Bargaining for Baby (5 page)

After a tense moment, he flicked her a sidelong glance. She was sipping her drink, surveying his favorite stretch of land—the dip between what was known on the property as Twelve Gum Ridge and Black Shore Creek. The knot binding the muscles between his shoulder blades eased fractionally. A moment more and he crossed an ankle over the opposite knee.

As three full-grown red kangaroos bounded across the shimmering horizon, Maddy sighed.

“I can’t get over the quiet.” She craned her neck, trying to see farther. “Where do you keep the sheep?”

He uncrossed his ankle and sat straighter. “Don’t have any.”

She tossed him a look. “Sorry. I thought you said you don’t have any sheep.”

“I got rid of them…three years ago.”

She blinked several times then offered a nod as if she understood. But she didn’t. Unless you’d lived the nightmare, no one could understand what it meant to lose both your wife and your child in one day. The world had looked black after that. As black and charred as his heart had been. He hadn’t cared about sheep or money. About anything.

“What do you do on a sheep station with no sheep?” she asked after a time. “Don’t you get bored?”

He set down his cup and said what should have been obvious. “Leadeebrook is my home.”

Urban folk weren’t programmed to appreciate what the land had to offer. The freedom to think. The room to simply be. As much as his father had tried to convert her, his mother had never fully appreciated it either.

Besides, there was plenty of maintenance to keep a man busy if he went looking for it.

He dumped sugar into his cup. “It’s a different way of living out here. A lot different from the city.”

“A
lot.
”

“No smog.”

“No people.”

“Just the way I like it.”

“Don’t you miss civilization?”

His face deadpanned. “Oh, I prefer being a barbarian.”

She pursed her lips, considering. “That’s a strong word, but in a pinch…”

He had every intention of staring her down, but a different emotion rose up and he grinned instead. They might not see eye to eye, but she was…amusing.

Seeing his grin, a smile lit her eyes and she sat back more. “How many acres do you have?”

“Now, just under five thousand. Back in its heyday, Leadeebrook was spread over three hundred thousand acres and carried two hundred thousand sheep, but after World War II land was needed for war service and agricultural settlement so my great-grandfather and grandfather decided to sell off plots to soldier settlers. The soil here is fertile. Their forward planning helped make an easier transition from grazing to farming. That industry’s the mainstay of this district now. Keeps people employed.”

“I take it back.” Her voice carried a sincere note of respect. “You’re not a barbarian.”

“Save your opinion until after you’ve eaten my brown snake on an open spit.”

She chuckled. “You do have a sense of humor.” Her smile withered. “You are joking, right?”

He only spooned more sugar into his tea.

One leg crooked up under the other as she turned toward him. “Did you have a happy childhood growing up here?”

“Couldn’t have asked for a better one. My family was wealthy. Probably far wealthier than most people even realized. But we lived a relatively simple life, with some good old-fashioned hard work thrown in for good measure.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“Went to the town first off then boarding school in
Sydney. I came home every vacation. I’d help with dipping, shearing, lambing and tagging.”

Her smile wistful, she laid her elbow on the table between them and cupped her jaw in her palm. “You make it sound almost romantic.”

Almost?

He forced his gaze away from her mouth and let it settle on the picturesque horizon.

“Have you ever seen a sunset like that? I sit out here, lapping up those colors, and know this is how God intended for us to live. Not rushing around like maniacs on multilane freeways, chained to a computer fourteen hours a day. This is paradise.”

Sue had thought the same way.

They sat saying nothing, simply looking at the rose-gold pallet darken against a distant smudge of hills. Most nights he took in the dusk, soaking in the sense of connectedness it gave. Sometimes, for a few moments, he felt half at peace.

“Will you ever stock up again?” she asked after a time.

He had plenty invested in bonds and real estate around the country. Despite the wool industry having seen better days, he was more comfortable financially than any of his ancestors, and had harbored dreams of reshaping Leadeebrook to its former glory. He and Sue used to discuss their ideas into the night, particularly during the last stages of her pregnancy. There’d been so much to look forward to and build on together. Now…

His stomach muscles double-clutched and he set his cup aside.

Now he was responsible for Dahlia’s boy. He would give the lad every opportunity. Would care for him like a father. But that feeling…?

He swallowed against the stone in his throat.

He wished he could be the man he’d once been. But when his family died, that man had died, too.

