“Yeah, it is,” Dave said and dropped to his haunches beside her. Looking up into her eyes, he said, “You spent a lot of years working to take care of me and Claud. We don’t think it’s fair that you have to do this by yourself. And more than not fair, Cass,” Dave added quietly, his gaze locked with hers, “it’s not right. He deserves to know.”
He deserves to know.
Hadn’t that sentence been repeating over and over again in her mind for the last year or more? Cass glanced across the room to where her infant son lay sleeping, completely oblivious to the family battle going on within feet of him.
Jake’s son.
A child he knew nothing about.
Oh, she’d had an internal war over telling him or not ever since the pregnancy test read positive. She knew she should tell him, but at the same time, he’d made it more than clear that family wasn’t important to him. Besides, during their time together, they’d agreed that their situation was temporary. A baby wasn’t temporary.
But it was more than that and she knew it. Though she had wanted to tell Jake about his son, she hadn’t because she hadn’t wanted to risk her baby’s heart.
What if Jake got involved and then eventually pulled back? What if Luke was old enough to feel his father’s rejection as brutally as she had felt her own dad’s absence? No. She wouldn’t do that to her child.
Although now, she might not have a choice.
“Why now?” she demanded, looking from one to the other of them in turn. “Why not six months ago? Or six months from now?”
“Because it’s Christmas,” Claud said in a huff. “It’s past time he knew, Cass. And with the holidays and all...”
“Damn it Cass,” Dave put in, “we’re not going to feel guilty about this. You need the help and he needs to know he’s a father.”
“It was my decision,” she argued. “Jake didn’t want kids, so I didn’t tell him.”
“Yeah, that was before you got pregnant. It’s easy enough to dismiss having children when it’s theoretical. But when it’s real, that’s different.” Dave’s voice tightened. “He’d change his mind damn quick if he knew he had a son.”
Her gaze shifted to him. “You don’t know that.”
“I’m a father. I know.”
“And even if he doesn’t change his mind,” Claudia added, “so what? The least he can do is help support Luke so it all doesn’t fall on you.”
Shaking her head, Cass said, “I don’t want his money.”
“Maybe not, but you need it,” her stubborn sister countered. “Ever since you quit your job with Hunter Media, you’ve been scrambling.”
“Claud’s right,” Dave said. “There’s no need for you to kill yourself like this, Cass.”
“You know darn well money’s been tight whether you want to admit it or not,” Claudia put in.
“I have plenty of clients,” Cass argued, getting more defensive by the moment. Yes, she missed that healthy paycheck from Hunter Media, but she’d had to quit that job when she found out she was pregnant. How could she have kept on working for her son’s grandmother and not tell the woman? But if she had told Elise, then Elise would have told her son and then Jake would have felt trapped into doing whatever the heck he considered the right thing and who needed any of that?
“Your clients are all great, but they’re small-time and they don’t pay you enough.”
True, she was forced to admit—albeit silently, since she didn’t want to give her siblings any more ammo to use against her. Her at-home billing business hadn’t grown as quickly as she’d hoped, but it would.
“I can work from home on my laptop and that means I can be here with Luke. Whatever’s missing from my old paycheck is saved by not needing day care.”
“Uh-huh.” Dave spoke again and Cass swung her gaze back to him. “But you’ll need a bigger apartment soon and hopefully in a better neighborhood. That takes money, and there’s no reason Jake can’t help support his son.”
God, she felt as if she were being attacked from all sides by the people who loved her best. She knew they were doing it because they cared, but what they’d done could change everything. Ruin everything.
“You don’t get it.” Cass stood up, unfolded the letter she had already read in disbelief a dozen times and shook it until the heavy paper rattled like dead leaves. “Claudia told Elise about Luke and now Elise is threatening to take him away from me.”
Dave didn’t bother reading the letter. He didn’t have to. When Cass had called this emergency family meeting, she’d read the letter over the phone to both of her siblings.
“She can’t do that.”
“Of course she can,” Cass snapped. “She’s rich. I’m not. Luke is her grandson.”
“She can but she won’t,” Claudia said, kicking back on the love seat and crossing her booted feet at the ankles.
It was extremely infuriating that her little sister looked neither contrite nor worried. “Oh really. And why not?”
“Because it would seriously piss off her son and she doesn’t want to do that.”
“I should take your word for it because you’re such an expert on Elise Hunter?”
“No, you shouldn’t take my word for it.” Claudia sat straight up and met Cass’s gaze with a fierce stare. “You should call Jake and tell him what his mother’s up to.”
Cass just blinked at her. As if she’d gone momentarily deaf, she shook her head to clear it and said, “Call Jake? I’ve been avoiding calling Jake since I found out I was pregnant.”
“Which I didn’t agree with,” Dave put in.
Cass sneered at him, then faced her sister again. “I can’t believe you haven’t called Jake. You called his mother—betrayed your big sister and practically handed your nephew over. Traitors. You’re both traitors.”
Snorting, Claudia briefly inspected her fingernails, then pushed to her feet. “You’ve really become a drama queen since having a baby. I wanted to call Jake, believe me. And I would have, but I didn’t have his number. I did call Elise because I figured she’d call Jake. I didn’t think she’d make a play for Luke on her own.”
