Should Have Been Her Child

by Stella Bagwell

  Feeling the sudden need to cover her nakedness from his eyes, she reached for the side of the bedspread and pulled it over her entire body.

  “There’s no need for you to insult my intelligence, Jess. I didn’t expect this to prompt a marriage proposal from you.”

  Outwardly, her voice was cool, but underneath Jess thought he heard the hint of a tremor in her words. Or maybe he’d imagined that part. Maybe he wanted to believe she wasn’t as composed as she appeared. Especially when making love to her had shaken him right to the very core of his being.

  “I just wanted to make sure…my feelings are clear to you.”

  She breathed deeply and hoped the burning pain between her breasts would go away. At the moment it was practically unbearable, like a hand clawing away her flesh layer by layer.

  “Oh, don’t worry, you’ve made your point, Jess. And you’ve made it clear how you feel about me. What I don’t understand is why you’ve decided to exclude women from your life. Don’t you ever plan to give Katrina a mother?”

  The mention of his daughter made Jess inwardly wince. Of course he wished Katrina had a mother. There were many things he would never be able to do for his daughter. Not the way a mother could. But he’d tried love with Victoria and marriage with Regina. The two failures had convinced him that women were not to be a part of his life. Not if he expected to live it with any sort of peace of mind.

  “No.”

  The blunt answer had her searching his embittered expression. “It’s easy to think that Katrina will always stay a toddler like she is now. But believe me, it won’t be long before she’s going to need maternal guidance.”

  Straightening his head on the pillow, he focused his gaze on the foot of the bed. “Ma was a good mother to me. She will be for Katrina.”

  Victoria raised up on her elbow as she studied him with disbelief. “Alice is a wonderful woman and no doubt she’s a good role model for Katrina. But your grandmother is no spring chicken, Jess. As much as you’d like to think it, she won’t be around forever. How is she going to keep up with an energetic teenager?”

  “Don’t concern yourself about it, Victoria. I’ll see that my daughter is raised in the right way.”

  He was shutting her out, Victoria realized. But that was nothing new. Not after four long years without so much as a word from him.

  “By depriving her of a mother?” she couldn’t help but ask.

  He shot her a mocking glance. “Is that what getting me into bed with you was all about? Are you auditioning for the role of Katrina’s mother?”

  She was crazy, she told herself as she tossed back the bedspread and reached for her clothes. Jess didn’t want her love or concern. All he’d ever wanted from her was sex. She’d known that for years now, yet her head couldn’t seem to convince the rest of her body.

  As for being the mother to Jess’s child, he’d never realize just how much she’d once wanted and expected to be just that.

  “I must have sucked in too much night air,” she muttered with self-accusation. “I’d forgotten what a bastard you can be.”

  He watched her leave the bed and snatch up her clothes from the floor. As she bundled them into a ball in her arms, the look on her face told him she was furious and hurt. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. But the fact did nothing to ease the emptiness inside him.

  “Yeah. Just like Tucker used to be,” he said flatly.

  She glared at him, then turned and left the bedroom.

  Once she was out of sight, Jess went to the bathroom and stood beneath a cold shower for several long minutes. But the second he stepped out, the sight of the bed and the memory of Victoria’s giving body heated him all over again.

  It was going to be a hell of a night, he thought miserably.

  Two evenings later, Victoria was sitting with Katrina on the living room carpet. Spread out before the two of them was a pile of building blocks and an assortment of tiny trucks and cars that Maggie had saved from Aaron’s early childhood. The toys weren’t exactly what Victoria would have chosen for a little girl, but Katrina appeared to be enthralled with each piece.

  A few feet away, in a stuffed armchair, Maggie sat sipping iced fruit juice. “You look exhausted, Victoria. Has Katrina been keeping you up at night?”

  Surprised by Maggie’s remark, Victoria glanced over at her sister-in-law. “Why no, she’s been sleeping soundly. And I’m not exhausted. I just look that way because I’m not wearing makeup.”