“No,” he said, his gaze returning to the sunset. “I’ll never stock up again.”

She was asking another question but his focus had shifted to a far off rumbling—the distant groan of a motor. He knew the vehicle. Knew the driver.

Lord and Holy Father.

He unfolded to his feet and groaned.

He wasn’t ready for this meeting yet.

T
he white Land Cruiser skidded to a stop a few feet from a nearby water tank, dry grass spewing out in dusty clouds from behind its monster wheels. A woman leaped out and, without shutting the driver’s door, sailed up the back steps.

Maddy clutched her chair’s arms while her gaze hunted down Jack.

He’d heard the engine before she had. Had pushed up and now came to a stop by the veranda rail, his weight shifted to one side so that the back pockets of his jeans and those big shoulders lay slightly askew. When the woman reached him, no words were exchanged. She merely bounced up on tiptoe, flung her arms around his neck and, her cheek to his, held on.

Maddy pressed back into the early evening shadows. This scene was obviously meant for two. Who was this
woman? If she wasn’t Jack Prescott’s lover, she sure as rain wanted to be.

Maddy’s gaze tracked downward.

The woman’s riding boots—clean and expensive by the emblem—covered her fitted breeches to the knee. She was slender and toned; with a mane of ebony hair, loose and lush, she might have been the human equivalent of a prized thoroughbred. Her olive complexion hinted at Mediterranean descent and her onyx eyes were filled with affection as she drew back and peered up into Jack’s—passionate and loyal.

Maddy’s mouth pulled to one side.

Seemed Jack had indeed moved on since the death of his wife—the auburn-haired woman whose photo she’d seen on that chest of drawers. When they’d come face to face earlier in the nursery and she’d copped an eye full of Jack’s all-male-and-then-some chest, she’d imagined he’d felt the moment, too. She’d told herself that’s why he’d been particularly brusque afterward. The lightning bolt—the over whelming awareness—had struck him, as well, and, taken aback, he hadn’t known how to handle it.

But clearly that fiery, unexpected reaction had been one-sided. He’d seemed vexed by the scene in the nursery because he was embarrassed over her ogling. Embarrassed and annoyed. He was spoken for, and this woman in front of her might capture and hold any man, even I-am-an-island Jack Prescott.

With a fond but strained smile, Jack unfastened the woman’s hold and her palms slid several inches down from his thick neck to his shirt. She toyed with a button as she gazed adoringly into his eyes and sighed.

“You’re home.” Then she tilted her head, that ebony mane spilled over her shoulder and her smile became a look of mild admonition. “I wish you’d have let me come
to Sydney with you. It must have been so hard facing the funeral on your own. I shouldn’t have promised that I’d stay behind.”

Jack found her hand on his chest and carefully brought it to her side. “Tara, I brought somebody back with me.”

The woman slowly straightened, blinked. Then, having dialed into her personal radar, she honed in on Maddy. The woman’s thickly lashed eyes darkened more while her complexion dropped a shade. As their gazes locked, Tara surreptitiously found and held the veranda rail at her back.

Maddy’s face flushed hot. She knew what this woman, Tara, was thinking. The accusation blazed in her eyes. But she and Jack were not an item. They weren’t even friends, and from the venom building in this woman’s eyes, the sooner she knew all the facts the better.

Maddy found her feet at the same time Jack beckoned her over.

“This is Madison Tyler,” he said, then nodded to the woman. “Tara Anderson.”

An uneven smile broke across Tara’s face. “Madison. We haven’t met before—” her eyes narrowed slightly “—have we?”

Jack stepped in. “Maddy’s staying at Leadeebrook for a couple of weeks.”

“Oh?” Tara’s practiced smile almost quivered. “Why?”

Before anyone could answer, Cait appeared at the back doorway, holding Beau. The housekeeper’s jovial expression slid when she recognized their visitor.

“Tara, love. I heard the truck. I thought it was Snow.”

Tara’s hand slipped off the rail and when her startled, glistening gaze slid from the baby to Jack, Maddy’s heart sank in her chest. Tara’s thoughts were as loud as war
drums. She thought the child belonged to them—to her and Jack. Yet everything in Tara Anderson’s stunned expression said she couldn’t let herself believe the worst. She wanted to trust the man she so obviously cared for.

As if afraid he might vanish, Tara tentatively touched Jack’s hand and her voice cracked when she asked, “Jack…?”

