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When Jack turned his head—his eyes glittering in the evening shadows, his face devoid of emotion—Maddy drew back and withered in her shoes. She shouldn’t have left the house and come outside. Standing amidst the cricket-clicking tranquility, it was clear Jack didn’t want company. Particularly not hers.
After that awkward scene three hours ago with Tara Anderson, Jack had taken a vehicle out to the hangar to bring the bags in. Then he’d mumbled something about heading off for a while. From the window of her guest bedroom, Maddy had caught sight of a big black horse cantering away. With an Akubra slanted low on his brow, the rider looked as if he’d been born to rule from the saddle.
As he headed off toward the huge molten ball sinking into the hills, her chest had squeezed. She might have been watching a scene from a classic Western movie. Talk about larger than life.
While Cait prepared dinner, Maddy had enjoyed a quick shower. Then it was Beau’s turn. He’d splashed and squealed in his bath until she had a stitch in her side from laughing and the front of her dress was soaked through. She didn’t want to dwell on the fact that someone else would be enjoying this time with Beau soon.
Would that someone be Tara?
She neither saw nor heard Jack return, but when Cait called dinner, as if by magic he appeared in the meals room. With his gaze hooded and broad shoulders back, he’d promptly pulled out a chair for her at the table. She’d grinned to herself. Jack might be a lot of things, but Beau would learn his manners in this house.
The baked meal smelled divine, but Jack’s masculine just-showered scent easily trumped it. His wet hair, slicked back off his brow, was long enough to lick the back of his white collar. He’d shaved, too, although the shadow on his jaw was a permanent feature … an enduring sexy sandpaper smudge.
When the baby was settled in the playpen beside the table, Jack had threaded his hands, bowed his head and said a brief but touching grace about missing loved ones and taking new ones into their home. Maddy had swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. There was a deeper, more yielding side to this seemingly impenetrable man. There must be. In that moment, Maddy regretted she wouldn’t come to know it.
As they sat down to dinner, Cait told Maddy of Leadeebrook’s main dining room, with its long, grand table and crystal chandelier set in the center of a high, molded ceiling. But that room was kept for special occasions. She and Jack mainly ate here, in the meals area off the kitchen. After promising to show Maddy around the house the next day, Cait flicked out her linen napkin and asked to hear all the news from the city.
Jack didn’t seem to care either way. The gold flecks gone from his eyes, he seemed more distracted than ever. While he cut and forked his way through the meal, the ladies chatted, watching over the baby who played with his bunch-of-keys rattle.
When Beau began to grumble, Maddy left to put him down. After firmly taking charge earlier, she was interested that Jack didn’t say boo about helping with Beau’s first bedtime in his new home. Maybe the memory of that wet shirt still haunted him, but Maddy suspected thoughts of Tara and her reaction to his guardianship of the baby weighed heavily on Jack’s mind tonight. How would he handle the divide?
Beau had drifted off without a whimper. After laying a light sheet over his tiny sleeping form, she tiptoed back into the kitchen. That’s when Cait had suggested she join Jack outside here in the cool.
Maddy had grown warm all over at the thought, which only proved that being alone with Jack under the expansive Southern Cross sky was not a good idea. But she’d made the effort. She didn’t want to provoke any fires—physical or anything else—but neither could she afford to leave here, for the most part, a stranger. Jack had to know that if he needed her, for Beau’s sake, despite any personal hiccups, she would always be there. Dahlia would’ve wanted that, and Maddy wanted that, too.
She and Jack needed to be able to communicate, at least on some level.
She’d found him here, one shoulder propped up against an ancient-looking tree, while he rubbed a rag over a bridle.
“Is the baby down?” he asked.
With nerves jittering in her stomach, she nodded and inched closer. “Now he’s down, he shouldn’t wake up till around seven.”
Stopping at his side, she joined him in taking in a view of the hushed starry sky while that rag worked methodically over the steel bit. A horse’s whinny carried on a fresh breeze. A frog’s lonely croak echoed nearby. And Jack kept polishing.
If anyone was going to start a conversation, it’d have to be her.
She shifted her weight. “How long have you had the black horse?”
“From a colt.”
“Bet he was glad to see you back.”
“Not as glad as I was to see him.”
She raised her brows. Well, a cowboy’s best friend was supposed to be his horse.
She leaned against another nearby tree, her hands laced behind the small of her back. “Where did you ride off to earlier?”
“I needed to catch up with Snow Gibson. He lives in the caretaker’s cabin a couple miles out.”
Maddy recalled an earlier conversation. “Cait said Snow’s quite a character.”
