Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (12 page)

Her feelings were already tangled up with his, and she didn't know what to do about it. He was a very insular man. At least he had been, until now...

Perturbed and frustrated, she sat in one of the high-backed, overstuffed chairs facing the fireplace and stared at the flames licking up from the stack of logs, and tried to figure out what she needed to do to get through the wall of silence surrounding Jack and his hardened heart...

A hearth-and-home kind of guy... he's just forgotten what it's like...

So she'd give him a reminder, like red wool socks to keep his feet warm, and a clean house with a fire on the hearth when he came in from the cold, and the smell of coffee brewing and bread baking, and convince him that his son's mother was the hub of the home...

But that wouldn't take care of tonight, and she wanted Jack to come to her tonight.

Fifteen minutes later, when Jack emerged from the hallway wearing nothing but gray sweat pants, Grace could hardly breathe. It was the first time she'd seen him without his shirt, and looking at him in the flesh sent her heart skipping. Her eyes roamed over his muscular torso, then fixed on his shoulder and the tattoo of a moon with dancing flames encircling it. Although she'd never liked tattoos, for some reason, on Jack it looked right.

Catching the direction of her gaze, Jack shrugged, and said, "My Army buddy and I had a little too much to drink and I got kind of homesick for the ranch, so I had the thing done."

Grace's gaze meandered over a brawny chest and well-developed abs. "Is that the only tattoo you have?" she asked, as her eyes traveled down a thin line of dark hair to the waistband of his sweats, coming to rest on a very masculine bulge.

"If you're wondering if I have a tattoo there, the answer's no," Jack said, and Grace realized she'd been staring. She raised her eyes to meet his and found him smiling, and this time his smile reached his eyes.

To her surprise, he dragged an overstuffed footstool to where she was sitting and sat facing her, and said, "While I was in the shower I started thinking about last night..." He paused, and his eyes fixed on her left hand. Lifting it from where it was resting on her belly, he said, "You took off your rings."

Grace looked at their hands. The contrast was startling. Hers small and smooth and white. His large and tanned and work-hardened, with corded blue veins. But the night before, when he ran his hands over her body, they were magical.

"My fingers were swollen," she said. Which was true, but not enough to keep her from wearing her rings. But she didn't feel right wearing the rings Marc gave her, now that she was about to give birth to Jack's child, while also wanting Jack to come to her bed. But the rings were in a special place in her jewelry box where they'd stay, just as Marc's memory was in a special place in her heart, where it would stay. But her life was with Jack and their child.

Jack continued holding her hand, as he said, "What I was about to say is, it's a little more complicated with you here. You're vulnerable because of our situation—"

"Stop calling it a situation," Grace snapped. "It's not like I got pregnant because I like to sleep around. That would be a situation. I'm pregnant with a child I thought I was going to have to raise by myself who now has a father, and you have a son coming who you thought would be raised as your nephew, who will now call you Dad. I call what we have a gift from God."

Jack seemed to think about that, and after a few moments, he said, in a quietly contemplative voice, "Put that way, I guess I have to agree, but, about those needs."

"They're not all that complicated," Grace said, gliding her palms up Jack's chest and over his shoulders. From the moment he emerged from the hallway, her hands had been restless. She wanted to touch Jack everywhere. She wanted to explore every inch of his muscular male body. "I loved having your hands all over me last night," she said, "but next time I'd prefer you not wear boots or a shirt... or pants."

"Yeah, it does kind of make things awkward," Jack said, "and maybe I'll take you up on fixing my problem. It would beat taking a cold shower."

"I'd like that," Grace said, raising her lips to receive his kiss.

But as their lips came together, and their tongues began entangling, a rapping on the front door caught them up short.

Jack gave Grace a quick kiss, pulled her hands from around his neck, and said, "We'll continue this later," then went to open the front door. Grace couldn't resist turning to see who it was, and when she saw a woman with coal-black hair and cerulean-blue eyes, who was without doubt the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen, she knew at once it was Lauren Hansen.               And from the look on Jack's face, he was dazzled by her.

CHAPTER 10

Grace watched the woman, whose eyes were fixed on Jack, and who was unaware of anyone else in the room. For a few moments neither spoke, then Lauren's eyes filled with tears and she said, "Please forgive me, Jack. I didn't know what I was doing. I loved Jackie, and I love you. I've never stopped loving you. I'll do anything to make things right, anything to get you back. In prison I read about postpartum depression. It's a hormonal imbalance that messes with the brain and makes women hallucinate. That's what happened to me."

Jack said nothing, just stood silent.

"For three years all I've thought about was you. I can give you another son. It'll be different this time. The doctor can put me on a medication for depression. Things could be like they were." She ran her hands up Jack's chest and curved them around his neck and moved to kiss him, but Jack stopped the kiss by unwrapping her arms from around his neck and holding her away from him, and saying, "You've had your say, now go. You're not wanted around here."

Lauren looked at him, her long lashes spiked with tears. "You can't mean that," she said, in a desperate voice. "I've paid for what I did and I'll continue paying for the rest of my life, and you'll never find anyone who loves you as much as I do."

