Wes could have walked to Isabelle’s house, since it was just outside town, but at night, the temperature dropped even farther and he figured he’d be an icicle by the time he arrived. The five-minute drive brought him to the long, winding road that stretched at least a half mile before ending in front of the stately Victorian. His headlights swept the front of the place and he took a moment to look it over.
The big house was painted forest green and boasted black shutters and white gingerbread trim. Surrounded as it was by snow-covered pines, the old house looked almost magical. Lamplight glowed from behind window glass, throwing golden shadows into the night. Porch lights shone from what used to be brass carriage lanterns and signaled welcome—though Wes was fairly certain that welcome wasn’t something Belle was feeling for him.
“Doesn’t matter,” he told himself. He turned off the engine and just sat there for a minute, looking up at the house. He’d been thinking about nothing but this moment for hours now, and he knew that this conversation would be the most important of his life. He had a child.
A daughter.
Just that thought alone was enough to make his insides jitter with nerves. He didn’t even know her, yet he felt a connection to this child. There were so many different feelings running through him, he couldn’t separate them all. Panic, of course—who could blame him for being terrified at the thought of being responsible for such a small human being? And whether Belle wanted to admit it or not, he was as responsible for Caroline as she was.
But there was more. There was...wonder. He’d helped to create a person. Okay, he hadn’t had a clue, but that child was here. In the world. Because of him. He smiled to himself even as a fresh wave of trepidation rose up inside him.
Nothing in his life had worried him before this, but at least internally, Wes had to admit that being a father was a damn scary proposition. What the hell did he know about being a parent?
His own mother had died when Wes was six months old. His father, Henry Jackson, had raised him single-handedly. Henry had done a good job, but he’d also managed to let his son know in countless different ways that allowing a woman into your life was a sure path to misery. Though he’d made it clear it wasn’t having a woman that was the problem—it was losing her.
He’d loved Wes’s mother and was lost when she died. Once when Wes was sixteen, Henry had finally talked to him, warning him to guard his heart.
“Wes, you listen good. A woman’s a fine thing for a man,” Henry had mused, staring up at the wide, Texas sky on a warm summer night. “And finding one you can love more than your own life is a gift and a curse all at once.”
“Why’s that?” Wes held a sweating bottle of Coke between his palms and leaned back in the lawn chair beside his father. It had been a long, backbreaking day of work on the ranch, and Wes was exhausted. But he and his dad always ended the day like this, sitting out in the dark, talking, and it didn’t even occur to him to give it up just because he was tired.
“Because once you give your heart to a woman, she can take it with her when she leaves.” Henry turned and looked his son dead in the eye. “Your mama took mine when she died, and I’ve lived like half a man ever since.”
Wes knew that to be true, since he’d seen the sorrow in his father’s eyes ever since he was old enough to identify it.
“Love is a hard thing, Wes, and you just remember that, now that you’re old enough to go sniffing around the females.” He sighed and focused on the stars as if, Wes thought, the old man believed if he looked at the sky hard enough, he might be able to peer through the blackness and into Heaven itself.
“I’m not saying I regret a minute of loving your mother,” Henry said on a heavy sigh. “Can’t bring myself to say that, no matter how deep the loss of her cut me. Without her, I wouldn’t have you, and I don’t like the thought of that at all. What I’m trying to tell you, boy, is that it’s better to not love too hard or too permanent. Easier to live your life when you’re not worried about having the rug pulled out from under your feet.” He stared into Wes’s eyes. “Guard your heart, Wes. That’s what I’m telling you.”
Wes had listened well to his father’s advice. Oh, he loved women. All women. But he kept them at arm’s length, never letting them close enough to get beyond the wall he so carefully constructed around his heart. All through school, he’d been single-mindedly focused on building a business he started with his college roommate.
