Bargaining for Baby (9 page)

Her heart squeezed so much that it ached.

She was physically drawn to a ruggedly handsome man who wasn’t hiding the fact that he was seriously drawn to her. He’d told her in the plainest of terms—he wanted them to spend the night together. He was saying he wanted to make love.

What did
she
want?

Not the girl who’d grown up without a mother, or the cosmo-chick who lived for her decaf soy latte each morning at eight. What did Madison Tyler, the woman, want?

He seemed to read her mind. His big hand threaded around her waist and brought her close. “This might help you decide.”

His lips met hers, a feathery, devastatingly gentle caress. The steam in his blood found a way into hers and, in that mist-filled instant, she burned white-hot from the inside out. She told herself to keep her wits…to try to find her feet. Useless. Her defenses fell away and any remaining doubt drifted off like weightless wisps from a dandelion ball.

His mouth reluctantly left hers but the hold on her waist remained firm. When her eyes fluttered open, she didn’t have the strength to even pretend she was annoyed. She understood the arguments. She barely knew him. She
wasn’t a leap-in-think-later type. God, what would Dahlia have thought?

And yet suddenly none of that mattered.

For so long she’d wanted to feel as if she truly belonged, without pressure, without fear of disapproval. Right or wrong, for one night she wanted to belong to Jack Prescott.

Siphoning in a much-needed breath, she sorted her thoughts.

“I’ll go with you,” she said, “but I have a condition of my own. That you don’t do that again while we’re under this roof.”

His grin was lazy. “Was the kiss that bad?”

Her brows knitted. This wasn’t a joke.

“I won’t deny that I want you to kiss me again, because I do.” At this moment more than she could ever have dreamed possible. “But if we start stealing kisses in every darkened corner, where does that leave Beau? The days that I’m left here, he deserves my attention. All of it.” Maddy thought of Dahlia’s trust in her—that sacred promise—and her throat swelled and closed off. “The least we can do is give him that much.”

Jack’s gaze turned inward before falling to the baby. A moment later, his hand left her waist. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he nodded.

“Agreed.”

“But I will go with you on Saturday,” she continued, “if we leave after he’s gone down for the night and we arrive back early. Can you live with that?”

Jack studied Beau for a long moment before his gaze found hers once more. His expression changed. A knuckle
curved around and lifted her jaw and for a strangled heartbeat Maddy thought he might kiss her again.

But he only smiled a thoughtful smile and murmured, “I can live with that.”

T
he next day, back from his early ride, Jack headed for the house, remembering Maddy’s words from the previous night. They’d rattled around in his head all morning. Had made him smile and made him wonder.

I won’t deny that I want to kiss you again, because I do.

Maddy had agreed to go to the gala. In effect they both knew she’d agreed to more than that. Knowing he would soon take to bed the woman he’d been physically attracted to from the start left him with an acute sense of anticipation that released a new and vital heat surging through his veins. But their connection was more than physical. Had to be. He’d been intimate with women over the past three years. The acts had left his body sated, but not his mind. Not his heart. Something about Maddy affected him…
differently
.

Striding up the steps, he chided himself.

Of course he didn’t kid himself that making love to Maddy could compare with what he and Sue had shared. It wouldn’t, and that was as it should be. Neither could he pretend that he wouldn’t have the hardest time keeping his promise not to touch Maddy again until Saturday evening. She wanted no distractions from her time left here with Beau. Commendable. But when they arrived in Clancy for the gala, he’d have to make up for lost time.

Stopping at the kitchen, Jack expected to see Cait by the sink or the stove, but the room, gleaming in the early morning light, was empty. Further down the hall, Maddy’s door was closed. In passing, his pace slowed. He wanted to invite himself in. To break his promise and be done with it.

Scratching his jaw, he growled and moved on.

This situation was getting ridiculous. He shouldn’t be so preoccupied with speculations over how Maddy would feel beneath him, her thighs coiled around his hips, her warm lips on his neck, on his chest. Family—now that he had one again—was what mattered.

He approached the nursery, confirming again in his mind that he wouldn’t fail this boy. Not like he’d failed Dahlia when he hadn’t brought her back all those years ago. But, hell, had rescuing his sister ever been possible? He might have been bigger. He might have been right. Staying at Leadeebrook was far safer for a girl—for Dahlia—than trying to survive on the outside. The rape, her death, proved that. But when Dahlia had left Leadeebrook, she’d been over eighteen. The law said she’d been old enough to make her own decisions, even if they ended in tragedy.

He stopped outside the partly closed nursery door and took stock. Life was known for irony, and that tragedy had also produced a baby, the only surviving link, other than himself, to the Prescott bloodline. Beau was more than
Dahlia’s legacy, he was the Prescott future. Beau would grow up, find a nice woman, settle here at Leadeebrook, have a family of his own.

Jack pushed open the door, a smile curving his lips. He felt a great deal of comfort knowing that.

Kicking his heels, Beau was wide awake in his crib. After changing his diaper, Jack decided it was high time he took the boy on a tour. He bundled Beau up and headed for what had been known at Leadeebrook as the portrait hall.

