton shorts and matching short sleeved pajama top. Heart picking up speed as she looked at the beet-red face of the baby, she softened her voice. “Hey, little man, what’s up?”

With arms trembling—from lack of sleep, she told herself—Ellie reached down to scoop up the hot bundle. He wasn’t only hot, he was soaked. And not just from sweat and tears, though there was plenty of both.

The initial bout of crying stopped the moment Ellie picked Cody up out of his crib. His tear-drenched eyelashes blinked as he stared up at her. As well he should. He’d have no idea who this stranger holding him might be.

In spite of his soggy state, Ellie stopped and stared right back at the miniature Maitland. She’d never been this close to him before.

From the moment he’d shown up on the doorstep of the clinic, and Megan had announced she would be taking temporary custody of him, Ellie had entered a new goal in the log book in her mind. She wasn’t going to hold him the way her sister Beth kept doing. She couldn’t. Ellie was much more intense than Beth. She’d never learned to live for the moment the way her more outgoing sister had done since birth. And it made no sense to grow attached to a child who was in their home only temporarily.

There was no point in torturing herself with something she knew she would never have. Which was also why she never visited the nursery at the clinic unless she was there on official business. She’d learned a long time ago that the way to be happy—or at least successful—was to avoid distractions.

It went without saying that in Ellie’s book a virgin with no prospects at the age of twenty-five would likely never have a baby.

Ellie stared, frozen. The baby’s warmth seeped through her pajamas, along with other things, until his little face screwed up with displeasure once again. “Okay, hold on,” she said urgently as she rushed him over to his new change table. “I’m fairly certain I can figure out how to change a diaper.”

Actually, she knew she could. She’d changed hundreds of them during her teens when she’d filled her dateless nights with baby-sitting jobs and dreams of having babies of her own. Babies that would love her in spite of her quiet personality and drab looks.

Amazingly enough, her voice seemed to have a calming effect on baby Cody. As long as she was speaking, his howls stopped, and he stared up at her. Ellie kept up a stream of senseless chatter while she went to work on the baby’s wet diaper.

“I don’t know which one of my brothers—or cousins, for that matter—is responsible for you, little man, but I can promise you that we’ll find out eventually, and when we do, I’m going to choke the life out of him with my bare hands.”

The wet sleeper and diaper came off effortlessly. Ellie reconsidered what she’d just said in lieu of the baby’s sensibilities and the frown on his scrunched up little face.

“Okay, we’ll let him live, but only because you need a daddy to teach you how to play baseball,” she amended. “But I get to at least yell at him first, okay?”

Cody’s legs flailed as Ellie cleaned and powdered him before expertly applying a dry diaper and sleeper.

There were bottles of formula already made up in the refrigerator in one corner of the nursery, and a bottle warmer on the counter beside it. With the baby lodged in one arm, Ellie used her free hand to prepare Cody’s late-night meal.

She hated to think of one of her beloved older brothers being guilty of fathering this abandoned child. Which was maybe another reason why she’d refused to acknowledge the baby’s presence in their lives as little more than an administrator’s public relations problem.

“The truth is, little guy, that when I think about it, almost any one of them could be responsible.”

After testing the warming formula on the inside of her wrist, Ellie settled into the rocker her mother had had brought down from the attic. Until that night, Ellie had been hoping Cody wasn’t really a Maitland at all, but rather a scam on the part of some sick woman to tap into the Maitland fortune.

But holding the baby close to her breast, taking in features that were distinctive even at such a young age, she knew in her heart what Megan must have known from the minute she’d first unwrapped him in the doorway of Maitland Maternity a month ago. Cody could very well be a Maitland.

Sucking greedily, the baby ate, innocently unaware of the commotion his existence was causing in the lives of so many people. Ellie had only thought about the damage the baby’s sudden appearance was doing to the Maitland family and, by extension, the clinic. Now, as her heart and body warmed at the noisy sounds of the baby eating, as his little fist came to rest intimately against her breast, she couldn’t help but think about the damage that could be done to this innocent little child.

Was he to live with the stigma of his abandonment for his entire life? Was it going to remain like a dead weight, creating feelings of unworthiness that would follow him into adulthood?

Getting angrier, and more possessive, by the moment, Ellie gently burped Cody and rocked him long after he’d fallen asleep in her arms. Who, in her right mind, could hold this precious bundle in her arms and then abandon him? How could one of her relatives have slept so irresponsibly with such a woman?

And who was the baby’s father? R.J.? As Maitland Maternity’s president, he’d certainly have reasons not to come forward if he were responsible. But would his personal integrity allow him to stay silent? Of course not.

And what about Mitch? Ellie couldn’t believe he’d lied when he’d so sheepishly admitted that he hadn’t been with a woman in over a year. He was a fertility specialist. He’d know that eventually the baby’s paternity could be proven, once their mother approved the testing. He’d know it was useless not to come forward. Unless he’d donated some of his own sperm to his experimental bank and didn’t know it had been used…

Then there was Jake. A tear splashed against the sleeping baby’s face, and Ellie started guiltily, wiping the wet drop away. Jake was the most likely suspect of her three brothers. And the one she least wanted it to be. She adored all of her brothers, but Jake was special. He was different. He was her hero. He’d never have fathered this helpless child without knowing it. And he’d never have allowed the baby to be abandoned. No matter what lines Jake crossed in his life, he’d never cross that one.

Ellie rocked the baby until her muscles were cramped. An hour passed, then two, and still she wasn’t ready to give up her burden. It was a night out of time. A secret night, when Ellie could be Ellie, and no one would ever know; a night that would never ask questions.

Finally, when she was afraid her tears would wake the baby again, she laid him gently in his crib, covered his diaper plump rear with a light blanket and tiptoed back to her room. She’d hoped the stark familiarity of her room would shock her back to normalcy. Wiping the tears away, she wanted to pretend that they’d never fallen. That the tiny body in the other room hadn’t opened up a door she’d thought rusted shut years before.

Changing her stained pajamas for a clean pair, she climbed between her sheets, trying to soothe herself back to sleep using numbers, the way she’d been doing for most of her life. She started with smaller figures, afraid her concentration would be overstimulated by the larger ones she more commonly used these days. But even the smaller ones wouldn’t line up. They danced around on the stage in her mind. Changing colors. And form. Trying to escape, to get away from her before she could force them into their logical places.

And as she struggled, tossing and turning in her attempt to control the images in her head, the numbers were replaced by Sloan’s face. By two imaginary little female versions of his face. One plus two equals three. With baby Cody’s heat still warming her body, she couldn’t stop the images, couldn’t help wondering if Sloan’s baby girls would feel just as wonderful, just as right, up against her.

Then onto the scene came a fourth image. Three plus one, after all, always equaled four. Marla. The mother of Sloan’s children. The beautiful woman Sloan had never stopped dating during the entire time he’d known Ellie. The woman he’d been out with after he’d kissed Ellie so passionately.

She’d be a fool to open herself up to that kind of pain again. And Ellie Maitland was no fool.

