Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series)

by Watters, Patricia

  Put your bitterness aside... it's eating away at you...

  Bitterness because the mother of the baby was gone? Did she leave Jack after the baby died? And was Jack the cause of the baby's death? Then maybe Jack blamed the mother for the baby's death, so much so that all reference to her was barred from the marker.

  You want your son but not his mother... you think that will keep your son safe...

  Keep his son safe from what? A mother who might harm him? Or maybe a mother who accidentally dropped him, or didn't know what to do when he choked, or let his fever get too high before calling the doctor. As obsessive as Jack was about her prenatal care, she could see him holding any woman accountable for almost anything that might happen to a baby during his birth, or after he was born. Holding her accountable if something went wrong.

  But she also knew Jack must have loved his son deeply because whatever happened to cause his death was eating away at him. Before passing judgment, she'd ask his mother what happened. She also wondered if Jack had been married to the mother of his son. For some reason, she believed he had because Jack didn't seem the kind of man who would make the mistake of having a child out of wedlock.

  She looked around the small enclosed area. The place was a shrine. A stone bench was placed a few feet back from the marker, and between thin patches of snow were little concrete birds and rabbits and one small angel. Evergreen shrubs were carefully trimmed, and the leaves of crocus sprouted in clusters from ornamental pots. There wasn't a weed inside the iron fence, but beyond, a web of last season's weeds lay flattened by the recent snow. She sat on the bench and stared at the marker, but after a while, she worried that Jack might return and be angry to find her in his private place, so she left.

  When she returned to the lodge, she found Maureen out front, filling bird feeders. Maureen looked up when she saw her coming, and said, "What's wrong?"

  "I saw the grave," Grace replied. "Jack should have told me about it. I don't know why he's such a tight-lipped man."

  "You're right. Jack can be silent at times," Maureen said, "but losing his son just about killed him, especially when he learned how it happened."

  "Then it wasn't an illness?" Grace asked.

  Maureen shook her head. Setting the birdseed scooper on a chair, she said, "Come inside where it's warm. We'll talk about it there."

  In the lodge, Maureen dragged two chairs close to the fire. After they were settled, Maureen sat silently staring at the fire, her face deeply troubled, then she turned to Grace and said, "Jack's wife killed him. Jack should have told you, but he won't talk about it. He never talks about it. He just holds it inside and lets it keep festering away."

  Grace stared at Maureen in shocked silence as she tried to process what she'd just been told, while also thinking back on things Jack said over the weeks she'd been there and reflecting on his continued sadness. She had a dozen questions to ask Maureen, but one stood out above the rest. "Why did Jack's wife do it?"

  "The baby wouldn't stop crying, so Lauren put a pillow over his face to make him stop and when she removed it, he was dead. It was a month after Jack and Lauren's first anniversary."

  Clothes. The large box in the hall closet. Jack still held onto her belongings.

  And the boxes for the thrift shop?

  "Then the things I put around Jack's house? Were they...?"

  "Wedding gifts," Maureen said. "I should have gotten rid of them years ago, along with Lauren's clothes in the other box. I don't know why Jack hasn't, but there was a lot going on during the time. Susan gave birth to Ricky the same week Lauren had Jackie, and Susan and Sam were dealing with the problems surrounding Ricky. Jack was concerned too, but before then, when the women were pregnant, my boys were model husbands. I was so proud of them."

  Grace thought about that. It was a different side of Jack. With her, he'd been controlling and overprotective. Everything he did was for his unborn son.

  "You have a question," Maureen said.

  Grace nodded. "I was just wondering if, when Jack and his wife were married, Jack tried to, well, run his wife's life?" she asked, wondering if Jack had been a controlling husband.

  "Heaven's no," Maureen replied. "He was loving and caring and attentive to Lauren's needs. And that little baby of his... I never saw a man so proud of a son. Jack was such a good father, and will be a again, but he has to crack through the wall of bitterness surrounding him, and now, with you pregnant at the same time as Susan, and Susan in such a highly emotional state, it's all coming back, and he can't let it happen again. He won't let it happen again."

