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Jack didn’t respond. Something past her head had caught his interest again.
The waitress had arrived with their orders, interrupting a second brawl at their table by the window. “Here you go, sir,” she said as she placed Jack’s meal in front of him. “Let me know if your steak isn’t perfection itself.”
Then she flopped Abby’s plate down and said, “Pepper?”
“Yes, please.”
The redhead pulled a pepper mill from her apron pocket and twisted it over the salad. When Abby motioned for her to stop, the waitress looked at Jack and asked, “Do you like things spicy, sir?”
Jack shook his head, so the young woman dropped the mill into her pocket, smiled at him one more time and disappeared toward the back of the restaurant.
He picked up his knife and fork to begin cutting into his steak. Abby thought it was just like him to attack his meat first, leaving his salad for later. Although she’d been around him only a few times, she knew he didn’t pay much heed to social niceties. He did what he wanted.
She worked that tidbit of knowledge around in her brain, looking for criticism. Instead, she found nothing but respect for his mettle.
She nibbled at her own salad, letting him eat in peace for a few minutes. Maybe he’d be more amenable when his appetite had been appeased.
After she’d finished most of her meal, she began to deliberate on her next words. She wanted to frame them carefully, seeking the best way of convincing him.
“Do you realize you haven’t even asked about the twins?” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but having done so, she raised her brows in challenge and waited.
Jack looked up, chewing a mouthful of food and frowning.
After he swallowed, he said, “I knew you’d taken them home, and I was trusting you to care for them until this was all worked out. Are they all right? Where are they?”
“They’re with a friend. But you didn’t ask about them until just now.” Abby rested her fork on the edge of her plate, no longer hungry now that she was ready to hash this thing out.
“It’s obvious you love those babies. You would have told me anything important.” He stabbed his fork into a piece of steak, stuffed it in his mouth and nodded at her.
“I don’t know if I would.”
“Yes, Abby. You would,” he said around his mouthful.
“How many times have you seen them?” she hissed.
“As often as I could get away from Kansas City. Maybe four or five times.”
“Have you ever changed a diaper?” She picked up her fork again and toyed with a chunk of chicken on her plate, cutting it into tiny morsels before lifting one to her lips. As she chewed, she scowled at Jack, waiting for the reply she knew was coming.
“No, but how hard can that be?” He kept eating, but now his eyes were sharp with anger.
“Have you ever calmed a crying baby?”
He shook his head and kept chewing.
“You honestly think you can take a five-month-old boy home and figure him out? He’s a human being, not a computer.”
Jack put his fork down and planted one fist on each side of his dinner plate. “Wyatt is five and a half months old,” he reminded her. “And if Brian could figure him out, so can I.”
“When? Are you going to quit your job?”
He raised one brow. “I can afford to hire a nanny.”
Abby nearly jumped out of her seat, her fury was so intense. “So, Wyatt will be raised by some stranger because you’re too mulish to admit I’m the best person for the job!”
Jack pushed his plate away and picked up his beer. He downed the rest of the glass without once pulling his eyes away from hers. Finally, he said, “The truth is, Brian left a letter with the lawyer for me to read on the event of his death.”
“A letter?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t get one from Paige.”
“Sorry.”
“What did it say?”
He leaned over to pull his wallet out of his back pocket.
“Here, you can read it yourself,” he said.
Abby scooted her salad plate aside before taking the letter. She unfolded it carefully, knowing he must treasure this last communication from his brother, then started to read.
Dear Jack,
Hey, if you’re reading this, it means I croaked.
Funny to think about that, but it means Paige died, too, and that’s not funny at all. Paige and I have had our problems, but lately things have been good. We’re learning to compromise when we have a fight. One of the things we’ve worked out has been what to do if the babies need a home. Paige wants her sister to get them. Abby’s great, but she’s a single woman. A boy needs a man around. You know that. I want you to raise Wyatt if we die. We’re naming you as his guardian, and leaving you the land you financed. Please try it for a year, and then if you want to blow it off, you have my blessing. (Give Abby a chance and sell her the land cheap, you old shark.) But try it. You’re not doing anything better.
I love you, bro.
Brian
Abby refolded the paper with shaking hands. How could she compete with the plea of a dead man?
She couldn’t. She knew that. But in time she would find a way. She knew that, too.
Looking into Jack’s stricken face, she handed him the letter and shook her head. “Okay. You win this round,” she said. “But there’s something in there that’s confusing. They left you the ten acres of land?”
“Yes,” he said, shrugging as he slid the letter back inside his wallet.
“They left me the house.”
He stared at her for a moment, his eyes glittering with some internal emotion. She wondered if he was going to throw a fit or start blubbering.
He did neither.
