Baby Be Mine

by Victoria Pade

  Willy was on the porch when Clair crossed the two yards at exactly nine o'clock. He was so cute that just one look at him made her smile.

  He had on miniature blue jeans with the legs cuffed on the bottoms to expose tiny suede work boots. He also wore the heavy parka Clair had seen on the sofa the night before. It wasn't zipped in front, so between the open sides she could see a navy-blue T-shirt with a bright picture of a cartoon dog and the words Scooby-Doo arched over the dog's head.

  Clair wasn't sure what Willy was doing, but he was very busy scanning the perimeters of the porch, looking into the two empty clay flowerpots that sentried the front door and even studying the swing seat.

  "Hi, Willy," she greeted as she reached the porch steps.

  The little boy cast her a glance from beneath a suspicious frown but he didn't answer her. Instead he went on about his business.

  Clair climbed the stairs and sat on the porch floor, bracing her back against the railing so she could watch him at his own level.

  "What are you doing?" she tried again.

  "Nussin'," he finally responded under his breath, pressing his adorable red head as far as he could between the railing slats to peer into the surrounding bushes that hadn't yet begun to leaf.

  "It doesn't look like you're doing nothing," Clair persisted, hoping she'd translated nussin' correctly. "Did you lose something?"

  "No," he said forcefully, even though searching for something was what he appeared to be doing.

  "Can I help?"

  "No," he said, adding impatience and surliness to the forcefulness.

  He must have spotted whatever he was hunting for because suddenly he ran as fast as his little legs would take him, around Clair, down the steps and toward the driveway where he snatched something from the side of the porch.

  Then he bounded back the way he'd come and charged into the house as if Clair wasn't there at all. "Whoa, boy!"

  She heard Jace's deep voice come from just inside as she stood to follow Willy. By the time she was on her feet again Jace was out the door, one big hand on Willy's head to urge him in the same direction.

  "'Mornin'," Jace said, ignoring Willy's obvious lack of desire to rejoin her.

  "Good morning."

  Willy tugged on Jace's pant leg – apparently a signal that he wanted to be picked up, because the tall man bent over and did just that, settling the child on one hip.

  When he was situated, Willy whispered something in Jace's ear and in response to it, Jace said, "Her name is Clair. She's your aunt – that's someone like Josh and Beau and Ethan and Scott and Devon. They're your uncles, and ladies like them are called aunts."

  Willy shook his head, vigorously, solemnly and muttered, "Ants're bugs."

  Clair felt her heart clench at the continuing rejection, but she laughed at his reasoning, anyway.

  "Some ants are bugs and other kinds of aunts are people. Clair is not a bug," Jace tutored. Then, in a confidential voice directed into the boy's ear, he added, "Why don't you say good morning to her?"

  "No," Willy responded without hesitation and with as much force as his earlier nos to her.

  "Come on. She's a nice lady. Pretty, too. And if I'm rememberin' right, she's come a long way to see you."

  Willy shook his head once more, a stern refusal. Then he stuck his index finger in his mouth and glared at Clair,

  "Okay," Jace conceded as if it were Willy's loss. "But me, I like pretty ladies."

  Willy shook his head again and remained mute.

  Jace ignored that, too, and focused his denim-blue eyes entirely on Clair. "He's had a lot of upheaval in the past few months," he said. "And he's two."

  Clair nodded as if she understood, but she couldn't keep her spirits from deflating slightly at this second, less-than-enthusiastic beginning.

  Then, in a cheerier tone, Jace said, "Shall we get goin'?"

  "Sure," Clair agreed, putting some effort into hiding her disappointment that Willy wouldn't have anything to do with her.

  To Willy, Jace said, "I see you found your tool belt. So we should be all set."

  This time the small, bur-cut head bobbed up and down, and Willy held aloft the toy tool belt he'd located a few minutes earlier by the side of the porch.

  Jace turned back to the house to close and lock the door. As he did, Clair's gaze went with a will of its own to the man himself.

