“Of course.” He hadn’t really wanted to watch. He’d just watched her. He’d just held her hand and prayed to get through it.
Naomi was suddenly at his side. “Here, let me have him. We’ll get him cleaned up and ready to meet his family.”
He gave the baby up in a heartbeat.
“Follow her,” Jennifer urged. “I don’t want him to be without one of us.”
He didn’t want to leave her, but he knew damn well there were some orders even a Dom followed.
Naomi set the baby in a small bassinet and the blanket fell away. Logan cried out at the loss of his warmth, a loud roar of a cry. Naomi had cleaned him up initially, but now she set about washing him.
Stef looked down at the small thing whose eyes were still closed. His legs were kicking and his arms jerked.
It was kind of cute in a tiny human way. And definitely a boy.
“Here, wipe down his belly, Mr. Talbot. It’s his first bath. Be careful of the cord.” Naomi pressed a warm cloth into his hand.
Stef shook his head. “No, I don’t know how.”
“Sure you do.” Naomi stepped away.
The baby squirmed, but he’d stopped wailing. He had a tuft of dark hair, and it was easy to see that he had the Talbot nose and the same stubborn chin he saw in the mirror every day. DNA had worked to make the baby a mini version of himself. He gently rubbed the cloth across the baby’s little belly.
And Logan Talbot’s eyes opened for the first time. He looked up at his father and those green eyes hit Stef Talbot with the force of a lightning strike.
He had Jennifer’s eyes, those same eyes that stared at him with amusement and made him look at the world in a different way. Those eyes were right there, and he suddenly understood.
Jennifer’s eyes, her heart, and her soul would live on in this child. She would teach him to view the world with her amusement, her open heart. She would house her love in this boy so that when she was gone, her love would live on in Logan and his children and his children’s children, a long line of hope and faith that sprung from his wife’s pure heart—and from the love he felt for her.
His son. His son was kicking his legs and staring up at him, an amused expression on his tiny, perfect face.
This son would run through Bliss, likely trying to catch up with Charlie and Zander and looking for the maximum amount of trouble he could cause. He would sleep in the woods and get scared by Maurice. Mel would train him to look for aliens and Stella would finally have the grandchild she’d longed for. Logan Talbot would sit at Stella’s Café, his feet not quite touching the ground, downing pancakes and feeling like a big man.
He would grow up here. He would love this place.
And Stef would show him the world.
Suddenly he knew there was only one thing that mattered about being a father. He would screw up. He would do it multiple times. He would want to pull his hair out over and over again. But now he wasn’t afraid because there was only one real promise he had to keep.
He looked at his son, reaching out to touch that sweet little face. Logan’s hand touched his.
“I will never leave you.”
And in that moment, Stefan Talbot became a dad.
Chapter Twenty:
Aidan, Lexi, and Lucas
Lucas sighed as Aidan pulled the truck into the drive. “What happened to her phone again?”
Aidan put the car in park. “Abby said it died. It won’t hold a charge anymore, and Lexi threw a near hysterical fit until she promised we would get her a new one. She was ready to drive her into Alamosa herself but I convinced her to meet us at the G.”
“So we’re taking her into town? Isn’t it kind of late for that?” As far as Lucas was concerned, the phone could rot. He would never buy her another one again. He felt guilty, but there was a little part of him that wished they were still back at Trio. He’d been able to forget some of his troubles with all the craziness going on there.
“No. I told Abby to bring her back to the G so we could lay out a few new rules. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, Lucas. I’ve been neglectful. I haven’t been doing my job because I got distracted.”
“By the shit with the city council?” He’d been angry that Aidan had let it go on so long without bringing him in. “That could have gone very poorly.”
Aidan’s hands tightened around the steering wheel, and he stared out the window. “I don’t like bringing you into ranch business.”
Another thing he had a problem with, but then he’d spent the afternoon watching Jack and Sam. Sam could act like a goofball, but there was no question he was Jack’s partner. “Sam is a true sub, yet Jack treats him like a partner when it comes to that ranch. Hell, Finn is as submissive as they come, but Julian never hesitates to use his skills.”
