by Helen Lacey
It was Abby who was the outsider.
Which became very evident to her the following day when her son announced that he wanted to spend Christmas at the Triple C Ranch with his father and uncles and aunt and cousins.
And for the first time in his young life, not with her.
Chapter Eleven
The Cedar River Elementary School Christmas concert was not something Jake had consciously thought he’d ever be attending. Nor did he ever think he’d be one of the proud parents, sitting in the second row, watching his son perform a melody of Christmas carols with a group of other six-year-olds, wearing a reindeer costume. His brother Joss sat to his left, and Tess was to his right, while Mitch had the aisle seat so he could stretch out his cast.
The concert was in full swing, the young voices echoing around the auditorium, and the place was filled with delighted parents and grandparents and caregivers and guardians. In all his life, Jake couldn’t remember experiencing a moment that gave such complete and utter pride and joy.
My son...
His pride was only overshadowed by his growing love for the little boy who made him want to be the best possible version of himself. He’d heard about how life changing parenthood was, from his friends, from the men and women he served with in the military, and from his brother Joss. But he’d never, for one moment, imagined he could feel anything so profoundly. He’d willingly gone to war and would have given his life for his country. He’d put himself between his siblings and their drunken father time and time again to keep them from harm. And now, he knew he would protect his son with his life, his soul, his very being, until the end of time.
He spotted Abby in the wings, helping the kids with their costumes. She’d been unusually quiet for the past few days, and although he’d tried several times to find out why, she’d shut him down and insisted she was fine. But he wasn’t convinced. Abby was unhappy, and Jake knew that he was the reason. He didn’t mean to be. He wanted to get along with her, despite the turmoil she created in his head and heart.
Once the song was over, there was a short break as the kids disappeared offstage to change for their next number. He remained in his seat, but Jake was acutely aware of Abby on the sidelines.
“Having fun?” Joss asked and jabbed him in the ribs.
“Actually,” he said over the sound of the band, “I am.”
“Mitch said you bought a house?”
He nodded, thinking about the deal he’d signed that morning. “Down by the river.”
“On Millionare’s Row?”
He half-smiled at his brother’s words. He knew the spot was considered some of the best real estate in the area, but he’d lucked upon a motivated seller and got the place for a good price. “It’s a nice house.”
“Big enough for a family I suppose?” Joss quizzed.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“What did Abby say about it?”
“I haven’t told her yet.”
Joss grinned. “Chicken.”
“It’s no secret that I wanted to buy a house,” he said and ignored the heat clumbing up his neck. “As convenient as it is living next door, we need to get a routine in place for T.J.”
“I’m really proud of you,” Joss said and then grinned again. “I know that’s stupid because you’re older than me, but you’ve really stepped up to fatherhood.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment or what. Did you doubt that I would?”
“Nah,” Joss said and chuckled. “You’re one of those annoying people who are good at everything you do.”
Except forgiving the woman I love...
Jake shook off the thought. He knew he had to stop thinking about Abby that way. They were over. She was his son’s mother, nothing more. But spending time with her had only amplified the feelings he’d managed to push aside for the last fourteen years. Feelings that had never truly disappeared, which was no doubt why they made love after Tom’s funeral. Funny, but he’d never been able to think of being with Abby as just sex. He’d had sex with other women, and it had been pleasurable, and yet the emptiness of it always stayed with him afterward. But Abby...was different. She was his first love. Being with her after his brother’s wedding had only brought all those feelings back. The memory of a touch that transcended the erotic, of a kiss that was more than lips against lips, of the joining of bodies that somehow felt more spiritual than physical. He felt stupid thinking it, imagining what they shared was more than simple hooking up. But the memory stayed with him.
Once the show was over, the parents and friends were all invited to a light buffet hosted by the faculty. Jake left his brothers and went searching for Abby. He found her with T.J., chatting with a woman he quickly discovered was his son’s teacher.
“Mr. Culhane.” The fiftysomething woman, whom Abby introduced as Mrs. Santino, spoke quietly, treating Jake as though he’d always been known as T.J.’s father—as though there was nothing unusual about his sudden appearance in his son’s life. “T.J. has been telling me about the snowboarding lessons you’ve been giving him.”
Jake ruffled his son’s hair. “He’s a natural. We’ll be boarding down Kegg’s Mountain before we know it.”
“Really, Daddy?”
“Sure, buddy,” he said, seeing Abby’s horrified expression, and he touched her arm. “Relax, he’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Yeah, Mommy,” T.J. said and giggled. “Daddy will look after me.”
There was such faith and confidence in his son’s words that Jake felt as though his heart was being squeezed. “We’ll make sure Mommy’s there to supervise, okay?”
