“Jack?” his father said. “This means more to me than a kidney.”
Jack looked at his father a long time. Then he glanced at his mother, whose gentle smile beamed on him so warmly that it was difficult to continue being a hard case. “Sure, Pop, whatever.”
Laura, Suzy and Priscilla went to hug Gisella and welcome her to the family. After a moment, the brothers did, too. Except Jack, who decided not to get caught up in the sentimental moment. It wasn’t the time for him to live in the Hallmark-card family moment, no matter how much Pop wanted it.
Nurses entered the room to wheel Pop out. Jack’s throat closed up. The feel of family, of being hemmed in, of life being out of his control, threatened to overwhelm him. He needed some separation.
He needed to ride. It was the only thing that would make him sane right now, feel in control. “Be well, Pop,” he said, gritting his teeth as his father was wheeled down the hall to presurgery. They all watched as a suddenly silent Josiah was taken away. Gisella and Sara wiped away surreptitious tears, sitting down together side by side. Jack cleared his throat, realizing he, too, was tearing up with nervous emotion. This was awkward. He looked at the box of old, unopened letters on the table, a silent testament to Josiah’s stubbornness. A ranch had been given to his mother with the proviso that Jack could live there with her for a year. What the hell was that if it wasn’t a trap laid by Pop? But Pop didn’t understand that the past couldn’t be laid to rest with a quick apology and a confession.
“I’ll be back,” Jack stated, and left the room.
Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t.
Chapter 8
Jack didn’t get far. He bumped into Cricket, who was hurrying into Josiah’s hospital room.
“Oh, my,” Cricket said, glancing around. “I missed him, didn’t I?”
Laura, Suzy and Priscilla came over to hug her.
“Josiah just left,” Priscilla said. “But you’ll be here when he wakes up, and that will make him happy.”
Jack stared at Cricket. She looked different. For one thing, she was wearing a dress that brushed her calves, and boots. Since it was chilly today, he understood the need for warmth. But she also looked different somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain. Glowing. Was she glowing? Perhaps it was the nippy air that had put the sparkle in her eyes.
“This is Gisella, mother of the Morgan brothers,” Priscilla said, and Jack realized he’d forgotten his manners. He just couldn’t seem to catch up to the speed of events in the room.
He joined the group. “Gisella, this is Cricket Jasper from Fort Wylie.”
“Hello,” Cricket said. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about you.”
Gisella smiled at her. “Thank you.”
Cricket glanced around, her gaze settling on Jack. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here in time to pray for Josiah.”
Jack shrugged. “No problem.”
“Your father called me yesterday,” Cricket said, “but I’m a slow starter these days. I meant to be here earlier.”
Suzy smiled at her, then patted Cricket’s stomach. “You look beautiful.”
Jack hesitated. No woman patted another woman’s stomach, then told her she was beautiful unless she wanted her hand chewed off. Women and weight was a personal thing...unless... Jack stared at Cricket, shock spreading over him. Belatedly, he realized Laura, Suzy and Priscilla were smiling at him, watching his reaction. Cricket simply looked worried.
She couldn’t be pregnant. Jack shook his head to clear his brain. His brothers shifted uncomfortably and Jack felt faint, as if he’d been thrown off a bull and hadn’t landed quite right. “Cricket, you’re not...is there something I should know?”
Cricket hesitated. “I was going to tell you, but—”
“Oh, jeez.” Now that he looked at Cricket’s waist and stomach more closely, he could see the obvious.
“We’re having a baby,” Cricket said, her face red. “I meant to tell you sooner, but—”
“Pete, scoot that chair behind Jack before he falls,” Gabe said. “I remember when I found out I was having a baby. I felt like my boots weren’t attached to the floor for a minute.”
“I hope that meant you were happy,” Laura said.
Gabe eyed Laura’s enormous pregnant stomach. “Every day,” he said. “It feels like I’m waiting for Christmas.”
