WILD BLOOD

by Naomi Horton

  Kathleen felt the earth slide to a stop and stood very, very still, afraid to move, to breathe. She could feel the beat of her own heart. Wondered if he could hear it. Heard the sound of cartoon voices from the living room, the laughter of children.

  Slowly, slowly, she drew a deep breath. He was just standing there, chin lifted slightly in a gesture she recognized as her own, firm mouth a little hard, like his father's. He looked so vulnerable and yet so strong, a wild, young thing caught between adolescence and adulthood. Caught now in the complexities of something even she didn't fully understand.

  He knew, she could tell it from his eyes. But he needed to hear it from her. Needed her to say the words to make it real.

  "I…" Her voice caught, as dry as old parchment. She swallowed, the sound almost audible in the stillness. For one wild, insane moment she almost denied it. Heard the words forming in her mind, the words that would make his world right again, would make Jett happy, would set things back the way they'd been. It would almost be easy. There had been so many lies already that making him believe a few more wouldn't be difficult at all.

  Except it was too late for that. Too late for easy.

  "I—I guess I am." Even to her own ears, she sounded astonished and uncertain.

  Jody's eyes never left hers. But then, suddenly, a hint of a shy smile brushed his mouth, and he looked, for one heartbreaking moment, like he was about five years old. "I, uh, guess this is pretty new for you, too."

  To her relief, Kathleen found she could almost laugh, and she felt herself relax. "You could say that." And then she did laugh, tipping her head back to ease the knot across her shoulders. "Oh, Jody … I know I should be saying something to you right now. Something … motherly, I guess. Something right."

  He was still watching her. Waiting. Looking a little more uncertain now than before, still holding himself away from her.

  She eased out a long, quiet sigh, looking at him gently. "But I don't know what, or even how. Until two days ago, I didn't even know I had a child. Now, suddenly, I'm a mother. And I just don't know … how." The tears surged up so fast and unexpectedly that they caught her by surprise, and she had to gulp them back, turning away quickly before he saw them. Not ready yet, for some reason, to let him—this boy-child, this miracle that was her flesh and blood—see her cry. He didn't need her tears.

  Holding them back by sheer willpower, she looked at him again and smiled a little ruefully. "Some reunion, huh? They make it look so easy in the movies."

  "Yeah." Another of those quick, shy smiles. "Aren't we supposed to hug now or something?"

  "Something like that, I guess."

  But he made no move toward her. And Kathleen found the distance between them more daunting than she would have thought possible. To walk across and have him turn away…

  Too soon, something whispered at her. Don't push. Don't try too hard. It's as new for him as it is for you.

  And it had to be right, she realized with sudden clarity. No false moves, no false emotion, no lies. There had been too much of that already. They had nearly fifteen years of lies between them.

  "What did you hear yesterday?" she quietly asked. "I mean, what do you know about … what happened?"

  "Enough." Again the defiance was touchingly bold. But his gaze slid from hers, and he gave one of those ubiquitous adolescent who-gives-a-damn-anyway shrugs that told her more about his pain than words ever could. "That they told you I'd died when I was born. That you didn't know I was even alive." He turned his head and gave her a look so level and cool it could have been Jett standing there. "Is that true? Is that what really happened?"

  And there it was, Kathleen found herself thinking a little numbly. There, in a handful of words, the sum of what he needed to know. Of what he had to know, before he would allow her closer. Or allow himself even to dare dream…

  "Yes," she said quietly, eyes never leaving his. "I carried you inside me for nine months, Jody. Every time you moved, I felt you. Every breath I took was your breath, every beat of my heart was yours. I dreamed of you at night, talked to you during the day, made plans and even bought baby clothes."

  She smiled, just thinking about it, surprising herself a bit. Remembering blue rompers. Even then, she'd known he was a boy. She gazed at him wonderingly, letting her eyes take in the magic of him. "I loved you from the moment I found out I was pregnant. All I wanted was to hold you. To protect you. And then…" She shrugged, letting the smile fade.