  “I noticed.”

  Victoria’s brows arched with wry speculation. “What does that mean?”

  Maggie waved a careless hand in Victoria’s direction. “Not what you think. You don’t need makeup to be beautiful. But when I see you without a trace of lipstick, I know you must be really tired.”

  Victoria sighed. “I’m not tired, Maggie. I’ve just been very busy. I’m not used to taking care of a child.”

  Maggie let out a dry laugh. “No, you’re just used to taking care of two dozen patients a day.”

  Victoria felt a tiny hand patting her leg and looked down to see Katrina holding up a miniature pickup truck.

  “Daddy drives twuck,” she said, giving Victoria a toothy grin.

  Her heart full, Victoria affectionately ruffled the toddler’s sandy blond curls. “That’s right, sweet thing.”

  “I drive twuck, too. See, Toria?” Katrina pushed the toy across the carpet while making the brrring sound of a motor.

  “I think your little patient has recuperated,” Maggie commented.

  Yes, Katrina was well, Victoria thought, and she was thrilled the child had recovered so nicely. Yet her blossoming health meant there was no longer any reason for Jess and Katrina to continue their stay on the ranch.

  The thought of not having Katrina in her day-today life was casting a long shadow across Victoria’s heart. And Jess. How could she get by without seeing his face, hearing his voice? Making love to him again had reawakened all her hopes and dreams, reminded her just how much he’d always been a part of her. But his cold treatment afterward had told her he wanted no part of a future with her in it.

  Her eyes felt grainy and hot. She closed them briefly as she replied to Maggie’s comment. “Yes, Katrina is well enough to go home. I suppose I’ll have to tell Jess tonight.”

  The other woman carefully studied Victoria’s downcast face. “You don’t sound too thrilled about it.”

  Victoria glanced once again at her sister-in-law. “I’m very happy Katrina has her health back. It was terrible to see her so lifeless with fever.”

  “But you don’t want her to go home,” Maggie stated the obvious.

  Victoria’s lips twisted ruefully as she gazed at Jess’s daughter. “I…” she stopped, sighed, then started again, “No. To be honest she’s starting to feel like my own child.”

  Even though Victoria wasn’t looking her way, she knew Maggie slowly shook her head with disapproval. “That’s not a good thing, Victoria. You’re a doctor and a good one. You know you can’t get emotionally attached to a patient.”

  “Katrina isn’t just a patient,” Victoria pointed out. “She’s…well, she’s Jess’s child.”

  Maggie’s expression was suddenly all knowing. “Ahhh,” she said softly. “So it’s still like that.”

  Before Victoria could reply, Katrina climbed into her lap. Smiling, she bent her head and kissed the child’s baby-soft cheek, then made her giggle by running her fingers lightly across her belly.

  “You know, Maggie,” Victoria spoke wistfully, “for a while after Jess left, I told myself I hated him. That was the only way I could survive without him. But now—”

  “You realize you never really hated him,” Maggie gently concluded.

  Victoria cast the other woman a wry glance. “No. The moment I saw him again I realized…I was in trouble.”

  Confusion flickered across Maggie’s face. “Why do you say that? Jess is single now and you’re unattached. There isn’t anything stopping the tw
o of you from getting back together.”

  Only the fact that Jess didn’t want her or love her, she thought sadly. Two nights ago he’d made it painfully clear how he felt about her. There was no sense in her being delusional and hoping his heart would change.

  Katrina suddenly decided to drive the little truck to a different spot on the wide expanse of carpet. With the child out of her lap, Victoria rose to her feet and walked over to the picture window that looked down upon the twisting driveway and a part of the barns and work pens. As usual, the ranch yard was busy with cowboys tending to animals, unloading square bales of alfalfa hay, and spreading cattle cubes in long troughs in the feedlots.

  For a few moments she studied the busy sight without really seeing it, then finally she spoke in a heavy voice. “Jess doesn’t want the two of us…to get back together, Maggie.”

