by Pam Crooks
He grunted at that. “And?”
“I have an apartment now. In Paris’s building.”
“In Great Falls?” He appeared taken aback.
“Yes.”
He didn’t move. As if he was afraid to believe everything she said. To hope. “I suppose Allie knew all that, too.”
“Yes.” Grace made no apologies. “So that’s why it took me so long to come back. Now, please unbutton me.”
She still had one more thing to tell him—the most important thing of all—but she turned, allowing him access to the dress’s fastenings. He complied, and in moments, the fabric sagged, and she hastily clutched the mass of chiffon and silk against her chest.
“Might as well take off the chemise, too,” he said. “It’s soaked along with the dress. You bring a robe with you?”
“Yes.” But the time hadn’t come to put it on. Yet. “In the armoire.”
“I’ll get it.”
He strode the short distance to the wardrobe with the easy agility so much a part of him. By the time he retrieved the garment and turned back around, Grace had let go of her dress, allowing it to fall into a pink pool at her feet.
She stood boldly in front of him, the thin cotton of her wet chemise clinging to every dip and curve of her body like translucent skin.
“Well, now.” His glance slid over her in slow, thorough and very male appreciation. His gray-green eyes smoldered, giving her fair warning of the lust growing steady and strong inside him. “Can’t think of a more perfect surprise than what you’re giving me right now, Grace, honey.”
It took all her control to endure his heated scrutiny.
“A surprise, yes,” she said carefully. “But not what you think.”
“Yeah?” He came toward her with all the calculated assurance of a man wanting a woman. “Guess you already know what I’m thinking.”
He held her robe over one arm. With the other, he reached toward her, as if he intended to pull the chemise off her body, to remove the thinnest of barriers between them….
Until she took his hand and firmly brought it lower, to settle over her belly instead.
“I’m going to have a baby, Jack,” she said quietly. “Your baby.”
He fell still. And didn’t breathe.
For so long.
“A baby?” he choked.
“Yes.” She nodded, hardly able to breathe herself. “Early in the fall.”
The robe dropped from his arm. “A baby.”
“I understand you’re a lawman now, Jack,” she said, the words picking up speed as they rushed off her tongue. “I don’t expect you’ll have time for us, what with your new responsibilities and all, but I wanted you to know, and—and I hope you’ll find it in your heart to come see us now and again, but if you don’t want to, I’ll understand that, too, because sometimes men just aren’t cut out to be fathers. I’ll understand. Truly, I will.”
“You think I’ll be like my old man?” he growled. “You think I’m going to be another Sam Ketchum?”
“I would certainly hope not,” she said firmly. “But—”
“Damn right I wouldn’t.”
Hope flickered inside her. “It’s just that I never knew my own father, or even Carl’s, and it wouldn’t be too—too foreign to me—”
“Don’t compare me to any of them, you hear me?” He clutched her shoulders, as if he itched to shake sense into her, as if it was imperative to convince her of the man he really was. “Because I know what it’s like, too, Grace. I know what it means to hurt inside, to bleed and ache so damn bad to have my father love me. I would’ve done anything so he would.”
“Except the love never happens, no matter what we say or do. And then we blame ourselves, when we shouldn’t, because it’s not our fault. Not at all.”
“Yeah.” His grip loosened, and raw emotion shimmered in his eyes. “Yeah, that’s it exactly.”
He trembled, then sank to his knees and spread his hands over the breadth of her abdomen. Gently, tenderly, he pressed a kiss into the rounded softness.
Her throat clogged with emotion, with intense relief that he actually seemed happy about the coming of their child and his determination to have a place in its life. Grace speared her fingers into Jack’s burnished gold hair, keeping them there until he rose to his full height and draped the robe around her shoulders. He pulled her against him, snug against his chest.
“I want to be a good father,” he said, sounding humbled. “The best a man could be.”
“You will be. The best kind of good.” She would always know the pain Sam Ketchum brought him. She knew, too, Jack would never wish the same on anyone else’s child, let alone his own.
“You’ll make a perfect mother, Grace. Nothing like Bess.”
Her mouth curved wryly against his shirt. “I hope not.”
His arms tightened, as if he never intended to let her leave him again. He sighed into her hair, a contented sound, deep and fervent.
“Are you ready for all this?” he murmured.
“To be a mother?”
“To get married and be a family. The three of us.”
“Hmm. There’s four, actually.”
“Four!”
She laughed. “We can’t forget Camille. She’ll be a wonderful grandmother to our baby.” Thinking of her own grandmother and how much she missed her, Grace drew back and rested her palm across his scarred cheek.
“I liked her from the moment she first brought me a menu, Jack, in Margaret’s Eatery.”
He chuckled. “She’s crazy about you, too, you know. Four of us, it is.”
“Until we have more children. As many as we can. Oh, Jack, it’s what I want more than anything. To be a real family with you, large or small or something in between.”
She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him, long and thorough and rich with the hopes and dreams she held her in her heart. “I love you, Jack. So very much.”
Many kisses later, they stood at the window with their arms entwined. But it wasn’t the big canvas tent they perused, or the long tables of food and drink, or even the guests beginning to mill about.
Their gazes lingered over the snow-tipped Bear Tooth Mountains in the distance. Lush green grass. And that blue, blue sky.
Montana Territory, as far as she could see.
The beginning of her new life with Jack.
And it promised to be perfect.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6465-0
THE LAWMAN’S REDEMPTION
Copyright © 2010 by Pam Crooks
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