Taming the Texas Playboy

by Crystal Green

  He didn’t explain any further, because she had to know what he meant.

  When she only nodded then looked back down at her baby, it was as if he was being dragged under the ground. He’d been half hoping that she would put up an argument, but how many times had she told him that she was going to do right by this child? No way was she going to take a risk on a guy with his track record, especially if he hadn’t made any promises to her about mending his wayward habits because he knew it was fruitless.

  Better to disappoint her now rather than later, he thought, his pulse a dull thud.

  “Do you think,” she asked, “the noise from the repair will bother Caroline if I get her to sleep for the night now?”

  “How far down that hallway is your room?”

  “The last one, pretty far back.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

  This was where he should’ve been retreating toward that kitchen, but he couldn’t bring his feet to move.

  “Just one more thing?” she asked.

  Anything, he thought, and in a different world with different rules, he might’ve even been able to provide that for her.

  “No matter how late it is,” she said, “will you knock on my door before you leave? I’ll be waiting up because I’d like to say goodbye.”

  Had her voice cracked on that last word?

  He shouldn’t even wonder.

  “I’ll do that,” he said. At least now he would be able to get one last glance at Caroline…and Ally.

  Then, as he’d done with every other woman, he would move on.

  When he went to the kitchen, he didn’t look back this time—not like he had after their second kiss, the one under the stars. She was as good as gone, and making sure of it would make him do something he might regret, like telling her that he wanted to stay.

  He had no idea how long it took to fix the disposal, but by the time he was done, Mrs. McCarter had stopped by the kitchen to say good-night, and one glimpse out the window showed him a dark sky studded with stars.

  Yet, when he looked at the clock, it wasn’t exactly the dead of night. Not late enough to make an excuse to Ally that he had avoided a visit to her room because he feared she might be deep in slumber.

  After cleaning himself up, he took a breath, then headed down the length of the hallway. When he got to her door, it loomed before him.

  Just get this over with, he thought. Just knock, say goodbye, then get going.

  He raised his hand to knock, but a baby’s cry from inside stopped him.

  It was a jarring sound, like a tiny, squalling bird about to fall from its nest and, without thinking, Jeremiah went right into the room.

  A dim night-light suffused the Old West decor—the black iron chandelier with candles, the brass-framed bed with mahogany quilting, the dust-bitten photos of sunsets hanging on the walls.

  But all he really saw was Caroline’s cradle, and he went straight to it.

  “Shhh,” he said, brushing a finger over her cheek.

  She didn’t seem to know he existed and just kept crying.

  Out of pure instinct, he scooped her up, cradling her, shhhing and rocking her as he made his way over to a couch near the shuttered window.

  Thank goodness she quieted down, waving around her bunched fists before opening her mouth in what resembled a yawn—or maybe an attempt to make one last noise—and closing her eyes again.

  It was only when he sat down that he noticed Ally sitting on the other end of the couch, her hair mussed, her skin flushed, her gaze sleepy.

  “You beat me to it,” she said in a gritty voice. “She jolted me out of sleep. I think I was out like a light.”

  Ally didn’t move to take Caroline away from him, although he could see that she was dying to hold her.

  When he offered her daughter to her, Ally smiled. “No, you’ve got her settled. I’d hate to wake her up again. She’s had a rough couple of days.”

  “So have you,” he whispered.

  “I need to get used to a lack of sleep, unless I luck out and Caroline really does turn out to be one of those relatively low-maintenance babies.”

  “No female is low maintenance,” he said. The lighthearted comment had come out before he’d even thought about it.

  But it seemed to be an obvious reminder that he had a lot of experience with women, and Ally leaned her head back against the couch.

  “It really has been nice having you here, Jeremiah,” she said. “I just wanted you to know that.”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t say anything more, and just as he began to think that she was going to ask him to stay again—and not only because of a garbage disposal—her breathing evened out.

  Sleeping. And Jeremiah couldn’t help lavishing a gaze over her as he cuddled with the baby, his eyes wide open as he listened to the quiet of the house—a stillness that was punctuated only by the ever-growing beat of his lonely heart.

  When Jeremiah awakened, it took him an instant to realize where he was.

  By the time he remembered he was in Ally’s room, he also noticed that he wasn’t holding the baby any longer; Caroline was breathing softly in her cradle. And…

  He heard a sigh next to him, just before Ally shifted, leaning against him, her head coming to rest against his shoulder.

  Last night filtered back to him: a moment when he’d been fighting sleep… The feel of Ally getting off the couch and taking Caroline from him to transfer her baby to the cradle… A vague recollection of Ally holding a bottle to feed Caroline, then eventually returning to the couch instead of the bed, her body close to his as he reached out to touch her hand right before he drifted off again…

  So he hadn’t left after all.

  Damn it, he should really do it before Ally woke up. Really.

  But he liked how she was sleeping right up next to him. He couldn’t even remember a recent time when he’d awakened with a woman, since he made it a habit never to linger.

  This was good.

  Maybe he could just enjoy it for a little while longer?

