That's My Baby! (13 page)

Funny how not a single woman from his past stood out in his mind except for Jess. Until he’d met her, he’d never believed in the concept of soul mates. He still didn’t, not really. She might be the only woman for him, but he wasn’t right for her at all.

“Somebody gave Matty and me some very old, very expensive brandy for a wedding present,” Sebastian said.

Nat glanced up to see him standing by the sofa, the daybed sheets folded over one arm. “That’s nice,” Nat said.

“I thought so, but Matty hates brandy. Besides, she’s on the wagon until after the baby’s born. I’ve got a hankering to try the stuff.”

“That’s okay, Sebastian.” Nat flashed him a brief smile. “You don’t have to stay up and keep me company. Go on to bed with your wife.”

“Or to put it another way, you don’t have to stay up with me.” Sebastian tossed the sheets on the sofa. “I’m opening that brandy, but if you don’t want any, I guess I’ll have to drink alone. Which would be a hell of a thing, when you consider it. A man hasn’t seen his friend in seventeen months, and that friend would rather go to bed than share a little brandy and polite conversation. Did I mention that it was old and very expensive?”

Nat grinned and pushed himself to his feet. Sebastian obviously wanted to talk and it wouldn’t be very gracious of him to refuse, especially considering that he hadn’t been
much of a friend to Sebastian recently. “Yeah, I believe you did mention it.” He returned the fireplace poker to its place on the wrought-iron rack. “A man would be dumb to turn down an offer like that.”

“Then come on in the kitchen and I’ll get you a glass. Or a snifter, as the trendsetters say.”

“You’ve got snifters?” Nat hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Sebastian and his wry sense of humor.

“Hell, no. Years ago Barbara tried to talk me into getting some. She even bought me a box of Cuban cigars and a smoking jacket.”

Nat laughed at the mental picture of Sebastian in jeans, boots, a Stetson and a smoking jacket. “She never did get you, did she?”

“Guess not.” Sebastian reached into a cupboard and took down two juice glasses and the promised bottle of brandy, which he carried over to the scarred oak kitchen table. “Did you know she had an affair with Matty’s husband, Butch?”

Nat stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen. So that nasty little bit of information had come to light at last.

Sebastian poured the brandy into the glasses before he looked up. “You did know, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” Nat didn’t like admitting that. He was getting a real reputation for being secretive. Maybe the best thing to do was to get it all out in the open. “She told me about it, and you might as well know the circumstances. She propositioned me, too, and when I turned her down, she said it didn’t matter because she always had Butch to fall back on.”

A flicker of anger came and went in Sebastian’s gray eyes. “Now I wonder who else she came on to. What about Travis?”

Nat sighed. “Yeah, she tried to get something going with Travis, too. Barbara was a real alley cat, and neither of us knew how to tell you. I have a hunch she went after Boone,
as well, but he’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t mention that fact to a soul, even if you put a branding iron to his feet.”

“I guess I can see why you wouldn’t tell me. A man tends not to want to believe a thing like that about the woman he married. Instead of waking me up, it probably would have come between you, me and Travis.”

“That’s what we figured. So we kept quiet.”

Sebastian took one of the glasses and handed it to Nat. Then he picked up his own. “To friendship.”

Nat saluted him with his glass. “To the best damn friend I know.”

Sebastian sipped the brandy and grinned. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Nat had to admit the dark liquid felt good going down. He took another sip and felt himself begin to relax. “Real good, in fact.”

“Now that we’ve discovered it doesn’t taste like rat poison, pull up a chair,” Sebastian said, taking a seat at the table. “We don’t charge extra for that.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Nat settled into a wooden chair worn smooth by countless denim-covered butts. After another swallow of the brandy, he felt the tightness loosen in his chest. “This really is good stuff. So you scored this just for getting married?”

“That’s all I had to do. Here, let me top that off for you.”

“Why not?”

Sebastian poured Nat’s glass nearly to the brim and set the bottle down. “That oughta put lead in your pencil.”

“Now there’s a problem I don’t have. I have just about every other problem you can name, but lack of interest in sex isn’t one of them.”