Together, they’d bought up hundreds of tiny, aerodynamically perfect toy planes at auction, then sold them at a profit to bored college students at UT. Within a week, planes had been flying from dorm windows, classrooms, down staircases. The students set up contests for flight, distance and accuracy. Seeing how quickly they’d sold out of their only product, Wes and his friend had put the money they made back into their growing business. Soon, they were the go-to guys for toys to help fight boredom and mental fatigue. By the time they graduated, Wes had found his life’s path. He bought out his friend, allowing him to finance his way through medical school, and Wes took Texas Toy Goods Inc. to the top.
Along the way, there had been more women, but none of them had left a mark on him—until Belle. And he’d fought against that connection with everything he had. He wasn’t looking for love. He’d seen his own father wallow in his sorrow until the day he died and was able to finally rejoin the woman he’d mourned for more than twenty years. Wes had no intention of allowing his life to be turned upside down for something as ephemeral as love.
Yet now here he was, out in front of Belle’s house, where his daughter slept. The world as he knew it was over. The new world was undiscovered country. And, he told himself, there was no time like the present to start exploring it.
He got out of the car, turned the collar of his black leather jacket up against the wind, closed the car door and headed up the brick walk that had been shoveled clear. Funny to think about all the times he’d avoided the very complication he was now insisting on. Still, he thought as he climbed the steps to the porch, he could take the easy way out, go along with what Belle wanted and simply disappear. His daughter wouldn’t miss him because she wasn’t even aware of his existence.
And that was what gnawed at him. His little girl didn’t know him. She’d looked up at him today and hadn’t realized who the hell he was. Who would have thought that the simple action would have hit him so hard? So yeah, he could walk away, but what would that make him?
“A coward, that’s what,” he grumbled as he stood before the front door. Well, Wes Jackson was many things, but no one had ever accused him of cowardice, and that wasn’t going to change now.
He might not have wanted children, but he had one now, and damned if he’d pretend otherwise. With that thought firmly in mind, he rapped his knuckles against the door and waited impatiently for it to open.
A second later, Belle was there, haloed in light, her blond hair shining, her eyes worried. She wore faded jeans and a long-sleeved, dark rose T-shirt. Her feet were bare and boasted bloodred polish on her nails.
Why he found that incredibly sexy, he couldn’t have said and didn’t want to consider.
“Is she asleep?” he asked.
“She’s in bed,” Belle answered. “Sleep is a separate issue.” Stepping back to allow him to enter, she closed the door, locked it and said, “Usually, she lies awake for a while, talking to herself or to Lizzie.”
Wes stopped in the act of shrugging out of his jacket and looked at her. “Who’s Lizzie?”
“Her stuffed dog.”
“Oh.” Nodding, he took his jacket off and hung it on the coat tree beside the door. For a minute there he’d actually thought maybe he was the father of twins or something. Looking at Belle, he said, “I half expected you to not open the door to me tonight.”
“I thought about it,” she admitted, sliding her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Heck, I thought about snatching Caro up and flying to Europe. Just not being here when you showed up.”
He hadn’t considered that possibility. Now Wes realized he should have. He’d done his research and knew that Belle was wealthy enough to have disappeared if she’d wanted to, and he’d have spent years trying to find her and their daughter. Anger bubbled but was smoothed over by the fact that she hadn’t run. That she was here. To give him the answers he needed.
“I would have found you.”
“Yeah, I know.” She pulled her hands free, then folded her arms across her chest and rubbed her upper arms briskly, as if she were cold. But the house was warm in spite of the frigid temperatures outside. So it must be nerves, he told himself and could almost sympathize. “That’s just one of the reasons I didn’t go.”
Curious, he asked, “What’re the others?”
Sighing a little, she looked up at him. “Believe it or not, you showing up here like this isn’t the only thing I have to think about. My daughter comes first. I couldn’t tear Caro away from her home. She has friends here. The uncles who love her are here. Secondly, this is my place, and I won’t run. Not even from you.”
He looked down into her eyes and saw pride and determination. He could understand that. Hell, he could use it. Her pride would demand that she listen to him whether she wanted to or not. Her pride would make sure she caved to his demands if only to prove she didn’t fear him becoming a part of their daughter’s life.
