"Is she married?" the attorney asked.
"No."
"Engaged to be married? Divorced?"
"I don't know." And it surprised him to realize the truth in that, since the feelings he had for her made it seem as if he knew her better than he actually did.
But knowing she had the sweetest lips in four states and smelled better than fresh-baked apple pie wasn't going to do him much good.
"I don't think she's engaged." Or she probably wouldn't be letting him kiss her and kissing him back with so much enthusiasm. "Does it matter?"
"Everything matters if it comes to a custody battle."
"I think she's more a career woman than anything, if that helps." Not that a woman being intensely focussed on her career had done anything but hurt Jace in the past.
"The court could just say that means she can provide for the child financially."
Great. So it could hurt him again.
"Wasn't there a rift in that family?" Harry asked. "If I'm remembering right, without the file in front of me, wasn't the birth mother out on the streets? Didn't the Millers take her in?"
"You're remembering right," Jace confirmed, but it gnawed at him to do it. He'd seen the pain in Clair over that rift with her sister, and it didn't seem right to use it against her. Even if he had to. "I think that's what's motivating this. Clair has a lot of guilt over a falling-out with Kristin. I figure that she wants to make up for what she sees as having failed her and that she wants to do it through Willy."
"Hard to predict how that will go over with a judge. We could use it as the reason she shouldn't be granted custody – say that if she was so concerned and caring she would have helped her sister when her sister needed it. But her side could say guilt is why she'd go to extra lengths to be a good parent, and a judge might agree. I'll tell you one thing – and you should know' that child custody is not my specialty so I'd have to pass you off to the partner who handles that – but I think if this aunt is willing to sue for custody we could have a real fight ahead of us. Yes, it helps that you were the parents' choice to raise their son if the birth mother was out of the picture, and 1 would testify to their strong feelings on the matter, but an unrelated single man as opposed to a female blood relative is not the most ideal case. It's anybody's guess which way a court might rule."
"That's what I was afraid of."
"Where's she from?"
"Chicago."
"So she's come a long way to see the boy."
"Yeah."
"Has she made any noises about taking him home with her? Like even for a visit?"
"No. And Willy won't give her the time of day. She's just workin' at gettin' him to warm up to her."
"Well don't encourage it. In fact, you're better off keeping as much distance from the woman as possible. Beyond that, all I can tell you is to wait and see, and if she makes a move for custody we'll go to war."
Jace thanked the attorney for the consultation and hung up. But it left him with a sour taste in his mouth.
He knew the lawyer was only looking out for his and Willy's best interests, but the idea of not allowing Clair free access to Willy, discouraging a relationship between the two of them, didn't sit well with him.
Maybe from a legal standpoint it was the best thing to do, but from a moral standpoint he wasn't sure it was the right thing to do. Clair was Willy's aunt, after all. Should he be deprived of a connection he might eventually appreciate or even long for? A connection with a blood relative?
And what about Clair? Willy was the only nephew she would ever have. Shouldn't she be allowed to know him? To have a part in his life as she had said she wanted to when she'd first arrived in Elk Creek?
Jace thought she should. He thought both Willy and Clair should have the benefits of their blood tie.
And if the worst possible scenario actually came to be, if he lost Willy to Clair, wouldn't it be better for Willy to know her? To like her? To be comfortable with her? Rather than to be handed over to someone Jace had kept a stranger?
He just hoped it didn't come to that, Jace thought as he returned to replacing the washer on the faucet at the kitchen sink.
Still, the attorney's words about keeping her at a distance rang through his head.
But he wasn't even sure that getting custody of Willy was what Clair wanted, he reminded himself. She hadn't come out and said that was why she was here. It was possible that being a part of Willy's life and Willy being a part of hers, that wanting to make up for what happened between her and Kristin, could just mean that she wanted to be a good, long-distance aunt to the boy. And nothing more.
Except that the longer she was in Elk Creek, the longer Jace spent with her and saw how desperate she was to connect with Willy, the more he felt sure she had an ulterior motive.
And that that ulterior motive was to take Willy away and raise him herself.
So why the hell didn't he do what the lawyer had advised and get some distance from her:
He had to admit that it wasn't only because he thought it was wrong not to allow the contact between Willy and Clair, There was also his own attraction to her. Those two kisses couldn't be denied, and they certainly hadn't come out of any kind of moral righteousness. They'd come out of the weak spot he had for Clair herself.
The same weak spot he'd had for Stephanie, A weak spot for the women he should avoid. Women who had goals diametrically opposed to his own.
He thought he'd learned his lesson, but apparently getting burned once wasn't enough. Because here he was again, hip-deep in who-knew-what with a woman he shouldn't even be friendly with.
And just what was he hip-deep in with Clair? he asked himself.
A couple of innocent kisses weren't too serious all by themselves, but he knew he was kidding himself if he believed that was all there was to it.
He was feeling things he didn't want to be feeling. Stirrings that were hardly innocent. Especially when kissing her wasn't all he wanted to do with her, and both of the last two nights he'd taken to bed with him some hot and wild fantasies of what else he wanted to do with her....