  And he did, leaning his head against hers, running his knuckles over her bare arm, then holding her hand.

  He gave himself a half hour, and that was when he told himself that he couldn’t do this forever, and if he wanted to make a clean escape, he would have to go. Now.

  Heart heavy, he tenderly readjusted Ally so that she was lying down on the couch, her hand against a cheek as she breathed in…out….

  Then he went to Caroline’s cradle, bending down to kiss her.

  Emotion jammed in his chest as he forced himself to walk away.

  He opened the door quietly, then closed it behind him….

  Only to find that he wasn’t the only one in the hallway.

  He came face-to-face with Jessica, whose mouth was agape.

  Jeremiah looked at her, then looked back at the room.

  Oh, hell.

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” he whispered.

  He could see the slow boil of anger consuming her. Even so, she kept her voice to an early-morning level.

  “It better not be what it looks like,” she said.

  “I’m serious, Jessica. Ally told me to let her know when I was done working last night, but when I got here, I heard Caroline making a fuss inside. I’m not used to the sounds babies make, so I went right in to see if she was okay and somehow I just…stayed.”

  At Jessica’s widened eyes, Jeremiah added, “There was nothing wrong with Caroline, so don’t worry about that. Ally had the situation under control, anyway. It’s just that I ended up holding the baby a little longer than I meant to and I fell asleep in there. That’s all.”

  Ally’s aunt seemed torn between believing him and doing as everyone else usually did when it came to trusting him—turning their backs.

  Then something seemed to bend in her, and she took her digital camera out of her skirt pocket. She must’ve been carrying it around to capture baby moments when they
happened. Maybe she’d even been coming to Ally’s room so she could take a picture of Caroline and her first morning waking up in her new home.

  She turned on her camera, pressed a button a few times, then showed him the small screen.

  On it, he saw a man holding a baby in his arms in front of the glow of a large fish tank. There was such obvious affection on his face that it took Jeremiah a second to realize that he was seeing himself.

  “That’s how you look at Ally, too,” Jessica said. “Like you don’t care who sees you acting smitten.”

  He couldn’t tear his gaze away. He seemed like a father if there ever was one.

  But, most of all, he looked as if he would never be the type of dad who would shut his child out, as his own father had. Not ever.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Jessica whispered, “but all I want for Ally and Caroline is a man to be so in love with them that he looks at them this way forever, as if he’s always going to be around and nothing is going to stop him.”

  It seemed as if she was going to say more—maybe even to tell him about how her dad had taken off once upon a time—but then Jessica put her hand to her mouth and left him standing there.

  She’d said Jeremiah was a man—and one who didn’t seem the type to abandon.

  Was there any going back to his old life now?

  He just didn’t know anymore.

  More baffled and heartsick than ever, he headed for the exit, then his pickup, which he jumped into before he could be lured back inside the house. He drove to his hotel, telling himself he was going to pack.

  But when he got a call from his brother Tyler, there was no way Jeremiah would’ve been able to stay anyway.

  “Check your email,” Ty said over the phone.

  Jeremiah turned on his computer, going online.

  What he saw there just proved that he would always be the Jeremiah Barron, playboy, no matter what Jessica’s picture had shown him this morning.

  Chapter Eleven

  The headline was from a San Antonio business blog’s gossip page, a resource consulted frequently by Jeremiah’s contemporaries, whether they admitted it or not.

  The Big Bad Wolf Strikes Again! it read.

  Underneath it, there was a picture showing Jeremiah in close quarters with Ally back at the Howards’ charity ball. He was leaning over to whisper in her ear as she remained the cool, polite, yet distant hostess who’d thwarted him over and over again.

  Jeremiah’s stomach pitched as he surveyed the short gossip item beneath it, written by the town’s biggest anonymous blabbermouth.

  It seems as if our cad about town, Jeremiah Barron, has grown bored of his usual prey and decided to switch up his game by homing in on a bigger challenge. My source tells me that the wolf first began circling the lovely and very upstanding Allison Gale at the annual Red Cross charity event in San Antonio over a month and a half ago. Then, soon afterward, at the Howard family’s Help for Children Foundation shindig, he made his big play for Ms. Gale.

  Barron, the son of Eli Barron, who’s no stranger to this column (Papa Wolf graced us with San Antonio’s most recent great society scandal, recall?) looks to be just as colorful as his father in the future, so tune back in for more on this one….

  As Jeremiah just stared at the computer screen, the phone line hummed.

  Numbly, he thought that at least the gossipmonger hadn’t had any “sources” who cared enough to pursue this story to the hospital, where Ally had walked out with Caroline.

  But was it only a matter of time before that happened?

  On the other end of the phone, Ty finally said, “Just wanted you to be aware of what that rag was saying, Jer.”

  “This rag just brought a woman who usually stays out of the dirty spotlight right into it. And it’s because of me.”

  He wanted to strangle this blogger. Strangle himself for doing just what Ally had successfully avoided until he’d put her in his sights.

  How could he have forgotten how the real world worked? Had being out here, away from it all, put him in some kind of fantasyland?

