cold empty silence that made him pause and analyze his surroundings. Elaborate oil paintings of the Civil War mingled with rich colors on the wall, leading to a double curved staircase covered in white carpet. Geez. He could picture his muddy work-boot prints on the steps, and Angelica and the twins romping around with sticky, jelly-crusted hands and muddy shoes. This place was nothing like home.
“Mr. Dex?”
Ty started and saw a stately-looking man dressed in a black uniform approaching. This had to be George, his personal valet, and according to Dex, his friend. His thick gray hair and stiff posture didn’t look very friendly, though.
“We were expecting you earlier, sir. Long flight?”
Ty nodded. “Yes. Where is everyone?”
George automatically took the garment bag from him and gestured toward the right. “Your grandfather’s in his study, as usual. And have your forgotten your grandmother always plays Bunco on Sunday nights?”
“Oh, right.” What the heck was Bunco? They had a bunkhouse at home, but no game named after it.
“Mr. Dex, are you all right?”
“Yes.” Ty scrubbed a hand over his face, suddenly weary. The less he said the better. “The trip, you know. I lost track of time.”
George nodded curtly. “Very well. I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten but the cook prepared your favorite dinner. I’ll bring a drink and your meal to your suite if you wish.”
Ty stared at him in shock. The only time he’d ever been served on a tray was when he’d been sick as a kid. Gran Cooper had made him homemade vegetable soup with cornbread, and let him stay in bed and watch cartoons. She’d played Scrabble with him. He doubted they had homemade soup and cornbread here. Or that they played Scrabble. Or that anyone would appreciate the wood carvings he made. But his grandmother loved them. And Angelica had carried the eagle he’d carved to show-and-tell. “No, I’ll eat at the table with the family.”
George frowned again. “Sir, your grandfather already dined, and your grandmother will have hors d’oeuvres with the ladies.”
So, no family dinner. “All right. You and I can eat together.”
George coughed, looking uncomfortable. “Mr. Dex, thank you, but that’s most inappropriate. You know I always take my dinner with the staff.”
Ty’s stomach twisted. He was blowing this big time. George clicked his heels. “I’ll have your dinner waiting in the dining room in five minutes.”
He suddenly disappeared, his movements efficient. Ty shook his head in disgust; how was he supposed to know how to act with servants? At home, everyone joined in to help. They cooked together, ate together and cleared the table together. The men sometimes even washed dishes. It was the Cooper clan way.
But he wasn’t a Cooper here; he was a Montgomery and he had to act like one.
George would probably faint dead away if he walked into the kitchen to help wash dishes. No, he couldn’t give Dex’s personal valet a heart attack.
Was Dex having to learn to dress himself back in Montana?
Ty chuckled at the thought of his brother being that helpless and wondered how he would handle scrubbing pots at home. Would he have to clean the big cast-iron pan Gran Cooper used to fry chicken?
God, he wanted to get to know his brother better.
His stomach growled at the thought of Gran’s chicken and homemade buttermilk biscuits, reminding him he was starved. Unsure where the dining room was located, he wandered to the right, trying to remember the tidbits Dex had mentioned. Dex’s formal study occupied the first room, while his grandfather had his own private office upstairs off his suite. Apparently the house was so large they had separate staircases leading to their own wings.
Curious about his brother’s office and hoping it would tell him more about his twin, he slowly walked inside, amazed at the fine leather and the rich woods of the furniture. Decorated in hunter green and maroon, it was a masculine room that Ty might have felt comfortable in, except for the state-of-the-art computer system occupying the entire back corner. Two paintings of English hunt scenes hung on one wall flanking a brick fireplace which had obviously never been used.
Desperate for any information on his brother and his grandparents, Ty searched the desk and wall-to-wall bookshelf for family photos, but found none.
Odd. At home, his walls held dozens of snapshots of himself and his family members, of him and his neighbor Leanne. He wondered briefly what Dex would think when he met the girl next door, the girl the Coopers hoped he’d marry. He’d have to phone Dex and tell him to be nice to Leanne. She was just a sweet, innocent kid. He didn’t want her to get hurt. She had enough problems keeping her own ranch going, especially with her ill mother.
Although both their families had been trying to push them together, he and Leanne had been friends forever, and he couldn’t see her as anything other than a little sister. He was certain she felt the same way. Besides, he sensed that Leanne wanted to leave the ranch life for bigger dreams, and his life was home on the Circle C. Any woman he got involved with would have to love it, too. She would have to fit into his world of horses and cows and land. The ranch had been in the family for five generations; he wanted to make certain the legacy continued.
Dr. Stovall’s vibrant grass-green eyes flashed into his mind, but he banished the image. Nope, that woman definitely belonged here in the city with fine museums and fancy hospitals and other doctors. Just as Paula had.
He definitely did not.
JESSICA COULD NOT stand to go home. The little house she’d rented near the hospital seemed too quiet and lonely since her divorce. The reminder of all she’d lost was painfully vivid every time she looked at the vacant room she’d painted as a nursery. Although she’d covered the bright yellow with a taupe color, when she looked at the walls, she still saw the room the way she’d imagined it during the first weeks of her pregnancy.
At the hospital she stared through the glass at the babies in the maternity unit, her heart aching. If she’d carried her baby to term, it would be a year old now. She would be planning a birthday party. She and Jack might still be together, a happy little family.
It was something she had never had, but something she’d always wanted.
Her hopes had been dashed when she’d lost their child, yet she’d tried desperately to recover. Then the doctor had delivered the final blow. She had severe endometriosis and although she wasn’t yet thirty, she’d had to have a hysterectomy. Traumatic as that had been, she’d tried to move on with her life, telling herself there were lots of needy kids in the world they could adopt.
At first Jack had agreed. He’d even been understanding and promised her it hadn’t mattered.
But it had.
And eventually Jack had admitted it.
He wanted his own child, a son who would have the Thompson genes and carry on his name. Oh, he hadn’t been ugly or mean; he’d simply been honest. Just the way he’d been when he’d told her to get rid of Nellie.
He didn’t understand her sentimental attachment to the car. Maybe she didn’t, either. But Nellie was the first thing