They spoke with the teacher for a few minutes, and then T.J. said he wanted some cake, so they headed for the buffet. David’s son Jasper was there, and T.J. was quickly distracted as the boys talked about their latest video game.
“Everything okay, Abby?” Jake asked as he passed her some punch.
She took the paper cup. “I’m good. Relieved the concert went off without a hitch. He’s been so worried he’d forget the words to the songs.”
“His teacher seems nice.”
“She is,” Abby said. “He adores school most days, which is one less hurdle. I know plenty of parents who have a real battle to get their kids ready in the morning. Lucky for us he loves to learn.”
“You’ve done an amazing job raising him. And although this is probably not the place for this discussion,” he said quietly, “we need to talk about some kind of financial arrangement for him.”
Her gaze narrowed. “I don’t want your money. And you’re right, this isn’t the place.”
Jake grasped her elbow and ushered her closer. “Okay, but we’ll talk about this later.”
He didn’t say anything more as Patience walked up to them and suggested they head home. Jake had driven them together and quickly agreed to drive them home. He said a quick goodbye to his brothers before they left and figured they were thinking the scene smacked of domesticity, which it probably did, since he bundled his son and his child’s mother and grandmother into his Jeep. Patience and T.J. chatted tirelessly on the trip home, while Abby was conspicuously quiet.
When he pulled up in the driveway, Patience tapped him on the shoulder. “Jake, be a dear while I’m away and feed my goldfish, will you?” she asked. “The spare key is under the flowerpot on the back porch.”
Patience was heading to Florida the next day to visit her daughter over the holidays as usual and would be gone for a week. Jake knew that Abby and T.J. usually accompanied her. He also knew that Abby had elected to stay in Cedar River so he could spend some of the holiday break with his son. Which included sleeping over at the ranch on Christmas Eve. Once T.J. had learned that Joss’s daughters were staying at the ranch with their father, and that Grant would be there along with Ellie and Mitch and Tess, his son had made his wishes very clear. He wanted t
he same experience as his newly discovered cousins—to wake up at the ranch, to go for an early pony ride, to play with the toys he knew were already wrapped under the big tree. Jake had taken T.J. to the ranch several times in the past couple of weeks, and he knew how much his son had come to love the place. He felt T.J.’s excitement and sense of inclusion, particularly when Tess told him they had saved a special spot for his picture along the wide stairway where all the family photographs hung.
But he also knew what it meant for Abby.
“Of course,” he replied. “Happy to help.”
Patience was quickly out of the car and T.J. followed, saying he had to collect a book that he’d left at his grandmother’s. Jake waited for Abby to move, but she remained where she was, her breathing heavy, her gaze straight ahead.
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
“I meant what I said,” she replied tightly. “I have no intention of taking money from you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Abby. You’d have to know I’d want to provide for my son.”
“He needs your time, Jake, not your money.”
“He’s my son and my responsibility. That includes being financially responsible.”
She turned her head and glared at him. “I’ve managed to provide for him quite adequately for the last six years, and I’ll continue to do so.”
“You’re just being stubborn because you think I’m trying to be controlling. But I’m not. I actually would like to make things financially easier for you, too. That way you could cut back your hours at the hotel.”
“So now you think I work too much?”
He sighed heavily, his hands still on the steering wheel. “No...that’s not what I mean. Is this about Christmas?”
“Christmas?”
“About T.J. wanting to spend the holidays at the ranch?”
She turned in the seat. “This is about you thinking you can waltz into this situation and do whatever you want.”
“That’s not what I think,” he said incredulously.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” she snapped. “And I get it—I have some serious ground to make up and being extra accomodating is my medicine. So, I’ll take it. To a degree. I have a career I love and a well paying position at the hotel—I don’t need your money.”
Jake inhaled a long breath. “I hear you, and of course I respect your opinion and your career. However, he’s my son, and I want to support him—that means everything from the clothes on his back today to a car when he’s sixteen and a college fund when he finishes high school. Everything I’ve worked for, that’s his legacy, Abby. And as for Christmas—”
“This isn’t about Christmas,” she said, cutting him off. “I’m happy to do whatever my son asks for. He wants to spend time with you, and I fully support that.”
“You’re sure?”
She grabbed the door handle. “Positive. Thanks for the lift. I know T.J. appreciated having us all there together like...”
A family...
Jake felt the words but didn’t hear them. And he wasn’t about to verbalize them.
He knew what she was thinking—there had been times in the past couple of weeks that he’d managed to suppress his resentment and think about the situation logically. There was an element of family about their situation.
But he wasn’t about to start thinking it was anything more than that—particularly for his son’s sake. He didn’t want T.J. getting any ideas that they were about to set up house together and start playing mom and dad and acting as though their situation was normal. Not that there was a normal. He knew several couples who successfully coparented without being together. Families came in all shapes and sizes, and there was no perfect, stock-standard formula for raising kids. He figured that he and Abby would simply do the best they could. In the meantime, he had some changes to make.
