"A communication problem," Jace surmised.
"I don't even think you could call it that. Until the last time I saw her, she and I were as close as two sisters could be. We shared everything. There was no competition between us. I considered her my best friend and I thought -she considered me hers. Of course, the same could hardly be said about Kristin and Dad...."
The timer rang again, signaling that the main pizza was finished. While Jace repeated the process he'd followed for Willy's pie – raising the crust with a knife to make sure it was browned on bottom and taking it out of the oven to serve – Clair considered just how far she should go in detailing her family's shortcomings.
But as she did, it occurred to her that if she gave Jace some background information he might begin to get a clearer picture of where she was coming from and what had transpired three years ago. And even though it was private and personal, leaving him with the image Kristin had apparently given certainly couldn't aid her cause in gaining custody of Willy.
So once she, Jace and Willy had full plates and were settled down to eat, she said, "Our mother died in a car accident when Kristin was six months old. That left my dad alone with us and, well, he wasn't... isn't...a great father. I love him, don't get me wrong. But it's hard for him to think of anyone but himself, and he has sort of a chip on his shoulder. He also isn't the most reliable person in the world. Even before my mom died he changed jobs at the drop of a hat, always because someone wasn't recognizing his potential or was slighting him or for some other reason that was usually more in his own skewed perception of things than in reality."
"Kristin never said anything about her mother, but she made a comment here and there about her father. She didn't have much good to say about him."
"My mother's death didn't improve him by any means. In fact, without her steadying influence he started not only changing jobs but moving Kristin and me around from state to state every time, too. And he got married – and divorced – three more times. It didn't make for a very stable or warm or loving home environment. I got out as soon as I could, which meant going away to college."
Clair paused long enough to tell him how delicious the pizza was.
"What'd I tell you?" he said as if the compliment were his due. But she could tell he was pleased that she liked it.
Then she went on. "After college I landed a good job at an advertising agency in Chicago – the same one I'm with now, as a matter of fact. I started as a copy writer and I made enough money to get my own apartment not far from where Dad and Kristin were living. I was determined to provide a stable life for myself and a place where Kristin could come and stay when she needed a refuge."
"You didn't want her to move in with you full-time?" Jace asked, sounding curious but not judgmental.
“I did. And she wanted to. But Dad took that as a huge affront and threw a fit. So instead Kristin would just say we were having a girls' night or a sleep-over at my place and stay four or five nights a week."
"And your father took that all right?"
"I told you, he's a very self-involved person. It was the idea of Kristin actually moving to my place that he thought made him look like a bad father. But doing it the way we did just gave him more free time to pursue whatever woman he was after at the moment. And he liked that."
"Four or five nights a week should have been pretty good for her, though," Jace allowed.
"I thought it was. She said it was. Things seemed better than they had been in a long, long while. But then three months before she was ready to graduate from high school she came to me insisting that she was dropping out of school."
"I wouldn't have stood for that," Jace said definitively as he helped Willy have a slice of the larger pizza since the child decided the one he'd made wasn't as good.
"Kristin wouldn't tell me anything concrete about why she wanted to drop out – not that I would have been in favor of it, anyway – but all she would say was that her boyfriend had dumped her and she'd had an argument with her friends. I thought that was perfectly normal teenage stuff that would blow over, and I told her so. But that it was absolutely not a reason to drop out of school."
"I agree."
"Well, she didn't. She dug in her heels and said she was not going back to school no matter what. We went round and round about it but she just wouldn't budge, and so I finally said that I couldn't support her decision and that I wouldn't be her sanctuary in that case, either. I told her I'd do whatever I could to help her get through the last few months till graduation, that I'd even go to bat with Dad or make up some reason why she had to stay with me all the time until she was finished with the year but that if she dropped out she was totally on her own."
“And you were hoping that would scare her out of the idea."
"Absolutely," Clair said. "That was my only goal."
But the memory of that last time she'd seen her sister was so hard for her that it formed a lump in her throat and she couldn't go on eating. She could barely talk.
"But Kristin dropped out, anyway," Jace guessed, prompting her but also, it seemed, trying to help her through the sudden rough patch she'd hit.
Clair shrugged helplessly. "She just disappeared. That night – the night I gave her the ultimatum – after I went to bed, she slipped out of the apartment, and that was the last I ever saw of her or heard from her."
Clair took a sip of wine in hopes that it might help her fight the tears that welled up in her eyes. She'd cried often enough over this; she didn't want to do it again in front of Jace and Willy.
When she finally gained some control she said, "Kristin didn't tell me – she didn't even hint – that she was pregnant. I didn't have any idea until the Millers' lawyer contacted us about Willy."
"Wow."
"Of course I realized then what had been going on with her. She must have been too embarrassed to think about going back to school. Too embarrassed to even let me know what was really going on. But..."