Sebastian eyed him. “I was only being a smart-ass, but as long as we’re on the subject, how do things stand between you and Jessica, anyway?”

“I figured you’d get around to that.” Without the relaxing effect of the brandy, Nat might have been more defensive, but the more he relaxed, the more he felt like talking. Of course, Sebastian had planned it that way.

“How you’re getting along with Jessica is pretty damn important,” Sebastian said. “If you two are fighting, then Elizabeth will know it right off. That’s not good for a little kid.”

“We’re not fighting,” Nat said. “At least, not like you think. We’ve had a few heated words, but mostly…mostly I need time to get used to this whole situation, which I told her. At this stage of the game I can’t make promises. So she decided we shouldn’t sleep together.”

Sebastian nodded. “That sounds logical.”

“Oh, it’s
logical
as hell. But logic doesn’t keep me from wanting her.”

That made Sebastian smile. He took another swig of brandy and set it down carefully on the table. Then he swiveled the glass back and forth between his fingers, staring at the contents as he spoke. “You dated her for a year, right?” He glanced up. “That’s quite a long time for a free spirit like you.”

Nat met his gaze as another wave of remorse washed over him. “Yeah, and I should have told you guys about it.”

Sebastian shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Hey, forget it. That’s water under the bridge. We’ve established that you’re a regular chickenshit when it comes to matters of the heart.” He grinned to take the sting out of his words. “Besides, you thought we’d try to interfere, and you were right about that. I would have told you to marry that woman if you’d enjoyed each other’s company for an entire year. Lucky for you that you get another opportunity.”

“You know, when I was on my way home, I’d pretty much decided to ask her to take a chance on me. I figured that if I loused things up in the first few months because
I’d reverted to being like my father, then she could divorce me.” That concept of divorcing Jess soured his stomach when he said it out loud. He took another sip of brandy. “But now, with the baby, it’s more complicated. And I don’t want to put that little kid at risk.”

“From you?” Sebastian gazed at him.

“Yeah, from me.”

“That’s—”

“Don’t tell me it’s ridiculous. It’s not. I’ve seen what happens to people under pressure. They do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.”

Sebastian stared into the depths of his brandy. “What was it like over there?”

“Rough.” Nat wondered how Sebastian would have reacted to seeing a child of three sobbing over her mother’s body, knowing that the mother’s death had been the result of a senseless act of violence. It might have broken Sebastian’s big heart beyond repair. Sebastian liked to believe the best of people.

“It was hell, in fact,” he added. “But it some crazy way it was heaven, too. The measure of a person working or living in the camps wasn’t how they dressed or how much education they had or the size of their bank account. It was all about character.”

“And you thrived there, didn’t you?”

“I guess I did.” Nat had always valued the way Sebastian could help him sort out his thoughts. “I know I felt worthwhile for the first time in my life.” He looked over at his friend. “I have a project under way to get some of those war orphans adopted, but that’s a short-term thing. On the way here Jess brought up the idea of me running a ranch for kids in this country who have no place else to go. I kind of like the idea.”

Sebastian looked interested.

Encouraged, Nat continued. “I could still broker real estate on the side, to keep the cash coming in, and I could
use whatever I’ve learned about sales to get some backers. What do you think?”

“I think that if you don’t hook up with a woman who has that much insight into what you need to make you happy, you are the biggest fool who ever sat in this kitchen.” He chuckled and drained his glass. “And that’s saying a mouthful, because I’m no Einstein when it comes to relationships, either. Now, let’s go to bed. I’ve learned what I came in here to learn.”

Nat chuckled. “Which was?”

“That you’re pie-eyed in love with the mother of your baby. If we have that to work with, we’ll be all right.”

J
ESSICA DIDN’T WANT
to sleep. She wanted to lie in the double bed and listen to her baby breathe. Whenever sleep started to claim her, she’d wake herself up, get out of bed and pad barefoot over to the crib. She’d stand there watching Elizabeth until the urge to touch her became too strong, and then she’d go back and crawl into bed again to listen to her breathing.

