“I’m sorry I asked,” Kristen said, intending to change the subject. “It’s really none of my business.”

“No, it’s fine,” Grant insisted coolly. “This is a conversation we needed to get out of the way. It is unusual for grown men to have baby siblings. If you were curious, I can understand why.”

The quiet tone of his voice filled her with compassion. She could tell that beneath his very calm, composed demeanor was a suffering man. Sensitive to his need for comforting in a way she’d never been with anyone before, she nestled Annie closer as she said, “If it’s any consolation, I know a thing or two about loss.”

She hesitated, torn, but decided she owed Grant something since she reopened wounds better left closed. If nothing else she could let him know he wasn’t alone in the world. “My husband died a little over a year ago, my sister a few months later.”

He glanced at her. “I’m sorry. My parents died two years apart, so I had some time to adjust. Your situation must have been terrible.”

“It was,” Kristen said, suddenly realizing how desperate she was to talk with someone who would understand the way she knew this man would understand. But talking about Angela with a Brewster would be courting trouble and discussing losing her husband was still too painful, too personal to discuss.

“But everybody has his or her cross to bear.”

Grant nodded. “Funny how we thought these kids were going to be something like a cross to bear and they ended up being the best thing that ever happened to us.”

Smiling softly as she looked at the big, dark man cuddling the tiny child, Kristen nodded. “I can see that.”

“So that must be why you came looking for Mrs. Romani?” Grant asked, still gazing at his suckling baby.

Kristen’s brow puckered. “Excuse me?”

“Losing your sister and your husband must have been what prompted you to come looking for Mrs. Romani.”

Catching on to what he was saying, Kristen let the sentence swirl around in her head long enough for her to realize half of it was true—or the essence of it was true—and it didn’t complicate things to admit it. “Yes. It was my sister’s death that brought me here,” she said carefully.

“So you’re not close to Mrs. Romani?” Grant asked.

She shook her head. “No, we’re not close at all.”

He caught her gaze. “She didn’t raise you or anything like that?”

This time Kristen giggled. “No, Mr. Worrywart, she did not raise me.”

If anyone else had laughed at him and called him Mr. Worrywart, Grant would have definitely taken offense. Since it was Kristen, and since they were cuddling babies and sharing their very private, painful backgrounds with each other, Grant not only didn’t take offense, but he actually chuckled.

“I’m sorry, but my dislike for Mrs. Romani is such common knowledge around here that I sometimes forget most normal people don’t behave like this.”

“Why don’t you like her?”

Grant considered that. “It isn’t so much that I don’t like her. It’s more that she has an annoying habit of trying to control everything or run everybody’s life, or something.”

“She said approximately the same thing about you.”

He peered at her. “Really?”

“Yeah, she said you like to be the boss, you try to run everybody’s life and you always have to have your own way. So, she confronts you to more or less keep everything balanced.”

“Really?” he asked curiously.

“She doesn’t dislike you. I think she sees her belligerence as more self-defense than anything else. She doesn’t want to get swept up in the tidal wave. She sees you as being very…powerful, and not afraid to use that power.”

Carefully maneuvering the baby he held, Grant freed his right hand so he could rub it across the back of his neck. He didn’t know why it felt so good or so right to talk with this woman—actually, to confide in her as he’d never confided to anyone in his life—but it did. And he was too tired to fight it.

“I’m responsible for the lives of three babies, two brothers and now the wives of two brothers. We own the mill that employs fifty percent of the people in this county, and I’m putting in a shopping mall that will employ another thirty percent when it’s up and running. If all goes well, my construction company will pick up everybody who is left and even some people from surrounding counties. I don’t have time to stop and consider everybody’s feelings and everybody’s opinion.”

“Maybe you should.”

He stared at her. “How?” he asked incredulously. “Should I take a Gallop poll?”

She laughed at him again and his eyes narrowed. He should be angry with her for laughing at him. Instead he felt only breathless relief that he could actually talk about his burdens with an objective, independent listener.

“No, but you could try looking around every once in a while. Check for a grimace or a frown. Ask your brothers for an opinion here and there.”

“I do ask for my brothers’ opinions.”

“Do you take them into consideration?”

“Of course, I take…” He stopped. He honestly didn’t really know if he ever took his brothers’ opinions into consideration. He listened to them, then tossed them into the vat of information stored in his brain, which he assimilated in a certain fashion, then used to make decisions as he needed them.

“You don’t know, do you?” Kristen asked archly.

He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck again. What was he doing, confiding in a stranger? Yes, he knew it felt good to have somebody to talk with, especially someone objective, but this woman was only objective because she was a newcomer to his household. She was also an employee. No smart boss confided in his employees.

“No, I don’t know,” he replied. “And this conversation is over.”

“Can’t handle it?”

“No. It’s none of your business,” Grant corrected, rising and walking to a crib. “I’ve known you eight hours and I’ve already told you my deepest, darkest secrets.”

Following suit, Kristen also took her baby to a crib. “If those were your deepest, darkest secrets, Grant Brewster, you’ve got to get a life.”

The words sent an odd chill up Grant’s spine because they were exactly the thoughts he’d been having as he watched his baby brother get married.

Careful, cautious, he faced her. In her little pink sweater and a pair of loose-fitting jeans that knew exactly which parts of her anatomy to hug, Kristen Devereaux didn’t have a clue how much he really wanted to have a life—or at least some good old-fashioned excitement—with her.

Kristen seemed too damned young to have been married. She seemed too damned young not to have any family but a cantankerous old bat housekeeper she didn’t know. She seemed too damned young to be wise, and wonderful…and widowed.

Actually she was probably too damned young for him.

He took a long breath and blew it out. “Let’s go,” he said, motioning to the door. “Though the triplets usually sleep through the night now, there are no guarantees. There’s a monitor in your room and one in mine. First one to awaken has to get the kids. That’s the rule. So, I suggest that you go straight to your room and go straight to bed.”

Boy, he wished he hadn’t said that. Instant, graphic images of her sliding between satin sheets came to mind. He could see her hair fanned out on a pillow. He could envision her face softened in sleep. He could feel her nestled against him.

Oh, great! As if he needed to remind himself of the last image.

“Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to shower—” in cold water “—and then I’m going straight to bed.”

He said the last as he led her into the hall and more or less pointed her to the bedroom she’d been assigned.

But as he shuffled off as if his feet were on fire, Kristen dallied in going to her room. When she heard his door shut with a very distinct and final click, she pivoted and ran down the hall, down the steps of the spiral staircase, through the foyer and kitchen and to Mrs. Romani’s door.