  Maggie frowned. “Why not? You two were planning your wedding when he got that border patrol job. I’m sure he cared for you very much or he wouldn’t have wanted you to be his wife.”

  “Hah,” Victoria retorted bitterly. “Jess didn’t care about me four years ago and he doesn’t care now.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” Maggie said. “He was wildly in love with you back then.”

  Bitter tears burned Victoria’s throat. “So why did he leave and marry someone else?”

  Maggie sadly regarded her sister-in-law. “Don’t tell me you haven’t really thought about it. Surely you know that it was important for Jess to be his own man. It was only natural that he wanted a better job. He wanted it for you and for him.”

  Victoria shook her head. “I didn’t want money or things from Jess! Dear God, I already had all of that! Jess was irreplaceable. He was the most precious thing to me!”

  “He wanted to be able to give you financial security. Not have Tucker do it for him!”

  Victoria looked at her. “He hated Daddy. Jess thought Daddy looked down on him. But that wasn’t true. Daddy would have given him a job. We could have all been together and happy.”

  This time Maggie shook her red head. “I’m sorry to say this, Victoria, but I think it’s time I did. Tucker was my father-in-law, and maybe that’s why I saw him from a different angle. In any case, he would have never allowed you to marry Jess. You were his darling. No man would have been good enough and especially not one who made his living as a city cop. And Jess was smart enough to know this.”

  Victoria groaned as hopelessness and regret hammered her from every direction. “You’re probably right, Maggie. And I—well, I’ve made a horrible mess of things. I’ve hurt Jess too much for us to ever have another chance at being together. And now Katrina has—” she paused and glanced sorrowfully over her shoulder at the curly haired child playing on the floor. “She’s become my little girl.”

  Maggie’s head continued to swing back and forth in dismay. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Why not say the obvious?” Victoria asked ruefully. “I’m a fool. A woman without common sense. I’m not fit to be a doctor. I can’t even take care of myself, much less someone else.”

  Rising from the armchair, Maggie crossed the room and took Victoria by the shoulder. “Don’t talk that way. You’re a brilliant woman. You’ve helped countless people in San Juan County. And many of them were without money or health insurance. If not for you, most of them would have remained ill or died. I don’t want to ever hear you degrading yourself like that.”

  “But Maggie—”

  Maggie threw up her hands in exasperation. “Victoria, you’re not a fool! You’re a woman in love.”

  Biting her lip, Victoria glanced away as tears stung her eyes. “Yes,” she agreed. “In love with the wrong man.”

  Later that night Victoria was curled up on a couch in the study when she heard footsteps moving through the house. Jess was finally home, she thought, as she gripped the medical journal she’d been trying to read.

  Lifting her gaze to the open doorway of the room, she listened to the clunk, clunk of his cowboy boots and waited while her heart pounded faster and faster.

  He wouldn’t come looking for her, she reminded herself. For the past two nights he’d avoided her like the plague. Last evening the weather had been unusually warm and he’d carried Katrina down to the bull pen so that she could see the animals. Victoria had not been invited to join them. The evening before that he’d come home late and, finding Katrina already asleep, mumbled something about being tired and had gone straight to his bedroom.

  As for herself, Victoria had tried her best to appear cool and unaffected by his aloof attitude. She’d already humiliated herself enough by begging him to make love to her. She wasn’t about to add to that humiliation by letting him see how much she wanted to be near him, talk to him, touch him.

  Sighing, she tried to refocus her attention back on the newly released report on diabetes. Moments later Jess’s deep voice sounded from the doorway and she jerked with a start.

  “Sorry to interrupt you,” he said coolly. “Since Katrina was already asleep for the night, I wanted to check with you about her day. Is she all right?”

  Tossing the journal aside, Victoria rose to her feet and walked over to where he stood just inside the room. With her heart continuing its erratic pounding, she allowed her eyes to travel slowly over his tired face, then to slip down his lean, hard body.

