The Texas Tycoon’s Christmas Baby
Page 8
“Honey, I’m not sure even a bulldozer could keep Jason out of your life—or that it’s a good idea.”
“You never liked the idea of me dating him in the first place.”
“That was before you got pregnant.”
“You like him better now that you know he knocked me up?”
Paige rolled her eyes. “I’m just acknowledging that he is the father of your baby. And since he doesn’t seem to be running from that responsibility, maybe you should give him a chance.”
“A chance to do what? Stomp all over my heart again?”
“A chance to make things right.”
“As if.”
“You have every right to be angry and upset,” Paige said. “But you’re going to have to get past what he did for the sake of your child.”
“I know,” Penny agreed. “But it’s not just that he used me or lied about his reasons for being with me.”
“There’s more?”
Penny nodded and went back to the freezer for the ice cream. She’d had the pasta, and there were even vegetables in it, and now the baby wanted ice cream. But she did get two spoons and gave one to her sister.
“I don’t have a lot of experience with such situations, obviously, but when I told Jason that I was pregnant, I expected that he would try to deny it, or run from the room in a panic.”
“Those would be typical male responses to news of an unplanned pregnancy,” her sister agreed, dipping her own spoon into the tub.
“But not Jason’s response,” she told Paige. “As soon as I told him I was going to have his baby, he was immediately and completely focused on that. Okay, there was a moment—a flash of panic, or maybe it was horror in his eyes—but then it was gone and he was wanting to discuss options and make plans. I mean, I’ve had almost five weeks to accept it and my head is still reeling, but after five minutes, he’s ready to calmly and rationally discuss our options.”
“You’re thinking he’s a control freak like Dad,” Paige guessed.
Penny nodded again.
“I can see why you’d be wary,” her sister said. “We saw firsthand how Dad tried to control everyone. Not just Mom, but all of us. He was as ruthless in his personal relationships as he was in his business dealings, willing to do anything and everything to get what he wanted.”
“Jason slept with me to get information about our family.”
“I’m not going to deny that’s true—how can I, when I was the one who found out what he was doing? But I am going to add a proviso to that.”
“A proviso?” Penny managed to smile.
“Honey, whatever his reasons for taking you to his bed, he couldn’t have faked what happened in that bed. And the fact that a man who is usually so cool and controlled overlooked something as basic as birth control—even on one occasion—tells me that he got a little carried away. And I assure you, that had nothing to do with the Santa Magdalena Diamond.”
“The sex was good,” Penny admitted, deciding it wasn’t the time to enlighten her sister that she might have misled him on the subject of birth control, albeit inadvertently. Then she sighed. “Really good.”
Paige grinned. “Then I’d have to say that some things do run in the family.”
“Is that why you’re marrying Travis?”
“I’m marrying Travis because he’s the most incredible man I’ve ever known. But good sex is certainly a factor in that.”
“Except that good sex is all Jason and I had,” Penny reminded her. “Everything else was a lie.”
“I’m not telling you to give the guy another chance,” Paige said. “Only you can decide if you want to do that. But I am going to remind you that there’s more at stake now than just you and Jason.”
She nodded. “Believe me, I’m thinking about the baby. I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else. But I didn’t think that Jason might be worried, and I’m sorry you had to come all the way over here to check on me.”
“I was planning on coming back anyway,” her sister admitted. “I’m meeting with Blake in the morning to talk about the unveiling of the diamond.”
Penny latched on to the change of topic gratefully. “Do you think that showcasing the diamond will be enough to turn things around for the McCords?”
“I know it will get customers in the door,” Paige said. “After that, it’s your designs that will do the rest.”
“Speaking of designs, I have an engagement ring to work on in the morning, so I should get some sleep.”
“Since I’m very excited to see what you come up with for that engagement ring, I’ll let you.” Paige kissed her cheek. “Sweet dreams, Penny.”
But as she left her sister in the kitchen with the ice cream, Penny hoped she wouldn’t dream at all. Because lately, all of her dreams seemed to focus on Jason.
Chapter Seven
Foley Industries had a corporate jet, and Jason had always felt that one of the biggest perks of being COO of the company was being able to avoid the usual headaches and hassles of commercial travel. Unfortunately, it was only one jet, and on rare occasions when it was in use elsewhere, he was forced to fly with a public carrier. First class, of course, but still…
His trip to Denver was one of those times. Thankfully, it wasn’t a very long flight, and he had his Black-Berry and his laptop so he could work throughout the journey. Or at least pretend to work, while his thoughts were on Penny and the baby they were going to have.
Now that he was on his way home, he was anxious to see her, to plead his case in person and make plans for their future.
It took a few minutes before the baby’s cries penetrated his thoughts, but once he became aware of them, nothing seemed to block them out.
He’d seen the mother in line at the check-in counter. She’d had a rolling suitcase in one hand, a three- or four-year-old child holding the other and a baby who couldn’t have been more than a few months old in a sling across her chest. And he’d said a silent prayer of thanks that she wasn’t waiting for the executive check-in.
