Bargaining for Baby(17)

For so long she'd wanted to feel as if she truly belonged, without   pressure, without fear of disapproval. Right or wrong, for one night she   wanted to belong to Jack Prescott.

Siphoning in a much-needed breath, she sorted her thoughts.

"I'll go with you," she said, "but I have a condition of my own. That you don't do that again while we're under this roof."

His grin was lazy. "Was the kiss that bad?"

Her brows knitted. This wasn't a joke.

"I won't deny that I want you to kiss me again, because I do." At this   moment more than she could ever have dreamed possible. "But if we start   stealing kisses in every darkened corner, where does that leave Beau?   The days that I'm left here, he deserves my attention. All of it." Maddy   thought of Dahlia's trust in her-that sacred promise-and her throat   swelled and closed off. "The least we can do is give him that much."

Jack's gaze turned inward before falling to the baby. A moment later,   his hand left her waist. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he nodded.

"Agreed."

"But I will go with you on Saturday," she continued, "if we leave after   he's gone down for the night and we arrive back early. Can you live  with  that?"

Jack studied Beau for a long moment before his gaze found hers once   more. His expression changed. A knuckle curved around and lifted her jaw   and for a strangled heartbeat Maddy thought he might kiss her again.

But he only smiled a thoughtful smile and murmured, "I can live with that."





Seven




The next day, back from his early ride, Jack headed for the house,   remembering Maddy's words from the previous night. They'd rattled around   in his head all morning. Had made him smile and made him wonder.

I won't deny that I want to kiss you again, because I do.

Maddy had agreed to go to the gala. In effect they both knew she'd   agreed to more than that. Knowing he would soon take to bed the woman   he'd been physically attracted to from the start left him with an acute   sense of anticipation that released a new and vital heat surging  through  his veins. But their connection was more than physical. Had to  be. He'd  been intimate with women over the past three years. The acts  had left  his body sated, but not his mind. Not his heart. Something  about Maddy  affected him … differently.

Striding up the steps, he chided himself.

Of course he didn't kid himself that making love to Maddy could compare   with what he and Sue had shared. It wouldn't, and that was as it should   be. Neither could he pretend that he wouldn't have the hardest time   keeping his promise not to touch Maddy again until Saturday evening. She   wanted no distractions from her time left here with Beau. Commendable.   But when they arrived in Clancy for the gala, he'd have to make up for   lost time.

Stopping at the kitchen, Jack expected to see Cait by the sink or the   stove, but the room, gleaming in the early morning light, was empty.   Further down the hall, Maddy's door was closed. In passing, his pace   slowed. He wanted to invite himself in. To break his promise and be done   with it.

Scratching his jaw, he growled and moved on.

This situation was getting ridiculous. He shouldn't be so preoccupied   with speculations over how Maddy would feel beneath him, her thighs   coiled around his hips, her warm lips on his neck, on his chest.   Family-now that he had one again-was what mattered.

He approached the nursery, confirming again in his mind that he wouldn't   fail this boy. Not like he'd failed Dahlia when he hadn't brought her   back all those years ago. But, hell, had rescuing his sister ever been   possible? He might have been bigger. He might have been right. Staying   at Leadeebrook was far safer for a girl-for Dahlia-than trying to   survive on the outside. The rape, her death, proved that. But when   Dahlia had left Leadeebrook, she'd been over eighteen. The law said   she'd been old enough to make her own decisions, even if they ended in   tragedy.

He stopped outside the partly closed nursery door and took stock. Life   was known for irony, and that tragedy had also produced a baby, the only   surviving link, other than himself, to the Prescott bloodline. Beau  was  more than Dahlia's legacy, he was the Prescott future. Beau would  grow  up, find a nice woman, settle here at Leadeebrook, have a family  of his  own.                       
       
           



       

Jack pushed open the door, a smile curving his lips. He felt a great deal of comfort knowing that.

Kicking his heels, Beau was wide awake in his crib. After changing his   diaper, Jack decided it was high time he took the boy on a tour. He   bundled Beau up and headed for what had been known at Leadeebrook as the   portrait hall.

"This is your great-great-grandfather," Jack said, stopping before the   first portrait, which looked particularly regal in its gold-leaf gilded   frame. "He was a determined and clever man. He and   great-great-grandmother Prescott were responsible for making this   homestead into the stately residence it is today."

Sitting quietly, gathered in his uncle's arm, Beau stared at the   stern-looking gentleman in the frame before Jack moved further down the   hall.

"And this," he said, pulling up in front of the next portrait, "is your   great-grandfather. He taught me how to shear." Jack studied the baby   then smiled and tickled his chin. "I'll have to teach you."

On the opposite side of the wide hall resided portraits of the Prescott   women. He stopped at his late wife's and clenched his free hand to   divert the familiar ache of loss that rose in his chest. The finest   artist on the eastern coast had been commissioned for this piece, and   the man had captured the loving shine in Sue's soft brown eyes   perfectly.

At the same time Jack's throat thickened, Beau wriggled and he bypassed   the other distinguished portraits until he reached the part of the  house  he visited often but always alone. After turning the handle, he  entered  the library-what had become Sue's library when she'd been  alive. An  extendable stepladder resided at the far end of the massive  room.  Numerous shelves, laden with all kinds of reading matter, towered  toward  the lofty ceiling. Designer crimson-and-yellow-gold swags  decorated the  tall windows. The cream chairs and couches bore the  subtle sheen of  finest quality upholstery.

This room upheld the Prescott promise of old money and impeccable taste,   yet Sue had managed to make the library look cozy, too, with fresh   flowers from the garden and bundles of home décor magazines and   crossword puzzles camped out on occasional tables. The flowers were long   gone, but the magazines he'd told Cait to leave.

Jack studied the baby studying the room. Beau was a smart kid. Even at this age, Jack could see it in his eyes.

"Will you be a reader or more a hands-on type like your uncle?" he asked   his nephew, crossing to the nearest bookshelf. "Maybe both. Your  mother  was good at everything." He grinned, remembered when they'd been   children. "Not that I ever let her know that."

He strolled half the length of the room to the children's section and   eyed the spines that Sue might've read to Beau when he was a little   older, as well as to their own son, had he lived.

Wincing, Jack inhaled deeply to dispel the twist of pain high in his   gut. Every waking minute of every day, he missed her, missed what they'd   had. And then Maddy had appeared in his life. When she was around, he   didn't feel quite so empty, and he wasn't certain how to process that.   Should he feel relieved or guilty?

The polished French-provincial desk in the corner drew his attention. He   carried Beau across the room and slid open a drawer on the right hand   side. The book was there … Sue's memory book.

Jack laid it out on the leather blotter and flipped through the pages,   pointing out Sue's relatives to a fist-sucking Beau. She had spent hours   making the pages pretty. On the last page, a blue-and-yellow heart   hugged a black-and-white image … a scan of their unborn child.

His eyes growing hot, Jack gently pressed his palm next to the eighteen-week-old shape that was his son.

"Sue wanted to name him after her father," he told Beau, in a deep,   thick voice. "But I told her, no disrespect to her dad, that Peter   Prescott sounded dumb. I'd wanted to name him after my father-"

A bitter nut of emotion opened high in his throat. Dropping his gaze,   Jack swallowed hard and reached again for the drawer. He drew out a   platinum-plated rattle, not a family heirloom but a gift Sue had bought   for their baby a week before she'd died. The inscription read Love   forever, Mum and Dad.