But that, at least, he should stop.
It might be wrong for him not to let her have access to Willy, but he didn't have to get into anything personal with her.
And he shouldn't be getting into anything personal with her.
Because then he was giving her double the ammunition. Double the opportunity to hurt him by not only taking Willy away from him, but by leaving him behind the way Stephanie had. And he didn't think he could go through that again.
Which meant that even if he wasn't going to put any physical distance between Willy and Clair, he should still put some emotional distance between himself and Clair.
Some emotional distance that ruled out kissing, for starters.
But even though that all seemed logical and wise and was surely the best course of action, Jace was still leery.
Because he knew himself. He knew what Clair was churning up in him. He knew just how attracted he was to her and how powerless he was to control that attraction when he was with her. And he was worried that he wouldn't be able to resist her.
So maybe the truth of it was that he'd already rolled the dice by letting her into both his and Willy's lives this far and it was too late to turn back now.
He'd just have to wait and see how those dice came up.
But it didn't sit well with him.
It didn't sit well with him at all....
"There's a storm brewin'. Weatherman is predictin' a spring blizzard, and those can do as much as or more damage than winter ones. So we're droppin' bales of hay for the horses and cattle out on the range in case we can't get back to 'em for a while” Jace explained as he loaded the square bales onto his truck bed early that afternoon.
Willy was making a serious show of helping by picking up handfuls of fallen hay and throwing them onto the truck in much the same way. Except that most of Willy's handfuls ended up on the ground rather than in the truck bed.<
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Clair was enjoying both shows – the little boy imitating the man and the man. Oh, the man! Thigh muscles straining his jeans as he used his legs to bear the weight of the hay. Narrow waist twisting from hay pile to truck and back again. Biceps bulging through chambray shirt and jean jacket as he grabbed each bale, hoisted it and tossed it as if it weighed next to nothing.
The sky was blue-gray with low-hanging ominous-looking clouds that somehow seemed to bring out the color. The wind that was whipping around kept blowing his collar up over the close-cut line of golden-oak hair at his nape.
All in all, the world seemed about to erupt into violence, and he looked capable of taming it if it did.
Can I help?" Clair asked, thinking that doing something besides huddling inside her own wool win-in coal, tunic sweater and jeans might distract her from hes appeal.
The offer caused a slow grin on Jace's heartpoundingly handsome face. "Think you can lift one of these?" he challenged as if the very thought amused him.
“I don't know," she answered honestly, moving to the stack inside the lean-to.
It was well down so she didn't have to reach above hip-level for a bale. But when she did, she misjudged just how heavy it was and barely managed to raise it an inch off the one beneath it before losing her grip and letting it fall back in place.
That made Jace chuckle. “Heavier than that ad copy I imagine you're usually hauling around, aren't they?"
"Is there something else I could do?" she asked, also not thrilled with what the hay did to her ungloved hands.
"How about putting Willy in his car seat to get him out of this wind before it chaps his face? I'll be done here in a minute and we can go."
"Okay."
Jace's attention switched to the little boy, who was making more of a mess than helping. "That's enough now, Willy. Climb into your seat and let Clair buckle you up."
"Wanna hep you," Willy protested. "You've helped me enough. Now go do what I said."
Willy had actually returned Clair's "Hi," when she'd arrived after lunch, and now she was pleased to see that he didn't balk too much at the order to let her buckle his seat belt.
"What a big boy you are," she cooed as he climbed into the truck, onto the seat and finally landed in his car seat. "And you're a good helper, too," she added, shamelessly praising him in hopes of winning him over with flattery.
"Yep," he answered as if she were stating the obvious and he didn't have much regard for her intelligence. But the fact that he was talking to her at all seemed like progress.
Of course it didn't help her intellectual standing when she couldn't figure out which strap went where or buckled into what and the tiny child had to point and say, "It goes dare." But at least he wasn't screaming for her to get away from him.
“Do you like the horses and cows, Willy?" she tried again, staying in the lee of the passenger door with one foot on the runner.
“Yep."
“Ask him what sound the cows make," Jace advised from the back of the truck where his rhythm went uninterrupted.
"What sound do the cows make?" she repeated.
“Moo-oo," Willy complied with gusto.
Clair laughed, hoping it wouldn't offend him.
That's very good. How about the horses? Do you know what sound they make?"
The toddler whinnied comically, and Clair laughed again. "You're great!"
Do the monkey now, Willy," Jace coached from the rear.
Willy not only whoo-whooed, he also scratched under his arm this time, and once more Clair rewarded him with a laugh – something Willy seemed pleased to inspire in her.
“How bout the cat and the dog?" this from Jace again.
“Meow.Woof-woof."
“And the bird?"
"Chup, chup."
"The snake?"
"Husss."
Clair laughed and applauded, exulting as much in her nephew's performance as in the fact that he seemed to be proud of his ability to entertain her.
"Now Unca Ace," the little boy said then, loud enough for Jace to hear.
