Baby Be Mine

by Victoria Pade

  Clair swallowed the lump in her throat, wishing she wasn't being bathed in that cold stare, wishing that she were still seeing the warmth his eyes had held for her until that moment.

  But he wanted too much of her. Just the way Lyle had. Too, too much...

  "You know you could always move to Chicago," she ventured feebly.

  Jace just shook his head, and she knew without his saying it that the idea was lame.

  Clair squared her shoulders and tried to convince herself that the man she was facing – the same big, strong, unbelievably handsome, caring man – was now her enemy. And she said, "I guess it'll be between lawyers then."

  "Bring 'em on," he dared her, arching one eyebrow in challenge.

  There didn't seem to be anything left to say. Clair grabbed up her scattered clothes and took them with her out of his room, out of his sight, only slipping onher jeans under his shirt and her feel into her shoes before she walked out of his house completely.

  And as she did she tried to find comfort in the fact that, for the second time, she'd been strong enough not to give up everything for a man.

  The only problem was, this time losing the man made her feel as if she'd just lost everything....

  Chapter Eleven

  Rennie Jennings was in her bathrobe, sitting on her couch with a cup of coffee and the morning newspaper when Clair let herself into Rennie's house a few moments later.

  Clair wasn't happy to come face-to-face with her hostess when she was dressed in Jace's shirt, carrying her own clothes in a wadded up bundle and obviously just out of Jace's bed. It was no way to be seen by anyone, let alone by the town minister's sister.

  And it didn't help that at sometime on the dash across the yards, a waterfall of hot, unwanted tears had begun to streak paths down her cheeks.

  "What's the matter? Are you all right?" Rennie asked the moment she glanced up at Clair, alarm resounding in her voice.

  "I'm fine," Clair lied, as if it would throw her hostess off the track when there was so much evidence to the contrary.

  "You're not fine. You're crying. When I saw that your bed hadn't been slept in last night I thought good things must have happened next door. But now – did something bad happen? Is Willy okay? Jace?"

  "Willy and Jace are fine."

  "Then what's wrong?"

  "Just a bad start to the day," Clair said vaguely, wiping her cheeks with her fingertips as if the tears were merely dust, all the while trying to stanch the flow.

  "Come and sit down and talk about it," Rennie suggested, patting the sofa cushion beside her.

  "You don't want to hear my tale of woe," Clair demurred, reluctant to confide in a stranger and thus trying to make light of what felt anything but.

  "Sure I do. Come on. Maybe it'll help."

  Clair was acutely aware of the fact that Rennie was more Jace's friend than hers. But still she liked the other woman, and it occurred to her that maybe Rennie could give her some insight into Jace that would make for better results than she'd accomplished on her own.

  "Come on," Rennie urged again with another pat of the sofa. "I even have a clean tissue in my pocket," she added as if that were an incentive.

  It made Clair smile slightly, and for some reason sitting with Rennie and telling her the entire tale suddenly had some appeal.

  She set the bundle of clothes on the coffee table, sat on the opposite end of the couch and accepted Rennie's tissue, drying her eyes, blowing her nose and sniffing back any more tears.

  Then she told her hostess the whole story, sparing no details, even when they didn't shed a flattering light on herself, and bringing Rennie up to just moments before, when she and Jace had argued.

  "You came to Elk Creek to take Willy away from Jace?" Rennie asked when she was finished, as if that part of what Clair had told her was the most unthinkable.

  "Willy is my nephew," Clair pointed out needlessly.

  "Well, sure. But Jace...Jace is so amazing with Willy. And Willy is so crazy about him."

  "In other words you think I should just bow out and leave Willy with Jace," Clair said, wondering if maybe she'd made a mistake after all by talking to Jace's neighbor about this.

  "Do you see it differently?" Rennie asked. "Because what I see is a little boy who's come through a pretty big trauma without much fall-out because he has Jace."

