Cowboy's Secret Child

She was sick at the thought. Every time she looked into Jeb Stuart’s brown eyes, she could see his determination, and every time he looked at Kevin, she could see his longing. He wanted his son.

That knowledge tore at her because at the time of Kevin’s birth, when Cherie wanted Amanda to take the baby, Cherie had sworn Jeb hadn’t wanted his child. Had he had a change of heart or was he telling her the truth—that he really hadn’t known? Amanda suspected that he was telling the truth. He looked earnest enough.

She couldn’t imagine having one of those horrible battles that hurt Kevin badly. She felt as if Jeb Stuart wanted to cut her heart out and take it with him. She realized he was staring at her, and she guessed he must have asked her a question.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I see a child’s swing in your backyard. Will there be time before Kevin goes to bed to go outside with him and play?”

“Sure,” she answered easily. “We’re finished. As soon as I clean the kitchen, we’ll go outside. Want to?” she asked Kevin, and he nodded. He started to stand.

“Wait. What do you say?”

“May I be ’scused?”

“Yes, you may,” she answered, and Kevin slid off his chair and ran to get his toys.

When she stood, Jeb Stuart rose also and picked up dishes. “I can clean up,” she said.

“This is no trouble,” he answered politely, and she thought how civil they were being to each other, yet what a sham it was. She knew he was doing it for Kevin’s sake, just as she was.

In her small kitchen she could not avoid bumping against Jeb. Each time she was intensely conscious of the physical contact. Every nerve tingled. Jeb Stuart looked full of raw energy, and she wondered if he would make her as nervous if Kevin weren’t the connection between them.

Making a rumbling noise like an imaginary motor, Kevin sat on the floor, playing with one of his toy cars. He was so little, too vulnerable. While she watched him, her eyes blurred. She couldn’t give up her child! As pain came in waves, she fought a rising panic. Trying to gain control of her emotions, she didn’t want to cry in front of Jeb Stuart. I’m Kevin’s legal mother. But she had seen the pain in Jeb’s eyes and she knew he was entitled to his son. She was losing Kevin! She felt queasy, as though she were going to lose the little she had eaten for dinner. She turned on the cold water and ran some over her hand, then patted the back of her neck and her forehead.

“Are you all right?”

His voice was quiet and deep and he was right beside her. She looked up into his inscrutable dark eyes and wondered if they were both headed for dreadful heartache. She feared that no one was going to win in this situation, least of all Kevin.

“I’m all right,” she said stiffly, turning to blindly rinse a plate and place it in the dishwasher. A hand closed gently on her wrist. Feeling his touch to her toes, she looked up at him.

“Go outside with Kevin. I’ll finish this and join you.”

She didn’t argue. After drying her hands, she took Kevin’s hand and headed outside, thankful to escape her kitchen, which now seemed smaller than ever and filled with the electrifying presence of the most disturbing male she had ever encountered. She still tingled from that casual touch of his hand on her arm. At the kitchen door, she glanced back over her shoulder.

Jeb stood watching her, and the moment their gazes met, another lightning bolt of awareness streaked through her. His midnight eyes were riveting and sexy. She felt a raw edginess around him that she suspected she would have experienced even if Kevin had not been a factor in their relationship. As they gazed at each other, the moment stretched between them, tense, breathtaking, until she turned abruptly. Hurrying outside, she tried to catch her breath and ignore her racing heart.

When Jeb joined them, she was swinging Kevin, and the child was smiling. Jeb stood watching and she was grateful for his patience and caution around Kevin. She knew Kevin was shy, and he became even more withdrawn if someone forced attention on him.

Time seemed to stretch into aeons until they went inside. She bathed Kevin and tucked him into bed. When she kissed him good-night, she held him close. He hugged her and then lay on his pillow. “Mama, who is Mr. Stuart?”

“He’s a friend, Kevin,” she answered slowly, wondering how to tell Kevin the truth. He’s your father and he’s come to take you from me ran through her mind while she looked into a pair of dark eyes so much like those of Jeb Stuart.

“I like it better when you don’t have a friend here.”

“You like it when Megan or Peg come over.”

He thought this over and nodded. “I like Megan better than Mr. Stuart.”

