Little Boys Blue Read online

  Slowly she moved toward the vehicle’s door to check the twins. Her spiked heel snapped. Alexa tripped. At the cracking sound, the animal first raised his head, then lowered his thick neck, aiming the wicked horns at her. It was too late to remove her skirt. Too late to open the dented front door and climb inside. And if she stayed where she was, the babies would be at risk.

  She had to move.

  Shifting sideways, she raced away from the children, slipped in the mud, rolled. The animals’ hooves pounded the ground. Alexa scrambled, crawling and kicking through the mud to her feet.

  She turned, looked over her shoulder. The bull was close enough for her to see the whites of his eyes, feel his hot breath on her neck.

  Chapter Two

  “Fall and roll!”

  At Cameron’s shout, Alexa flung herself sideways, spinning through puddles and mud. Once she was out of his gun sight, Cameron fired the .410 shotgun pistol he’d just removed from his locked gloved compartment. As his gun discharged at the bull, Alexa kept rolling, a swirl of flashing red and mud.

  At the pepper spray of pellets striking his hide, the angry bull bellowed in surprise and halted midstride. The wide-spread shot hadn’t penetrated the bull’s thick hide, and as several ranch hands herded him toward the paddock he’d escaped from, Cam turned to Alexa.

  When he’d pulled the gun out of the SUV, he’d done a quick check of the twins, and they were fine. But Alexa was lying unnaturally still. He prayed the red he could see was material from her skirt and not blood.

  “Dr. Cam, I’ll take the boys up to the house,” Cody Barnes offered with a shy look. The lanky young ranch hand was accustomed to watching his mother’s brood, and often filled in for Cam if he got busy. Cam nodded, grateful. Cody would reassure the twins, tell them cowboy stories and make them forget their scare while Cam attended to Alexa.

  “Thanks,” Cam said, and ran toward Alexa, his heart pounding against his ribs with fear that she’d sustained a mortal injury. “Bodine, fetch my bag from the house.”

  Bodine Stone, the head foreman, was accustomed to taking orders from Rafe, but he didn’t object to Cam’s hurried plea. “Where in the house, Doc?”

  “Under my desk.”

  Cam took one deep breath to steady himself. Although he was a trained physician, taking care of Alexa was very different from treating a stranger. Cam still felt guilty that he hadn’t saved Sandra. If only he’d been with her on his day off—instead of at a seminar. If only he could have put all his medical skills to use on the person he loved more than anyone else. He still blamed himself that he hadn’t even been at the hospital when she’d arrived in the ambulance. Maybe if he’d been there, he could have done…something. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to hold her hand. Or kiss her goodbye. It took all his objectivity and medical training to put the past from his mind. Put the last horrific minutes from his mind.

  A patient needed him, and he would remain detached to do his job. Kneeling beside Alexa, he smoothed aside silky black hair caked with mud and felt for the pulse at her neck. Relief flooded through him. Her pulse was good. Strong and steady.

  Gently he turned her onto her back to check her breathing. She immediately started to cough up mud and spit out dirt. Finally he heard the sound he’d been waiting for—her gasp for air.

  “Easy. The wind’s been knocked out of you.” He knelt at her side and ran his hands over her limbs but found no obvious broken bones. He searched the rest of her for signs of injury. “Don’t move.”

  “The twins?” Her eyes brimmed with tears.

  He found no sign the bull had gored her and realized with relief she would be fine. That her first thought was for his sons’ well-being sent his objectivity flying and his admiration spiraling. Alexa wasn’t just another pretty face. She had spunk and courage and as much moxie as any rodeo clown who risked his life to save endangered bull riders. And she smelled better. Much better. In spite of the mud, the expensive perfume she wore was doing strange things to his thoughts, making it difficult to concentrate.

  “The boys are fine.”

  She coughed and turned her head to spit out a little more dirt. Her color beneath the mud was too pale, her chest heaved with spasms, her body convulsed for air. And still she asked about the boys. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Don’t try to talk yet. Relax. Give your body a moment to recover.”

