LONG DAY...VERY long day, and the last thing Bex needed was to run into Greg as she was locking up the fitness center. Her manager had gone home sick, and she’d stayed for the duration, twelve hours, and wanted nothing more than to go home.
At least she was out on the sidewalk and not inside alone. Her brother-in-law had a grim look on his face.
He didn’t offer a greeting, but she didn’t expect one. His shoulders were hunched under his jacket. “I want to know exactly where she is, Bex. Don’t put me off.”
She stood there, trying to figure out how to handle it. “Are you threatening me?”
“Maybe. Not physically—don’t worry about that. Your friend Spencer Hogan would have me in jail in a heartbeat if I did. I could take Josh. He’s my son.”
A light rain had started to fall, more a mist than anything, and she put up her hood. “You haven’t been too interested in him so far,” she said as her throat tightened. “What’s different now?”
“I got a letter from her damned lawyer, that’s what.”
Good to know. Tara called every couple of days to check on Josh, but Bex hadn’t been convinced she’d go through with the divorce. She looked Greg in the eye. “If you’d been faithful to her, you wouldn’t be standing here on a wet sidewalk having this conversation with me. This is your fault, and if you care for your son at all, you’ll leave him alone. I will do this much—I’ll talk to Tara and relay the message that you want to speak to her. What happens after that is up to the two of you.”
She’d lent Tara the money for legal assistance. It had better be worth it.
“Okay. I just need to talk to her.”
Bex was afraid Tara would give in to him again...but she’d keep her word and give her sister the message. “I’ll tell her.”
“If she doesn’t call me within two days, Josh is coming back to live with me.”
When he walked away, she felt a wash of relief. Bex practically ran to her car, slid in—double-checking the locks—and negotiated the main drag of Mustang Creek, pretty much on autopilot.
She called Tate via her hands-free phone in the car. “I’m finally headed back. You have Josh, right?”
“Of course. They’re all out in the yard with Ace, Joker and King. What’s going on? You sound upset.”
She loved the names the boys had chosen. They’d come up with them during another game of Old Maid—the night after Mrs. A. dropped off the pups—after chortling happily that Tate was, once again, the Old Maid. “Not really upset,” she replied. “I ran into Greg. This is a small town, so I knew it would happen.”
She couldn’t restrain a small sob.
“I assume that means she filed,” Tate said.
“She did.”
“That’s progress.”
Bex braked for a light. “He’s going to use Josh to try and get her back. He said he’d take him, and I’m so afraid he will. I agreed to call Tara, tell her she has to talk to him. Was that a mistake?”
“No,” Tate said firmly. “This is their problem, but Josh needs to come first with both of them. If you think it makes sense, we can fly him out to Denver at any time. By law, Tara has to tell Greg where he is, even though he hasn’t made any effort to see his son.”
She didn’t want to take Josh to Denver, but it was a generous offer. Josh would be better off with Tara than Greg—that wasn’t in question. But her sister needed to get her life in order first.
“Thank you. I’ll be home soon. Then we can talk about all of this.”
“I hope spaghetti is okay. One of my limited number of specialties, remember? Don’t expect gourmet or anything. Oh,” he added, “the boys have had carrot sticks and cheese to tide them over.”
It was a lot later than she’d intended. She appreciated that he’d waited so he could eat with her. Was this what it was like to be married? Shared responsibilities and the privilege of relying on someone else to pick up the slack when you couldn’t?
“Spaghetti sounds just fine to me.”
When she’d driven down the rutted lane, the puppies rushed out, dashing around in greeting, followed by the three boys trying to corral them. As she got out of the car, three pairs of muddy front paws left marks all over her tailored slacks. The dogs leaped around in joy until she was laughing, and she would’ve sworn that was impossible after her stressful day.
Ben did try to control the pack. “No!” he shouted.
Tate was much more effective when he came out and whistled. “Down,” he ordered in a deceptively calm voice.
The puppies all sat obediently, apparently contrite. Bex brushed at her pants then gave up. She wanted to put on jeans, anyway. As she went up the steps, she asked, “How do you do that?”
