Casey couldn’t fool herself any longer. She’d wanted to pretend that somehow, Jackson would one day come to love her. But the simple truth was, he didn’t. Wouldn’t. And it wasn’t as if he were incapable of love. He loved Mia, that was obvious to anyone with eyes. So it was only Casey he couldn’t love. And the addition of one more child wasn’t going to change that.
“Casey.”
She stopped, turned and looked at him from across the room.
“Don’t you want the baby?”
“Of course I want this baby,” she said, cupping both hands over her abdomen as if she could prevent the tiny life nestled inside from hearing any of this conversation.
“This is a gift, Jackson. One I’ll always treasure. It just…” she sighed and shook her head “…makes everything that much more complicated than before.”
“No.” He walked to her side, stopped directly in front of her and looked down at her. His eyes were shining, his smile was wide and when he spoke, Casey could hardly believe what he was saying. “This just makes things simpler,” he said.
“I don’t see how.”
He ran his hands up and down her arms until finally sliding them up to cup her face between his palms. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve got the solution to this, Casey. Marry me.”
Eleven
“What?”
He’d surprised her, Jackson thought. Good. Better to keep her a little off balance. Better to force her to go with her instincts than to give her time to consider all options. Of course, when she finally did consider them, she’d see he was right. This was the absolute best decision for all of them.
“Marry me,” he repeated, astonished at how easy the words fell from his mouth. Hell, he’d had an arrangement to marry Marian and he hadn’t been able to talk himself into making the actual, formal proposal. But saying the words to Casey was different.
Right.
“You’re crazy,” she said, shaking her head and moving back, out of his touch, away from him.
So maybe keeping her off balance wasn’t the best option, he told himself, thinking fast. Maybe he should lay it all out for her. Clearly she was too muddled in her head right now, due to finding out about the coming baby.
Another baby.
Joy filled him. And pride. And a sense of expectation he never would have believed possible. He’d missed so much with Mia, Jackson couldn’t wait to experience everything with this baby. He wanted to be there for all of them. He had to make Casey see that doing things his way made sense.
“It’s perfect, don’t you see?” He grinned and threw both hands high before letting them slap down against his thighs again. “We both love Mia. Now we’ve got a new baby coming. There’s plenty of room in this house as you well know and you and I get along great.”
She shook her head, staring at him as if he were speaking Greek. So he talked faster.
“You and I, Casey, we’ve got something good going. We can build a family here, with neither one of us being a weekend parent.” He took a step closer and felt hope notch a little higher inside him when she didn’t step back.
“You’ve got all the new work for the King family and we’ll add on to your office here at the house. Do it up however you want it. We can do this, Casey. We’ve got chemistry together, you have to admit that. We work well together, we both love our daughter, what could be better?”
She lifted one hand to her mouth, shook her head and looked at him as if he were out of his mind entirely. Why the hell wasn’t this making sense to her? It was all perfectly logical. Reasonable.
“Love could be better, Jackson,” she finally said on a tired sigh. “You were going to marry Marian—”
“Don’t start on that again—”
“But you didn’t think of marrying me until you found out I was pregnant. You don’t want a wife, Jackson. Not really. You want company in bed and you want to be a father.”
He frowned at her. This was not going the way he’d expected it to. “Even if you were right,” he countered, “how does that make me any different than you? You said yourself you wanted to be a mother, that’s why you didn’t wait for a perfect relationship. You went to the sperm bank and got the child you wanted. Well, I have the child I want, right here. And now you tell me I’m going to have another one. So why wouldn’t I want to be their father?”
“You’re right,” she said, but he didn’t feel any better. “I wanted to be a mother. But the difference between us is, I didn’t marry someone I didn’t love to do it. Jackson, don’t you see? The fact that you love Mia—that you will love this baby—isn’t enough to base a marriage between us on.”
“Why the hell not?” It sounded great to him. A readymade family. Two people who liked each other, enjoyed each other.
“Look, you were all set for a marriage merger—”
“Will you leave her out of this? I told you, Marian doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“Neither do I,” she countered quickly. “This is just another convenient move for you. Before, you were going to use your marriage to expand your airline. With me, you’ll expand your family. It’s just another merger.”
“With a hell of a lot better chance for survival,” he told her.
“No, no it wouldn’t work.”
“Give me one good reason why not.” He stared at her, completely lost as to her reaction. He’d been so sure she’d see that this was the right thing to do. So positive that he’d made the right move. That a marriage between them would solve all of their problems.
“Because I love you, Jackson.” She gave him a sad smile. “I didn’t mean to, and believe me when I say I wish I didn’t, it would make things much easier.”
He wasn’t an idiot. He’d known that she had feelings for him. He hadn’t really thought about her being in love with him, but since she was, why couldn’t she see that it made even more sense for her to marry him?
“Now I’m really confused,” he admitted with an under-the-breath curse. “If you love me, you should be happy with this solution.”
“Happy to marry a man who loves my kid, but not me?” She shook her head. “Happy to live a lie? Happy to deny myself the hope of being loved in return? No, Jackson. Your idea doesn’t sound like a bargain to me.”