CHAPTER TWO

SLOAN HID OUT in the barn the next morning. Mary had come to work with Charlie again, wanting, she claimed, to spend as much time with her brother as she could before leaving. But instead of staying in the house with Charlie, she was watching Sloan’s girls. Sloan half wondered if maybe the woman wasn’t trying to figure out a way to take his daughters home with her.

Damn thing was, the way the girls responded to her, he wasn’t sure that wasn’t what they’d want, too, if they’d been old enough to have a say in the matter.

From his position inside Ronnie’s stall, he could hear them outside in the yard, giggling as they chased a butterfly. He stopped mucking long enough to peek out the door of the barn. Smiling, he watched his daughters play. Sloan was itching to join them, but forced himself to return to his mare’s stall, instead. If he gave in to his desire, if he went out into the yard, the happy little imps tumbling over their feet and laughing so delightfully would turn into demanding, whiny little patoots.

“You’ve got time to waste mucking out a clean stall?”

Sloan turned when he heard Charlie’s voice. The old man had been with Sloan since before he’d married Marla. Charlie’d lost a leg riding the rodeo circuit and had been wandering around the circuit drunk all the time, making what money he could as a bookie, when Sloan first hit the scene. But in spite of his own problems, Charlie had taken the teenaged Sloan under his wing, become a crotchety but caring father figure, and had coached Sloan all the way to the top. And when Sloan had made enough money to turn his parents’ dilapidated excuse for Texas farmland into the four-thousand acre growing cattle concern it was now, Charlie had gladly turned in his bottle and betting tallies for a dishrag and washing machine. Lucky for Sloan, the old man had turned out to be a halfway decent cook, too.

“Not really,” Sloan finally said, resuming the work he’d begun after checking the cattle’s salt and mineral supplements that morning. Though he hired part-timers to help with vaccinating and shipping calves, Sloan usually worked the ranch alone.

Charlie watched silently for a couple more minutes, and Sloan waited. Charlie must have something more on his mind than Sloan’s chores, to have made the trek out to the barn in the first place.

“Mary’s got the name of a woman who can come in every day during the week to watch those mites for ya.”

The old man could have saved himself the trip out if that’s what he’d come to say. “Thanks.”

“I’ll give her a call if you like—get her out here to meet with ya.”

“Not necessary, thanks.”

Charlie leaned against the edge of the stall. “You can’t do this all alone, Sloan, no matter how bad you want to.”

“I know.”

“So you’ll call this woman?”

“I don’t want my girls raised by a baby-sitter.” Sloan, wishing that Ronnie weren’t such a fastidious horse, that she made more of a mess, cleared the last of what little debris there was from the stall. “I may not be much in the way of parenting material, but I’m going to learn,” he said. “I can’t do anything about Marla’s abandonment, but I can damn well make certain that those babies don’t feel unwanted.”

“But you—”

“I mean it, Charlie,” Sloan interrupted, leaning on his pitchfork as he met the other man’s gaze. “I know what it feels like to be deserted, not just by a parent who left, but worse, by one who didn’t, who lived in the same house but just wasn’t there. My children will not suffer the same insecurities I had to work through.”

“Not to mention the loneliness,” Charlie said gruffly.

Sloan grunted and attacked the fresh bale of hay he intended to spread on the floor of Ronnie’s stall. Charlie knew far too much.

“That’s why you married Marla, wasn’t it? To get away from the loneliness?”

“I married her for the sex.”

Charlie nodded. “I figured it wasn’t for love.”

Stopping again, Sloan frowned. “I cared about Marla.”

“So much so that when she was fooling around with the jerks in town, you barely missed a beat.”

He could hardly hate his wife for infidelity when the same urge was something he fought every day of his life. He’d been stubborn enough to win the battle, blessed, apparently, with incredible self-control, but he could still empathize with his wife’s weakness. Sloan—the man who wanted every woman who’d ever been born.

“She was sorry. She stopped.”

“If you’d been in love with her, you’d have wanted to kill the guys.”

“I’m not the violent type.”

Charlie’s weather-worn face showed no expression. Unless, thought Sloan, you looked into the deep gray eyes that saw far more than they should.

“I didn’t notice you sheddin’ any tears when she finally left town.”

“I never stopped trying to make it work,” Sloan protested.

“But did you ever love her?”

“I worked at it every day of our marriage.”

“You can’t force love to happen.”

“What’s your point, old man?” Sloan asked, getting impatient. “Don’t you have some dishes to wash or something?”

“Point is,” Charlie said, straightening, his prosthesis not even noticeable as he walked toward the barn door, “you couldn’t force yourself to love Marla no matter what you’d made up your mind to do, and you can’t force them girlies to be happy, either.”

“I love them. That should be enough.”

“You spoil them.”

“I love them,” Sloan said firmly.

“You let them run you around worse than that self-centered bitch you married.”

“I love them.” Sloan wasn’t backing down. He was used to Charlie’s bluntness.

“Then figure out how to do it right, or hire someone to come do it for you,” Charlie shot back. “Those babes are hell to live with when you’re around.”

His housekeeper’s parting words stung.

NOT WANTING A REPEAT of the morning before, Ellie skipped breakfast at home and went in to work early. It was just lucky coincidence that by missing breakfast, she also managed to avoid her family members—and baby Cody—as well. She hadn’t slept well. Was cranky and out of sorts. She needed to immerse herself in her work, remind herself what mattered in her life. As uptight and serious as she was, her career was all she was going to have, and she was damn well going to be happy about that.

But by ten o’clock that morning, she was also starving. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and she’d robbed herself of that sustenance. She was falling asleep at her desk. A tall glass of diet cola and one of Joe’s four-cheese western omelettes were definitely in order.

A dose of Mary Jane’s sweetness wouldn’t be amiss, either. Grabbing the Asleep at the Wheel CD she’d found for her country-western-fanatic friend, Ellie checked out with Megan and took a much-needed break.

Austin Eats Diner, located right next door to the clinic on the corner of prestigious Mayfair Avenue and Hill Drive, was just the diversion Ellie needed. Mary Jane Potter who was waiting on a group of cowboys at the counter, looked up and waved as Ellie walked in. Feeling better already, Ellie smiled, waved back and seated herself at a table for two. Though Mary Jane was three years younger than Ellie, she was one of Ellie’s closest friends. The petite brunette had grown up next door to Lana Lord, Ellie and Beth’s other best friend, and the four had seen each other through all the crises of adolescence.

Watching Mary Jane keep everyone in the bustling diner happy, Ellie relaxed for the first time since she’d seen Sloan Cassidy the day before. She hadn’t told anyone about Sloan’s unexpected visit. Nor was she certain she was going to. But she wasn’t going to deny herself the comfort of drawing silent strength from her friends.

“You skipped breakfast again?” Mary Jane asked, bringing Ellie the diet cola she hadn’t yet asked for.

“I had some work to catch up on,” Ellie said, meeting the smile in Mary Jane’s eyes.

