Dana beamed and rewarded her daughter with a teary-eyed smile. “That’s right, baby girl… I’m your mommy.” Jeff piped in, not wanting to be left out. “And I’m your daddy.” He knew that making that statement boldly in front of both of his siblings was no different than opening up that can of worms he’d been looking to avoid touching, but he needed his daughter to know that he was just as important as Dana was in her life. Or rather that he would be. No other option would be tolerable to him, nor would it be allowed with either of his siblings now that they’d met the sweet little angel that he’d fathered.
Eric held his face so taught, for a few moments, Dana wondered if his jaw would snap clean off his face… until he opened his mouth and spoke, then she was left wondering if her own had dropped down far enough to fall onto the floor.
“So, when’s the wedding?” The words hung in the air, and silence was the only answer that Eric’s words were greeted with. Jeff stared at his brother, Laurie was watching Dana’s expression and Eric had his eyes firmly planted on the little red-headed miniversion of Dana in his sister’s arms. He was too
preoccupied to care how much tension his question had caused throughout the room.
“Who said anything about a wedding?” Dana asked, chuckling nervously despite her unease at the tell-tale tick in Jeff’s jaw at the mention of the word. He may want to be a part of Alexis’s life and she may not have much of a choice but to let him be, but she knew Jeff better than even his own family did, if Eric actually believed there was a chance that his brother would ever say the words “I do” in front of a preacher.
“I did,” Eric answered, still not taking his ey es off Alexis. “If my brother cared enough for you to risk impregnating you, he can damn well make an honest woman of you and give his daughter the legal right to bear our last name.”
Dana opened her mouth to argue when Jeff startled the Hell out of her, and from the look on Eric’s face, he’d managed to shock his brother too when he spoke. “When you’re right you’re right. Alexis should be a Schmidt, and I have every intention of making damn sure she will be.”
Laurie cleared her throat and anxiously handed Alexis back to Jeff before taking her son back into her arms, cradling him close to her chest. She could see the tension mounting between her brothers and knew them both well enough to know that she was the only one in the world that could possibly defuse the bomb that was threatening to go off between them if something wasn’t said or done here pretty soon.
“Well, I for one am thankful that you brought Alexis and her lovely mommy here to meet us today, Jeff. Aren’t you glad, Travis?” she asked, looking up at her husband hopefully, praying he’d see her desperation and agree with her no matter how he might actually feel about the situation.
Not missing a beat, Travis nodded his head in agreement. “Absolutely. What better way to celebrate our son’s birth than to meet his cousin for the first time? Couldn’t have asked for a better gift for the new Mommy, there Jeff. Wouldn’t you agree, Eric?” he asked pointedly, putting Laurie’s oldest brother on the spot. If the man dared to argue, it would be no different than spitting at his only sister on this, the most important day of her life. – Her first full day as a mother and the day she got to introduce her precious baby boy to her brothers… the two most important men in her life other than her husband and her precious baby boy.
“Damn it, that’s a low blow,” Eric mumbled under his breath as he dragged his hand over his hair, making it stand on end. “Jeff has been an irresponsible sot for long enough. He’s a FATHER now… having just become one yourself, one would think you’d get where I’m coming from, Travis… He should have to be held accountable for his actions. He knowingly took this nice woman to his bed where he failed to properly protect her before having his way with her and leaving her pregnant and alone. By whatever miracle, she’s back in his life now and Jeff has a chance to make an honest woman of her, the way you both know damn good and well, Pa would have insisted he do,” he added, looking from Laurie to Jeff frantically. “As the oldest, it falls on MY shoulders to make sure the wild child of the family steps up to the plate and takes responsibility for his actions and does the right thing by both his daughter and the woman who gave birth to her.”
Jeff’s jaw ticked as he glared at his brother. “I did not come here to have insults and demands thrown at me as if I’m some adolescent who stayed out after curfew and knocked up the damn captain of the cheerleading squad. I came to see my nephew and I brought Alexis to meet her Aunt Laurie. I foolishly THOUGHT you’d give me the benefit of the doubt that I was fully capable of running my own damn life, but hey… I guess some habits are too damn hard to break, huh brother? You got too used to running both Laurie’s and my lives for us, and we both foolishly allowed it. Well, not any more, big brother. Whatever happens between Dana and I is strictly up to the two of us. I won’t put up with you trying to step in and tell me how to live my life. It’s MY damn life, not yours and I’ll thank you to stay the Hell out of it!”
Jeff grabbed Dana by the hand and stomped out of the room without saying another word. In that moment, he was so angry with his brother, he knew if he had said something more, it would be harsh and later on down the line… possibly WAY down the line, sooner or later, he’d most likely end up regretting it, and he was equally sure that if the words came out of his mouth that he was thinking, they’d be words that he’d never be able to take back, and things between himself and his big brother would never be the same again because of it. They were all better off if he just removed himself from the situation until they all had a chance to cool off.
