See—even Jess wasn’t worried.
Content, Ally kissed Caroline and hugged her close before slipping the nipple of a bottle between her baby’s lips, just as she was supposed to do every two hours. She’d even woken up last night to feed her baby, and it had given her the opportunity to watch Jeremiah sleep, too.
Who knew that the devilish guy could look like a bit of an angel in that state?
Mrs. McCarter drizzled syrup over her pancakes. “Why don’t you just call Jeremiah to see when he’ll be by?”
Ally frowned. “I never got his phone number.”
She tried not to think that was some kind of bad omen, because it was patently ridiculous. They just hadn’t needed to exchange phone numbers yet.
Jess took out her smart phone. “I’ll call the hotel and get patched through to his room. Where’s he staying?”
“The Sea View in Pismo.”
Caroline made a squacking sound as she lost the nipple on the bottle, but Ally guided it right back in.
Jess made quick work out of looking up the hotel, then asking the clerk to connect her with Jeremiah Barron’s room.
She made a puzzled face and said thank-you to the person on the other end of the line, and Ally felt that bad omen niggling at her again.
“What?” she asked Jess as she hung up her phone.
“They said he checked out this morning.”
Now the niggle turned into a mini-storm in Ally’s stomach. “When he left this house, did he tell you he was planning on checking out, Jess?”
“No.” Her aunt’s jaw tightened, as if her old opinion of Jeremiah was creeping back up on her.
“He’ll be in touch,” Mrs. McCarter said, ever the optimist.
But, as breakfast wore on, the air seemed to seep out of the room.
Why did it feel as if something was very wrong with Jeremiah?
Reasons flew around Ally’s head. Maybe his dad had needed some immediate attention. Yes, that had to be it. Jeremiah had probably gotten an early-morning message and just hadn’t had time to contact her yet….
Then Jess, who’d been pressing the icons on her phone screen, let out a gasp. And when she glanced up at Ally, something told her that all really was not well.
“I just got this news link from a friend in San Antonio,” her aunt said, handing Mrs. McCarter the phone first. “It might have something to do with why our guest is MIA.”
As she kept the phone, the older woman knit her brow before sending a concerned look to Ally.
“Someone had better tell me what’s happening,” Ally said, trying to remain calm. She held to Caroline, not wanting to let her daughter know that her mother was ruffled.
Slowly, Mrs. McCarter showed Ally the phone screen, where a picture of her and Jeremiah at the Howards’ ranch glared back. After Mrs. McCarter scrolled down to highlight the gossip column, Ally read it.
A sick feeling roiled in her stomach.
Had this driven Jeremiah away?
But she knew the reason for his absence had been caused by something more than being featured in a gossip column. He’d probably equated this item with the look he’d seen in her eyes yesterday, when she’d suffered a moment of doubt about who he was and who he could be.
Yet, now he was just gone. He hadn’t even stayed to ask if she had it within herself to ignore everything in this column and move on with him. He hadn’t thought she cared enough about him to take that chance. But she did care. She’d come to care too much.
She’d fallen in crazy, inexplicable love that, all the same, felt so right.
It seemed as if she was coming apart, and the only thing that kept holding her together was Caroline—the comforting, slight weight of her baby in her arms.
Ally didn’t want to think about how Jeremiah had probably told himself that she wouldn’t ever believe in him now—especially after the ugly things this column had pointed out. What hurt even more, though, was that he’d obviously given up on himself, on all the progress she thought he’d made by being with her.
Jess spoke. “I should’ve known it. Just when I came around to the jerk, he takes off without a word.”
“Jess,” Mrs. McCarter said warningly. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“Why shouldn’t I? He’s just what everyone thought—here today, gone tomorrow. Totally predictable.”
“Jess.” Now when Mrs. McCarter said it, there was a note of compassion. “He’s not like your father. Stop making it sound like he is.”
That made Jess clam up right away, and Mrs. McCarter turned to Ally, resting a hand on her arm.
“If I understood anything about Jeremiah, it’s that he might’ve seen this gossip item and he’s doing something to keep you out of its sordid business. He might’ve gotten some kind of heroic notion about leaving before he drags you any further into the muck.”
“Does he think this is going to decimate me?” Ally asked, voice shaking as she pointed to the phone and the story.
“I’m sure he does.”
Ally shook her head. “I’ve been through a lot worse, and I’ve come out of it just fine, too. How can he think this would faze me more than his leaving would?”
There it was. No more keeping it back.
She wanted him here, with her. With them. Always.
“We know what strong stuff you’re made of.” Mrs. McCarter squeezed her arm. “He’ll realize it, too, and he’ll call. I’m sure of it.”
But Ally wasn’t so certain.
Was she worth the effort—the courageous risk—that it would take for him to put his feelings out there, even if he was afraid that she would lose faith in him someday, as the real love of his life had way back in college?
His wounds ran deep, and they wouldn’t disappear in the time she and he had been together. They might not even disappear anytime soon….
She gave the phone back to Jess, then glanced down at Caroline, who seemed to have a sad look on her face, her lips pouting, her gaze bewildered.