Belle had always been more complicated than any other woman he’d ever known. She was smart, funny, driven, and her personality was strong enough that she’d never had any trouble standing up for herself. Which meant that though he’d get his way in the end, it wouldn’t be an easy road.
As they stood together in the quiet entryway, iron-clad pendant lights hung from the ceiling and cast shadows across her face that seemed to settle in her eyes. She looked...vulnerable for a second, and Wes steeled himself against feeling sympathy for her. Hell, she’d cheated him for five long years. He’d missed her pregnancy, missed the birth of his daughter, missed every damn thing. If anyone deserved some sympathy around here, it was him.
As if she could sense his thoughts, that vulnerability she’d inadvertently shown faded fast. “Do you want some coffee?”
“I want answers.”
“Over coffee,” she said. “Come on. We can sit in the kitchen.”
He followed her down the hall, glancing around him as he went. The house was beautiful. There were brightly colored rugs spread everywhere on the oak floors so that the sound of his footsteps went from harsh to muffled as he navigated through the house. The dining room was big, but not formal. There was a huge pedestal table with six chairs drawn up to it. Pine branches jutted up from a tall porcelain vase and spilled that rich fragrance into the air.
He couldn’t help comparing her home to his own back in Royal. Though Wes’s house was big and luxurious, it lacked the warmth he found here. Not surprising, he supposed, since he was only there to sleep and eat. The only other person who spent time in his house besides himself was his housekeeper, and she kept the place sparkling clean but couldn’t do a thing about the impersonal feel. Frowning a little, he pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the moment at hand.
Isabelle didn’t speak until they were in the kitchen, then it was only to say, “You still take your coffee black?”
“Yeah,” he said, surprised she remembered. The kitchen had slate-blue walls, white cabinets, black granite on the counters and a long center island that boasted four stools. There was a small table with four chairs in a bay window, and Isabelle waved him toward it.
“Go sit down, this’ll take a minute.”
He took a chair that afforded him a view of her, and damned if he didn’t enjoy it. He could be as angry as ever and still have a purely male appreciation for a woman who could look that good in jeans. Hell, maybe it was the Texan in him, but a woman who filled out denim like she did was the stuff dreams were made of. But he’d already had that dream and let it go, so there was no point in thinking about it again now.
He narrowed his gaze on her. She was nervous. He could see that, too.
Well, she had a right to be.
“So,” he said abruptly, “how long have you lived here?”
She jolted a little at the sound of his voice reverberating through the big kitchen, but recovered quickly enough. Throwing him a quick glance, she set several cookies on a plate, then said, “In Swan Hollow? I grew up here.”
He already knew that, thanks to the internet. “So you’ve always lived in this house?”
She took one mug out of the machine, reset it and set the next mug in place. “No, my brother Chance lives in the family home now.”
One eyebrow lifted. Truth be told, as soon as he’d discovered who Belle was and where she lived, he hadn’t looked any deeper. “You have a brother? Wait. Yeah. You said uncles earlier.”
She gave him a wry smile. “I have three older brothers. Chance, Eli and Tyler. Fair warning, you’ll probably be meeting them once they find out you’re here.”
Fine. He could handle her brothers. “They don’t worry me.”
“Okay. The three of them live just up the road. My parents had a big tract of land, and when they died, Chance moved into the big house and Eli and Tyler built homes for themselves on the land.”
“Why didn’t you? Why live here and not closer to your family?”
She laughed shortly. “In summer it takes about five minutes to walk to any of their houses. It’s not like I’m far away.” She carried a plate of cookies to the table and set them down. Homemade chocolate chip. When she turned to go back for the coffee, she said, “I wanted to live closer to town, with Caroline. She has school and friends...” Her voice trailed off as she set his coffee in front of him and then took her own cup and sat down in the chair opposite him.
“Big house for just the two of you,” he mused, though even as he said it, he thought again about his own home. It was bigger than this place and only he and his housekeeper lived there.