Jack released Lauren's wrists and walked over to the chair where Grace was sitting and took her hand, pulling her up. When Grace turned, Lauren looked startled to see she was pregnant. She also looked desperate. A woman who'd lost her man. Jack put his arm around Grace's shoulders and tugged her against him, and when Grace placed her hand on Jack's waist she felt, against the heel of her hand, a hard ridge beneath his sweats, and knew it was Lauren's presence that caused it. She also knew that, in spite of what the woman had done, Jack loved her. Still, Grace moved her arm around Jack's waist and snuggled against him, making her claim, fragile though it was.

"This is Grace," Jack said, "and the child she's carrying is our son, Adam."

Lauren looked at Grace's hand on Jack's belly, and said to Jack, as if Grace wasn't there, "She's not wearing a wedding ring. Is she your wife?"

Jack's arm tightened around Grace, as he said, "The day you killed Jackie was the day you gave up your right to ask questions. Now, you need to go."

"Lauren?!"
Susan called out. "
Oh, my God. It's you!"
Susan rushed up the porch steps, and Lauren turned and took Susan in her arms.

Lauren released Susan to take her hands, and said, "We have so much to catch up on. And look at you. You're having another baby. That's wonderful."

Grace stared at Susan. For the first time in weeks, Susan looked happy, and it took a woman who'd killed her own child to do it.

"Come on," Lauren said to Susan, turning her back on Grace and Jack. "We'll go to your house. You can fill me in on everything that's happened."

As Grace watched the women walk away, she knew that soon, Lauren Hansen would learn that the woman carrying Jack's child had never slept with him, which opened the door wide for Lauren to step back into Jack's life. There was no question Jack still wanted her.

Shrugging away from Jack, and saying nothing, she went to her bedroom and shut the door.

Jack didn't follow, and after a few minutes, Grace heard him rummaging around in his bedroom for a few minutes, followed by the front door closing, and the truck engine revving, and when Grace looked out the bedroom window, Jack's truck was barreling down the ranch road.

By ten o'clock that night, Jack still hadn't returned, so Grace went to bed.

Sometime later, she heard the truck pull to a halt out front, but Jack didn't come to the house. After a while, Grace looked out the window and saw a light on in the stable. She considered going out to see what Jack was doing but decided to leave him alone. He didn't need the mother of his unborn son putting pressure on him. He needed time to sort things out.

Unless, Lauren was out there with him.

Later yet, Grace heard the front door fly open and hit the wall, followed by a string of expletives. She didn't know whether Jack was drunk, or if he was just stumbling around in the dark, but it wasn't long before the door to his bedroom closed with a thud, and he never came to her bedroom as planned. And it was very clear why.

***

At dawn, Jack slipped out of the house without disturbing Grace and left on his horse. Snow had started falling during the night, and the air had a bite to it, but he didn't care. He needed to get away. He was disgusted that Lauren showed up at the ranch, and he didn't want to see her again. He was also disgusted with Sam for allowing her to stay with Susan. He'd always had a certain amount of respect and admiration for Sam. He'd been the one to go to college and had his sights set on starting a winery, and it would be a success if he ever got it going. But then they both met beautiful, self-centered women, and both of their lives changed.

But for Sam to allow Lauren to stay in his house was more than he could handle. Just having the woman who killed his son on the property was too much. He hadn't planned on returning to the cabin when he set out, but that's the direction the horse took, which suited him fine. The cabin was secluded, a place guests could rent if they didn't mind roughing it without electricity or indoor plumbing.

By the time he arrived, an hour later, another couple of inches of snow covered the ground. After starting a fire in the fireplace he made a pot of coffee and drank most of it, then hiked up a snow-covered path to the top of the mountain, if only to release some pent up anger. Lauren's arrival affected him in ways he hadn't expected, but standing at the summit, where he could see for miles in all directions, helped put things in perspective, and by late afternoon, he was ready to return to the ranch, but only after spending time at Whispering Springs, another sanctuary, which was in a cavern a ten minute ride by horseback from the ranch, and a short hike up the hill from the riding trail.

He and Sam had been going there for as far back as he could remember. Descendants of Native Americans living in the area claimed that if a person sat in the hot springs pool and listened to the sounds inside the mountain they'd be freed of evil spirits. Jack didn't know about that, but whenever he sat in the pool, he seemed to work out his problems. Maybe it was because it was relaxing, or maybe because the eerie sounds set the mind working. Whatever it was, the mind seemed to clear, and today, he wanted to listen to the sounds and try to figure out why he couldn't bring himself to tell Grace he was willing to raise her husband's child along with Adam.

Where the narrow footpath cut off from the horse trail to the spring, he tethered his horse, took a towel from his saddle bag, and hiked up to the cavern housing the spring. Although the air outside was frigid, inside the dusky twilight of the cave it was warm from the steam swirling and rising off the natural rock pool. Stripping off his clothes, Jack immersed himself in the water and rested his head against the rock wall behind and closed his eyes.

After a while, haunting sounds echoed from the depths of the mountain. Eerie, unnatural sounds. In the past, sometimes the sounds had been like wailing women. Other times they were more like the sobs of a woman in distress, but eventually the sounds faded into soft sighs. No one could explain why, only that it was the way it had always been.