  Bodine shoved the physician’s bag into his hands. “Here, Doc.”

  “Thanks.” Cam extracted sterile water, wet some gauze and gently wiped Alexa’s face free of mud. First he cleaned around eyes that were still wide and frightened, then her aristocratic nose, which flared at his touch, and finally her mouth, which trembled as she tried to contain the aftermath of her fear.

  Her entire body shook. “I’m sorry I took the twins out of the—”

  “Shh. Not another word. No way could you have expected a bull to charge you.” He caressed her hair, using his most reassuring tone, his voice husky with the rash of emotions pouring through him at what could have happened. “You saved my boys’ lives. If not for your quick thinking…” He swallowed the lump that had suddenly risen in his throat. Alexa had risked her life to draw the bull away from the twins, and he owed her a debt he could never repay. The boys were his living legacy from Sandra, their hope for the future. The idea of anything happening to them was unbearable.

  He shut down the thought. He had no business worrying about his own problems when a patient needed him. “Do you hurt anywhere?”

  “Everywhere.” Alexa let out an unladylike groan. “I feel like a wrestler who just got body-slammed. But I don’t think it’s anything serious. Just bumps and bruises.”

  “Any sharp pains?”

  “Nada.”

  “How’s your vision?”

  “Now that the dirt’s clearing from my eyeballs, you don’t look so fuzzy.”

  “Did you bang your head? Any numbness in your hands or feet?”

  Alexa pushed herself to a sitting position. “I’m fine.” She looked down at her silk blouse, which had once been a pristine white, and grimaced with distaste. “Or I will be fine after I’ve had a hot soak and…”

  She must have caught the look of “no can do” on Cameron’s face. Just before the bull had interrupted his conversation, Cam had learned from the plumber that the water line wouldn’t be hooked to the house today. The swimming pool would remain empty, and they’d continue to drink bottled water. One of the trucks had slid off the muddy driveway into the open ditch, crushing the PVC pipe. Another delay.

  “I could take you up to the Senator’s house.”

  “Not looking like a pig who wallowed in mud, you won’t.”

  “The Senator won’t care—especially after I tell him how you saved his grandsons.”

  “I care.” She started to place a pleading hand on his arm, saw all the mud and pulled back. “Can you hook a hose up to the unbroken part of the water line?”

  Cam couldn’t believe his ears. The woman had faced down a bull with the courage of a matador, and she was worried about someone seeing her with a little mud on her face? To her credit, she hadn’t complained, only offered suggestions.

  Cam humored her, sure she would change her mind. “You want to wash with a hose?”

  He took Alexa’s hand, helping her to her feet. She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin to look up at him. “Is there another choice?”

  “The Highview Hotel—”

  “No.”

  “Well, we wash the twins in the horse trough. But I don’t think you’ll fit,” he teased lightly.

  Her eyes flared. At first he thought with anger. But when she opened her fingers and flicked mud droplets at him, he realized she was amused, laughing at her ruined designer suit, laughing at the mud, laughing with relief that the twins were okay. That she was okay.

  Several ranch hands hovered around. Bodine stepped forward. “You need any help with the hose, Doc?”

  “See if you can rig u
p a makeshift shower out by the barn and bring towels and soap,” he said, keeping hold of Alexa’s hand just in case she slipped or was more injured than he thought. Her hand with those perfectly manicured nails encrusted with mud felt so small in his, yet there was strength in those fingers. He recalled her ripping off her jacket, flinging it aside. His breathing had almost stopped as he’d prayed her ruse would work and give him time to retrieve his gun.

  She’d survived and now he hoped shock hadn’t hidden any internal injuries. “How do you feel?”

  “Muddy.” She kept hold of his hand and surveyed the driveway. “What was that bull doing in your front yard?”

  Good point. “Either he broke out of the paddock…”

  “Or?”

