Daddy's Little Darlings

“I’m on both your sides.” She pecked him with a gnarly finger. “It behooves me greatly not to have any of my children divorcing. It’s bad economy when there’s three newborns involved. Pick me up a box of chocolate Turtles while you’re in there,” she instructed. “I can tell I’m gonna be needed for a while.”

DAPHNE AWAKENED to the sound of silence. She yawned, realizing she was sweating. Her gown was twisted between her legs, constricting her. Her breasts hurt, but she felt relaxed for the first time since the babies had been born.

The babies! They needed to eat! She shot up in the bed and flew to the cribs. Every single one was empty.

Throwing on a robe, she hurried down the hall. Stopping just in time before exposing herself to the whole con tin gent of people standing in the great room, she watched the lesson in progress.

Nelly and Danita were patiently showing Alex how to diaper a baby. By the pile of plastic diapers beside him, he wasn’t any good at it. Sinclair stood nearby, holding one child who waited its turn at being a victim to Alex’s technique. Alexander Senior scowled in a corner, apparently disapproving of his son’s participation in child rearing.

“I got it!” Alex cried triumphantly. Holding the baby up, he showed off his handiwork to an admiring group. The diaper promptly slid off, leaving the baby bare, which was cute, except then a trickle splattered to the table underneath. Nelly quickly clapped a wash cloth to the infant bottom.

“Maybe a little more work,” she said kindly. “This one has a tiny waist. It’s hard to get it to fit properly.”

Daphne slapped her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh at Alex’s forlorn expression. Part of her was angry that they were putting plastic diapers on her babies, but if Alex was bent and determined to learn how to diaper, then plastic tabs were certainly safer than safety pins.

The yearning inside her, the voice she was desperately trying to ignore, told her that he was the most wonderful man in the world for wanting to learn. The pile of diapers and torn tabs beside him was testament to his determination. These girls his father regarded as nice but not as important as boys appeared to have Alex’s complete interest—despite the fact that she couldn’t give him a son.

If she wasn’t careful, she wouldn’t be able to insist upon the divorce in two weeks. She’d tried putting three cribs in the room to distance Alex. It wasn’t working, she knew, her heart melting as he finally succeeded with a well-wrapped diaper and snuggled his daughter to him in masculine victory. She’d brought in her mother as a deterrent, but that didn’t seem to be working, either, as she watched Danita thump her son-in-law on the back in congratulations.

Their marriage was based on lies. Her father had lied, cheating Alexander Senior. Alexander Senior had lied, cheating Alex out of a wife of his choosing. Alex was lying, really, by saying it didn’t matter that he didn’t have a son, that he’d married her because he loved her. He’d married her because his father wanted him to. Alexander Senior would really roar if he knew the over priced cattle he’d bought by way of a dowry hadn’t secured him what he’d thought he was really buying—male heirs.

Even she wasn’t being truthful, insisting she wanted a divorce. It was the last thing in the world she wanted, and what she was most determined to get. One day Alex would look back regretfully upon his life with her. He would want more than she had given him. She’d be kidding herself to think it could work out differently.

“Alex,” she said as she walked into the great room, “may I see you alone for a moment?”

The whole room came to a stand still to stare at her.

“The nap looks like it did you good,” Danita said.

“I’m fine, Mother. Alex? Do you have a moment?” She refused to be turned from her purpose.

“Sure.” He followed her down the hall to the bedroom full of cribs.

“You have diapered my babies in disposable diapers. You have taken them from my room. I said I would raise my children without an army of staff, and I meant it. This isn’t Windsor Castle, and I am not a princess who wants to be waited on hand and foot.”

“You needed your rest, Daphne. It’s important for, uh, breast-feeding,” he said quickly.

He’d been coached, she could tell. Her mother’s work, no doubt. “Alex, I absolutely will not become dependent on you. If you can’t go along with what I think is best for me and my family, then we’ll just have to move out.”

She watched anger flare brightly into his midnight blue eyes.

“Daphne, you’ve avoided me for months. You’ve kept me dangling on a string about a divorce. You’ve had the audacity to think you can keep my children from me. As the other half of this marriage, I have some rights, too. It’s been pointed out to me that I should let your female hormones rule for the time being, but—” he caught her in a grip Daphne had no desire to shrug off “—right now, I’ve had all the advice I can take.”