And all the while she carried on a silent conversation with her daughter.
Mommy’s here now, sweetheart. When you wake up, I’ll be able to lift you out of your crib, the way I used to do. I can change your diaper and play those little tickle games that we used to play. You can show me your new teeth, and how you’ve learned to sit up, and crawl, and pull yourself up. Mommy’s here.

She lay in bed planning how she would approach Elizabeth when the baby woke up. Obviously she should take it slow and let Elizabeth get used to her again. Knowing that the baby had been swapped between three couples made her feel more confident that Elizabeth wouldn’t be as inflexible as she might have been if Sebastian had kept her at the Rocking D the whole time. Still, Jessica didn’t kid herself that the transition would be easy.

For now, though, she was content to be in the same room with her child at last. Nat hadn’t been happy about sleeping elsewhere, but having him in this bed with her would have overloaded her circuits. For one thing, she wouldn’t have
been able to concentrate on her child, and right now, that was very important.

Besides, she really believed in the ban on lovemaking she’d imposed. If Nat had shared this bed with her tonight, he would have made love to her. It would be ridiculous to suppose otherwise, with both of them crammed into the double bed together for hours.

The thought was not without appeal, however. She breathed in the scent of wood smoke that pervaded the house and snuggled under the down comforter. No, the idea was not without appeal.

Although she would have sworn that she hadn’t slept at all, she opened her eyes and realized the room was filled with the gray light of dawn.

“Ba,” cooed a soft voice. “Ba-ba.”

Her pulse rate skyrocketed. Elizabeth was awake. Cautiously she moved the comforter aside so that she could peek over at the crib.

On her hands and knees in her footed Pooh sleeper, Elizabeth faced her. Oh, yes, she had her daddy’s blue eyes. But they were fringed with light eyelashes, not dark ones like Nat’s. Her tousled hair was a riot of coppery curls, and her cheeks were flushed pink from sleep. Jessica could have looked at her forever.

She was staring intently at the bed, and Jessica smiled at the puzzle she must have presented to the baby. When Elizabeth had gone to sleep, a little boy had been in this bed. Now he’d been magically transformed into a grown woman.

“
Ba
-ba,” Elizabeth said again, and drooled. Keeping her attention on the bed, she used the bars to pull herself up until she was standing.
Standing.

Jessica stayed perfectly quiet and watched, fascinated by the developmental strides Elizabeth had made in her absence. She swallowed a lump in her throat. So much had happened while she’d been away. Too much.

With a firm grip on the railing, Elizabeth began to rattle the crib. “Ba!” she called, exposing her new teeth as she rattled the crib some more.

“Hi, baby,” Jessica murmured. Seeing those teeth made her eyes blur with tears. Her little girl was so grown-up.

Elizabeth stopped rattling the crib and stared some more.

“It’s me, your mommy,” Jessica said softly.

Elizabeth didn’t seem alarmed, only curious.

“You sure are a pretty girl.” Moving slowly, Jessica propped herself up on one elbow. “Do you remember me at all?”

A flicker of worry settled in the blue eyes.

“It’s okay.” Jessica kept her voice low and soothing as she sat up and pushed the covers back. “You’ll get used to me again. “You’ll—”

Elizabeth’s screech of fear froze Jessica’s blood.

“I won’t hurt you, darling,” she pleaded as Elizabeth began to cry. Instinct drove Jessica out of the bed and over to the crib. “Don’t be afraid.” She reached for the baby. “Please don’t be afraid. It’s me. Your mommy.”

With an even louder wail, Elizabeth flung herself backward to escape Jessica’s extended arms and banged her head on the far side of the crib. Then she began to cry in earnest.

“Oh, no.” Jessica released the latch on the railing and leaned over. “Oh, sweetheart! Please let me—”

“I’ll get her.” Matty hurried into the room and over to the crib, lifting a squalling Elizabeth out of the crib and out of Jessica’s reach, as if she were a menace.

Jessica knew Matty didn’t mean to make it seem that way, but it did, anyway. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “She hit her head,” she said. “P-please check her and m-make sure she’s okay.” The fact that she couldn’t comfort her own child was the worst pain she’d ever endured. “I didn’t mean to scare her. I didn’t mean to.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Matty ran her hand over the
back of Elizabeth’s head. “And she’s fine. There, there, little one.” Matty held the baby against her shoulder and rubbed her back. “Easy does it. You’re fine.”

