Chapter Fourteen
Amy discovered that getting Jamie to hold an ornament in his hand was not a problem. Getting him to let go of that ornament, however, was.
When she found that she couldn’t get her son to give up the Christmas ornament by trying to wiggle it out of his surprisingly tight grasp, she turned to Connor for help.
“Maybe you can get it out of that hot little hand of his,” she said to Connor, temporarily giving up.
“I can try,” Connor answered.
But his efforts were also unsuccessful because he didn’t want to risk hurting the boy’s hand. Jamie’s fingers were tightly wrapped around the ornament, so much so that they seemed to almost be hermetically sealed around it.
“You know,” Connor observed, “for a little guy, he’s got one heck of a strong grip.”
Amy hadn’t wanted to risk the baby possibly cutting himself on an ornament, so she had deliberately gone through the decorations that were left in the boxes, looking for a small plastic one that Jamie could easily hold on to.
She’d finally found one lone reindeer—the other seven had to be hanging on the tree, she deduced—and pressed the figure into Jamie’s little hand by carefully wrapping his fingers around it, one by one.
Obviously, she thought now, she’d done too good a job.
“Now what?” she asked Connor. “We can’t take the ornament back to the ranch with us. It belongs on the tree.”
Determined, she gave prying the reindeer out of her son’s hand another try. She had the same lack of success. Jamie held fast to the ornament and this time he cried in protest when she tried to take it away from him.
Connor shook his head, almost impressed with the baby’s tenacity.
“Well, he’s too young to have a tantrum,” Connor began.
Amy wasn’t so sure. “How do you know he’s too young to throw a tantrum?”
“After being around four babies, you pick up a few things,” he said philosophically. Connor looked for a solution that didn’t involve strong-arming the baby. “We can wait him out. He’s bound to fall asleep. When he does, we’ll just take the reindeer out of his hand and you can put it up for him. That’s one solution.”
“That might take a while,” she pointed out. “And you can’t just hang around here, waiting for Jamie to fall asleep. You’ve got a ranch to get back to.”
The way he saw it, there was no real urgency to get back. This was his slow season. “Cole’s working the ranch. Once the horses are fed and watered, there’s not that much to do right now,” he said. “Most of the repairs have been taken care of.”
He looked around the town square. “Besides, the weather’s crisp, but not that numbing kind of cold it can be. It’s the kind of day that makes a man glad he’s alive.”
And spending it with you, he added silently, slanting a glance in her direction.
Amy smiled. He was saying that for her benefit, she thought, so she wouldn’t feel bad about this. “You really are a good guy, Connor McCullough.”
Connor watched as the winter sun seemed to shimmer and dance in her hair, making him remember so many random moments from the past. Moments that had been filled with adolescent hope and dreams of tomorrow.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I was thinking,” he said.
For one brief moment, as his eyes met hers, she felt her pulse begin to race. She told herself she was imagining it, but something in her heart told her that she knew what he was thinking. And maybe what he was thinking was only meant to last for a little while—a quick Christmas fling with an old friend—but she didn’t care. She just hoped she was right because if she was, she would take whatever she could get if it meant that they could be together.
And that in turn meant she needed to get Connor home so this could play out in private.
She searched for a solution, and suddenly, inspiration hit her. Holding Jamie close against her, Amy began to walk fast.
“Where are you going?” Connor asked, quickly falling into step beside her.
“I need to sit down,” she said as she picked up her pace. She was heading toward the general store.
There were two rather weather-beaten benches out in front of the store. They’d been there for as long as anyone could remember. Some of Forever’s senior residents liked to sit there, watching the rest of the town going about their business and commenting on them.
Most days, there were at least three, sometimes four and on occasion five, older citizens sitting there, observing the rest of the town going to and from the general store and the attached hardware store.
All Amy needed was a small space for a couple of minutes. Three at best.
Connor still wasn’t clear why she was heading toward the bench.
“Do you need to change him?” Connor asked. If she did, they’d left the bag with Jamie’s diapers, as well as his bottle, in the truck. “I can go back to the truck—” he started to offer.
Amy cut him off. “No, I don’t need to change him. I need to make him laugh.”
Connor looked at her, totally puzzled. That made no sense to him and he told Amy as much.
“I don’t understand.”
Amy flashed him a smile. “You will” was all she said.
Reaching the benches that were in front of the general store, she found a space on the second one. Planting herself down on the bench, she glanced at the two men already sitting there. Quite possibly, they’d been there since early morning.
“Hope you gentlemen don’t mind,” she said.
“Mind? You’re the nicest thing to happen to this bench in a long time,” Jethro Wilkins, eighty-three years young and a onetime would-be rodeo star, told her as he moved closer to his seatmate to give her room.
“Cute little young’un,” his seatmate, Calvin Dobbs, commented. He pointed to the reindeer clutched in Jamie’s hand. “Looks like he’s caught himself one of Miss Joan’s decorations.”
