Delivering His Gifts: A Mountain Man's Baby Christmas Romance(21)

“Thank you.”

“For what? You’re helping me, remember?”

“No, I meant thank you for trusting me,” I said softly, staring at my hands. “I know it’s hard for you to let people in, so I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, it’s only a few phone calls,” she muttered.

“But it’s something. I don’t like feeling so damn helpless when someone I care about is struggling.” I wanted to fix the problem, now. And I knew that if she would just let me give her some money, these problems would go away.

When I looked up at her, I caught her staring at me, a small smile on her face.

“What?” I asked, pawing at my beard. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No, it’s just, I like you, Mason. I like you a lot, in fact,” she said. “And it scares me to admit that.”

“Well, I like you too,” I said. “And believe it or not, it scares me too.”

“Why is that?”

She had confided in me, told me about her past and her current problems. The least I could do was return the favor. But as I opened my mouth, it felt like my vocal cords got tangled up. I muttered, “I don’t date much, that’s all.”

“And why not? A good-looking man like you probably has his pick of the woman around here.”

I shrugged, feeling like I forgot how to speak.

“An ex?” she guessed. “Did you get burned too?”

I flinched at her choice of words, imagining Katie’s charred skin. The images flashed through my head as my heart raced. I didn’t even realize it, but I’d stood up and was stumbling around the room, lost and confused.

“Mason, Mason,” Danielle said, jumping up and coming to my side. “What’s wrong?”

She put her hand on my arm, and I turned toward her. I saw her, really saw her. Her angelic face. The light splattering of freckles on her cheeks. Those big, blue eyes surrounded by dark lashes. God, she was beautiful. And she pushed all the dark thoughts away from my mind.

“It’s nothing,” I lied, my heart rate returning to normal as she stroked my back. “Just some bad memories, that’s all.”

“You can talk to me about it, you know.”

“I know. No offense, Danielle, but I can’t bring myself to talk about it with most people.”

She remained quiet at first, and I half expected her to argue with me. When I’d tried to date a couple years after losing Katie, I found most women didn’t care much for secret pasts. They wanted to know about my past, and if I said I didn’t want to talk about it, they assumed I was hiding something. I went on only a few first dates that never turned into second dates before giving up on dating altogether.

But Danielle spoke soothingly. “I understand, Mason. It’s okay. You can talk to me when you’re ready - if you’re ready. Just know that I’m here for you.”

I stared into her deep blue eyes and felt like I was drowning. Her lips were so pink and plump, and I knew from experience just how soft they were. I wanted to kiss her so damned badly, but I stopped myself.

“I should probably get going,” I said, even though I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay the night again. I wanted to feel her body pressed against mine as I slept. Sex wasn’t even on my mind in that moment; I just wanted to touch her.

To kiss her.

To be next to her.

But I needed to respect her wishes.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” she said softly.

“Unless you want me to stay?”

She chuckled and looked away, but I could tell she was thinking about it. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Skyler has already seen enough, and I’m worried what she might tell Greg.” She bit her lip, and I knew there was more to her story than she was telling me.

I wasn’t about to ask after she’d respected me enough not to probe about my past, but Danielle surprised me. She continued speaking.

“Greg doesn’t like it when I see other men, and he has often amped up his threats to take Skyler away from me if I even look at someone flirtatiously. I have no idea how he’s going to react to the pregnancy - it won’t be pretty - but I need to try and break the news to him before Skyler does and mitigate the situation as best as possible. If there’s no man in the picture, I think Greg would handle it better than if I was seeing someone.”

“That’s really not fair to you, Danielle.”

“I know, and maybe one day I cannot worry about Greg, but for the time being, I need to protect myself and my daughter, and this is the best way I know how. Please respect my wishes, Mason.”

As hard as it was for me to agree to this, I nodded. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you and Skyler safe,” I said. “Even if that means I have to keep my distance from you. But please know, I will be involved with my child’s life.”

“I know, and I wouldn’t take that away from you. It’s probably better if we didn’t date or anything.”

The words felt like a kick in the nuts, but she was right. And not just because of Greg. I wasn’t exactly boyfriend material myself; I was too damaged for all that.

“Alright, I’ll get going then,” I said, moving slowly toward the door.

I hated leaving her, even though I knew I had to. She walked with me to the front porch, as if part of her didn’t really want me to leave either.

“I’ll call around and see what I can do,” I said.

I had to do more than just call the insurance company. Because she was right. What could I say that she probably hasn’t already? No, I had to do something else.

I had respected her wishes up until that point, and I would continue to do so. But I had an obligation to my unborn child to make sure he or she didn’t end up homeless. Not just that, I couldn’t imagine what would happen if Danielle lost her job.

I waved goodbye to her as I walked toward my truck.

I thought about the baseball bat, and how she broke down in my arms. She’d been so scared. That loan shark had done a number on her, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. It would only get worse. She might be willing to pay him off when she got the insurance money, but by then, the interest rate would make it triple the original loan amount. She needed that money to fix up her place and to take care of herself and Skyler.

No, that loan needed to be nipped in the bud.

I got in the truck and started the engine. My blood was boiling all over again as I pictured Danielle’s tear-stained cheeks and heard her sobs.

No one makes her cry and gets away with it, I thought to myself.

It wasn’t long before I found myself outside of a massive home that could almost be described as an estate. A Victorian-style mansion with a wrap-around porch and at least two stories. A horse barn around back. Jim King had made his millions of people like Danielle - people desperate and in need.

My stomach turned at the thought. He was a leech, a predator, and someone really should teach the man a lesson one day.

I stared at the house, going over my plan carefully.





Danielle





“Mommy?” a soft voice murmured as I walked down the hallway toward my bedroom.

I sighed as I stopped in front of Skyler’s doorway. I listened to see if she was merely talking in her sleep. But she repeated herself. “Mommy? Is that you?”

I poked my head inside. “Yes, sweetie. Please go back to sleep.”

“Is Mason here?” she asked, yawning.

“Not anymore. He just stopped by for a minute,” I said softly, opening the door a bit wider so I could step inside. It was clear she wasn’t falling back asleep right away. I might need to read her another story.

Zeus lifted his head as I entered, but once he saw it was me, he went right back to sleep, his head resting on Skyler’s side.

“I like Mason. He’s nice,” she said.

I sat on the edge of her bed and stroked her hair. “Yeah, he is nice, Sky.”

My heart ached at her words. I knew she already had ideas about us, and those ideas were bad. They were dangerous.

“Honey, please don’t talk to your daddy about Mason. I need to be the one to tell him about the baby and everything.”

Skyler adjusted in bed, moving to her back, to Zeus’s dismay. She stared up at me with wider eyes now. “Is Mason the daddy?”

I knew my little girl didn’t know the depth of her question. She knew that babies usually had mommies and daddies, at least in her limited experience. She had a mom and a dad, and all her friends had moms and dads. Not all of them were together; some were split up like us. She didn’t know all the details about how babies were made and how someone became a mommy or a daddy, or what it might mean in the grand scheme of things.

“Yes, honey, he is,” I said slowly. “But just like your mommy and daddy aren’t together, Mason and I aren’t going to be together either.”

I thought she might have questions about this, but to my surprise, she seemed to shrug it off. Likely because to her, that’s all she’d ever known. I’d left Greg when she was too young to remember.

“Am I having a brother or a sister?” she asked me, changing the subject to something more interesting to her. She grinned at me, and it was the cutest thing.

“We don’t know yet,” I said. “It’s too early. We should find out in a couple months, however.”