Five Brothers and a Baby

by Peggy Moreland

  Maggie sank back on her heels to stare at him in horror. "I can't believe you said that!"

  He lifted a shoulder. "It's the truth."

  "Whether it is or not," she said furiously, "isn't the point. It was cruel and totally uncalled for. When your father refused to marry her, Star could have taken the easy way out and had an abortion. But she chose to keep her baby. I'd think that says a lot for her moral character."

  "If she had any morals, she wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place."

  Incensed, Maggie balled her hands into fists on her knees. "Oh, that is so like a man! Your entire gender is nothing but a bunch of lying cowards. You all go around telling women you love them and promising them the moon and the stars just to get them into bed with you. Then, when the woman winds up pregnant, you turn tail and run, leaving her to deal with the problem alone."

  Ace slammed the lid down on the box and faced her. "Not all men. I, for one, have never lied to a woman to get her to go to bed with me, and I've never gotten one pregnant, either."

  "Yet," she said, pointedly. "And if you ever did get a woman pregnant, I'd hope, for the child's sake, that you would turn tail and run."

  "And why would you want me to do that?"

  "No child deserves a father who's incapable of loving or caring for them."

  "Who says I'm incapable of caring for a kid?"

  Lifting a brow, Maggie tipped her head toward the sofa and the baby sleeping in the car seat.

  Ace scowled. "She's not my kid."

  "No. She's your sister."

  "Half sister," he corrected.

  "And being only 'half' prevents you from loving her or caring what happens to her?"

  "Aren't I trying my damnedest to find Star's relatives so that the kid will have a home?"

  "You're trying to get rid of her," Maggie told him. "And what happens to Laura if you don't find a relative?"

  He opened his mouth, then clamped it shut again. Grabbing the second box, he ripped the top open and dumped its contents on the floor. Confronted with nothing but more clothes and a tangle of shoes, he lurched to his feet. "This is nothing but a waste of time."

  As he strode for the door, Maggie stared after him, wincing when he slammed it behind him. Slowly she began to gather the scattered clothes and shoes.

  Well, so much for kindness and understanding, she thought glumly.

  * * *

  Maggie stepped back to admire her work, pleased with the way the nursery had turned out. Though she'd deliberated long and hard over how far to go with the room's transformation, she'd finally decided it best to keep Laura's integration into the Tanner household as unobtrusive and subtle as possible. As a result, she'd rearranged the furniture only a bit, creating the space needed for the new crib and changing table that had been delivered that day. She'd taken down the heavy drapes that hung at the windows, but had left the sheers in place. The drapes could easily be rehung, if Ace demanded it—although she sincerely hoped he wouldn't. Without the heavy fabric to block the light, the once dreary bedroom across the hall from Maggie's was now a cheerful, sun-filled space, perfect for a nursery.

  Tired, but satisfied with the results of her afternoon's work, she crossed to the crib and reached down to pick up the baby. "And what do you think of your new room, precious?" she asked, turning and holding the infant against her chest so that the baby could see her new room. "Isn't it beautiful?"

  Laura opened her mouth in a big, sleepy yawn.

  Maggie laughed. "Well, it's a good thing I've got thick skin," she said, as she moved to sit down on the rocker. "Otherwise, your lack of enthusiasm would've hurt my feelings."

  Shifting the infant to the crook of her arm, she pushed her toe against the floor and set the rocker into motion. Within seconds, Laura's eyelids, already heavy with sleep, fluttered down, her eyelashes curling tightly against her cheeks. Smiling softly, Maggie traced a finger beneath the furl of lashes, marveling at how much the baby had grown and changed in the few short weeks since her birth. She tried to imagine what Laura would look like as a young woman. Would she have her mother's fragile, waif-like beauty? Or had she inherited her bone structure from the Tanner side and would have high, sculpted cheekbones like Ace?

  Ace.

  At the thought of him, she dropped her head back with a groan. What was she going to do about him? He hadn't said more than a dozen words to her over the past week. And when he did bother to speak to her, it was as he was going out the door, telling her not to wait dinner for him. His silence frustrated her almost as much as did his absences. How could she hope to foster a relationship between him and the baby, if he was never around?

