Page 49 of Texas Honor
“How about it?” he asked, forcing himself to go slow, not to rush her. He’d already had to face the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to let her go. Now it was a question of making her see that he didn’t have ulterior motives, and she was as hard to trust as he was.
“I’d like to meet Mrs. Wade,” she said after a minute. “She sounds like quite a lady.”
He laughed under his breath. “If you’d known Ty before she came along, you’d think she was quite a lady,” he agreed with a grin. “It took one special woman to calm down that cougar. You’ll see what I mean tomorrow.”
THENEXTAFTERNOONMari climbed into the Chrysler beside Ward for the trip over to the Wades’ place. Ward was wearing slacks with a striped, open-necked green shirt, and she had on a pretty green pantsuit with a gaily striped sleeveless blouse. He’d grinned when he noticed that their stripes matched.
Erin Wade opened the door, a picture in a gaily flowing lavender caftan. She looked as if she smiled a lot, and she was obviously a beauty when she was made up, with her long black hair and pretty green eyes. But she wasn’t wearing makeup. She looked like a country girl, clean and fresh.
“Hello!” she said enthusiastically. “I’m glad you brought her, Ward. Hello, I’m Erin, and you have to be Marianne. Come in and see my boys!”
“I’m glad to meet you, too.” Marianne grinned. “I’ve heard legends about you already.”
“Have you, really?” Erin laughed. She was beautiful even without makeup, Marianne thought, the kind of beauty that comes from deep within and makes even homely women bright and lovely when it shows. “Well, Ty and I got off to a bad start, but we’ve come a long way in very little time. I don’t think he has many regrets about getting married. Not even with twin boys.”
“I can just see him now, changing a diaper.” Ward chuckled.
Erin’s green eyes widened. “But you can,” she said. “Follow me.”
Sure enough, there he was, changing a diaper. It looked so touching, the big, tough rancher Marianne had met before bending over that tiny, smiling, kicking baby on the changing table in a bedroom decorated with teddy bear wallpaper and mobiles.
“Oh, hello, Jessup,” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder as he put the last piece of adhesive in place around the baby’s fat middle. “Matthew was wet, I was just changing him,” he told Erin. He glanced toward a playpen, where another baby was standing on unsteady little fat legs with both chubby hands on the rail, biting delightedly on the plastic edging. “Jason’s hungry, I think. He’s been trying to eat the playpen for the past five minutes.”
“He’s teething,” Erin said, leaning over to pick him up and cuddle him while he cooed and patted her shoulder and chanted, “Da, Da, Da, Da.”
Ty grinned mockingly at his frowning wife. “She hates that,” he told the guests. “Most babies say Mama first. Both of them call me instead of her.”
“Don’t gloat.” Erin stuck her tongue out at him. “You just remember who got up with them last night and let you sleep.”
He winked at her, with torrents of love pouring on her from his light eyes. Marianne glanced up at Ward and found him watching her with the oddest look on his face. His green eyes went slowly down to her flat stomach and back up again, and she blushed because she knew what he was thinking.Exactlywhat he was thinking. She could read it in the sudden flare of his eyes, in the set of his face. She went hot all over with the unexpected passion that boiled up so suddenly and had to turn away to get herself under control again.
“How about some coffee?” Erin asked them, handing Jason to his dad. “Ward, if you’ll bring the playpen, the boys can come with us.”
Ward, to his credit, tried to figure out how the device folded up, but he couldn’t seem to fathom it. Ty chuckled. “Here, if Marianne will hold the boys, I’ll do it.”
“Surely!” She took them, cooing to them both, loving their little chubby smiling faces and the way they tried to feel every inch of her face and hair as she carried them into the living room.
“Oh, how sweet,” she cooed, kissing fat cheeks and heads that had just a smattering of hair. The twins had light eyes like their father, but they were green.
“Thank God they both take after Erin and not me,” Ty said with a sigh as he set up the playpen and took the boys from Marianne to put them back in.
“You’re not that bad,” Ward remarked, cocking his head. “I’ve seen uglier cactus plants, in fact.”
Ty glared at him. “If you want that second damned lease, you’d better clean up your act, Jessup.”
Ward grinned. “Can I help it if you go asking for insults?”
“Watch it,” Ty muttered, turning back to help Erin with the coffee service.
The men talked business, and Marianne and Erin talked babies and clothes and fashion. It was the most enjoyable afternoon Marianne had spent in a long time and getting to cuddle the babies was a bonus. She was reluctant to leave.
“Ward, you’ll have to bring her back to see me,” Erin insisted. “I don’t have much company, and I do love to talk clothes.”
“I will,” Ward promised. He shook hands with Ty, and they said their goodbyes. As they drove away, Ty had one lean arm around Erin, looking as if he were part of her.
“That marriage will outlast this ranch,” she murmured, watching the landscape turn gray with a sudden shower. It seemed chilly in the car with that wetness beating on the hood and windshield. “They seem so happy.”
“They are,” he agreed. He glanced at her and slowly pulled the truck off onto one of the farm roads, pulling up under a huge live oak tree before cutting the engine. “Would you like to guess why I stopped?” he asked, his voice slow and tender as he looked at her. “Or do you know?”