  A khaki shirt with the San Juan County sheriff’s department emblem on the sleeve was tucked into a pair of well-worn Wranglers. Belted around his waist was the .45 he carried while on duty. With his dusty hat and boots and the badge pinned over his heart, he looked no different than the lawmen who’d long ago worked to tame the Wild West.

  “Your daughter is fine,” she assured him. “She had a good day.”

  He grimaced as his eyes caught hers. “I suppose you’ve been thinking my job keeps me away from my fatherly duties way too much.”

  When Victoria had first met Jess, she’d quickly learned that he was dedicated to enforcing the law. It was in his blood, just as being a doctor was in hers. She’d always respected his desire to protect and serve his fellow man. It was just too bad he didn’t feel as passionate about her as he did about being a lawman.

  “I’m sure there’re times it can’t be helped,” she said stoically. “I’ve never faulted you as a father.”

  He lifted his Stetson and smoothed a hand over his streaked hair. As she watched his simple movements, longings of the most basic kind shot through her and she took a deep breath and glanced away from him.

  “A deputy was involved in a high-speed chase this evening. A drunk driver trying to avoid a DUI,” he explained. “Another officer and myself had to join him and help throw up a block to stop the car. It was late before we finally managed to make the arrest.”

  Surprise pulled her eyes back to his face. “I thought as undersheriff, your job was more administrative than—in the line of fire.”

  His mouth twisted into a wry grin. “I wasn’t in the line of fire, Victoria. It was just a car chase.”

  She couldn’t believe how casual he was about the whole thing. “That’s just as dangerous as someone with a gun!”

  One of his broad shoulders lifted and fell. “There isn’t a lawman in San Juan County who simply sits behind a desk.”

  And Jess had never been a man to sit back and let someone else do the tough jobs when he could do them himself, she thought.

  “I don’t like to think of you—in harm’s way.”

  She said it without really meaning to and as his eyes narrowed on her face, she could feel her cheeks turning red.

  His hands came up to rest on the front of his holster. “Don’t tell me you worry about me, Tori. I wouldn’t believe it.”

  Of course she worried. Any man that wore a badge was a target for criminals and maniacs. “I’m not heartless, Jess. I’m a doctor. I worry about anyone who jeopardizes his or her life.”

  Mockery turned down the corners of his lips. “So your concern is just an imperso
nal, medical thing. I should have known.”

  It was far from impersonal, Victoria thought. But she wasn’t going to admit such a thing to him. His ridicule of her feelings was too hard to take.

  Lifting her chin, she said briskly, “I’m glad we’re speaking now, before you retired for the night. I have something to tell you.”

  His brows arched upward. “You make it sound important.”

  The effort to remain cool while he was so temptingly near was making her whole insides shake. “It is. It’s about Katrina.”

  Concern quickly narrowed his gray eyes. “You told me she was doing well.”

  Her throat was suddenly so tight she had to swallow before she could form one word. “She is. That’s why I wanted to speak with you. To tell you that your daughter is now well enough to go home.”

  Jess stared at her. He should be shouting for joy, he thought. Instead, he felt as though an axe had just fallen on him.

  For the past three days he’d tried his best to push their lovemaking out of his mind, but he’d failed miserably. All he could think about was having her soft lips and warm body beneath his. Each time the memories of that night entered his mind, his body began to burn with need. Each time he came near Victoria, he had to fight with himself to keep his hands off her.

  He needed to get off the T Bar K and away from her. He needed to get back on the Hastings ranch where he belonged and forget that anything could or might ever be between him and Victoria.

  “Obviously you couldn’t wait to tell me,” he said, his voice tinged with sarcasm. “Should I wake Katrina and leave now?”

  Her jaw clamped together as she struggled to stop herself from calling him an ugly word. “That’s un-called for, Jess. Especially when you know how much I care about Katrina. I love having her here. There’s no urgency for you to leave anytime soon. You can stay as long as you’d like.”