Cass sighed and rubbed her forehead. Elise hadn’t called her son. Cass knew that for a fact because if she had, Jake Hunter would no doubt be standing on her doorstep right now demanding answers. Why Elise hadn’t told him was a mystery. But the meaning behind her letter was clear. She wanted her grandson and if Cass didn’t find a way to fight her old boss, the woman would find a way to get custody of Luke.
Her pounding temper was turning into a pounding headache. Taking a breath, she focused inward, trying to find a solution to this jumbled-up mess her life had become.
What if she was wrong and Jake did want his son? Would he try to take Luke from her? Would she go to him for help only to find herself fighting two custody suits instead? And what if everything went great? What then? She’d been solely responsible for Luke from the start. What would it be like to suddenly have to share him?
There had been so many times over the course of her son’s life that she had wished for Jake to be there with her. To be able to share the joyful moments along with the scary ones. And in spite of the worry shooting through her at the moment, a part of her yearned for the closeness with her son’s father.
“Cass, we didn’t mean to hurt you,” Dave was saying.
“We were trying to help,” Claudia added. “You’ve worked so hard your whole life. You took care of me single-handedly—practically raised Dave, too. It’s not right that you have to do all the worrying and work alone again.”
Cass sighed. “I know you meant well.”
They loved her. They had been trying to help. Instead they’d created a tangled mess that Cass would have to solve. But she would solve it. This battle she couldn’t afford to lose.
She walked across the room to stare down at her sleeping son. He had thick black hair and big blue eyes, just like his father. And like his daddy, Luke’s smile melted her heart. Five months old and he was her entire world. Until he had come into her life, she’d had no idea you could love so deeply, so completely. She couldn’t risk losing him. Which meant she really had only one option.
Jake.
This was going to be Luke’s first Christmas and she’d wanted to make it special. Well, it didn’t get much more special than meeting your father for the first time. Worry curled in the pit of her stomach. What would it be like to see Jake again? Her pulse skipped into a quick beat. So many times she had dreamed of being with him again. Now, it seemed, her wishes were about to be granted.
“Montana,” she whispered, more to herself than her siblings, “here we come.”
* * *
The last storm ended four days ago, but Jake knew there was another one coming in, fast. December in Montana meant snow. Lots of it. They were prepared as much as they could be, though. Generators at the house, barn and cabins were at the ready in case the power went out. There was enough firewood cut and stacked to last everyone a month and food storage was plentiful. They were ready for whatever Mother Nature tossed at them.
And still, he was restless.
“Probably Christmas getting to me,” he muttered, standing at the kitchen counter staring out over the yard and the acres of white that seemed to fill the landscape. Every pine tree was draped in a solid cape of snow, and every oak and maple and aspen stood naked but for the lacy snow covering each of the bare branches and twigs.
He’d already made his traditional trip out to the forest to cut a Christmas tree for his grandfather, and then he’d had the traditional argument over why he didn’t want one for the main house. Jake didn’t do Christmas. Hadn’t in years. In fact, the last holiday season he had “celebrated” had been on his first tour of duty in a war zone.
The guys in his company had built a “tree” out of whatever they could find—mostly discarded enemy weapons—and decorated it with string and bullets and paper “snow” torn out of padded envelopes sent from home. Missing their families, they’d all sung some carols, built a fire and pretended they were home. Until the enemy mortar fire exploded into camp, destroying the makeshift tree and killing two of Jake’s friends.
He hadn’t bothered celebrating since. For Jake, December was just a month to get through. Get past.
“Just as I’ll get through this one.”
“You say something?”
He turned to look at Anna as she hustled into the room and went straight to the stove where a huge pot of beef and barley soup was bubbling and sending out aromas designed to bring a hungry man to his knees.
“No,” he said, pushing old memories aside to focus on the here and now.
“Fine then.” She gave the pot a stir, then turned and braced both hands at her hips. Anna was in her fifties with graying blond hair, a thick waist and a no-nonsense attitude that Jake appreciated. “Charlie’s back from town. He’s just pulling into the front drive now.”
“Good.” Jake set his coffee cup down onto the counter. “I’ll go meet him.” His foreman had left the ranch in the four-wheel-drive Jeep more than an hour ago, without a word of explanation. And since Jake needed to talk to him about getting some hay out to the cattle before the next snow hit, he was anxious to find out what the hell had been important enough to drag him away from ranch business. He started across the room, then stopped. “Did he tell you why he went into town?”
Anna’s eyebrows lifted as she gave him a cool, hard glare. “He did.”
What was she mad about? “And?”
“And,” she repeated, tapping the toe of one boot against the floor, “you should go and see for yourself.”
Anna was usually a reasonable woman, Jake thought, but at the moment, she looked angry enough to come at him with the spoon she still clutched in one hand.
Maybe Christmas was getting to everybody.
“Fine, I’m going.” Shaking his head, he headed out of the kitchen and down the long hall toward the front of the house. Maybe Charlie knew what the hell was going on with his wife. Muttering darkly, Jake snatched his coat off the newel post at the foot of the stairs and shrugged into it. Then he tugged on his hat, grabbed the doorknob, yanked on it and almost plowed right into Cassie, standing on his front porch.