Jace laughed. "I think you covered everything," he said.
"Now Unca Ace," Willy insisted, giving each word a slow pronunciation, as if Jace might not have understood before.
"You make sounds, too?" Clair called back to him.
"Where do you think Willy learned them?" he bragged.
"Do yion," Willy commanded.
"You do the lion," Jace countered.
Willy roared on cue, then said, "Do hairy monser."
But apparently Jace had anticipated that one because all of a sudden he wasn't at the truck bed anymore. He'd come around the other side of the vehicle to spring up from behind, making horrible growling^-roaring-raging noises and pouncing on both Willy and Clair at once.
Clair hadn't seen him coming and jumped in fright while Willy giggled riotously.
"Sca-wed you," he accused.
"Scared," Jace translated in heir ear, his breath warm and much too arousing there, as he, too, laughed at her.
But Clair didn't mind being the butt of the joke. She was too glad to be included and to have Willy just acknowledging her existence,
"Come on, scaredy-cat, let's get you in the truck so we can go," Jace said then, checking the seat belts Oil Willy's seat before ushering Clair around to the driver's side.
For some reason, this time he helped her into the truck's cab with his hands at her waist. He'd never done ii before – in fact it was the first time he'd touched her at all, despite having kissed her twice now. But it was as if the levity the three of them had just shared had opened a door on camaraderie, on an almost family-type closeness that made it seem natural to have that physical contact.
But natural or not, the trouble was that his big, Strong hands felt so good she didn't want him to take them away. And when he did a tiny bubble of elation deflated inside her.
Still, though, that revelry and that touch set the tone for the drive they embarked on. Jace continued instituting lines that Willy was familiar with, games that taught him things like colors and counting and the alphabet. He also didn't hesitate to nudge Clair with his shoulder or make other contact that, although inconsequential, was physical contact nonetheless and kept pumping air back into that bubble, keeping her spirits and her enjoyment level high.
As they traveled to the farthest reaches of the Brimley property Clair began to realize that not only didn't the Brimleys' farmhouse compare favorably with the larger and more elaborate homes of their neighbors, but that their holdings weren't all that impressive, either. From the fences they encountered along the way, it seemed to Clair that their neighbors owned parcels that narrowed the Brimley property considerably, finally cutting it off completely.
“Am I wrong or do those fences mean your neighbors are trying to swallow you up?" she asked when Jace had unloaded the last of the bales of hay and returned to the truck cab where Willy had fallen asleep in his car seat.
"They've come pretty close," he confirmed.
Clair recalled Jace mentioning that the Brimley ranch wasn't up to par with the others in the area, but at the time he'd seemed not to want to talk about it. Now she wondered if the reason he didn't want to talk about it was that his neighbors were edging him out.
She wasn't sure if she should pursue the subject since he'd already avoided it once.
Then, as if he were reading her thoughts, he said, 4Tt isn't the way you made it sound, though. They aren't the bigger fish layin' in wait for a weak moment so they can devour us. The Culhanes and the Hellers years ago, and the McDermots more recently, have actually bought up land to help us out – much to my father's regret when he was alive. But the man – good as he was as a father – never could make a go of things around here himself."
“Why not?" Clair ventured.
“He grew up here and inherited the place from my grandparents. They bought the land and built a small house when they got married, and even though it wasn't a huge spread, they made a l
iving. But when my father took over he wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted everything on a grander scale. A big family. A big house. He was always try in' to be a contender, as he called it. But he risked too much along the way lather than tendin' to business the way he should have."
"A contender with your neighbors?"
"Yep. Back before the last few years the McDermot place was owned by their grandfather – Buzz Martindale. When Buzz was workin' it, it was on a par with us, so my father wasn't competing with him. The Culhanes and the Hellers were the thorn in his side. Call it poor management or just bad luck, but my dad couldn't keep up with them. Year after year they'd bring in better grain prices or more per head of cattle or make a big sale on a brood mare while my dad was barely makin' ends meet. So he started lookin’ for somethin' that would make him get rich quick."
“Never a good thing,"
“Definitely not the way my dad went about it. He would overplant and produce even more inferior product, or plant some hare-brained crops that wouldn't sell at all. Or he'd put too many animals on too little ground and without enough feed they'd be too scrawny to even take to market. He even tried turnin' the place into a dude ranch, of all things. Boy, was that a bust. And every time he failed, he'd have to sell off more of the land my grandfather had started with to bail us out and put food on the table."
"Did he resent having to turn to his neighbors?" Clair said, guessing that might have had something to do with Jace's earlier reluctance to discuss this.
"He resented them mightily for everything. For their success. For having to go to them for help. For having to work as a ranch hand for them when times were really tough. Like I said, he was a great father, but the man himself? When you said your father has a chip on his shoulder, you could have been talkin' about mine. A big enough chip on his shoulder that I think it put him right into an early grave frettin' and fussin' over everything."
"How are things going now?"
"Better. My brothers and I are slowly rebuilding our holdings by keeping our noses to the grindstone and sticking to the tried-and-true."
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