  He was dressed much like Willy was – cowboy boots instead of work boots, blue jeans, and a jean jacket over a faded red Henley shirt over a white crew-neck T-shirt that showed beneath the Henley's open placket.

  But it wasn't merely the clothes that Clair took notice of. It was also the way the clothes fit the man. I The T-shirt molded to impressive pectorals. The waist-length jean jacket was stretched to its limits by the breadth of his shoulders and the expanse of his muscular arms. And the jeans...oh, the jeans! They were just snug enough to cup a derričre to die for.

  Clair's mouth went dry, her heart started thrumming all over again, and she felt as if her temperature had gone up.

  Maybe she'd caught some kind of country fever, she thought. Some kind of country fever that was making her body react to things she shouldn't even be aware of.

  Or maybe it was cowboy fever, she amended, none too patient with herself.

  But country fever or cowboy fever, she forced her eyes off Jace's rear end in the nick of time as he spun back around on his heels with a sexy bit of grace and agility that made her think he was probably a good dancer.

  He pointed his chin toward the black track in the driveway and said, "Hope you don't mind sittin' in the middle. Willy's car seat has to be on the passenger's side because of the seat belt."

  It wasn't sitting in the middle that she minded. The problem was the effect it would have on her to be that close to Jace.

  "Maybe I should follow behind in my car," she suggested when it occurred to her, trying not to think about his behind....

  "You can if you want but it seems silly. Unless you aren't plannin' to spend the whole day with us."

  "No, it isn't that," she answered in a hurry, concerned that he'd gotten the impression she didn't want to be with Willy that long. "I just thought that if I was crowding you – "

  "There's plenty of room," he assured her before she could finish her attempt to cover her tracks.

  "Okay, then," she said much too happily, when the truth was that just the thought of being that near to

  Jace on the truck's bench seat raised her temperature another notch. Cowboy fever. If there was such a thing, she really thought she had it.

  But since there was no rectifying the situation, she went along with Jace and Willy to the truck, arriving on the driver's side at the same moment Jace did.

  He reached in front of her and opened the door for her, then rounded the cab to deposit Willy in the car seat and buckle him in.

  That was accomplished by the time Clair slid in next to the child. But her welcome there was cold as Willy frowned at her as if she were intruding, then presented her with the back of his head, looking through the side window in yet another rejection of her.

  She really didn't know what to do about him. But before she could come up with anything, Jace was behind the wheel and she was left torn between the child who didn't want anything to do with her and the man whose very presence did too much to her.

  And all she could do was hope that the trip they were about to embark on was short.

  For a while, as Jace drove through town, neither of them said anything, and Clair was every bit as hypersensitive to his proximity as she'd feared she would be.

  The scent of his woodsy, clean-smelling aftershave didn't help. In fact it almost seemed to intoxicate her and make her even more aware of every little detail about him. Even more vulnerable to what she thought had to be just plain animal magnetism.

  He seemed to be trying to give her as much space as he could, because he was hugging the driver's side door, bracing his left elbow on the armrest and leaning
his jawbone on his fist.

  It was actually a pretty relaxed way to drive since he was using his right wrist to control the steering wheel on the straightaways, leaving his hand to dangle on the other side of the wheel.

  But nothing could put more than an inch of distance between his thigh and hers, and Clair was excruciatingly aware of it. It left her with the inexplicable sense that she could feel the heat of that thigh seeping into her in a very sensual way....

  "How far is this ranch you work on?" she asked, to escape her own reaction to him and in the hope that it wouldn't be long before they got to their destination.

  Jace looked at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled as if he could take offense to that question but chose not to. "The ranch is about ten miles outside of town. But I'm not a hired hand. It's my family's place. My place. My dad passed away three years ago after a heart attack, but my brothers and my mother and I keep it going."

  "Brothers – those would be the uncles you mentioned?"

  "Right."

  "I didn't count, but it sounded like there are a lot of them."