Don’t worry, Ally thought to her daughter. Mrs. McCarter’s always right. He’ll call.
But, after a few days passed and there was still no word from him, Ally wondered if, this time, Mrs. McCarter had been wrong.
Home sweet home, Jeremiah thought bitterly as night fell just outside the lounge windows in the Barron family’s mansion on their Texas ranch. Next to him, on the settee, his brother Tyler sat in blue jeans and boots. With his brown hair and green eyes, he resembled their deceased mother more than their father, who reclined in a wingback chair, loosely holding a drink in his hand.
His dad—the stockier, ruddier model for Jeremiah, with his dark blond hair and blue eyes that had been muddied red by drink.
Jeremiah had been fighting off thoughts about that gossip column—and Ally—ever since he’d caught the first plane out of San Luis Obispo a few days ago. He’d kept telling himself that it was easier to be distracted here, in Texas, back in the offices of the Barron Group as well as in this room where Tyler had managed to corner Eli before he went out on the town again.
And he hadn’t thought of Ally or the baby for at least fifteen minutes now, either. He couldn’t if he intended to function, if he wanted to go on with life and forget what he’d almost done to them by including them in his messes.
But that didn’t mean he still didn’t feel Ally in the pit of his stomach. In his very core.
Tyler leaned forward on the settee, indicating to Jeremiah that he was ready to start with their dad.
“You’re staying in tonight,” he said to Eli.
Even Jeremiah knew that this was no way to deal with their father, a baby if there ever was one.
“I’ll do what I damned well please,” Eli Barron said with a mean stare. “Where’s Chet?”
The sudden change of subject made Jeremiah shift position on the settee—so did the punch of his father’s preference for his new son. Then again, Dad had known that mentioning his fondness for their new brother might rankle Tyler as well as
Jeremiah.
Things really didn’t change, did they? Jeremiah had known it when he’d seen that gossip column, and it was doubly so now.
A sense of powerlessness squeezed his head, but wasn’t there a lot he could do to fix things? He could call that gossip blogger and set the record straight about Ally’s reputation. And he could tell his father just what kind of damage he’d done to all of his sons, and not only recently, either.
But by doing either of those, Jeremiah ran the risk of bringing down even more damage while trying to correct what was already there. By contacting the gossip blogger, he might make the story even bigger than it already was, and that was why he’d refrained so far. And by letting loose on his dad, Jeremiah just might send his father further over a cliff.
He clenched his hands. Where was the fighter that had always come out in him during adversity? Where the hell had he gone?
“Chet,” Tyler said, “is on a business project out of state. But you knew that.”
Eli rolled his eyes.
That was the final straw for Jeremiah, and he was talking before he could even think better of it.
“Your petulance drove him away, Dad.”
There was the fighter—back again.
At least in this case.
Eli wasn’t amused. “Aren’t you supposed to be chasing some skirt, Jeremiah? I didn’t ask you to come back here.”
“But I did.”
“Lucky me.”
God, why had he bothered? Why had he left the best thing he’d ever had going in exchange for this—a life that would never change?
Jeremiah sat there, realizing that everything had already changed, even without his permission. His dad had already gone from being just an adulterer to also being a belligerent drunk, and there hadn’t been anything to do about it.
And Ally?
As Jeremiah watched Eli down his drink, he became restless, feeling as if the last thing he should be doing was just sitting here….
His father stood, swaying just before he headed out of the room.
Both Tyler and Jeremiah listened to the uneven sound of their father’s boot steps fading away.
Ty spoke first. “Progress, wouldn’t you say?”
“A startling amount of it.”
“I think we need to work on getting Chet here so we can take some drastic steps. There’s a treatment facility I’ve contacted, and they’ve been giving me advice on how to go about an intervention.”
Jeremiah nodded, but Tyler no doubt saw the weariness in him.
“Do I have to intervene with you, too?” his brother asked.
He was talking about Ally now.
“Don’t start, Tyler.”
A door slammed upstairs, which signaled that Eli had probably turned in for the night. At least he wouldn’t be causing any ruckuses outside the house since the staff would be on lookout.
Tyler got to his feet, as if he was done with all the intervening. Then he held up his hand in farewell and left the room.
Jeremiah didn’t move a muscle. He just stared at the oil painting of his family above the fireplace mantel: his father, his mother, Tyler, himself.
It was more a memory of a family than anything real.
If his uncle Abe had known what was going on with his brother and his wife, would he have done anything to stop it?
Or did he feel just as helpless as Jeremiah did now?
As he remembered his uncle’s last days, Jeremiah heard his phone make a dinging sound, as it did whenever he got a new email. He took it out of his pocket, accessing the message.
He stared at it. Stared some more until his gaze got blurry and heated.
A picture, and it was from Mrs. McCarter.
The photo that Jess had taken of Jeremiah in front of the fish tank with Caroline.