Amanda merely nodded and hugged Kevin again and fought tears because she didn’t want to cry in front of him. As though he sensed something amiss, he clung to her. She kissed him again and tucked him in.

“One more story, please.”

She relented and told him another story until his eyes closed and his breathing became deep. Reluctantly, she squared her shoulders, then tiptoed out of Kevin’s room and closed the door behind her.

In the small family room, Jeb Stuart stood with his back to her, staring out a darkened window at the night. She knew he was lost in his thoughts because there was nothing to see outside.

“He’s asleep.”

Jeb turned around and studied her, flicking a swift glance over her that she felt as much as if he had brushed her body with his fingertips.

“Is he always so shy?”

She shrugged and crossed the room to sit down on the sofa, folding her legs beneath her. “He’s shy, but he’s even more shy with you because he’s seldom been around men. He sees me and his nanny, his Sunday school teachers, my friends and, on rare occasions, my aunt, and they’re all women.”

She received another assessing gaze. “You’re pretty,” Jeb said.

“Thank you,” she answered perfunctorily, because she suspected he was going somewhere with his remark, and her wariness increased. Even as her defenses rose, on another level, she was pleased by his assessment.

“You’re too attractive to be single unless there’s a good reason. I know this is a blunt question, but you and I are going to have to do some serious talking. Why haven’t you married and had your own children?”

She raised her chin. It had been a long time now since she had thought about marriage, and having Kevin had taken most of the sting out of the question, because Kevin had helped her lose a lot of her feelings of inadequacy.

“Why haven’t you remarried and had more children?” she shot back at him.

“I had one unhappy marriage, and I’m not ready to marry again. So back to my question—why haven’t you married and had kids of your own?”

Like a lot of other people, she had secrets she didn’t care to share. Jeb Stuart’s question was personal, and she knew she could refuse to answer him or give him one of the two or three casual replies she had given on dates, but she saw no reason now to be anything except totally honest.

“I can’t have children of my own,” she replied, looking him squarely in the eye, feeling an old familiar pain.

Two

“Sorry. And I’m sorry to pry into your private life.”

She nodded, appreciating his apology and fighting an urge to like him. “When I was engaged, my doctor discovered a tumor and I had to have surgery. I’m fine, except I won’t ever be able to have children. My fiancé decided that I wasn’t really a complete woman, and he broke our engagement.”

As Jeb closed his eyes and looked as if he had received a blow, she could guess what was running through his mind. “That was one of the reasons I agreed to adopt Cherie’s baby, but it has little to do with why I love Kevin so much now.”

“But you’ll be much less willing to give him up because of it.”

She bristled and swung her legs to the floor, coming to her feet to face him. “I’m not willing to give him up now because he’s my son! He’s my son as much as if I had given birth to him. I got him when he was a day old. Cherie didn’t even want to see him! She hated being pregnant. I love him because he’s my baby and has been since he was born!”

Jeb rubbed his forehead. “Lord help us both,” he mumbled, hearing her agony and watching tears stream unheeded down her face. He hurt, too, and he couldn’t give up his son. “What do you want me to do? Walk out that door and forget that I have a son?”

They stared at each other, and he knew her emotions were as raw as his. She was shaking and white as snow again. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose, and when she became pale they stood out clearly. As she clutched her stomach and ran from the room, he felt as if he had just beaten her.

While he was alone, he paced the room and wondered whether he should just go and try to get back with her later, but that was only putting off what was inevitable. They were each going to have to give or else they would end up hurting Kevin, and Jeb didn’t think she would want that any more than he did.

When she returned, she looked even more pale. She moved to the sofa and sat with her feet on the floor. She looked small and hurt and defiant and he felt like a bastard for what he was doing, but he wasn’t going to give up his son to save Amanda Crockett’s feelings. He pulled a chair to face her and sat down. “We’ll have to work something out.”

“I don’t know anything about you.”

“I grew up on a ranch in Saratoga County. I have three brothers—Cameron, a rancher, lives near here with his wife, Stella, on the family land. It’s ironic that you left Houston and moved close to my family and home. My brother Selby and his wife, Jan, live in El Paso. He’s with the DEA. The youngest brother, Burke, leads wilderness treks. He and his wife, Alexa, have a home in Houston, so they’re not far away.”