  "But he must have seen something coming," Grace said.

  "Not at the time, which is why he was so devastated when he learned it wasn't sudden infant death syndrome the baby died from, but because his wife smothered him. Even though Lauren killed the baby, Jack still blames himself for not seeing it coming."

  "How did Jack find out she killed him?" Grace asked.

  "He began to find inconsistencies in Lauren's story. Initially, Lauren said she found the baby on his stomach, but later she said he was on his back and the pillow was over his face. Jack refused to believe she killed him. Still, things weren't right, and he got the feeling she was keeping something from him, so he started questioning her about the inconsistencies in her story, and before it was over, she broke down and admitted she smothered him."

  Grace's hands went to her belly. "No wonder Jack's so anxious about this baby," she said, at last understanding Jack's behavior from the start, and his preoccupation with his unborn son. "He's reading a book on postpartum depression right now. I found the book in his room."

  "That's because he wants to know the signs," Maureen replied. "In court, Lauren claimed it was postpartum depression, but the jurors weren't convinced. It was brought out that Lauren had an extremely impatient nature and a fiery temper and could have acted impulsively. In any event, she was charged with manslaughter instead of murder, so you'll have to bear with Jack through this. He'll be okay after the baby's past four months old."

  "I suppose so," Grace said, "even though Jack has no worries with me. But I can see Susan harming my husband's baby, and if there's a chance she and Sam would let me adopt him, it's what I want, along with having Jack's baby. Where is his wife now?"

  "Ex-wife," Maureen corrected. "Lauren recently got out of the state prison for women, another reason why Jack's edgy."

  "Does he think she'll come here?" Grace asked, wondering what she'd do if Jack's ex-wife showed up at the ranch to find a woman pregnant with Jack's child.

  "No," Maureen replied. "It's just that everything's happening at once—you and Susan due to at the same time, Susan saying things that are troubling, Ricky's health deteriorating, and now, Lauren released from prison. She wouldn't dare face Jack, but there's a chance she could come see Susan. They were close friends, and Susan visited Lauren in prison."

  "After the woman killed her own son, and Jack's?" Grace said. "How could Susan want anything to do with her? Jack must have been furious."

  "He was," Maureen replied. "He and Sam almost came to blows over it, but at the time Lauren killed the baby, Susan and Sam were involved with Ricky so Sam wasn't there for Jack when he needed his brother most, and Jack wasn't there for Sam. Jack donating sperm was kind of a peace offering, and now, with the mix-up, even that failed."

  Grace eyed Maureen with curiosity. "When did Jack last see his ex-wife?" she asked.

  "The day they took her away," Maureen replied. "Jack went home and threw the mattress out the front door, and everything on Lauren's dressing table was strewn across the room, like he'd swiped his arm across it before hurling the dressing table out the front door after the mattress. He left on his horse and didn't come back for a week. Meanwhile, Sam hauled everything away, and Flo and I boxed up the wedding gifts and Lauren's things and put them in the closet. Jack hasn't touched them since, but he left the furniture in the baby's room, and there were nights when I'd see the light on and I knew he was in the
re, I suppose trying to be close to his son. He's a lonely man who thinks he'll fill the void with a new son. It will fill it some, but he'll eventually realize he needs a wife too."

  Maureen looked at her in a curious way, one that told her she was thinking she might one day fill that role, which had crossed Grace's mind too of late.

  "What do I say to him when I see him?" Grace asked. "I can't pretend I don't know."

  "When the time's right, tell him you understand why he wants you at the ranch," Maureen said. "Maybe you'll consider staying now. It's not a bad place to raise boys. I've loved it here from the first day I came as a bride."

  "I might consider it until after the baby comes," Grace replied, "but then I want to get on with my life." She eyed Maureen's denim shirt, jeans, and western boots. She hadn't noticed until now that Maureen was dressed for riding.