But the curtain that separated first class from coach wasn’t much of a sound barrier, and once he’d tuned into the baby’s crying, he couldn’t tune it out. In fact, after a few minutes it seemed to be growing louder, as if the baby was coming nearer.
Probably just his own impending parenthood playing games with his imagination, or so he thought, until the flight attendant moved briskly past him. He heard her, a few rows behind him, ask in a slightly impatient tone, “Can I help you?”
“My son needs to use the bathroom,” a decidedly harried female voice replied.
“There are two lavatories at the rear of the plane,” the attendant informed her, standing guard against any intrusion.
“I’m aware of that,” the frazzled mother said through gritted teeth. “But they’re both occupied, and a three-and-a-half year-old doesn’t have fabulous bladder control, so unless you want to deal with that kind of mess, you’ll please let me come through…”
With a resigned sigh, the attendant held back the curtain for the woman and her children to pass.
“Isn’t there anything you can do to settle her down?” the flight attendant wanted to know.
Her question almost made Jason smile. The young woman clearly had even less experience with babies than he did, which was saying something. Because, aside from his niece, Olivia, who was now six years old, and whose diaper he’d changed exactly once way back when she was still wearing diapers, his experience was nonexistent.
“The switch is inside her diaper. As soon as I can get to it, I’ll turn her off.”
The flight attendant’s mouth tightened, even as Jason’s lips curved.
But the mother’s troubles were not over, as she couldn’t maneuver into the narrow bathroom with the baby.
“Mommy.” The little boy’s urgency was apparent.
She glanced around, anxiously searching for an answer to her dilemma. Most of the seats in executive class were occupied on this flight, and
most of the occupants were busy with their laptops or their newspapers, or otherwise pretending they didn’t even see the woman who had dared venture into their midst.
Her eyes locked on Jason’s. He should have looked away, but she was obviously desperate and the flight attendant wasn’t going to be any help, and while he wouldn’t say he had a sudden paternal urge, he did hear himself say, “Do you need a hand?”
“Yeah. For just a minute. If you don’t mind.” And with that, she dropped the squawking red-faced baby in his lap and ducked into the bathroom behind the little boy.
“Well.”
Jason looked down at the infant, who looked back at him with the biggest, bluest, tear-drenched eyes he had ever seen. Of course, the baby didn’t respond to his comment. In fact, he guessed she didn’t even hear it as she hadn’t stopped screaming, except for the briefest fraction of a second and only then to draw more air into her lungs.
She squirmed, kicking her chubby little legs and flailing her pudgy arms and generally letting him know that she wasn’t comfortable being held at arms’ length on a stranger’s knee. So Jason lifted her up against his shoulder, awkwardly patting her back with his free hand as he vaguely recalled having done with Olivia.
The baby stopped squirming, hiccupped twice, then let out an enormous belch, and spewed a gallon of something disgusting and smelly all over his suit jacket.
On the plus side, she did stop crying.
As much as Penny wanted to believe she could make her own decisions and figure out her plans, she didn’t think it would hurt to talk to someone who had been in the same position she found herself in now.
Eleanor and Rex had returned late the night before, and Penny tracked her mother down in the library, where she was lounging on the sofa with a new book by her favorite author.
Eleanor looked up and, seeing her daughter hovering in the doorway, immediately put her book aside.
“How was your trip?” Penny asked.
“Fabulous,” Eleanor said. “I’ve always loved San Francisco, and seeing a favorite city with someone you love…well, it just makes the experience even better.”
“Where’s Rex today?”
Her mother pouted. “He had to go to Houston for a meeting. Apparently being independently wealthy hasn’t eradicated his desire to work every day—to feel useful, he says. Not that I really mind, it’s just that after so many years apart, I don’t want to miss out on another, single moment together.”
Penny didn’t know what to say to that. She had no experience with that type of all-consuming emotion, and circumstances being what they were, she wasn’t likely to get any.
“But now you’re here,” Eleanor said, “which is just as good, because we haven’t had a chance to chat, just the two of us, in a long time.”
“I did want to talk to you,” Penny admitted. “And then I wasn’t sure if I should.”
“Talk about Jason, you mean.”
She nodded. “I know it must be awkward for you, since you’re married to his father now.”
“I was your mother first,” Eleanor said. “And I’ll always be your mother.”
“It’s a little strange, isn’t it, that there was such distance between the two families for so long, and now you and Rex are married, Paige and Travis are engaged and I’m having Jason’s baby.”
“There have been a lot of big changes, but I’m happy that the feud is finally at an end.”
Penny plucked at an imaginary thread on her sweater. “I’m worried that this…situation…with Jason and me might stir things up again.”
“Don’t,” her mother said. “The situation with you and Jason has nothing to do with anyone but you and Jason. Although I am curious to know if you’ve decided what you’re going to tell him when he gets back from Denver?”
“Tell him about what?”
