Bargaining for Baby(29)

"You've barely left his side today. It's my shift." His finger stabbed the air. "That's an order."

She nodded and watched him drag on his shorts and stride away. She heard   Beau squeak, the muffled rumble of Jack's voice. Then nothing. Slowly   her muscles relaxed and she lay down again. Put her hand behind her   head. Eventually closed her eyes.



She woke with a start and squinted at the luminous digital clock. After midnight.

She looked across and found she was alone in the bed. Where was Jack?   How was Beau? She strained to hear. Had the baby had a relapse?

She swung Jack's shirt off the floor and, in a hurry, punched her arms   through the sleeves. But the room was dark and unfamiliar. On her way to   the door, she tripped over something that might have been a boot and   landed hard against the drawers.

Pressing her lips together, she swore under her breath. Damn. Her little toe felt broken.

Rubbing her foot, gritting her teeth to control the pain, she slowly   straightened. A stream of moonlight was beaming in through a crack in   the curtain. On top of the drawers, illuminated, that silver framed   photo leaped up to greet her. At the frame's base, a gold circle shone   in the moonlight. Holding her breath, Maddy reached to touch …

A wedding ring.

She'd seen this photo the day she'd arrived but everything had moved so   fast tonight, she hadn't thought about it when he'd swept her in here   earlier. How would things have played out if she had remembered? Because   now she didn't feel the least bit sexy or impulsive. She felt like an   intruder, particularly given that Jack still wore the matching gold  band  around his neck.

His words echoed in her mind.

When he's older …  Next time …

She wanted there to be a next time. And a next. But she didn't know how   she felt about making love with a man who still considered himself   married the way Jack so clearly did. She certainly wouldn't go there   again with this photo watching over them.

A glow way off down the hall drew her eye. Giving her toe a final rub   she limped toward it and eventually found herself in a room she hadn't   entered before …  A large and lavish yet strangely cozy library, with a   vast collection of spines highlighted in crafted wood bookcases.                       
       
           



       

In the far corner, Jack sat on a couch holding a book. She recognized the cover. She had the same edition at home.

He glanced up and found a smile. "You were sleeping so soundly, I didn't expect you to wake."

"So you thought you'd catch a few chapters of Jane Eyre?"

He grinned. "Sue loved reading, like you." His gaze grew distant. "I   figured I'd spend the rest of my days riding the plains during the day   and looking over these spines at night."

Her gaze filtered over the rows and rows of books. All Sue's. Would she   have liked Jack's wife? Maddy tugged the oversized shirt around her   naked body more firmly. She wouldn't think about that just now.

She wandered over and took the book. "This is one of my favorites. The   ending stays with you forever." The fierce patriarch had been reduced to   rely upon the loyal governess.

When she flipped to the back cover, scanned the lines and handed it   back, he drew her down onto his lap and concentrated on the motion of   curling hair behind her ear.

"Something Snow said the other night … it's making a lot of sense. We're   good together, Maddy. Way better than good. And Beau needs a mother."

She predicted the bombshell about to hit. Overwhelmed, she lowered her lashes to hide her shock.

He was going to ask her to marry him? It was too amazing to contemplate.   Just now she'd confirmed again in her mind that Jack still considered   himself to be married. That he would always consider himself to be   married to his deceased wife. Had she been wrong?

With a knuckle, he raised her chin and willed her to meet his somber gaze. "Maddy, I'm asking you to stay."

The words took a moment to sink in. Not a marriage proposal. He was   asking her to move in. He'd said Beau needed a mother. He wanted her to   pull up pegs in Sydney and replant them out here?

Her voice was a hoarse rasp. "You want me to live at Leadeebrook?"

An image of that photo sitting on his bedroom drawers swirled up and her   mind's eye tunneled in on the delicate gold ring. Its larger twin lay   shining on Jack's bare chest now.

Her gaze jumped from the ring to the wall of books-Sue's library. Sue's room. Sue's house.

She swallowed against a tight ache in her throat. "What about your wife?"

His eyes narrowed, as though he suspected she'd suffered a memory loss. "Sue's dead."

"But she isn't to you. Not here." Her palm covered the left side of his chest, her fingers brushing the wedding band.

The questions in his eyes cleared even as his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "You want marriage?"

"Oh, Jack, it's not about that." The way she felt-the problem this "offer" posed-it wasn't that simple.

Although she couldn't deny that the past few days, when she'd seen Jack   being so good with Beau, she'd imagined them as a family. Perhaps with   another child or two. But the more she'd thought about it, the more   ridiculous it had seemed. First up, where would they live? His world or   hers?

Yet in Jack's mind he'd settled that point. He'd asked her to stay here.   With the dust and the horse hair and the flies. Of course, there was a   lot to like, as well … the history, the sunsets, the peace. But her life   was so firmly entrenched in the city, she could think of only one   response to his question.

"Why don't you both come and live in Sydney?"

He winced. "You know the answer to that."

She pushed off his lap. "Explain it to me."

"Sydney's fine. Beautiful city, as far as cities go. But it's not home."

"Not your home, but it's mine."

He stood, too. "I'm offering you a new home."

She didn't want a new home, not in the country a million miles from the   nearest mall. Away from her friends. Her job. Her father.

She stopped and, torn in two, squeezed shut her eyes.

But Beau was here. Jack, too.

Her stomach knotted and she covered her hot face. Oh God, she had to   think. And her thoughts came back to that little boy. Jack was Beau's   legal guardian. This was his home, like it or not. But one day he would   grow into a teenager with a mind and a will of his own. Like Dahlia  had.

"What about Beau?" she asked, dropping her hands. "What happens when he   wants to see and live and experience life beyond these fences?" Did  Jack  want Beau to follow in his sister's drastic footsteps and run  away?

"When the time comes, he'll have the best higher education available and   that means Sydney." His hands found hers. "But Beau is a Prescott. A   male descendant. I won't need to insist he stay because he belongs here,   same way I do, like his grandfather and his father before him."                       
       
           



       

She barely contained an astonished huff. "And the women don't get a   choice." When he released her hands as if they'd burned, she hurried on.   "I want to be with you and Beau. But how can I say I'll stay when I   have a whole life back home?"

He didn't look impressed. "A whole life."

"A job. Friends. You know." She shrugged, exasperated. "A life."

His shoulders squared and his eyes dulled. "Then you've answered my question."

A deep dark cavern open up inside her. Damn his arrogant streak. What   made him think the world revolved around him? Didn't anyone else's   feelings or background count?

"Why is it okay for you to dig your heels in and not me?"

Detached now, he collected the book off the couch. His voice was a low drawl. "You can do what you please."

Her mouth dropped open then she slowly shook her head. His about-face   was so swift and definite, it left her dizzy. "I thought I could talk to   you. Thought we were at last somewhere on the same page. But you   haven't heard anything I've said." He was only prepared to listen to the   voices of tradition and the past. All the ghosts that kept him here  and  wouldn't him let go.

He slotted the book away, ran his finger down the spine. "If your job is more important-"

"That's not fair."

He spun around. "It's not about being fair."

Maddy staggered back.

He was just like her father, implacable, and just as hard to please. She   was sick of trying. Tired of playing everyone else's games.