“What happened?” Sebastian appeared in the doorway, fastening his jeans.

“I—” Jessica found she didn’t have the power to tell him. Her throat was closed with grief and shame. Her baby didn’t want her.

Then Nat came up behind Sebastian. He, too, was wearing only a pair of jeans. “Is everybody okay?”

“I think Elizabeth got a little spooked, seeing Jessica for the first time,” Sebastian said.

“She’ll be okay,” Matty murmured as she continued to stroke the baby. “We’ll have to ease into it, that’s all.”

“Oh, Jess.” Nat’s eyes clouded. “I’m sorry.”

She was more than sorry. She was destroyed. And she couldn’t stand to be in the room a minute longer. She managed to choke out an excuse that she needed to go to the bathroom. Then she pushed past everyone, went into the bathroom across the hall and shut the door.

Once there, she grabbed a towel and buried her face in it while she sobbed. Elizabeth didn’t want her anymore.

Eventually the tears slowed, although she didn’t think the pain in her heart would ever go away. She’d lost her baby. Because of that horrible man who was after her, she’d lost Elizabeth. She was ready to search him out and kill him with her bare hands. He’d robbed her of her child.

A light tapping on the door was followed by Nat’s voice. “Jess? Can I come in?”

“No.”

“That’s what I get for asking,” he muttered, opening the door.

She turned away and made herself busy hanging the towel on the rack and making sure it was aligned perfectly. “I don’t know what ever happened to the concept of privacy,” she said in a voice still thick with tears.

He came in and closed the door behind him. “You don’t need privacy right now.” He took her by the shoulders, eased her around and wrapped her in his arms, tucking her head against his chest.

She was too weak to resist. “How do you know I don’t?” Her words were muffled against his shirt. Apparently he’d taken the time to put one on before coming to see about her. She appreciated that. As needy as she felt right now, his bare chest against her cheek might cause her to do something unwise.

“I know because I saw the look on your face when you ran in here to hide. You only think you need privacy. What you really need is somebody to hold you.”

He was absolutely right. Her arms had gone around him automatically, and she was clinging to him like a burr. “And you’re some sort of expert?”

He laid his cheek against the top of her head. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

Come to think of it, he probably was, considering all the times he must have been called upon to comfort grief-stricken people in the refugee camps. His own knowledge of grief was hard-won as a small child.

“I don’t know much about this baby stuff,” he said, “but Matty told me that Elizabeth will get over this, and I figure Matty knows what she’s talking about. She blames herself for setting up the sleeping arrangement that way. She didn’t think about how Elizabeth might react when she woke up and found a str—uh, someone she wasn’t…well, wasn’t used to, in the room.”

“I’m her
mother,
” Jessica wailed, tightening her grip on him. “And she’s afraid of me.”

“She’ll remember,” Nat said softly, rubbing her back in the same way Matty had rubbed Elizabeth’s.

“Maybe not.” Jessica felt the tears welling up again. “Maybe I’ll have to start all over, and it’ll be as if I adopted her. Oh, Nat, why couldn’t you have come home sooner?”

He groaned. “I wish to God I had. Oh, Jess. It’s going to take me a hundred lifetimes to make it up to you for the pain I’ve caused. And may still cause. Damn it.”

Immediately she regretted making a scapegoat of him. She held him close. “Nat, I shouldn’t have said that. This whole problem is mine. I’m the one who got pregnant. I’m the one who thought I could keep my wealthy background a secret.”

“If we’re passing blame around, I should have walked away from you the minute I laid eyes on you. I knew it, too. But I was weak, and I kidded myself that if we kept everything quiet and sort of contained, it wouldn’t get messy.”

“It’s messy.”

“I’m aware of that. The Exxon
Valdez
has nothing on us. We could probably qualify for a Superfund.”

She surprised herself by chuckling.

“Now, that’s music to my ears.” He kissed the top of her head. “Any more where that came from?”

