“It's more than that, and you know it. You're already falling in love.”
Yeah, he was, Mitch realized. But Jonathan wasn't the only one who was stirring his feelings and twisting him into knots. Sara was doing a pretty good job of it herself.
“We were married. Lillian and I,” Mitch said quietly. He didn't know why, but it was important for Sara to know this, even though it was something Mitch had vowed to strike from his memory. Some lessons were learned the hard way and his whirlwind relationship with Lillian definitely qualified as hard.
Sara seemed to shrink in her chair. “Oh. I just assumed.”
“Yeah, I figured. It's not something I like to talk about much.” He stole a glance at her, trying to read her expression, but came up empty.
“And Lillian didn't tell you she was pregnant?”
“There wasn't much time for that. The marriage lasted all of two weeks.”
“Two whole weeks? You're not much for longevity, are you?”
Mitch winced and then rubbed his neck with his hand. “Ouch. I had the marriage annulled. It was a crazy time. I came home early with roses in my hand after meeting with my grandfather's attorney. I expected to find my wife waiting. Instead, I was broadsided after finding another man's shoes parked where my boots should have been.” He'd known Lillian since they were both kids, having grown up on the same street block in Baltimore. They’d hung out together with the rest of the crowd from the neighborhood and he’d even had his first real kiss with Lillian. He was a long way from those days now.
Sara's eyes drifted closed. “I'm sorry,” she said quietly.
He gave an idle shrug. “I'm okay with it now.”
“No, I mean I'm really sorry. For the...terrible things I was thinking about you. It wasn't my place to judge.”
He sighed, his voice tight when he spoke. “You thought I ran out on Lillian, didn't you?”
She nodded apologetically. “It's so cliché, and I shouldn't have assumed. Mandy never mentioned you were married.”
“You talked to Mandy about me, huh?”
She tossed a baby bib at him and said dryly, “Don't go getting a big head. I told you I was curious about Jonathan's mother.”
“Yeah,” Mitch said, although he was unconvinced it was as simple as Sara was making it out.
“Her betrayal must have been quite a blow.”
“It was a hard time for me with my grandfather sick and all. I'd know Lillian since I was a kid and well, I don't know, I needed a friend. Like me, she didn't have much growing up, but she had her dreams. I don't think I would have been so blind to how Lillian had changed if I hadn't been so torn up with grief, knowing my grandfather was going die. She's not the woman I knew growing up.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Thanks. It all happened way too fast,” Mitch continued. “It shouldn’t have happened at all.”
He couldn't believe he was talking about his marriage to Lillian, something he'd never really done since the annulment. But Sara made it easy. Those warm, dark brown eyes wrapped around him, not in sympathy, but understanding.
“I'd gone back East when Grandpa was dying and met up with Lillian again. It was stupid of me to get into a relationship at such a bad time in my life, but I let the fact that we'd known each other for so long cloud my judgment. I needed something familiar. And after two weeks, we were talking marriage and making plans to head back to Texas.”
“So Lillian has never lived on the ranch then.”
He shook his head just thinking about it. “We never got that far. It's probably why Mandy doesn't know anything about it. I told Hank. I figured he might have told Corrine, but I don't think it is common knowledge. It was one of those mistakes I figured was better left in the past.”
He picked up the bib she'd tossed at him, thinking of the irony. He'd been crushed by Lillian’s betrayal, but he thought at least she'd come to him, try to explain something. She'd let him go as easily as he'd walked away.
“When Lillian found out I wasn't going to inherit any of my grandfather's money, she decided ‘til' death do us part’ was just a little too long for her. I didn't know anything about Jonathan until I walked into the house and found Corrine holding him. And you arrived soon after that.”
He drained his tea, got up from the chair, scraping it against the floor as he pushed it back against the table. As he set the empty mug in the sink, he tried to push away the pain of that period in his life.
“My grandfather was pretty much the one to save me from my parents.”