Jack sat in the chair Pete moved behind him. Then he jumped out of it, too stunned to sit. He couldn’t take his eyes off Cricket. Was she really having a baby? His baby?
“This is so exciting,” Gisella said, clapping her hands. “I’m going to be a grandmother again, and this time, I’ll be here for the big event. Two,” she said, with a proud smile at Laura, who looked as though she might give birth any day.
This could not be happening. Jack inhaled deep breaths to brace himself. “I’m going to be a father?”
Everyone laughed. Cricket smiled at him for the first time since she’d entered the room.
“Yes,” she said softly, “to triplets, actually.”
Jack couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak. Never had his life rushed so fast, not even the eight seconds he rode to the buzzer. This was different.
This was a crazy ride.
His brothers congratulated him, pounded him on the back, shook his hand. One of his brothers mentioned something about “nice shooting, bro,” and general guffaws broke out. Gisella kissed Cricket on the cheek, and Sara smiled.
“Josiah’s going to have such a gift when he comes out of surgery,” Sara said. “He’ll be so excited he’ll probably recover twice as fast.”
Jack tried to say that he was excited, too, but all that came out of his mouth was a rusty croak no one heard over all the sudden hugging and kissing of Cricket. Jack knew he needed to say something to her, act pleased, brag like an expectant father—but all he could do was try to keep his knees from knocking together and suck air into his lungs.
He’d never been so scared.
How could he—a man who spends all his time on the rodeo circuit—be a father? To triplets?
He had no home. He basically lived out of his truck. The rodeo circuit was his family. He had no steady employment, no way of caring for a wife and three children.
The obvious smote him—he was going to have to live on the damn ranch, prey to his father’s manipulations, in order to earn the million dollars Josiah had set out as bribe money. It was fast dough, and he’d need it pronto if he meant to be something other than a loser father and shiftless husband. He stared at Cricket, realizing his whole life was changing, and he’d have to change with it.
“I’m thrilled,” he said. “This is great.”
* * *
Cricket knew Jack was anything but “thrilled.” He looked pale, maybe even sick. It was a lot for him to take in on the day his father was having surgery. She wondered if he’d known Gisella was coming home and decided he had enough to bear without finding out he was a father. She forgave him for his lack of real enthusiasm, remembering that she’d had a few moments of shocked doubt before genuine happiness washed over her.
Still, she wished she and Jack knew each other well enough to be truly excited about being parents together. She wouldn’t have come today had Josiah not called her, asking her to be there before he was taken into surgery. As it was, she’d missed him leaving and felt bad about that.
She’d known her secret might be out when Jack saw her, and tried to camouflage her pregnancy with a dress. He might not have figured it out had her good friends Laura, Suzy and Priscilla not given him a broad hint even Jack couldn’t miss. She would have preferred to tell him herself, when they weren’t surrounded by people, and when Jack wasn’t worried about his father.
But now he knew.
“A wedding,” Gisella said with delight. “Josiah didn’t tell me the good news. When’s the
date?”
Cricket glanced at Jack, stricken. She didn’t know what to say. She understood why Gisella might have misunderstood that there was to be a wedding, but—
“As soon as Pop’s well,” Jack said, shocking Cricket. “I imagine he’ll be on his feet fairly quickly, don’t you? He’s a fighter.”
“Indeed,” Cricket said as Jack walked over and planted a kiss on her lips. “Can I talk to you a moment—outside?” she asked as everyone in the room was celebrating the idea of another Morgan wedding.
“Sure,” Jack said, putting his arm around her. “Keep playing along with me. You’re doing great.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. She’d heard that sneaky tone used before, but always from Josiah. “What are you up to?” she demanded when they were safely in the hospital hallway.
“You’ve got to save me,” Jack said. “Pop’s trying to trap me.”
“Look here,” Cricket said, already feeling heat run under her good sense. “I refuse to be regarded as a trap, Jack Morgan. You are not a rabbit that I set out to snare, for your information.”
