“Mrs. Barton,” Maggie said with a teasing laugh, “you’d better be careful. I’ve got my eye on you.”
As Justice led her through the crowd to the mobbed dance floor, Maggie felt a swell of pride inside her. There were any number of women in this room who would give anything to be on Justice’s arm. And for tonight, at least, that woman was her.
She went into his arms as if it was the only place on earth she belonged. When he held her so tightly to him she could feel the strength of his body pressing into hers, Maggie nearly sighed with pleasure. Then he turned her lazily in time to the swell of the music, and she smiled, enjoying the moment. All around them, couples swayed in time and snatches of conversations lifted and fell in the air.
When Justice’s step faltered, Maggie frowned. “Are you okay?”
He gritted his teeth. “I’m fine.”
“We don’t have to dance, Justice.”
He hissed out a breath. “I said I’m fine, Maggie. The leg aches a little. That’s all.”
“I’m just concerned.”
“You don’t have to be, damn it,” he ground out, then clamped his lips tightly together for a second before saying, “I don’t need you to worry about me, all right? Can we just dance?”
But the magic of the moment was ruined for Maggie. I don’t need you. His words repeated over and over again in her mind. “That’s the problem, Justice,” she blurted while still following his lead around the floor.
“What?” He was frowning again now, and damned if that expression didn’t make him look more sexy. More dangerous.
“You don’t need me.”
“I said I don’t need you to worry about me—there’s a difference.”
“No,” she insisted, staring up at him as they made another turn. “There isn’t. I need you. I always have.”
“That’s good, because—”
“No,” she interrupted him, uncaring about the people surrounding them on the floor. They probably couldn’t overhear the conversation over the music, but even if they could, that wouldn’t have stopped her. “It isn’t good, Justice. It’s the reason I can’t be with you.”
“You are with me.”
His hand tightened around hers and his eyes narrowed into slits. Maggie shook her head at his fierce expression. “Not for much longer. Yes, I need you, but I can’t be with you, because I want to be needed, too.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he demanded, holding her closer, as if half afraid she was going to bolt. “Of course I need you.”
She laughed shortly, but there was no humor in it, only misery. “No, you don’t. You wouldn’t even let me help you a second ago when your leg hurt.”
“That’s different, Maggie. I don’t need a therapist.”
“No,” she said, her temper building, frothing, despite the fact that she was in the middle of a crowd that was slowly beginning to take notice. “You don’t want to need anyone. You won’t admit that you can’t do everything yourself. It’s your pride, Justice. It always comes down to your pride.”
Justice’s voice was low and tight. There were too many damn people around them. Too many who might be listening in. “My pride helped me build the ranch into one of the biggest in the country. My pride got me through when you walked out.”
“Your pride is the reason I walked out, remember?”
“You’re not walking this time,” he told her, his grip on her hand and around her waist making that point clear. “This time we have to be together.”
“Why?”
“Because I got a text from Sean at the lab. The results of the test are in. I’m Jonas’s father.”
Both of her eyebrows arched high on her forehead as she tried to pull free from his grasp. “If you’re waiting for me to be surprised, don’t bother.”
“I know. I should have listened. I should have believed.”
“Yes, you should have.”
He felt as if a two-thousand-pound rock had been lifted off his shoulders. He felt change in the air, and it damn near made him laugh with the possibilities of it all. “Don’t you get it, Maggie? This changes everything. I’m his father. That means the doctor was wrong. I can give you children.”
“I already knew that, Justice,” she said, glancing to the side as another couple moved in close.
“Which is why we’re getting married,” he said, the decision made and delivered like an order.
“Excuse me?” She stopped dancing, dragging him to a sudden halt.
“I said we’re getting married.”
Maggie frowned at someone who jostled her, then turned to him and announced, “I can’t marry you. I’m already married.”
“You’re married?” Justice stared at her as if she were speaking Greek. “What do you mean you’re married? We’ve been sleeping together!”
Several heads turned toward them now, and Justice scowled at the most obvious eavesdroppers, shaming them into looking away.
Maggie flushed right up to the roots of her hair, but it was fury, not embarrassment, staining her cheeks. “I’m married to you, Justice!”
She spun around on her heel and pushed her way through the crowd. Justice was left staring after her, stunned by her declaration and furious that he hadn’t known about this before. He started after her, his steps long and sure. When he caught up with her, he grabbed her arm, turned her to face him and, ignoring the crowd, said, “I signed those divorce papers, Maggie! How the hell are we married?”
“I never filed them, you big jerk.” And once again, she pulled free and made her way to the exit. Justice was right behind her, ignoring the wild rustle of conversations and laughter filling the hall behind him.
No doubt people would be talking about this night for a damn long time, he told himself while he took off after Maggie. Mostly, he suspected they’d be calling him a fool, and he’d have to agree.
He and Maggie were still married and he hadn’t even known it. When he reached the front door, he raced outside and spotted Maggie walking with furious steps down the sidewalk in the direction of home. Racing for the parking lot, Justice found his car, started it up and chased down his errant wife.
Driving alongside her while she was muttering to herself and bristling with unleashed fury, he rolled down the passenger window and ordered, “Get in the car, Maggie.”
