Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (8 page)

BOOK: Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series)
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Realizing where her thoughts had strayed, she descended the stairs and shut the door and concentrated on cleaning Jack's house. In the hallway off the living room she located a closet where she found more cleaning supplies, along with several boxes against the back wall, one labeled
clothes for thrift
, the other two labeled,
household for thrift
. Moving the box with clothes aside, she dragged the boxes with the household items into the hallway to go through later.

She decided to start in Jack's room, but as she bundled up the bed linens to put in the washer, she spotted a book on the bedstand. Picking it up, she saw that it was a book on postpartum depression and realized Jack was concerned about Susan. She too was concerned because Susan could self-abort the baby by any number of methods, and postpartum depression would no longer be an issue.

Wanting to put out of her mind thoughts of Susan killing Marc's baby, she set the book aside, bundled the first load of dirty clothes into the washer, then started clearing the sink and counters and table, and every available surface that could hold a cup, mug or dish, and filled the dishwasher. Finding a stash of paper bags, she gathered outdated magazines and bagged them, along with all the old newspapers scattered about in disheveled piles. What stood out most about Jack's house was that it was stripped of all décor. No homey touches. No pictures on the walls.

A
place to hang my hat
...

Too true, Grace thought, and decided she'd change it into a place for Jack to hang his hat, and sit by the fire with her in the evening, or at a kitchen table cleared of clutter, and come to know the warmth and love a real home embraced. The term,
a woman's touch
, had never been clearer. There were no signs of any woman in Jack's house. Or in his life.

While she cleaned, Grace was amazed at her level of energy, and in less than three hours, she had the place in reasonable order. She'd also opened the boxes for the thrift shop and found bowls, and candle holders, and flower vases, and a figurine of two swans with their necks and heads forming the shape of a heart. She placed it on the mantel beside the clock, which she'd wound, and was ticking away. Then she placed the candle holders on the dining room table on each side of an attractive Italian-style compote.

Weary, but happy with what she'd accomplished, she went to Jack's bedroom and lay on the bed for a few minutes. Sinking her head into his pillow, now covered with a clean pillow case, she closed her eyes, intending to take a little short nap...

Sometime later Grace awakened when she felt the mattress slant and a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?" Jack asked.

She glanced up at Jack and saw a dark look on his face. "You look mad," she said.

"Not mad. Annoyed."

"Same thing. Why? You said I could tidy things up."

"You didn't tidy. You cleaned the whole damn house."

"I wanted it nice."

"I told you I'd get it cleaned."

Grace pulled herself up to sit against the pillows. "Okay, what's really pissing you off? Is it that you like living in a pig sty, or maybe you miss having dishes with lab cultures in them."

"Why did you drag all the stuff out of the box in the closet?" Jack asked.

"To make the place look like a home!"
Grace cried. "The box said it was for the thrift shop, so what difference does it make? You want to bring our baby here, and you want me here for... for... I really don't know why. But you're the most impossible man I've ever met. And if you'll get off the bed, I want to go home."

"To your place?" Jack asked, alarmed.

"No," Grace snapped, "though I have no idea why I'm staying here. Just walk me back to the lodge. I'm tired." She started to get up, but felt a little lightheaded.

"You can barely stand," Jack said. "I'll carry you back."

Grace glared at him. "Don't bother," she said, stubbornly. "I can walk."

"Like hell you can." Jack picked her up and carried her out of the house, while Grace wrapped her arms around his neck and held on to him, trying to ignore his warm breath on her face, and the muscular arms cradling her, and the fact that she found herself both loving and hating this man. But if he expected her to
ever
clean so much as a cobweb in his house, he'd have to beg her forgiveness, and tell her he was sorry, and make an effort to appreciate what she'd done for him during the course of an entire afternoon!

In her bedroom, Jack lowered her to the bed, and said, "I'll have Flo put all the stuff back in the box so I can get rid of it."

"Fine!" Making Jack's house into a home was an impossible task, Grace decided, and vowed to eclipse all thoughts of... anything. "I'll try to step over the mess when I come. If I come."

"The house is fine," Jack said. "I just don't want it cluttered with a lot of junk."

"I get the picture," Grace replied. "Now please just go."

"We'll talk tomorrow," Jack said.

"I don't think so," Grace replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to finish my nap." She punched the pillow and plopped her head on it and shut her eyes to block the sight of Jack because she knew now he wasn't a man she wanted on a permanent basis. Far from it. But it didn't stop her from wanting him to hold her again, and kiss her, and…

She cut that thought off sharp.

