He watched the boy bouncing up and down on Maggie’s hip, laughing and drooling, and told himself that if there were even the slightest chance the boy was actually his, Justice would do everything in his power to take care of him. But he knew the truth, even if Maggie didn’t.
“He’s a good-looking boy.”
Maggie melted. “Thank you.”
“But he’s not mine.”
She wanted to argue. He could see it in her face. Hell, he knew her well enough to know that there was nothing Maggie liked more than a good argument. But this one she’d lose before she even started.
He couldn’t be Jonas’s father. Ten years before, Justice had been in a vicious car accident. His injuries were severe enough to keep him in a hospital for weeks. And during his stay and the interminable testing that was done, a doctor had told him that the accident had left him unlikely to ever father children.
The doctor had used all sorts of complicated medical terms to describe his condition, but the upshot was that Jonas couldn’t be his. Maggie had no way of knowing that, of course, since Justice had never told anyone about the doctor’s prognosis. Not even his brothers.
Before he and Maggie got married, when she started talking about having a family, he’d told her that he didn’t want kids. Better to let her believe he chose to remain childless rather than have her think he was less than a man.
His spine stiffened as that thought scuttled through his brain. He hadn’t told her the truth then and he wouldn’t now. Damned if he’d see a flash of pity in her eyes for him. Bad enough that she was here to see him struggle to do something as simple as walk.
“So who were you with, Maggie?” he asked, his voice a low and dark hum. “Why didn’t he want his kid?”
“I was with you, you big jerk,” she said tightly. “I didn’t tell you about the baby before because I assumed from everything you’d said that you wouldn’t want to know.”
“What’s changed, then?” he asked.
“I’m here, Justice. I came here to help you. And I decided that no matter what, you had the right to know about Jonas.”
If it were possible, Maggie would have said that Justice’s features went even harder. But what was harder than stone? His eyes were flat and dark. His jaw was clenched. He was doing what he always had done. Shutting down. Shutting her out. But why?
Yes, she knew he’d said he didn’t want children, but she’d been so sure that the moment he saw his son, he’d feel differently. That Jonas would melt away his father’s reservations about having a family.
She’d even, in her wildest fantasies, imagined Justice admitting he was wrong for the first time in his life. In her little dream world, Justice had taken one look at his son, then begged Maggie’s forgiveness and asked her to stay, to let them be a family. She should have known better. “Idiot.”
“I’m not an idiot,” he told her.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she countered. He was so close to her and yet so very far away.
The house was quiet, tucked in for the night. Outside the windows was the moonlit darkness, the ever-present sea wind blowing, rattling the windowpanes and sending tree branches scratching against the roof.
Justice stood not a foot from her, close enough that she felt the heat of his body reaching out for her. Close enough that she wanted to lean into him and touch him as she’d wanted to during the therapeutic massage she’d given him earlier.
Instantly, warmth spiraled through her as she remembered his response to her hands moving on the weakened muscles in his leg. His erection hadn’t been weak, though, and hadn’t been easy to ignore, especially since being near him only made her want the big dummy more than ever.
“Look,” Justice muttered, breaking the spell holding Maggie in place, “I’m willing to do the therapy routine. I don’t like it, but I need to get back on my feet. If you can help with that, great. But if you staying here is gonna work, you’re going to have to drop all of this crap about me being your baby’s father. I don’t want to hear it again.”
“So you want me to lie,” she said.
“I want you to stop lying.”
“Fine. No lies. You are Jonas’s father.”
He gritted his teeth and muttered, “Damn it, Maggie!”
“Don’t you swear in front of my son.” She glanced at Jonas and though he was only six months old, she could see that he was confused and worried about what was happening. His big eyes looked watery, and his lower lip trembled as if he were getting ready to let a wail loose.
Justice barked out a harsh laugh. “You think he understood that?”
She glanced at the baby’s big blue eyes, so much like his father’s, and stroked a fingertip along his jaw soothingly. “I think he understands tone,” she said quietly. “And I don’t want you using that tone in front of him.”
He blew out a breath, scowled ferociously for a second, then said, “Fine. I won’t cuss in front of the kid. But you quit playing games.”
“I’m not playing.”
“You’re doing something, Maggie, and I can tell you now, it’s not going to work.”
She stared up at him and shook her head. “I knew you were stubborn, Justice, but I never imagined you could be this thick-headed.”
“And I never figured you for a cheat.” He turned and started to painstakingly make his way out of the room into the hall.
Just for a second she watched him walk away and her heart ached at the difficulty he had. Seeing a man as strong and independent as Justice leaning on a cane tore at her. His injuries weren’t permanent, but she knew what it was costing his pride to haltingly move away from her.
But though she felt for him, she wasn’t about to let him get away with what he’d just said.
“Cheat? A cheat?” Maggie inhaled sharply, cast another guilty glance at her son and gave him a smile she didn’t feel. She wouldn’t upset her baby for the sake of a man who was so blind he couldn’t see the truth when it was staring him in the face. “I am not a cheat or a liar, Justice King.”