“This is your great-great-grandfather,” Jack said, stopping before the first portrait, which looked particularly regal in its gold-leaf gilded frame. “He was a determined and clever man. He and great-great-grandmother Prescott were responsible for making this homestead into the stately residence it is today.”

Sitting quietly, gathered in his uncle’s arm, Beau stared at the stern-looking gentleman in the frame before Jack moved further down the hall.

“And this,” he said, pulling up in front of the next portrait, “is your great-grandfather. He taught me how to shear.” Jack studied the baby then smiled and tickled his chin. “I’ll have to teach you.”

On the opposite side of the wide hall resided portraits of the Prescott women. He stopped at his late wife’s and clenched his free hand to divert the familiar ache of loss that rose in his chest. The finest artist on the eastern coast had been commissioned for this piece, and the man had captured the loving shine in Sue’s soft brown eyes perfectly.

At the same time Jack’s throat thickened, Beau wriggled and he bypassed the other distinguished portraits until he reached the part of the house he visited often but always alone. After turning the handle, he entered the library—what had become Sue’s library when she’d been alive. An
extendable stepladder resided at the far end of the massive room. Numerous shelves, laden with all kinds of reading matter, towered toward the lofty ceiling. Designer crimson-and-yellow-gold swags decorated the tall windows. The cream chairs and couches bore the subtle sheen of finest quality upholstery.

This room upheld the Prescott promise of old money and impeccable taste, yet Sue had managed to make the library look cozy, too, with fresh flowers from the garden and bundles of home décor magazines and crossword puzzles camped out on occasional tables. The flowers were long gone, but the magazines he’d told Cait to leave.

Jack studied the baby studying the room. Beau was a smart kid. Even at this age, Jack could see it in his eyes.

“Will you be a reader or more a hands-on type like your uncle?” he asked his nephew, crossing to the nearest bookshelf. “Maybe both. Your mother was good at everything.” He grinned, remembered when they’d been children. “Not that I ever let her know that.”

He strolled half the length of the room to the children’s section and eyed the spines that Sue might’ve read to Beau when he was a little older, as well as to their own son, had he lived.

Wincing, Jack inhaled deeply to dispel the twist of pain high in his gut. Every waking minute of every day, he missed her, missed what they’d had. And then Maddy had appeared in his life. When she was around, he didn’t feel quite so empty, and he wasn’t certain how to process that. Should he feel relieved or guilty?

The polished French-provincial desk in the corner drew his attention. He carried Beau across the room and slid open a drawer on the right hand side. The book was there…Sue’s memory book.

Jack laid it out on the leather blotter and flipped through
the pages, pointing out Sue’s relatives to a fist-sucking Beau. She had spent hours making the pages pretty. On the last page, a blue-and-yellow heart hugged a black-and-white image…a scan of their unborn child.

His eyes growing hot, Jack gently pressed his palm next to the eighteen-week-old shape that was his son.

“Sue wanted to name him after her father,” he told Beau, in a deep, thick voice. “But I told her, no disrespect to her dad, that Peter Prescott sounded dumb. I’d wanted to name him after
my
father—”

A bitter nut of emotion opened high in his throat. Dropping his gaze, Jack swallowed hard and reached again for the drawer. He drew out a platinum-plated rattle, not a family heirloom but a gift Sue had bought for their baby a week before she’d died. The inscription read
Love forever, Mum and Dad.

His chest tight, Jack smiled at the galloping horses etched down the cool handle. He shook the rattle and was rewarded by a sound similar to sleigh bells. At the noise, Beau pulled his ear then threw a hand out.

Lowering the rattle, Jack sank into the chair and, feeling empty again, searched his soul.

He examined first the scan image in Sue’s book then Beau. Then he looked at each again. The pain behind his ribs intensified to a point where he almost lost his breath. But then, remarkably, the ache eased to a warm sensation rather than something bleak and cold and sour. He didn’t want to feel that way anymore.

As the tension between his shoulders loosened, Jack bobbed Beau high on his arm and, pressing his lips to the baby’s forehead, handed the rattle over.

Later that day, Jack was back in the stables, preparing to brush down Herc. But he was more interested in what was happening outside.

Beau was in the yard on a prickle-free patch of lawn and garden near the house. He was enthralled by the motion of the baby swing, which his uncle had hung from a tree branch that morning. Maddy pushed the swing, carefully—not too high. Her face was a portrait of joy. Of contentedness.

Smiling, Jack absently threaded Herc’s brush strap over his hand.

Hell, no matter her mood, Maddy was attractive. Perfect symmetry, graceful movements. In his humble opinion, this landscape was the ideal foil for her skin and flaxen hair, particularly given the denim shorts and blousy blue top she wore today…the same color as her eyes. He itched to go join them in the dappled shade of that cypress. But simply looking from a distance raked the reawakened coals that smoldered deep in his gut.

True, they both felt the same fire. Both wanted the chance to turn the heat on to combustible high. But as much as it needled, he reminded himself yet again that she’d been right last night and he, in turn, meant to keep his word. He wouldn’t crowd her. Foremost, she’d come to Leadeebrook to keep a promise not to begin an affair.

