Free The Tycoon's Tots by Stella Bagwell

woman never mentioned your name.”
    â€œAnd I find it even more difficult to believe Belinda took all that money from your father!”
    Before he knew it, Chloe’s hand was wrapped around his wrist, tugging him up from the couch.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œI want you to come with me.”
    He got up from the couch and she led him down the hallway and into a room that would have been dark if it hadn’t been for the shafts of moonlight slanting through the windows.
    Wyatt knew he should have his thoughts on what she was about to show him. But where Chloe Murdock was concerned, his mind had a will of its own. He was keenly aware of the touch of her hand, the scent of her perfume, the closeness of her body.
    â€œIf this is something to do with the money—”
    â€œDon’t say anything,” she interrupted. “Yet.”
    Dropping his hand, she went to a large desk and switched on a banker’s lamp. It shed a small pool of light on the desktop but did little to illuminate the room.
    â€œThis is where my father did all the ranch’s bookkeeping. He also used this room as a place to relax and read. He was an educated man and could have taught school if. he’d chosen to use his teaching degree, but he was an outdoorsman at heart and decided to build this ranch when he was younger than I am now.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œTwenty-four.”
    She glanced at him from beneath her thick lashes, and not for the first time tonight, she noticed what a handsome man he was. Beneath his white shirt and dark olive trousers, he was broad shouldered, long legged and lean. She didn’t know if the exercise he got was natural or forced,but either way he was obviously fit. Too fit for her peace of mind.
    â€œThat’s very young to build a cattle empire.”
    â€œDaddy wasn’t your everyday kind of man. He was special.”
    He studied her quiet face. “Then you don’t hate him for the trouble he’s caused the family?”
    She looked down at the desktop to the ink blotter where Tomas’s scribbled notes were still legible. To one side lay the same ledger where he’d posted his profits. And he had made plenty of profits in his day. She could still hear his laughter, smell his cigarette smoke—and she ached to have him back.
    â€œHate him? Never. I just can’t understand what happened to him. Maybe it was seeing mother go like she did. Little by little until she was hardly more than a wisp of skin and bones. There was no doubt that he loved her fiercely. When she died he said his soul had gone with her. And sometimes I believe that might have been true.”
    Though he wanted to say something comforting, Wyatt was at a loss as to what it would be. And being who he was, he wasn’t sure she would even accept sympathy from him.
    Pushing her memories aside, Chloe bent down and pulled out a drawer at the bottom of the desk. Once she straightened, she handed Wyatt a thick white envelope.
    â€œWhat is this?”
    â€œTake a look,” she urged.
    He opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of checks bound with a heavy rubberband. For several minutes he sifted through them, studying the dates, the amounts and the account number stamped on the back.
    After a while he bound the rubberband back around them, stuffed them in the envelope and handed them back to Chloe. “That is a lot of money,” he said grimly.
    Chloe nodded. “Those checks are what finally led Royto your sister. Before then we had no idea who the twins’ mother was or that Daddy was the father.”
    â€œWas there any money left in her bank account when Roy investigated?”
    Chloe shook her head. “By then she’d withdrawn it all and left town. The bank manager told Roy it had been a small amount.”
    He let out a heavy sigh. “What was she doing with all her money? The money your father had already sent her was more than enough to