Mary Jane’s gaze turned to concern. “You’re going to work yourself to death, Ellie, and it’s just not worth it.”

Taking in the mostly full tables around her, Ellie chose to ignore her friend’s warning. Mary Jane just didn’t understand. No one did. “I’ve only been in the position six months,” she defended herself. “There’s always a lot of extra time invested in a new job.”

“Fourteen hours a day?” Mary Jane scoffed, seemingly unaware of the thirty other patrons sitting in the brightly colored restaurant. “You haven’t been out with Lana and Beth and me in months.”

“School started,” Ellie responded. “I’ve got classes at night.”

“One night a week.”

“Hey, what is this?” Ellie started to get annoyed, but only because she so desperately needed Mary Jane’s support. “I come here to eat and get yelled at?”

Mary Jane sighed. “I’m not yelling, El. I just care.”

“I know.” That was the sustenance she’d really been after. “Things’ll calm down soon, I promise.”

Mary Jane nodded but didn’t look any happier; she pulled her pad and pen out of her pocket. “You want the omelette?”

“Yes, please.” Ellie picked up the CD from the seat beside her. “I brought you this.”

“‘Let’s Ride With Bob’ by Asleep at the Wheel?” Mary Jane’s eyes lit up. “Where’d you find it?”

“A record shop downtown. I needed some more George Winston.”

Reaching into her pocket, Mary Jane asked, “What do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” Ellie replied, brushing it off. “Just don’t make me listen to any more of Bob Will’s Texas swing band stuff. I prefer horns to fiddles and steel guitars.”

“Thanks, El—”

Mary Jane smiled warmly again, and Ellie got all the payment she needed.

“I can’t believe you remembered I wanted this. You’re the best.”

Embarrassed, Ellie shook her head. “What I am is hungry.”

Mary Jane grinned. “Be right back.” And then she was off, pouring coffee, delivering heavy plates of food, spreading her cheery smile all over the room. Sitting back, watching her friend, Ellie counted her blessings.

She was taking the last bite of an incredibly delicious omelette when Shelby Lord, the diner’s owner and Lana’s triplet sister, suddenly appeared from the back room with a young blond woman at her side. Spotting Ellie, Shelby made a beeline for her table, stranger in tow.

“Ellie! I’m glad you’re here,” Shelby said. “I want you to meet Sara. She’s going to be waitressing here starting this afternoon.”

The blonde looked to be about Ellie’s age, but there didn’t seem to be twenty-five years of life lurking in her blue eyes. Rather, her gaze appeared almost vacant, though intelligent. If such a contrast were possible.

Shelby put a supportive arm around Sara’s back, drawing her forward.

“Sara’s suffering from amnesia,” Shelby said softly. Motioning for Sara to take the chair across from Ellie, Shelby pulled up a third chair for herself.

“I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to know,” she continued, “but I thought you should.”

Instantly filled with compassion, Ellie took in the other woman’s soft features. “You don’t remember anything?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine something so horrible. To have no control at all.

Sara shook her head. “A policeman found me in an alley, and I had no idea how I came to be there. He took me to a women’s shelter.”

“How frightening.”

Sara smiled sadly. “It was. I remember waking up, but I had no idea where I was. I only know that it was really dark. And my head hurt.”

Horrified, Ellie leaned forward. “You’d been attacked?”

“We don’t know.” Sara shrugged nonchalantly, but her eyes told a different story. Filled with fear, they testified to the seriousness of her predicament. “The shelter sent me to a free clinic to get checked over, and they couldn’t find anything wrong, other than the bump on my head. It had been bleeding, and I had a bit of a concussion, but nothing serious.”

“And they couldn’t tell how that bump came to be there?” Ellie was a stickler for details. She was never satisfied until she had all the answers. And this woman, with her sweet smile, looked like she deserved some answers.

“I could have been attacked, I suppose, but it’s just as likely that I fell, or that something fell on me.”

“She had nothing on her when she wandered into the shelter,” Shelby added. “No purse, no jewelry, nothing.”

Experiencing the woman’s pain almost as though it were her own, Ellie couldn’t let go. “So what are you going to do?”

“Work here, be patient, hope my memory comes back soon.” Sara’s tone implied there was little else she could do.

“Did you check, the missing persons’ reports?”

“Yeah,” Sara’s eyes clouded. “Apparently no one has reported me missing, at least not in Austin.”

“What about the papers?” Ellie asked.

“The police have no way of knowing how far back to check,” Shelby said, reaching over to give Sara’s hand a quick squeeze. “They’ve gone back a couple of weeks from the time of her appearance, and found nothing.”

As she sat there, Ellie put herself in Sara’s shoes. And suddenly the problems she’d been having with the press seemed almost a blessing. At least she had a life to report about.

“Where are you going to stay?” Ellie asked, as Mary Jane dropped off another diet cola and was gone.

“Mrs. Parker’s Inn,” Sara replied, her features more relaxed. “I’ve already seen the room—it’s quite nice, actually, and the house is cozy. I just needed to make certain I had a job before I moved in.”

Ellie was familiar with the boarding house. It was comfortable and within walking distance of the diner.

“Speaking of which, we better let you go get settled in so you can be back this afternoon,” Shelby said, standing.

Sara scrambled to her feet, as well, including both Ellie and Shelby with her genuine smile. “I’ll see you later, then. Nice to meet you, Ellie.” And she was gone.

As Ellie walked back to the clinic and the mounds of work waiting for her there, she couldn’t get Sara out of her mind or her heart. In losing her memory, Sara had in essence lost her life, lost everything that mattered.

After the previous night with Cody, Ellie couldn’t help wondering if she’d lost touch with things that mattered in her life, as well.

Except my goals, she reminded herself as she applied herself to the day’s work. She would be the best damn administrator Maitland Maternity had ever seen. Her goals might have changed through the years, but having them had always sustained her. They’d given her a reason to get up in the morning, led her to every success she’d ever had. She couldn’t forget that.

JANELLE MAITLAND WAS NOT a patient woman. And she’d been waiting every day for thirty years to claim what was hers. Looking in the cracked mirror of the seedy hotel room in this nameless little dirt-hole Texas town, she felt the unwelcome pressure of frustrated tears behind her eyes. She was a pretty woman, she thought. Her long dark hair and brown eyes screamed privilege. It wasn’t right that she had to suffer for her father’s weaknesses. She wasn’t the one who’d decided to leave the family clan, to squander her life and her share of the family fortune in Las Vegas. She’d had no choice in the way he’d forced her to grow up.

But she wasn’t a kid anymore. Her father was dead, which had turned out to be a really good thing. She had choices now, and she was damn well tired of waiting to exercise them. Why did everything have to take so long? She’d been waiting for Petey to get back from his makeover at the hairdresser’s for over an hour. She was hungry. She wanted lunch.

And not some damn take-out lunch, either. She was a Maitland. She deserved better.

ELLIE HEARD THE COMMOTION in the hallway before she actually saw them. She’d been poring over needle codes and standards, planning to upgrade the kind they’d been using at the clinic for more than ten years, when the first shrill “No!” reached her ears. Followed quickly by a babyish “Da-ee! Up!”