“It’s big, but when I was a girl, I loved this house.” She looked around the kitchen and he knew she was seeing the character, the charm of the building, not the sleek appliances or the updated tile floor. “I used to walk past it all the time and wonder about what it was like inside. When it went up for sale, I had to have it. I had it remodeled and brought it back to life, and sometimes I think the house is grateful for it.” She looked at him and shrugged. “Sounds silly, but...anyway, my housekeeper, Edna, and her husband, Marco, my gardener, live in the guest house out back. So Caro and I have the main house to ourselves.”
Outside, the dark pressed against the windows, but the light in the room kept it at bay. Wes had a sip of coffee, more to take a moment to gather his thoughts than for anything else. He was at home in any situation, yet here and now, he felt a little off balance. It had started with his first look at Belle after five long years. Then seeing Caroline had just pushed him over the edge. He really hadn’t taken in yet just how completely his life had been forever altered. All he knew for sure was that things were different now. And he had to forge a path through uncharted territory.
When he set the mug back on the table, he looked into her eyes and asked, “Did you tell Caroline who I am?”
She bit at her bottom lip. “No.”
“Good.”
“What?” Clearly surprised, she stared at him, questions in her eyes.
“I want her to get to know me before we spring it on her,” Wes said. He’d had some time to think about this, during his long day of waiting, and though he wanted nothing more than to go upstairs and claim his daughter, it wasn’t the smart plan. He wanted Caroline to get used to him, to come to like him before she found out he was her father.
“Okay,” she said. “That makes sense, I guess.”
She looked relieved and Wes spoke up fast to end whatever delusion she was playing out in her head. “Don’t take this to mean I might change my mind about all of this. I’m not going anywhere. Caroline is my daughter, Belle. And I want her to know that. I’m going to be a part of her life, whether you like the idea or not.”
Irritation flashed on her features briefly, then faded as she took a gulp of her coffee and set the mug down again. “I understand. But you have to understand something, too, Wes. I won’t let Caroline be hurt.”
Insult slapped at him. What was he, a monster? He wasn’t looking to cause Caroline pain, for God’s sake. He was her father and he wanted her to know that. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
“Not intentionally. I know that,” she said quickly. “But she’s a little girl. She doesn’t know how to guard her heart or to keep from becoming attached. If she gets used to having you around, having you be a part of her world, and then you back off, it will hurt her.”
He was used to responsibility, but suddenly that feeling inched up several notches. Wes couldn’t have a child and ignore her. But at the same time, he was about to break every rule he’d ever had about getting involved with someone. There was danger inherent in caring about anyone, and he knew it. But she was his daughter, and that single fact trumped everything else.
“I’m here because I want to be,” he said, then tipped his head to one side and stared at her. “I’m not dropping in to get a look at her before I disappear. Yes, I have an important product launch coming up and I’ll have to return to Texas, but I plan on being a permanent part of Caroline’s life, which you don’t seem to understand. It’s interesting to me, though, that suddenly I’m the one defending myself when it’s you who has all the explaining to do.”
“I didn’t mean that as an attack on your motives,” she said quietly. “I just want to make sure you understand exactly what’s going to happen here. Once Caroline gives her heart, it’s gone forever. You’ll hold it and you could crush it without meaning to.”
“You’re still assuming I’m just passing through.”
“No, I’m not.” She laughed shortly, but it was a painful sound. “I know you well enough to know that arguing with you is like trying to talk a wall into falling down on its own. Pointless.”
He nodded, though the analogy, correct or not, bothered him more than a little. Was he really so implacable all the damn time? “Then we understand each other.”
“We do.”
“So,” he said, with another sip of coffee he really didn’t want. “Tell me.”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“How about the beginning?” Wes set the coffee down and folded his arms across his chest as he leaned back in his chair. “If you have family money, why the hell did you come to work for me?”
“Rich people can’t have jobs?” Offended, she narrowed her eyes on him. “You have money, but you go into the office four days a week. Even when you’re at home in Royal, you spend most of your free time on the phone with PR or marketing or whatever. That’s okay?”
