“I’m the boss. I’ll telecommute.”
She hesitated. “He can be a handful.” And that was an understatement on a good day. Jason liked running outside, playing in the dirt, and climbing anything and everything he found. In many ways he was his father’s son. Busy, easily bored into rebellion, and charmingly sweet when he got caught.
“Heck, I’ve dodged enemy fire. I doubt he’ll give me near as much trouble.”
“You’d be surprised.” Her cell phone buzzed and she looked down. “Crap. The mayor moved the meeting up by half an hour.”
“Go,” Caleb ordered. “I’ve got you covered.”
Indecision and a certain measure of mother knows best warred with the knowledge that she wouldn’t be able to give the mayor her undivided attention. Not if she had to keep one eye out for Jason throughout the entire meeting. Plus, Caleb needed to learn how to be father without her always by his side. Up until now, he’d had it fairly easy. Maybe too easy.
But if he discovered how difficult being in charge of a little boy could be, would he reconsider his commitment to her? To them as a family? “I might be gone all day,” she said. Still unsure if she was ready to test that theory today.
“Don’t worry. I’m not like my dad. I won’t abandon ship if the going gets tough.”
“Really? What do you call rushing off to do a third tour of duty after you fought with your father?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I don’t think making the ultimate sacrifice for my country is the same as dear old dad using work as an excuse not to be with us. Not to mention, my father had other women in his life besides my mother. You think I’m like that, then you’re mistaken.”
Her heart ached for him. She couldn’t fathom what his childhood had been like when hers had been stellar in comparison. Of course he’d choose the Marines over putting up with his father’s shit. She, however, was a different matter. “Point taken.”
“So what’ll it be?” he asked. “Me doing what a dad’s supposed to do, or you being super mom and pretending you can do it all on your own when you don’t have to anymore?”
She glanced inside Jason’s room. He still lay sleeping in his toddler bed. Then she looked back at Caleb and read the challenge in his eyes. Insisting on bringing him with her bordered on slightly insane at this point. If she didn’t take him up on his offer, she’d only send the message that she didn’t need him at all. And she did. In more ways than she dared to admit.
“All right, Marine,” she said. “You’ve made your point. I’m out of here.”
She turned on her heel and walked to her office. Behind her she heard Jason’s first signs of waking up and him calling for her. But she tucked down the instinct to go to him first. Within minutes, his first outraged screams reached her ears while she loaded her briefcase with her paperwork for the meeting.
Her heart constricted. Every maternal fiber in her body shouted for her to go to her little boy and comfort him, knowing she could easily soothe him. But she pushed the urge aside despite her own tears pricking behind her eyes.
“Hey Hannah?” Caleb called from the bedroom. “You got any extra advice for me before you go?”
There was an edge of desperation in his voice. Hannah bit her lip. Right about now Jason would be ripping off his diaper in an attempt to run butt naked around his room, quite possibly even create a lovely artistic piece of writing with his urine on the carpet if given half a chance. “Follow your gut,” she called before opening the front door and restraining her impulse to come to Caleb’s aid.
Because the only way Caleb could become the father Jason truly deserved, and the man she’d always rely on, was if she allowed her big, strong billionaire Marine to discover how to comfort and discipline his son on his own.
###
Two hours after Hannah had left Caleb with Jason, he nearly called in reinforcements. He’d had to end his conference call with the factory manager in Raleigh early because Jason had climbed out of his playpen and found a stack of files on the floor next to his desk. Before he’d hung up, the damage had been done.
Who knew sixteen month old boys moved so fast? Caleb lifted him and straddled him on one hip, surveying the scene. Current file status was half the folders ripped and the other half a trail of papers from his desk to the office door. “All right little buddy. Let’s get you a snack before Daddy makes his next phone call.”
“Want ice cream.”
“No dice.” He snuggled his son’s warm body closer, unable to stay mad despite his earlier frustration. “You’re getting pre-approved Mom rations.”