Before she could go to investigate, the sounds came closer, and three bodies materialized in her doorway. Sloan, carrying two of the loveliest baby girls she’d ever seen. Or attempting to carry them. Baby girl on the right apparently didn’t want to share her daddy’s arms and was attempting to push baby girl on the left back down to the floor.

“No!” the baby on the right screamed again. “Isha, down.”

To which the toddler on the left let fly with her rendition of “Up! Da-ee, up!”

“Ariel, Alisha, stop this instant.” Sloan’s voice could have carried a bit more conviction. He smiled apologetically at Ellie before taking a seat in front of her desk and settling the twins, still squabbling, one on each knee.

“Can I help you?” Ellie said, dumbstruck. What in hell was he doing here?

At the sound of her voice, the girls stopped fussing and stared.

“I wanted you to meet them,” Sloan said simply. “These are my daughters. Ariel—” he nodded to the baby on the right “—and Alisha. Alisha has the little swirled tuft in the middle of her hairline. I couldn’t have ordered up a better way to tell them apart.”

When Ellie looked at Ariel, she buried her face in Sloan’s chest. Alisha continued to stare, a leftover tear trembling on her lashes.

Ellie fell in love.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, forgetting that she wanted this man out of her life forever.

“They take after Marla.”

The prick of pain wasn’t overwhelming, as pain went, but it shocked Ellie back into the present in a hurry. The girls did take after their blond, beauty-queen mother. And Sloan had taken off after her, too. He’d asked Marla to his senior prom only a week after he’d introduced Ellie to the mysteries of making out.

“I really need your help, El.” Sloan’s eyes beseeched her.

“No.” She couldn’t. She wasn’t that strong. “I have no time as it is,” she said lamely. “I’m still getting settled in here. I’m going to school for my MBA. I haven’t even been out with my friends in weeks.”

No matter how compelling the argument sounded to Ellie, Sloan didn’t look convinced.

“Sounds familiar,” he said, smiling instead. “As I recall, you were in a similar predicament your sophomore year in high school.”

The year she’d met Sloan.

“You didn’t want to help with the homecoming float because you were in all the honor classes and were studying for early entrance into college, too. You hadn’t been to any of the parties with Beth since the beginning of the school year.”

And he’d talked her into helping with the float. It had been the start of the most wonderful—and most painful—time of her life. She’d felt valuable as a person, and as a woman, for the first time ever. In the end, though, she’d had her insecurities about her sexuality humiliatingly confirmed when Sloan had given her her first kiss and then told her the very next day that they couldn’t be friends anymore. He hadn’t even waited for the steam to clear before he’d asked Marla to the prom.

“You thanked me for showing you that there was more to life than books, Ellie.”

And he’d rewarded her gratitude with heartache. “I can’t help you, Sloan.” The babies were squirming, but she refused to look at them. She had to get rid of them before she turned traitor on herself, on all she’d learned, on all she’d painstakingly accepted about herself.

A picture of Sara’s lost gaze sprang to mind, but Ellie pushed it frantically away. Finding oneself, having meaning in one’s life did not mean being a fool.

“I don’t know how to handle them, Ellie,” he said, his gaze so compelling that she couldn’t look away. “They’re angels until I’m around, and then they transform into little she-devils. They don’t mind me. They don’t do what I tell them to do.”

She couldn’t help herself. She looked at the toddlers still perched, albeit precariously, on their father’s lap. Perfect little Ariel, and Alisha with her tiny curled cowlick. She saw Beth—and herself. The desire to hold them, to be a part of that private family unit, was so strong that it scared her to death.

“You walked out on me ten years ago, Sloan,” she said. Keep your mind on the things you can have. And off the things you can’t have. “You have no right to come back now just because you don’t know how to live with the consequences of your actions.”

“It was my senior year, Ellie—I knew I was going to be busy.” He stood, one baby on each hip. The girls, as though sensing the tension in the room, sat silently, their little faces turned toward their father. “And I know I don’t have the right to ask for your help. But this isn’t for me,” he continued. “It’s for them.”

Looking down at his daughters, Sloan swallowed. “You’re a twin, Ellie. You work with babies every day. You’re smart. And you were always able to see inside me. To help me see.”

He wasn’t being fair. Ellie swallowed, too, needing to run. She felt another panic attack coming on. Two in two days.

“You wouldn’t just come in and do what needed to be done, Ellie. You’d enable me to do it myself.” He was still holding her gaze, reaching inside her to the young girl only he’d ever known existed.

“No.” She stood, backed up. She just had to find the strength to turn away, then the interview would be over.

“I need you.”

She shook her head.

“They need you.”

As if on cue, both girls looked up curiously at Ellie. She started to shake; her hands and feet were tingling. She had to make him go.

“Those children are not my responsibility, Sloan. I can’t help you.”

Ellie’s relief when Sloan finally walked away lasted only long enough for her to recognize the woman lurking outside her open office door. Tattle Today TV reporter Chelsea Markum had heard every word.

Her stomach knotted painfully, and Ellie wondered just how big a price she was going to pay for sending Sloan away.

She wished it were only the television reporter she cared about.

CHAPTER THREE

“GOT A MINUTE?”

Ellie didn’t even bother looking up. “Go away, Chelsea.”

“Who was that man who just left here looking like his mother had died?” the reported asked, plopping down in the seat Sloan had just vacated.

“No one.”

“You sounded pretty upset for talking to no one,” Chelsea said.

Glancing up from the needle codes she was trying desperately to concentrate on, Ellie stared at the auburn-haired reporter. Only a year or two older than herself, Chelsea had the eyes of an old woman. A green-eyed avaricious old woman. And unfortunately they were pinned on Ellie.

“When are you going to give up and go away?” Ellie asked, too weary to deal with the Chelseas of the world today. The woman had been hounding the clinic since baby Cody had made his debut. And when she couldn’t get fresh leads on the baby, she turned her roving eye on Ellie, looking for a way to prove the charges of nepotism.

“Sounded like there might be some more abandonment going on.”

Chelsea would stop at nothing, it seemed, to get a story. To validate her existence, Ellie thought nastily.

“Not by anyone here,” Ellie hated herself for rising to Chelsea’s bait. “If you want their story, you’ll have to go see their mother in New York.”

“Still, it did sound as though you knew the man rather well, and that he wanted something from you.”

Ellie bit her tongue.

“That’s got to be the most gorgeous man ever to step foot in your office,” Chelsea baited her, refusing to give up.

“He’s a friend from high school,” Ellie said, exasperated. “Period.”

Crossing one shapely leg over the other, Chelsea nodded, letting the subject drop. “Heard from any of your brothers lately?” she asked.

“I see two of them right here every day,” Ellie replied, relaxing a bit as Chelsea reverted to the cat-and-mouse game the two of them had been playing for the past month.

“What about the third—Jake, isn’t it?”

Ellie smiled. “Haven’t heard from him.”