“Not for long,” Amy said. Settling Jamie onto her lap, she kept him supported with one arm while with her free hand, she tugged his jacket and shirt up, exposing his round little belly.
Before Connor could ask her what she was up to, Amy leaned forward, and with her lips pressed to her son’s belly, she began to blow against it, tickling Jamie. Jamie started to laugh. It was a full belly laugh that gladdened the hearts of everyone within a small radius who had the pleasure of hearing the heartwarming sound.
The second she started tickling her son, Connor realized what she was up to. Laughing, Jamie soon loosened his childish grip on the ornament and Connor was able to work the reindeer out of his hand.
“Got it,” he declared.
The moment he did, Amy lifted her lips away from her son’s tummy. Jamie giggled for a second or two longer, and then the sound slowly subsided. The large blue eyes seemed to look right at her with wonder, as if to ask “What happened?”
“Sorry, little guy. If you weren’t going to hang it up, the reindeer had to go back into the box,” Amy told her son.
Jamie’s gaze shifted to his hand and he opened and closed his little fist, staring at it.
Watching him, Connor laughed. “I think he realizes something is missing.”
“I think you’re right,” Amy agreed. “Sorry, sweetie,” she told her son. “You had your chance.” Turning toward Connor, she nodded at the ornament he had in his hand. “Why don’t you hang it up for him and then we can get back to the ranch?”
“You leaving so soon?” Jethro asked. The old-timer clearly looked disappointed to have Amy and the baby go.
“Just for now,” Amy answered, giving the older man a smile. “Jamie needs his nap.”
Jethro’s bench mate nodded. “Yeah. Come to think of it,” Calvin said, slowly getting up to his feet, “I could use one myself.”
> “You’re always napping,” Jethro grumbled. Reluctantly, the other man got up off the bench as well, using the bench’s armrest for leverage to boost him to his feet.
“See you gentlemen around,” Amy said, nodding at them. Leaving, Amy met Connor halfway as he returned from hanging up Jamie’s reindeer on the tree.
“We don’t have to leave if you don’t want to go just yet,” he said the moment she reached him.
Her eyes met his just the way they had a few minutes ago and she saw the same thing in them now as she had then. Something that told her that this evening was going to be different from other evenings. She had a feeling that what had been hinted at with that kiss after they’d finished decorating Connor’s Christmas tree just might, given half a chance, finally reach its fruition.
But she’d never find out if it could by just standing around here in town or sitting in Miss Joan’s Diner.
“Oh, but I do want to go back to the ranch,” she told him in all seriousness.
Was it his imagination, or was she covertly saying what he was hoping she was saying?
Or maybe he wanted it so much, he was reading things into everything she was saying? That was a definite possibility, he thought.
But she did say she wanted to go back to the ranch, so he could act on at least that part of it.
After that, he’d play it by ear.
“Okay, then, let’s go home.” And then he thought of something. “Do you want to stop at Miss Joan’s Diner and let her know that we wound up hanging up Jamie’s ornament for him?”
“No need,” Amy answered. “She’s Miss Joan. She’ll know. Your words, remember?”
Connor grinned, nodding his head. “My words.” He glanced at the baby in her arms as they turned in the general direction of the diner’s parking lot and his truck. “Looks like he’s falling asleep.”
“I guess laughing like that took a lot out of a little guy,” Amy commented.
“I guess,” he echoed. And then the corners of his mouth curved again. “Looks like your little guy’s got good timing.”
“We’ll see,” she said.
* * *
JAMIE SLEPT ALL the way back to the ranch.
As if on cue, he woke up the moment Connor pulled his truck up in front of the house.
“It’s like he knows he’s home,” Connor noted, turning off the ignition. He got out of the truck and came around to the rear passenger seat. He watched as Amy took her son out of the car seat.
Home.
As in their home, Amy thought, dwelling on the word he’d just used.
Was that just a slip on his part or had Connor made the reference without giving it any thought?
There was the outside chance that he had used the word deliberately, that he considered his home her home as well, but she felt that was too much to hope for.
Most likely it had just been a slip, but she really did want to believe, just for a moment, that he had meant it the way it sounded. That this was her home, too. Hers and Jamie’s.
And if she’d only realized the kind of man Connor was, the kind of qualities he possessed—good, kind, long-lasting qualities that were steadfast rather than the kind that dissolved like a pile of sugar left out in the rain—then maybe this would have already been her home rather than just a place where she hoped she’d find a little refuge until she could figure out what to do with the rest of her life.
Hers and Jamie’s, she amended.
“You’re not going to remember any of this,” Connor was telling the baby. “But trust me, this is going to make for a good story, and in a couple of years, you’re going to be telling this to people as if you recalled every second of it yourself.”
“You’re talking to him as if he understands you,” Amy said.
She went to take Jamie from him, but Connor had already started to walk to the front door, holding the baby as if doing so was something he was very comfortable with.
“That’s because he does,” Connor told her simply. “He understands every single word.”
She looked at Connor skeptically. “No, he doesn’t.”