  The words from the blog lingered. Just as colorful as his father…

  More than ever, Jeremiah knew that there was no leaving the past behind. Even if he wanted to do it, others weren’t going to let him.

  Nancy, his college girlfriend, had been right. He couldn’t change, not even with the sway of a good woman like Ally.

  When he thought of her and Caroline, back at her house, he felt as if he’d lost a piece that he had just fit into himself, like a missing cog that made everything run with the perfection he’d been wishing for.

  Tyler’s voice took on a note of surprise. “You actually care about what they’re saying?”

  “This time?” he said. “Yeah.”

  Ty must’ve heard the rawness in Jeremiah’s tone. The devastating heartbreak of knowing that hope had died, just when he’d discovered it.

  “Maybe you should tell me what’s going on,” Tyler said.

  Jeremiah couldn’t look at that picture of him and Ally at the Howards’ ranch anymore, and he turned away from the laptop screen.

  “I’m not sure what’s happened,” he said.

  But that was a line of crap, and even Tyler knew it.

  “You went out there,” his brother said, “and something big went down, didn’t it? And I’m not talking about a land deal. You were going after Allison Gale, but she got to you.”

  All Jeremiah’s defensive instincts told him to deny it, and it would’ve been so easy to do just a week ago.

  But now?

  Now he was done dodging and weaving.

  “She got to me,” Jeremiah said. “Her and the baby she adopted.”

  Tyler listened as Jeremiah spilled everything. The old him might have been flippant about the tale, painting it as just another adventure, a challenge he’d backed out of because there were even bigger ones waiting for him somewhere else. Yet, he couldn’t do that now.

  “Well,” Tyler said in the end. “How about that.”

  “What?”

  “You’re in love, you idiot. Or haven’t you realized it yet?”

  From the soreness in his chest, Jeremiah had known it was something foreign.

  But love?

  He’d never thought himself capable, just as he’d never thought his father capable.

  Yet, he couldn’t argue with how much it bruised him to be away from Ally, from the baby…from everything he’d stumbled over out here.

  “Knowing that I might not see her again…” Jeremiah said. “I can’t stand it.”

  “And it’s not going to get any better. So just get back to her place and work it out.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “Believe me—it’s not. But if she’s worth it, Jer, you’ll accept right now that life’s never going to go back to the way it was before you fell for her.”

  “But that’s just it.” Jeremiah slumped in his chair. “My life is always going to return to the way it was, Ty.

  Even if I have the best intentions, I can’t help myself.”

  “Next you’re going to say you were born to be that way.”

  Whoa. Hearing Tyler say it made the sentiment sound lame.

  But wasn’t it?

  Had Jeremiah just been using it as an excuse never to put himself out there again, to never risk failing when he tried to improve himself?

  Still, he tried to rationalize. “The last thing Ally needs is my kind of trouble. Why would I ever expect her to take on gossip and scandals and all the suspicions she’ll have when someone publishes another damned blog entry about how I looked at a socialite cross-eyed? Why should Ally have to take on that load besides everything she’s already got?”

  “Because she just might love you right back. Does she?”

  “I…don’t know.”

  Then he thought about all the glances that had brought about his fall. Thought of how she had asked him to stick around her place,
even after he’d seen that doubtful look in her eyes yesterday.

  Was she willing to put up with him and hope that he could redeem himself? Had he finally found the one woman strong enough to do that?

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the gossip column on the computer, seething from the screen like a living creature.

  And that was what won out in the end.

  Best leave before things got too hot to handle, he thought, shutting the lid of the computer.

  Best leave before he made Ally’s life, and the baby’s, any harder.

  When Ally had awakened this morning, she’d found an empty spot next to her on the couch where Jeremiah should’ve been.

  But, although she would’ve loved waking up to the sight of him, the vision in the cradle nearby assuaged her moment of longing.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” she whispered to the still-sleeping Caroline. It had obviously been a lot of work to be born.

  She left her bedroom, bringing the baby monitor with her, and let Mrs. McCarter, who was just stretching awake in her own room, know that she was going to get ready for the day.

  So, as Ally showered, the older woman kept a more than willing eye on Caroline. And, soon enough, everyone, including the baby, was up and about, drawn by the aroma of bacon, eggs, sausage and pancakes from the kitchen, where Jess was cooking away.

  When Ally didn’t see Jeremiah there, her stomach took a dive. Surely he’d just gone back to his hotel and would be here later, right? She was certain of it, after what had gone on last night, with him staying next to her on the couch, a gentleman through and through. She’d never felt such bliss from simply being held by a man before and, strangely enough, she’d even begun to feel as if she, Jeremiah and Caroline were already a family.

  Or at least could be one.

  Jess noticed that Ally kept glancing around and, as she took a seat at their table in a nook of the kitchen, she said, “If you’re looking for Jeremiah again, he already left. I saw him early this morning.”

  “Did he say what his plans were?”

  “No. But if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that he’ll be back with a truckload of more baby gifts.”