Chelsea sat forward, elbows on her knees. “So who do you think fathered that poor baby?” she asked, eyes intent.

If the reporter hadn’t had her teeth sunk so fiercely into Ellie, Ellie would almost have admired her. Chelsea was intelligent. Beautiful. And tenacious. She didn’t give up. Ellie liked that in a person.

But her teeth were snapping at Ellie—and at the helpless, innocent child Ellie had spent half the night holding. Suddenly the game had changed. The rules were different. It wasn’t just the clinic’s reputation, the family’s reputation that was at stake.

“You stay away from that baby, Chelsea Markum. He’s an innocent child whose life you could permanently affect by your purely fictional innuendoes.”

Blinking in surprise, Chelsea sat back, then stood up. “I’m just looking for the truth, Ellie. I have no desire to hurt the kid.”

“Right.” Ellie stood, too, signaling an end to the unwanted meeting. “Stay out of our lives, Chelsea.”

“I’m not the one who chose to live such a public life, Ms. Ellie Administrator Maitland. Maybe you better think about that one.”

The reporter’s last shot hit Ellie in a sore spot she’d been nursing since she was a child. It had been one of the biggest ironies of her life to be born into the socially prominent Maitland clan. She’d never had the chance to just be the plain Jane she really was. From the moment she was born, she’d had the family reputation to live up to. And it hadn’t taken the young Ellie long to figure out that, for her, that was an impossible task.

Her own goals were another story. They were something she could—and did—live up to. Something she could count on. Her goals were realistic, and meeting them brought her peace, if nothing else.

ELLIE WAS JUST PACKING UP for the day, earlier than usual since this was her night at the university, when she had another visitor. A welcome one.

“You in a hurry?” her older sister Abby asked, leaning against the door frame of Ellie’s office.

“A little,” Ellie told her, but she’d take time, anyway. She could always be a minute or two late for the economics class. She’d read a couple of chapters ahead, anyway.

“Was that Sloan Cassidy I saw leaving earlier today?”

Knowing better than to play dumb with Abby, Ellie nodded. But she didn’t want to talk about Sloan.

“The same Sloan Cassidy that you spent so many months refusing to cry over during high school?”

Trust her sister to have such an acute memory. Abby, who was an obstetrician at Maitland Maternity, was one of the smartest women Ellie had ever known.

“That’s him,” she said now, trying for a nonchalant smile. If she acted like she didn’t care, no one else would.

“What’s he want?”

“Help with his kids.”

Abby nodded, her eyes narrowing as she watched Ellie. “Your help?”

“Maybe,” Ellie answered evasively. She didn’t like the sudden light in Abby’s eyes. Didn’t trust it. Her sister might be intelligent, but she was also recently engaged and a bit loony with love.

Hoping to help Abby see sense, Ellie told her about Sloan’s divorce, his current problem, and the impossible and completely inappropriate thing he’d asked of her.

Abby smiled, straightening in the doorway. “So you’re going to help him?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Her older sister frowned. “Why not?”

“I don’t have time.” Ellie stated the obvious, leaving the less easily explained for herself. “How’s Marcie and the baby?” she asked quickly, shameless in her attempt at diversion.

It was a testimony to how much in love Abby was that she allowed herself to be diverted. “Great,” she answered with a grin. Abby had delivered her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s baby the week before. “They’re both home with Kyle, driving him crazy.”

Ellie had heard that Abby was spending all her free time at her fiancé’s house, as well. She’d never seen her sister so happy.

And as she went off to night class, she felt a little happier herself. It had taken Abby thirty-two years to find her happiness. Ellie still had lots of time.

SLOAN WAITED until the next morning to call her. But only because it took him that long to trust himself to do the right thing. He had to apologize. He’d had no business going to her—a Maitland—for help. She’d caught the fallout from a moment of weakness. And there was no excuse at all for the bullheadedness that hadn’t allowed him to accept no for an answer.

But he was done with that now.

“Ellie, it’s Sloan,” he began as soon as he heard her voice on the line. “Wait!” he said a little too loudly. “Don’t hang up, I just want to apologize.”

“Apologize?”

She sounded as though that were the last thing she’d expect from him. “For imposing on you. I had no business bothering you with my problems.”

“Apology accepted.”

If he’d been hoping she’d changed her mind, he’d been a fool. But it wouldn’t be the first time. Especially not where Miss Ellie Maitland was concerned. The woman made him crazy.

“Did you find a baby-sitter?” she asked, when he thought she’d probably hung up.

Tempted to just put an end to his misguided scheme, he almost lied to her. Almost.

“No.”

“Oh.”

There it was again. That note of longing in her voice. An echo, he was certain, of the longing he’d seen in her eyes as she’d gazed at his adorable little hellions. Not that he trusted his judgment where Ellie was concerned. He was probably making it all up.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help, Sloan, but you came to the wrong person,” she said as the silence grew too long again. “I know nothing about raising children.”

If only her excuse was valid, then maybe he’d be able to let go. If only he didn’t remember how grateful she’d been when he’d saved her from herself ten years before. If only he didn’t remember the life he’d discovered all cooped up inside her. If only he hadn’t kissed her that one time and ruined an incredible friendship…

“You’re a natural with children, El. As I recall, you spent more of your teenage years with little kids than you did with your peers.”

Sloan winced at his own words. What an incredibly asinine thing to remind her of—the fact that she’d been such a wallflower, she’d had to baby-sit to get out of the house. The worst thing was, she’d thought the fault had been hers, when, in fact, it had been exactly the opposite. The fault had been that of the ignorant and immature jerks in high school who hadn’t been able to see past the baggy clothes and glasses to the shapely body and quick mind they’d hidden.

Only Sloan had seen. And Sloan hadn’t been worthy of her incredible gifts.

Still wasn’t.

“Yeah, well,” she said after another long pause. “That was a long time ago. I’ve forgotten most of it.”

Ariel’s cup of milk hit Sloan in the head and burst open, spilling the thick white liquid down the side of his face and into the phone.

“What was that?” Ellie asked, just as Sloan cursed a blue, though whispered, streak.

“Ariel’s counterattack for my having strapped her in her high chair,” he said, as Alisha wound up, too. “No!” But as always, he was a fraction of a second too late. Alisha’s aim wasn’t quite as good. Her cup bounced off the cupboard before splashing milk all over the floor.

“I have to go, Ellie,” Sloan said, beaten, attempting to wipe the milk from his ear.

“Yes, well, bring the kids to the clinic until you get a sitter, Sloan. Beth would be happy to have them in the day care.”

“Thanks,” Sloan said, ringing off just as a soggy piece of toast hit him in the chest. He didn’t bother explaining to Ellie that he didn’t need a baby-sitter. He needed a savior.

ELLIE DECIDED TO WALK home for dinner. The ten blocks between the clinic and Maitland Drive, where she grew up, weren’t nearly enough to clear her mind, but the fresh October air invigorated her body. And the time alone was a balm.