Clair had to stop and try to get hold of herself again or she really was going to break down. And she so didn't want to. Bearing the burden of the shame she felt for what had happened with Kristin was bad enough; she didn't want to lay it out for Jace to see. She didn't want to do anything that might make him feel sorry for her, because she honestly didn't believe she deserved sympathy. Not after the way things had ended up because of her actions.
Only when she thought she could continue in a normal voice did she say, "Kristin's boyfriend – I assume the father of the baby – had dumped her for someone else, and he was being brutal about the fact that he didn't want anything more to do with her. When I found out she had been pregnant I put two and two together. I'm sure facing him with the news, or even going back to school and having one of her friends let the word get out, was more than she could stand. And of course she had to know how my father would have reacted – an unwed teenage daughter was definitely not something he would have been nice about. But she could have told me. I would have stood by her no matter what and we could have worked things out together."
"But she didn't give you the chance."
"I'm not making excuses for myself."
"I didn't think you were. I don't see where there are any excuses that need to be made. You did the right thing based on the information you had at the time. It was Kristin's choice to take off without telling you the truth."
"But if I hadn't given her an ultimatum maybe she would have eventually told me. Or if I'd listened more closely or been more open or more patient or – ''
"Stop," he commanded in a quiet, kind, gentle tone. His blue eyes looked directly into hers and somehow forced her to focus outside herself, outside the memories she'd been torturing herself with, outside her own guilt and pain.
"You didn't do anything wrong," he told her. "Do you hear me? You did the best you could have done for your sister before that night, and that night you did the best thing for her under the circumstances as you knew them. You're not to blame for anything."
"Except because of what happened that night I lost touch with my sister, she ended up dying alone in an apartment she might not have been in otherwise, and now you're raising my nephew instead of his mother or even me."
Jace shook his head. "Things happen the way they're supposed to, Clair. I don't know why. You don't know why. But what I do know is that anything that takes as crazy a route as this whole thing has taken was meant to be."
"What was meant to be was that you should end up raising Willy?"
"Maybe. And maybe, too, what was meant to be was that, for whatever reason, our paths would cross."
He was still holding her eyes with his, and that statement given at another moment might have been very romantic. But that wasn't how he'd delivered it. He'd said it matter-of-factly and without any insinuation or innuendo or flirting or lasciviousness. He was only trying to comfort her.
Yet on the heels of that innocent comfort Clair suddenly flashed on the image of him comforting her with more than just words. She flashed on the image of him comforting her with those big, hard arms around her. With kisses that would be sweet and tender. And then maybe not so sweet and tender. Maybe passionate...
She realized belatedly where her mind had wandered and yanked it back into line.
What's wrong with me? she thought. How, even in the midst of thinking about the worst things she'd been feeling since learning about Kristin and the baby, could she slip into thoughts of Jace Brimley holding her, kissing her?
Maybe it was just gratitude, she told herself, since no one before him had told her she wasn't at fault for what had happened to her sister, to her nephew. And, in fact, her father had been the first to lay blame at her doorstep.
Yes, gratitude. That's all there was to it....
"Done now," Willy announced out of the blue then, oblivious to what was going on around him. Oblivious to Clair's heightened emotional state – both the one over her sister or the one she'd just worked herself into over Jace.
Jace broke off their eye contact then, and only when he did, did Clair realize he'd been held in her gaze, too. And she wondered what had been going through his mind when kissing had been going through hers?
But whatever spell had been mesmerizing them was broken and so was the subject of Kristin and the past, as Willy demanded attention.
"We've been neglecting you, haven't we?" Clair said to him as she worked her way out of whatever it was that had just woven itself around her and Jace.
It seemed to take him a split second longer than it had taken her to come back to the moment, and when he did his voice was slightly deeper, more husky. "Why don't you go get ready for your bath, Willy," he suggested. “Get your towel and whatever toys you want to bring in tonight."
Willy's chubby-cheeked face once more pinched into a frown, and he pointed a stubby index finger at Clair while addressing Jace. "Her no see me."
Maybe his modesty shouldn't have been amusing but something about the way he'd said that made both Clair and Jace smile. It also eased the tension, the electric charge in the air between them.
"Okay, Clair doesn't have to come in if you don't want her to. But I promised she could hear your bedtime story afterward and we can't go back on a promise."
He'd made no such promise to her, but Clair was grateful that he was attempting to include her before Willy could order her out of that portion of the nightly ritual, too.
"Why don't I just put the dishes in the dishwasher while I wait," she said.
"Company doesn't do the dishes," Jace decreed.
"Okay," Clair pretended to agree. Then she waited for Jace and Willy to leave her alone to do them, anyway.
The bath and the kitchen cleanup took about the same amount of time, because just as Clair was rinsing out the sink a sullen, begrudging little voice from behind her said, "You could come now."
She turned to find Willy in footed pajamas decorated with the same cartoon dog that had been on his shirt.
"More Scooby-Doo, huh?" she commented as Willy led her out of the kitchen, up the stairs and to a bedroom decorated with a bear and train motif.
