The Tycoon's Secret Child (Texas Cattleman's Club: Blackmail 1)

Of course, since female members were admitted to the club several years ago, there’d been some changes, too. The child care facility was the most monumental, but there were smaller, less obvious changes as well. The walls were a lighter color, there were fresh flowers in the meeting rooms and the quiet hush that used to define the old place had been replaced with an abundance of feminine voices.

Wes had no problem with female members and neither did his friends. But the old guard still wasn’t happy and usually fought the women on every change they tried to institute. Even something as stupid as what they were dealing with tonight—the color of the restrooms.

Wes focused on a trio of women across the room who were even now arguing with two older men whose faces were practically purple with suppressed rage. Shaking his head, Wes looked at his ex, Cecelia Morgan, and her pals Simone Parker and Naomi Price. The three of them together were surely annoying, but he’d always thought of them as benign, somehow. Now though, he had to wonder if the trio of Mean Girls were behind the Maverick business. Yet even as he thought it, Cecelia spouted off about the color of the walls in the women’s restroom as if deciding on Springtime Peach was the most important thing in the world. Could she really be behind the devious attack on him?

While she propped her hands on her hips and glared at the older man in the leather chair, Wes could hardly believe that once upon a time, he’d been involved with Cecelia. What the hell had he ever seen in her? Sure, she was gorgeous, but she and her friends still seemed to be locked into high-school behavior, living up to their nickname, the Mean Girls.

As he watched, Simone Parker, with her bold blue eyes, long black hair and body built to wake the dead, leaned into old man McGuire, shaking her finger in his face. Right beside her was stunning Naomi Price, with brown eyes and long reddish-brown hair. Naomi had a self-satisfied look on her face as she watched Simone battle with the old man. Cecelia, though, gave a glance around as if she were looking for a way out.

Briefly, her gaze met Wes’s, and she must have read the disgust on his face, because damned if she didn’t look embarrassed to be a part of the scene playing out in front of her. But thankfully, Cecelia was no longer Wes’s problem.

As if he could read Wes’s mind, Toby sighed and said, “Those three should have grown out of that nonsense after high school.” He paused, then added, “Especially Naomi. That’s just not who she is. Not really.”

“I don’t know,” Tom put in. “The three of them have been bothering people in Royal for years. Maybe it’s just become a habit for all of them.”

“Then it’s one they should break,” Wes said, taking another sip of scotch.

“Agreed,” Toby muttered darkly.

“All right now.” Parker Reese, pediatrician at Royal Memorial hospital, spoke up loudly enough to be heard over everyone else. “Can we cut to the chase here? Let’s get the decisions done so we can get out of here.”

Normally, Parker was quiet, approachable, but not overly friendly. The crowd quieted, the club’s president, Case Baxter, took over and the Mean Girls subsided into silence.

“Well, damn,” Wes muttered. He might actually get out of this meeting in time to tuck Caroline in and read her a story. “It’s a miracle.”

“Yeah,” Toby said, “I’m thinking we owe Parker a beer.”

A couple hours later, he was home in bed, waiting for the woman he couldn’t get enough of. When the bedroom door opened and Belle slipped inside, he smiled. “Caro asleep?”

“Out like a light,” she said, “still clutching her doll to her chest. She hasn’t come up with the right name for her yet, but she’s working on it.” Belle eased under the covers and moved in close to Wes, laying her head on his shoulder.

The big bed faced the fireplace, where a nice blaze was going, sending out flickering light and shadow around the room. He tucked his arm around her and held her close, thinking this just couldn’t get much better.

A shame he had to shatter it. Holding on to her, just in case she tried to pull away, Wes said, “I spoke to a specialist in Houston today.”

She stiffened in his arms, but only tipped her head back to look at him. “About...?”

Wes scowled. “You know what about. Caroline.”

“Wes, we agreed that we’d decide on specialists together.”

“I just talked to him, Belle,” Wes said, stroking one hand up and down her back. “I didn’t sign our girl up for surgery.”

Seconds ticked past, and he watched as anger drained away to frustration, then to simple curiosity. “Okay, fine. What did he say?”

“That he couldn’t tell me anything without examining Caro,” Wes admitted, “which I knew already. I was just asking some general questions. To satisfy my own curiosity.”

“And did you?”

“Yeah.” He smoothed one hand through her hair, letting the silky tendrils slide through his fingers. “I wondered, what do you think about getting her a cochlear implant in only one ear?”

She frowned up at him and waited, so he continued.

“We could start out with one, let her go for a few years, see if there are more advancements made in the meantime, and then later on we can include her in the decision making. If she wants to get a second one, then we do that. If not, we don’t.”

He looked into her eyes and hoped she saw that he was only trying to figure out the best thing for Caroline. It wasn’t easy to know what to do, and he figured all parents felt the same. Different issues, maybe, but no one had a game plan that would let them see the future. To know which path was the right one to take.

“When she’s older, Caroline can tell us what she wants to do. But meanwhile, we make sure she doesn’t lose too much ground.”