An unfamiliar car was parked just down from Maitland Mansion’s drive. Not that Ellie minded, but she had to veer around it. Only mildly curious, she continued through the black iron gates and slowly up the drive. She hoped Jessie, their cook, had made something light for dinner. Ellie didn’t feel much like eating, and Megan was sure to notice if she just picked at her food.

Not for the first time, Ellie considered moving out, getting a place of her own.

She never would have noticed the woman partially concealed by the bushes on the west side of the four-story mansion that was her home if it hadn’t been for the rays of the setting sun reflecting off the camera lens. Chelsea Markum.

Unfortunately for the rabid reporter, Ellie was in the mood for a fight.

Creeping slowly up behind her, Ellie ran through possible options for dealing with the determined woman. And froze when she caught a glimpse of Chelsea’s prey: baby Cody was lying on a quilt in the middle of the downstairs living room, his little legs dancing in the air. Chelsea’s video camera was pointed right at him.

“No!” Ellie sprang forward without thinking—an action as unlike her as the karate chop she landed on Chelsea’s shoulder, causing the camera to slip from the startled woman’s grasp. As the camera hit the ground, the film compartment fell open, spilling the video tape onto the ground.

Ellie stepped on it.

Her “Leave him alone” came out in a whisper as she looked down at what she’d done.

Chelsea, obviously as shocked as Ellie, stared from Ellie’s face to the ground and back again, speechless. “You…you…”

“Just take the camera and go,” Ellie said, tired and disarmed by actions so completely out of character. “I’d tell you you were trespassing, but you already know that. It’s against the law,” she heard herself continue. “You know that, too. Don’t make me call the police.”

“You can’t hide this thing forever,” the reporter said, picking up her camera. “Sooner or later we’re going to find out who abandoned that baby. And when we do, you’re going to wish you’d been a little more cooperative.”

Watching the woman stride purposefully down the drive, Ellie figured she should be upset by the veiled threat. Maybe she was.

At least she now knew who the unfamiliar car belonged to.

“HERE’S HOPING we’re nobodies tonight,” Megan told her twin daughters as they followed her into her bedroom suite to watch the ten o’clock news that night. The practice had become almost a ritual over the past month as they’d seen their name smeared across the state.

Baby Cody was asleep in his crib, his nurse in her room close by.

“You don’t think she got anything today, do you?” Beth asked her mother, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the television. Newly engaged, Beth was admiring the diamond glittering on her finger.

Megan, dressed in a silk dressing gown that only emphasized her tall, regal stature, settled on the couch and shrugged. “We have no idea how long she was out there before Ellie caught her. She may have had more than one tape.”

“The bitch,” Beth murmured under her breath.

Ellie smiled at her twin, enjoying, as always, Beth’s outspoken nature. Beth called it like she saw it. Ellie saw it, but hardly ever called anything.

Having gone back to the clinic after dinner, Ellie had just arrived home moments before and was still in the blue suit she’d worn to work that morning. She joined her mother on the couch.

“At least we weren’t headlines,” Megan said during the first commercial break.

Beth, her PJ’s a pair of men’s flannel underwear and a T-shirt, nodded. “Yeah, if she got anything good, we’d have been headlines.”

Ellie had to agree. She asked her mother about the presidential battle that had made the headlines, and while Beth went into the bathroom, the two of them discussed politics until the news was back on.

They made it through the second commercial break, and Ellie breathed a sigh of relief. It was stupid, really, for her to be worrying about the effect all of this was going to have on the baby boy sleeping not too far away, especially after an entire month of ignoring his existence. Still, she couldn’t seem to help herself. She felt suddenly protective of the little man—and concerned about his future.

Preparing to excuse herself, Ellie stood before the news was even over. It had been a long day; she was tired and had a load of homework to do to prepare for class the next week.

“…And now, with more on the Maitland baby scandal, we turn you over to Tattle Today TV reporter Chelsea Markum…”

Ellie froze.

“…You can’t be an Austinite without being familiar with Maitland Drive, or with the maternity clinic for which the family has gained international recognition.” A picture of Maitland Mansion flashed up on the screen, followed by another of Maitland Maternity Clinic. “But how long has it been since anyone has taken a look behind the family’s public facade to find the flesh-and-blood people living within?

“Interest in the family has been rampant ever since the appearance of an unnamed Maitland heir on the clinic’s doorstep last month. And though we’re no closer to finding out who the baby’s father is, we’ve discovered a few other secrets the Maitlands may prefer to hide. Why is it that twenty-five-year-old Ellie Maitland, toting only a bachelor’s degree, was appointed administrator of the world-renowned clinic? Nepotism you might ask?”

“I guess I pissed her off.”

Megan grasped Ellie’s hand, pulling her back down to the couch. Beth scooted over and leaned against Ellie’s legs. Ellie concentrated on keeping her dinner down.

Chelsea continued, airing previously taped interviews with a couple of the clinic’s business associates. Both of them men; both of them over fifty. Neither of them bothered to hide their disdain at the thought of taking their business to Ellie.

“I had occasion this week to discover a little bit more about this mysterious young woman who has single-handedly taken on the overwhelming responsibility of seeing to the safe running of a clinic whose clientele includes some of the world’s most famous mothers and babies.”

“You are pretty awesome, El,” Beth said, smiling up at her.

Megan squeezed the hand she still held.

With a photo of Ellie as backdrop, Chelsea Markum continued. “What I found wasn’t all sunshine and roses. The Maitland Maternity administrator isn’t always as caring and concerned as she would have us believe. A childhood friend—a very handsome, single male childhood friend—approached Ms. Maitland earlier this week, desperately in need of help with his motherless twin babies…”

Ellie’s hands and feet began to tingle as Chelsea described the scene in her office with a completely uncomplimentary slant. She could hardly hear the reporter for the roaring in her ears. She’d gone to bed, was having a really bad dream.

“…while this may not be much in and of itself, when coupled with last month’s abandoned baby, one can’t help but wonder if, contrary to their PR, turning their backs on children in need is a family trait—”

“No!”

Ellie and Beth stared as their mother jumped up and, none too gently, turned off the television. “She’s gone too far.” Megan’s words were clipped, furious, and she began to pace her suite.

Megan’s reaction scared Ellie more than anything the reporter had said.

“Is it true?” Beth asked after a couple of moments.

Ellie felt, rather than saw, her mother’s feet still.

“Sloan did come to my office,” Ellie said. But she hadn’t been as heartless as Chelsea Markum had painted her. Had she?

“And you refused to help him?” Megan asked quietly.

Looking up at her mother, Ellie wondered if this was the time when Megan would actually show her disappointment in her next-to-youngest daughter.

“I told him he could bring the babies to Beth until he could find a sitter.”

“If all he needed was a baby-sitter, why’d he come to you?” Beth asked.

Ellie’s gaze bounced between her mother and her twin. How could she help them understand what she didn’t really understand herself? “He said he needed me, that he didn’t so much want someone to watch the babies, but wanted to learn how to look after them himself. That’s not something you have someone teach you,” she said, looking at her mother beseechingly. “It’s just something you do.”