He squirmed a little in his chair. Maybe she had a point, but he wouldn’t concede that easily. “It’s my company.”
She shook her head. “That’s not the only reason. You’re rich. You could hire someone to run the company and you know it. But you enjoy your job. Well, so did I.”
Hard to argue with the truth. “Okay, I give you that.”
“Thank you so much,” she muttered.
“But why did you lie to get the job? Why use a fake name?” He cupped his hands around the steaming mug of coffee and watched her.
“Because I wanted to make it on my own.” She sighed and sat back, idly spinning the cup in front of her in slow circles. “Being a Graystone always meant that I had roads paved for me. My parents liked to help my brothers and I along the way until finally, I wanted to get out from under my own name. Prove myself, I guess.”
“To who?”
She looked at him. “Me.”
He could understand and even admire that, Wes realized. Too many people in her position enjoyed using the power of their names to get what they wanted whenever they wanted it. Hell, he saw it all the time in business—even in Royal, where the town’s matriarchs ruled on the strength of tradition and their family’s legacies. The admiration he felt for her irritated hell out of him, because he didn’t want to like anything about her.
She’d lied to him for years. Hidden his child from him deliberately. So he preferred to hold onto the anger simmering quietly in the pit of his stomach. Though he was willing to cut her a break on how she’d gotten a job at his company, there was no excuse for not telling him she was pregnant.
Holding onto the outrage, he demanded, “When you quit your job and left Texas, you didn’t bother to tell me you were pregnant. Why?”
“You know why, Wes,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “We had that what if conversation a few weeks before I found out. Remember?”
“Vaguely.” He seemed to recall that one night she’d talked about the future—what they each wanted. She’d talked about kids. Family.
“You do remember,” she said softly, gaze on his face. “We were in bed, talking, and you told me that I shouldn’t start getting any idea about there being anything permanent between us.”
He scowled as that night and the conversation drifted back into his mind.
“You said you weren’t interested in getting married,” she said, “had no intention of ever being a father, and if that’s what I was looking for, I should just leave.”
It wasn’t easy hearing his own words thrown back at him, especially when they sounded so damn cold. Now that she’d brought it all up again, he remembered lying in the dark, Belle curled against his side, her breath brushing his skin as she wove fantasies he hadn’t wanted to hear about.
He scraped one hand across his face but couldn’t argue with the past. Couldn’t pretend now that he hadn’t meant every word of it. But still, she should have said something.
“So you’re saying it’s my fault you said nothing.”
“No, but you can see why I didn’t rush to confess my pregnancy to a man who’d already told me he had no interest in being a father.” She rubbed the spot between her eyes and sighed a little. “You didn’t want a child. I did.”
“I didn’t want a hypothetical child. You didn’t give me a choice about Caroline.”
“And here we go,” she murmured with a shake of her head, “back on the carousel of never-ending accusations. I say something, you say something and we never really talk, so nothing gets settled. Perfect.”
She had a point. Rehashing old hurts wasn’t going to get him the answers he was most interested in. He wanted to know all about his little girl. “Fine. You want settled? Start talking, I’ll listen. Tell me about Caroline. Was she born deaf?”
“No.” Taking a sip of coffee, she cradled the mug between her palms. “She had normal hearing until the summer she was two.”
Outside, the wind blew snow against the window and it hit the glass with a whispering tap. Wes watched her and saw the play of emotions on her face in the soft glow of the overhead lights. He felt a tightness in his own chest in response as he waited for her to speak.
“We spent a lot of time at the lake that summer, and she eventually got an ear infection.” Her fingers continued to turn the mug in front of her. “Apparently, it was a bad one, but she was so good, hardly cried ever, and I didn’t know anything was wrong with her until she started running a fever.
“I should have known,” she muttered, and he could see just how angry she still was at herself for not realizing her child was sick. “Maybe if I’d taken her to the doctor sooner...” She shook her head again and he felt the sense of helplessness that was wrapped around her like a thick blanket.
