Claiming King's Baby

by Maureen Child

  Something inside her eased just a little. To know that—to believe that he would have come whether or not he thought he was her baby’s father was a gift. Yet even as she admitted that, there was another voice inside her demanding to be heard.

  “Do you really think I would have wanted you here if you thought I was lying to you?” Before he could answer, she added, “And do you really believe that I would have called you to watch me give birth to another man’s child?”

  He watched her as long silent moments ticked past. Finally, though, he said, “No. You wouldn’t have. To both questions.” He rubbed absentmindedly at his thigh. “You really threw me hard, Maggie. Showing up at the ranch the way you did. With a boy you claim to be mine.”

  God, she was tired of defending herself. Sighing, she said, “He is yours. I’m not just claiming it.”

  He studied Maggie, his gaze moving over her features until she shifted uneasily under his steady regard. Eventually, he spoke. “I have something to tell you.”

  “What?” Maggie held her breath as hope jumped up inside her and waved its arms and legs excitedly. Was he finally going to admit that he knew Jonas was his? That she wasn’t lying? Was he going to ask her to stay with him? Be a family?

  “Mr. and Mrs. King?”

  Maggie groaned at the interruption and turned her head to look at the nurse stationed in the doorway. Hours ago, she would have welcomed the woman. Now? What terrible timing. But the nurse was smiling and Maggie was already standing up to join Justice when she said, “Yes, that’s us. Are Bella and the baby all right?”

  “Everyone’s fine,” the nurse assured them. “Even the happy father is coming around.”

  “Coming around?” Justice repeated. “What—”

  “He got a little light-headed in the delivery room,” the nurse hedged.

  “You mean he fainted?” Justice asked her, grinning like a big brother who would now have something on his sibling for the rest of his life.

  “Justice…” Maggie said.

  “You’ve been invited in to meet the newest member of your family,” the nurse told them. “If you’ll follow me.”

  “What was it?” Maggie asked. “Girl or boy?”

  “I’ll let the new mom tell you that,” she said, leading them through a set of double doors and down a brightly lit hallway.

  Two immensely pregnant women were wandering the halls, shuffling with slow steps as they hung on to IV poles for support. Their husbands were right on their heels, murmuring encouragement. In one room a woman moaned, and from yet another a new baby’s indignant wail rose up like a discordant symphony.

  Maggie felt Justice’s hand on the small of her back and relished that small intimacy. Here at least, they were together. A team. Two people who had survived hours of expectation and were now about to be rewarded.

  In Bella’s room the new mom lay back, exhausted and gorgeous against her pillows, a tightly wrapped bundle cradled in her arms. Jesse stood beside her, still looking a little pale and glassy-eyed but happier than they’d ever seen him.

  Maggie hurried forward, held on to the bedrail, stared down into a red, wrinkly face and declared it, “Beautiful. Just beautiful, Bella. So…boy or girl?”

  “Boy,” Jesse said proudly. “And we’re keeping the J-name thing going, too. Uncle Justice, Aunt Maggie, I want you to meet Joshua.”

  Justice moved in closer, leaning over Maggie to get a good look at the newest King. She felt his breath on her cheek as he reached over, pulled the tightly wrapped white blanket down a bit so he could get a better view of the baby. She felt his indrawn breath as he studied his brother’s son and heard the soft sigh escape him as he looked at Bella.

  “He’s a beauty, Bella. Good thing he looks like you.”

  “Hey!” Jesse grinned.

  “Don’t you think you’d better sit down?” Justice asked, a teasing note in his voice. “I hear the delivery was a little rough on you.”

  Jesse scowled and cast a disgusted glance at the open door even as Bella laughed delightedly. “Big-mouth nurse,” he muttered before turning a look back on Justice. He jerked his head to one side, silently telling his brother he wanted to talk in private.

  When they were far enough from the two women in the room, Jesse said, “I’m a father now, too, Justice. And I’m telling you, Jonas is your son. Don’t lose this. Don’t blow everything for your pride.”

  Justice, though, turned to look at Bella and Maggie, illuminated by the overhead light, both women looking down on that tiny boy with delirious smiles. “Now’s not the time, Jesse.”

  “There’s no better time, Justice,” his brother told him. “Don’t waste another minute.”

  Jesse moved back to his wife then, and Maggie soon joined Justice to go back to the ranch, leaving the new family to settle in together. As they stepped out of the hospital into the cold, clear night, Justice stopped, took a deep breath and thought about what Jesse had said to him, both here and at the ranch. What if he was right about all of it? What if Justice had been clinging to bad information for ten years?

  “Wasn’t he beautiful,” Maggie asked, hunching deeper into the sweater she’d brought along with her. “So tiny. So perfect. So…” She stopped talking then, looked up at Justice and asked, “What is it? Is something wrong?”

  He met her gaze and knew what he had to do. For all their sakes, it was time for the truth to come out.

  “I want a paternity test run on Jonas.”

  Eight

  A few days later, Justice was still feeling the effects of Maggie’s fury. After an hour of lunges, wall squats and some fast walking on a treadmill, Maggie still wasn’t finished with him.