“You were a paratrooper, you have a brother with the DEA and another who leads wilderness treks— your family is a little on the wild side.”

He shrugged. “I’m settled now. I bought land southwest of here and I’m raising horses. I hoped to take Kevin there.”

“You weren’t a rancher when you were married to Cherie, were you? I thought she told me she had married someone who worked in Houston.”

“I did. As soon as I graduated from Tech, I was hired as a salesman for a Houston feed company. After the second year I was promoted to district superintendent, then in another couple of years, director of marketing. That’s when I was married to her. I couldn’t have afforded Cherie before then.” He looked away as if seeing his past, and she wondered if he was lost in memories and talking out loud. “When we met, Cherie was charming, seductive, adorable. As long as she got her way, she stayed charming, but when I quit work and wanted to become a rancher, that’s when her true personality emerged. I was wildly in love with her when we married because she seemed to be everything a man could want.”

“I can imagine,” Amanda said quietly, knowing her beautiful cousin could be delightful as long as things went her way, but when they didn’t, she could be dreadful.

“Why did you decide to become a rancher?”

Jeb shrugged. “The corporate world was not for me. I grew up on a ranch, too, and I wanted to get back to that life.”

He studied her, and silence stretched tensely between them. “If you thought I had abandoned Kevin and Cherie, why did you cut all ties to your past and hide your tracks when you moved from Houston to Dallas?”

As she flushed and bit her lip and looked guilty, he wondered if she had been leading him on with an act. How much was she like Cherie? he wondered again.

“I guess deep down there was a part of me that doubted Cherie,” Amanda said, so softly that he had to lean forward to hear her, yet leaning closer was a tactical error because he could smell her perfume, see her flawless skin, watch as her tongue slid slowly across her lower lip. His body heat rose and momentarily he lost awareness of anything except a desirable woman sitting inches away. He had to fight the urge to reach out and touch her.

She twisted a string from her cutoffs in her fingers. “I wanted to believe her when she said you didn’t care and you had gone, but my cousin has never been a stickler for the truth. She tells things to suit herself. I was scared of just what’s happening now. That someday the doorbell would ring and there would be Kevin’s father—you—wanting him back.” She looked Jeb in the eye. “Maybe I shouldn’t have made it difficult for you to find us, but from all indications, you weren’t a man I wanted to get to know.”

“I suppose not, since I can take him from you.”

“I don’t think you can,” she said coolly, and he realized she was pulling herself together more and more as they talked. “Cherie has gotten mixed up with people in the past that I didn’t want to know. Her choice in men would never be mine. Sorry, that doesn’t sound complimentary, but Cherie and I are very different.”

“So I’m noticing,” he remarked dryly. He wondered if she realized exactly how guilty she looked. But she was different from Cherie. Cherie was a charmer when she wanted something, flirting and using her feminine wiles to sweet-talk someone into doing what she wanted. He had been charmed completely, but marriage had brought reality and another side to Cherie that was far from charming. Cherie would never have been as forthright as Amanda.

Amanda caught another string on her cutoffs and twisted it back and forth between her thumb and forefinger. Otherwise, she looked quiet and composed. He watched her hand, noticing that her fingers were delicate and slender. She did not wear any rings and wore a simple watch with a leather strap circling her wrist.

“I suppose we’re going to have to work something out to share him,” she said stiffly, and each word sounded wrung from her in agony. “Unless you’re still intent on going to court and trying to take him from me completely. If you do that, I’m going to fight you and we’ll just end up hurting him.”

“I agree.”

She let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “Thank you!” she said. “We agree on that much. Kevin should come first.”

“If he came first completely one of us would give him up.”

She opened her eyes to look at him and he could see the speculation in them. “Maybe not. Maybe he needs a father as well as a mother. But I have to know how you’ll be with him. There are things I don’t approve of.”

Jeb’s temper flared and he leaned closer. “Lady, I’m his father. Whether you approve or not, I’ll do what I think is best for my son. I won’t abuse him, but I suspect I’ll let him do things that you and that nanny and the other women in his life would be afraid to let him do. He acts scared of his shadow now.”