  "Five."

  "No sisters?"

  "Nope. My dad always joked that my mom gave him sons because they couldn't afford ranch hands."

  "So all six sons make their living on your family's ranch?"

  "Everybody but my brother Devon. He's a veterinarian in Denver. The rest of us work the place, yeah, but we've all been known to pick up odd jobs here and there to supplement what the ranch brings in. My brother Josh, for instance, was just elected sheriff."

  By then they were on the outskirts of Elk Creek, and Clair began to see what she assumed were ranches or farms – she couldn't tell the difference. Basically what she saw were huge stretches of open countryside with an occasional large house, barn or outbuilding sitting far back from the road.

  Jace must have noticed her interest in the three houses they passed – all very impressive – because he said, "Our spread isn't up to par with what you're seem' so far. We're smaller."

  There was a note to his voice that told her it was a sore spot with him.

  "So you live in town and just go out to your ranch to work? Is there not a house on it?"

  "Sure there's a house. I grew up in it, and my mother and brothers still live there. I just moved into town when I became Willy's guardian – that house belonged to Billy and Kim. Now, technically, it's Willy's. But I thought Willy had had enough trauma, and he didn't need to be moved out to the ranch on top of everything else."

  "It must be inconvenient for you to live in Elk Creek instead of on your land with your family, though."

  "Some, but it's no big deal. I may consider moving back with Willy later on, renting out the house in town. The money from something like that could pay for Willy's education when the time comes. Then, after he's all grown-up he can take the place over. But for now this is what's best for him."

  Clair glanced over at Willy. "So you're already a homeowner, huh?" she joked.

  Willy looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language and turned his head again.

  "We're just up the road," Jace informed her as he turned off the main drag onto a flat dirt road that was a straight shot to a house that stood about a quarter of a mile ahead.

  As they drew nearer Clair could see more details. The house was a two-story square box. A steep, black, shingled roof dropped eaves over three multipaned windows on the top level, and a matching roof shaded a wraparound porch on the lower level.

  It was definitely not as fancy, as elaborate or as large as the houses they'd passed before, but it showed care in the flawless white paint and the black shutters that stood on either side of all the windows, including the two picture windows that looked out onto the porch.

  There were homey, loving touches in the twin carriage lamps that adorned the shutters that bracketed (he door, in the planters that hung in the center of each section of the cross-buck railing that surrounded the porch, and in the old-fashioned spindled benches and high-backed rocking chairs situated here and there.

  But regardless of the care lavished on the place, it was still just an old farmhouse that couldn't compare to those other houses they'd driven by.

  "Mop?" Willy said excitedly, as Jace drove around the house to the big red barn behind it.

  "She's already gone by now, Willy. So's everybody else."

  "Mop?" Clair repeated.

  "That's what he calls my mother. Near as we can tell he heard all of us calling her Mom, figured she wasn't his mom, and settled for Mop."

  "Mop," Willy said again in confirmation, as if it made perfect sense.

  "We're getting a late start today or the whole gang would be here and I'd introduce you. As it is, there's no reason to go in when it's the paddock fence I'm fixin' today. But we have the run of the place if you need a bathroom or anything," he informed her as he pulled the truck to a stop near the barn's great door.

  "I can keep Willy out of your way while you work," Clair suggested.

  "I hep you, Unca Ace," Willy insisted, again with that two-year-old forcefulness, as if Clair were interfering.

  "Uncle Ace?" she parroted, unable to suppress a laugh as she did.

  "He doesn't do too well with js," Jace explained, giving her a sheepish grin that was so charming and endearing she didn't have a doubt that it gave himtremendous leverage with whatever woman he used it on. Her included, although she didn't want to admit it.

  Then, to Willy, he said, "Yep, you can help me. And maybe we'll put Clair to work, too."

  Willy scowled at her but didn't come out with the usual no. That seemed to Clair like progress.

  Jace got out of the truck, and Clair followed him, glancing around as he took Willy from the car seat.