With that, he slanted his mouth against hers, kissing her in a way that sent memories washing over her and desire flaming into her body.

Breathlessly, she sagged against him as he raised his head to stare at her. “No protest?”

“I’m working on one,” she said feebly. “Maybe I’ll go take a shower.”

“Good idea. I’ll help you.” Lifting her in his arms as if she were no more than a feather, Alex carried her into the bathroom.

“No! I’m not showering with you!” she cried.

“I didn’t suggest that you should.” He pulled her gown over her head, staring at her body so intensely that Daphne could only pray he wouldn’t find fault with her. “Though, as I recall, you liked it very much when I washed your back. And front. You’re so beautiful,” he told her, kissing each breast reverently. “Those little ladies of mine are going to have to learn to share.”

“Oh, Alex,” Daphne murmured, as he licked her nipples into taut, swollen eagerness. “Don’t do this to me.”

Slowly, he raised his head and moved away from her. “You’re right. I’m rushing you. I’ve thought about you day and night, Daphne. Damn it, I’ve missed you!”

“I’ve missed you, too,” she said quietly. Their marriage had been so good until she’d over heard his conversation with his father.

“So. No more talk about divorce.” He gave her a look that meant he intended to have the last word on this.

“On the contrary,” she said miserably, “I find it more necessary than ever to get a divorce. It’s even more imperative that I move out of the house. You’ve just proven to me that we can’t live together under the same roof without wanting each other. There’s no in-between for us, Alex. It’s better if I move back to my apartment as soon as possible.”

Chapter Four

Slowly, Alex reached for Daphne’s robe and helped wrap it around her. He kept his expression neutral, but his heart pounded. “Tell me what you’re so afraid of.”

She shook her head. “I’m not afraid.” But she backed up a step from him, belying her words.

“You are. You’re practically shivering now.” Even though he knew she wouldn’t like it, he reached across the space between them and took her hands in his, rubbing them gently between his palms. “All this insistence on a divorce isn’t good for us, Daphne.”

“I know,” she said, her tone miserable, “but I think it would be better than living like this.” After a second, she pulled her hands out of his and turned around.

He stared at the white, quilted material of her bathrobe, wondering how he could get her to under stand the way he felt. “I apologize for coming on too strong. I have always been greatly…attracted to you.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

“But don’t do it again?”

Her hair shook in a tantalizing fall of amber bright ness. “No, don’t do it again.”

He drew a deep breath. “Daphne, you are an amazingly beautiful woman. You are my wife. I’d have to be six feet under not to want you. But if that’s what you want, I swear on my honor not to touch you.”

They’d made so many promises to each other when they’d married. Daphne bit her lip, refusing to let the tears fall. “And you won’t fight me when I move out in fourteen days?”

“I won’t, if that’s your decision.” He’d help her, though the effort would kill him. Under no cir cum stances would his wife suffer if he could help it. “I’ll expect joint custody, however.”

She whirled, her face pale. “What does that mean?”

His shrug was dismissive, a gesture he forced. “You’re trying to separate me completely from your life, Daphne. You may be willing to live without me, but it’s a decision I don’t think our children will feel the same about.”

An exhausted breath left her. “I can’t fight with you any more right now, Alex. I’m too tired.”

Her green eyes didn’t sparkle with their usual fire. Beating her down wasn’t going to help either of them or the babies. And intimidating her wasn’t some thing he wanted to do, either. Desperation had made him speak the truth, though he’d known she wasn’t ready to hear it. He nodded and walked to the door. “Get some rest. Ring if you need anything.”

She stared at him with huge, almond-shaped eyes. He inclined his head to her before leaving the room. Brilliant move, Alex. Danita’s advice was good, but he hadn’t followed it very well. It was difficult where Daphne was concerned! She made him feel so many things all at once that it was impossible to remember he was supposed to be allowing her to be the stubborn one. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to kiss her all over that wonderful body, hear the sighs he’d missed hearing. But when she pushed him away he felt rejected. It sent some macho monster rearing inside him, which was exactly what he didn’t need right now. Daphne never responded well to hard-pressure tactics. It was a lesson he should have learned well. After all, she had moved and gotten an unlisted number to avoid him.