“Oh, hell, no, I didn’t mean that.” He held her against him, kissing her as Pete glanced out in the hall.
“Just checking to make certain you lovebirds hadn’t flown the coop,” Pete teased. “Mom’s planning a huge wedding, just so you know. At the Château Morgan, which is to say the ranch. She has visions of you in a formal suit,” he whispered to Jack so their mother wouldn’t hear. “All the weddings she missed is making her want a doozy.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Jack said, waving his brother away. “Look, you can see what’s happening here, can’t you?”
“Not exactly,” Cricket said. “I have a lot on my mind these days and haven’t been focusing on the Morgan family, at least not the ones in Union Junction.”
“Precisely my point,” Jack said. “Pop’s moved Mom onto the ranch. He’s turning over ownership to her. I’m supposed to live there for a year with her to get my million dollars.”
“What million dollars?” Cricket asked.
“All my brothers got a million for coming home to Pop. It was bribe money,” Jack explained. “Now he’s brought Mom into the picture because of his guilty conscience. None of my brothers had to live with her, though, and put up with Pop, and learn how to be a father all at once. The deck is stacked against me. I’m going to need your help, Deacon.”
“I’m not a deacon anymore,” Cricket said, detaching herself from Jack’s arms. She was reluctant to part from him but she didn’t want to be part of a cover-up. “I wasn’t really deacon material considering my unwed, pregnant state.”
“Oh,” Jack said, “a little too rebellious for the church, huh?”
“I consider myself to be, at the moment, and turned in my resignation to spare them having to ask me to leave.” Cricket was terribly embarrassed by this. “Anyway, I’m not the person you need to talk to about any type of help. My days are spent warding off morning sickness.”
“Marry me,” Jack said. “We’ll ward off a lot of things together.”
She looked at him, wishing the proposal was offered seriously. He was so big and tall, handsome in a devil-may-care way. She knew this man was too much of a rogue to ever be tamed by a deacon and three babies—she wouldn’t dream of getting involved in his scheme. “I can’t, Jack. Don’t ask it of me.”
“Sure you can,” he said. “Save me, I’ll save you.”
“But I don’t want to live at the ranch. I mean, I like Gisella, she seems like a woman who’s eager for a second chance. You need to spend some time developing that relationship,” Cricket said, sort of realizing the wonderful madness behind Josiah’s scheme. “You should obey your father, you know.”
“You mean for the money.”
“No,” Cricket said. “Although that’s definitely a plus. But your father knows what he’s doing, he almost always has.”
“Oh, you weren’t here for the fireworks,” Jack told her. “There’s a box sitting in there full of letters Mom sent us over the years that Pop never opened. He’s a stubborn old fart, and he let her suffer, and us. The only reason he’s springing all this now is he’s genuinely afraid of pushing up daisies after this surgery. I don’t think I ever saw Pop take anything stronger than an aspirin.”
“He had his own medicine,” Cricket reminded him, and Jack nodded.
“True, but you get my point. Pop was scared silly of giving over the control of his body and his life to a surgeon. He felt like he had a lot of cleansing of his conscience to do. I’m okay with that,” Jack said, “but I don’t want him running my life so that his conscience is clear.”
“What exactly are you proposing?” She looked up at him, wondering if Jack realized just how much like his father he was turning out to be.
“I don’t exactly know,” Jack said. “I’m working the details out on the fly, but it goes something like this. I have no prospects—some money put away, no job. No debt. No house. Am not especially close to my family. Not quite sure what I’m doing in life other than pleasing myself.”
“So, as potential marriage material, you’re not exactly a shiny catch.”
He grinned. “That’s a fair statement.”
“Okay,” Cricket said. “Again, you have to live at the ranch to earn your keep. I don’t want to live there.”
“We can live in the guesthouse,” Jack offered. “It’s big enough to raise a family in, and be private, while sticking to Pop’s rules.”
