Maureen Child - Committed to the Baby

“Yeah, we did.” She took a breath and asked, “Remember how we celebrated?”

His gaze fixed on hers, and she felt the heat of that stare slide right down into her bones. “You mean how we made love out here, covered in mud, laughing like loons?”

“Yes,” she said, “that’s what I mean.” She took an instinctive step toward him. The past mingled with the present, memory tangling with fresh need. Her mouth went dry, her insides melted and something low and deep within her pulsed with desire. Passion. She remembered the feel of his hands on her. The taste of his mouth on hers. The heavy weight of him pressing her down, into cold, sodden earth. And she remembered she hadn’t felt the cold. Hadn’t noticed the rain. All she’d been aware of was Justice.

Some things didn’t change.

The sun was blazing out of a spring sky. They were on opposite sides of a very large fence that snaked between them. Their marriage was supposedly over, and all that was keeping her here on the ranch was the fact that he needed her to help him be whole again.

And yet, none of that mattered.

She took another step toward him. He moved closer, too, his gaze locked on hers, heat sizzling in those dark blue depths until Maggie almost needed to fan herself. What he wanted was there on his face. As she was sure it was on hers. She needed him. Always had. Probably always would.

Standing here surrounded by memories was just stoking those needs, magnifying them with the images from the past. She didn’t care. Maggie lifted one hand, cupped his cheek in her palm and felt the scratch of beard stubble against her skin. It felt good. Right. He closed his eyes at her touch, blew out a breath and moved even closer to her.

“Maggie…”

A baby’s cry broke them apart.

Jolting, Maggie turned toward the sound and saw Mrs. Carey hurrying across the patio and down the steps, carrying a very fussy Jonas on her hip. The older woman had cropped gray hair and was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Her tennis shoes didn’t make a sound as she scurried toward them, an apologetic expression on her face.

Maggie walked to meet the woman, holding out her arms for her son. Jonas practically flung himself at his mother and wrapped his arms around her neck.

“I’m so sorry for interrupting,” Mrs. Carey said, glancing from Maggie to Justice with a shrug. “But Jonas looked out the window, saw his mama and there was just no holding him back.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Carey,” Maggie told her, running one hand up and down her son’s back in a soothing gesture that was already quieting the baby’s cries and sniffles. The look on the housekeeper’s face told Maggie she really regretted interrupting whatever had been going on. But maybe it was for the best, she thought. Maybe things would have gotten even more complicated if she and Justice had allowed themselves to be swept away by memories.

It only took another moment for Jonas to lift his head from Maggie’s shoulder and give her a watery smile. “There now, no reason to cry, is there, little man?”

Jonas huffed out a tiny breath, grabbed hold of one of Maggie’s earrings, then turned his victorious smile on Justice and Mrs. Carey. As if he were saying, See? I have my mommy. Just like I wanted.

Justice moved off a little and sat down hard on the stone bench. “I’m done exercising, Maggie. Why don’t you take your son into the house?”

Mrs. Carey, standing behind her boss, made a face at him that almost set Maggie laughing. But the truth was she was just too torn to smile about the situation. There her stubborn husband sat, with his son within arm’s reach, and Justice had withdrawn from them. Sealed himself off behind that damn wall of his. Well, Maggie thought, maybe it was past time she tore some of that wall down. Whether he liked it or not.

Giving into the urge, Maggie jostled Jonas on her hip a bit, then asked, “Jonas, you want to go see your daddy?”

Justice’s head snapped up and his eyes were wide and horrified briefly before they narrowed into dangerous slits. “I’m not his daddy.”

“You are the most hardheaded, stubborn, foolish man I have ever known,” Mrs. Carey muttered darkly. “Not enough sense to see the truth even when it’s staring right at you with your own eyes.”

“You might want to remember who you work for,” Justice told her without looking at her, keeping his eyes fixed on Maggie and the boy.

“I believe I just described who I work for,” Mrs. Carey told him. “Now I’m going back to the kitchen. Put a roast in for dinner.”

When she was gone, Maggie stared at Justice for another minute, while the baby laughed and babbled to himself. But her mind was made up. She was going to force Justice to acknowledge their son. No more of this letting him avoid the baby, scuttling out of rooms just as she entered. No more walking a wide berth around the situation. It was time for him to be shaken up a bit. And there was no better way to do it than this.

“Here you go, sweetie. Go see your daddy.” Maggie swung Jonas down and before Justice could get off the bench, she plopped the baby into his lap.

Both baby and man wore the same startled expression, and they looked so much alike that Maggie actually laughed.

Justice didn’t hear her. He was holding his breath and watching the baby on his lap as if it were a live grenade. He expected the tiny boy to start shrieking in protest at being handed over to a stranger. But instead, Jonas looked up at him and a slow, cautious smile curved his tiny mouth.

He had two teeth, on the bottom, Justice noted, and a stream of drool sliding out of his mouth. His hair was black, his eyes a dark blue and his arms and legs were chubby pistons, moving at an incredible rate. Justice kept one hand on the boy’s back and felt the rapid beat of the baby’s heart beneath his hand.

For days he’d steered clear of the child, told himself the baby was none of his concern. He hadn’t wanted to be touched by the child. Hadn’t wanted to look at Jonas and know that Maggie had found what she needed with some other man. Staying away had been much easier.

Yet now, as he considered that, he realized that for the first time in his life, he’d behaved like a coward. He’d run from the child and what he meant to save his own ass. To protect himself.

What did that say about him?

Jonas laughed and Justice turned his attention to Maggie, who was watching them both with tears in her eyes. His heart turned over in his chest, and just for an instant he let himself believe it was real. That he and Maggie were together again. That Jonas was his son.

Then the sound of a car engine out front shattered the quiet. A moment later that engine was shut off and the solid slam of a car door followed. Before he could wonder who had arrived, Mrs. Carey shouted from inside, “Jesse and Bella are here!”

Justice stared up at Maggie, the moment over. “Take the baby.”

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