Completely frustrated, he sought out Sinclair. He soon located him, polishing the car Alex had driven to the store to get diapers and formula with Danita. It hardly needed sprucing up, but his faithful butler’s movements were a bit frantic.

“This is not going well, Sinclair,” he said, leaning against the car near an open can of wax.

“No, sir.”

Alex sighed. He reached for a chamois cloth and dipped it into the wax.

“Allow me, sir,” Sinclair told him. He took the chamois and put it aside.

“Trust me, I could use the work, Sinclair.”

“You don’t do it as well as I do.”

His butler’s craggy face was impassive. Alex folded his arms across his chest and looked at the sky. Daphne was telling him the same thing. Only she could raise their children the way she wanted it done. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I have to fit in somehow.”

“You’ve got your hands full.”

The understatement of the year. Alex nodded. “How’s my father enjoying watching me struggle?”

“Mr. Banning seems quite astounded by the pandemonium which has broken out in the house. But I think he’s getting used to it. He was actually talking about buying Miss Daphne a gift.”

“Hope he does better than I did with the pearls.”

“Miss Daphne did not receive them well?” Sinclair raised his brows.

“She hardly received them at all. I think they’re still lying on the dresser in their pouch,” Alex said, his tone rueful.

“I see.” Sinclair rubbed harder at an in visible spot on the car. “Perhaps there’s some thing Miss Daphne would like better.”

“I don’t know what,” Alex replied heavily, “unless it’s a divorce. She mentions that quite frequently.”

“I’m positive it will come to you, sir.”

“What will?” His state of confusion was growing. How could he think when Daphne had scram bled his normally acute mind?

“The right thing to do.”

“You’re not much help except for mumbling platitudes,” Alex told him grumpily. “No, sir.”

Alex shifted, knowing he was being a pain. The problem was, he felt like his skin wasn’t his own. He felt like he didn’t fit into his own house any longer. “Should I go see my father? Would he welcome a visit?”

“Not right now.” Sinclair’s voice was kind yet matter-of-fact. “He’s revising his will with his attorney.”

“Revising his will!” Alex straightened. “Why?”

Sinclair shrugged. “I am not party to the inner most thoughts of my employer, sir.”

“The hell you’re not! You know all my inner most thoughts, and I’m your employer, too!”

“I helped diaper you. That gives me special rights in your life, I suppose,” Sinclair said good-naturedly. “However, your father and I have always had a different sort of relationship.”

“You’re not the only one.” Alex squinted at the top level of rooms. He thought he could see his father’s shadow move from the dormered window. “He didn’t tell you anything?”

“Not a thing,” Sinclair con firmed. “But I would think any changes he has decided to make have to do with your three new daughters.”

“Daughters. Of course. Father’s probably cutting me out of his will.”

“Could be.” Sinclair’s tone wasn’t encouraging. “Though I felt hopeful when he touched Alex Junior’s head.”

“He did?” He couldn’t help his astonishment.

“When he thought Nelly and I weren’t looking, he actually rubbed one palm over Alex Junior’s head.” Sinclair wore a questioning frown. “Since she lacks even fuzz up there, I was quite shocked.”

“She is the ugliest baby on earth, isn’t she?” Alex’s shoulders drooped. “A runt. That’s what she reminds me of. How could I father a runt?”

Sinclair started laughing. He dropped his chamois onto the gleaming car and turned to lean against it, holding his stomach with laughter.

“What? What’s so funny?” Alex demanded.

His usually reserved butler shook his head, wiping tears from his eyes. Alex stared, astonished. “I’ve never seen you act this way.”

Sinclair bent over double, guffawing in a most un-austere manner.

“Will you please tell me what you’re laughing about?”

Sinclair took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “That’s just what your father said when you were born.”

Alex froze. “I see nothing funny about that.” His father had taunted him most of his life about numerous things. He couldn’t remember ever really pleasing him. To be reminded of his short comings right now, when he’d fathered three girls, wasn’t some thing he wanted to hear.

“No, probably not.” Sinclair gave him an ironic look and pulled his wallet from his suit pocket. He unfolded it, then handed it to him. “That’s really what I’m laughing about.”