Wes felt the same way. The story she told had taken place nearly three years ago. He couldn’t change it. Couldn’t go back in time to be there to help. All he could do now was listen and not say anything to interrupt the flow of words.
She took a breath and blew it out. “Anyway. Her fever suddenly spiked so high one night, I was terrified. We took her to the emergency room—”
“We?” Was she dating some guy? Some strange man had been there for his child when Wes wasn’t?
She lifted her gaze to his. “My brother Chance drove us there, stayed with us. The doctors brought her temperature down, gave her antibiotics, and she seemed fine after.”
“What happened?”
She sighed and sat back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest as if comforting herself. “When she healed, she had hearing loss. We didn’t even notice at first. If there were hints or signs, we didn’t see them. It wasn’t until the following summer that I realized she couldn’t hear the ice cream truck.” She smiled sadly. “Silly way to discover something so elemental about your own child, but oh, she used to light up at the sound of those bells.”
She took a breath and sighed a little. “The doctors weren’t sure exactly what caused it. Could have been the infection itself, the buildup of water in her ears or the effects of the antibiotics. There was just no way to know for sure.”
“Wasn’t your fault.” He met her gaze squarely.
“What?”
“It sounds to me like you couldn’t have done anything differently, so it wasn’t your fault.”
Horrified, he watched her eyes fill with tears. “Hey, hey.”
“Sorry.” She laughed a little, wiped her eyes and said, “That was just...unexpected. Thank you.”
Wes nodded, relieved to see she wasn’t going to burst into tears on him. “Will her hearing get worse?”
“Yes.” A single word that hit like a blow to the chest. “It’s progressive hearing loss. She can still hear now, and will probably for a few more years thanks to the hearing aids, but eventually...”
“What can we do?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “As much as I appreciate you being kind before, there is no we, Wes. I am doing everything I can. She wears hearing aids. She’s using sign language to expand her conversational skills, and get familiar with it before she actually has to count on it. And I’m considering a cochlear implant.”
“I read about those.” He leaned his forearms on the table. He’d been doing a lot of reading over the last several hours. There were dozens of different theories and outlooks, but it seemed to him that the cochlear implants were the way to go. Best for everyone. “They’re supposed to be amazing. And she’s old enough to get one now.”
“Yes, I know she is.” Belle looked at him and said, “You know, her doctor and I do discuss all of this. He’s given me all of the information I need, but it’s not critical to arrange surgery for Caro right this minute. It’s something I have to think about. To talk about with Caro herself.”
Astonished, he blurted, “She’s only four.”
“I didn’t say she’d be making the decision, only that I owe it to her to at least discuss it with her. She’s very smart, and whatever decision I make she’ll have to live with.” She pushed up from the table and carried her unfinished coffee to the sink to pour out. “I’m not foolish enough to let a little girl decide on her own. But she should have a say in it.”
“Seriously?” He stood up, too, and walked over to dump his own coffee. He hadn’t really wanted it in the first place. “You want to wait when this could help her now? You want to give a four-year-old a vote in what happens to her medically?” Shaking his head, he reached for his cell phone. “I know the best doctors in Texas. They can give me the name of the top guy in this field. We can have Caro in to see the guy by next week, latest.”
She snatched the phone right out of his hand and set it down on the counter. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What you’re too cautious to do,” he said shortly. “Seeing to it that Caro has the best doctor and the best treatment.”
Both hands on her hips, she tipped her head back to glare up into his eyes. “You have known about her existence for two days and you really think you have the right to come in here and start giving orders?”
Those green-blue eyes of hers were flashing with indignation and the kind of protective gleam he’d once seen in the eyes of a mother black bear he’d come across in the woods. He’d known then that it wasn’t smart to appear threatening to that bear’s cubs. And he realized now that maybe trying to jump in and take over was obviously the wrong move. But how the hell could he be blamed for wanting to do something for the kid he hadn’t even known he had?