Later that afternoon Grace started to leave her room, but hearing Jack and his mother talking quietly in the great room, she decided to wait until Jack left before spending time with his mother. She was about to close the door when she heard Maureen calling Jack down in muted tones. Listening from the hallway, she heard Maureen say in a hushed tone, "You owe Grace an apology. Your house looked livable for the first time in years. Grace must have worked hours, and in her condition. As for all the things she dragged out of the boxes... you did ask her to stay in your house until the baby comes."

"To stay in my house, not drag out the past and display it all over the place."

"Then get rid of the stuff," Maureen said, her voice agitated. "You need to put your bitterness aside and let the past go. It can't be changed and it's eating away at you, but because of a mix-up at a fertility clinic you've been given a chance to start a new family. Your unborn son is a gift, Jack, but he comes with a mother."

"I know. That's why I'm moving Grace to my place," Jack said. "I'll give her the master bedroom so she has her own bath and privacy, and I'll move into the extra bedroom so I'll be around when it's time for her to deliver, and I'll be around afterwards too."

"You
think
you're moving her here because you made up your mind you would," Maureen replied, "but Grace has no intention of moving."

"She's already changing her mind," Jack said. "That's why she cleaned my house."

"And if she doesn't move there?" Maureen asked. "Do you plan to let her walk out of your life?"

"She can't," Jack replied. "I'm petitioning the court for joint custody."

"Or, you could do right by her and marry her," Maureen said. "She's a lovely woman and she's ready to move on with her life, but she won't sit around waiting for you to come to your senses. The problem is, you want your son but not his mother because you think it will keep your son safe and fix the past, but it doesn't work that way. You've made a shrine out there behind your house and you can't seem to get beyond it, but right here, in this house, you have a future with your unborn son and his mother. Don't throw it away."

"I'll do what it takes to keep my son here," Jack said, "but it won't include marriage." He left the house, and a few minutes later, Grace heard his truck start up.

That iron fence behind Jack's house—that shrine, as his mother called it—held the secret to Jack's bitterness, and Grace felt a compelling need to know what it was.

After hearing footsteps in the hallway, and the door to Maureen's bedroom suite close, Grace slipped into a jacket and crept out of her room and left the lodge.

 

CHAPTER 7

 

Grace tried to prepare herself for what she might find within the iron fence, but when she opened the gate and stepped inside, she was totally unprepared to find a single headstone with the name,
Jackson Allen Hansen, Jr
. written across its polished facade. The dates showed Jack's son had been four months old when he died, three years before. An inscription along the bottom of the marker read: SORELY MISSED BY HIS FATHER. No mention of a mother. Nor had Jack or anyone else talked about Jack having a wife. But here lay a baby, missed only by his father. Which explained the cloak of sadness surrounding Jack. But a mother was missing from the picture, which had to be an added weight on Jack's shoulders, for whatever reason. She tried to recall some of what she'd overheard Jack's mother saying to Jack.

Put your bitterness aside... it's eating away at you...

Bitterness because the mother of the baby was gone? Did she leave Jack after the baby died? And was Jack the cause of the baby's death? Then maybe Jack blamed the mother for the baby's death, so much so that all reference to her was barred from the marker.

You want your son but not his mother... you think that will keep your son safe...

Keep his son safe from what? A mother who might harm him? Or maybe a mother who accidentally dropped him, or didn't know what to do when he choked, or let his fever get too high before calling the doctor. As obsessive as Jack was about her prenatal care, she could see him holding any woman accountable for almost anything that might happen to a baby during his birth, or after he was born. Holding
her
accountable if something went wrong.

But she also knew Jack must have loved his son deeply because whatever happened to cause his death was eating away at him. Before passing judgment, she'd ask his mother what happened. She also wondered if Jack had been married to the mother of his son. For some reason, she believed he had because Jack didn't seem the kind of man who would make the mistake of having a child out of wedlock.

She looked around the small enclosed area. The place
was
a shrine. A stone bench was placed a few feet back from the marker, and between thin patches of snow were little concrete birds and rabbits and one small angel. Evergreen shrubs were carefully trimmed, and the leaves of crocus sprouted in clusters from ornamental pots. There wasn't a weed inside the iron fence, but beyond, a web of last season's weeds lay flattened by the recent snow. She sat on the bench and stared at the marker, but after a while, she worried that Jack might return and be angry to find her in his private place, so she left.

When she returned to the lodge, she found Maureen out front, filling bird feeders. Maureen looked up when she saw her coming, and said, "What's wrong?"

"I saw the grave," Grace replied. "Jack should have told me about it. I don't know why he's such a tight-lipped man."