  Shoving her hands into her pockets, she walked across to the window and stared out. "When you were born, they wouldn't let me see you. I should have guessed they were up to something, but I was…" Another shrug. "I was barely sixteen, and scared and exhausted, and I … I trusted them." The bitterness in her own voice surprised her. "I trusted them, and they came back and told me my baby had died."

  Kathleen turned away from the window to look at him, suddenly weary and sad. "I can't even remember the next couple of months. After a while the worst of the pain faded. But not all of it. Never all of it." She met his gaze evenly. "There's been an empty place inside me since the day they told me you'd died. A place I thought I'd never be able to fill."

  He blinked and looked away, scuffing at something on the floor, shoulders hunched slightly.

  "I would never have given you away, Jody Kendrick," she said with soft fierceness. "Not in a million years. I loved you, and I would have died before letting anyone take you away from me. You have to believe that."

  He glanced at her sideways, his young face filled with a thousand emotions. And it was only then that she realized he was crying. "How couldn't you know?" he whispered raggedly. "I was your son. How couldn't you know I was still alive?"

  "They told me you'd died," she whispered, agonized. "I was sixteen, Jody. I believed them, don't you understand that? I was this scared kid in a hospital full of doctors, and they told me you were dead. And my father…" She swallowed the hot thickness in her throat. "I had to believe him. Because if I didn't, then there was nothing at all I could believe in."

  "You should have known." His voice caught, rough as straw, and he didn't even bother trying to stop the tears. "You were my mother! You were supposed to know!" He gave a strangled sob and in the next instant bolted blindly for the door and was gone.

  Kathleen took one step after him, then stopped, not even realizing until that instant that she was crying, too. Knowing she should go after him, should be saying something to him—but not knowing what or how. Knowing only that her heart felt ripped apart, and that if she moved she might shatter into a million pieces.

  She'd lost him, she thought numbly. She'd just lost the son she'd never even known she had…

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  About the last person Jett expected to see on the Kicking Horse the next morning was Kathleen Patterson. He'd just come out of the machine shed and was walking past the log corral at the back of the horse barn when he spotted her. She was standing with her back to him, hands shoved into the pockets of her sheepskin jacket, watching Jody's colt buck and play in the sun.

  He stopped dead, then swore and walked over to her, in no mood for a replay of yesterday's confrontation "Something I can do for you?"

  His voice was gruffer than he'd intended, and she started badly, stumbling around to face him. She didn't seem overly glad to see him, letting her gaze slide from his as she turned to look at the colt again, shoulders hunched almost protectively. "N-no. I … was just leaving."

  "If you've got something to say to me, say it," he growled. "I don't reckon I'm goin' to like it much, whatever it is, so let's just get it over with." He was tired, he thought. Worn down and worn out, like an old horse ridden too long and hard. He watched her watch the colt and wished he could bring himself to hate her. This would all be easier, somehow, if he hated her.

  "I came out to see if … to see Jody. No one was at the house, so I came back here. I thought with there being no school…"


  "He and my foreman went down to Butte to look at some cattle we're thinking of buying."

  "Oh." She looked back at the colt. "This probably wasn't such a good idea, anyway. He came to see me last night…"

  "I figured he might." Jett pulled his hat off and wiped the brim, then slapped it back on. "He's got a lot of stuff to sort out."

  "I handled it badly. And I wanted…" She lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug, still watching the colt. It bucked playfully, and he could see her smile.

  Then she seemed to remember where she was, and she let the smile fade and turned away from the corral, not looking at him. "I—wrote him a letter." She pulled a folded envelope from her pocket. "I—would you give it to him? Please?" She held it out to him uncertainly. "I thought it might help him … understand."

  Jett made no move to take the thing. It took all of Kathleen's willpower to stand there holding it, knowing what he must be thinking. How much he must hate her. "You can read it if you want," she whispered. "There's nothing … critical of you in it. Or of Pam. I just wanted to … to tell him some things."

  An odd expression flickered across Jett's strong face. He frowned finally and took it between his fingers, not bothering to even glance at it before tucking it into his shirt pocket.