  Earlier in the week, she'd given serious thought to leaving, thinking that without her there to care for the baby, he would be forced to interact with Laura. But she'd discarded the idea, fearing that, if she did leave, Ace would do something desperate, like turn Laura over to the state's Child Welfare Department, rather than take care of her himself. Maggie shuddered at the thought of Laura being subjected to one of the nightmarish foster homes she'd lived in as a child.

  You see yourself in this kid, don't you? Dixie had said. You think by sticking with her, you can prevent happening to her what happened to you.

  Maggie felt a prickle of guilt, remembering her response. She hadn't denied Dixie's suspicions, thus avoiding a lie, but she hadn't confirmed them, either.

  But the similarities were there for any fool to see.

  Trisha Dean, Maggie's mother, may not have died after giving birth to Maggie, as Laura's mother had, but for all practical purposes she might as well have. Unfortunately, the parallels didn't stop there. Maggie's mother had led as loose and irresponsible a life as Laura's mother had; maybe even more so.

  At fifteen, Tricia Dean was living on the streets, pregnant with Maggie and well on her way to becoming a drug addict. Within six months of Maggie's birth, she'd hooked up with a pimp, who kept her supplied with drugs in exchange for turning tricks for him. Within nine, her baby had been taken away from her and placed in a foster home.

  But Tricia had never lost contact with her daughter, in spite of the number of times the social workers had moved Maggie from one foster home to another. On a few occasions, she'd even convinced the social workers that she was clean and had persuaded them to return Maggie to her care.

  But those occasions were rare and never lasted long.

  Raised by an ever-changing set of foster parents, by the age of twelve, Maggie was street-wise enough to recognize her mother's drug habit. The runny nose. The shaking hands. The unnatural thinness. What started out as resentment toward her mother, built over the years and slowly festered into hate. Maggie despised the dumps her mother lived in and the men who came and went at all hours of the night. But most of all, she despised her mother's weakness that made her choose a life of drugs and prostitution over one with her own daughter.

  In the end, when Tricia was dying, her organs destroyed by the drugs she'd pumped into her system, she'd asked for Maggie. At first, Maggie had refused to see her mother. But she'd finally agreed to visit her, planning to say a quick "thanks for nothing," then split, severing a tie that had never existed in the first place.

  But when Maggie had stepped inside the crowded hospital ward and seen her mother lying in the bed, the bitter words had dried up in her throat. There was nothing left of her mother but paper-thin skin stretched over protruding bones and hollowed-out eyes that stared at nothing. Her hair, what was left of it, stuck out in wild tufts that looked fried, as if she'd given herself a home perm and left the solution on too long. Wide, white restraining straps had bound her chest, hips and legs, leashing her to the bed.

  Stunned by her mother's emaciated appearance and appalled by the bonds that held her prisoner, Maggie had sunk weakly down on the chair beside the bed. She had no idea how long she'd sat there, before her mother had turned her head on the pillow, and Maggie had looked into eyes the same tobacco-brown as her own. Recognition had fla
red for a moment in Tricia's eyes, followed by tears that dripped onto the pillow, chased there by a lifetime of wrong turns and regrets.

  The sight of her mother's tears shouldn't have gotten to Maggie. Not after all the years of abuse and neglect. But for some stupid reason they had, and Maggie had ended up staying. She'd clung to her mother's hand while Tricia had screamed and fought the restraints, begging for the very drugs that were killing her. She'd wiped her mother's brow and wet her parched lips when Tricia's ranting would cease and she would slip back into a comatose state.

  Hours had turned into days and days into weeks, with Maggie remaining by her mother's bedside, nursing her, while watching and praying for her death. As the chilling rattle of her mother's last breaths had echoed around her, Maggie had vowed then and there that she'd never make the mistakes her mother had made, that she'd never allow herself to become so dependent on anything or anyone that she'd sacrifice her life for them.

