Cathy McDavid - Baby's First Homecoming

“He’s a really good person, Sierra.” Sage smiled fondly. “Hardworking, loyal, caring and sweet.”

Sweet?

“He’s not hard on the eyes, either,” Sage added with an appreciative sigh. “You could do worse.”

“We’re not… There’s nothing between us,” Sierra protested.

“There was at one time.”

Jamie’s I’m-awake-where-are-you? cry carried through the house from the bedroom. “Oops.” Sierra excused herself with a smile. “Someone’s up from their nap.”

“And demanding your attention. Isn’t that just like a man? Big or little.”

Jamie’s crying stopped the moment Sierra stepped into the bedroom. He stood up in the portable crib, clinging to the side. One good growth spurt, and he’d be tall enough to crawl out on his own. She was going to have to buy a full-size crib soon, though she couldn’t imagine where she’d put another piece of furniture in here.

She and Jamie needed their own place. Though she loved her family, she couldn’t live with them and off them for long. Her pride wouldn’t let her. In order to obtain her own place, however, she’d need a job. In order to get a job, she’d have to conquer her fear of being away from Jamie.

The solution was obvious. Find employment she could do from home.

That, she decided, would be the first order of business on Monday morning. She’d update her résumé and start sending it out. In the meantime, she’d offer to help around the ranch. Run errands. Answer the phone. Paperwork. Clean stalls if necessary, so long as she could have Jamie with her.

“Hungry, handsome?”

She hummed to Jamie as she combed his rumpled hair. He patted her face and made kissing sounds; at least, Sierra chose to believe they were kissing sounds.

For a moment, she lost herself in the miracle of her son and forgot all about his father coming over. It didn’t last. No sooner did she walk back into the kitchen, Jamie toddling along beside her, then she remembered.

She’d just finished giving him a snack of juice and Cheerios, when a knock sounded.

“Sierra! It’s wonderful to see you again.” The hug Blythe Powell gave Sierra when she opened the door was warm and genuine and a good ten seconds long.

Her resistance melted. Here was someone from her past, an important someone. In a small way, hugging Blythe was like hugging her mother again.

Suddenly, Sierra wanted Jamie to meet his only living grandmother.

“Come in.” Her pleasure was cut short when Clay sauntered into the kitchen.

He was carrying an old-fashioned wooden rocking horse, one that had been ridden hard and loved well, given the worn paint and frayed yarn mane. Once inside, he set it in the middle of the floor.

“I hope you don’t mind I brought this along,” Blythe explained. “It was Clay’s when he was Jamie’s age. His grandfather made it for him.”

The grandfather she’d named Jamie after? Yes, she thought, observing Clay’s features soften.

“Is this him?” Blythe approached Jamie, her hands clasped in front of her, her face an explosion of joy.

Jamie, excited over the commotion, started slapping the tray on his high chair.

“Hello there.” Blythe bent so that her face was on Jamie’s level. “Aren’t you adorable?”

His eyes went huge, and his mouth started quivering.

“Goodness gracious, don’t cry.”

Sierra rushed over. “He’s a little shy around new people.”

Except when it came to Clay.

“It’s okay,” Blythe crooned, not appearing the least bit offended. “We’ll get to know each other slowly.”

Sierra removed Jamie from the high chair and bounced him in her arms, standing next to Blythe so he could get used to her. After a minute, he settled down. The next minute, he was reaching for Blythe’s glasses.

She captured his hand, put it to her lips and blew a raspberry on his palm. Jamie snatched his hand back, stared at it in amazement, burst into giggles, then pushed it into her face.

“Ma, ma, ma.”

Tears sprang to Blythe’s eyes, and she laughed along with Jamie. “He looks just like Clay did as a baby.”

Sierra didn’t deny the resemblance, though she sometimes thought she saw some of her father in him, too.

After another two minutes and another dozen raspberries, Jamie was more than willing to go to his grandmother. She took him gratefully.

“Do you mind?” she asked, indicating the chair where Sierra had been sitting when they arrived.

“Sit, please.” She caught Clay’s glance and was struck still.

The sweetness Sage had referred to earlier shone in his expression. “Thank you,” he mouthed.

She shrugged, ignoring the mild thrum of her heartstrings.

“Can I get you something?” she offered.

“I’m fine.” Blythe and Jamie were engaged in a game of peek-a-boo.

“Me, too.” Clay removed his cowboy hat and set it on the counter. At the table, he stroked Jamie’s head. “The rest of the family out working?”

“Yes.” Saturdays, as Sierra was learning, were the busiest days of the week for the Powell Riding Stables and Gavin’s stud and breeding business. “Ethan’s shoeing horses, and Gavin said something about new brood mares arriving. If you want to go talk to them, your mother and I—”

“I want to talk to you.”

All the warm, cozy feelings Sierra had been having promptly vaporized. “Right this minute?”

“Mom can watch Jamie.”

Blythe must have heard them, but she didn’t look away from Jamie.

“I haven’t hired an attorney yet,” Sierra said softly.

“It’s not that kind of conversation.”

What kind was it, then? She’d much prefer stalling, except he would push and push and not relent until she did.

“We can sit in the living room.”

“I was thinking of somewhere more private. Like the back patio.”

“No. I can’t see Jamie from outside.” She couldn’t see him from the living room, either, but he would be only one room away, and she could hear him. That would minimize her anxiety.

“Mom’s not going to—”

“Of course she’s not.”

“Then why?”

“It’s the living room or not at all.”

Sierra couldn’t explain her phobia to herself, much less other people. Losing Jamie had made her overprotective and unreasonably afraid. She would, she was convinced, improve in time. Everyone just needed to be patient with her.

“Okay.” He led the way.

Sierra chose the chair closest to the hallway.

Rather than sit, Clay stood at the large picture window, studying the courtyard, beyond which lay Mustang Valley and the community of Mustang Village at its center.

He was, Sierra grudgingly admitted, a nice-looking man. Tall, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped and with a ruggedly handsome profile. His jeans were the same everyday brand her brothers wore. Not so his Western-cut shirt. She’d bet if she viewed the label inside the collar it would bear a designer name. His quality leather boots and belt were hand-tooled by expert craftsmen.

According to her brothers’ account, Clay toiled laboriously running his various business ventures. He was apparently doing well.

A memory stirred of her nestled beside that tall frame, her fingertips stroking that rugged profile as early-morning light streamed in through the shutters. Even as she shoved the memory aside, a flush crept up her neck to her cheeks.

He abruptly turned, startling her, and she averted her head before he noted her flummoxed state.

When he sat, it was in the chair adjacent to hers, his knees separated from hers by mere inches.

“I don’t want to make this difficult on you,” he started, his voice low.

“I thought you said we weren’t going to discuss Jamie’s custody.”