Cowboy in Charge (3 page)

What hurt
her
was having to see Scott and his daddy together.

“Very nice,” she managed. “Did you do that all by yourself?”

“No. Jason maked it.”

“Oh.” She looked at her ex. “Between getting supper and overseeing road construction, you seem to have
maked
yourself right at home.”

“You’ll thank me for that once I’ve gone and
maked
you a cup of tea for that throat.”

He laughed, and the sound did things to her insides that had nothing to do with the flu. She crossed her arms over her chest, fighting a sudden shiver she couldn’t blame on her illness, either. He frowned, and once again the resemblance to Scott made her breath catch. Over the years, she had tried not to notice the likenesses between her son and Jason. But seeing the two of them together only made the similarities between them undeniable.

Having the man right here in front of her only reinforced too many memories that had never completely faded.

“Have you got symptoms of anything else I should know about, besides flu?” he asked. “Judging by the way you crashed, I already suspect you’ve got sleeping sickness, too.”

“Not that. At least, not yet. The only other thing I’ve got is called middle-of-the-night nursing fatigue. And of course, just generally being a mom.” She swallowed, wincing at the dryness of her throat.

He rose. “I’ll take care of that tea. How do you drink it?”

“Milk, no sugar,” she said. As unhappy as accepting his offer made her feel, at this moment, she needed the warmth and comfort of the drink more than she needed control of the situation.

She ought to push him, to find out why he was here, to ask why he suddenly had something to say to her after all these years. At the reminder of his flat statement, uneasiness ran through her. But she just couldn’t face interrogating him right now. Her head was swimming and her eyes felt watery, and the chills—a brand-new symptom—couldn’t be a good sign at all, no matter whether they stemmed from her illness or her ex.

Jill continued to sleep peacefully and Scott sat engrossed in his car race. She took the opportunity to rest her eyes again until she heard the sound of the kettle whistling.

When Jason returned to the living room, he set two steaming mugs of tea on the coffee table.

“Jason, help,” her son called. She looked in his direction and saw the cardboard raceway had slid from its supporting blocks and lay flat on the rug.

Jason went down on one knee beside Scott. Their matching expressions of concentration as they surveyed the fallen raceway shouted the fact they were father and son.

The observation made her throat tighten to the point of dry painfulness again. She grabbed the mug of tea. The warmth stung her mouth but soothed her throat and eased her chills. By the time Jason came back to take his seat, she had pulled herself together. Mostly.

“Any luck with your calls?”

She shook her head. Before falling asleep, she had contacted everyone she could think of who might be able to help her tonight. She was reluctant to admit defeat, but what else could she do? Besides, though she had heard dishes clattering and water running in the background while she made the calls, in this small apartment chances were good he had overheard almost all of her conversations.

“My options were limited,” she confessed. “Most of the people I know are either attending the rehearsal dinner or involved in setting up for the wedding. Another few have plans for the night, and the rest have the flu bug themselves.” She slumped back against the couch.

She would never admit it to him, but all the phone calls had worn her out. Of course, he had probably caught on to that by now, too. How could she have fallen asleep? She bit her lip and winced as the skin burned. Probably a sign of dehydration.

What else could go wrong tonight?

Jason stared at her over the rim of his tea mug. “I’m staying,” he announced.

Chapter Three

The bull bearing down on him let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Jason jolted awake, jumped up from his seat in the armchair, cracked his shin against the coffee table and tripped over his boots, all at the speed of light. Another scream later, he made the connection between the onrushing bull and the baby down the hall.

He stumbled toward the bedroom Layne’s kids shared. The glow of the night-light she had turned on showed him the way. But who needed a night-light when the high-pitched cries left no doubt about the right direction.

Scott lay curled up in a ball on the bed, apparently oblivious to the noise. His sister flailed her arms and legs and continued to scream, her face beet red in stark contrast to the pale yellow crib sheet.

He lifted the wriggling mass of baby. Afraid he would drop her, he brought her against his chest. She hiccupped a few times, then started rubbing her cheek against his shirt.

No way. He knew the game she wanted to play, and he didn’t have the right equipment.

Reluctantly, he left the room and headed down the hall.

By now, he expected to see Layne coming to meet him, but there was no sign of her. He frowned. Considering what he’d heard about most new mothers, she would have to be comatose not to respond to her baby’s screams.

He hovered in the doorway of her room. When he’d announced he was staying, he had expected a scream from her, too, or at least a healthy protest. Her sighing acceptance and quick disappearance into her room after she’d put the kids to bed surprised him. They were also sure signs of how sick she must feel.

Her bedside clock read 2:38 a.m.

He hated having to wake her, but he had a hunch the baby’s screams had halted only temporarily, and when they started up again, he would be in a worse predicament than he was now.

“Layne?” he said from the doorway.

She didn’t move.

“Hey, Layne. The baby’s hungry.” And needing a change, judging by the warm weight of the pajama-clad bottom against his palm.

No sign of movement across the room. He went to the bed, then rested his hand on her shoulder and shook gently. “Hey, babe...
Layne
. Hey, Layne, wake up.” Was that the sound of desperation in his voice? Over the suddenly renewed screams from the infant, he couldn’t tell.