  She'd slipped up once. A small slip that had almost cost her her self-confidence, her pride. Her sanity. But, thanks to Dixie, she'd managed to pull herself out of that dark hole and she'd started her life anew.

  Blinking back tears as the memory faded, Maggie looked down at Laura. "But you'll never know that kind of pain," she whispered. "You're a Tanner."

  * * *

  Six

  « ^ »

  Avoiding someone who lived in the same house wasn't all that easy. Ace managed to pull it off by staying up nights sorting through the files in his father's office, then stumbling to bed in the wee hours of the morning and sleeping until noon each day. When he'd awaken, he'd head straight for town and spend his afternoons locked away in the offices of the family's lawyers and accountants, trying to get a handle on the Tanner assets and holdings. He'd already decided he was getting out of Tanner's Crossing and off the Bar-T as quickly as possible. But before he could, he had to make certain he could fulfill his duties as executor of his father's estate from his home in Kerrville.

  From the hours he'd spent with the lawyers and accountants and those alone digging through his father's files, he'd determined that the bulk of the family's assets was comprised of real estate, most of which was raw land. Their holdings also included a number of office buildings, warehouses and a half-dozen or so apartment complexes in town, but those properties were all handled by a management company, so weren't a problem. The balance of the estate consisted of stocks, bonds and other "paper" investments that would require only occasional monitoring, which Ace knew from experience he could handle by phone or fax from anywhere in the world.

  That left him with only the ranch to deal with. And until Ace hired a manager, one he could trust, it looked as if he was going to be stuck there awhile longer.

  With Maggie.

  Sighing, he pulled his truck to a stop in front of the ranch house and killed the engine. Leaning back against the seat, he rubbed a hand absently over his bandaged ribs as he looked over at the house. He knew she was inside, and knew, too, that he couldn't avoid her forever.

  He owed her an apology. A big one. The things he'd said about Star… He shook his head, a week later still shamed by the memory. All that talk about moral character. He hadn't meant a word of it. That had been his anger talking. His resentment. Most of which would've been better directed at his old man.

  But without the old man there to take his frustrations out on, Ace had unloaded them on Maggie. He'd hurt her with the things he'd said. He'd known it immediately by the stricken look on her face, the angry way in which she'd lashed back. But he hadn't been able to stop himself.

  To her credit, she'd fought back, and valiantly, striking him with blows where, he was sure, she thought she could hurt him the worst. He could still hear the accusation in her voice, the venom, when she'd told him that she hoped, if he ever got a woman pregnant, he'd turn tail and run. Little did she know that he never intended to get a woman pregnant, whether he was married to the woman or not. But she had managed to get in a hit when she'd accused him of not loving or caring for the baby just because the kid was a half sister and not a full sibling.

  Half. Full. The degree of blood Ace shared with the kid wasn't what kept him from caring. He didn't want to care, didn't want the responsibility or heartbreak of taking on any more of his old man's screw-ups. He'd spent years running riot control over his old man's mistakes, smoothing out the upheaval caused by his father's selfish and careless acts, and he didn't intend to take on that role again. Ever.

  But all that didn't matter, he told himself, and pushed open the truck door. Not now, at any rate. He had some crow to eat and putting it off wasn't going to make it any easier to swallow.

  He'd expected to find Maggie in the kitchen, preparing the baby's bottles for the next day, as she did about this time every evening. When he didn't find her there, he headed straight for her room, hell-bent on getting his apology said and his conscience cleared before the sun set on another day. But he didn't find her in her room, either. Wondering where she'd gotten off to, he started to leave, but jerked to a stop, when he noticed that the playpen was missing from the foot of her bed.

  Puzzled by its absence, he turned back to the hall. As he did, he saw that the door to the bedroom across the hall stood open. Usually closed, the open door was enough of an oddity to have him crossing to peer inside.

  The room looked different, he thought, frowning. Lighter. Brighter. And the furniture wasn't where it was supposed to be. The bed, normally standing between the two windows, was shoved up against the far wall, and a crib now stood in its place. A table of sorts was bumped up against one end of the crib, a pile of diapers stacked high on its padded top. Wondering when Maggie had made the changes, he stepped inside.