Chapter 10
Back at Mandy’s house, Dana looked anxiously over at Jeff as he paced the floor. He still had yet to willingly hand Alexis over to her and their daughter stubbornly refused to leave her father’s arms as long as he was willing to hold her. She was leery of this connection father and daughter had formed and wondered about where she fit in to the comfy picture they made. She hadn’t expected Jeff to be any kind of father to their daughter, but as she watched him smooth his big hand over her tiny back, Dana had to admit that at the moment, he was doing a damn good job of faking it.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, he stopped and turned to face Dana. “I WILL be part of her life… and she WILL have my damn last name. I won’t hear a word of argument on the matter. And I want my God Damn name on her birth certificate, Dana.”
She felt her blood-pressure rise as a lump of fear formed in her throat. “No. There’s a reason I left your name out of the paperwork other than just to keep my sanity around my sister. I told you; I don’t want my daughter raised by a man who is gone at one rodeo or another, hopping from one woman’s bed to the next with every different stop his work takes him to.”
Jeff’s nostrils flared with anger. “I’m trying my damndest to have patience with you, woman… but this is MY daughter too. I have rights and if you won’t do this the easy way, I won’t have a choice but to do it the damn hard way. I’d HOPED we could be civil with each other, given our rather…. explosive sexual relationship,” he said pointedly, daring her to deny it after the way she’d literally caught fire in his arms the night before. “Clearly, it means a far sight more to me than it does to you… and yet, here you are, chastising me… the guy who went out of his way to only sleep with ONE woman for well over a year… a woman I did nothing to entice into my bed that first time, thank you very much. You came of your own damn will, Dana and you bloody well know it. Why can’t you just admit that?”
“Yes,” she said shakily. “I did.” Swallowing hard, she went on. “But then, I went and did a really beyond stupid thing and I fell in love with the world’s most emotionally unavailable man and tried like Hell to hide it from you. Then I did the hardest thing a woman in love ever has to do when I found out that I was pregnant… I left the only man I have ever or ever will love, without saying a bloody word because I knew you didn’t want anything to do with family or commitment. S
o don’t even give me that guilt trip about just falling into your bed. Don’t try to make it okay that you make a habit of taking all sorts of willing women there as often as you can.”
“And I want to know where you get off saying that, when I did willingly drop all other women for the duration of the time we were together. Yes, I will admit after you left, I went back to it… what did you expect me to do, Dana? Wait for you forever when I had no clue if you’d ever come back to me again?”
Emotion clogged her throat and she struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to fall as her mind answered; screaming in her head so loudly, she could have sworn she’d actually answered him. ‘Yes, damn it… Is it so much to ask of the man that made me fall so deeply in love with him when I haven’t so much as looked at another man twice since that first time I saw you?’
She blinked rapidly in an unsuccessful attempt to quell the tears that slid down her cheeks and dripped off the tip of her chin onto the floor at her feet. Ashamed of her weakness for the man in front of her, Dana turned away from him and faced the wall with her arms wrapped around herself in a comforting gesture so she didn’t have to look at him and see the pity written on his face as he realized how deeply she still cared for him.
Jeff took a staggering step towards her, unable to keep his distance. He then reached out and placed a suddenly clammy palm on her arm, unsure what to say or do. The pain on her face before she’d turned away had been so intense; it had hit him directly in the gut like a sucker punch.
“Dana?” he asked, his voice breaking with the emotion that threatened to bring him to his knees. She still couldn’t find her voice so she shook her head adamantly, turned around, forcefully extracted Alexis from his arms and ran down the hall towards the bathroom that was connected to the nursery. In that moment, she needed to get away from Jeff. Tears poured down her face as she bathed their daughter. The more Alexis splashed and giggled, babbling the word “Daddy” over and over again, the heavier the flow of tears got. She had no idea how to deal with anything that was going on. Not her daughter’s fascination with Jeff or her own. She was more confused than ever by his insistence on being included in Alexis’ life. So much time had gone by when she had been sure that he’d want nothing to do with the little girl they’d made together.
Now that he knew and he was going out of his way to insert himself into both of their lives, Dana was confused. She had no idea what to do. She desperately wanted to believe that she had been wrong and there was actually a chance that Jeff could turn out to be both husband and father material after all… but she knew him too well. His wanderlust was too big a part of who he was as a man. He thrived on the endorphins that came from the stimulation and titillation he got from riding a bucking bull the full eight seconds. He got off on the roar of the crowd after a successful ride. A man like that would never be happily settled down in one place with a wife and child.
Perhaps a few weeks of bliss would pass before he got bored and went out seeking the next thrill. That was exactly the life she’d desperately tried to keep Alexis from suffering… knowing and loving her father as much as Dana did, only to have to watch as he went back to his true love… the rodeo and his buckle bunnies.
But how could she fight Jeff when he was hurting? When she knew that feeling like he’d done something for his daughter would make him feel better about not having been part of her life from the very beginning… Her heart was swelling in her chest and it felt as if she was putting it through the ringer by continuing to deny the man she loved the one thing that would make him happiest.
