Maureen Child - Committed to the Baby

“Because I am, you dolt!” Maggie took another step closer to him, and Justice forced himself to hold his ground. With the weakness in his leg, if he tried to step back, he might just go down on his ass, and wouldn’t that be a fine end to an already spectacular day?

“I’m his mother,” Maggie told him. “He goes where I go. And I thought maybe his daddy would like a look at him.”

One more twist of the knife into his gut. He hadn’t been able to give her the one thing she’d really wanted from him. Now seeing her with the child she used to dream of was torture. Especially since she was looking into his eyes and lying.

“I’m not buying it, Maggie, so just drop it, all right? I’m not that kid’s father. I’m not anybody’s father. So why the song and dance?”

“How can you know you’re not?” she argued, clearly willing to stick to whatever game plan she’d had in mind when she got here. “Look at Jonas. Look at him! He has your eyes, Justice. He has your hair. Heck, he’s even as stubborn as you are.”

As if to prove her point, the baby gave up slapping at her shoulder for attention, reached out and grabbed hold of Maggie’s gold, dangling earring. He gave it a tug, squealing in a high-pitched tone that made Justice wince. Gently, Maggie pried that tiny fist off her earring and gave her son a bright smile.

“Don’t pull, sweetie,” she murmured, and her son cooed at her in delight.

That softness in her voice, the love shining in her eyes, got to him as nothing else could have. Justice swallowed hard and finally forced himself to look at the child. Bright red cheeks, sparkling dark blue eyes and a thatch of black hair. He wore a diaper and a black T-shirt that read Cowboy in Training and was waving and kicking his chubby arms and legs.

Something inside him shifted. If he and Maggie had been able to have children, this is just what he would have expected their child to look like. Maybe that’s why she thought her ploy would work on him. The kid looked enough like Justice that she probably thought she could convince him he was the father and then talk him out of a paternity test.

Sure. Why would she think he’d insist on that anyway? They had been married. The timing for the child was about right. She’d have no reason to think that he wouldn’t believe her claims. But that meant that whoever had fathered the boy had turned his back on them. Which, weirdly, pissed him off on Maggie’s behalf. What the hell kind of man would do that to her? Or to the baby? Who wouldn’t claim his own child?

He watched the boy bouncing up and down on Maggie’s hip, laughing and drooling, and told himself that if there were even the slightest chance the boy was actually his, Justice would do everything in his power to take care of him. But he knew the truth, even if Maggie didn’t.

“He’s a good-looking boy.”

Maggie melted. “Thank you.”

“But he’s not mine.”

She wanted to argue. He could see it in her face. Hell, he knew her well enough to know that there was nothing Maggie liked more than a good argument. But this one she’d lose before she even started.

He couldn’t be Jonas’s father. Ten years before, Justice had been in a vicious car accident. His injuries were severe enough to keep him in a hospital for weeks. And during his stay and the interminable testing that was done, a doctor had told him that the accident had left him unlikely to ever father children.

The doctor had used all sorts of complicated medical terms to describe his condition, but the upshot was that Jonas couldn’t be his. Maggie had no way of knowing that, of course, since Justice had never told anyone about the doctor’s prognosis. Not even his brothers.

Before he and Maggie got married, when she started talking about having a family, he’d told her that he didn’t want kids. Better to let her believe he chose to remain childless rather than have her think he was less than a man.

His spine stiffened as that thought scuttled through his brain. He hadn’t told her the truth then and he wouldn’t now. Damned if he’d see a flash of pity in her eyes for him. Bad enough that she was here to see him struggle to do something as simple as walk.

“So who were you with, Maggie?” he asked, his voice a low and dark hum. “Why didn’t he want his kid?”

“I was with you, you big jerk,” she said tightly. “I didn’t tell you about the baby before because I assumed from everything you’d said that you wouldn’t want to know.”

“What’s changed, then?” he asked.

“I’m here, Justice. I came here to help you. And I decided that no matter what, you had the right to know about Jonas.”

If it were possible, Maggie would have said that Justice’s features went even harder. But what was harder than stone? His eyes were flat and dark. His jaw was clenched. He was doing what he always had done. Shutting down. Shutting her out. But why?

Yes, she knew he’d said he didn’t want children, but she’d been so sure that the moment he saw his son, he’d feel differently. That Jonas would melt away his father’s reservations about having a family.

She’d even, in her wildest fantasies, imagined Justice admitting he was wrong for the first time in his life. In her little dream world, Justice had taken one look at his son, then begged Maggie’s forgiveness and asked her to stay, to let them be a family. She should have known better. “Idiot.”

“I’m not an idiot,” he told her.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she countered. He was so close to her and yet so very far away.

The house was quiet, tucked in for the night. Outside the windows was the moonlit darkness, the ever-present sea wind blowing, rattling the windowpanes and sending tree branches scratching against the roof.

Justice stood not a foot from her, close enough that she felt the heat of his body reaching out for her. Close enough that she wanted to lean into him and touch him as she’d wanted to during the therapeutic massage she’d given him earlier.

Instantly, warmth spiraled through her as she remembered his response to her hands moving on the weakened muscles in his leg. His erection hadn’t been weak, though, and hadn’t been easy to ignore, especially since being near him only made her want the big dummy more than ever.

“Look,” Justice muttered, breaking the spell holding Maggie in place, “I’m willing to do the therapy routine. I don’t like it, but I need to get back on my feet. If you can help with that, great. But if you staying here is gonna work, you’re going to have to drop all of this crap about me being your baby’s father. I don’t want to hear it again.”

“So you want me to lie,” she said.

“I want you to stop lying.”

“Fine. No lies. You are Jonas’s father.”

He gritted his teeth and muttered, “Damn it, Maggie!”

“Don’t you swear in front of my son.” She glanced at Jonas and though he was only six months old, she could see that he was confused and worried about what was happening. His big eyes looked watery, and his lower lip trembled as if he were getting ready to let a wail loose.

Justice barked out a harsh laugh. “You think he understood that?”

She glanced at the baby’s big blue eyes, so much like his father’s, and stroked a fingertip along his jaw soothingly. “I think he understands tone,” she said quietly. “And I don’t want you using that tone in front of him.”

He blew out a breath, scowled ferociously for a second, then said, “Fine. I won’t cuss in front of the kid. But you quit playing games.”

“I’m not playing.”

“You’re doing something, Maggie, and I can tell you now, it’s not going to work.”

She stared up at him and shook her head. “I knew you were stubborn, Justice, but I never imagined you could be this thick-headed.”