“I bought a house,” he said quietly.
Her eyes widened. “That was quick.”
He shrugged. “It’s been on the market for a while and the owners wanted a quick sale. It’s down by the river. It’s got four bedrooms, a jetty and a boathouse. I think T.J. will like it. If you’re free tomorrow, perhaps you would like to come with me and check it out?”
She frowned. “Ah...it’s really not my business where you decide to live.”
“It is, since our son will be spending time there.”
She nodded warily. “Okay. I finish work at one o’clock.”
“I’ll talk to the Realtor and see if she can meet us there since I obviously don’t have the keys yet. I’ll pick you up and drop you off before it’s school pickup time. I offered to take your grandmother to Rapid City to catch her flight, but she said she’d prefer to leave her car at the airport for the time she’s away.”
“Gran has an independent streak,” Abby remarked.
Jake half smiled. “Runs in the family, huh?”
She made a face. “Will you be coming by later to tuck him in?”
Jake nodded. Story time with T.J., before tucking him in for the night, had become something of a tradition. “Yep. See you at eight.”
She grabbed her tote and the bag containing their son’s discarded reindeer costume and walked up to the house. Jake sat in the Jeep for several minutes. Thinking. Wondering. And realized he had no clue how to compartmentalize his feelings for Abby.
He also realized he was tired of trying.
* * *
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
Abby hugged her grandmother. “Don’t worry about me, Gran. I’ll be fine. And I won’t be alone.”
Actually, I will.
Because T.J. would be going to the Triple C with his father on Christmas Eve and wouldn’t be back until the following afternoon. Even that was a negotiation with her son, as he would have been more than happy to spend several days at the ranch hanging out with his new family.
“I feel like I should stay,” Patience said and hugged her tighter.
“Mom’s expecting you,” she reminded her. “And once I explained why I couldn’t come this year, she completely understood. Like you, she’s been telling me I should have come clean to Jake for years. And you were both right. Now that Jake knows, things were bound to change.”
“But you’ll be alone on Christmas morning,” Patience said and smiled sadly. “I can’t imagine how awful that will be for you.”
“If I don’t think I can handle it, I’ll tell Liam I want to work an extra shift that day. But I’m fine,” she insisted. “Honestly. Stop worrying about me and go and see Mom and enjoy the lovely warm weather while you can. You know the winter always gets bad after the holidays.”
“I’m more concerned about you at the moment.”
It took another ten minutes of cajoling to get her grandmother to leave, but finally she waved her off in her small car, with both T.J. and Jake at her side. Of course, neither male had been privy to the conversation she’d had with Patience. Firstly, because she didn’t want T.J. getting an inkling that she wasn’t completely okay with not being able to spend all of the holidays with him. And secondly, because she didn’t want Jake’s pity—which was inevitable if he suspected she was upset by the idea of having her first Christmas morning without her son. She was trying to take the high road, to accept the consequences of her actions. Her son, who meant everything to her in the world, wanted to be with his father, and she had to accept that and give him every opportunity to do so.
“Who wants pancakes?” she offered, a wide smile plastered on her face.
T.J. jumped up and down with an excited yes, but Jake declined, citing work and an early conference call with his business partner. He reaffirmed their arrangement to meet that afternoon and disappeared to his apartment. After breakfast, she dropped T.J. at school and headed for the hotel. The breakfast shift was busy, and she was exhausted by the time the lu
nch chef turned up. She tidied herself up a little before one o’clock, changing her shirt and reapplying her lip gloss. Jake was in the foyer well before one, talking with Connie. He smiled when he spotted her walking toward them, and her heart skipped a beat crazily. She wondered if she’d ever stop feeling that. If the attraction between them would ever wane. Perhaps not. Perhaps first love was always the hardest to endure.
They were in his Jeep and on the road a little after one, heading across the bridge and toward the exclusive properties that ran along the river.
“Liam lives down this way,” she commented as they passed a few discreet driveways.
“Actually,” Jake said as he turned the vehicle into a driveway that had a huge For Sale sign out front, “he lives next door. But this property sits on a little over three acres, so there’s plenty of privacy.”
“Are you planning on having wild parties that require privacy?”
He frowned and pulled up. “I’ve never been a bed hopper, Abby. But you seem to want to think the worst of me. Have I been a saint these past few years? No. But I haven’t been leaving behind a trail of broken hearts or broken promises, either. I like sex as much as the next person, but I’d rather you didn’t accuse me of being some kind of man whore when I’m not.”
“I don’t think that,” she said, horrified he would suggest such a thing, because it made her sound like a jealous, judgmental prig. “I’m sorry. I guess we really don’t know each other that well any more. High school was a long time ago.”