“He’s just shy,” she said defensively. She studied him as if trying to figure him out. “Would you strike a child?”

“Never. It shouldn’t ever be necessary.” Green eyes searched his, and he gazed back steadfastly.

“I hope you’re telling me the truth,” she said. “Is there any way that you can prove to me that you knew nothing about Cherie’s pregnancy? How do I know that you didn’t abandon him and now that Cherie has a successful career, you’ve decided you want your son after all?”

“I can find the person who told me, and you can talk to her. It was Polly McQuarters. She knows I wasn’t putting on an act. And what difference would it make to me whether Cherie’s career is soaring? You’ve legally adopted her child.”

“She’s set money up in a trust for him.”

“I don’t need or want Cherie’s money. I’ll bring you records of my income and my net worth.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Amanda said, rubbing her temples.

“I told you about my brothers. There’s another family member I haven’t mentioned—my mother.”

“Kevin’s grandmother,” Amanda whispered, closing her eyes and experiencing a blow to her middle. A father and now another grandmother. She could feel her child slipping away from her, yet she knew she couldn’t fight to shut those two important people out of his life. She opened her eyes to discover Jeb watching her intently.

“I haven’t told Mom about her grandson yet. I want you and Kevin to meet her.”

“Of course, Kevin should meet her.” Amanda laced her fingers together. “It’s a shock—to open the door and find Kevin’s father and learn he has three uncles and a grandmother. Is there anyone else you haven’t told me about?”

“Nope. My father’s no longer living. My mother is Lila Stuart and she’s raised four boys and she was a damned good mother. She lives in Elvira, a small town near my ranch and Cameron’s. She’s Elvira’s mayor.”

“How will I break this to Kevin? He’s shy around men. Could you just start coming over and getting to know him and then I tell him?”

“I think it would be better to tell him from the start and then I get to know him. Either way it’s a shock, but he’s only three. Little kids accept life as it comes.”

She caught her lower lip in her small white, teeth. As she gazed into space beyond him, Jeb studied her, thinking she must have been engaged to a real jerk. He thought of Cherie and he could see little resemblance between the cousins. Cherie was a blue-eyed blonde, drop-dead gorgeous, with a lush figure. Her cousin had a more earthy look with her riot of red hair and a smattering of freckles, but, in her own way, she was a beautiful woman. He pulled his train of thoughts away from her and focused on Kevin.

“What have you told Kevin about being adopted?”

“I’ve told him the truth, but he’s only three and I don’t think he cares or understands. I always tell him how much I wanted him and how much I love him.”

“Can you be more specific about ‘the truth’—what did you tell him about me?”

“I told him his mother had to give him up because she moved far away and that she’s my cousin. He hasn’t seemed to realize that he’s never even seen her since the day he was born. I told him that his father was in the army and far away. And I told Kevin I wanted him badly and loved him with all my heart. It’s pretty simplified, but he accepts that, and when he gets older and wants to know more, I figured I would explain more. At this point in his life, he doesn’t seem to care.”

“Sounds good enough,” Jeb said, thinking over her answer. “What about Maude—Cherie’s mother?”

“Kevin knows Aunt Maude is his grandmother, and she’s seen him five or six times, but since she remarried and moved to California, she’s out of touch and she doesn’t seem deeply interested in him. She’s more interested than Cherie is though, because she sends him birthday and Christmas presents and calls him once a year. At the time I adopted him, she went to court with me. Aunt Maude said I’d make a better mother than Cherie.”

“I’m sure you do.” He thought about the rest of the week. “Would you like to come out to my ranch tomorrow night and bring Kevin? I’ll pick you up, take you out there for dinner and bring you home early so he can get to bed.”

“Are you that close to the city?”

“It’s a long drive—about an hour and a half—but I don’t mind. I think we’d better start getting acquainted.”

Nodding, she gave him another searching stare. “Are you dating anyone?”

“No, and I don’t intend to marry again.”

Her eyes widened in surprise and she shook her head. “You look like a man who likes women and vice versa.”