She believed that babies Jamie’s age responded to sounds and cadence, not words.
But it was obvious that Connor had a completely different view of the situation.
“From the moment they come into the world, babies are like tiny little sponges, absorbing everything they hear, every single word. Make no mistake about it,” Connor assured her.
Amy laughed softly, shaking her head. “You really believe that?” she asked, following Connor and her son to the front door.
Connor didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Absolutely,” he told her.
“Well, then, I guess it must be true.” Amy looked at her son. “Right, Jamie?” she asked.
“Right, Mom,” Connor answered in a high-pitched voice pretending to be Jamie. “Uncle Connor always knows what he’s talking about.”
The high-pitched voice was so completely out of character for Connor that Amy just started to laugh. Really laugh. She laughed all the way into the house and continued to laugh so hard, she wound up with tears rolling down her cheeks.
Her laughter brought Rita hurrying into the room. “Is something wrong?” she asked, concerned, looking from Amy to Connor.
“Nothing’s wrong, Rita. Miss Amy just found something that I said to be very funny,” he told the housekeeper, omitting the part that mentioned he had said it in a high-pitched voice, pretending to be a precocious six-month-old. “She was laughing.”
“Oh. I thought she was crying. From the kitchen, it is hard to tell the difference. Laughter is a good sound,” she pronounced. Rather than return to the kitchen, Rita took the baby from Connor. “How did he like his first trip into town?” she asked them. Before either one of them could answer her, Rita looked down at the baby and noted that his long lashes were beginning to droop again. “It looks like all that fresh air has tired him out.”
“He slept in the truck. Isn’t it too soon for him to be falling asleep again?” Amy asked, slightly concerned. It was winter. Maybe Jamie was catching a cold or coming down with something.
“Babies sleep when they want to. They wake up when they want to, too,” Rita replied, unfazed by the note of concern in Amy’s voice. “I suggest that you do whatever you need to do now because later, you may not be able to. Babies do not go by the same clock that we do,” the housekeeper said matter-of-factly.
Connor glanced out the large front window. It looked out on the stables in the distance.
“Did Cole come by the house?” he asked Rita.
Rita knew what he was asking her. “He did not come in to say he was leaving.”
Which meant that Cole was still here, he thought. “Then maybe I’d better check on him,” Connor said, heading back toward the front door.
Amy had the distinct impression that he was saying that to her rather than to Rita.
“I’ll put the baby down for a nap and then help Rita with dinner,” she told him.
Rita relinquished her hold on the baby, handing him over to his mother.
“Rita, the housekeeper,” she informed her, “does not need help with dinner.”
Amy bit her lip. “I didn’t mean to insult you,” she said.
“You did not,” Rita replied as she retreated to the kitchen.
Amy sighed. Finding her proper rhythm in this household was going to take time, she thought, but she wasn’t about to give up trying.
Chapter Fifteen
Amy kept looking at the clock on the far living room wall so often, she was sure its hands had somehow frozen in place. Or at the very least, something had happened to the mechanism to cause the clock to move slower than molasses in January. So when she heard the front door open, she jumped to her feet, s
tartled and relieved at the same time. Connor was finally back. It was only extreme control that kept her from rushing over to him.
Instead, as calmly as she could, Amy said, “I thought maybe you weren’t going to come in tonight.”
The sun had gone down over two hours ago. It was dark outside and past seven. What she had really thought was that she’d done something to scare Connor off and he’d decided to spend the night in the stable, choosing the company of horses over hers.
Connor looked at her, confused.
“Why would you think that?” He shrugged out of his sheepskin-lined jacket as if he were shedding something that weighed a ton. Trying to move fast, he’d accidentally gotten his jacket wet and the lining had swelled, doubling its weight. “I felt bad about leaving Cole with all the work while I was in town, so I told him to go home to Stacy and the twins, and I took care of bedding down the horses for the night,” he explained. “How was dinner?”
“Good, I imagine. I wouldn’t know firsthand because I haven’t had any.”
Draping his jacket on a hook by the door, Connor looked at her quizzically.
“Rita’s not very happy with me,” Amy admitted, “but I told her I wanted to wait for you before I ate dinner. I think she went to her room, grumbling under her breath, something about working for people who had no sense of order.”
“You should have gone ahead and had dinner without me,” Connor told her and then guessed, “You must be starving.”
“No more than you, probably. C’mon,” she urged, turning to lead the way to the kitchen. “I’ll warm dinner up. Knowing Rita, she probably left it on the stove for us. Well, for you,” she amended, then laughed. “I think she’d be happier if I just foraged for food out in the forest whenever I wanted to eat.”
“You know that’s not true,” Connor protested, walking into the kitchen. “Rita likes you.”
Maybe she was being too sensitive, Amy thought. That was a holdover from the number Clay had done on her self-esteem. If it could even still be called self-esteem. Right now, it had the consistency of shredded wet newspapers.
As to the matter of Rita, she was willing to be persuaded.
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