A hint of a smile hooked his mouth and they both fell into silence again … tangible and yet not entirely uncomfortable. Guess there was something to be said for the advantages of this untainted country air.
Giving into a whim, she shut her eyes, tilted her face to the stars and let more than the subtle breeze whisper to her senses. She imagined she felt that magnetism rippling off Jack Prescott in a series of heatwaves and her own aura glowing and transforming in response. She imagined the way his slightly roughened hands might feel sliding over her skin … sensual, stirring. Enthralling.
Opening her eyes, willing away the awareness, she shut off those dangerous thoughts and focused on a heavy star hanging low on the horizon. She wasn’t here to indulge in fantasies, no matter how sweet or how strong. She was here to do a job and get back to where she belonged.
Besides, Jack’s affections were spoken for. Tara had made her position on that clear: Hands off.
Suddenly weary, Maddy pushed off the tree.
She shouldn’t have come out here. Talking with Jack was like trying to push an elephant up a hill. She needed to accept this situation for what it was. She needed to chill out and let things between herself and Jack unravel naturally. Right now, she needed to say good-night.
She was about to take her leave when Jack’s deep graveled voice drifted through the night.
“This property’s been in my family since 1869.” He angled his head toward a long stationary shadow to their left. “See that trough?”
He began to walk. Maddy threw a look at the back door then inwardly shrugged. Slapping the impression of bark from her palms, she followed. If he was making an effort, she would, too.
“This trough was a wedding gift,” Jack was saying. “My great-great grandfather suggested to his wife he should cut a hole in the bathroom wall and they could use it as a tub as well as to water the horses in the yard.”
Maddy blanched. She had a feeling he was serious.Thank heaven for modern-day plumbing. How had women survived out here back then?
“I carved my initials here when I was six,” he went on and swept one long tanned finger over an etching in the wood. “Our dog had just had pups.” He pointed to several nicks—One, two, three … Seven pups. He straightened and, studying her, weighed the bridle in his hand. “You never had a dog? “
“I had piano lessons and lots of dresses.”
“But no dog,” he persisted.
“No dog.”
Something rustled in the brush nearby at the same time he lifted and dropped one shoulder. “You missed out.”
Focused on the brush—was it a snake, a dingo?—she admitted, “I was attacked by a Doberman cross when I was young.”
His expression froze before he blindly set the bridle down on the trough. “Maddy … God, I’m sorry.”
Weeks spent in hospital, years of fighting the phobia. She made herself shrug. “Could’ve been worse.”
He held her gaze for several heartbeats then slipped her a wry smile. “I got the shakes once. I broke my arm jumping a stallion over a creek when I was ten. He was the most cantankerous horse I’ve ever known.”
Maddy openly grinned. Quite the confession coming from Crocodile Dundee.
He walked again, a meandering comfortable gait that invited her to join him.
“Piano and dresses,” he murmured. “So you were a mummy’s girl.”
“My mother died when I was five.”
His step faltered. She almost saw the shudder pass through his body. “Wait a minute. I need to take that other foot out of my mouth.”
She wasn’t offended. He couldn’t have known.
“I have one perfect memory of her tucking me into bed. She had a beautiful smile.” Her favorite photo she kept in her wallet—a candid shot of her mother laughing and holding her first and only baby high against a clear blue day.
“Your dad still around?”
The snapshot in Maddy’s mind faded and she squared her shoulders. “Uh-huh. He’s great. Really energized. I work for him at Tyler Advertising.”
“I’ve heard of it. Well-respected firm.” He kicked a rock with the toe of his boot. “So you’re a chip off the ol’ block?”
“Hopefully. I have my first big deal coming together soon.”
“In for a big bonus?”
“I guess.”
In the moonlight, his lidded gaze assessed her. “But that’s not your motivation.”
“Not at all.”
“You want to make your father proud,” he surmised and she nodded.
“That’s not so unusual. Besides I really like the industry,” she added. “Lots of exciting people and events. It’s where I belong.”
She believed that and finally her father was believing it, too. She’d seen the look in his eyes when she’d told him at sixteen she wanted to be an account executive with the firm; he didn’t think she had it in her. He’d said the words, You’re more like your mother, which meant she wasn’t strong enough. Her mother had been a gentle person and, no, she hadn’t been able to beat the leukemia, but she and her mother were two separate issues, two separate people. And once she had the client’s signature on the bottom line …
“You must be chomping at the bit to get back,” Jack said, coming to stand beside a weathered post and rail fence.
Her lips twitched. “I won’t deny I’ll be happy to leave the flies behind.”