Now she stirred, rolling over onto her back. The pink sleep T-shirt she’d worn to bed twisted across her chest, leaving the deep neckline askew and barely covering her. He averted his gaze and tried to soothe the squirming baby, who had begun wriggling and twisting against
his
chest.

In desperation, he clicked on the bedside lamp. “Layne, wake up.”

She blinked a few times. Squinting in the light, she shifted to a seated position and leaned against the headboard. She reached up to take the baby from him. “Oh-h-h,” she cooed to the child, “somebody needs a change.”

Her voice was low and sleep-sexy and made him think of things he needed, too. Another list of thoughts that were best forgotten. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately, and he knew she didn’t want to tell him the truth. “Awful,” she said finally. She gestured toward the dresser. “Can you toss me that baby blanket, please? And there’s a diaper bag on the shelf just inside the closet.”

He handed her the lightweight blanket and found the bag.

“Normally,” she murmured, her attention fixed on the baby, “I’m up and out of bed the second Jill lets out a cry. And now I didn’t even hear her wake up.”

“You’ve got reason.”

Still looking away, she nodded. “I have to admit, I don’t know what would have happened if you weren’t here. Thank you.”

“No problem.” But there
was
a problem. What good was gratitude if she gave it grudgingly? If she couldn’t even look him in the face?

She finished diapering Jill and cuddled the baby to her. In a low voice, she asked, “Why
are
you here?”

And there was another problem.

He had been about to lean against the edge of the dresser. Her question made him freeze. He still couldn’t tell her the complete truth—not without the risk of having her kick him out again.

He told her a half-truth instead. “I wanted to see how things are going with you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Why not? We’d been together for—”

“Jason,” she said quietly, “please don’t try that one on me.”

“All right, then. I wanted to see my son.”

“
My
son,” she corrected. “For all the contact you’ve had with him, you could have been a sperm donor.”

* * *

J
ASON
STOOD
IN
the doorway of the kids’ room and watched his son rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Sitting in the middle of the double mattress, he looked so young and innocent. So small. Almost as small as the stuffed teddy bear and dilapidated panda taking up space on either side of him.

A minute ago, he had heard Scott calling for him and come at a run, hoping to keep the boy’s cries from wakening the baby and, in turn, the baby from wakening Layne. Considering the occasional sounds of Layne’s bedsprings creaking and, once, of her footsteps padding to the bathroom and back in the early hours, it had taken her till daybreak to get to sleep again.

“Morning now?” Scott asked.

“Yeah,” Jason confirmed.

This morning had come fast and furiously for him, with no sleep at all once he had left Layne’s room.

Furious
couldn’t begin to describe his reaction to her verbal slam.
Sperm donor
. A helluva thing to say to a man. Even if there
had
been one grain of truth in it, she had no call to dump the full silo load of responsibility on him. He wasn’t the only one involved in how things had turned out.

He reached for the teddy bear for something to occupy his mind and hands. The bear looked well loved, with its fur matted in some places and its cloth body worn bare in others. Had Scott gotten the bear as a birthday gift? Had he slept with it ever since? Did he like it better than the panda he had just grabbed from the bed?

“Have to hug Teddy,” Scott said.

“What?”

“Morning now. Have to hug Teddy,” Scott said again. He wrapped his arms around the panda hard enough to squeeze the stuffing from it. “See?”

Jason froze. He was a rodeo rider and a hard-riding wrangler, and he didn’t hug anything that wasn’t female and wearing a dress and willing to hug him back. He didn’t do stuffed animals.

“Have to hug Teddy,” Scott said yet again.

He could hear the slight tremor in the boy’s voice and see his puzzled frown. Evidently, Layne had made those early-morning hugs a family tradition. He swallowed hard, trying to ease the lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Hug Teddy.” Feeling like a fool, he wrapped his arms around the little cloth body. Feeling worse, he watched the smile brighten his son’s face and wished he could hug his boy instead.

How many mornings like this had he missed over the years? He didn’t want to think about it, refused to count the days. There would be too many for him to handle and way too many for him ever to replace.

Scott glanced toward the crib. Jason looked in that direction, too, and saw Jill staring wide-eyed at the mobile of puppies and kittens hanging at one end of the crib. Could babies her age even see that far? She looked only a few weeks old.

Scott threw aside his covers and crawled to the edge of the bed. “Morning now. Mommy says time to do the diaper.
De-e-e
,” he said in a singsong. “Time to do the diaper.”

Jason frowned, knowing he’d have to draw the line there. He’d just mastered the task of tucking Jill into her crib without waking her, and even that had about taxed his skill.

But Scott padded over to the small white dresser and pulled a diaper from the bottom drawer. He returned to stand in front of Jason with the diaper held out toward him and with the same expression of expectancy as when he had wanted him to hug the bear. A look of complete trust.

He suddenly wished Layne would look at him that way.

Even better at the moment, he wished Layne would wake up and walk into the room.

“I’m green at this, pardner,” he admitted, taking the diaper.