He carried him to the kitchen, popped him into his toddler seat, and fastened the belt extra secure—just in case. Then he went to the fridge to pull out one of the snacks Hannah had prepared the night before. Organic wedges of cheese, grape halves, and gluten free crackers.
He plated it all, then brought it to him. “Yum. Your favorite.”
Jason upended the plate. “Ice cream.”
“Sorry, but ice cream’s a treat.”
Caleb picked up the stuff that had landed on the floor, counted himself under the five second rule, and served it up again. “Eat this, then we’ll watch Snap the Turtle.”
The plate upended again. Frustration returned double time. Suddenly dodging enemy fire looked a helluva lot more appealing than hanging out with a petulant toddler. His cell phone vibrated, and he quickly checked it while bending to retrieve Jason’s discarded snack. Corporate headquarters. Problems with a plant in Atlanta. Damn.
He texted back an order, and promised to follow through in the afternoon. During Jason’s nap. He’d told her Hannah he could handle this job. No way was he going to let her down.
He had to hold down the fort until two o’clock. Then Jason would go to sleep for an hour and Caleb would use the time to catch up on his business demands.
But first he had to get some food into his son’s belly. “You want ice cream? Sure thing, kid.” The shit had dairy in it. Chocolate was made from a bean so it was like giving Jason a bit of protein, too. Hell. He was in charge, so he’d damn well feed him something that would appease the little guy.
One bowl of ice cream wasn’t going to hurt him. He shot his boy a conspiratorial glance, before returning to the fridge to grab the carton out of the freezer. He scooped in a generous bowl, and brought it to him. “You want ice cream, you’ve got it.” He’d clear out the evidence later. While he was at it, he’d nab some of his secret cookie stash for Jason, too. Hannah coddled their boy too much with her namby pamby diet. His son was a man’s man. Real men ate ice cream and cookies whenever they liked.
Jason killed the bowl and woofed down four cookies. After wiping the crumbs from his son’s face, Caleb hefted him out of the seat and watched him toddle to the living room shouting, “Snap the Turtle. Snap the Turtle.”
“You got it buddy.”
Two hours later, and after watching about four billion cartoons, Caleb surveyed yet another mess. The stinky, gross kind. As he mopped up the contents of Jason’s stomach, Caleb recalled Hannah mentioning something about colic and lactose intolerance.
Now he understood why she had been so diligent about Jason’s diet.
Chocolate ice cream and cookies were a lot better going down than cleaning up the remains after the fact. Though he seemed a lot calmer now that he had upchucked his forbidden snack along with the chips and dip Caleb had given him for lunch.
He figured that calm would shoot right out the window as soon as he gave Jason a much needed bath. Briefly, he wondered if he had been this difficult when he had been a tike. No matter. Hannah never held Jason’s mercurial moods against him, nor did she fault her guy for his typical little boy behavior. She calmly went about creating a loving environment for their son.
At least she looked calm on the surface, but Caleb bet there were days when even her limits had been frayed.
He lifted him, then carried him to the bathroom where, as he had predicted, the ritual of bathing him p
retty much ended any hope he had of contacting his corporate office and taking care of business. After dressing his son in a set of clean clothes, Caleb contacted the family attorney and asked Everest to ride shotgun during the telecom, telling the lawyer he had more pressing matters to attend to the rest of the afternoon.
Like reading a book to his little boy, and snuggling with him on the sofa. Caleb glanced at the black medallion clock on the wall in the living room. Was it him or had time slowed to trickle of sand in the hourglass? He still had at least two hours to go before she returned home from her meetings downtown. They might as well be two hundred hours, but he wouldn’t trade what he had learned about his son—and Hannah—for anything.
Being a parent was tough, but now, as he tucked his boy under his arm and opened the storybook to read, he loved the way Jason curled against him with his favorite blankie in his fist. And he loved the sound of his sweet voice when he said, “Love you, Daddy.”
###
Hannah opened the door and stepped inside the hallway. “Caleb? Jason?” she called, but no one answered. Thinking Caleb might be in Jason’s bedroom to change a diaper, she toed off her practical pumps and padded down the hallway.