“Unless you don’t know how,” Megan said softly. But her eyes were filled with compassion, not blame. “Looking after children came naturally to you, sweetie, but you’ve been around babies all your life. And grew up with brothers and sisters. What kind of example did Sloan have?”

None. Unless you could call a womanizing absentee father and an alcoholic mother role models.

Beth hugged her knees up to her chest, facing the couch where Ellie still sat. “He’s got one hell of a lot of nerve coming to you,” she said.

Ellie wanted to think so. She sat on the edge of the couch, her hands clasped between her knees.

“And yet, who more natural for him to come to than the only person who’d ever taken the time to get to know the boy inside the man?” Megan said. “Especially a woman who’s a natural with children.”

“I haven’t held a baby in more than ten years,” Ellie said. And then remembered. At least, not until a couple of nights ago. But one night of baby holding didn’t count.

“Caring for children is not something you forget,” Megan said gently.

“You think I should have told him I’d help?” Ellie asked, feeling like a little girl again, not wanting to disappoint her mother.

“Not necessarily,” Megan replied, surprising her. “I’m just not sure I understand why you didn’t.”

“Because the jerk broke her heart!” Beth jumped up and faced her mother.

“They were friends, Beth. It’s not his fault Ellie fell so deeply in love with him.”

“That’s ancient history.” Ellie stood, too. She wasn’t going to have them all feeling sorry for her again.

“Then why’d you say no?” Megan asked again.

“I don’t have time.”

The excuse embarrassed Ellie even as she said it. She was busy, yes, but if no one else knew that she kept herself busy on purpose, Megan did. Her mother knew how much extra work, over and above her duties, Ellie had been doing at the clinic.

Moving toward the bedroom half of the suite, Megan pulled down her comforter and fluffed the pillows on her side of the bed. “Life’s short, El,” she said.

Ellie’s gaze wandered over to the side of the bed that had remained undisturbed every single night since her father’s death. It was almost as though the empty space offered some kind of comfort to her widowed mother, a testimony to the man who still owned the empty places in Megan’s heart.

“You think I should help him,” Ellie said.

“I don’t,” Beth protested. “At least, not if you don’t want to.”

“I think you should do what you feel is right, Ellie. Just make sure you know what it is you really feel.”

Her mother made it sound so easy.

CHAPTER FOUR

TIPTOEING PAST the nurse’s open door, Ellie slid into the nursery, unable to fight the urge to make this nocturnal visit. She hadn’t seen baby Cody up close since she’d held him the other night. But since she’d caught Chelsea spying on him, she’d needed to connect. To assure herself that he really was just fine.

To find out why he was pulling at her all of a sudden.

He didn’t have any answers for her.

“I have to help Sloan just to shut up the press, to protect the family’s reputation,” she whispered softly to the sleeping baby. Cody found the excuse so flimsy that he didn’t even bother to acknowledge that she’d spoken, she thought wryly. Not with so much as a puckering of his baby brow. “Okay,” she continued softly, “part of me wants to help him.” She held her breath, waiting to see if the announcement garnered any reaction. It didn’t.

Breathing a sigh of relief when Cody didn’t move, Ellie relaxed a bit. The truth wasn’t so shocking, after all. “There will have to be stipulations, of course,” she told the baby, her voice gathering confidence, if not volume. “I’ll only be able to offer whatever spare time I have. This can’t interfere in any way with my job at the clinic. With my long-term goals.”

Cody didn’t disagree. His little tummy still rose and fell methodically with every breath he took. Ellie knelt down beside the crib, resting one hand on the baby’s mattress.

“And I will in no way delude myself as to Sloan’s feelings for me this time,” she told him categorically. They had to be very clear on this point. “Loving him the first time almost killed me.”

With a deep release of breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding, Ellie sat down on her heels. It felt damn good to finally get that confession off her chest.

“You probably haven’t figured all of us out yet, but I’m pretty uptight as people go.” Confessing felt so good, she couldn’t seem to stop. “I tend to be serious—not fun and sexy like Beth.”

Stopping to make certain that the baby wasn’t paying attention, that she wasn’t hurting his sensibilities by mentioning the sex thing, Ellie watched his little lashes where they lay against his cheek. He was so beautiful. So innocent and trusting.

As were the little imps Sloan had had propped against his hips the other day.

“I’m not going to fall in love with him again,” she told the sleeping infant. “Men like Sloan aren’t attracted to women like me—but that’s okay,” she added hurriedly. “I’m at peace with that. I have my family—which includes you, little man—and I have my job, which I love. Together you all make up the solid foundation upon which my life is based…”

By the time Ellie finally returned to her bed, the night was half gone. But she spent the remainder of it enjoying a surprisingly peaceful sleep.

SARA WALKED QUIETLY through the administrative department of Maitland Maternity, only vaguely aware of the hot take-out container warming her hands. Her boss, Shelby Lord, had asked her to deliver breakfast to R. J. Maitland, and she was going to do just that, in spite of the fact that the billionaire family intimidated the hell out of her.

His secretary’s desk was empty. Shelby had said all she had to do was leave the eggs Benedict with Dana Dillinger. She hadn’t said the woman might not be at her desk.

Damn. Now what did she do?

Looking from the warm container—which wasn’t going to be warm indefinitely—to the cracked door of the president’s office, Sara shifted her weight from foot to foot.

She might not know much at the moment, but she was fairly certain that R. J. Maitland wasn’t going to be too happy with cold eggs. She’d only been at the diner next door for a couple of days, but she’d already heard enough about the workaholic eldest Maitland sibling to know that much. She knew, also, that she needed her job—desperately. At the moment, it was all she had.

“Excuse me, sir?” She pushed open the door.

R. J. Maitland, bent over his desk, didn’t even look up.

“I’ve brought your breakfast,” Sara tried again.

He continued to scribble something across the page in front of him.

Not knowing what else to do, and fretting about the customers and tips she was missing back at the diner, Sara tiptoed forward, placed the container on his desk.

“Thank you.” The words were slightly muffled, aimed as they were toward the desk.

“You’re welcome,” she said automatically.

She left the room as quickly as she’d come, pretty sure that R. J. Maitland didn’t even know she’d been there. For all the attention he’d paid her, he’d probably thought she was his secretary—the woman who delivered his food to his desk on a fairly regular basis, from what Sara had heard.

Hey, for all she knew, maybe she’d been a secretary, too. Maybe she knew all about delivering take-out cartons of food to a boss without disturbing him.

Still on the second floor, which housed the administrative offices, Sara heard a baby cry and stopped, her heart almost beating out of her chest. She leaned against the wall, hoping no one was coming, telling herself she’d be okay and trying to breathe. She heard it—the baby was still crying. And suddenly, so was Sara.

What was the matter with her?

Trembling, she clung to the wall for support, reaching deep inside herself for whatever well of strength had seen her through the last couple of weeks.

“Sara?”

