That's My Baby!

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “You already know it’s a girl?” Nat said.

  “No, we don’t,” Matty said.

  Sebastian continued to massage his wife’s shoulders. “Yes, we do. I don’t mean we’ve looked at an ultrasound or anything. I just know in my bones we’ll have a girl.”

  Matty chuckled. “I sure hope your bones aren’t misleading you. A boy isn’t going to be happy wearing that hand-tooled belt you’re making that says Rebecca across the back.”

  “Sounds like you really want a girl, Sebastian.” Nat was fascinated by the concept. He would have sworn Sebastian would want a boy, at least the first time around. Not that Sebastian was sexist, exactly, but the female of the species had always puzzled him. He’d be on firmer ground during the raising process with a boy.

  “I surely do want a girl,” Sebastian said. “Baby girls are something special, Nat. You’ll see.”

  “Guess so.” By now Nat had a good idea how attached Sebastian had become to Elizabeth. Insisting that Matty would have a girl probably helped him cope with giving Elizabeth back to Jess.

  “I thought you two could take that double bed in Elizabeth’s room for now,” Matty said.

  Nat tensed and decided not to look at Jess. He didn’t know which way she’d choose. She’d asked him to be with her when she’d gone into the bedroom to see their daughter, so maybe she’d want all three of them to be together tonight, too. He could go for that. Having the baby in with them would be nerve-racking, but he’d brave it through if it meant being with Jess.

  But she had to know that if they shared a double bed, they’d end up making love, even if they did it softly and quietly so as not to wake the baby. After what she’d said that first morning about no lovemaking, this was her call, not his.

  “You might be a little cramped,” Matty continued, as if she’d decided their silence meant they weren’t happy about the size of the bed, “but it should do until we’ve worked out…” She paused as if searching for the right words, and glanced up at her husband.

  “Well, until we figure out…” Sebastian didn’t seem any more able to define the situation than his wife.

  “Is that the only spare bed?” Jess asked, her question tentative, as if she didn’t want to sound rude.

  So she didn’t want to share the bed with him, didn’t want to feel his arms around her. Nat was bitterly disappointed, but he accepted her decision with as much gallantry as he could muster. He glanced over at her. “There’s a daybed in Sebastian’s office. Why don’t I take that and give you the bed in Elizabeth’s room?”

  She met his gaze, and her expression was carefully neutral. “I’d appreciate that,” she said quietly.

  No one spoke for a moment, and finally Matty stood. “Well, guess I’ll get some sheets for the daybed.”

  “I’ll make it up,” Nat said. “You and Sebastian go on to bed. We’ve put you to enough trouble as it is.”

  “Better yet,” Sebastian said, “I’ll get the sheets for the daybed, while the mommy-to-be goes nite-nite.” He steered his wife toward the hall.

  “It’s no trouble. I—”

  “I want you horizontal, woman. You’ve been on your feet long enough. Go on now. You can warm up the sheets for me.” Sebastian gave her a quick kiss. “See you in a little while.”

  Matty’s gaze flicked from her husband to Nat. “Okay. Don’t be too long.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Guess I’ll turn in, too.” Jess walked over to pick up her backpack.

  “Here.” Nat crossed to her. “Let me take that in for—”

  “That’s okay.” She stepped out of reach. “Thanks, anyway. I can handle it. Good night, and thanks again for everything, Sebastian.” With that, she headed down the hall toward Elizabeth’s room.

  Nat’s heart twisted. He wanted to be able to pamper her a little, the way Sebastian pampered Matty. But you couldn’t pamper a woman if she wouldn’t let you, he thought sadly.

  He’d also noticed the eagerness in her eyes as she’d turned to go down that hall. She wanted to be with her baby, and he didn’t blame her for that. The idea of spending the night in the same room with her daughter probably thrilled her as much as it would have terrified him. But he would have done it, if that had meant he could hold Jess all night long.

  He watched her walk quickly to the end of the hall and nudge the door open. Then she slipped inside and closed it behind her. The whole procedure felt very wrong to Nat. He should be in that bedroom with her.

  “I’ll get you those sheets,” Sebastian said.

  “Thanks.” Feeling totally unnecessary, Nat walked over to the fireplace and set aside the screen so he could rearrange the coals with the poker. It didn’t particularly need doing, but he had the urge to busy himself with something.

  He had to maneuver around the dogs, who were asleep on the braided rug in front of the hearth. They both raised their heads, gave him a look as if they thought he was making a fuss for nothing, and went back to sleep.

  “You wouldn’t understand if I explained it,” he muttered to the dogs, who didn’t stir.

  Crouched next to the fireplace, he looked at the elegant tool in his hand. Boone had made the set five years ago, using his blacksmith’s skills to create a gift for Sebastian’s thirtieth birthday.

  How things had changed in five years. Sebastian had been married to Barbara then, and Matty’s husband had still been alive. Come to think of it, Gwen had been at that party with the guy she used to be married to, Derek somebody or other. Travis had brought a date, and so had Nat. He could barely remember who he’d been seeing then. Maybe it was Marianne, or then again, he might have brought Tanya to that party.

  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 th
e 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.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JESSICA 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.