Chapter 6
Kurt was still fuming over that damned cowboy the next day. He had been for hours. Ever since she had clung to that asshole like he was her rescuer or something. Like she’d needed that guy to rescue her from Kurt.
And what was that bull about making some ranch a home? The guy had been touching her. It had only been a month since she’d been in Kurt’s bed. Greer wasn’t that kind of woman. At least…not until Kurt had touched her, anyway.
Maybe she’d jumped into this guy’s bed on the rebound? And was doing something thoughtless? Careless?
How well did she know the guy? Cowboy Bob could be after the money she had.
Kurt knew the Hillers were wealthy. His private investigator had found that all of the Hiller siblings owned equal shares of their family ranch, though only Gene, Gunn, and Grady ran it day to day.
It was a big place. Bigger than what Kurt had built so far, too.
They had four dozen employees out there.
He only had about half that on all his places right now.
He had originally intended to ruin the Hillers financially, so that they had to give up that ranch that had been in their family for generations. He’d wanted to destroy them all.
But his beef was with Gene. Not the rest of the Hillers. One was a minister, for heaven’s sake.
And three were just innocent women, including his Greer.
They didn’t deserve to lose their heritage because of his quest for vengeance. He wouldn’t do that to her.
He had hurt her enough. He wasn’t going to do anything else to harm her. Except…take his son back as soon as he legally could.
Greer adored Calvin.
Calvin was Kurt’s. And his son belonged with his father.
Carly had told him six months ago that they’d made a baby the last time they had slept together. It was right after her divorce from Gene Hiller had been final. He hadn’t touched her before that had happened. He didn’t sleep with married women, ever.
But nine months later, she had dropped that baby off on Hiller and left. Disappearing.
She’d shown back up six months ago and tried to slither up to Kurt again. And dropping hints that the man she knew he had despised since he was eighteen had something of Kurt’s. Something she’d help him get back.
It had damned near destroyed him to learn that he had a son out there that had been taken from him. By Gene.
That man was no better than a killer. If Gene hadn’t been such an asshole, Kurt’s brother Kevin would have never died on the road that day.
Kurt was still trying to get accurate details of what had happened on the road leading to the Hiller ranch. But…something had been covered up. He was still doing the digging to uncover it. It had been buried for fifteen years now. Kurt needed answers.
Gene Hiller had been involved. That was indisputable. Naelin Lassiter, the private investigator he’d hired, had made that very clear. The Hillers knew what had happened to Kurt’s brother that day.
He had despised that man ever since. To know Gene was raising Kurt’s son was damned near destroying him.
Just like knowing Greer would never forgive him for taking that boy back where he belonged.
He had lost her, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to lose his son.
He had a careful plan laid out on the desk in front of him.
Including a photo of little Calvin his private investigator had taken for him a few months ago.
Of Calvin on a carousel, in Greer’s arms. Of all the Hillers to have been holding the boy at that particular moment, and it was Greer staring up at him now. A smile was on her gorgeous face. Love.
Damn it.
He was getting obsessed. There was no denying it.
Kurt jerked out of his chair. He had work to get done. He didn’t have time to be inside, mooning over that woman and what could have been.
He had a legacy to build for his son—both of his children, if Greer was pregnant now—to inherit one day.
Work always cleared his head. He needed that now.
He had just reached the office door when the doorbell sounded.
Kurt cursed. The hands all just knocked on the back door. No one came to the front door.
He swung it open. To see a woman there with a baby in her arms, and a toddler standing just in front of her. “Hello, are you Kurtland Chase?”
“Yes. That’s me.”
“Mr. Chase, may I come in?” The woman was around Greer’s age and very pretty, in a pale blonde, delicate flower kind of way. Nothing like Greer’s earthy sexiness. “There is something important we need to discuss.”
“Of course.” She walked right in. “Can I help you?”
“You can get Bristol. She doesn’t always go where you want her to.”
He assumed the taller girl was this Bristol. He reached for her. He didn’t know much about kids, but he was going to have to learn eventually. Well, sooner than later, according to the attorney he’d hired for the next part of his plan.