  "But Jace isn't his family. I am."

  "I don't think Willy cares much about bloodlines."

  "No, he doesn't care about bloodlines now, not when he's only two and a half years old. But he may care someday. And in the meantime he can't make decisions for himself."

  "He seems to have decided that he loves Jace. That Jace can take the place of his parents. To Willy that makes him family."

  "But I'm really his family. I can give him things Jace can't. I can keep his mother alive for him."

  "Maybe you're looking for a way to keep his mother alive for you," Rennie said gently.

  Clair didn't respond to that. It tweaked a nerve that was still too raw. Instead she said, "What if something happened to your brother and his wife? Would you want Lissa with someone totally unconnected to you or to any of your family? Would you want to be just some outsider from far away who calls once in a while or visits? Or would you want to be a part of her life?"

  Rennie conceded that point with a shrug. "I'd want to be a part of her life, but a part that didn't hurt her in the process. Wouldn't you even consider moving here so Willy could have both you and Jace? Because, I have to admit, that seems like a pretty good solution."

  "Would you be willing to give up everything?" Clair demanded, feeling defensive again.

  "I guess not if that's how I looked at it."

  "How else would you look at it?"

  "Well, if something happened to my brother and his wife and I discovered Lissa with a great guy who I also happened to get hung up on, I'm trying to think of why I wouldn't take the chance to be with Lissa and that man if that man asked me to be."

  "Who said I was hung up on Jace?"

  Rennie glanced down at Jace's shirt and barely suppressed a smile. "Nobody had to say you were hung up on Jace. It's in the air."

  "Okay, I like Jace. He's a good man. A great guy. He's gorgeous. He's nice. He's funny. He's fun to be with. He's incredible with Willy. He's – "

  "And you only like him?" Rennie cut in with a laugh.

  "He's also asking me to give up my whole life," Clair countered. "To leave a job I've worked hard at. To leave my home. To leave my friends. My father – "

  "All right, that's a lot. But he's offering a lot, too."

  Clair wasn't exactly sure what he was offering, because she hadn't let him get far enough to lay it out. But apparently Rennie assumed Jace was offering more than just coparenting.

  "I only know," Rennie said, "that if I were in your shoes I'd give some consideration to what Jace was proposing. Yes, you'd be looking at a big change – "

  "A huge change."

  "A huge change. But in the first place, if you really want what's best for Willy, I'd say that what's best for him is to leave him with Jace. And in the second place, you'd get Jace, too."

  "Are you sure you don't have a thing for him yourself?"

  Rennie laughed. "Absolutely positive. But just because I'm not attracted to him doesn't mean I don't recognize how terrific he is. And apparently so do you or you wouldn't have been singing his praises a minute ago. Or spending last night with him."

  "It doesn't matter how terrific he is if the relationship is all one-sided. If I have to make all the sacrifices for it."

  "Initially you might have to make all the sacrifices. But it isn't as if that will go on indefinitely. Or is that what you're figuring?"

  Well, yes, Clair guessed that was what she'd been figuring. Because that was the way her entire relationship with Lyle had been, and she knew that, had the relationship continued, she would have had to go on sacrificing and adapting and being the only one to give anything up. In fact,
the only way the relationship could have continued was on Lyle's terms.

  "Once it starts out that way – "

  "Jace isn't like that," Rennie said, cutting in again, not even allowing Clair's rationalizing. "He's one of the most giving men I've ever met. He's taken over the raising of someone else's child, for crying out loud. And he's left his own home to do it so Willy could be in familiar surroundings. He's been all about making sacrifices and changes to help that little boy. Plus he sacrifices his time and energy for anyone who needs him. Me, our neighbors, his friends, his family. This is not a person who thinks the world revolves around him. Sure, out of necessity, he may be asking you to make all the changes at the beginning, but I don't see any reason to believe he'll expect that down the road."