“This is Dahlia’s son,” he said in a somber tone. “The father isn’t on the scene. Maddy was Dahlia’s friend. She promised my sister she’d help the baby settle in here.”

Drawing back, Tara audibly exhaled, then touched her brow with an unsteady hand. She shook her head as if to dispel a fog but her expression remained pained.

“Dahlia’s son…” She breathed out again before her gaze pierced his. “You agreed to this, Jack? To a
baby?
I thought you said—”

His brows tipped together. “We won’t discuss it now.”

“When
were
we going to discuss it?” she asked. “How long have you known?”

But the line of his mouth remained firm. Turning, he set his hands on the rail and peered out over the barren landscape.

The anxiety in Maddy’s stomach balled tighter. Hearing that Jack was responsible for a baby had been a massive shock for Tara Anderson; she wanted answers. Without knowing their history, Maddy couldn’t help but think she deserved them. And yet Jack kept his shoulders set and his gaze fixed on something in the distance. He could be so bloody stubborn sometimes.

It wasn’t her place to interfere, but if she could ease the tension a little by extending the hand of friendship, Maddy decided she would. If Jack and this woman were as close as this scene suggested, Beau would be seeing more of Tara…more than he would see of his aunt Maddy.

She edged closer. “Do you live in town, Tara?”

Tara’s bewildered gaze whipped around, as if she’d forgotten they had company.

“I own the adjoining property,” she said absently. Then a different emotion filtered over her face and she exhaled once more, this time with an apologetic smile. “Forgive me, please. I’m being rude. It’s just…” She sought out Jack’s gaze. “I’ve been worried these past days.”

“Will you stay for supper?” Cait asked from the back door, giving Beau, who had half his fist in his mouth, a jiggle. “There’s always plenty.”

At the same time Tara quizzed Jack’s face for his reaction, Maddy felt a brush against her leg. She lowered her gaze. Nell had taken up a seat between herself and Jack.

Stiffening, Maddy rubbed the goosebumps from her arm and slid a foot away. A mime act made more noise than this dog.

When Jack rotated away from the rail to face Tara, the familiar furrow between his brows was gone. Accommodating now, he reached for her hand. “Yes, of course. Stay for supper.”

But Tara stole a quick glance between the baby and Maddy then, put on a lighthearted air and shook back her ebony hair.

“I would’ve liked to, but I’m staying in town tonight. Taking a buyer to dinner.”

Jack eased back against the rail and crossed his arms over his chest, interested. “Which horse?”

“Hendrix.” She addressed Maddy. “I breed Warmbloods.”

Maddy raised her brows. And she was supposed to know what that meant? But she imitated Jack’s cross-armed stance, pretending to be interested, too.

“That’s…great.”

“Warmbloods are bred for equestrian sports,” Jack explained. “Tara’s trained a stable full of champions, mainly Hanoverians.”

Maddy tacked up her slipping smile. If she’d felt inadequate before…

No wonder Jack was involved with this woman. Beautiful, ultimately gracious under pressure, and a proven breeder of champions to boot. What more could a man want?

With an elegant, slightly possessive air, Tara looped her arm through Jack’s. “Will you walk me down to the car?”

As Jack pushed off the rail, Maddy piped up, “If I don’t see you before I head back to Sydney, it was nice meeting you.”

Tara’s lips tightened even as they stretched into a charming smile. “Oh, you’ll see me.”

As she and Jack meandered down the steps, Maddy couldn’t help but notice—Tara didn’t say goodbye to Beau.

Later that evening, Maddy went to join Jack in the yard. With his back to her, he didn’t seem to hear her approach, so she cleared her throat and asked, “Don’t suppose you want any company?”

When Jack turned his head—his eyes glittering in the evening shadows, his face devoid of emotion—Maddy drew back and withered in her shoes. She shouldn’t have left the house and come outside. Standing amidst the cricket-clicking tranquility, it was clear Jack didn’t want company. Particularly not hers.

After that awkward scene three hours ago with Tara Anderson, Jack had taken a vehicle out to the hangar to
bring the bags in. Then he’d mumbled something about heading off for a while. From the window of her guest bedroom, Maddy had caught sight of a big black horse cantering away. With an Akubra slanted low on his brow, the rider looked as if he’d been born to rule from the saddle.

As he headed off toward the huge molten ball sinking into the hills, her chest had squeezed. She might have been watching a scene from a classic Western movie. Talk about larger than life.