“Saved you? How?”
“I didn't have the easiest childhood. As marriages go, my parents' was pretty bad. Lots of yelling, lots of drinking and slamming of doors. And Dad wasn't always around.
“My parents were divorced when I was five or six, but neither one could let go of the other. My dad would run off for months at a time and mom always welcomed him back in. In between, she'd cry and when he was home... Well, let's just say I raised myself in a lot of ways. It wasn't the perfect environment for a kid.”
He'd learned to take care of himself, hide if it meant escaping one of his old man's rampages. Sometimes Mrs. Santini, his next-door neighbor, would hear the fighting and sneak Mitch out of the house, give him a good meal and tuck him into bed at her house. His parents were never the wiser.
Mitch could still remember the way she rubbed his back as his tears fell. No child should grow up this way, she'd say.
Trust hadn't come easy for Mitch. That's why Lillian's betrayal stung as bad as it did, especially in light of Jonathan. He should have known about his son. She should have told him long before she’d shown up on the ranch.
“Were your parents always like that?”
“As far back as I can remember.” He thought about it a minute. He never liked talking about his past much. The happy times were too few mixed in with all the bad. Alcohol and drugs had overshadowed most of the good memories he’d had.
And too quickly, his own marriage spiraled into something too frighteningly close to what he'd known as a kid. No, alcohol and drugs weren’t to blame. But the honeymoon was over before it even began, and instead of loving each other, he and Lillian spent those weeks fighting, mostly over money. When he'd walked through the door that day and found Lillian with her “company”, he boiled over so strong that he’d actually seen his father in himself. And it scared the hell out of him.
But instead of unleashing his anger the way he knew his old man would, Mitch had simply walked away, not even giving Lillian the opportunity to come to him and explain. She didn't protest either, which said a lot for the love they supposedly shared. He pushed those recent memories aside and thought of his childhood.
“My grandfather really tried to help my father but Dad was too concerned with a quick buck, an easy card game and the booze. He lost more than he won and spent whatever he did make on everything but his family. If I wanted something, my grandfather made me earn it. Even though he had some money, there were no free rides. He taught me a lot.”
“Was he a rancher, too?”
“No, I never really knew what he did. He invested his money mostly.”
She chuckled softly and he felt his heart swell with the musical sound. “Then how on earth did an Irish city boy from Baltimore become a cowboy?”
Mitch grinned and shrugged. “Fate, I guess. I was at the critical crossroads age where I could have easily slipped down the wrong path. I didn't trust anyone and was good at picking a fight for no reason, because that's all I knew. When I was about thirteen, Grandpa took me to a dude ranch the first few weeks I was here in Texas. And as miserable as I was to be away from home, he saw how much I loved being on that ranch. The work was good. It let me get out that teenage frustration eating me up. Something took hold of me. Grandpa told me if I worked hard, I could have a ranch for my own one day. I could do anything I wanted to do as long as I didn't follow in my old man's footsteps.”
“And you haven't.”
It almost
looked like pride shining in her eyes, Mitch thought. Warmth spread from deep in his chest outward until emotion lodged in his throat. He'd convinced himself early on in life he didn't need anyone. His grandfather had taught him, even before he'd come to Texas to live with him, that he was strong and could accomplish anything he put his mind to. He needed to rely on himself to survive.
Having Sara gaze at him with huge brown eyes filled with such admiration touched a place in his soul he didn't even know existed.
The room suddenly seemed to crackle with tension. His eyes focused on her lips, and the smooth plains of her cheeks.
Sara must have felt it too. She abruptly cleared her throat and looked at him teasingly.
“Well, Mr. Broader, since you've become a pro at feeding Jonathan his bottle. Tomorrow we'll move on to changing his diaper.”
“I just got used to holding him and giving him a bottle. The next thing you'll want is for me to give him a bath.”
She tossed him a wicked grin. “That's the spirit.”