"The spirits are gone now,"
his father told him and Sam years before, after a long stretch of listening to sounds that eventually faded into soft whisperings. He and Sam were about seven at the time, but as he got older, he was convinced there was some kind of supernatural being living in the mountain. But whatever the reason, things seemed better if he stayed long enough.

For a while he sat in the hot water, listening to the sounds, but then his thoughts turned to Grace. He imagined her sitting beside him on the natural rock ledge. He'd place his hand on her bare belly and hold it there and feel Adam kick. Then he'd hold her breasts and tease her nipples. She liked that, and he liked it too...

"Jack?"

He opened his eyes and looked directly at Lauren. He'd never felt so vulnerable in his life, sitting naked in the pool, aroused from thinking about Grace, while staring at the woman who'd killed his son. "
Get out of here
," he shouted.

"Not until you listen to me," Lauren replied.

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say," Jack said.

Lauren removed her jacket and started unbuttoning her shirt. "You don't have a choice. I have things to say and I'm getting in there with you."

"Like hell you are." Jack rose out of the water and climbed onto the rock floor of the cavern. Snatching up his towel, he started drying off. Grabbing his briefs, he shoved his feet into them and yanked them up his legs, then tugged on his jeans.

"Make love to me and if afterwards you still want me to leave, I'll go away and you'll never see me again," Lauren said, "but if you don't make love to me, I'll keep after you until you're ready to forgive me and love me again." She put her hands on his chest and started to wrap her arms around his neck when Jack shoved her hands away and reached for his shirt.

"She's nothing to you," Lauren said. "The only reason she's having your child is because of a mistake. Susan told me all about it." When Jack refused to be baited, she said, "She's also too short. You always said you liked tall women like me, and she has big breasts and you never liked big busted women."

Jack felt his anger mounting, and with it, an urge to hurt Lauren for all the hell she'd put him through. He felt like telling her Grace was right for him in every way, that he liked a woman with big breasts because that's how Grace was, and it felt right to have his arms around a woman who was not so tall because when she lay with her back against his chest, and his arm was over her, his hand could reach all the places she liked to be touched, and it was important to him that she was going to nurse their son and all the other children she wanted to have, and he'd be the father of those children because he planned to marry her.

The realization came to him on the mountain, when he stood looking off in the distance, and it settled in as he soaked in the hot springs pool while listening to the sounds around him. It was like an epiphany. Marrying Grace. Having her in his house because she was his wife, not just because she was the mother of his son. Raising other sons with her. And daughters. Little clones of their mother. Perfect, like Grace.

He shrugged into his jacket and headed out of the cavern, and saw tied to a tree at the bottom of the footpath, the horse Lauren once owned, but had to give up with the divorce settlement. "You took Creed without my permission," he said. "I could have you arrested."

"But you won't," Lauren replied. "We'll ride back together and you can at least listen to what I have to say. If you feel the same when I'm done I'll leave you be. Just give me one more chance to make you understand what was happening with me. Please Jack. Give me that much."

Jack looked at the woman he once thought was the most beautiful woman in the world, and wondered what it was he saw in her beyond that. She disgusted him now, and he owed her nothing, not even ten minutes of his time while riding down the trail to hear her pour out her heart. "When we get back to the ranch you'll turn Creed into the corral and leave."

"Then I can ride with you?"

"I can't very well stop you." Jack rushed ahead and untied his horse, then launched himself into the saddle and started back.

Lauren quickly mounted and caught up. "You don't have to say anything. Just listen," she said, keeping pace. "When I was in prison I had time to read about postpartum depression. Everything was like it described. I started feeling sad, and I became moody and agitated, then, I started losing touch with reality. I'd see Jackie and he wasn't Jackie. He was this ugly, distorted... thing. If anyone had picked up on it, I could have been put on drugs. I was psychotic and didn't know what I was doing."

Jack looked straight ahead, saying nothing. He was glad the ranch was in view. They'd put the horses away and Lauren would leave. He had things to say to Grace, and he wanted Lauren off the ranch when he did. And he wanted to hold Grace and tell her he loved her.

"Jack?" Lauren said. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"Can you ever bring Jackie back?" Jack asked.

"No," Lauren replied, "and I'll be living with it until the day I die."

"So will I," Jack said, then clenched his jaws.

"Do you at least understand?" Lauren asked, turning to look at him.

Jack fixed his eyes on the stable. "Everything wasn't fine from the start. You refused to nurse Jackie."

"That's because I didn't think I'd have enough milk," Lauren said.

Jack heard that excuse from her before, and he'd been furious she refused to give Jackie her first milk. It had also been the first time he'd looked at her and seen her for what she was. A vain, egotistical, self-centered woman. "You wouldn't nurse because you didn't want to mess up your figure. Before we married you said women got sagging breasts from nursing. I should have picked up on it then. Well, Grace isn't worried about her figure. She plans to nurse Adam for six months, and if her breasts start to sag, I'll know it's because she's a good mother. She's also the woman I plan to marry."

"You can't mean that," Lauren said.