"You're right. Jack can be silent at times," Maureen said, "but losing his son just about killed him, especially when he learned how it happened."

"Then it wasn't an illness?" Grace asked.

Maureen shook her head. Setting the birdseed scooper on a chair, she said, "Come inside where it's warm. We'll talk about it there."

In the lodge, Maureen dragged two chairs close to the fire. After they were settled, Maureen sat silently staring at the fire, her face deeply troubled, then she turned to Grace and said, "Jack's wife killed him. Jack should have told you, but he won't talk about it. He never talks about it. He just holds it inside and lets it keep festering away."

Grace stared at Maureen in shocked silence as she tried to process what she'd just been told, while also thinking back on things Jack said over the weeks she'd been there and reflecting on his continued sadness. She had a dozen questions to ask Maureen, but one stood out above the rest. "Why did Jack's wife do it?"

"The baby wouldn't stop crying, so Lauren put a pillow over his face to make him stop and when she removed it, he was dead. It was a month after Jack and Lauren's first anniversary."

Clothes
. The large box in the hall closet. Jack still held onto her belongings.

And the boxes for the thrift shop?

"Then the things I put around Jack's house? Were they...?"

"Wedding gifts," Maureen said. "I should have gotten rid of them years ago, along with Lauren's clothes in the other box. I don't know why Jack hasn't, but there was a lot going on during the time. Susan gave birth to Ricky the same week Lauren had Jackie, and Susan and Sam were dealing with the problems surrounding Ricky. Jack was concerned too, but before then, when the women were pregnant, my boys were model husbands. I was so proud of them."

Grace thought about that. It was a different side of Jack. With her, he'd been controlling and overprotective. Everything he did was for his unborn son.

"You have a question," Maureen said.

Grace nodded. "I was just wondering if, when Jack and his wife were married, Jack tried to, well, run his wife's life?" she asked, wondering if Jack
had
been a controlling husband.

"Heaven's no," Maureen replied. "He was loving and caring and attentive to Lauren's needs. And that little baby of his... I never saw a man so proud of a son. Jack was such a good father, and will be a again, but he has to crack through the wall of bitterness surrounding him, and now, with you pregnant at the same time as Susan, and Susan in such a highly emotional state, it's all coming back, and he can't let it happen again. He
won't
let it happen again."

"But he must have seen something coming," Grace said.

"Not at the time, which is why he was so devastated when he learned it wasn't sudden infant death syndrome the baby died from, but because his wife smothered him. Even though Lauren killed the baby, Jack still blames himself for not seeing it coming."

"How did Jack find out she killed him?" Grace asked.

"He began to find inconsistencies in Lauren's story. Initially, Lauren said she found the baby on his stomach, but later she said he was on his back and the pillow was over his face. Jack refused to believe she killed him. Still, things weren't right, and he got the feeling she was keeping something from him, so he started questioning her about the inconsistencies in her story, and before it was over, she broke down and admitted she smothered him."

Grace's hands went to her belly. "No wonder Jack's so anxious about this baby," she said, at last understanding Jack's behavior from the start, and his preoccupation with his unborn son. "He's reading a book on postpartum depression right now. I found the book in his room."

"That's because he wants to know the signs," Maureen replied. "In court, Lauren claimed it was postpartum depression, but the jurors weren't convinced. It was brought out that Lauren had an extremely impatient nature and a fiery temper and could have acted impulsively. In any event, she was charged with manslaughter instead of murder, so you'll have to bear with Jack through this. He'll be okay after the baby's past four months old."

"I suppose so," Grace said, "even though Jack has no worries with me. But I can see Susan harming my husband's baby, and if there's a chance she and Sam would let me adopt him, it's what I want, along with having Jack's baby. Where is his wife now?"

"Ex-wife," Maureen corrected. "Lauren recently got out of the state prison for women, another reason why Jack's edgy."

"Does he think she'll come here?" Grace asked, wondering what she'd do if Jack's ex-wife showed up at the ranch to find a woman pregnant with Jack's child.

"No," Maureen replied. "It's just that everything's happening at once—you and Susan due to at the same time, Susan saying things that are troubling, Ricky's health deteriorating, and now, Lauren released from prison. She wouldn't dare face Jack, but there's a chance she could come see Susan. They were close friends, and Susan visited Lauren in prison."

"After the woman killed her own son, and Jack's?" Grace said. "How could Susan want anything to do with her? Jack must have been furious."