“I don’t need you, Justice.” She made sure of the emphasis on the word need, and flipped her hair back behind her shoulders. “I’ll walk.”
“You can’t walk it.”
“Watch me.”
“It’s ten miles to the ranch.”
She slowed a little, shot him a furious glare and said, “If I get in that car, don’t you dare speak to me.”
“We have to talk about this, Maggie.”
“No, we don’t. We’ve said plenty. In front of the whole town, no less. So if you can’t promise me silence, I’ll walk.”
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m too mad to be cold.”
“Damn it, Maggie!” He slammed on the brakes, threw the car into Park and jumped out, racing down the sidewalk to catch up to her. His leg ached like a son of a bitch, but he ignored the pulsing pain in his quest to catch the most infuriating woman he’d ever known. When he grabbed hold of her, he wasn’t even surprised to feel her turn into a hundred and twenty pounds of fighting fury.
“Let me go, you big bully!” She wrenched free from his grasp, and when his hand clutched at her forearm again, she swung one leg back to kick him in the shins. He dodged that move and still didn’t release her. “Don’t touch me. You humiliated me in front of the whole town—”
His eyes went wide. “I humiliated you?”
“You told the whole damn room we’ve been sleeping together.”
“And you told’em we’re married. Who cares?”
“I do, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“So, now whose pride is the problem?” That one question delivered in a quiet, reasonable tone did what all of h
is arguments hadn’t. They shut her up but fast, despite how resentful she looked about it.
“Fine. I’ll take the ride. But I’m not talking to you, Justice. Not tonight. Not ever.”
He smiled to himself as he led her back to the car. One thing in this world he was sure of. Maggie Ryan King wouldn’t be able to keep a vow of silence if her own life depended on it.
Eleven
B y the time they reached the ranch, Maggie’s temper had died into a slow burn. She could still see the shocked, delighted expressions on the faces of the people surrounding them at the ball. She just knew that by tomorrow the story was going to be all over the county.
And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. God, she felt like an idiot. She’d been harboring too many dreams about Justice, and seeing them shattered in an instant—in front of an audience—was just humiliating.
She had the door open and was jumping to the ground almost before the car had rolled to a stop.
“Damn it, Maggie! Wait a minute.”
She ignored him and marched toward the house. She’d had enough. All she wanted now was to go inside, hug her baby and go to bed. Then when she woke up, she’d pack and get the heck out of Justice’s house before he’d even had his morning coffee.
“Maggie, wait for me.”
She glanced over her shoulder and hesitated when she saw him limp slightly. But a moment later, she reminded herself that he didn’t want her help. He didn’t need a therapist. He didn’t need her.
Fumbling in her clutch purse for the front door key, she blew out a breath as Justice came up behind her, then reached past her to unlock the door and open it up.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She hurried to the stairs, but his hand on her arm stopped her. “Maggie, at least talk to me.”
Turning her gaze up to his, she stared into those dark blue eyes and felt a sigh slide from her throat. “What’s left to say?”
“I’m so glad you’re home. I was just getting ready to call you!”
They both turned to look up at the head of the stairs, where Mrs. Carey stood, holding a fretful Jonas. Instantly, Maggie gathered the hem of her dress, hiked it above her knees and raced up the stairs. Justice was just a step or two behind her.
Scooping her son into her arms, Maggie cuddled him close and inhaled sharply. “He’s burning up!”
Justice came close, laid his hand on the back of Jonas’s neck and shot a look at Mrs. Carey. “How long?”
She wrung her hands together. “He’s been uneasy all night, but just in the past half hour or so, his fever’s climbed. I tried calling the doctor but couldn’t get him, so I was going to call you.”
“It’ll be fine, Mrs. Carey. Don’t worry.” He plucked Jonas from Maggie’s arms and held him close to his chest. With his free hand, he took Maggie’s and curled his fingers around hers. She immediately felt better, linked to his warmth and strength. When she looked up at him, she saw the calm, stoic expression she was used to.
Tonight, that was a comfort. She was so scared for Jonas that having Justice beside her, taking charge and looking confident, filled her with the same kind of certainty.
“We’ll take him to the E.R.,” Justice was saying, already starting down the stairs, taking Maggie with him.
“Don’t you want to at least change clothes first?” Mrs. Carey called after them.
“Nope.”
The emergency room in any city was a miserable place, Justice thought as he paced back and forth across the pale green linoleum. The smells, the sounds, the suffering, it all piled up on a person the minute he or she walked in the doors. They shouldn’t have to be there. Kids shouldn’t be allowed to get sick. There should be some sort of cosmic law against making a child who didn’t even understand what was happening to him feel so bad. If he had his way, he thought, glancing over his shoulder to where Maggie sat on a gurney cradling Jonas in her lap, he’d see to it that his son was never in a place like this one again.
Everything in Justice tightened as he realized that what he was feeling was sheer terror with a thick layer of helplessness. And that was new. Justice had never in his life faced a situation that he couldn’t fix—except for the time when Maggie had left him. Yet even then, he reminded himself, he could have stopped her if he’d let go of his own pride long enough to admit what was really important.