All day long she couldn’t stop thinking about them. How were they doing? Should she check in and make sure everything was okay? But she held her ground, knowing that if there had been a real emergency, Caleb would contact her immediately.
But when she peeked into Jason’s room and didn’t find them inside, a sliver of panic sliced through her throat. The house was too quiet, and dim. Almost as if no one lived there at all. What if something had happened after all and Caleb hadn’t been able to get a hold of her? She checked her phone. Silly. No messages.
Still, adrenaline prickled in her fingertips. She retraced her steps, calling their names, announcing her return home. No answer. But as she rounded the corner and entered the living room, her heart melted.
Caleb lay on the brown leather sofa with Jason in his strong arms. Asleep. Most likely worn out given the state of the room. She picked her way through the maze of toys, blocks, and cracker bits until she reached them. Kneeling, she caressed Caleb’s brow and whispered his name.
His eyes snapped open, wary until he recognized her face and smiled. “How was your day?” he asked quietly.
“Probably a lot less crazy than yours.” She tilted her head toward the mess on the carpet. “You manage to get any work done?”
“That would be a negative.” He stroked Jason’s back lightly. “But he was worth it.”
A soft glow filled the air. Dust motes sparkled and glinted in the rays of sunshine that wafted through the floor to ceiling windows. Though the room itself was cluttered and littered with little boy debris, Hannah only had eyes for the beautiful sight of their son nestled contentedly in his father’s arms.
Warmth filled her chest. How many nights had she had dreamed about coming home to this kind of sight? Not just temporarily, but permanently. And as much as her arms ached to hold her son, she didn’t dare break the tender connection Caleb had forged with Jason.
She pressed a light kiss to Jason’s temple. “You stay here. I’ll get changed and take care of this mess.”
“You sure?” Caleb raked his eyes from the top of her mussed ponytail to the small runner cutting along her pantyhose at her toes. “You look like you need a break, too.”
“True.” She huffed a breath and plunked onto her bottom, felt a cracker crunch beneath her seat. “Mayor Bradley was fussed about the grand opening not going off without a hitch because of the fire.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’ll follow up on the crews. Get them to work double time.”
“No, you can park your big guns. Everything’s moving right on schedule.” Hannah loved the fact that Caleb immediately moved to jump in to fix her problems. But the last time she had let a man be in charge she had given up too much control. “I illustrated all of the progress we’ve made step by step to the mayor and he calmed down. Too bad he asked for a literal tour.”
He shifted Jason in his arms and lifted up on the pillow behind him to take a closer look. “Ouch,” he said. “How are your feet?”
She wiggled her toes. “Glad to be out of heels. That’s for sure.”
“You want a foot rub later?”
A vision of Caleb doing that and so much more danced inside her head. But then the call she had received earlier from his mother pinged a warning shot inside her head. “Maybe later,” she said. “Right now I need to get out of this power suit and throw on something more comfortable.”
She kissed Jason’s forehead and glanced at Caleb through her lashes. Though tired, her libido kicked into high gear. Need thrummed through her veins and ignited every girl part Hannah possessed. Even in a food stained T-shirt and rumpled drawstring jersey pants he exuded all masculine scrumptiousness. With those washboard abs and powerful pecs Caleb was temptingly decadent and all male. But what made him even more deliciously sexy was how adorable he looked while holding their sleeping son.
“What?” He looked down at his shirt, then back into her eyes. “Okay. I confess. I screwed up his diet a little. But lesson learned. I won’t deviate from your plan again.”
“Let me guess. He got you with the ice cream.”
“He’s persistent.”
She smiled. “Or stubborn depending on how you call it.”
“Well, he won the battle, but lost the war.” He kissed the top of Jason’s head. “Poor little guy really can heave a lot of food.”
The chagrin in his voice wove a tendril of affection into Hannah’s physical reaction to him and her breath caught in her throat. He loved Jason. That endeared Caleb to her all the more.