“Damn it, I care about you!” He took another step forward and she lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes were pale blue. No passion. No anger. No dark, churning emotion changing that color to a deep-sea blue. There was only regret shining in her eyes and Jackson felt as if he were standing on a slippery slope, skidding relentlessly downhill toward an abyss he couldn’t avoid.
His chest tightened and everything in him went hard and still. He felt as if he were fighting for his life. Why couldn’t she just take what he had to offer her? A life with him and their kids? He cared more for Casey than he had ever allowed himself to care for anyone. Why couldn’t it be enough?
He grabbed her shoulders, pulled her to him with a yank and folded his arms around her. She stood still for him, but she didn’t wrap her arms round his waist. Didn’t yield her body to his. Didn’t lean into him. She was simply there.
“Caring isn’t loving, Jackson,” she whispered against his chest, her voice muffled so that he barely heard her words. “I deserve more.”
“It’s all I’ve got to give,” he said.
“I know,” she told him. “That’s the saddest part about this.”
He let her go then and his arms felt empty without her. He felt empty, damn it, and there was no reason for it. All she had to do was accept his proposal and they’d be fine. They’d have everything.
Why couldn’t she see that?
When she walked past him, headed for the hallway, he called out and she stopped. “Where are you going?”
She turned her head to look back at him. “Upstairs. I’m tired and I need some time alone.”
When she was gone and the only sound in the living room was the hiss and crackle of the fire in the hearth, Jack
son thought that “alone” was overrated.
Early the next morning, Casey sat in the dining room, Mia tucked into her high chair, cheerfully mashing banana slices in her tiny fists. While watching her daughter have breakfast, Casey drank tea and wished for caffeine.
Laying alone in her bed had felt so strange. She was used to Jackson’s touch, his heavy sigh as he settled into sleep. The drape of his arm over her middle as he pulled her up close. She’d come to rely on having him there beside her and now that he wasn’t—she was lost.
Mia squealed, lifted both banana-covered hands and kicked at her high chair. Without even turning around, Casey knew that Jackson had come into the room. No one but he ever got that kind of reception from his daughter.
“Good morning.” His deep voice rumbled through the room and seemed to reverberate around her. Instantly, Casey’s heartbeat quickened and she felt a slow build of heat swirling inside her. God, would she always feel this way about him? Was she destined to spend the rest of her life in love with a man who only “cared” for her?
Steeling herself, she nodded. “Morning, Jackson.”
“Sleep well?” he asked.
“No, you?”
“Great.”
Disgusted, she shot him a look as he came around the table, bent down to kiss Mia and slid his gaze to hers. Instantly, she felt better. He was lying. There were shadows under his eyes that were every bit as dark as her own. Somehow, she enjoyed knowing his night had been long and miserable, too.
Sunlight slanted through the windows. Mia cooed and gurgled. And still Casey and Jackson stared at each other, each waiting for the other to speak first. Finally, Jackson did.
Pouring himself a cup of coffee from the carafe on the table, he said, “Last night you told me you needed some time to yourself.”
All the alone time in the world wasn’t going to solve the problems facing her. But she had to think. And being around Jackson was not conducive to thought. “I still do.”
“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about.” He paused for a sip of coffee. “You know I’m shorthanded at the airfield.” She nodded. “Well, I’ve decided I’m going to take one of the flights myself. Give us both a little breathing room for a few days.”
“A few days?” Strange, she’d wanted alone time, but hearing him say he was leaving wasn’t making her happy. Apparently she wanted alone time with him nearby. God, she was a mess.
“Yeah,” he said softly, “I’m heading to Paris this afternoon. I’m flying a couple over there, then I’ll stay and take care of some business.”
“Paris?” He was leaving. For days. The ache of loneliness settled in, but she told herself it was probably for the best. She wanted him to love her as much as he did their children. And the fact that he didn’t made her feelings too raw and painful for her to be around him.
His voice dropped and Casey looked up into his dark eyes as he added, “As I recall, I once promised you a trip to Rome.”
That night in the hall, she thought. The first night in this house with him, when they’d set the path they’d followed ever since. The night she’d discovered that her body could erupt in flames and she could survive to tell the tale.
“I remember.” But fantasies and great—amazing—sex didn’t take the place of love. He wanted her, she could see it in his eyes. But want was a poor substitute for need. So it was good he was leaving, she told herself.
He set his coffee down onto the table, leaned both hands on it and speared her gaze with his. “Say the word and I’ll stay. Marry me and we’ll take that trip to Rome.”
“I can’t.”
He pushed up from the table and she didn’t know if he was disappointed or annoyed. Probably both. “Fine then. Do all the thinking you want while I’m gone,” Jackson said. “When I get home, we’ll settle this.” Then he bent to kiss the top of Mia’s head. When he straightened up, he looked right at Casey again. “When I get home.”