  She stood there awkwardly, looking at the colt again. He didn't want her here, didn't want to talk to her or even see her again, but for some reason she couldn't bring herself to walk away just yet. There was so much unsaid between them, so many things still unresolved. And she hated it. Hated the anger and shouting. She thought of what it had been like here with him only a few days ago. Of how happy she'd been.

  There was nothing more to say. Nothing he was interested in hearing, anyway. She turned away, not even knowing what she was expecting from him. He'd made it clear how he felt about her coming back into his life, into Jody's life. She took a deep breath and started to walk away. Then, abruptly, she stopped dead.

  "Damn it, you're not the only one who's had his life turned inside out!" She wheeled around, tears springing into her eyes before she could stop them. "This isn't easy for me, either, you know! I'm thirty-one years old, and I just discovered I have a son I never knew about, and I don't know anything about being a mother, and he hates me and you hate me and—" The words got all tangled up in a sob, and she gulped, giving her cheeks a furious wipe with her arm, hating having him see her this vulnerable.

  "Kathy—"

  He caught her by the arm, and she wrenched away, angry and defiant, trying to keep her chin from wobbling. "I'm not handling it very well—so what! You've had fifteen years to get this parent thing down pat, and I've had two days, and if that isn't good enough for you, then sue me!"

  To her surprise, Jett didn't look half as angry as she would have expected. In fact, he didn't look angry at all. He looked … bemused. And then, even more surprising, he smiled. Granted, it wasn't much of a smile—a mere flicker of amusement that tipped that strong mouth aside for no more than a split second—but it was a smile. "You're right."

  Kathleen drew a breath for an angry retort, then let it out in a surprised huff, taken unawares. "You—I … what?"

  "I said, you're right." He leaned one shoulder against the high corral fence, looking impossibly relaxed for someone who'd been bellowing like a bull in barbed wire for the past two days.

  She blinked. "I am?"

  Again a smile flickered across his mouth. "Yeah. You are."

  "Well, I … that is, you're right! I mean, I am. Right." She took a breath, then let it out again in confusion.

  The expression on Kathy's face made Jett smile, knowing how she felt. He was pretty confused, too. By rights, he should be tossing her off the ranch on her trim little backside and telling her not to come back without her lawyer. Instead, he found himself wanting to walk across and wipe the tears from her cheeks and tell her everything would be all right.

  "Jody doesn't hate you, Kath. He's just confused. If he hates anybody, it's me." She stared at him mistrustfully, as though expecting a trap, and he managed a rough smile. "And I don't hate you, either. I should, God knows. But I don't."

  She stood looking at him uncertainly, hands shoved down into her jacket pockets, shoulders hunched. "You … don't?"

  He rested his elbow on the top rail of the corral, watching the colt frolic in the sun. "Would all this be easier if I did?"

  It took her a long while to answer. She walked back to the corral thoughtfully and came over to stand beside him. "I don't think anything could make this easier."

  He turned his head to look at her; then he just smiled and looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. "You got that right, darlin'." He rested his face against her hair for a moment, breathing in the warm, clean scent of her, then rubbed her shoulder idly. "How are you doin'?"

  "Okay." She rested her head against his chest. "No," she whispered, her voice ragged. "I'm not okay. Anything but okay."

  "I talked with him last night, Kathy," he said quietly. "Told him some things. About Pam and … me. About how it was back then. He's just going to need time to take it all in."

  She nodded, saying nothing, cradled against him with her head tucked under his chin. He hadn't realized how badly he'd missed holding her. How much he'd just wanted to touch her. He'd gone fifteen years without her, but now even an hour or two apart was too much.

  Which didn't make a lot of sense, all considered. But then, damn few things did these days.

  "He's beautiful. You don't see many spotted horses."

  Jett looked at the colt. "War pony. Jody took one look at him and had to have him. I figure they'll keep each other busy most of the summer."

  Again she didn't say anything. Then she sighed and eased out of his embrace, giving him a tentative smile. "I have to go. I m meeting Gord for lunch."