After that, there was more: a photo from the hospital, where Jeremiah had stood next to Ally’s bed with Mrs. McCarter, all of them gazing down at the newborn baby. Jeremiah’s hand was on Ally’s shoulder, a light touch, but he recalled how it had felt as if everything had been in it as he’d made contact with her.
An imprint.
A brand that charred into him even now.
There was also a message that went along with the pictures.
“We saw the blog,” it said. “I just thought you’d like a reminder of what you can still have, in spite of a few nasty words from the peanut gallery.”
He stared at the images, finally knowing what he had to do. What he wanted to do with every breath he took.
He started typing into his phone, creating a draft for a message that he intended to send straight from the heart if Ally would hear it.
Chapter Twelve
Ally had stayed up just about every night, reading her baby books, staring at the ceiling and getting out of bed every two hours to feed Caroline her formula.
As Jess had said before, the baby was an angel who didn’t fuss much. And Ally wasn’t even having nightmares about Cheryl deciding to take Caroline back, because Michele had called yesterday to update Ally, assuring her that she’d heard nothing from the birth mother about reneging on the adoption plan.
No, the reasons Ally had for insomnia had nothing to do with adopting a baby and everything to do with a hollow feeling in her heart.
Jeremiah hadn’t contacted her, even if she’d thought, with all her soul, he would. But as the days had passed, she wondered if she’d misspent her faith in him.
Had she misinterpreted who he really was? But how had she managed to do that when she had been such a good judge of character of other people in the past?
She’d already washed up, putting on a gray skirt and top that covered her a little more, now that autumn was showing up. And while she’d been combing out her hair this morning, she’d seen how tired her eyes seemed. She felt the burn of them, too, but there wasn’t a lot of time for napping these days.
She wanted to spend every minute she could with Caroline, like right now, while she played on the bed with her. Whenever the baby did something cute, like making those sweet, happy sounds as she lay on her back, it was more than enough to keep Ally very much awake.
There was a soft knock at her bedroom door.
“Come in,” she said.
The door opened to reveal Mrs. McCarter, who was dressed in a long flowered skirt and an oversize blouse. She used her cane to come the rest of the way in, casting a glance at Caroline and smiling.
Then she looked at Ally in a manner that made her think something was going on that Mrs. McCarter wasn’t announcing right away.
The old woman couldn’t contain a teary smile.
“What’s wrong?” Ally asked, already getting off the mattress and going to her friend.
“You ought to ask what’s right.” Mrs. McCarter limped to the bed, still being cryptic. “Jess and I would like to take Caroline out for a nice, long walk and a picnic, if you don’t mind. You’ll be needing some privacy.”
“Why?” Ally’s heart was well on its way to beating right out of her.
Something was definitely going on and Mrs. McCarter was being maddeningly silent about it as she rested her cane against the bed and lifted Caroline into her arms.
Finally, the older woman relented a bit. “Someone’s here to see you, Ally.”
Everything seemed to go still, like a watch that had stopped ticking, although Ally’s pulse took care of marking the missing seconds.
She started getting ideas—hopeful ones. But she didn’t dare think they could be true.
Was Jeremiah here?
She didn’t have it in her to play it cool, and she sprang off the bed, knowing where he would be if he had come at all.
She ran through the house to the back patio door, and…
There he was, standing by the rose garden he had planted.
Petals bloomed around him as he waited for her on a gravel path, his back to her, his arms crossed. If someone had seen him for the first time, they would never have known that he was a
polished businessman, because he was wearing those worked-in boots and blue jeans—clothing that seemed to peel him down to his very essence.
A lone cowboy beneath everything else.
But that cowboy looked as nervous as all get-out, and Ally’s chest closed in on itself when she realized that he didn’t know how happy she would be to see him. He was probably standing there struck by the fear that she would tell him to leave again because he’d already taken off like a woo-them-and-leave-them playboy once before.
But her love made her open that patio door and go outside without another wasted second.
When he turned to her, she allowed herself to drop all shields, let him see just how much she’d missed him, even during the short time he’d been gone.
He wouldn’t see any doubts in her this time.
He dropped his arms to his sides, then walked toward her slowly, as if still not certain about how she was going to respond. And he was holding a phone in his hand, although she wasn’t sure why.
“When I drove up,” he said, “I saw Mrs. McCarter and Jess taking breakfast out here. She told me that they would give me some time with you.”
“I know.” But that didn’t tell her why he had come back…or why he had gone. “Is everything all right at home?”
She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Same as ever.” His gaze was searching hers, even from the near distance that separated them. “I’m sorry I left without saying a word. And without calling to tell you the reason for it.”
“I thought it was because of your dad—that maybe he needed your attention. Or because of business.”
“It wasn’t either.” He gestured to the phone. “I know you saw that gossip column, Ally.”
“Yes, I did.” When was he going to tell her the reason he was here?
Was she going to have to pull it out of him?
She recalled the devastated look on his face after she’d doubted him once, back at the winery.
He needed to know that she believed he had grown up since college. That he could be any kind of man he wanted to be.
“I didn’t believe a word of it, Jeremiah. Not after what we’ve been through.”
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