  Not that there was a lot to see – some farm equipment, a garage about the same size as the barn, with four doors and what looked to be an apartment on top. The winter's remaining bales of hay were stacked in a lean-to. Several towering apple trees provided shade for the rear of the house and the mud porch that jutted out from it. A brick-paved patio held a picnic table, benches and stacked lawn chairs awaiting summer.

  "There you go, little man," Clair heard Jace say as he set Willy on his feet.

  No sooner did he let go of the small boy than Willy took off like a shot for the barn, disappearing through the big open doors without a word to Jace,

  "Where's he going?" Clair asked.

  "To say good morning to Tom. He's our barn cat. Willy never gets near the barn without going in after him."

  "Would you mind if I went, too?"

  "No, go ahead. I need to get the wood out of the truck and start work. I'll be right over there." He nodded toward the white rail fence that surrounded an area of dirt beside the barn. The paddock, Clair assumed, although it didn't really matter to her what it was called.

  Willy was all that was on her mind as she took off in the same direction he had, entertaining visions of the two of them bonding over the pet.

  She expected to find boy and cat the moment she stepped through the barn's main door but all she saw was a long center aisle with empty stall after empty stall lining both sides.

  "Willy?" she called.

  The child didn't answer her, but from outside Jace's booming baritone said, "He'll be in the tack room."

  Clair wasn't sure what a tack room was, but since there was a door at the end of the center aisle, she headed for that. Along the way she looked into each stall just in case, but to no avail. Neither Willy nor the cat were in any of them.

  "Willy?" she called again tentatively as she approached the door.

  She could see one end of a tall workbench. Harnesses, reins and various paraphernalia hung from hooks on the walls. But she still didn't see her nephew or the cat.

  Until she actually reached the door.

  But she'd only taken two steps in the direction of the workbench when the cat let out an angry meow, and Willy wailed, "Ouch!"

  Then Willy scrambled out
from under the workbench and charged passed her, crying loudly, "Unca Ace! Unca Ace!"

  Terrified of what might be wrong, Clair ran afterhim, arriving at Jace's side just as he scooped Willy into his arms.

  "What'd you do, Willy?" he asked patiently, scanning a scratch on the boy's hand.

  "I talked back of cat, cat talked back of me," Willy lamented.

  "Mmm-hmm," Jace said as if he understood exactly what the little boy had said. '' You were pulling Tom's tail again, weren't you? And he hissed at you, you told him to be quiet, and went right on pulling it until he scratched you. Right?"

  "Yep," Willy said pitifully.

  "You can't be mean to Tom. What did I tell you about that?"

  "He's mean on me."

  "He's only mean to you when you're mean to him first. You can't pull his tail." "I wanna."

  "Well, you can't. And if you do it again, I won't let you go in and see him anymore."

  Out jutted Willy's bottom lip and down went his brows into a dark frown. But then he said, "I wanna hep you," in a conciliatory whine.

  "You can help me as soon as we wash out that scratch."

  And with that they took a quick, first-aid break in the mudroom.

  Clair only watched from the sidelines because every time she got too near Willy insisted she, "Dit away!" as if she'd been the cause of his misery.

  Then, once Jace was certain Willy was well taken care of, they all went back outside.

  Jace had unloaded the new rails from the truck bed and stacked them on the ground behind it. He pointed at them as they passed them on their way back.

  "You guys can bring those over to the fence," he suggested. "Willy can take one end and Clair can take the other."

  It was clearly a chore he'd left purposely for them, because he could have hauled the whole lot of it in one trip himself. Clair appreciated that he was encouraging the togetherness so she could interact with her nephew. But Willy wanted no part of it, and the minute Clair put a hand on one of the rails, he dropped his end, picked up another board and dragged it himself.

  "He's an independent little guy," Jace said apologetically when, after the third try, she'd given up and left the chore to Willy, settling near where Jace worked just to watch the boy.