  Maureen shrugged. "I still ride my horse whenever the weather's good. Do you know how to ride?" she asked.

  "Only what I learned at summer camp," Grace replied.

  "Then after you have the baby, Jack can teach you. And don't worry. I'll be here to look after...?" Maureen paused. "Does the baby have a name yet?"

  "Adam Jackson Hansen," Grace said impulsively. Until that moment, it never occurred to her to give her baby any last name but hers and Marc's, but being Jack's son, things were different. "He'll get his first name from his grandfather, his middle name in honor of his dead brother, and his last name from his father," she said, as things fell into place. She put her hands on her tummy. "I hope Jack will agree."

  But before Jack could agree to anything, she'd have to find a way to tell him she knew about his ex-wife and dead son. A very troubling thought.

  ***

  After mulling over what she'd learned from Maureen the day before, Grace found herself coming up with more reasons to move into Jack's house than not. As it was, she was occupying a room that Maureen would have been staying in, a room that also had a large-screen TV, and it would still be at least another month before Maureen's house would be ready for her to move back. In Jack's house she'd have him around when her time came to drive her to the birthing center, even there was a foot of snow on the ground, and it would also give Jack the assurance that his son was safe, and if that's what it took to give Jack peace of mind, it was a small sacrifice to make for the man whose presence was beginning to dominate her life, but in a positive way, a man, she realized with startling awareness, that she was slowly falling in love with.

  She could see him filling the void in her life and imagine sharing a bed with him, maybe lying in bed, spoon style, with Jack's arms around her and his hands caressing the places that tingled sometimes when he was around. It had taken her three years to get used to sleeping in a big empty bed, and she missed cuddling at night the way she had with Marc. But the one thing she did know, she could not push Jack. He'd have to come to terms with having a woman in his life again in his own way, and in his own time.

  When she walked over to his house and told him of her decision, he gave her one of his rare smiles that had her heart kicking in, and said, "I'll move my clothes and all of my things out of my bedroom and have Flo come make up the bed."

  "The spare bedroom will be fine," Grace said. "I don't have that much stuff. And don't forget, Mei Ling comes too. Are you ready for her?"

  "If that's what gets you here." Jack touched her face and moved toward her, and when his eyes dropped to her lips she was certain he was going to kiss her again, and she wanted him to, but then he placed his hand on her shoulder instead and gave it a little squeeze, and said, "I'll get Flo and send her over."

  A few minutes later, Flo arrived with an arm load of linens. "Jack said to tell you he's collecting the cat paraphernalia and will bring it over in a few minutes. He wants you to put the cat in the carrier though."

  Grace couldn't help grinning. With Mei Ling settled in the house it would truly feel like home, and once the kittens arrived they'd wrap their little hearts around Jack's, and before long, he'd wonder how he'd ever lived in a house without cats.

  Maureen offered to take her to her house to pick up her things, and it was late afternoon by the time they returned from town. Jack was working the horses, so Sam helped carry in Grace's clothes and shoes all the newborn-baby diapers and little tiny clothes, along with a box with the items from her dresser top.

  For the next two hours, Grace kept busy putting things in place—clamping a baby-mobile onto the headboard of the crib, putting packages of diapers on the shelf beneath the changing table, arranging baby clothes in the dresser. She also hung the paint-by-number picture of the cat on a nail in the wall. She was anxious for Jack to see how she'd fixed up the baby's room as well as her bedroom, with the bedspread from her house and a throw rug, which she put beside the bed, but most of all, she wanted Jack to get used to having her around.

  Feeling suddenly weary, she lowered herself to an overstuffed chair in the living room and looked around. It had been a strange afternoon with Maureen, both pleasant and troubling. Pleasant because Maureen was such an open person, but troubling because when she asked Maureen a few questions about Jack's ex-wife, she was disturbed to learn that not only was Lauren Hansen a strikingly beautiful woman with jet black hair and cerulean-blue eyes—though Maureen was quick to point out that she wasn't all that beautiful—Lauren had also been a child model, won the Miss Teen Oregon contest, was chosen Rodeo Queen, and had been a champion barrel racer. Of course Jack would have been in love with the woman.