"Dooby-Doo," Willy yelled like a war cry just before running and jumping onto a small twin bed.
As Jace pulled a rocking chair from a corner to the bedside he said, "How 'bout you sit in Clair's lap tonight while I read?"
"No," was Willy's resounding answer. "You lap."
Jace gave Clair an apologetic shrug and sat in the rocker himself. "Why don't you sit on the bed," he offered as a consolation prize as Willy wasted no time climbing into his lap and settling in, complete with what looked to be a washcloth that he poked a finger into and began stroking his own cheek with.
Clair did as Jace had suggested and sat on the edge of the bed.
She ached to have Willy respond to her the way he did to Jace. To have the toddler climb into her lap. To have him snuggle against her as the end-of-the-day weariness overtook him and the ball of energy he'd been since morning turned into a soft, cuddling little sweetheart.
But if she couldn't have that just yet, the next best thing was seeing him that way with Jace.
The small boy curled into the cocoon of the big man's body as Jace read rhyming, sing-song words in a hushed baritone, his huge hands dwarfing the child's book he held.
It was a picture for a family album. A picture to pull out years and years down the road to tug at heartstrings and recall that there weren't only special occasions that were momentous, that some small moments were pretty special, too.
Willy fell asleep before Jace was halfway through the book, but Clair didn't tell him. She just went on enjoying the sight of the sleeping child and of the man who held him.
She couldn't help marveling again at Jace Brimley. At all the parts of which he was made. The incredible-to-look-at physical parts and the inner parts, too. And even though she might not know him well yet, she already had no doubt that he was something pretty terrific.
When he'd finished the book, he glanced down at his charge. Finding Willy sleeping made him smile the softest smile Clair had ever seen from a man.
Then he raised his glance to her and bathed her in that same smile.
He motioned for her to get up with just a tilting of his head and then he set the book on the nightstand and very carefully eased Willy from his lap into bed.
Once he had the boy situated, he tucked the covers around him, switched on a horse-shaped night-light and turned off the lamp.
Clair watched him press a kiss to the boy's forehead, and then he turned to her, pointing toward the door as he placed a hand at the small of her back to guide her out of the room.
That hand at the base of her spine, through her clothes, was nothing more than a gentlemanly gesture. But it sent tiny lightning bolts from that spot all the way through her.
He had a magic touch with Willy, she thought, and maybe it extended to her, too.
But his hand only stayed on her back as they left the room, and Clair felt an unexpected wave of disappointment at the loss when he removed it. Enough of a wave of disappointment to warn her that with Willy not awake to chaperone them she was in dangerous territory.
"It's been a long day. I should get going," she said before her willpower failed her and she gave in to the temptation to linger.
Jace didn't argue as they headed away from the bedrooms toward the stairs. He just said, "Willy has a doctor's appointment tomorrow – a recheck on an ear infection – so we won't go out to the ranch. I told him we'd go to the park afterward as a treat. You're welcome to come."
Was she honestly hearing a note of hopefulness in his tone?
She couldn't be sure. But one way or another she did feel perfectly welcome. She just wasn't sure to what.
"To the doctor's appointment or to the park?" she asked to clarify.
"Both. Although I have to warn you he won't behave too well at the doctor's appointment."
"That's okay, I'd like to tag along again. I keep hoping that the more time I spend aro
und him the more he'll get used to me and maybe eventually warm up."
"I'm sure he will."
They went down the stairs side by side and, with the front door in sight, Clair said, 'T really appreciate everything you did today and tonight to try to get him interested in me. Even if it didn't work." "Sure."
When they reached the entrance to the house, Clair put one hand on the knob, but rather than turning it to open the door she paused to look up at Jace.
He was studying her very intently, and she wasn't sure why.
"Do I have something on my face?" she joked, feeling her nose, chin and one cheek just in case.
He smiled again. A smile different from that tender one earlier. A purely adult smile full of charm and deviltry and a simmering sensuality.
"I was just thinkin' how much you look like Willy around the eyes. Yours sparkle the same way his do. And around the mouth, too..."
He was staring openly at her mouth. But then, she was staring openly at his, too, as those earlier thoughts of kissing rushed back into her mind.
"It's the Fletcher mouth," she said for no good reason and in a voice that was far too breathy, too sexy, too inviting.
"Is that so?" he nearly whispered back much the same way.
And then he was leaning forward. Very slowly. Until he touched his lips to hers.
But only for the briefest of moments before he straightened up and away from her.
"I probably shouldn't have done that, huh?" he said, but the upward curve of just one corner of his mouth belied any regret.
"Probably not," she agreed but without enough force to be convincing.
Yet even as she recognized a longing in her for another kiss, for a better one, for one more like those she'd fantasized about, she knew this really wasn't something they should be doing. Not when she'd come there to take Willy away from him if she could.
So she turned the knob she was still holding and finally opened the front door.
"What time is the doctor's appointment tomorrow?" she asked, forcing a less personal tone into her voice.
Baby Be Mine Page 5