He stared at the picture underneath the worn plastic. A baby face peered out at him. “You have an ugly baby, too?” It was some thing he didn’t know about Sinclair. He thought the man’s whole life had revolved around Alex since the day he’d been born. But maybe there was a happy ending to the story. Maybe Sinclair’s ugly off spring had grown up to be someone wonderful, a man with intelligence and great abilities—

“That’s you,” Sinclair said with a grin. “Look closer. That little runt is you.” He reached to pull the picture from under the plastic so Alex could see better. “Bald as a baseball bat, despite Nelly rubbing your head with baby oil constantly. Just like rubbing a baking potato with butter,” he said cheerfully.

The baby in the picture seemed happy in his ugliness, sporting a satisfied expression as he lay snuggled into his covers. Alex felt a momentary sting for the baby’s un spoiled happiness. He’d had no idea what he was up against.

“No hair, didn’t open your eyes for days,” Sinclair went on. “Just a happy runt, content to be fed every couple of hours, then you went right back to sleep. Nelly said she’d never seen such a good baby.” He folded the picture away. “Your mother thought you were the most beautiful thing she’d ever laid eyes on,” he said with a meaningful glance at Alex.

“She did?”

“She did, right until the day she died.” Sinclair gave him a swift pat on the back. “Your mother didn’t care two hoots what the old man thought about her baby. She said runts were blessings, too, and if you were a bit small and a lot ugly, that just made you all the more special in her eyes.”

“I’m sure Father had plenty to say about that,” Alex muttered.

“Nothing your mother ever listened to. When he complained because you had a lazy eye that needed surgery, she told him to take a flying leap. She phrased it more ladylike, but that was the gist. And when you needed special shoes because your feet turned different ways, your mother told your father it meant you would always walk a more gifted path.” Sinclair began putting away the can of wax and the rags. “Guess she was right.”

“She sounds like Daphne,” Alex said with sudden realization.

“She does, doesn’t she?”

He sounded surprised, but Alex had the idea that Sinclair had been leading up to his point.

“And your father loved your mother to distraction.”

“He did?” Alex couldn’t imagine his father loving anyone enough to be distracted.

“Yes. ‘Course, he couldn’t show it much. Your father hadn’t experienced enough love in his life to be able to show it to anyone else.” Sinclair finished packing the tools. “It’s a sin of the father I might recommend you not visit on your own marriage,” he said cryptically.

Alex stared at him.

“And as you may have realized from seeing the very picture made the day you were born in the hospital, runts grow up with feelings and needs of their own. Alex Junior will need you to treat her as if she were the most beautiful child in the world, just as your mother did you. Though I daresay Miss Daphne is going to have to come up with better names for those children soon before I lose my wits,” he muttered before nodding briskly and leaving, the only lecture he’d ever given Alex apparently over.

It was a lot to think about. Alex squinted at the dormered window again, his father’s shadow more evident than before. That was how he always saw his father, as an over whelming, disapproving, dark presence that affected his life. He loved his father, knew how to deal with him on most matters. But the old man was an enigma. He had never really expended sentiment on Alex, not with the fond affection Sinclair and Nelly had shown him. They had raised him, of course.

It struck him that he had suggested to Daphne that she do the same by telling her the babies should go to the nursery. That had been an error on his part, one he resolved not to repeat. If his mother hadn’t died when he was so young, he doubted very seriously that Sinclair and Nelly would have had such a great hand in his up bringing, as wonderful as they’d been to him.

But family retainers, close and part of the family as they were, couldn’t replace a father’s and mother’s love to their children. He stared at the shining, polished surface of his sports car and made a sudden decision.

DAPHNE SHOWERED and took a nap, so she was ready when her mother brought the young troop of hungry mouths in to be fed. Eagerly, she reached for Yoda, who was crying the most urgently.

“Oh, sweet thing,” she murmured, taking the baby in her arms. “Are you hungry?”

“They’re all hungry,” Danita said. She sat in a rocker with the other two and held them to her ample bosom. “Flowers look nice,” she said over the wails.

