“Sure.” Casey stood. “Keep an eye on Mia and I’ll run upstairs to get them.”
With the women in charge, Casey sprinted across the lawn toward the back door of the big house. She ran over the flagstone patio, pausing only long enough to wave at Jackson, then she slipped through the open French doors and into the shadowy coolness of the state-of-the-art kitchen.
The cook had the day off since Jackson was busily burning dinner on his own and so the house felt empty and quiet as Casey ran down the hall and up the stairs. From outside, the wash of voices and laughter floated to her on a soft wind and she smiled to herself as she ran down the hall to Jackson’s bedroom. Temporary or not, she liked being a part of a big family. Since she’d been on her own for so many years, the idea of being surrounded by those you cared about was a delicious one.
She’d been showing Jackson the new design for the King Vineyard menus earlier that morning and she was sure she’d left the papers on Jackson’s dresser. She entered the big room that smelled of him and saw what she was looking for right away. But out of the corner of her eye, Casey also noticed a new, economy-sized box of condoms lying in the middle of his neatly made bed.
“Oh, perfect,” she muttered, shaking her head. If anyone in his family came upstairs for any reason, that would be the first thing they spotted. Just what she needed. Sure, they all had to know she and Jackson were lovers. That didn’t mean she needed to draw them a picture, though.
Picking up the box, she opened his bedside table drawer to put them away. But the world stopped and the condoms fell from suddenly nerveless fingers when she found a small, dark-blue velvet jeweler’s box tucked inside the drawer.
Mind racing, heart pounding, she held her breath, picked it up, opened the lid and stared down at a diamond that was so big it deserved its own zip code. It flashed in the light as if it had been waiting for someone to give it the opportunity to shine and Casey’s mouth went dry at the implications.
Was Jackson going to propose?
Her heart leaped in her chest and an unexpected joy sent so many sharp, jagged shards of happiness through her it was nearly painful.
“Hey,” Jackson said from the doorway, “what’s going on? I saw you running and—”
She turned around, heart in her eyes and held up the box she’d found. And joy died as his smile faded.
“Oh, God,” he whispered. “That’s Marian’s.”
Ten
“Marian?” Casey’s voice sounded so small, so hurt, Jackson felt her pain like his own.
He hadn’t thought about that damned ring in weeks. If he had, he would have taken it to the bank, put it in the safety deposit box. But no, he’d been so wrapped up in Casey and Mia that he’d tossed the three-carat diamond into a drawer and forgotten all about it.
Until it had shown up to bite him in the ass.
“Damn it,” he muttered, walking toward her. He took the velvet box from her hand, snapped it shut and dropped it back into the drawer. Then he slammed that drawer closed and looked into blue eyes that were so pale, so wounded, he felt like a first-class bastard.
“Um,” she said, taking a sidestep away from him and looking everywhere but directly into his eyes, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I was only putting the condoms away and—”
“Casey, let me explain.” He reached for her, but she slipped away like mist before he could actually touch her. And just for a second, he wondered if it was a sign of things to come.
“Explain?” She choked out a laugh and backed up even further. Shaking her head, she walked quickly to his dresser and snatched up the pages she’d left there earlier. The designs she had for the King Vineyard menu. The ones she’d been so excited about that morning.
He remembered her showing them to him, with her eyes alight and her imagination on high gear. And even then, he’d felt a small twinge. He’d set her up with his brothers and their wives more for his convenience than for her sake. He’d wanted her safe. There. In the house.
Now, even her joy in the direction her business was taking had dimmed. Because of him.
“There’s nothing to explain,” she said and as she talked her voice got firmer, stronger. “You’ve got an engagement ring for another woman in the same drawer where you keep the condoms you use with me. What could be clearer? I’m the bedmate, she’s the wife material.” She headed for the door. “Trust me, I get the picture.”
“No you don’t,” he snapped and cut her off before she could get out of the room, away from him.
From outside, he heard the rumble of his brother’s voices, the laughter of the women clustered together beneath the tree and even the call of seabirds swooping low, looking for a handout.
But inside, all was cold and quiet. Looking into her eyes, Jackson felt the distance between them and damned if he could find a way to close it. He hadn’t meant for her to find out about Marian. If everything had gone according to his plan, she and Mia would have stayed here for six months and then they all would have gone on with their lives.
But somewhere along the line, things had changed. He wasn’t sure how, wasn’t sure when and he for damn sure didn’t know what to do about it. But Casey was staring at him and he had to say something.
“Yes, I had planned to marry Marian,” he blurted when nothing better came to mind.
He saw her wince and if it had been possible, he’d have kicked himself. He’d never planned to hurt her. Yet it seemed he couldn’t now avoid it.
“It was a business decision,” he told her, trying somehow to lessen the sting of the surprise she’d just had.
She closed her eyes briefly, shook her head as if she were tired and said, “Business.”