“All right.” Wes deliberately kept his voice cool, using the reasonable tone he wielded like a finely honed blade in board meetings. “We can talk about it first—”
“Very generous,” she said as barely repressed fury seemed to shimmer around her in waves. “You’re not listening to me, Wes. You don’t have a say here. My daughter’s name is Caroline Graystone. Not Jackson. I make the decisions where she’s concerned.”
His temper spiked, but he choked it back down. What the hell good would it do for the two of them to keep butting heads? “Do I really have to get a DNA test done to prove I’m now a part of this?”
Her mouth worked as if she were biting back a sharp comeback. And she really looked as if she were trying to find a way to cut him out of the whole thing. But after a few seconds, she took a breath and said, “No. Not necessary.”
“Good.” Something occurred to him then. “Am I named as her father on the birth certificate?”
“Yes, of course you are.” She rinsed out her coffee cup, then turned the water off again. “I want Caro to know who you are—I’d just rather have been the one to pick the time she found out.”
“Yeah, well.” He leaned against the counter. At least the instant burst of anger had drained away as quickly as it came. “Neither of us got a vote on that one.”
The problem of Maverick rose up in his mind again, and he made a mental note to call home again. Find out how the search for the mystery man was going. And it seriously bugged him that he had no idea who it might be. Briefly, he even wondered again if Cecelia and her friends were behind it, in spite of Cecelia’s claim of innocence. But for now, he had other things to think about.
“Why does anyone care if you have a child or not? Why is this trending on Twitter?” She sounded as exasperated as he felt, and somehow that eased some of the tension inside him.
“Hell if I know,” he muttered and shoved one hand though his hair. “But we live in a celebrity culture now. People are more interested in what some rock star had for dinner than who their damn congressman is.”
She laughed a little, surprising him. “I missed that. Who knew?”
“Missed what?” Wes watched the slightest curve of her mouth, and it tugged at something inside him.
“Those mini rants of yours. They last like ten seconds, then you’re done and you’ve moved on. Of course, people around you are shell-shocked for a lot longer...”
“I don’t rant.” He prided himself on being calm and controlled in nearly all aspects of his life.
“Yeah, you do,” she said. “I’ve seen a few really spectacular ones. But in your defense, you don’t do it often.”
He frowned as his mind tripped back, looking for other instances of what she called rants. And surprisingly enough, he found a couple. His frown deepened.
“You’ve got your answers, Wes,” she said quietly. “What else do you want here?”
“Some answers,” he corrected. “As for what I want, I’ve already told you. I can’t just walk away from my own kid.”
“And what do you expect from fatherhood? Specifically.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just know I have to be here. Have to be a part of her life.”
She looked into his eyes for a long second or two before nodding. “Okay. We’ll try this. But you have to dial it back a little, too. You’re the one trying to fit yourself into our lives—not the other way around.”
He hated that she had a point. Hated more that as confident as he was in every damn thing, he had no clue how to get to know a kid. And he really didn’t like the fact that he was standing this close to Belle and could be moved just by her scent—vanilla, which made him think of cozying up in front of the fire with her on his lap and his hands on her—damn it, this was not the way he wanted this to go.
“If you can’t agree to that,” she said, when he was silent for too long, “then you’ll just have to go, Wes.”
Fighting his way past his hormones, Wes narrowed his eyes, took a step closer and was silently pleased when she backed up so fast she hit the granite counter. Bracing one hand on either side of her on that cold, black surface, he leaned in, enjoying the fact that he’d effectively caged her, giving her no room to evade him.
“No,” he said, his gaze fixed with hers. “You don’t want to take orders from me? Well, I sure as hell don’t take them from you. I’ll stay as long as I want to, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
She took a breath, and something flashed in her eyes. Anger, he was guessing, and could only think join the club. But it wasn’t temper alone sparking in her eyes—there was something more. Something that held far more heat than anger.
“You lied to me for years, Belle. Now I know the truth and until I’m satisfied, until I have everything I want out of this situation, I’m sticking.”
She planted both hands flat on his chest and pushed. He let her move him back a step.
“And what is it you want, Wes? What do you expect to find here?”
“Whatever I need.”