  “Someone didn’t bar the gate properly.”

  She looked around warily as if expecting the bull to charge again. “Do animals get loose often?”

  He squeezed her hand gently but couldn’t control the hardness in his tone. “It’s never happened before, and if I find out who the careless S.O.B. was, I’ll knock his ears down so fast they’ll do for wings.”

  She shot him an odd look. “Excuse me?”

  “I’d hit him so hard he couldn’t answer St. Peter’s questions.”

  “You talk funny when you’re riled.”

  “You could have been killed.” With one finger, he tipped up her chin, looked directly into eyes as green as the San Juan Mountains. “I’ll never forget what you did. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “I can think of a way.”

  Once again, she made him very aware she was a woman. It wasn’t just her muddy white blouse molding her body like plastic wrap that had him noticing she had curves in all the right places, but her attitude. Her sassy reply and the glint of devilry in her eyes rocked him back onto his heels.

  He didn’t like the way she made him notice her. Not one damn bit. Not that he could blame Alexa for looking good. Healthy. Alive. But Sandra was still in his thoughts.

  Rarely a day passed by where he still didn’t reach for the phone to tell her an amusing annecdote or to remind her to pick something up for the twins. In his thoughts, in his dreams at night, Sandra was part of his life. And although logic told him she was dead, in his heart, he felt looking at another woman was a betrayal.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, he eyed her warily. “What?”

  Her eyes misted, surprising him as they turned a soft, hazy sea-green. “You can help me keep a promise.”

  She started into the barn and he followed. So she was finally going to admit the reason she’d come. Had she promised her grandparents she’d try to convince him to give up the twins? If she thought he would capitulate to the Barringtons’ demands to surrender custody of the boys, she’d miscalculated badly. Giving up his sons wasn’t an option he would consider. Ever.

  Perhaps he was misreading her intentions. Cam waited patiently, without jumping to further conclusions, leading her past the barn toward the exterior horse stalls. The woman had almost died saving his sons. He wasn’t about to accuse her without hard information. Keeping his patience wasn’t even a stretch, not when he really wanted to check her more carefully to reassure himself she was all right.

  “Who did you promise?” he asked, stopping just outside the stall.

  “Sandra.” Alexa held eye contact with him as if by holding his stare, she could will him to believe her. “Before she died, Sandra made me promise her that the boys would never be raised by nannies or sent off to a boarding school.”

  Surprise and doubt must have flickered in his expression. “I have no intention of—”

  “But my grandparents do.”

  Suddenly the reason for Alexa’s unexpected visit focused like a microscope’s lens. The woman was just full of surprises, and he felt shamed by his earlier suspicions. “You came here to help me?”

  Alexa left him behind, entering the stall and talking while she stripped and threw her muddy clothing over the top of the door. Cameron had inherited the barn along with acre upon acre of rich pasture land after his father had divided up the ranch among his sons. None of the brothers had yet built their own barns, so all of them kept their horses here.

  It might be the ultimate in barns, but Cam couldn’t believe Alexa could so contentedly shower here. This was where the grooms washed down the animals before leading them into their stalls. Thick wooden slats lent Alexa some privacy, but the cracks were wide enough to get an eyeful if a man stood close enough.

  Cameron turned his back—although Alexa didn’t seem overly concerned by his presence. She must figure he was immune to nudity because he was a doctor.

  But he was also a man. A man with burgeoning needs and whetted desires. Was it just his time to awaken from more than a year of mourning? Or was something inside him responding to Alexa Whitfield on a level he couldn’t assess? As a man of science, Cameron Sutton no more believed in instantaneous love than he believed in little green men. Yet he couldn’t deny the heat in his loins as he listened to her speak over the shower, imagined the cool droplets sluicing away the mud to reveal pink skin, slender curves and those long, long legs. And he fought hard to suppress the image, an image that didn’t belong there.