Her smoke-gray eyes shone with surprise, and her dark blond hair streamed down her shoulders from beneath a knit purple hat. She wore a heavy black coat and knee-high boots. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and as he adjusted to the shock of finding her on his front steps, he finally noticed what she was holding.
A baby.
Wrapped toe to neck in some kind of zip-up covering, all Jake could see of the child were big blue eyes—just like his own. A jolt of emotion shot through him so hard, he gripped the doorknob tight, to keep from falling over in shock.
“What the hell?”
“Jake,” Cassie said, “meet your son. Luke.”
Seven
“My son?” Silently, Jake congratulated himself on the self-control that kept his voice from raging with the fury erupting inside him. He looked into those soft gray eyes, read her defiance, and that damn near pushed him over the edge.
He couldn’t believe this. For nearly a year and a half, this woman had haunted him, waking and sleeping. Hell, he’d hardly known her and shouldn’t have given her another thought once she was gone. But he had. He’d missed her body and the soft, slick feel of her skin beneath his palms. The sound of her voice. Her laughter. The smoke-gray eyes that betrayed everything she was thinking, feeling. He’d missed the feel of her in his arms, the sighs as he entered her and the gasping groans when they each found their release.
Jake had even fantasized a couple times about seeing her here again.
He just had never imagined her carrying his child along with her.
His child.
He had a son.
She’d been keeping the truth from him for a year and a half and he still felt that rush of desire he hadn’t found with anyone else. He looked at her and his body tightened, his heart banged against his rib cage, and his hands itched to touch her.
Didn’t matter, it seemed, what she’d kept from him. He wanted her.
Grimly, he pushed those needs aside in favor of facing her down with the hard truth currently smiling up at him from a drooly face.
“What the hell, Cassie?” The words were ground from his throat as sharp and cold as pieces of broken glass.
“Don’t swear in front of the baby,” she muttered and pushed right past him into the house. Then she stopped, looking up at him. “We have to talk.”
“Yeah,” he said, torn between dumbfounded shock and pure fury. “I’d say so.”
Anna came hurrying down the hall, glared at Jake and clucked her tongue at him so fast, it sounded like machine-gun fire. Then she dropped one arm around Cassie, enveloping her and the baby she carried, and steered them off to the great room.
“You come on in here and get warm by the fire,” his turncoat housekeeper was saying. “And you give me a peek at that little darling, too...”
Jake shook his head and snatched off his hat, crumpling the brim in one tight fist. The wind rushing through the still-open front door sliced through his coat with icy knives, but he hardly felt it. Mind racing, emotions churning, his gaze landed on Charlie, standing in the yard staring at him.
“Sorry, boss. Cass called Ben from the airport and Ben sent me to fetch her.”
Why the hell hadn’t Ben said anything to Jake? Warned him? That was a thought for later. Right now, he looked at his foreman and said, “It’s fine.”
“I’ll bring in the baby’s car seat and Cass’s bags,” Charlie said, wi
ncing a little at the words.
“Her bags? Of course she has bags.” Seemed that she had plans to stay. Well, good, because she wasn’t going anywhere until Jake had answers to all of the questions racing through his mind. Gritting his teeth, he said, “Take them up to the room she had last time she was here. After I talk to Cassie, I’ll see you at the barn.”
As soon as he could breathe again. As soon as he had some answers from the woman who had walked into the great room as if she belonged here. As if she hadn’t been gone more than a year and given birth to his son.
Cassie had called Ben for help. And Ben had sent Charlie to the airport without a damn word to Jake. His own grandfather was a part of this. Then he had to wonder if Ben had known about the baby all along. Had he been a part of keeping Jake’s child from him? Betrayal stung and fury roared fresh and new through his bloodstream. The anger churning inside nearly stole his breath.
Anna had known about Cassie flying in, because Charlie had. How long had she known? Was she also in on the baby secret? She hadn’t seemed surprised by it. How long had Ben known? Was his whole ranch in on this? Was everyone calling him a fool behind his back? Laughing at the man who was so clueless he had no idea he was a damn father?
Tossing his hat to the nearest table, he shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it onto a chair as he marched into the great room. Anna and Cassie were talking together, huddled around the baby, peeling his little snowsuit off while he jabbered and made nonsense noises. Jake stopped dead and watched the little boy from a distance.
His feet wanted to take him closer, but his mind was keeping him in place. Before he let himself be distracted by the child, he needed some answers from the boy’s mother. As if the women could sense him watching them, they both turned around to face him. They’d stripped that cold weather covering off of the boy. Anna was holding the baby now and the infant—in a pair of tiny jeans, a flannel shirt and baby-size cowboy boots—gave Jake a grin that displayed four or five teeth.
Jake’s heart fisted painfully in his chest. His throat closed up with emotions too thick and too many to name. A child. He could see the resemblance. Hell, there was no denying this boy was his son—even if Jake wanted to, which he didn’t.
The Cowboy's Pride and Joy Page 9