The little girl just looked up at him out of big brown eyes.
“Hi, sweet pea. Let’s get inside out of the rain, okay?”
She just nodded.
The woman settled on his living room couch and almost inspected the place. It was obvious she liked what she saw. “Is it reasonably child-proofed? If it is, you can put her down.”
“Yeah, it’s a safe place. Exactly who are you?”
“I am Ava Buchman. I’m a social worker out of Kerrville. I am afraid I’m here with sad news, Mr. Chase. Are you aware of your half-brother’s father’s daughter, Tisha Dawson?”
“I think so. She was several years younger than me. What does she need?” He wasn’t related to that woman at all. He hadn’t seen her in years.
Since his half-brother’s funeral. Since he’d made several million by his thirtieth birthday he’d had a few long-lost relatives come out of the woodwork.
“She’s dead, I’m afraid. Her romantic partner passed away two weeks ago.
Tisha OD’d four days ago. They were heavy users.
We did find paperwork loosely naming you as a potential guardian for their daughters, Bristol and Bronte.
I am here to see if you are willing to assume custody, provided you pass all home inspections.
The guardianship papers are all in order, mostly. ”
“I never signed any guardianship papers. I didn’t even know she had kids. I haven’t seen her in fifteen years. She was eleven or so then.” This woman was insane. No doubt about that. “Was my signature on there?”
“Well, no. That was the one thing that was missing. I also understand that you are the only one with any type of tenuous kinship connection at all. I was on my way through here after collecting the children, and decided to stop here, for efficiency’s sake.
To touch base, inform you of what had happened.
” She stood, and lifted the baby from the floor. “Thank you for your time.”
The baby babbled something at her—looking like her uncle Kev in that moment. These kids…had been Kev’s nieces. That mattered. Family. If it was Calvin out there lost in the world with no one to love him…what would Kurt wish for him?
“Wait. What’s going to happen to them if I don’t take them?”
“Well, they are going to a foster home in Barrattville tonight, regardless.”
Foster care had damned near destroyed Kurt. It had cost him his brother in the end. All the family he had had. The little girl in his arms laid her head on his shoulder. Clung. Like he mattered.
“If you don’t take them, then they will be placed in another foster home. Once the courts have exhausted searches for potential relatives, though their mother seemed adamant in the letter we found that there was no one but you that they felt appropriate, they will be put up for adoption.”
“Together?” He’d been yanked from his brother when he was no more than six, but he still remembered how it had hurt.
They’d had two or three visits together after that, each one more painful than the last. He looked at the girls.
The thought of kids being split up like that sickened hm.
They were so young—they wouldn’t know each other at all.
“Most likely. Unless it’s decided for some rare reason that it’s best for them not to be.”
“Why did she pick me?”
“I am not sure. But…you are the closest family they do have. Fictive kin, really, as their mother’s father was married to your mother at the time of his death, Mr. Chase.
I understand what I am asking of you, but is there any possible way you would be willing to assume guardianship of your stepsister’s little girls? ”
Kurt couldn’t watch family just disappear forever.
He hadn’t had a family in fifteen years, since he had lost his older brother because of Gene Hiller.
And he knew what the foster system was like.
Far too intimately. Those little girls were just staring at him.
Waiting for someone to protect them—the way no one had protected him, Kev—or these girls’ mother.
No one had cared enough to…care. “I’ll need some real time to think about it.
But…I don’t want to see them split up. Or with strangers, I mean, people they aren’t related to, you know?
My mother and her third husband were together on paper, but they didn’t live together.
For decades, I think. I’m not sure why. Not exactly a happy home kind of people.
Just…I need a few days to think about it. ”
But he knew, as he helped her get the girls loaded into car seats. He knew what he was going to do now. Kurt was used to making pivotal decisions in a heartbeat. Even though this was the most serious decision he could ever make. This…he was going to do it.
He couldn’t stand the thought of losing family. And he was all Kevin’s nieces had. Those little girls deserved someone to even care about what happened to them.
His life had just changed completely once again.