He didn’t look back at her. He just kept moving awkwardly down the hall, his cane tapping against the floor runner. If his plan was to escape her, he’d have to be able to move a lot faster than that, Maggie told herself. Quickly, she walked down the hall, stepped out in front of him and forced him to stop.
“Get out of the way,” he murmured, staring past her, down the hall at his open bedroom door.
“You can think whatever you like of me, but you will, by God, not ignore me,” she told him, and the fact that he kept avoiding meeting her eyes only further infuriated her. This had so not gone the way she’d hoped and expected.
When Jefferson called her, asking her to come help Justice, she’d taken it as a sign. That this was the way they would come together again. That the time was finally right for Justice to meet the son he didn’t know about. Apparently, she had been wrong.
“Are you too cowardly to even look at me?” she demanded, knowing that the charge of coward would get his attention.
Instantly, he turned his dark blue gaze on her and she saw carefully banked anger simmering up from their depths. Well, good. At least he was feeling something.
“Don’t push me, Maggie. For both our sakes. If you want me to watch my tone around your son, then don’t you push me.”
He was furious—she could see that. But beyond the anger there was hurt. And that tore at her. He didn’t have to be hurt, darn it. She was offering him their son, not the plague.
“Justice,” she said softly, smoothing one hand up and down her baby’s back, “you know me better than anyone. You know I wouldn’t lie to you about this. You are my son’s father.”
He snorted.
Insulted and stung by his obvious distrust, she stepped back from him. How could he believe that she was lying? How could he have ever claimed to love her and not know that she was incapable of trying to trick him in this way? What the hell kind of a husband was he, anyway?
“I’m
trying to be understanding,” she said, but her temper simmered just beneath the words. “I know this is probably all a surprise.”
“You could say that.”
“But I’m not going to say it to you again. I won’t argue. I won’t force you to admit your responsibilities—”
“I always face my responsibilities, Maggie. You should know that.”
“And you should know I’m not a liar.”
He blew out a breath, cocked his head to one side and stared into her eyes. “So what? We call it a draw? A standoff? An armed truce?”
“Call it whatever you want, Justice,” Maggie said, before he could say something else that would hurt her. “All I’m going to say is that if you don’t believe me about Jonas, then it’s your loss, Justice. We created a beautiful, healthy son together. And I love him enough for both of us.”
“Maggie…”
She placed one hand on the back of her son’s head, holding him to her tenderly. “And in case you were wondering why I waited until now to tell you about Jonas…It’s because I was worried about how you’d react.” She laughed shortly, sharply. “Imagine that. Wonder why?”
He muttered something under his breath, and judging by the expression on his face, she was just as happy she’d missed it.
“The sad truth is, Justice, I never wanted my son to know that his own father hadn’t wanted him.”
His eyes went colder, harder than before, and Maggie shivered a little under his direct gaze. A second passed, then two, and neither of them spoke. The hall light was soft and golden, throwing delicate shadows around the wide, empty passage. They were alone in the world, the three of them, with an invisible and apparently impenetrable wall separating Maggie and her son from the man who should have welcomed them with open arms.
At last, Justice turned his gaze to the boy who was watching him curiously. Maggie watched her husband’s features soften briefly before freezing up into that hardened, take-no-prisoners expression she knew so well. After several long moments he lifted his gaze to hers, and when he spoke, his voice was so soft she had to hold her breath to hear him.
“You’re wrong, Maggie. If I was his father, I would want him.”
Then he brushed past her, the tip of his cane making a muffled thumping sound as he made his way to his room. He didn’t look back.
And that nearly broke Maggie’s heart.
Five
“R un the calves and their mamas to the seaward pasture,” Justice told Phil, his ranch manager, three days later. “You can leave the young bulls in the canyons for now. Keep them away from the heifers as much as you can.”
“I know, boss.” Phil turned the brim of his hat between his hands as he stood opposite the massive desk in Justice’s study.
Phil was in his early fifties, with a tall, lanky body that belied his strength. He was a no-BS kind of guy who knew his job and loved the ranch almost as much as his boss. Phil’s face was tanned as hard and craggy as leather from years spent in the sun. His forehead, though, was a good two shades lighter than the rest of him, since his hat was usually on and pulled down low. He shifted uneasily from foot to foot, as if eager to get outside and back on his horse.
“We’ve got most of the herd settled into their pastures now,” he said. “There was a fence break in the north field, but two of the boys are out there now fixing it.”
“Okay.” Justice tapped a pen against the top of his desk and tried to focus the useless energy burning inside him. Sitting behind a desk was making him itchy. If things were as they should be, he’d be out on his own horse right now. Making sure things were getting done to his specifications. Justice wasn’t a man to sit inside and order his people around. He preferred having his hand in everything that went on at King Ranch.
Phil Hawkins was a good manager, but he wasn’t the boss.
Yet even as he thought it, Justice knew he was lying to himself. His itchy feeling had nothing to do with not trusting his crew. It was all about how he hated being trapped in the damn house. Now more than ever.