  Clair couldn't argue with that because she knew it was true. It just hadn't been something she'd taken into consideration, because she'd only been thinking about the here and now. About what she would have to give up to move to Elk Creek permanently. About Jace being like Lyle...

  Rennie seemed to realize she'd struck a home run and didn't need to say any more because she stood, taking her coffee and newspaper with her.

  "Would you like me to fix you some breakfast?" she offered then, out of the blue. "Maybe you could think better on a full stomach."

  "No, thanks," Clair answered, her head spinning and the distraction of all her thoughts echoing in her voice. "I think I should take a shower."

  "Good idea. Clear away the cobwebs."

  Clair stood, too, following her hostess as far as the hallway that led to the guest room and going off by herself then as Rennie headed for the kitchen.

  But Clair took Rennie's words along with her.

  Was she more concerned with keeping Kristin alive for herself through Willy than keeping Kristin alive for Willy? she asked herself once she was behind closed doors.

  Yes, there was probably a part of that in her reasons for coming to Elk Creek, she admitted. She'd loved Kristin. She'd nearly raised her. And she missed her terribly. She'd missed her terribly since the day Kristin had disappeared. To have the opportunity to see even a shadow of her sister in Willy every day? She couldn't help wanting that.

  But at what expense?a little voice in the back of her mind asked as she slipped out of Jace's shirt, out of her own things, and went into the bathroom for her shower.

  Was she willing to meet her own needs at the expense of her nephew's?

  If she was, then she was like Lyle.

  That was not a possibility she appreciated. But once the ball began to roll in that direction it gained some momentum.

  Wasn't she also being like Lyle if she was inflexible? If she was intractable?

  She didn't want to admit that, either, yet under the circumstances it was difficult to deny. She certainly hadn't been willing to bend when it came to Jace's proposal for a future for the three of them.

  But even adapting to fit Lyle's needs had never been as extreme as the change that would face her if she made the move all the way to Elk Creek. A change that big was fraught with the same kind of instability she'd sworn to protect herself from, the same kind of instability she'd suffered as a child. Was it any wonder it had triggered panic in her?

  Clair stood beneath the spray of the shower and just let the warm water flow over her, face and all. But it couldn't wash away the thought that if she forced the custody issue, if she succeeded in taking Willy away from his home, away from Jace, she would be inflicting the same kind of upheaval on Willy that she was trying to spare herself.

  And she'd be putting her own needs ahead of his. She'd be sacrificing his sense of security, his sense of stability, in order to preserve hers.

  Lyle. Lyle. Lyle.

  But there was an alternative, she told herself as she turned off the water.

  She could just go home. And maybe that was what she should do. Maybe she should just leave Willy with Jace, leave everything as it was before and merely keep long-distance contact with her nephew. Then she wouldn't disrupt Willy's life. She wouldn't disrupt her own.

  But offering herself that option did a strange thing. It made her feel empty inside. Lonely. Desolate. It made her heart ache far more than the breakup with Lyle had. The simple thought of going back to Chicago by herself, of leaving Willy behind, of leaving Jace behind, of going on with her life without them, was suddenly unbearable.

  "I guess that's what you get for being inflexible and intractable," she muttered. Lyle had lost her, and she would lose Willy and Jace.

  But while Lyle may not have cared enough about losing her to do anything to stop it, she cared a whole lot about losing Willy and Jace. She cared so much that she suddenly knew with clarity that it wasn't what she wanted. No matter what.

  What she wanted was just what she'd had since arriving in Elk Creek – Willy, Jace, being with them each day and each night.

  Even if it meant giving up everything else.

  What had Jace said this morning? What about last night? Was it all nothing?

  And what had she thought? That it hadn't been "nothing" but that it couldn't be everything.

  Now she wasn't so sure that was true. Could what was between her and Jace – could a family made up of Jace and Willy and her – be everything to her? Could it be the trade-off Jace had talked about that made all the change, all the upheaval, all the sacrifice, worth it?