“This is going to sound crazy,” Cricket said, “but I’m not marrying you for money.”
“I wasn’t exactly suggesting you should,” Jack said, but Cricket shook her head.
“That’s what it comes down to. You need money, so you want to marry me. The only reason you’re proposing to me, Jack Morgan, is that I’ve got the three magic tokens that will push you into doing what your father wants. Otherwise, you’d just as soon walk away from any amount of money.”
“This is true,” Jack said. “Being a father does change my perspective. I don’t want them growing up without a parent like I did.”
“Oh, gosh,” Cricket said, “you are a tangled web of insecurities and emotional angst.”
“Yep,” Jack said with a grin. “Part of my appeal.”
“I wouldn’t exactly agree, but I shouldn’t have let you sweet-talk me into bed,” Cricket said, knowing she was fibbing like mad. She didn’t regret a moment of their time together.
“Ahem,” Jack said, politely catching her in her retelling of who had instigated their lovemaking.
“Here’s the deal—I just bought Priscilla’s house and tea shop. I was always enchanted by her house and the business. I admired her ability to make a business out of almost nothing. So when she wanted to sell it to come live in Union Junction with Pete, I jumped at the chance to buy it from her. I suppose maybe I knew somewhere in my heart that I wouldn’t be a deacon forever.” She looked up at him, hoping he’d understand. “My life’s changing pretty fast, Jack. A tea shop is something I can do as a single mom and still be at home with my children. Do you see why I don’t want to leave Fort Wylie?”
Jack stared down at her, nodding. “Yes, I do,” he said. “It’s crazy, but it just might work.”
“What?” Cricket demanded. “What just might work?”
“I’ll be a tea-shop cowboy,” he said with a wink and a grin, “Coffee, tea or me?”
That would cause a stir. There’d be more women hanging around the tea shop and her cowboy than she could bear. Cricket raised a cool brow in response to his deliberate teasing. “I don’t think you could handle the heat in this kitchen, Jack Morgan.”
Chapter 9
Jack knew the moment Cricket said she didn’t want to leave Fort Wylie that he had to convince her to let him live in her world. It was the only practical solution that solved eve
rything except money.
“A million dollars is a lot to give up, anyway,” Cricket told him, all teasing spirit fleeing. “You’ll resent me later for missing the opportunity of a lot of wealth.”
Jack shrugged. “Don’t try to understand me and we’ll both be fine.”
“It’s not a matter of understanding you,” she shot back. “It’s a simple matter of understanding human nature. I don’t see you being happy passing out cookies and cakes to moms with school-age children.”
“It was your idea,” he said, and Cricket blinked.
“How so?”
“You’re the one who said it was the perfect way to be a stay-at-home parent, and that’s what I’d like to do.” Jack kissed her on the nose. “Two can live as cheaply as one. Surely five will be a snap.”
“You haven’t done much grocery shopping lately.” Cricket shook her head. “Jack, do not use me and the babies as an excuse to get out from under your father’s thumb.”
“A thumb is a terrible thing to be under,” he said.
“You’re just exchanging his thumb for mine. Eventually, that’s the conclusion you’ll come to.”
“You make me sound shiftless,” Jack said. “I’ll have you know, I’m responsible to a fault.”
“This is a bad idea,” Cricket said. “Even in my less-wild dreams, I thought my marriage would be more about love and less about business.”
“You wanted to be an excellent businesswoman,” Jack reminded her. “I’m just offering a partnership since we’ve already started parenthood together.”
He had a point. The blue-ribbon prize she barely allowed herself to contemplate was that she’d win the rodeo man she wanted if she went along with Jack’s proposal—and wasn’t that worth doing for her children?
She looked at Jack’s long, lean body and wondered if she was really thinking about her children or herself.
“So you’ll marry me, Cricket?” Jack asked.
Claiming the Texan's Heart Page 25