  She’d set up a massage table in the pool house behind the main house and had him stretched out atop it like a prisoner on a rack. Sunlight drifted in through heavily tinted windows that allowed the people inside to enjoy the view but kept anyone outside from peering in. The bubbling of the hot tub at one end of the pool sounded overly loud in the strained quiet, and quiet purr of the air conditioner sounded like a continuous sigh.

  Justice paid no attention to his surroundings, though. Instead, he kept a wary eye on Maggie. Her hands were sure, her professional demeanor was firmly in place but her eyes were flashing with suppressed rage. He winced as she took hold of his foot and, lifting it, pushed his leg toward his chest. Muscles he’d been working hard stretched and pulled, and he ground his teeth together to keep any moans from sliding out of his throat.

  He curled his hands around the edges of the table and held on while she forced him to push against her hands. Resistance training, she called it. Torture was more like it, Justice thought.

  “You’re enjoying this,” he muttered.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Bullshit. You’re pissed off and you’re getting a charge out of making me pay.”

  “Justice,” she said on a rush of breath, “I’m a professional physical therapist. I would never, under any circumstances, harm a patient under my care. Now push against me.”

  He did and still managed to say, “You’re not trying to hurt me—I get that. But if it’s a by-product, it won’t bother you much, I’m thinking.”

  “I’m doing what’s best for your rehabilitation,” she said, “and resisting torturing you, despite how tempting the idea might be.”

  He pushed into her grip, focusing his strength, and he had to admit that since she’d been manhandling him, his leg was stronger and getting better every day. It still ached, but it was manageable and he rarely needed the cane anymore.

  “I didn’t ask for the test specifically to piss you off,” he muttered, unwilling to leave it alone. Wanting her to see his side.

  She inhaled sharply, set his leg down on the table and fisted her hands at her hips. “What do you want me to say, Justice? That I’m fine with you arranging for our son to be poked with a needle because you don’t trust me? Not gonna happen.”

  She’d argued with him, of course, that night
at the hospital. Her temper had flared and shone like a beacon as she faced him down and told him just what she thought of a man who would put an infant through an unnecessary test. But Justice hadn’t been swayed.

  The day he’d found out he couldn’t father children, the news had almost killed him. Not only had he lost his parents—his past—in that accident, he’d lost his future as well. He was no different than any other man. He’d dreamed of family, of passing on King Ranch to another generation who would love and care for it as he had. And to have those dreams shattered in an instant had been devastating.

  Yet now that Jesse had planted all of those thoughts in his mind, he had to wonder: had the doctor been wrong? He had to know the truth. Had to know if Jonas was his. If he really did have a son. And nothing Maggie said had changed his mind.

  They’d arranged for the paternity test the next morning, taking the baby to one of the King laboratories. Sometimes, he told himself, it paid to be a member of a huge, successful family. The Kings had their fingers in just about every pie worth having in California. No matter what one of them might need, there was generally a cousin who could provide it.

  They’d put a rush on the paternity test, and even with that it would be another few days before they had the results. Justice had never been good at waiting, and this time it was even harder. There was so much riding on the outcome of this test. Not just his pride, he told himself, but the direction of his very future.

  She poured some liquid into her hands, scrubbed her palms together, then began what she called “deep tissue mobilization.” In other words, a hard massage, he thought and sighed as her fingers and palms worked magic on his leg. His surgical scar was white and fresh-looking despite being completely healed. Her hands on his leg felt like a blessing. Her touch was sure, firm and, just as she said, professional. He wanted more. He wanted her hands on other parts of him, too. But he wasn’t going to get that, not when she was this furious.

  “How does this feel?” she asked, working from the sole of his foot, up his calf to his thigh and back down again.

  If she glanced at the erection pushing at the fly of his shorts, she’d know just how it felt, he thought and grimly tried to bring his body under control. “Good,” he said bluntly. “It’s all good.”

  “You’re improving, Justice. I’m glad to see it.”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course I am. That’s why I’m here, remember? And the sooner you’re back on your own feet, the sooner I can take Jonas and leave.”

  He reached out, grabbed one of her hands and held on. “You’re not going anywhere until those test results come back in, Maggie.”

  She pulled her hand free of his grip. “I’m not going anywhere until my job is done,” she corrected. “When it is, you won’t be able to stop me from leaving.”

  He ran one hand over his face. “Damn it, Maggie, don’t you see why I had to do this?”

  “No. I don’t see.” She grabbed up a towel, dried her hands and continued, “You had my word, Justice. You could have believed me.”

  “I don’t just want your word. I want proof.” He pushed up onto his elbows and stared at Maggie.

  Her hair was in a thick ponytail at the back of her neck. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but then, she didn’t really need any. Her eyes were hot and filled with fury, and her delectable mouth kept working as if she were biting back hundreds of words she wanted to fling at him.

  The day was warm and she wore jeans shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt for their exercise session. Her skin was smooth and pale, and Justice wanted nothing more than to grab her, pull her down on top of him and bury himself inside her. With that mental image firmly planted in his mind, he could almost feel her damp heat surrounding him. Feel her body moving on his. See her as she leaned over him, brushing his chest with her bare breasts.

  Damn it.