  It seemed as if it could.

  Besides, the more she thought about Jace and the sort of man he was, the more she knew that Rennie was right when she'd pointed out that all the changes she would need to make were initial changes, that it wasn't setting the course for the whole relationship with Jace. Jace definitely wasn't someone who would expect her to do all the adapting all the time, the way Lyle had.

  No, the longer she mulled over the whole thing, the stronger was her belief that she could have a good life with Jace. A wonderful life with Jace. That she could have just the life she'd always dreamed of.

  It just had to start out with her making the first sacrifices, the first compromises.

  At least, she assumed a life together was what he'd been talking about.

  As she stepped out of the shower something else – something far less encouraging – flashed through her mind. The memory of Jace's expression when he'd finally accepted that she wasn't going to agree to move to Elk Creek, that she wasn't going to agree to sharing in Willy's upbringing, when she'd threatened him with lawyers.

  His handsome face had turned cold. Hard. Angry.

  She'd thought that she was looking at an adversary. Someone who was suddenly nothing more than an adversary ....

  A shiver shook her and it had nothing to do with the dampness she was drying from her skin.

  What if she'd ruined things with him? What if she'd destroyed his feelings for her and now he'd rather battle for Willy than have her in his life?

  But this is Jace, she thought. Kind, considerate, compassionate, understanding Jace....

  Who had already been hurt deeply by a woman Clair knew was like her in some ways.

  She'd just have to sell him, she told herself, working to push past the fear and trying to put Jace in the same category as a valuable client who had so far only seen mediocre ad campaigns from her. She'd have to win him over in spite of the similarities to his ex-wife. She'd have to let him know just how ready and willing she was to make one more major change in her life.

  She'd have to let him know just how much she loved him.

  Because she did love him, she realized. She loved him more than she'd ever loved any man. And she loved Willy, too. She loved them both enough to do anything to be with them.

  "He's going to think I'm crazy," she told her reflection in the mirror as she thought about knocking on his door a scant few hours after running out on him to say, Never mind, if you'll still have me I'll stay after all....

  But whether or not he thought she was crazy, whether or not he was still angry with her, going next door and telling him she wanted what s
he thought he'd been proposing was exactly what she had to do.

  Because not doing it meant not having Jace. Not being with Willy.

  And that was just not something she could settle for....

  Chapter Twelve

  Clair had to wait longer than she'd expected to talk to Jace. By the time she'd dressed, done her hair and makeup and returned next door, he was gone.

  She'd considered going out to the ranch, tracking him down, but she had no idea who might be with him there, and the idea of doing what she was intent on doing in front of his mother or brothers seemed like a bad one.

  So she waited. And worried. And paced. And rehashed Jace's every word a hundred times, searching for encouragement in what he'd said before she'd rejected him.

  Rennie was with her most of the day and that helped. Once Clair had confided her decision to the other woman, Rennie couldn't have been more supportive. The minister's sister assured Clair that she was doing the right thing. That it would all work out. That Jace's anger and coldness of the morning were only natural and would disappear just as soon as Clair told him she was staying.

  And while Clair hoped it was all true, another part of her worried that it wasn't. She even tortured herself with thoughts that maybe Jace had picked up Willy and taken him away someplace where she'd never be able to find them. Where she'd never see either of them again.

  But just after suppertime, as Clair stood vigil at Rennie's picture window, she finally saw Jace's truck turn the corner at the end of the block.

  "Here he comes!" she called in an excited voice, despite the fact that Rennie was sitting on the sofa just behind her.

  Taking her cue, Rennie set aside the paperwork she'd been doing, sprang to her feet and followed Clair as she rushed out of the house.

  They'd had long enough today to hatch a plan, and neither of them needed to say a word to put that plan into action. So, as they hurried across the yards, the only thing Rennie said was, "It'll be okay. Just keep your eye on the prize." -