The past few days, he’d felt as if he was being stalked. Maggie was following him around, insisting on therapy sessions or swims in the heated pool or nagging at him to use the damn cane he’d come to hate. Hell, he’d had to sneak away just to get a few minutes alone in his office to go over ranch business with Phil.
Everywhere he went, it seemed, there was Maggie. Back in the day, they’d have been falling into each other’s arms every other minute. But nothing was as it had once been. These days, she looked at him as if he were just another patient to her. Someone to feel bad for. To fix up. To take care of.
Well, he didn’t need taking care of. Or if he did, he’d never admit it. He didn’t want her being paid to be here. Didn’t want to be her latest mission. Her cause. Didn’t want her touching him with indifference.
That angry thought flashed through his mind at the same time a twinge of pain sliced at his leg. Damn thing was near useless. And three days of Maggie’s torture hadn’t brought him any closer to healing and getting on with his life. Instead, she seemed to be settling in. Making herself comfortable in the log house that used to be her home.
She was sliding into the rhythm of ranch life as if she’d never left it. She was up with the dawn every day and blast if it didn’t seem she was deliberately close enough to him every morning so that Justice heard her talking to her son. Heard the baby’s nonsensical prattle and cooing noises. Could listen in on what he wasn’t a part of.
She was everywhere. Her or the baby. Or both. He heard her laughing with Mrs. Carey, smelled her perfume in every room of the house and caught her playing with her son on several occasions. She and the baby had completely taken over his house.
There were toys scattered everywhere, a walker with bells, whistles and electronic voices singing out an alphabet song. There was a squawking chicken, a squeaky dog and a teddy bear with a weird, tinny voice that sang songs about sharing and caring. Hell, coming down the stairs this morning, he’d almost killed himself when his cane had come down on a ball with a clown’s face stamped on it. There were cloth books, cardboard books and diapers stashed everywhere just in case the kid needed a change. That boy had to go through a hundred of them a day. And what was with all the books? It was not as if the baby could read.
“Uh, boss?”
“What?” Justice shook his head, rubbed at his aching leg and shifted his gaze back to Phil. That woman was now sneaking into his thoughts so that he couldn’t even talk about ranch business. “Sorry,” he said. “My mind wandered. What?”
Phil’s lips twitched as if he knew where his boss’s mind had slipped off to. But he was smart enough not to say anything. “The new grasses in the east field are coming in fine, just like you said they would. Looks like a winner to me.”
“That’s good news,” Justice said absentmindedly. They’d replanted one of the pastures with a hardier stock of field grass, and if it held up to its hype, then the herd would have something to look forward to in a few months.
Running an organic cattle ranch was more work, but Justice was convinced it was worth it in the long run. The cowboys he had working for him spent most of their time switching the cattle around to different pastures, keeping the grass fresh and the animals on the move. His cows didn’t stand in dirty stalls to be force-fed grains. King cattle roamed open fields as they’d been meant to.
Cattle weren’t born to eat corn, for God’s sake. They were grazers. And keeping his herds moving across natural field grasses made the meat more tender and sweet and brought higher prices from the consumer. He had almost sixty thousand acres of prime grassland here on the coast and another forty thousand running alongside his cousin Adam’s ranch in central California.
Justice had made the change over to natural grazing and organic ranching nearly ten years ago, as soon as he took over the day-to-day running of King Ranch. His father hadn’t put much stock in it, but Justice had been determined to run the outfit his way. And in th
at time, he’d been able to expand and even open his own online beef operation.
He only wished his father had lived to see what he’d made of the place. But his parents had died in the same accident that had claimed Justice’s chances of ever making his own family. So he had to content himself with knowing that he’d made a success of the family spread and that his father would have been proud.
“Oh, and we got another offer on Caleb,” Phil was saying, and Justice focused on the man.
“What was it?”
“Thirty-five thousand.”
“No,” Justice told him. “Caleb’s too valuable a stud to let him go for that. If the would-be buyer wants to pay for calves out of Caleb, we’ll do that. But we’re not selling our top breeding bull.”
Phil grinned. “That’s what I told him.”
Some of Justice’s competitors were more convinced it was his breeding stock that made his cattle so much better than others, and they were continually trying to buy bulls. They were either too stupid or too lazy to realize that fresh calves weren’t going to change anything. To get the results Justice had, they were going to have to redo their operations completely.
The door to the study swung open after a perfunctory knock, and both men turned to look. Maggie stood in the open doorway. Faded jeans clung to her legs and the King Cattle T-shirt she wore in bright blue made her eyes shine like sapphires. She gave Phil a big smile. “You guys finished?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Phil said.
“No,” Justice said.
His ranch manager winced a little as he realized that he’d blown things for his boss.
Maggie looked at her husband. “Which is it? Yes or no?”
Frowning, Justice scowled at his foreman, silently calling him traitor. Phil just shrugged, though, as if to say it was too late now.
“We’re finished for the time being,” Justice reluctantly admitted.
“Good. Time for your exercises,” Maggie told him, walking into the room and heading for his desk.
“Then I’ll just go—” Phil waved his hat in the direction of the door “—back to work.” He nodded at her. “Maggie, good to see you.”
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