Cathy Thacker - A Baby in the Bunkhouse

Ignoring the baby, Rafferty looked her square in the eye. “If you think it’s going to be that simple,” he concluded gruffly, “you’re fooling yourself.”

“WHAT’D YOU SAY to tick her off?” Eli asked an hour and a half later.

Rafferty noted his dad’s arthritis had eased up, along with the rain. He was moving around a lot more comfortably. But then, that was the way the disease worked. One day his dad would be chipper and spry and ready to saddle up with the rest of them, the next Eli’d be so stiff and sore he’d barely be able to get around. There was just no predicting. Which was why he’d had to retire—and do physical ranch work only sporadically.

However, his dad’s intellect, his ability to take in everything around him down to the smallest detail, remained intact.

Bracing himself for a possible lecture, Rafferty rocked back in his desk chair. “What do you mean?”

“I saw the look on Jacey’s face when she came in the front door. This should be a very joyous day for her. She was happy when I spoke with her at the hospital yesterday. Now she looks like she wants to punch something. Namely you.”

Rafferty went through the day’s mail, tossing the junk and stacking the rest. “She told me she had her baby via sperm donor.”

Eli sat down. “How in the world did that come up?”

Not easily, Rafferty thought. “I sort of asked her.”

“Sort of?”

“Okay, I asked her.”

Eli exhaled loudly, his frustration apparent. “Since when are you curious about other people’s personal lives?”

Never, Rafferty knew. “I was just making conversation,” he fibbed. When, in actuality, he’d had to know the truth. Why, he wasn’t sure. It shouldn’t matter to him who Caitlin’s daddy was, or what that guy might or might not mean to Jacey.

“You need to go apologize,” Eli reprimanded.

Rafferty didn’t see why. “She didn’t have to tell me what she did,” he pointed out calmly.

“But she did.” Eli thumped the arm of the chair with the flat of his hand. “And as long as she’s working here and living in this house—”

“Which is the second bad idea you’ve had,” Rafferty interrupted.

Eli scowled, prompting, “The first being…?”

“Hiring her,” Rafferty retorted. He would have had a hard enough time forgetting Jacey Lambert as it was. Now, how the hell was he supposed to pretend she was just the new ranch cook since he had shared one of the most intimate emotional experiences of her life when he’d delivered her baby girl into the world?

“She’s an excellent cook. The men love her. We’re lucky to have her. As far as where she bunks—” Eli’s finger stabbed the air emphatically “—there’s no way I’m having a woman and her baby in the bunkhouse. Period. So you need to get used to that.”

He was going to have to get used to a lot of things, Rafferty decided. The foremost of which was the way his father was suddenly taking over the domestic front, while still letting Rafferty do whatever he wanted with the cattle business.

His father had a point about one thing. For all their sakes, he did need to steer clear of Ms. Jacey Lambert. Rafferty grunted. “Fine. I’ll go tell her I’m sorry I offended her.”

And that, he promised himself, was the last thing he would have to do with the dark-haired beauty in quite a while.

Thankful that at least his dad had possessed the good sense to put Jacey and her baby in the opposite wing of bedrooms than the one he and his dad stayed in, Rafferty strode through the ranch house to the bedroom where Jacey would be sleeping.

The door was shut.

Hoping she was already asleep and wouldn’t respond, Rafferty rapped lightly.

“Come in. The door’s unlocked,” she said.

Reluctantly, Rafferty pushed open the door…and practically sunk through the floor at what he saw.

Jacey was seated in a rocking chair, her feet propped up on the footstool in front of her. The zip front of the city-chic pink-and-gray sweats she wore was open. The clinging T-shirt beneath pushed up above her ribs, revealing an expanse of luminous, creamy-soft skin. And although she had a pink baby blanket draped across her shoulder, obscuring all but the baby’s feet from view, it was easy to see that Jacey was nursing.

“Sorry.” Rafferty told himself to back out of the room—now—but his feet seemed glued to the floor. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s okay.” Curious now, she said, “What did you want?”

Seriously? Rafferty thought. You. And that shocked him, too. He hadn’t wanted a woman this way in a very long time. If ever.

He swallowed. “I just wanted to apologize if I offended you.”

Her smile was soft, contented. Due entirely, he was sure, to the snuggling baby in her arms.

A baby that, previous viewings had confirmed, was every bit as beautiful and feminine, soft and sweet, as she was. A baby, perversely, he longed to hold. Which again was weird since he had decided two years ago that having a family was just not in the cards for him.

Jacey studied him across the expanse of the bedroom. Bathed in the softness of the lamplight, her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders, she looked incredibly maternal.

She lifted a hand, as cheerful and easygoing as she had been the first night they’d met. “It’s okay,” she told him with that kind, understanding smile he found so appealing. “You’re entitled to your opinion. And I’m entitled to my hormones.” Her lips curved ruefully as she admitted with a blush, “I think I’m a little moody. My doc said it will pass as soon as my body adjusts to not being pregnant.”

She’d made a lovely pregnant woman, Rafferty thought.

The kind who loved motherhood with every fiber of her being. The kind of woman who should be married and have a dozen kids. Not doing it on her own, with a sperm donor who—to hear her tell it anyway—didn’t give a damn.

But again, it was none of his business.

“Hang on a minute.” She eased the baby from beneath the blanket. He had a glimpse of the bottom curve of her breast, and then her knit T fell down over her ribs, obscuring all that creamy skin from view.

Immune to the lusty nature of his thoughts, Jacey came toward him, the drowsy Caitlin in her arms. Before he could realize what she was about to do, she had transferred the sleeping baby to his arms, so the infant’s face was pressed against his shoulder. “Would you burp her while I wash up?” Jacey asked, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Too stunned to resist, Rafferty cradled the incredibly small and lightweight newborn to his chest.

Resisting the urge to bury his face in the downy-soft dark brown hair feathering the top of the infant’s head, he called out as Jacey disappeared into the adjacent bath. “I don’t know how to…do that…”

It was embarrassing to admit, but he’d never even held a newborn baby before, if one discounted the actual birth three days before. The few kids he’d had the occasion to hold had always been a lot older.

Jacey opened the door a crack and stuck her head out. “Just pat her on the back and walk around a bit.”

He heard the sound of water running.

“And be sure you support the back of her neck and head with your hand. She can’t hold it up by herself.”

Obviously, Rafferty thought.

Trying not to like this too much—he saw now how people got used to it—there was something satisfying about holding a life so delicate and new, so warm and cuddly, in your arms. It made you realize how precious life was. Rafferty frowned as the small eyes closed. “Uh…I think she’s going to sleep.”

“Keep patting her on the back. She should burp in a minute.”

Through the opening in the door, he could see Jacey moving about at the sink, hear the soft sound of soap being rubbed between her hands, on her breasts…? Turning away abruptly, he continued to pace around.