While Cait prepared dinner, Maddy had enjoyed a quick shower. Then it was Beau’s turn. He’d splashed and squealed in his bath until she had a stitch in her side from laughing and the front of her dress was soaked through. She didn’t want to dwell on the fact that someone else would be enjoying this time with Beau soon.

Would that someone be Tara?

She neither saw nor heard Jack return, but when Cait called dinner, as if by magic he appeared in the meals room. With his gaze hooded and broad shoulders back, he’d promptly pulled out a chair for her at the table. She’d grinned to herself. Jack might be a lot of things, but Beau would learn his manners in this house.

The baked meal smelled divine, but Jack’s masculine just-showered scent easily trumped it. His wet hair, slicked back off his brow, was long enough to lick the back of his white collar. He’d shaved, too, although the shadow on his jaw was a permanent feature…an enduring sexy sandpaper smudge.

When the baby was settled in the playpen beside the table, Jack had threaded his hands, bowed his head and said a brief but touching grace about missing loved ones and taking new ones into their home. Maddy had swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. There was a deeper,
more yielding side to this seemingly impenetrable man. There
must
be. In that moment, Maddy regretted she wouldn’t come to know it.

As they sat down to dinner, Cait told Maddy of Leadeebrook’s main dining room, with its long, grand table and crystal chandelier set in the center of a high, molded ceiling. But that room was kept for special occasions. She and Jack mainly ate here, in the meals area off the kitchen. After promising to show Maddy around the house the next day, Cait flicked out her linen napkin and asked to hear all the news from the city.

Jack didn’t seem to care either way. The gold flecks gone from his eyes, he seemed more distracted than ever. While he cut and forked his way through the meal, the ladies chatted, watching over the baby who played with his bunch-of-keys rattle.

When Beau began to grumble, Maddy left to put him down. After firmly taking charge earlier, she was interested that Jack didn’t say boo about helping with Beau’s first bedtime in his new home. Maybe the memory of that wet shirt still haunted him, but Maddy suspected thoughts of Tara and her reaction to his guardianship of the baby weighed heavily on Jack’s mind tonight. How would he handle the divide?

Beau had drifted off without a whimper. After laying a light sheet over his tiny sleeping form, she tiptoed back into the kitchen. That’s when Cait had suggested she join Jack outside here in the cool.

Maddy had grown warm all over at the thought, which only proved that being alone with Jack under the expansive Southern Cross sky was not a good idea. But she’d made the effort. She didn’t want to provoke any fires—physical or anything else—but neither could she afford to leave here, for the most part, a stranger. Jack had to know that
if he needed her, for Beau’s sake, despite any personal hiccups, she would always be there. Dahlia would’ve wanted that, and Maddy wanted that, too.

She and Jack needed to be able to communicate, at least on some level.

She’d found him here, one shoulder propped up against an ancient-looking tree, while he rubbed a rag over a bridle.

“Is the baby down?” he asked.

With nerves jittering in her stomach, she nodded and inched closer. “Now he’s down, he shouldn’t wake up till around seven.”

Stopping at his side, she joined him in taking in a view of the hushed starry sky while that rag worked methodically over the steel bit. A horse’s whinny carried on a fresh breeze. A frog’s lonely croak echoed nearby. And Jack kept polishing.

If anyone was going to start a conversation, it’d have to be her.

She shifted her weight. “How long have you had the black horse?”

“From a colt.”

“Bet he was glad to see you back.”

“Not as glad as I was to see him.”

She raised her brows. Well, a cowboy’s best friend was supposed to be his horse.

She leaned against another nearby tree, her hands laced behind the small of her back. “Where did you ride off to earlier?”

“I needed to catch up with Snow Gibson. He lives in the caretaker’s cabin a couple miles out.”

Maddy recalled an earlier conversation. “Cait said Snow’s quite a character.”

A hint of a smile hooked his mouth and they both
fell into silence again…tangible and yet not entirely uncomfortable. Guess there was something to be said for the advantages of this untainted country air.

Giving into a whim, she shut her eyes, tilted her face to the stars and let more than the subtle breeze whisper to her senses. She imagined she felt that magnetism rippling off Jack Prescott in a series of heatwaves and her own aura glowing and transforming in response. She imagined the way his slightly roughened hands might feel sliding over her skin…sensual, stirring. Enthralling.