“I do like women, but I don’t want to get married. Or at least not for a long, long time. Maybe someday, because I’d like more children. I was a fool about Cherie and I don’t ever want to go through all that pain again,” he said, being completely honest with her because they were going to have to work something out. “Our marriage was wonderful for a time, but then it went really bad.” Jeb stood. “I’ll leave now and pick you up tomorrow evening. Is half past five too early?” he asked, knowing she got home before that time each day.

“That’s fine,” she said, standing and walking to the door with him. The top of her head came to his shoulder, and as he looked down at her, conflicting emotions warred in him. He didn’t want to find her desirable. He wasn’t happy that he wanted to touch her and soothe her and stop hurting her.

“We’ll work it out. Kevin is the main consideration, and we’ll just have to share him.”

“I can do that,” she said, but she sounded worried. “I want to know that you’ll be good to him. I don’t know anything about you except that you married Cherie and fathered Kevin.”

“You and I will get to know each other.” He hesitated. “Do you have a picture of Kevin I can have?”

“Yes,” She left to return in minutes with a picture in a small frame. “I have a lot of pictures. Here’s one you can take. I’ll look for some more and give them to you tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

They both looked at the picture of the smiling child. “He was two when that was taken,” she said softly. Jeb noticed that when she talked about Kevin or to him, her tone filled with a special warmth. “He looks very much like you.”

“Even I can see a resemblance,” Jeb said. “There’s no mistaking he’s mine,” he added grimly, knowing that Cherie hadn’t been faithful to him. He glanced at Amanda. “Thanks for the picture.”

“I have another copy of it in a scrapbook.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”

She opened the door and he left, striding down the walk to his car. Jeb drove away, his emotions still churning. Nothing had gone the way he had imagined it would. Why hadn’t he stopped to think how attached his son would be to his mother? He supposed hurt and anger got in the way of reason. He was going to have to share Kevin. It could be worse, and Amanda Crockett might be a very nice person. How much was she like her cousin? So far, damn little, or she wouldn’t have taken Kevin in the first place.

The boy was too shy. Jeb hoped Kevin would get over his shyness. From the looks of it, he needed a man in his life. Jeb’s thoughts shifted to Amanda Crockett and her broken engagement. He could hear the hurt in her voice and he knew why she had taken Kevin. She would fight to keep him because he would be the only child in her life. The ex-fiancé was a real jerk, Jeb thought again.

Amanda Crockett. Jeb thought about the statistics the detective had brought him about her: parents deceased, only child, no family except an aunt, Maude Whitaker, and a cousin, Cherie Webster, twenty-eight years old, an audiologist, no men in her life, attends church each week, a large circle of friends, a broken engagement two years after college. Now he knew more—her perfume, whose scent lingered in his memory, her tenderness with Kevin, her full red lips and long slender legs, and that mass of unruly red hair that had to mean there was a less serious side to her. He had to admit that when they touched or looked into each other’s eyes, some fiery chemistry occurred. Sparks flew between them, and he suspected she didn’t want to feel any attraction, either, but in those moments, he had seen the change in the depths of her eyes, the sultry intensity. He had felt a tightening in his body, a sheer physical response to nothing more than that exchange of looks.

“Forget it,” he growled under his breath, trying to concentrate on the problems ahead.

When Jeb reached his ranch, a full moon spilled silver beams over the sprawling land. Feeling restless, he put the car next to his black pickup in the garage and began to walk, heading toward a pasture where some of his horses were. Two of them raised their heads and came to the fence near him. He stopped to talk to them, wishing he had brought an apple with him.

He moved on, knowing sleep wasn’t going to come. How would they divide their time with Kevin? Half a month with one parent, half with the other? Weeks with one, weekends with the other? They would have to go to court, get lawyers involved and get it all settled legally, and he dreaded the entire process. The disruption in Kevin’s life wouldn’t endear him to a man who had been a complete stranger until half past five this afternoon.

Jeb swore, striding fast, turning and going back to his house to get his running shoes. He switched on lights in his kitchen, which was big and roomy and had oak cabinets and stainless steel equipment. He thought about her tiny kitchen, remembering the times he had brushed against her. The lady sizzled effortlessly. She had an effect on him that set his pulse racing. “Think about something else,” he told himself.