Jackson came home early. He’d rousted his co-pilot out of bed, fired up the jet and set a new personal record for flight speed on the trip back to California. How the hell could he be expected to take care of business in Paris when his head was full of Casey? He’d tried, damn it. He’d wandered the streets of Paris, visited old haunts and never did find the enjoyment he usually experienced when he was wandering the world.
None of it mattered.
Nothing mattered, because he felt like his heart had been scooped out of his chest. She hadn’t even answered the damn phone when he’d called. She was avoiding him and he’d had enough. Now it was the middle of the night and he didn’t care if she was sound asleep. She was going to listen to him. She was going to marry him. And they were going to be happy, damn it.
He parked his car in the driveway, jumped out and trotted up the narrow walkway to the front door. He stepped inside and the silence hit him like a blow. Taking the stairs two at a time, his own footsteps echoed in the stillness like a heartbeat. He passed his own room, went straight to Casey’s and opened the door.
Her bed was empty and the first tendrils of uneasiness began to slip through his system. Turning fast, he crossed to his own room, thinking that maybe she’d come to her senses and had wanted to be in his bed—their bed. But she wasn’t there, either.
Across the hall from him was Mia’s room and her door stood open. No night-light was burning, though. There were no magical stars shining in the darkness to keep his baby girl company. There was only more silence. He walked across the threshold, and moved through the darkness to the crib, though he knew he’d find it empty. His heart fisted in his chest and the uneasiness quickened into a deeply felt fear like he’d never known before.
Casey had taken Mia and left. He glanced into the baby’s closet. Empty. As empty as the house. As empty as his soul.
“Where the hell did they go?” Fear and fury tangled together in the pit of his stomach as he answered his own question. “Dani’s.”
“Don’t tell him anything!”
Jackson looked past a sleepy Mike Sullivan to his wife, standing on the stairs, wearing a pink fluffy robe and a dangerous gleam in her eye. “Dani—”
“Haven’t you done enough?” She came down another step and glared at him. “Leave her alone.”
Mike moved to block Jackson’s view of his wife and planted one hand on the threshold, preventing him entry. “She’s not here,” he said.
Jackson had been so sure. So positive that Casey would turn to her best friend, he had no idea where to turn now. He looked at the other man and saw sympathy on his face. Jackson responded to it. “Tell me where she is.”
Mike shot a glance over his shoulder and winced. Lowering his voice, he looked back at Jackson and said, “I feel for you. I do. But Casey’s a friend. And if I want to keep living with my wife…”
“Just tell me if Casey’s okay.”
“Unhappy, but safe.”
Jackson’s heart felt like lead in his chest. He didn’t want her unhappy. He just wanted her. Shoving one hand through his hair, he turned around and looked at the quiet, suburban street. Houses were shut up tight, lights were few. Families were in those houses. Together. And Jackson felt more solitary in that one bleak moment than he ever had before.
“I don’t know where to look,” he murmured, more to himself than to the man behind him.
Lowering his voice, Mike offered, “You might try talking to your brother.”
Whipping his head around, Jackson stared at him. “Which one?”
“Adam.”
Turning, Jackson jumped off the porch and ran through the night to the car parked at the curb.
Twelve
“What the hell are you doing pounding on my door in the middle of the night?” Adam stood on the threshold, bare-chested, wearing pajama bottoms. His hair was sleep-ruffled and his eyes looked furious.
“Casey’s gone.” Jackson pushed past his brother, stalked across the foyer straight into Adam’s study. “I’ve got to find her and I don�
�t know where to look.” He wasn’t used to feeling panicked and he didn’t like it. Felt like he was beginning to unravel at the edges and there was nothing he could do about it. “I went to her friend Dani’s and her husband told me I should check with you.” Facing his older brother, Jackson said, “So? What do you know?”
“I know it’s the middle of the night and I’m tired.” Adam walked past him to the wet bar, poured himself a brandy and asked, “Do you want one?”
“No, I don’t want a damn drink. I want Casey.” He shoved both hands through his hair again and gave a good yank. “I’m wasting time just standing here. I should be looking for her. But where?”
Adam took a sip of brandy and leaned one elbow on the bar. Studying his brother he asked, “Wherever she is, maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”
“Too bad,” Jackson snapped. He felt as if he were hanging off the edge of the world, the only thing keeping him safe a quickly unraveling rope. “I’m not going to let her leave me. Just walk away like what we have is nothing.”
“Uh-huh. Why not?”
“What?” He shot his brother a hard look. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Simple question. If you don’t love her, why do you want her?”
Jackson winced. “Did Casey talk to Gina?”
“You could say that,” Adam muttered darkly. “Gina’s been talking my ear off about nothing else since. She’s not real fond of you at the moment.”
Gina wasn’t Jackson’s problem. Casey was. “I asked her to marry me and she turned me down!” He shouted the words as if he’d been bottling them up for days.
“This surprises you?” Adam snorted a laugh.
Astonished, he said, “Hell yes. She’s pregnant with my baby. We’ve already got a daughter. She should marry me. It’s the only sensible solution.”
Adam shook his head, walked across the room and turned on a single standing lamp before sitting down. “God, you really are an idiot.”
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