The voice was familiar. Friendly. Ellie.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be.” She straightened, smiled at Ellie, wiped away her tears. She’d liked the serious-minded woman when they’d met the other day. She’d felt safe when Ellie was near.

“You sure?” Ellie asked, her eyes filled with compassion, and more. There was a quiet strength about Ellie Maitland that made Sara feel as though she could rely on her for anything.

Even picking up the pieces of a broken life. If she asked Ellie to help her, Sara knew somehow that the other woman wouldn’t stop until she’d found Sara’s answers—no matter how long it took.

“I’m sure,” Sara said, finding a smile. She couldn’t ask someone as important as Ellie Maitland for help. But it sure felt good to know that the woman was close by, if Sara ever reached the point where she couldn’t carry on another day. The thought gave her strength.

“We could sit for a minute if you’d like, or I can call a nurse.”

Shaking her head, Sara felt her strength returning. “I’m fine, really,” she insisted, anxious now to get back to her customers. Her tips. “It was just weird there for a minute. I heard a baby cry and I just—I don’t know, I lost it for a second.”

Frowning, Ellie studied her. “Were you maybe remembering something?”

The possibility had crossed her mind. The feeling had been so strong, so devastating. “Nothing but a feeling, if I was,” she said.

A feeling she was petrified to trace. What awful things were lurking in the darkness of her locked-up mind?

“I guess I better get back to the diner,” she said, before Ellie could pursue the conversation.

“If you ever need to talk, my office is right down the hall.”

Though she couldn’t imagine taking Ellie up on the offer, Sara was warmed by it just the same.

“DA-EE, UP!”

“No, Alisha, I’m changing Ariel,” Sloan explained to the toddler tugging on the leg of his jeans.

“Da-ee up!” Alisha demanded a second time, her voice starting to tremble and gain volume both at the same time.

“Alisha, Daddy’s changing Ariel,” he said, trying to reason with her. “I can’t pick you up right now.”

Keeping both of his hands firmly on the baby squirming on the change table, Sloan spared a quick glance for the little girl clutching his leg with pasty fingers.

“Da-ee, up!” Alisha wailed.

Sloan picked her up.

“You ever gonna learn to stick to your guns?” Charlie asked from the doorway of Ariel’s room.

Damn. Sloan hadn’t known Charlie had arrived yet that morning. It was humiliating having the older man see him make such a mess of things.

“I stick to my guns on the things that matter,” Sloan said. He just couldn’t think of what mattered that much at the moment.

So here he was, one daughter sucking her thumb in his ear, the other rolling over, half dressed, on the table in front of him, and his housekeeper shaking his head as if Sloan were the biggest loser on the face of the earth.

Unwilling to have Charlie witness the uproar if he attempted to finish dressing Ariel, Sloan picked up the diaper-clad infant and pretended that he’d meant to take one half-naked daughter to breakfast. At least Ariel was halfway ready. Alisha was still in her pajamas, having thrown such a fit when Sloan had laid her down to change her that he’d decided to give it a rest and tackle Ariel first.

He was saved from further admonitions when the phone rang, and Charlie went to answer it. He hoped whoever it was would keep his housekeeper busy for half an hour at least. It was going to take Sloan that long to convince his darling daughters to sit in their high chairs for breakfast.

“It’s for you—I’ll take them,” Charlie said, back in the doorway.

Sloan would have argued, but he knew better. As he handed the girls over, he also knew that he could be on the phone five minutes and return to find Charlie with both girls dressed, strapped in high chairs and happily eating Cheerios.

“Sloan Cassidy here,” he said, picking up the phone in the office, oddly ashamed at the relief he felt now that he’d escaped to his haven.

“It’s Ellie.”

His heart dropped. And then sped up double-time. In all his life, he suddenly realized, there’d never been any time he’d felt happier than during those hours he’d spent with Ellie in high school. “I’m glad you called,” he said. It was the first thing that came to mind.

“I’m not agreeing to anything, Sloan, so don’t run with this or anything, but what exactly did you have in mind when you asked for my help?”

Don’t run with it. He silently repeated her warning, but it was no good. He was dashing all over the countryside. “There are times when I need to go places with the girls and could sure use a companion to help with double car seats, double spilled food, double tears,” he said, thinking for starters.

That was the easy part.

“I can’t guarantee I’d be available whenever you have to go somewhere.”

“Even some of the time would be great,” he hurriedly assured her. “Even one time would be heaven.”

“They’re that much trouble?”

He hadn’t been talking about the girls.

“They’re a handful, at least when I’m around.” And the way he remembered it from high school, he’d always felt stronger, more capable of coping when Ellie was there. She just had a way of making things seem manageable, and, Lord knew, he could use managing.

“They’re different when you’re not around?” she asked, homing right in on the problem, as Ellie always had.

“So I’m told.” So he knew. He could hear Charlie in the kitchen already, pouring cereal. Which meant the girls were in their high chairs, right where they belonged.

“Why?”

Sinking into the big leather chair behind his desk, Sloan turned and looked out the picture window at his ranch. Cattle, tornadoes, squatters, he could handle. Baby girls, he could not. “That’s what I really need your help on,” he admitted. “I need you to teach me how to be a father, or a mother, or any kind of parent at all.”

The admission should have been humiliating, but with Ellie, it wasn’t.

“I’m hardly an expert,” she warned.

“I took them to the zoo.” Sloan heard himself recounting one of his worst nightmares. “Neither of them would sit in their stroller. But when I tried to carry them, they kicked and squirmed to get down. I put them down—they’re both walking now—and they wouldn’t hold my hands. Thankfully they were distracted by a cotton candy vendor. I bought some for them, but they refused to sit down to eat it. Ariel threw hers and hit me in the chest with it. Alisha just cried all over hers. The animals ran scared, and everyone was looking at me like I was some kind of demon. I finally had to leave with them screaming so loud all the way out to the car, I’m surprised someone didn’t call protective services.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought Ellie was laughing. “It wasn’t funny,” he said, breaking out in a sweat just thinking about the awful day.

“Ever thought of not giving them everything they ask for?” she finally said, her humor, if it had been there, under control.

“I don’t.”

“Okay, so when do we start?”

Wanting to pin her down before she had a second to change her mind, he asked, “Is tomorrow too soon? We have eighteen-month well-baby checks, and I won’t even bother to tell you how awful the last doctor visit was.”

“What time?” Ellie asked, all businesslike.

Sloan looked up the appointment on his calendar, and Ellie said she would take a late lunch to accommodate him.

He hung up as soon as he’d made plans to pick her up at the clinic shortly after one. And the only reason he suddenly felt fifty pounds lighter was that he finally had some help with his burden. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he had Ellie Maitland back in his life again.

He was an adult now, his self-control well and truly tested. He wouldn’t make hash of the friendship as he had in high school. Wouldn’t tarnish it, or Ellie, by giving in to his baser appetites. She was going to help him with his girls. Period.

He wasn’t going to repeat old mistakes.

ELLIE OFTEN RETURNED to her office at the clinic after dinner, and, that’s exactly where Lana Lord found her that night.

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