  Strategy meeting, Jett thought dispassionately. They would probably spend the rest of the day working out the details of the best way to present her case in a court of law … the best way to get Jody away from him.

  Reality came crashing down, and he nodded and shoved himself away from the corral. Not saying anything, he started walking back toward the house with her, not quite ready to let her go yet. It seemed impossible that they could be lovers one day and deadly adversaries the next. Given a choice, he sure as hell preferred the former. The thought made him smile, and he wondered what she'd say if he just came out and told her that.

  But he didn't. In fact, neither of them said anything as they walked through the yard to where she'd parked her car. She pulled the keys out of her pocket and unlocked the car door, then gave him a sidelong glance through her lashes. "I was in Vic's Café this morning. Gretchen asked me to say hi next time I saw you." Her smile widened. "She looks like a serious handful of woman."

  "About as serious as a chainsaw," Jett muttered, not quite meeting her eyes.

  "Maybe I'll take Brice in to meet her. They sound as though they'd get along fine."

  "Brice?" Jett's head lifted. "Mr. Lamborghini?"

  "The same." She sighed, looking irritated. "He turned up out of the blue late last night."

  Anger flickered through Jett for no reason he could figure. He wondered what a guy named Brice would look like. Clean-cut and suave as hell, no doubt. Expensive three-piece suits and gold watches to go with the flashy wheels. "So, you and old Brice are on again, are you?"

  "Actually, Jett, that's none of your business."

  "Damn right it's my business. If Mr. Lamborghini is in your life again, it means he's in Jody's life. And that means I want to know about it."

  It took her by surprise, Jett saw. And he realized suddenly that she hadn't even thought it through that far. Hadn't considered the implications, the complications, of having a child in her life, of having a whole world of things to adjust to.

  "I—" She closed her mouth and frowned. "You're right, I … guess." Her frown deepened, and she looked at him, her eyes clear and thoughtful. "Of course you're right. I'm
sorry. I—I never even thought of that."

  "I reckon there's a ton of things you haven't thought of," he muttered, trying hard to hang on to his righteous anger. Things were simple when you were angry.

  "I'm sure there are." To Jett's surprise, she just smiled, looking unperturbed. "If it'll make you feel better, I told Brice to get lost. He's leaving this afternoon. And he won't be back."

  Jett felt a surge of satisfaction that made as little sense as the anger had.

  "I guess I'm going to have to start thinking about things a little differently now." She looked thoughtful. "This parenthood thing isn't as easy as you'd think it would be, is it?"

  He felt a smile tug at his mouth, thinking of some of the surprises he'd faced over the past fifteen years. "Not by a damn sight."

  "Does it get easier?"

  He thought it over. "No. Every time you get one thing figured out, there's something new to trip you up. It's like starting over every time you get out of bed in the morning."

  "Great." She wrinkled her nose, then laughed quietly. "You seem to have come through it unscathed."

  "I've come through it," he corrected evenly.

  She nodded slowly, her gaze holding his. "I have to admit you surprised me, Jett. Of all the guys I knew back then, you would have been my last bet as good father material."

  "I don't reckon I had much of a choice."

  "No." She sighed, shoulders slumping, and kicked at something in the grass. "No, I guess you didn't."

  Then she lifted her head and looked right at him, shaking her head fiercely. "No, that's not true. You did have a choice. You didn't have to take responsibility. You could have told my uncle you weren't interested and kept on riding your saddle broncs and winning your rodeo trophies and gone on as though nothing had changed."

  Jett didn't say anything. She was wrong, of course. More wrong than he would ever be able to tell her. There had been no choice back then at all.

  "Most eighteen-year-old guys wouldn't have done what you did," she said softly. "A lot wouldn't have had the guts to go up against my father, but most just wouldn't have cared. They would have shrugged it off like it didn't have anything to do with them. But you gave up rodeo, and you married a woman you didn't love, and you made a home and raised our son." Tears suddenly filmed her eyes. "You're an honorable man, Jett Kendrick. And I've been a thorough-going bitch about the whole thing. I'm sorry."