“They don’t eat much. It’s the bull ants you have to worry about.”
“So I’d better not stand in one spot for too long.”
He chuckled—a rich easy sound that fit him as well as those delectable jeans. She couldn’t think of another man with more sex appeal … the energy he expelled was as formidable and natural as thunder on a stormy night. On the What Makes a Man Maddeningly Irresistible list, Jack got double ticks in every box.
When she realized their shared look had lasted longer than it ought to, a blush bloomed over her cheeks. As the heat spread to her breasts and belly, Jack rubbed the back of his neck and moved off again.
“How did you meet Dahlia?”
“A university friend,” she said, willing the husky quality from her voice. “Dahlia was a couple of years younger than me. We were enrolled in different majors, but we met at a party and hit it off. She had the best laugh. Infectious.” Kind of like yours, she wanted to say, only not so deep.
Looking off, he scrubbed his temple with a knuckle. “Yeah. I remember her laugh.”
Maddy stayed the impulse to touch his arm—to offer some show of comfort. Men like Jack were all about strength, intelligence and making decisions. Jack was a leader and leaders didn’t dilute their power with displays of emotion, either given or received. In an emergency, he would act and act well. Even standing in the uneventful quiet of this night, Maddy found a sense of reassurance in knowing that. Some silly part of her almost wanted to admit it out loud.
Instead she said, “You must have missed that sound when she left here.”
A muscle ticked a strong beat in his jaw and he let out a long breath. “My wife begged me to go after her but I was determined not to. Some sorry home truths came out that last night. I figured if Dahlia wanted to find her own way, I wouldn’t stop her.”
But his tone said he regretted it.
“She didn’t like Leadeebrook?”
“She liked it okay,” he said, crossing his arms as he strolled, “but she didn’t feel the same way I feel. The way my father felt, too. She didn’t want to stay here, ‘shrivel up and die,’ as she put it. She’d said she’d had enough of station existence to last a lifetime.”
Which would have cut her brother’s loyal Prescott heart in two.
“And your wife … how did she feel about the station?”
He searched the sky as if she might be listening and looking down, and Maddy knew in that moment that he’d loved his wife very much.
“This was Sue’s home. Always will be.” His thoughtful expression sharpened then, frowning, he angled toward the house. “Was that the baby?”
Maddy listened then shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything. Cait said she’d keep an ear out.” They walked again, toward a timber structure she thought was the stables. When next she spoke, Maddy put a lighter note in her tone.
“Tara Anderson is obviously a big fan of the land, too.”
His gaze caught hers and as his look intensified, Maddy’s skin flared with a pleasant, telling warmth. The way he was looking at her now, she could almost fool herself into believing that she, not Tara, was the woman with whom he was involved … that the primal heat smoldering in his eyes was meant for her and her only.
When a different, more guarded light rose up in his eyes and he broke the gaze, Maddy’s shoulders dropped and she told her pulse to slow down. Dynamic in every sense of the word, he was more of a man than any she’d known. That was the reason she imagined heat waves rippling off him and wrapping themselves around her. Not because this moonlight was affecting him as it was clearly affecting her.
“Tara and I have known each other a long while,” he said. “Her uncle and my father were friends. Sue and Tara became good friends, too. They shared similar values, similar interests. So do we.”
“Are you going to marry her?”
A red-hot bolt dropped through her middle at the same time her eyes grew to saucers and she swallowed a gulping breath. Had she actually said that? Yes, she’d been wondering—a lot. But to ask …
She held up both hands. “I’m sorry. That is so none of my business.”
Beneath the star-strewn sky, Jack’s gaze held hers for a protracted moment. Then he set his hands low on his belt and tracked his narrowed gaze over to the distant peaks of the Great Dividing Range.
He nodded. “There’s been talk of it.”
Maddy let out that breath. So Tara had good reason to be so demonstrative this afternoon. She saw Jack as her future husband. A husband who’d gone to a funeral and had brought back a baby.
Maddy chewed her lip. She shouldn’t ask—she might not like the answer—but she couldn’t keep the question down.
“Does Tara like children?”
He scratched the tip of his ear. “That’s a sticking point. Tara wants a family very much …”
He’d been slow to accept responsibility for Beau. He approached his guardianship as a duty to be performed rather than a gift to be treasured. Now he was admitting that he didn’t want a family.
Maddy knew one day she wanted be a mother. Caring for Beau had only heightened that knowledge. She couldn’t imagine why any person wouldn’t want to have their own family—to give and receive unconditional love. What had Jack’s first wife to say about his aversion to fatherhood? More importantly, what did that admission mean for Beau?
