The Invitation Read online

  It was when I’d procrastinated until the last minute that I looked up to see Kane Taggert standing in the doorway. And in each arm was a little boy about five years old. They were asleep, snuggled against their father in complete trust, and they were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my life. And I wanted them.

  Once I saw a $30,000 table I loved. I dreamed about it the way men dream about owning the fastest cars or a woman dreams about a man. But I had never in my life coveted anything as much as I did those two sleepy-eyed little boys.

  I knew that Cowboy Taggert and I were mortal enemies; I knew we hated each other; but I also knew I had to touch those delicious creatures. Reaching up, I stroked a black curl that was as soft as angel’s hair.

  “Are they real?” I whispered.

  Amused, Taggert said, “Very real.”

  I moved my hand down to touch a soft cheek. “But they look too perfect.”

  He snorted. “I don’t know about perfect, but at least they’re clean now. Give them about two hours and they’ll be filthy again.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Jamie and Todd.”

  I knew he was looking at me oddly, but I ignored him as I touched the other sleeping child. “Which is which?”

  “Not that it matters, but this one is Jamie and this is Todd.”

  Not that it matters, I thought. What a very odd thing to say, and then I thought: twins. Mike and Kane were supposed to be twins, Mike’s baby sons were twins, so no doubt someone thought these children were also twins. It didn’t matter to me if the whole Taggert family was nuts. If Kane wanted to pretend that his children looked alike, far be it from me to tell him otherwise.

  As I looked at them, they began to wake up. I was truly amazed they had enough strength in their eyelids to raise that thick crop of eyelashes.

  “Where is this?” Jamie asked, rubbing his eyes with his fist.

  “This used to be somebody’s house,” I answered. “There’s an enormous spiderweb in the bedroom. Like to see it?”

  “Any spiders in it?” Todd asked, his beautiful head still on his father’s shoulder.

  “One big spider and some dead flies.”

  Tentatively I put out my hand, and Jamie took it. Then Todd held out his hand. Seconds later the boys were standing one on either side of me, and we walked into the bedroom.

  They were lovely children: smart, curious, ready to laugh, full of energy. We talked about spiders and webs, and I described in detail how a spider catches flies and spins a web around them. We sat on the floor for a few minutes, a warm little boy wrapped inside each of my arms, and talked.

  During this time I don’t know what Cowboy Dad was doing. I think maybe he was standing in the doorway watching, but I wasn’t sure, and I was too focused on the boys to care where he was. After a while Kane told the boys they had to go back to camp and go to bed, so the darlings jumped up and ran around the room making a deafening noise. After a few minutes Kane grabbed a shirt collar and reached for another, but Jamie ran behind my legs for protection and then Todd tried to run to me too.

  “Todd,” I said, “you go with your father, and, Jamie, you come with me.”

  As soon as I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake. I guess I wasn’t supposed to be able to tell these twins apart either. But I am proud to say that I covered myself by saying that Todd had a grease spot on his shirt collar and that was how I knew one from the other. I got an odd look from Kane, but then he shrugged and picked up first one boy, then the other.

  “Who are you?” Todd asked. I knew that Todd was going to be the businessman while Jamie was going to break hearts.

  I considered my answer before replying. “I’m a storyteller.”

  Both boys nodded.

  As always, Kane thought I was stupid and had no understanding of even the simplest concepts. “I think he meant what’s your name?”

  “Jamie, what’s my name?”

  “Cale,” the brilliant child answered, and I gave Kane my most enigmatic smile before sweeping ahead of them and leaving the little house.

  I knew the child knew my name but that he didn’t know how I fit into his world. When you have a father like mine, a man who never allows you any independence, yet dumps enormous responsibility on your young shoulders, half of you is never a child and half of you never grows up. I understand children because about two and a half feet of me is still eight years old.

  Chapter Nine

  The next day Kane wouldn’t allow me near his little boys. It was obvious that he wanted them to bond with Ruth, but it took no genius to see that Ruth didn’t like children. The skinny one of the duet wanted to know what the boys ate just as Jamie popped a grasshopper into his mouth. I was pleased when he spit it out and it went sailing down the front of Ruth’s silk blouse. I had to leave the campsite after Ruth smacked Kane’s hands away from her blouse buttons and said, “Get those filthy beasts away from me.” I had to leave or I’d have died from keeping laughter bottled up inside me. I did have the satisfaction of meeting Kane’s eyes just before I turned away and was able to give him a raised-eyebrow, this-is-the-woman-you’re-going-to-marry? look. Grabbing an apple, I started walking toward the Templeton house.

  Once I was in that old house I felt better and began to wonder when I could go back to Chandler and catch the first toy plane out. I wanted to get away from the entire Taggert clan. All of them were crazy, what with their twins who didn’t look alike, and their quick hate and love. It was going to be great to be back in New York where people acted sane.

  I went upstairs to the loft, sat on the windowsill, looked down the road, and ate my apple. I was certainly going to miss those children, though. Which was absurd, considering I’d known them less than twenty-four hours. Jamie had crawled inside the sleeping bag with me last night; then this morning Todd had cried because Jamie had spent more time with me than he had. That was when Kane took both boys away from me and steered them toward Ruth.

  I was sitting there eating my apple when I saw Kane—alone, no kids—walking toward the cabin. He looked up, saw me, and for a moment I thought he was seeing the dead actor’s ghostly face. Even from the second story I could see that he’d turned pale, and he began to run toward the house. The way he ran was almost frightening, as though he’d seen something terrible, terrifying.

  As for me, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move as I heard him thunder into the house, then tear up the ladder to the loft.

  He pulled me off the windowsill and we went tumbling to the floor where my back scraped the rough wood as all two hundred pounds of him landed on top of me. At first I struggled to get away from him, but I stopped when I realized he wasn’t moving. He was sprawled on top of me, looking down at me as though I were some museum specimen. For a moment I glared up at him to give him the idea that I wanted him off of me.

  God, but he was a good-looking man! He had short, thick eyelashes that actually curled, like mine did after I’d spent ten minutes torturing them with a curler. His lips were full and soft and just barely parted, and I could feel his breath on my face.

  I guess we all think of ourselves as rational human beings, and we like to think that if faced with an irrational situation—a burning building, for example—we would act with calm and intelligence. But then something dreadful happens and we embarrass ourselves by acting just as we’d hoped we wouldn’t.

  That’s what I did when this big cowboy was looking down at me from under those eyelashes with his sweet, warm breath touching me. I wanted to get away from him. Honest, I did. I could imagine rolling away from him and standing over him, hands on hips, cool, triumphant, unaffected by his beauty, and saying something like “Don’t you ever touch me again.”

  That’s what I wanted to do. What I did was flick my tongue across his lips.

  The gesture startled me, and it startled him. Well, I guess it more than startled him. Actually, it turned him on.

  One thing I like about being female is that the evidence of se