She’d been right, he realized. At the dance, when she’d accused him of letting their marriage dissolve because of his pride. But damn it, was a man supposed to lay down everything he was for the sake of the woman he loved?
Love.
That one word resonated inside him and seemed to echo over and over again. He loved her completely, desperately, and a life without her seemed like the worst kind of prison sentence.
His gaze fixed on Maggie now, he saw tears glimmering in her eyes. Saw her hand tremble as she stroked their son’s back. Then she lifted her gaze to his, and he read absolute trust in those pale blue depths. She was looking to him to fix this. To make it right. She was turning to him despite the hard words and the hurt feelings that lay between them. Justice felt a stir of something elemental inside, and as he held her gaze, he swore to himself that he wouldn’t let her down. And when this crisis with Jonas was past, he would do whatever he had to do to keep Maggie in his life.
As soon as they got Jonas taken care of and settled down in his own bed back at the ranch, he was going to tell her that he loved her. Tell her what she meant to him and how empty his life was without her—and his pride be damned.
“Justice, he feels so hot.” She cradled the baby’s head to her chest and rocked as Jonas sniffled and cried softly, rubbing tiny fists against his eyes.
His heart turned over as he watched the baby and reacted to Maggie’s fears.
“I know,” he said, “but don’t worry, all right? Everything’s gonna be fine, and I’m gonna get someone in here to see him even if I have to buy the damn hospital.”
Someone out in the waiting room was crying, a moan came from behind a green curtain and nurses carrying clipboards hurried up and down a crowded hallway, their shoes squeaking on the floor. They’d been there an hour already, and but for a nurse checking Jonas’s temperature when they first arrived, no one had come to check on the baby.
Maggie forced a smile. “I don’t think buying the place is going to be necessary.”
“It is if it’s the only way I can get somebody’s attention.” He shot a glare over his shoulder at the hallway and the hospital beyond. “Damn it, he’s a baby. He shouldn’t have to wait as long as an adult.”
Maggie sighed and smiled a little in spite of her obvious fear. “I’m glad you’re here with me.”
He stopped and stared at her. “You are?”
“God, yes,” she said on a choked laugh. “I’d be a gibbering idiot right now if you weren’t here with me, pacing in circles like a crazy person and threatening to buy hospitals.”
He walked toward her and went into a crouch in front of her so that he could look at her and his son. He dragged the backs of his fingers across Jonas’s too-warm cheek and felt a well of love fill his heart. The baby turned his head, looked at Justice and sighed. A tiny movement. A small breath. And dark blue eyes looking into his with innocence and confusion.
And in that instant, that one, timeless moment, Justice finally completed the fall into an overpowering love for his son. It had been coming on him for days, and maybe it was all instinctual. Like a cow in the spring that can pick out her own calf from the herd.
Nature, drawing families together, bonding them with an indefinable something that in humans was explained as love. A love so rich, so pure, so overwhelming, it nearly brought him to his knees. There was absolutely nothing on this earth that Justice wouldn’t do for that boy. Nowhere he wouldn’t go. Nothing he wouldn’t dare.
“It’ll be all right, son,” he whispered, his voice breaking as his eyes misted over. “Your daddy’s going
to see to it.”
Maggie reached for his hand and held on. Linked together, a silent moment of complete understanding passed between them, and Justice couldn’t help wondering how many other parents had been in this room. How many others had waited interminably for help.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “There should be more doctors. More nurses. People shouldn’t have to wait. I swear, I’m going to talk to the city council. Hell, I’ll donate an extra wing to this place and pay to see it’s better staffed.”
“Justice…”
“What the hell is taking so long?” he muttered, squeezing Maggie’s hand to relieve his own impatience. “I don’t get it. What do you have to do to get seen around here, bleed from an eyeball?”
“Well, wouldn’t that be festive?” A woman’s voice came from right behind him.
Justice whirled around to face a doctor, in her late fifties, maybe, with short, gray hair, soft brown eyes and an understanding smile on her face.
“I didn’t see you.”
“Clearly, and as to your earlier question, I’m sorry about the wait, but I’m here now. Let’s take a look at your son, shall we?”
As the doctor walked past him toward the baby, she took the stethoscope off from around her neck and fitted the ear pieces into her ears. “Lay him down on the gurney, please,” she said softly.
Maggie did but kept one hand on Jonas’s belly, as if to reassure both of them. Justice stepped up behind her and laid one hand on her shoulder, linking the three of them together, into a unit.
“Let’s just listen to your heart, little guy,” the doctor crooned, giving Jonas a smile. She moved her stethoscope around the baby’s narrow chest and made a note on a chart. Justice tried to read it but couldn’t get a good look.
Then she checked his temperature and looked in his eyes. Finally, when the baby’s patience evaporated and he let loose a wail, the doctor looked up and smiled.
“What is it? What’s wrong with him?” Maggie reached to her shoulder to lay her hand over Justice’s.
“Let me guess,” the doctor said, hooking her stethoscope around her neck again before scooping Jonas up in capable hands and swaying to soothe his tears. “This is your first baby.”
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