“Yes. A marriage of convenience. A merger really, more than a marriage,” he added. Then he took a deep breath and kept talking because he sensed she was shutting down. Shutting him out. And suddenly, he very much wanted to be in. “Look, both of my brothers married women for the wrong reasons and wound up so damned happy they’re annoying with it. I figured I stood at least the same chance they’d had and it was a good call for King Jets. Marian’s father owns several well-placed airfields around the country. By marrying her, I guaranteed King Jets landing space and new routes.”
“Good for you,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “Congratulations. I’ll be sure to get all the new routes correctly when I redesign your Web site.”
He groaned with frustration himself. “The damn ring’s here, remember? It’s not on her finger because I’m not marrying her.”
“Really. Why not?”
Why not. A loaded question if he’d ever heard one. And hell, he wasn’t completely sure of the answer himself beyond the fact that he couldn’t face the thought of a lifetime with a woman who wasn’t Casey.
Damn.
When he didn’t answer, Casey looked up at him, waiting. “It’s a simple question, Jackson. Why are you not marrying the fabulous Cornice airfields?”
“Because of you and Mia,” he said, tightening up in self-defense. The woman was glaring at him like he’d just told her he was personally responsible for the new sport of puppy kicking. “I told her I needed time. Time with Mia. Time to get my life together.”
“So you’re not marrying her now.”
“Ever,” he corrected, more certain of that fact now than he had been before.
“That’s not what you told her though, is it?”
“No,” he admitted, shoving one hand through his hair and wondering how the hell to get out of this mess he was slogging through. “I told her we’d talk in six months,” he admitted. “I wanted to give her the chance to call it off herself.”
“How very noble of you,” she said and tried to step past him.
He cut her off again and she blew out a frustrated breath.
“It’s not noble,” he argued, trying to figure out how to explain to her what he didn’t completely understand himself. “It’s—”
“It’s what, Jackson?” she asked a
nd he actually saw her eyes go from pale to dark blue and he felt a wary twinge echo inside him. “Expedient? You don’t want to be engaged to one woman while sleeping with another? Well, that just makes you a candidate for Man of the Year, doesn’t it?”
Her hurt was quickly swallowed by fury and Jackson, being a wise man, took a step back.
“You used me,” she said tightly, raking him up and down with a gaze that should have turned him to ice on the spot. “You used me for sex while keeping the no doubt eminently suitable Marian in the wings.”
He was willing to let her blow off some steam, but damned if he’d stand there and let her insult both of them. “We used each other for sex, babe,” he said and saw his verbal dart hit home. Quickly, instinctively, he followed it with another. “I never promised you anything.”
“So that makes it okay, hmm?” Her whisper was nothing more than a hiss of sound. “Don’t make promises and then it doesn’t matter what you do? Who you hurt?” She walked in close, jabbed her index finger at his chest and said, “What about Mia? Were you going to push her aside once you married Marian?”
“Of course not! Mia’s my daughter. She’s always going to be my daughter.”
“That’s something, I suppose,” she said under her breath.
“Casey…” He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, holding onto her tightly when she tried to slip out of his grasp. He didn’t know how to put things back together and it irritated hell out of him to have to admit that to himself. Always before, he’d known what to say. What to do. Now, when he needed that ability the most though, it had deserted him. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this to us. Don’t ruin what we have.”
“What we have?” she repeated softly. “You can’t ruin what you don’t have.” When she lifted her gaze to his, he saw the furious dark blue of her eyes had faded to a nearly impersonal pale blue stare. “Besides, I didn’t do any of this, Jackson. You did.” She pulled away from him, tightened her grip on the papers she held in one fist and said,
“Now. Julie’s waiting to see these menus.”
“She can wait a few more minutes,” he said, not willing to let her go. Not when there was so much left unsaid between them. Not when he could still see pain he’d caused shining in her eyes.
“No, she really can’t.” Casey ran one hand over her short, shaggy hair, and said, “I’d rather your entire family and my friends didn’t know anything was wrong, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to see some of your fabulous acting skills when you go back downstairs.”
“Casey—”
“No reason the day has to be spoiled for anyone else,” she said and walked out of the room without a backward glance.
When everyone had left, Casey still was in no mood to talk to Jackson and since she needed to make a trip into town, she left him with Mia and took off. The drive in the big black bus he’d purchased for her at least shifted her concentration away from the fool she’d made of herself. She had to focus on the road, on other drivers, rather than on the lancing pain stabbing at her heart.
“It’s your own fault,” she murmured, steering the lumbering SUV into a diagonal parking slot in front of the drugstore. She slipped the gearshift into park, set the brake and turned off the key. Then she leaned her forehead on the steering wheel and closed her eyes. “You knew going in that this was temporary. That all it was for Jackson was a chance to know his daughter. You’re the one who let sex become more. You’re the one who started daydreaming….”
She blew out a breath, lifted her head and stared through the windshield at the store in front of her. A sinking sensation opened up in the pit of her stomach as she thought about why she was there. What she’d come to buy. And the fact that if she was right, everything was about to get much more complicated.
Jackson tried to talk to her when she got home, but she breezed right past him as if he weren’t there. So he decided he’d give her a little space. A little time. Work things through in her head, then he’d talk to her again and she’d damn well listen.