She leaned back to gaze up at him and realized her heart no longer felt like a stone in her chest. “You did it.”

“No doubt. Name any crime you want and I’m probably guilty.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She took his stubbled face in both hands. “Must you always think the worst of yourself? I only meant to say that—”

“Don’t try to whitewash the situation, Jess. Everybody knows that birth control fails sometimes. I made love to you…a lot. I should never have left the country without making sure you were okay. If I’d done that, none of this would have happened.”

“I would still have this creep on my trail.”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“No?”

“I would have eradicated the guy long before now.”

She sighed. “You’re a good man, Nat.” She continued
to cradle his face between her hands. “And thank you for comforting me so well. I do feel better.”

He held her gaze, and the anxiety in his blue eyes cleared. “That’s good.” There was a husky note in his voice as his attention strayed from her face. For the first time he seemed to be taking inventory of the scooped neck of her sleep shirt and the obvious fact that she wore no bra underneath. He swallowed and looked into her eyes again. “Sleep well?”

“No.”

His tightened his grip on her. “Jess—”

“No.” The look in his eyes set off fireworks in her tummy.

“I’m going crazy.”

So was she. She felt her resolve slip a little as heat licked through her. “Nat, we’re in the bathroom, for heaven’s sake.”

“That counter would support you,” he murmured. He cupped her bottom and snugged her up against his erection. “I’m a desperate man, Jess. Give me five minutes. I know we can manage in five minutes. We once did it in four, remember?”

She remembered it all, and those memories weren’t helping keep her strong.

“I need you. Need to be inside you,” he coaxed, seducing her with a rough-edged tone that never failed to arouse her to a frenzy.

And she wanted him there, too. But she shook her head. “Not a good idea,” she said, although her breathing was no longer steady. “Besides, you don’t have birth control.”

He kneaded her bottom through the material of her sleep shirt. “That’s what you think. I guess you’ve forgotten that I was a Boy Scout.”

“You actually have a—”

“I do, and I will. At all times. In case you change your
mind.” He gave her one last nudge and released her. “See you at the breakfast table.”

F
ORTUNATELY FOR
N
AT
, when he left the bathroom no one was in the hallway. He ducked into Sebastian’s office where he’d spent a miserable night longing for Jess and worrying about Elizabeth. After taking a few deep breaths to get his raging hormones under control, he put on his boots, grabbed his jacket and Stetson and left the room.

The living room was empty but he could hear Matty, Sebastian and the baby in the kitchen. He whistled for Fleafarm and got Sadie, Matty’s Great Dane, in the bargain as both dogs trotted out of the kitchen.

“I’m taking the dogs out for a run,” he called, and didn’t wait for an answer before heading out the front door. He needed some time alone before he dealt with that baby again. Or with Jess.

He crossed the front porch and bounded down the steps while the dogs cavorted in front of him like a couple of puppies. Pausing in the circular driveway, he filled his lungs with cool mountain air. Nothing matched the pine-scented air of Colorado.

Damn, but he’d missed this country. And how it loved to show off in October, with cobalt skies and mountains splashed with gold from the stands of aspens turning color. The two white-barked trees Sebastian had planted in his yard beyond the driveway shimmered in the light breeze, the leaves dripping from the branches like coins from a pirate’s treasure.

The dogs glanced back at him as if wondering which direction he planned to take. Nat longed to get a good horse between his thighs and ride until he was saddle-sore. But he hadn’t stopped long enough to ask Sebastian about taking a horse, and he couldn’t presume to do that without asking, even if the answer was sure to be yes.

So he set off toward the trees on foot. He hadn’t been
much used to walking before he volunteered to go overseas, but he’d done a lot of it in the refugee camps. Vehicles were in short supply, and if the refugees had owned any horses they probably would have eaten them instead of riding them. Sebastian knew he would never take the basic comforts of his life for granted again.

Fleafarm and Sadie frisked along ahead of him, pausing every now and then to glance back and make sure he was still following. The dogs reminded Sebastian of some other plans he’d made for when he came home. He’d decided to get a dog. But the dog had only been part of the plan.