“They know I mean it. I poured you a glass of wine.” He fixed the boys with a pointed look. “In fifteen minutes, it’s bath time. You’re muddy and it’s getting colder by the minute. I don’t care who goes first, but take off your shoes before you come inside and wipe off the dogs’ paws.”
He was such a natural at being in charge, and tonight she was going to let him handle all the chaos.
“I’m going to change. The wine’s a wonderful idea.” She hurried to the bedroom; most of her clothes were still at her place, so it only took a minute to choose comfortable jeans plus her favorite gray shirt from her suitcase. There were so many decisions she still had to make. One of them was what to do with her house if she stayed at the ranch permanently. She wouldn’t sell it, but maybe rent it out? She stopped over regularly to pick up clothes and other personal things, check the locks and so on.
She was looking forward to relaxing, but it seemed that every single time she and Tate sat down, there was a puppy or child incident, and then relaxation went out the window.
Still, she had to acknowledge that she was really experiencing family life, and it felt...right.
When she joined him in the kitchen, Tate said with humor in his voice, “You do realize that they’ll all come piling in the minute we sit down to eat, and they’ll have a million questions. Then someone won’t be able to find something he can’t live without, and wet puppies will race around the entire time. A Tate Calder version of a romantic evening.”
She picked up her glass of wine. “I like the sound of that. This wasn’t the best day of my life. There’ve been worse, but there sure have been better. Hmm, that sauce smells great. What did you do?”
“Opened a jar and poured the contents into a pan.” He grinned. “I do admit to splurging on the good stuff to impress you. Plus, there’s my secret ingredient. Nothing like Italian sausage to win a girl’s heart, right?”
“That’ll do it every time. Throw in garlic bread and I’m yours for life.”
“I was kind of hoping that was true, anyway.” He poured the drained pasta into the sauce and his tone was casual, but his body language was not.
Then she did it. She just said it. “Yes to the baby.”
* * *
TATE WAS SURE his hearing was faulty.
She’d said yes.
He stared at Bex, who looked tempting in just about anything. This evening it was jeans and a plain shirt that somehow managed to emphasize how fantasy-perfect her breasts were—at least in his fantasies. She said yes. He was at a loss for words.
Since the initial discussion, she’d said nothing about it.
“You’re dripping sauce on the floor,” she pointed out, and he glanced down to discover that the spoon in his hand was no longer over the pot.
He set it on the counter, ignoring the mess it made. “Since I brought it up, you haven’t been interested in talking about it.”
“I haven’t had time to talk,” she said reasonably, “and besides, you must know me well enough by now to figure out I was thinking about it. There’s a stipulation, though. Do not ask me to marry you.”
He gazed at her in puzzlement. He couldn’t help feeling confused, since he knew those charms signified marriage and commitment; not only that, she never took her bracelet off. After his relationship with Sandra he’d sworn off marriage—which wasn’t exactly a secret—and yet, this threw him.
The sauce bubbled away merrily. He spoke slowly, weighing his response. “I don’t understand why that’s your position, since you agreed to move in here and now we’re going to try to expand our family. But if that’s what you want, I’m fine with it. Clarification would help, though. I’m not prying—your feelings are your feelings—but I do want to hear your reasons.”
She took a sip of merlot before answering. “You proposed to Sandra and it was a disaster, correct?”
What an understatement. “Aside from Ben and Adam, yes, it was.” He felt he needed some of that wine himself for this conversation. He reached for a glass.
She crossed her arms under those tempting breasts. “Will proposed to me, and that ended up being an entirely different kind of disaster. I mean it, I do not want a proposal.”
So he’d fallen in love with the only woman on the planet who didn’t want a ring and a proposal on bended knee?
“You’re superstitious,” he said. “Because of what happened to Will.”
“I guess so.”
It was ironic, since he’d told himself over and over that he didn’t want to get married again, that now that he might actually change his mind, he didn’t have that option. She seemed dead serious, too, straight up Bex-style. He had to acknowledge that his reasons for being marriage shy were also based on past fears and a degree of superstition. Because Bex wasn’t Sandra.
“Just putting my cards on the table. Take it or leave it, Old Maid.”
The touch of levity helped. “That’s downright mean. I’m still convinced you cheat.”