#
Chapter Four
“How are you two doing in there?” Sara asked, trying her best to keep from plowing into the bathroom where Mitch was giving Jonathan his first bath solo. She paced the hallway, holding a clean diaper and sleeper to put the baby in after Mitch was done drying the Jonathan off with a towel.
Given the grunts and splashes she heard, Sara wanted nothing more than to march right in the bathroom and take over. But she held herself back. After two nights of bathing Jonathan, and insisting Mitch stand by to just watch, Mitch had announced “the boys” would give it a try on their own tonight so Sara could put her feet up and relax.
Fat chance of that, Sara thought, pacing the hallway. But she hadn't wanted to discourage Mitch when it was clear things were going so well.
After their rocky start, Sara had hoped Mitch would open up and take Jonathan into his heart. For a while, Sara didn't think it was going to happen. But these past few days had changed dramatically. Both father and son had taken to each other as if they'd been together right from the start.
Progress. That was very good. Unfortunately, it left her feeling a bit disjointed about what to do with herself while she waited for success or disaster.
Put her feet up? Yeah, right!
She'd paced the hallway, only leaving to answer the telephone, which annoyingly enough, turned out to be two wrong numbers. She quickly bounded back to the hallway, pressing her ear to the door when things became too quiet for her peace of mind.
It wasn't working. Aside from looking like an idiot with her cheek pressed up against the freshly painted wood door, she was getting a stiff neck.
“You need any help in there?” she called out again when her first question was left unanswered.
There was a loud slosh of water and a quick, low, grunt that had Sara bursting through the bathroom door. She found Jonathan sitting upright and secure in his baby bathtub, a small rubber duck tub toy clutched between his chubby fingers.
“I'm okay,” Mitch said, getting himself upright. “I just slipped on a little water.”
“A little?” She glanced at the wet floor surrounding him. There was about a gallon of water on the floor and another gallon of water on Mitch. His dark hair was slick with wetness as was his faded jeans. Even though he'd cuffed the sleeves of his white button down oxford shirt, that too was soaked.
“Why don’t you take off your shirt next time…that is, if you’re going to take a bath with him,” Sara teased, pulling a fresh towel from the linen closet and opening it up to receive the baby.
Mitch cocked his head to one side and pulled the baby from the tub. “Very funny. I think we did pretty good for a first time. Don't you think, buddy?”
Jonathan let out a squeal of glee and kicked his wet legs furiously as Mitch lifted him in the air to the waiting towel. Sara wrapped Jonathan in the towel and held him close. When she nuzzled his cheek, the baby rewarded her with the sweetest smile that reminded her so much of his father.
“Give me a second to mop up this water and I'll get him dressed,” Mitch said.
“It’s going to take you more than a minute to clean this up. Why don't you let me give him his bottle and get him to bed? That way you can have some time in the workshop.”
Mitch had mentioned at dinner that he was almost done making Jonathan's crib. He'd been spending little snatches of time in the workshop in between his ranch work, working with Beau on the final finishes to the barn, and working the horses. It amazed Sara that there was still time for Jonathan at all. In truth, she had feared Mitch would use his work at the ranch to keep himself distant from the baby. But he hadn't.
Mitch grabbed Jonathan's little fist, and bending his head, gave it a gentle kiss. The warm emotion that instantly spread through her chest and lodged in her throat took Sara by surprise. But she welcomed the feeling. Mitch's blue eyes were smiling when he finally glanced at her.
“Thank you, Sara,” he said, quietly.
She left before she made a fool of herself by showing him just how much Mitch, the man, had affected her by doing something so simple and pure. What was it about rugged men and babies? Her heart racing, she grabbed the clean clothes she'd hastily discarded when she raced into the bathroom, and headed upstairs to her room.
She had to stop this. It had been nearly a month since she'd come to the Double T and she feared her emotions were getting the best of her. The last time that had happened, she'd made the disastrous decision to leave home.