Jack turned to Herc and, frowning, swiped the bristles down his glossy black neck.

Affair
wasn’t the right word. Affair implied some sort of ongoing relationship and neither of them was immature enough to think that was a possibility. They lived thousands of miles apart. He didn’t like the city. She was not a fan of the country. She might take up his offer and come back to visit once or twice. But she was a young woman with a life, and who she was and what she aspired to be wasn’t here.

When Herc’s flank twitched and his rear hoof pawed the ground, Jack swiped the brush again.

Good thing really. He’d considered taking on a more serious relationship with Tara and had concluded it would be a mistake. He’d had no choice but to take responsibility for Beau. After the initial king-hit shock, he was at peace with the arrangement. He’d do everything in his power to protect him, keep him close. Maddy, on the other hand…

Jack stopped brushing.

Well, Maddy was another matter.

Nell breezed by his leg, trotting out the door with a boomerang-shaped stick in her mouth. Curious, Jack crossed to the window in time to see Nell drop the stick at Maddy’s feet.

It’d be a cold day in Hades before Maddy got chummy with a canine. Given her past, he couldn’t blame her. He, however, couldn’t imagine
not
having a dog around his feet. Not so long ago he’d owned five.

Her nose wrinkling, Maddy waved Nell back and Jack heard her say, “Shoo. Get away.” But Nell kept sitting there, every few seconds nudging the stick closer to Maddy’s city sneakers with her nose. Nell wanted to play. She could catch a stick for hours if anyone was silly enough to throw it. Nell thought Maddy was a good candidate.

Jack grinned.

And he’d thought Nell was smart.

He was about to rescue Maddy when she did the most remarkable thing. She stooped and, as if she were handling a stick of dynamite, lifted the no doubt slobbery stick between a single finger and thumb. With a move that reminded him a little of Swan Lake, she kicked out a leg at the same time she flung the stick away. With a visible shudder, she wiped her hand down her shorts’ leg but before she could give Beau’s swing another push, Nell
was back, the stick between her jaws, eyes drilling her new playmate’s.

When Maddy shrank back in alarm, Jack chuckled and set down the brush. Poor Maddy didn’t know what she’d started. She was so much ‘the lady.’ Not prim, but rather manicured, French-scented, lipstick-in-the-morning female.

He liked that about her.

When Nell’s ears pricked and she shot off into the western distance, Jack reached for his hat. Only one reason she’d leave her sport. Visitors.

By the time Jack had washed his hands and moved out into the true heat of the day, the familiar engine groan was unmistakable. Snow’s Holden truck. Snow knew about Beau. The other evening, Jack had mentioned Maddy. Guess Snow’d gotten tired of waiting for an introduction.

Maddy had scooped Beau out of the molded swing seat by the time Jack joined her and Snow was alighting from his vehicle. Jack hadn’t had time to explain to Maddy who their visitor was, although, from the white of Snow’s beard, she might’ve guessed.

Snow didn’t close the car door but rather clapped the thigh of his faded jeans. A lamb leaped out, landing in a spray of Mitchell grass with a scramble. Nell sniffed around the lamb but realizing the relationship between these two—this was not a sheep to be worked—she trotted back to her stick. But now Maddy seemed oblivious to Nell’s insistent stare. Her own gaze wide, she clapped one hand over her mouth to catch an enchanted laugh. The lamb was prancing after Snow as if the crusty caretaker were his mother.

Snow offered his hand to Jack then announced in his tobacco-gruff voice, “Seeing you got a guest at your sheep
station, Jum, I reckoned she might want to meet a sheep.” Snow cordially touched his hat. “Snow Gibson at your service.” He dropped a glance at his woolly companion. “This tagalong’s Lolly.”

Maddy introduced herself to Snow then, holding Beau on her hip, hunkered down. “Hello, there, Lolly.” She combed her fingers between Lolly’s fleecy ears and sighed. “You are the prettiest little darling ever.”

Snow stroked his beard. “I see you got one of your own.”

Maddy pushed up and spoke to Beau. “Say hello to Mr. Gibson, Beau.”

Snow took the baby’s tiny hand between a rough thumb and a stained knuckle. He sent Jack a hearty look. “He’s like Dahlia.”

His chest tight, Jack returned the smile. “Same grin.”

“Think he’d like to see this other one fed?” Snow retrieved a bottle from his inside vest pocket. When he handed the bottle to Maddy, eyes sparkling, she sucked in a breath.

“Me?”

Wrinkles concertinaed down the side of Snow’s face when he winked. “She’ll be thirsty. You gotta hang on to this real tight.”

Jack took Beau and both he and Maddy knelt down again. Lolly almost wrestled her over when she nuzzled up for the teat. As the lamb latched on, Maddy clung to the bottle with both hands while Jack considered a warm stirring emotion he had trouble naming.

He’d grown up with orphaned lambs as pets. Sue’s parents had been farmers; livestock had been part of everyday life for both of them. He hadn’t seen this kind of awed reaction over an animal in…he couldn’t remember how long.