“What am I going to do?” she asked Alexis as she rubbed the baby shampoo into her red curls. “Your Daddy wants to be part of your life so desperately… and I want to give that to him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life… but at the same time, I’m scared to death that in doing so, he’s going to end up hurting both of us so badly; we may not survive the heartache when he inevitably leaves us… which I know he will, because that’s who he is. He is first and foremost a free spirited rodeo cowboy. Who am I to try to tie him down?”
“ Daddy,” Alexis babbled happily in answer, grinning widely at her mother as she splashed her hands in the water in excitement at the mention of the man she’d so quickly bonded with.
Dana sighed as she rinsed the shampoo out of Alexis’ ha ir. “You’re right,” she said, nodding her head. “I’m being selfish… I can’t keep you away from him any more than I can keep him away from you. Clearly you love each other. I guess my feelings shouldn’t matter,” she said, wiping the tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt.
“I just can’t help it… I’m jealous of my own daughter,” she said, laughing despite the tears that continued to fall. “The man I’ve so desperately loved for so long has fallen ass over teakettle in love with you and yet I’m still just a warm body to him that he can’t seem to get enough of and I know that it frustrates and pisses him off to no end. He refuses to embrace anything more than lust for me.”
“ Daddy” Alexis said again, looking towards the doorway, knowing that the man she wanted was just on the other side of the wall. Dana shook her head and drained the tub, pulling her daughter out and wrapping the towel around her body to dry her off. “No. Beddie-by time,” Dana corrected softly. “There will be more time to spend with Daddy tomorrow after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
Alexis laid her head down on Dana’s shoulder when she picked her up with the towel still wrapped around her warm body, sighing heavily as her eyelids began to droop. Her thumb went into her mouth and she began to suck it as Dana carried her down the hallway to the nursery. Perhaps after a good night’s sleep, she’d have a better hold on her emotions and she would be able to face Jeff again.
The one thing she did know was that she couldn’t spend the night in his arms the way she had the night before. Despite the fact that her hormones were jumping and her body was primed and ready for his brand of loving, she knew she couldn’t do it. Emotionally, she was nowhere near ready to submit to him again just yet.
It felt as if she’d opened her heart up with a sharp knife and no sedative only to leave it lying wide open for him to stomp all over. Knowing he didn’t love her and most likely never would and giving herself to him nonetheless would be tantamount to emotional suicide as far as Dana was concerned, and that wasn’t something she had it in her to do. No. Once she’d tucked Alexis into her bed and read her a bedtime story, she would go into Mandy’s room, lock the door and sleep in her bed. Jeff could use the guest bed that she’d been sleeping in since she’d arrived back in town for the night if he insisted on sticking around once he figured out that he wasn’t getting lucky again tonight.
Come morning, if he was still there, they’d have a long sit down talk about where they went from here… if anywhere. In the meantime, she was determined to do her level best to get a good night’s sleep. Something told her that she was going to need it.
Chapter 11
Jeff was pacing her kitchen floor, barefoot and bare chested with his pants open at the fly the next morning when Dana tip-toed down the stairs. Alexis had woken up several times during the night and had finally faded off to sleep just a few hours before. She had a feeling the little girl was tuckered out and would most likely sleep most of the day away as long as they kept things quiet.
The moment she saw him, Dana almost tripped over her own feet. Memories of their time together heating up the sheets in his tiny little trailer swamped her mind and left her feeling lightheaded with the instant desire they had stirred within her. Her eyes slowly scraped over his lean torso and stopped at the lump in his pants that clearly showed why he hadn’t bothered to fasten them. His erection was too hard to be able to do any more than he had.
Keeping her distance from him was hard enough for her to do when she wasn’t faced with a constant reminder of just how incredible Jeff’s body was. Seeing the hard proof of his arousal didn’t exactly help matters any either. Staying away fro
m him was just plain silly. She couldn’t fall any further in love with the man… Shouldn’t she be taking advantage of his fascination for her as long as it lasted so she’d have the memories to fall back on later on down the road once he tired of her and moved on to his next conquest?
Jeff heard her and turned his head to look at her. There was so much heat in his gaze as his eyes slowly made their way from her messed up hair to her polished toes, it made her pulse skitter into overdrive. Unable to stay away from him, she smiled and took the few steps it took to bring her within kissing distance. She nervously wrapped her arms around his waist and lifted her face in offering. “I’m sorry,” she whispered softly, standing on tip-toes and brushing her lips softly over his.
A deep groan was his only answer as he swept her into his embrace, grabbing her butt with both hands and pushing his tongue between her slightly parted lips to tangle with hers. The feeling of coming home swamped him as she moaned in welcome, moving her arms up around his neck to tangle her fingers in his hair.
He picked her up and carried her over to the kitchen counter, setting her down on top of it and quickly ridding himself of his pants and underwear. He then yanked her underwear down her legs and stepped between her legs, instantly slamming himself home. They both moaned as the tip of his erection pressed against the opening to her cervix. “I hate it when we fight,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her body against him as he thrust in and out.
“Me too,” Dana whimpered, bending her head to place a hot kiss to the side of his neck before grabbing onto his shoulders with both of her hands as she neared an early climax.
Rodeo Daddy: Book 3 in the Stubborn Texas Siblings Trilogy Page 6