“His proposal.”
Penny frowned. “If you could call it a proposal. And how did you know about that anyway?”
“Rex, of course.”
Penny should have guessed that Jason would tell his father, and that Jason’s father would tell his wife. But when Penny and Jason had first gotten involved, there weren’t so many family ties, and now she couldn’t help but feel as if all the connections were tying her hands.
“So,” Eleanor prompted, “are you going to say ‘yes’?”
“No.”
Her mother frowned, obviously disappointed.
“We’re going to have a baby,” Penny said gently. “But we were never really ‘together’—you know Jason was only using me to get information on our search for the diamond.”
Eleanor’s frown deepened. “He may have had ulterior motives in the beginning, but I’m sure that once he got to know you, his intentions changed.”
“Why are you sure of that? Because Rex said so?”
“Because the man who subjected himself to the wrath of two families by announcing your pregnancy at Thanksgiving dinner wouldn’t have done so if he didn’t intend to stick around for the fallout.”
“I don’t know what he intended,” Penny admitted. “And even if he told me his intentions, how could I believe him? I was dating him for the better part of two months, and the whole time I honestly thought we had something special, that he cared. Now I know it was all a lie.”
“I think he does care. And if you worked at building a life together, that caring would grow.”
“I can’t believe you’re suggesting that I even think about marrying him,” Penny said. “Especially after you spent thirty years trapped in a marriage to a man you didn’t love.”
“There’s a big difference in the two situations.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I was in love with someone else when I married your father,” her mother reminded her gently.
“With Rex,” Penny said.
Eleanor nodded. “I fell in love with him when I was sixteen years old and I never stopped loving him.”
Penny was pleased that her mother had found happiness with her new husband, but there was still a question nagging at the back of her mind, one that had been there ever since she’d learned that Eleanor and Rex were teenage sweethearts finally reunited. “Did you never love Daddy?”
Her mother thought about the question for a long moment before answering.
“Devon had a lot of wonderful qualities,” she finally said. “And I often thought that I might have fallen in love with him if I’d known him first. But later I was too busy resenting him for the circumstances that forced me into a marriage I didn’t want and wasn’t ready to appreciate the man that he was.”
“And yet, you want to force me into a marriage with Jason.”
Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t want to force you into anything,” she denied. “In fact, I want you to do what I didn’t—to follow your heart.”
Jason saw the mother from the plane again at baggage claim. Lindsay Conners she’d told him her name was, in the midst of her embarrassed and profuse apologies and offers to give him money for dry cleaning. Jason had declined, of course, simply removing the jacket and, folding it to cover the milky vomit, tucking it into his carry-on bag.
The baby was back in the sling over the mother’s shoulder and, if not asleep, at least quiet. She found her suitcase and dragged it off of the luggage carousel, and when she turned, her eyes went wide, darting around the crowd of bodies and bags, frantically looking for something else. Or someone else, Jason realized, spotting the little boy over by the luggage carts where he’d set himself up with his coloring books and crayons.
In two quick strides, Jason was by her side, pointing her toward her son. “Over there.”
“Oh, thank God.” Her breath shuddered out, her eyes immediately filling with tears of gratitude and relief.
“Actually, my name’s Jason,” he told her.
She managed a laugh. “Thank you, Jason. I told him to stay put, but, well, I tell him a lot of things he doesn’t seem to hear these days.”
“Do you have kids?” she asked him.
“No,” he said. “Not yet. But that will change in about six months.”
“That would explain the I-want-to-help-but-don’t-have-a-clue look on your face on the plane.”
He winced. “Was I that transparent?”
“Yes, but you were still my savior,” she told him.
“Any words of advice for a first-time dad-to-be?”
“Yeah, don’t leave your wife at home with the kids you claimed meant the world to you while you take off to Cozumel with your twenty-two-year-old secretary.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t a business trip.”
“The only business he ever thinks about these days is avoidance of family responsibilities. Now I’m scrambling to get back into the workplace after he urged me to give up my job to stay at home with the children.” She sighed as she finished packing away the thick crayons. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go off on you. You just picked a bad time to be nice.”
“I don’t believe there’s ever a bad time to be nice.”
She managed to smile in response to that. “Well, thank you again for your help, Jason.”
“Foley,” he said. “Jason Foley.”
“I thought you looked familiar,” she said. “I used to work for your brother, Zane. It feels like a lifetime ago.” She glanced pointedly at the little boy and then her baby. “Actually two lifetimes ago.”
“How long did you work for Zane?”
“I was his executive assistant for four years. But like I said, it was a long time ago.”
He handed her a business card. “When you get settled, give me a call.”
“I appreciate the offer, Mr. Foley, but I don’t need your charity.”
“I’m not offering you charity, I’m offering you a job. You wouldn’t have lasted four years as my brother’s executive assistant if you couldn’t manage people or handle pressure.”
“Well, when you put it that way.” She took the card. “I may be proud, but I’m not stupid.”