“Prove it.” Bex got out a couple of plates from one of the cupboards. She knew her way around the kitchen better than he did. “Now, please give me some pasta before I faint. Lunch was an apple at one o’clock.”
Predictably, the crowd swarmed in right then, and not one of the boys remembered to wipe a single puppy paw, so the floor was immediately a mess. He could yell, but it wouldn’t solve the problem and besides, all six of them had come in on time and on command, so that alone was a victory. The muddy paws were just fallout.
“Told you,” he said to Bex, scooping out spaghetti and sauce for each boy and ignoring the mayhem. “It never fails. If there’s a football game I want to watch, someone needs help with his homework. If I get an important phone call, suddenly they both need to talk to me. The night I desperately need sleep, they start running a fever.”
“But you want more kids.” Her eyes had turned a soft gold.
“Yes,” he said simply. “Mind bringing in the garlic bread?”
He could have added: more children, yes, but only with you.
She didn’t want him to propose. He should be relieved.
He wasn’t. That shook him up a little.
The three boys ate rapidly, if sloppily, and eschewed the grated Parmesan, which Bex added liberally to her spaghetti. Then they mumbled requests to be “’scused” and disappeared, leaving the two of them to finish their meal.
The sound of running water from the bathroom down the hall diminished some of the romantic ambiance, such as it was. So did the puppies circling the table, not begging, just hopeful and romping around. One of the children was actually taking a bath without prompting. That worked for him. Casually picking up his fork, he asked, “What precisely did Greg say?”
“He reminded me that Josh is his son.” Bex stopped eating and sighed. “If I believed he really wanted to be a good father, I’d feel differently about this. To be fair, maybe he does—but he’s nothing like you.”
As a compliment that ranked right up there. She wasn’t trying to flatter him, either. She was just ruminating, twirling pasta around on her plate.
He was touched by that.
But he had to say, “Bex, you knew this was coming.”
Her eyes glistened as she nodded. “I know.”
One of the puppies—he thought it was Ace but they all looked alike, so he couldn’t be sure—tried to crawl onto her lap in sympathy. Usually the dogs seemed to stick to their allotted boys. His must be the one in the bathtub. She absently patted the puppy’s head.
“Josh is resilient,” he said.
“I don’t want him to have to be, but I don’t want my sister to go back to Greg, either.”
“I’d guess he’s bluffing.”
The spaghetti was good. No wonder the boys had devoured it. Tate took a bite and washed it down with a sip of wine. “I’ve met his type before. He won’t last more than a day or two, and then soccer practice and laundry will get to him.”
“So speaks a man with experience.”
“Oh, it got to me, too.” He couldn’t be less than honest. “It’s a lot of work. I get tired and exasperated at times and have to remind myself that it isn’t an easy journey, but worth it.”
“I’m more worried Greg won’t let him play soccer and won’t do his laundry. He refused to pay for his lunch ticket, Tate.”
She was really worried. He could see it in her strained expression.
There was suddenly some dispute in the bathroom, probably Ben and Adam. In his experience, Josh didn’t cause dissension. He started to get up to mediate.
“No.”
“No, what?”
Bex said, “Sit down. I’ll handle this one. I need the practice. I can’t be nice Aunt Bex all the time if we live together.”
She did well; they listened long enough not to resume the controversy until they hit the bedroom, where the grumbling gradually reduced in volume and then subsided completely. The puppies also disappeared to their beds, which he’d insisted be left on the floor in an effort to keep the animals off the furniture. He’d already caught one of them snuggled up with Adam when he checked on everyone before he went to bed last night, and he’d just let it go with a sense of the inevitable. Boys and puppies... Yeah, the dogs were going to sleep on the beds eventually. Who was he fooling?
When Bex came back to the table, he did notice that she took quite a long sip from her glass. He kept a straight face but she saw him, anyway.
“I’ve never thought,” she said defensively, “that it’s easy to have kids.”
“No.” The shimmer of her hair made him want to run his fingers through it. Speaking in a slightly husky tone, he said, “Why don’t we finish dinner, and then, when we’re sure the kids are asleep, let’s go make another one.”