  She also learned that Jack had gotten that big buckle he wears when he won world title in bull riding at the national finals in Las Vegas a few years back. Apparently winning the title was a really big thing, although she knew little about rodeos, so it didn't register. As for her, she could never ride a horse the way Jack would expect his wife to ride, if it ever came to that, and brown hair, brown eyes and a non-descript nose and mouth did not add up to striking. But then, maybe she wasn't destined to marry the father of her baby. Maybe she was destined to be Adam Jackson Hansen's mother, the woman with all the cats, who lived in the little house on the Dancing Moon Ranch.

  Her attention was drawn to Mei Ling, and the fact that ever since letting her out of the cat carrier, she'd been restless, but now, the cat bed was empty. The house had been closed, so she knew Mei Ling was inside, but after going to each room to call her, Mei Ling didn't come out from wherever she was. With Grace's belly sticking out so far she was afraid if she got down on hands and knees to look under things, she wouldn't be able to get up.

  Deciding that nothing could be done until Jack came home, she wrote a note with a marker saying, KEEP DOOR CLOSED SO MEI LING WON'T GET OUT, and taped it to the front door. She wouldn't be going to the lodge for dinner, since she and Maureen had eaten in town, and all she wanted was to shower, put on her gown and her robe, and wait for Jack to come home to look for Mei Ling. Cats often hid to have their kittens, so Grace fixed up a box with a hole cut in it and fresh towels inside, and hoped Mei Ling would use it.

  After a long, hot shower beneath a pulsating jet spray, she stepped out of the glass-enclosed stall, her mind filled with lustful thoughts that had surprised her, thoughts that included having Jack in the shower with her, his hands soaping her, and cupping her breasts and stroking her big round belly and moving down to tease that part of her. She defused some of her pent-up sexual energy by drying her hair briskly with a towel and combing her fingers through it to un-snag the tangles, leaving it in a disorderly mess around her face. Then she put on a flannel gown and her terrycloth robe and looped the belt above her protruding belly. But when she left the bathroom, she was startled to see Jack standing at the end of the hallway. The sight of him, looking like a figure out of a cowboy movie—tall, broad-shouldered, denim-clad, wide leather belt and scuffed western boots—near took her breath away.

  Jack made no move to approach her, as if not sure what to do next, yet looking like he wanted to do something but not knowing what. To get around th
e awkwardness, Grace said, "Your mother and I went shopping. Come see the baby's room." She headed down the hallway, hearing the sound of boots on floorboards as Jack followed. She walked into the nursery and stopped, and Jack stood behind her and looked over her head. "How do you like it?" she asked.

  "It's nice," Jack replied.

  "Everything's ready I think, but the shower pulsing against my belly stirred up your son and he's kicking up a storm right now," she said. "Do you want to feel him kick?"

  There was a moment of hesitation before Jack said, "Yes."

  With Jack standing behind her, Grace un-looped the belt of her robe, allowing the robe to fall open, and said, "Then give me your hands."

  When Jack reached his arms around her, she took his hands and placed them over her belly. "His little foot, umm, big foot," she corrected, "is right about here, and if the punch behind his kick is any indication, he's a very strong boy." She removed her hands from on top of Jack's and ran her palms over his corded, forearms where his cuffs were turned back, then returned to cover his hands with hers.

  Jack said nothing, just stood with his chest against her back, and his arms curved around her, and his palms against her belly.

  "Jack?" she asked, when she got no response. "Can you feel him?"

  "Yes," Jack replied. He moved his palms down her belly to just above her pubic bone and held them there for a few seconds, then moved them back to where they'd been, as if realizing he'd crossed a line he shouldn't have.