"He was," Maureen replied. "He and Sam almost came to blows over it, but at the time Lauren killed the baby, Susan and Sam were involved with Ricky so Sam wasn't there for Jack when he needed his brother most, and Jack wasn't there for Sam. Jack donating sperm was kind of a peace offering, and now, with the mix-up, even that failed."

Grace eyed Maureen with curiosity. "When did Jack last see his ex-wife?" she asked.

"The day they took her away," Maureen replied. "Jack went home and threw the mattress out the front door, and everything on Lauren's dressing table was strewn across the room, like he'd swiped his arm across it before hurling the dressing table out the front door after the mattress. He left on his horse and didn't come back for a week. Meanwhile, Sam hauled everything away, and Flo and I boxed up the wedding gifts and Lauren's things and put them in the closet. Jack hasn't touched them since, but he left the furniture in the baby's room, and there were nights when I'd see the light on and I knew he was in there, I suppose trying to be close to his son. He's a lonely man who thinks he'll fill the void with a new son. It will fill it some, but he'll eventually realize he needs a wife too."

Maureen looked at her in a curious way, one that told her she was thinking she might one day fill that role, which had crossed Grace's mind too of late.

"What do I say to him when I see him?" Grace asked. "I can't pretend I don't know."

"When the time's right, tell him you understand why he wants you at the ranch," Maureen said. "Maybe you'll consider staying now. It's not a bad place to raise boys. I've loved it here from the first day I came as a bride."

"I might consider it until after the baby comes," Grace replied, "but then I want to get on with my life." She eyed Maureen's denim shirt, jeans, and western boots. She hadn't noticed until now that Maureen was dressed for riding.

Maureen shrugged. "I still ride my horse whenever the weather's good. Do you know how to ride?" she asked.

"Only what I learned at summer camp," Grace replied.

"Then after you have the baby, Jack can teach you. And don't worry. I'll be here to look after...?" Maureen paused. "Does the baby have a name yet?"

"Adam Jackson Hansen," Grace said impulsively. Until that moment, it never occurred to her to give her baby any last name but hers and Marc's, but being Jack's son, things were different. "He'll get his first name from his grandfather, his middle name in honor of his dead brother, and his last name from his father," she said, as things fell into place. She put her hands on her tummy. "I hope Jack will agree."

But before Jack could agree to anything, she'd have to find a way to tell him she knew about his ex-wife and dead son. A very troubling thought.

***

After mulling over what she'd learned from Maureen the day before, Grace found herself coming up with more reasons to move into Jack's house than not. As it was, she was occupying a room that Maureen would have been staying in, a room that also had a large-screen TV, and it would still be at least another month before Maureen's house would be ready for her to move back. In Jack's house she'd have him around when her time came to drive her to the birthing center, even there was a foot of snow on the ground, and it would also give Jack the assurance that his son was safe, and if that's what it took to give Jack peace of mind, it was a small sacrifice to make for the man whose presence was beginning to dominate her life, but in a positive way, a man, she realized with startling awareness, that she was slowly falling in love with.

She could see him filling the void in her life and imagine sharing a bed with him, maybe lying in bed, spoon style, with Jack's arms around her and his hands caressing the places that tingled sometimes when he was around. It had taken her three years to get used to sleeping in a big empty bed, and she missed cuddling at night the way she had with Marc. But the one thing she did know, she could not push Jack. He'd have to come to terms with having a woman in his life again in his own way, and in his own time.

When she walked over to his house and told him of her decision, he gave her one of his rare smiles that had her heart kicking in, and said, "I'll move my clothes and all of my things out of my bedroom and have Flo come make up the bed."

"The spare bedroom will be fine," Grace said. "I don't have that much stuff. And don't forget, Mei Ling comes too. Are you ready for her?"

"If that's what gets you here." Jack touched her face and moved toward her, and when his eyes dropped to her lips she was certain he was going to kiss her again, and she wanted him to, but then he placed his hand on her shoulder instead and gave it a little squeeze, and said, "I'll get Flo and send her over."

A few minutes later, Flo arrived with an arm load of linens. "Jack said to tell you he's collecting the cat paraphernalia and will bring it over in a few minutes. He wants you to put the cat in the carrier though."

Grace couldn't help grinning. With Mei Ling settled in the house it would truly feel like home, and once the kittens arrived they'd wrap their little hearts around Jack's, and before long, he'd wonder how he'd ever lived in a house without cats.

Maureen offered to take her to her house to pick up her things, and it was late afternoon by the time they returned from town. Jack was working the horses, so Sam helped carry in Grace's clothes and shoes all the newborn-baby diapers and little tiny clothes, along with a box with the items from her dresser top.

BOOK: Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series)
10.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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