  He swung his legs off the table in a hurry, hoping she hadn’t seen his erection, hard and all too eager for her. Around Maggie, he seemed to be little better than a teenager. Always hard. Always ready.

  “Come on,” she said, stepping around the table to wrap one arm around his waist. “You need to sit in the hot tub awhile. Ease your muscles.”

  He thought about refusing her offer to help him walk to the far end of the pool. Then he told himself he’d be a fool for not taking the opportunity to touch her. Her scent rose up to greet him, and the soft fall of her hair against his skin felt like silk. He draped one arm across her shoulders and, with her aid, walked barefoot across the cool, sky-blue tiles lining the edge of the pool.

  “Here you go,” she said as they reached the partitioned-off area of the pool. There was a bench along the half circle of the hot tub, and Justice lowered himself onto it, hissing a little as the warm, bubbling water caressed his body.

  “I turned the heat down a bit,” Maggie was saying. “I don’t want you parboiled, just warm and relaxed.”

  He doubted he’d ever be fully relaxed when she was around, but he didn’t bother telling her that. Instead, he just looked up at her, standing on the tiles, watching him with her “professional mien” in place. Where was his Maggie? The one with fire in her eye. The one who turned him inside out with a single touch.

  “Why don’t you join me?” he asked. She started to refuse but he kept talking. “You look like you need to relax as much as I do, Maggie.”

  She bit her lip, blew out a breath and said, “I’m too mad at you, Justice. There wouldn’t be any relaxing. For either of us.”

  “Fine, then,” he said, slapping the frothing water with the flat of his hand. “Sit down and yell at me. You always did feel better after a good rant.”

  Her lips twitched and he knew he’d won.

  “I don’t have a bathing suit.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t,” he coaxed, mouth dry, wanting—no, needing to see her strip down to nothing to join him in the warm, bubbling water.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out again. “Okay. But just for a few minutes. Then I should go in and take care of Jonas.”

  “He’s fine with Mrs. Carey.”

  “I know that,” she countered, stepping out of her jean shorts to reveal pale pink silk panties, “but he’s my son and my responsibility.”

  Justice just nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak anyway. She lifted the hem of her shirt and tugged it up and over her head, giving him his first look at a wisp of a pale pink bra that exactly matched her panties. Maggie always had loved good lingerie. And he’d always considered himself a lucky bastard.

  When she stepped into the water, though, he stopped her. “Aren’t you going to take those off?”

  She glanced down at herself, then at him. Laughing, she told him, “I don’t think so. It’s not safe to be naked around you, Justice.”

  Since his erection was now pushing against the button fly of his own shorts, demanding to be set free, he had to silently agree with her.

  She eased down onto the bench opposite him and with a sigh, tipped her head back onto the rim of the pool. “God, you were right. This feels amazing.”

  Her lean, toned legs half floated in the water, directly in front of one of the jets, and Justice’s mouth watered as he watched her. He reached down and readjusted himself, hoping to ease his discomfort. It didn’t help. But he knew what would. Deftly, he undid the buttons on his shorts and pushed them off, shoving them to the floor of the pool. Instantly, his aching groin was eased, free of the constricting shorts. But he needed more.

  He needed Maggie.

  He moved closer to her while her eyes were closed. His gaze locked on her breasts, bobbing just above the water’s edge, her dark, rosy nipples perfectly defined by the wet silk. She might have thought she was protecting herself by staying semiclothed, but all she’d managed to do was tempt even more thoroughly. Wet silk clung to her skin, displaying far more than it hid.

  When he was close enough, he reached out to slide one hand up her calf. Instantly, her eyes flew open and
she floundered a bit, until she was again seated on the bench, gaze fixed on him. “What’re you doing?”

  Justice moved closer still. “Helping us both relax.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, shaking her head and scooting farther from him.

  “Don’t be so skittish, Maggie,” he soothed. “It’s not like we’re strangers.”

  She held up one finger, holding him at bay. “No, we’re not strangers, Justice. That’s why we shouldn’t do this. It’ll only confuse things even more than they already are.”

  “Impossible,” he countered, coming closer. The warm water felt great on his skin, the slide of his hand along her wet leg, once he took hold of her again, felt even better.

  “Okay, maybe you have a point,” she said, nodding. “But I’m still mad at you.”

  He grinned briefly. “Some of our best sex happened when you were mad at me.”

  “Okay,” she admitted with a quick nod, “that’s true, too. But that doesn’t mean I want you now.”

  “Liar.” He took hold of her foot and pulled her toward him, sliding his hands up her legs as she floated to him in the frothing water.

  She hissed in a breath. “You’re cheating.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Justice, this won’t solve anything.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t have to,” he told her, his hands now gripping her bottom. “Maybe it just has to happen.”

  She looked at him and squirmed in his grip, as if she were trying to get comfortable. “Maybe,” she acknowledged. “But maybe we shouldn’t let it.”

  “Too late,” he whispered and moved off the bench so that he could turn her in his grasp, holding her floating body in front of the pulsing jets of water streaming into the tub.

  “Cheating again!” she accused on a sigh as her legs parted and the thrum of the warm, pulsing water caressed her center.