“Yes.” Daphne barely glanced at the vase of sunshine-yellow roses Alex had brought into her room. It was too painful. To continue her stern facade, she couldn’t allow herself to be softened by his attempts to woo her. She wished he would stop so she could continue feeling hurt and angry, the way she’d been when she’d left this house before. Lying back against the pillow, she forced herself to think of anything besides Alex so she could relax enough to feed her baby.

Ten minutes later, Danita gave Miss Magoo to her. “Will you ever grow eye lashes?” she cooed to Miss Magoo as the baby latched on.

Danita glanced up from changing Yoda into a fresh gown and diaper. “Sure, she will. You didn’t have any lashes when you were born.”

“I didn’t?” She hardly needed to use mascara now.

“Nope, you didn’t. In fact, I think that ‘un looks most like you.”

“Do you think so?” She gazed at the contentedly feeding baby. “Her hair does seem to have a little red in it.”

“Yep. Gonna have your green eyes, too.”

“How can you tell?” Right now, all the babies’ eyes seemed about the same color to her, not that she’d really gotten a good look at them.

Danita shrugged, picked Yoda up then set her down cozily in her crib. She returned to grab Alex Junior up and seat herself in the rocker. “I don’t know. She just looks like you when you were born.”

“Well, I’m glad for that.” She held her baby tightly.

“This ‘un looks like Alex.” Danita looked at the baby she held.

“I don’t know,” she replied doubt fully, “I don’t see much of Alex’s, um, good looks in her.” She wasn’t about to mention to her mother that she found her husband very handsome!

“You’ll see.”

Since Danita seemed certain of that, Daphne nodded. “What about that one? Do you see anybody in her?”

They both stared at the crib where Yoda was sleeping.

“Yes. To be honest, I see a lot of Sabrina Caroline in her.”

Tears jumped into Daphne’s eyes. Sabrina had been Alex’s mother. Daphne could only remember meeting her once, at a Christmas party. It had been the only year her family had been invited to the lavish party at the Green Forks ranch, because Mrs. Banning died the next year. And the feud had begun. Her father and Alex’s father had spent years arguing over fence lines and water rights and steers crossing where they shouldn’t… Daphne made herself stop thinking about it. She felt un com fort able enough in this house as it was. “I suppose it will please Alex,” she said wistfully, “to have a child who looks like his mother.”

“Not until he realizes it.” Danita gave her daughter a jaundiced look.

Daphne shook her head. “I’m not going to mention his mother. I don’t even want to talk to Alex.”

“You’re not going about this the right way, Daphne Way,” her mother warned. “You oughta think about how you’d really feel if Alex decided to give you what you say you want.” Danita rocked in the chair. “Don’t think you’d like it as much as you think you would.”

“I don’t think I would like it!” Daphne cried, distressed. “I think it’s the only way. How can I stay married to a man who promised his father he would give him a son?”

“Bah. Alexander doesn’t know girls from boys except for that which dangles tweenst their legs.”

“Mother!”

“Well, it’s true. Reckon if you’d dressed Alex Junior up in a blue onesie and booties and told Alexander it was a boy, he’da not known the difference. Sure as heck never held his own child, I’d be willing to bet.” She stared at the baby in her arms. “Wish I’d thought of dressing you in blue sooner, tyke.”

“Mother!” Daphne repeated, her tone more shocked than before. “I would never dress my daughters up to fool Mr. Banning. Children should be treated equally, no matter their sex.”

“Well, you like to do things the hard way, Daphne, not that I’m suggesting we shoulda done it. I’m just saying I wish I’d thought of it sooner.” Her expression was serious. “Maybe it would have kept the chauvinistic old idiot from calling his lawyer in.”

Daphne’s skin turned chilly. The baby allowed Daphne’s nipple to slide out of her mouth in a satisfied, sleepy movement, but Daphne’s insides were nowhere as content. “Lawyer?”

“Yep.” Danita reached for Miss Magoo and traded her for a quiet, wide-eyed Alex Junior. “Nelly told me he’s got the lawyer in there right now, and she heard him tell Sinclair he’s changing his will.”

“Oh, my,” Daphne breathed. “Wonder what he’s up to?”

“I have no idea.” Danita competently diapered the baby and moved her to a crib. She gazed at the two sleeping babies, making certain their blankets covered them just so. “Don’t think he’s too happy with Alex, though. Shot blanks as far as the old tyrant is concerned.”