“Awe,” she said. “I should have warned you. But it looks like he survived.”
“He’s a tough kid.”
“Just like his father.”
Caleb caressed her cheek, held her gaze. “And like his mother.”
More tenderness and a sweet longing swirled into the heat pulsing through her body. Caleb could become everything she and Jason deserved. But only if the memories haunting him no longer came between them and drove him away again. He had to find a way to forgive his father and accept that taking over the family’s multi-billion-dollar conglomerate of companies wouldn’t make him become the same emotionally distant man. Caleb didn’t have to become like his father if he stayed on to takeover the family company’s helm.
Worry popped the bubble of happiness floating inside her heart. “Speaking of mothers,” Hannah said. “Yours texted me today about our visit.”
“She wants to cancel?” he asked hopefully.
“No.” The summons she had received from Janet to join her and Steven back at the estate rather than in Asheville on Mother’s Day might blow her day to smithereens. “A slight change of plans.”
“Define slight.”
“Your dad’s been released from the rehab center early,” she said. “We’re going to the estate for brunch.”
“I guess that means dear old Dad’s on the mend,” Caleb said. “He’ll be back to work before the end of May at the rate he’s recuperating.”
“He’s still got a long a way to go,” she said, not wanting him to make plans to leave again. “But the main thing is that he’s getting better. He’s a lucky man.”
Something flickered in his indigo eyes. “I’ll prep a report for him to check over when we see him on Sunday.”
“He might not be into discussing the company.”
“Are you kidding?” He straightened and stirred Jason awake. “That company is the only thing that ever mattered to him.”
Jason rubbed his pudgy fists across his eyes, then reached for her. “Momma, hold me.”
“Sure thing,” she said, then took him from Caleb, snuggling him close. But she wasn’t sure who needed each other more for comfort. Because the edge in Caleb’s tone, and his obstinate refusal to believe that his father might be a different man than the one
he had left behind, unsettled her earlier sense of peace.
“Let’s talk about this later tonight,” she suggested and stood. “You clean up here while I change his diaper.” She needed time to plan. Going to the Gibson family estate for brunch on Sunday didn’t have to result in a disastrous encounter.
Maybe, just maybe, if she showed Caleb that his childhood didn’t have to define his future—that people had the ability to change if given a chance—then he might choose to stay and fight for what they all had a right to claim: family, love, and happiness.
Chapter Thirteen
Hannah had hoped to talk with Caleb about Mother’s Day, but he had managed to use work and business as an excuse to avoid the discussion. That wasn’t all he had avoided. He had been distant emotionally in addition to physically ever since she had sprung the news about his father’s release from rehab on Friday night. His distance echoed Brandon’s retreat into the shadows of his messed up brain, and that frightened her.
Caleb had made no promises to leave the military after they’d made love. Now, standing in front of the double mahogany doors at his family’s estate home, she tried to calm her jittery nerves down with a deep breath. So not working. Not one bit. And to be honest, a stab of pain pushed behind her sternum.
He hadn’t remembered her on Mother’s Day this morning. Anything, a small gesture of some kind, would have been appreciated. But nope. He’d been distracted and distant rather than the loving partner she’d yearned for during the months when she had been a single parent. Brandon’s descent into the hell of PTSD had started in a similar fashion. First, he stopped talking, then he went out more often, hitting the bars. Finally, he’d wounded her with his angry words and heated arguments born out of alcohol abuse. All the while, denying the help he needed. The accident that had almost taken Brandon’s life after another horrendous fight followed by an all night booze-a-thon had been her wake up call.
Did she face another one of those calls in her future?
She clutched the bouquet of Gerber daisies she’d insisted they stop to get at the local florist’s shop before heading to the estate. Even that not-so-subtle hint hadn’t clued Caleb into what he’d forgotten. Plus, after getting Kennedy’s text about her fabulous Mother’s Day gifts from Zach, Hannah’s self-esteem took a huge hit. Was she wishing for something that couldn’t become real?
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