He’d just spent the longest damned afternoon of his life, talking to his brothers and Mike Sullivan, pretending nothing was wrong, when he could feel Casey’s misery hanging over him like a black cloud dripping rain. No one else had noticed, of course, because she’d plastered a smile on her face and had done just what she’d set out to do. Kept everyone else in the dark about what had happened between them.
“But what exactly did happen?” he muttered as he stared through the living room windows at the night beyond. “She found a ring I didn’t use. Big deal. It didn’t mean anything,” he argued with himself, his voice a low mutter of disgust. “I told her I broke it off with Marian, why can’t she understand that?”
Logic was lost on women, he thought. They were too busy being hurt or wounded or angry to listen to reason. Well, he told himself, she’d listen tonight, whether she wanted to or not.
He listened hard and heard Casey singing to Mia as she bathed the baby then put her to bed. Then he listened to the sounds of Casey moving around and realized for the first time that the reason he’d never spent much time in this house before now was that it had been too quiet. Too big for one man. Too filled with a silence that only seemed to get bigger when a man had time to think about it.
But with Mia and Casey here, the house seemed alive, somehow. And so, damn it, did he.
He finally gave up on trying to work out a new flight schedule, assigning pilots to fill in the gaps left by Dan, who had indeed quit right after the birth of his son. He’d worry about the logistics of flight time tomorrow. Jackson was definitely going to need to hire someone else, but until he did, he himself would have to pick up some of the slack.
Since Mia and Casey had come into his life, flying had taken a back seat. He hadn’t been on a run himself in weeks and up until that very minute, he hadn’t even realized it. Hadn’t missed it.
Maybe his brothers were right, he thought suddenly. Maybe he should ask Casey to marry him. It would sure as hell solve a lot of problems. They shared Mia. And they shared an incredible chemistry that would make living together no hardship at all.
He smiled to himself as he warmed to the idea. Hell, Adam and Travis might have hit on the solution he needed. A marriage of convenience. But with the right woman.
“Jackson?”
His head whipped around and he jumped to his feet. As if his thoughts had conjured her, Casey stood in the open doorway of the living room. He hadn’t heard her come downstairs because he’d been lost in his own thoughts. But now that he saw her, standing there in the wash of golden lamplight, she looked pale and her eyes seemed huge. Wide and shocked.
“What’s wrong?” Before he even realized he’d taken a step, he was moving toward her.
“Nothing—” she waved him away, but he wouldn’t be put off.
Dropping one arm around her shoulders, he steered her to a chair, pushed her down into it and tried to ignore the fact that she’d been so stiff and unyielding beneath his touch. Still mad, then. Well, fine. He could bring her around. In fact, as soon as he told her his idea, he had the feeling that she’d be so damn happy, all thoughts of this afternoon’s confrontation would fall away.
He fell to a crouch in front of her and looked up into her eyes. Eyes that were swimming in a sheen of tears she was fighting desperately to keep at bay. Worry rose up in him, nearly choking him and Jackson pushed his own plans to one side for the moment.
“Damn it, Casey, something’s wrong,” he said. “I can see it on your face. If this is still about what happened earlier, I want to talk to you about it. I’ve been doing some thinking and if you’ll just hear me out—”
“Stop.” Casey shook her head, scrubbed both hands over her face and then met his gaze with a grim determination that filled Jackson with a kind of dread he’d never known before.
“What is it?” he asked, reaching out and taking one of her hands in his. She was trembling. Damn it, what was going on? “Just say it, Casey.”
Casey watched as shock, then wonder, then relief flashed across his eyes. She pulled her hand from his and sat quietly, waiting for him to say something.
Taking the home pregnancy test half an hour ago had solidified for her what she’d begun to suspect only that afternoon. Talking with the other women about babies and pregnancies, Casey had realized with a start that her period hadn’t arrived on schedule. There had just been so much going on in her life lately, she hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to the fact that her period simply hadn’t shown up. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have worried. After all, a doctor had told her that it would be nearly impossible for her to conceive the old-fashioned way. That’s why she’d gone to a sperm bank in the first place. Why she’d had an in vitro procedure. How she’d come to be here, with a man who didn’t love her.
The father of both of her children.
“I thought you said—”
She nodded, knowing what he was going to say. “My doctor told me it would be nearly impossible—” She laughed shortly and felt the sound scrape at her throat. “I guess the key word in that phrase is nearly.”
“So that first night when we—”
She nodded. “Apparently, your little swimmers have no trouble finding my womb.”
He almost looked pleased, but maybe that was just her imagination working overtime.
“How long have you known?”
“Since about a half hour ago.” She jumped up from the chair, suddenly unable to sit still a moment longer. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she paced aimlessly around the room. She could feel Jackson’s gaze on her, and wished more than anything that she could throw herself into his arms and celebrate this…miracle.
She’d had no one but Dani to celebrate news of her first pregnancy. And this one was such a triumphant thing, such a one-in-a-million shot, that she wanted to shout, to laugh, to cry. But this time, she would do all of that alone, despite the fact that the baby’s father was in the same room with her.
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