“Green?”
Scott said, looking at him with his mouth open, probably expecting to see him turn into an alien before his very eyes.

“A greenhorn,” he explained, feeling foolish again. How could he explain that concept to a three-year-old? How could he explain anything when he’d never had the practice? The chance? All he could do was try. “It means I’m new at this. A beginner. Someone who’s just learning.”

“I learn my ABC’s!” Scott grinned.

He smiled back at him. “Yeah, that’s it. Just like you learn your ABC’s. I’m a greenhorn at doing diapers.”

“De-e-e,”
the boy chanted again. “Greenhorn at doing diapers.”

This time, Jason laughed aloud and ruffled the boy’s hair.

Why couldn’t
he
be such a quick study?

It was a sobering idea. Especially when he connected the thought to getting what he wanted from Layne.

In the years he’d been gone, once he’d stopped sending her those envelopes she kept returning, he’d given up worrying about her. She was an adult. She could take care of herself—as she had made all too plain to him. No doubt about it, the woman had a way with words.

But the boy...

When he’d left, the child hadn’t been close to being born yet, hadn’t even made his appearance evident in the swelling of Layne’s belly. Hadn’t, somehow, been real to him. Now, his son was very real, as smart as a whip and as loving as his mama. A little boy his daddy could be—and
was
—proud to know was his.

But could he be the kind of man, the kind of daddy, to make his little boy proud of him?

* * *

F
OR
THE
TENTH
time already that morning
,
Layne sighed. Her comment to Jason last night about being her son’s sperm donor had been cruel—and yet it certainly had been truthful. In any case, Jill’s fresh cries to be fed had saved her from having to hear his response. He had left the room at a speed she would have found laughable...if not for the thoughts that assailed her as she watched him walk out the door.

He had taken one look at her getting ready to nurse and had bolted, just as he’d done in the living room earlier. The sight made her think of so many
shoulds
, her heart hurt. Instead of running, he should have felt comfortable watching her feed the baby. He should have had that experience with Scott. He should have been in the delivery room the day their son was born.

The one thing he never should have done was leave.

After she had finished nursing, returned the baby to her crib and staggered blurry-eyed back to her own bed, it had taken her almost till dawn before she was finally able to fall into an exhausted sleep. She felt grateful it let her forget the memories. At least, until she had woken up to find them at the front and center of her mind again.

As she dressed, she left a terse message on a friend’s cell phone. She hated to call Shay O’Neill. Though they hadn’t been in many of the same classes all through school, they had gotten closer during the past year or so. Shay worked just down the street from SugarPie’s at Cowboy Creek’s ice cream parlor, the Big Dipper. After she closed up the shop, she would often stop in at SugarPie’s. On a quiet night, the two of them would spend some time chatting. Right now, Shay had enough on her mind. But Layne desperately needed some help to send Jason on his way.

In the kids’ room, she found both the bed and the crib empty. As she went down the hall toward the kitchen, she heard Scott’s voice raised in question and the deep rumble of Jason’s reply. The sound of his voice made her chest hurt.

Yesterday, her first sight of him standing in the hall had stolen her breath. He looked good, so good. Better than she ever remembered him looking, from the day he had first walked into her classroom in grade school. Even then he had been gorgeous, and with that one glance at him, her fate had been sealed.

Seeing him so unexpectedly last night had shaken her. She couldn’t deny it.

But she couldn’t do anything about any of this now except send the sights and thoughts and feelings and memories—and her oh-so-sexy-looking ex—back to the past where they all belonged.

In the kitchen, Jill lay in her carrier on the table. Scott knelt on a chair, his attention focused on one of his coloring books.

Frying bacon scented the air, and a bowl of beaten eggs sat on the counter. Jason stood at the stove. He wore a snug blue T-shirt and had tucked a red-checkered hand towel into the waist of his jeans. His dark hair waved and tumbled, free-falling in the way that had always made her breath catch to see it. After they made love, he would comb his fingers through the strands to tame them, then laugh as she rumpled them again.

He eyed her from across the room. A familiar stubble darkened his jawline. The set of that jaw told her he wasn’t completely overjoyed to see her.

He gave her a tight smile. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”

Thank goodness, her stomach didn’t roil at his words. She nodded and took her seat at the table.

Also thank goodness, having both Jill and Scott in the room would keep Jason from following the conversational path he had attempted to lead her down the night before. It was pointless for him to tell her why he was here. It was just as senseless for her to obsess about
shoulds
. There was nothing between them, and the sooner she saw the last of him, the better.

“I’ll have these done in just a minute.” He beat the eggs and poured them into her largest frying pan with a practiced ease that surprised her.

“When did you learn to cook?” she asked.

He laughed. “I might say the same about you if you made that soup from scratch.” He eyed her questioningly, and she nodded. “Not bad. But neither of us was too handy in the kitchen a while back, were we? I learned out of necessity since I have to take a turn in the bunkhouse. I’m still not so hot at it, so the boys let me get away with handling only breakfast. But I do a darned good omelette.” He stirred the eggs in the pan, then looked sideways at her. “How are you feeling?”