  And that's when he saw her. Sitting in the rocking chair, her head resting against the chair's pressed back, her eyes closed, the baby asleep in her arms. With the chair angled in front of the window, the fading sunlight streamed across it, bathing both her and the baby in a hazy pool of golden light.

  As he stared, a memory seeped slowly into his mind. One of his mother sitting in that same chair, rocking one or another of his brothers to sleep. Usually Rory, as he had always been difficult to settle down for the night. As she'd rock, she'd always sung a lullaby. Ace couldn't remember the words, but the tune played through his rind, as did the sound of her voice. Soft … melodious … soothing. As a youngster, he'd often sat out in the hall, his back to the wall, listening to the rhythmic creak of the rocker and the comforting sound of her voice, wishing like hell he was still small enough to crawl up in her lap to be rocked.

  Even now, he could recall the contentment that would steal over him when she'd rocked him, feel the butterfly-soft comb of her fingers through his hair, the whisper of her breath against his cheek. She'd always smelled of roses, her breath of mint. Pleasant scents that, to this day, never failed to bring his mother to mind.

  Slowly the memory receded and it was Maggie he stared at in the rocker. He wanted to be there, he realized, his throat closing around the urgency in that want. He wanted to sit in that old, oak rocker, with his hands gripped over the wooden armrests. He wanted to feel the wood's grain beneath his palms, a grain worn smooth by four generations of Tanner hands. He wanted to press his back against the narrow, oak slats carved by his great-great-grandfather and feel the sturdiness of the bowed wood giving beneath the pressure of his spine. He wanted to close his eyes and set the rocker into motion, letting its rhythmic movement lull his mind.

  But he didn't want to be alone in the rocker, he realized slowly. He wanted Maggie there, too. On his lap. He wanted the comforting weight of her head nestled in the curve of his shoulder, the warmth of her body curled against his. He wanted her fingers stroking over his face, her touch feather-light, slowly unraveling the tension from his mind and body. He wanted to feel the moist warmth of her breath on his face, the pillowed softness of her lips beneath his. He wanted to taste her seductive flavor, savor it…

  Oh, God, he thou
ght, balling his hands into fists against the need that twisted painfully inside him. He wanted her. Needed her more than he needed his next breath.

  But Ace hadn't allowed himself to need anything or anyone in years. Wasn't even sure he could handle the level of emotion that kind of need generated, if he dared open himself up to it again. Knowing that, he remained just inside the door, scared spitless to take that first step toward her, yet wanting to so badly, it was a burning knot of pain in his chest.

  As he stood, paralyzed by his fears, Maggie stirred and blinked open her eyes. A furrow creased her brow, as she slowly brought him into focus.

  "Ace? Is something wrong?"

  Her voice, husky with sleep and suffused with concern, seemed to wrap itself around his chest and squeeze. He shook his head, for a moment, unable to speak. "We need to talk."

  Her frown deepened. "Now?"

  "Yeah," he said, then added, "Outside," thinking, if he could just get out of this room and away from the memories it evoked, he could get a handle on his emotions.

  Though she gave him a curious look, she didn't question his request. She simply rose and crossed to put the baby in the crib. After switching on the portable intercom hanging from the crib's top rail, she slipped a small monitor into her pocket and followed him out into the hall.

  Ace led the way, acutely aware of the sound of her footsteps a few short steps behind. Once outdoors, he stopped to fill his lungs with the clean, fragrant air, praying it would release some of the tension that knotted his body, chase away the memories that still tangled in his mind.

  When it did neither, he released the breath on a weary sigh. Giving his chin a jerk, indicating a field on his left, he said, "Let's walk."

  Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he stepped off the porch and started off, leaving Maggie to follow.

  By the time he had crossed the field and started up the low rise beyond it, the sun had sunk to a crescent of fire on the horizon that washed the landscape with the muted tones of twilight. At the top of the rise, he drew to a stop before a low iron fence, until that moment unaware that all along his destination had been his family's cemetery.