* * *
Jonathan quickly finished his nightly bottle. He was growing fast. Even she could see the change in him over the last few weeks. Sara tucked the baby into the cradle and closed the door. A creak in the stairs as she descended them sounded loud compared to the low music filtering in from the window. Mitch usually listened to music while he was out in the small workshop adjacent to the foreman’s house.
Following the sound of the music, Sara walked outside, blotting out the small spot of spittle Jonathan had drooled on her shoulder with a dishrag as she went. Glancing at her shoulder, she grimaced.
Usually when Mitch disappeared into the workshop, Sara left him alone. There wasn't any reason to disturb him, and she had the feeling he relished the quiet after the sudden invasion on his privacy. Especially after she'd done her best to make sure he spent some “quality” time with Jonathan.
An old 60's tune she recognized was playing on the radio. It was a far cry from the usual country and western music she heard around these parts, and certainly a lot tamer than some of the new-aged rock she'd had the occasion to sample in Los Angeles. Every so often, in between verses, Mitch's voice would boom over the music on the radio.
She pushed through the wide cross-planked door of the workshop just in time to hear him declare that his love grows wherever Rosemary goes. She stifled the giggle that bubbled up her throat at the expression on his face when he saw that he'd been caught. Instead of shrinking with embarrassment, Mitch simply smiled a warm and friendly grin that welcomed her into his private place. It was the same unabashed, childlike smile that was emerging from Jonathan.
“Gotta love the oldies,” he said.
“Apparently you do.”
He shrugged and kept right on applying polyurethane to the crib he'd been tirelessly working on in between ranch business and the horses. Along the side ends of the crib, Mitch had carved a cartoon design and smoothed out the edges. It was solid, yet delicate enough for his child to have sweet dreams in. At the top of each rail there were big, bright colored beads about the size of a half dollar threaded through a sturdy piece of metal. Jonathan would have a lot of fun playing with them when he was big enough to reach them. The love and artisanship Mitch put into making the crib was evident. No wonder he was always so exhausted when he returned from the shop.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, admiring all his hard work.
“If this coat takes well, it'll only need one more sanding and a final coat of clear. Then Jon
athan can test it out.”
“That's good. I don't know how much longer he can fit in that cradle. He’s getting so big.”
Mitch smiled. Taking a soft white cloth and running it around the rim of the can, he wiped off the excess clear liquid and tapped down the lid, sealing it tight. Carefully, as if he were holding his own child, he lifted the crib underneath a dry section and brought it over to another area of the workshop where it could sit undisturbed while the polyurethane set.
At a loss for words, Sara searched her mind for some subject that would qualify as meaningful conversation. She came up empty and decided anything would do. She'd forgotten that, as a rule, cowboys didn't say much unless needed. They were much more comfortable with a companionable silence than the men she'd met in California, who always seemed to want to dominate the conversation with some sort of ego boosting news.
But since Sara had come to the ranch, she realized Mitch wasn't like that at all. He was quiet about himself, didn't offer any more than needed unless she asked. But when he did offer something of himself, he was wide open about it. There didn't seem to be any locked doors inside him. All she had to do was ask.
Unfortunately, the typical conversations they usually had revolved around Jonathan, which didn't leave any smooth openings to ask for more. Sara definitely wanted to know something more about the man whose home she shared.
Mitch was the first one to speak. “Never in my life have I seen so much water flying around, all because of one little baby. He's a slippery little thing when he's wet.”
Sara squashed down the vague disappointment that he'd chosen the standard topic that bound them. Recalling how she'd found them both in the bathroom with an ocean of water on Mitch, and then more on the floor, she smiled. It had truly been a mess, but to Mitch's credit, he hadn't called her for help.
“You did good,” she praised.
They fell into silence again and Sara debated whether to leave him alone with his project or just watch him rearranged items in his shop.
His Heart for the Trusting (Book 2 - Texas Hearts (Contemporary Western Romance) Page 5