  “Sandra’s last words should pull weight with a judge.” Alexa spoke as if oblivious to the fact that only a few rails of wood and his honor were all that protected her from his eager gaze.

  But his imagination left him no peace as he envisioned Alexa raising her hands to shampoo her hair, back arching delicately, face spattered with water droplets. Forcing himself to concentrate on her words, instead of the erotic images in his mind, he broke into a light sweat.

  The hearing wasn’t for another week. “The judge may not let you speak. I’m sure any good attorney will claim your testimony is hearsay.”

  “Exceptions are made when the children’s mother is deceased.”

  “You’ve consulted a lawyer?”

  She must have heard his incredulous tone, for she responded with a self-assurance that surprised him. “Don’t you understand the enormity of what’s at stake? I assure you my grandparents will spare no expense to win custody. They’ll arrive with a barrage of attorneys to fight you.”

  “I’ve never understood why they would contest a father’s custody. They’re your grandparents. Aren’t they too old to raise children?”

  Cameron really wasn’t too concerned. His very competent attorney had assured him that a judge wouldn’t favor the great-grandparents over the father unless some very unusual circumstances prevailed—like the father being committed to a mental institution or convicted of a crime.

  The hose finally stopped running, and he heard her drag a towel off the rails and the swish as material wrapped around her body. He pictured the towel’s corner tucked between her breasts, above several inches of bare thighs and shapely calves, and decided not to turn around.

  “The issue isn’t age. It’s money.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  At the sharp edge in her voice, Cameron turned, despite his intention not to. “Don’t know what?”

  With her hair slicked back off her face, water droplets spiking her eyelashes and the soft pink towel clinging to more curves than he’d remembered, his mouth went dry.

  “Our great-grandfather was Arthur Levenger. Ever hear of him?”

  “Of course.” He strove to keep his voice at a conversational level. The woman had no idea how she was affecting his pulse rate. “Wasn’t he one of America’s last great robber barons, the industrialist who made a fortune in the shipping and oil industries during the last part of the nineteenth-century?”

  She raised her arms and twisted excess water out of her hair. He swallowed hard, waiting for the towel to fall, but she’d secured it well, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  She reached into the bag a ranch hand had carried for her from the SUV and op
ened a jar of cream. Slowly she dabbed it on her arms, her elbows, her wrists, working it into her skin as she spoke. “Old Arthur set aside an enormous trust fund. While he ensured an ample legacy for his heirs, Levenger’s will stated that the first male heirs would inherit the majority of his vast wealth.”

  He watched her sit sideways on a bench and smooth the cream over her toes, calves and ankles as if she was in a boudoir, not a horse stall. “So?”

  “The interest has been compounding for over a century and the estate has been overseen by the shrewdest Wall Street investors.”

  “And?” How could he concentrate when he found her every movement provocative?

  “Your sons are the first male heirs since the old codger died. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I’m not that interested in financial matters.” He much preferred flesh and bones, genteel bones with creamy skin, although he didn’t dare say so. Not when the flesh was so temptingly damp, pink and glowing. Not when the bones were aristocratic and reminded him of delicate sculptures. Not when he had no business looking at her.

  “Your sons are two of the richest little boys in the United States.”

  Her words shocked him from his lustful thinking. Cam wasn’t sure how he felt about her revelation, but he knew it would change his sons’ lives in significant ways. While the Sutton family was wealthy in its own right and as a medical doctor he earned a good living, different kinds of wealth, spectacular wealth, came with a new set of problems. That kind of money made his sons a target for con men, kidnappers and terrorists, and debutantes.

  Some day it would give the twins choices he wasn’t sure he wanted them to have. But he still didn’t understand the whole picture. “Your grandparents are already rich. What does the inheritance have to do with my boys?”

  “Until the boys reach the age of twenty-one, whoever has custody of the Levenger heirs administers the trust fund.”

  Cam knew that vast wealth equated to power, but he still didn’t understand the full implications—not until Alexa laid it out for him as she towel-dried her hair.