If this had happened to Julian, Finn would have been in on the plans from the beginning. Julian would have dumped it into Finn’s lap and fully expected him to deal with the situation.
But Aidan apparently didn’t trust him.
Aidan’s eyes closed briefly. “You don’t understand. Sam was in on the ground floor of Barnes-Fleetwood.”
Well, of course. He was tired of it, tired of being shoved to the side. He undid his buckle and opened the door. “Yeah, well, tell me how it goes with Lexi.”
“Lucas, get back here this second.”
But he was exhausted. “No. I’ll head out to the motel. I’d like a night to myself.”
The car door slammed behind him and suddenly Lexi was standing on the porch, her eyes hollow as she stared at them. “Lucas?”
“I’m not taking you into town.” He brushed by her. She wouldn’t care that he was leaving. She would only care that he wouldn’t give her a new phone. She shut him out the same way Aidan did. She didn’t even ask him to read her contracts anymore.
He wasn’t even sure why he was around.
He stopped. He couldn’t walk away, because Aidan and Lexi might not need him anymore, but Jack and Chelsea sure as hell did.
“Lucas.” Aidan stormed up the steps. “You are not going anywhere.”
Once again, he’d done exactly the wrong thing and made an ass of himself. “Of course not. I apologize. I’m going to go and spend some time with Jack and Chelsea.”
He would hold his kids and maybe they would remind him that he had something to offer.
“They’re not here,” Lexi said. “What’s going on? Why are you two fighting?”
“What do you care?” Lucas was feeling a little mean. She only paid attention to him when he was fucking up. Come to think of it, Aidan really only paid attention when either Lucas was screwing up or Aidan was horny. “And where are my kids?”
“Momma took them,” Lexi explained.
So now she was sending his kids away without talking to him about it. “Tell her to bring them back.”
Aidan got in between them. “Lucas, you need to take a time-out.”
So he got treated like a child? “You know what? You don’t get to order me around, Aidan.”
Aidan seemed to grow two inches. “I don’t? Because maybe I don’t understand the nature of our agreed-upon relationship.”
“You should both stop fighting,” Lexi said, her voice soft.
But he wasn’t about to listen to her either. “Maybe you don’t. Maybe we have different versions of what a Master should do. You don’t get to let her run wild while controlling everything I do.”
“I do not control everything you do, Lucas.”
“No, you’re far too busy running your ranch and Lexi is too busy becoming a best-selling author to be actual functioning members of a marriage.”
“Lucas, you misunderstood me. Calm the fuck down.” Aidan stepped up, using his height and bulky body to crowd Lucas.
“Please don’t fight,” Lexi said, putting a hand on both of them.
“You can’t step in after months of ignoring us and expect that we’ll fall in line, Alexis. Go inside. This is between me and Lucas,” Aidan said.
“Lots of things are just between you and Lucas.” Lexi sounded vulnerable.
“Don’t you blame me for that,” Lucas shot back, well aware that they were out in the open where anyone could be listening in, but it didn’t really matter. If Aidan didn’t value him and Lexi didn’t need him, nothing much mattered.
“I don’t, babe.” She hadn’t called him babe like that in months, not in the soft sweet way she used to.
“Are you challenging me, Lucas?” Aidan seemed to not notice that something was different about Lexi.
“I haven’t challenged you enough.” He said the words, but now he was looking at Lexi, seeing the tired look in her eyes, the way her mouth turned down. He’d spent so much time being angry with her that he hadn’t really looked at her in months. He hadn’t taken the time to study her. Lexi wore her worries on her face. She’d always been unable to hide from him. She could shut down, but then he would know something was wrong.
Lexi hadn’t been the only one who had shut down. Lucas had stopped trying somewhere along the way. He’d allowed his own private hurts to become his world.
Marriage didn’t end at the “I dos.” It didn’t stop being hard just because they had decided to be together. He’d thought they would magically just get along once it was all settled, but that wasn’t true.