His burst of laughter rang out across the restaurant, turning the heads of several nearby diners. “Those two rascals left me a piece of land with no house to live in,” he said in a voice rich with amusement. “They left you an old house with no farm to finance the upkeep. And they left each of us a twin.”
“Uh-huh,” Abby said, her brow pinched. Why was he laughing?
He shook his head, as if she should have gotten his point. “They were plotting something.”
Despite the circumstances, she had to grin. “Paige always did grill me about what I thought of you.”
Jack chuckled. “And Brian always said you were the perfect woman for me.”
Abby’s laugh was every bit as loud as his had been. “They were so naive,” she said. “We’ve already determined that I’m not enough woman for you, haven’t we?”
CHAPTER TWO
JACK TOOK MEASURE of Abby’s expression as he walked down the courthouse steps toward her, trying to determine whether she was despondent or furious. She was probably both, and he could hardly blame her. None of this felt right, but it was what Brian and Paige had wanted.
Abby had a parent flanking each side. At first glance, Mike Briggs seemed as easygoing as usual. He stood next to his daughter with a big yellow diaper bag looped over his arm. Today, however, his mouth formed a bleak line across his face.
Faye was the only one of the three adults who offered a smile. She stood to Abby’s left, holding the twin in white ruffles—that must be Rosie.
Abby had Wyatt clutched tightly against her chest, and looked quite comfortable for a woman who’d been caring for those babies only a couple of weeks. Her lips were pressed against the boy’s forehead, and she was swaying from side to side. The tip of the braid she always wore appeared at one side of her waist, then the other like a pendulum, as if keeping track of how many floggings he deserved for taking the boy from her.
Jack paused on the steps to blow out a puff of pure frustration, before charging on down to the group. When he reached them, Abby handed the child over without a word. Her lips were pinched so tightly that a scattering of dimples embellished her chin.
He smiled at her, appealing silently for understanding, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her stormy eyes never abandoned the baby.
Turning his own attention to the boy in his arms, he looked down into the face of his brother’s child—and his responsibility for about the next eighteen years. Wyatt’s eyes were a muddy blue today—somewhere between the gray-blue of a newborn and whatever shade he’d wind up with eventually. They were wide and trusting. Innocent.
A fit of panic nearly overwhelmed Jack, but he squelched it, and put on a mask of bravado for the benefit of Abby and her parents. “Hi, Wyatt,” he crooned. “I’m Daddy Jack. I’m going to take good care of you.”
The baby stared back. He had grown considerably in five and a half months, but he was still so very…puny. His balled fist lurched wildly through the air, and his face scrunched into an odd contortion.
Nervously, Jack studied the way Faye was holding Rosie with the baby’s back against her chest, wrapped in her arms, and gently bouncing. Rosie seemed content with the situation, so Jack copied their stance. The change in position meant he couldn’t see Wyatt’s face, but since the boy hadn’t started screaming, he figured it was working.
Abby and her parents stood watching, placing the burden of goodbyes on him. Since he couldn’t offer a handshake, he offered a nod instead. “Faye and Mike, it’s been good to see you again,” he said. “Next time, let’s hope we meet under easier circumstances.”
“Of course, dear,” Faye said. “This has been terrible for all of us. I’m just glad your brother and Paige were so happy in the past year.”
Jack wasn’t sure whether he was pleased that his brother had grown into his marriage, or sad that the happiness had been so short-lived, so he didn’t respond.
Instead, he noted the way Abby had her arms wrapped against her stomach, and he smiled at her again, hoping to soothe her pain. “Abby, we need to talk about the farm,” he said. “May I call you?”
“I guess you’ll have to,” she answered.
Jack started toward his car, carting Wyatt in front of him like a sack of potatoes. He knew four pairs of eyes were probably boring into his back, but he’d gone a few yards before Abby spoke.
“Jack? Don’t you want his things?”
He stopped in his tracks and turned around. Of course. The baby’s things. He’d been so intent on looking capable that he’d forgotten Wyatt would need special food, and diapers. He’d need clothes and toys and…baby things.
“I have some of it in my truck,” Abby said, beginning to walk toward the other end of the parking lot.
As Jack followed her, he added idiocy to his growing pile of bad feelings. At least this one wasn’t new—she had a knack for making him feel foolish.
Maybe it was her no-nonsense manner. Maybe it was her sober expression. Whatever it was, it always seemed abundantly clear that she wouldn’t surrender to his most valiant efforts to charm.
But at least she was in the minority—most women surrendered plenty.
At fourteen, Jack had taken a wide-angled look at his future. As far as school was concerned, he’d been on a path to success. He was sure to graduate in the upper five percent, along with many of his pals in the computer club.
The only problem was that none of them had been surrounded by girls. He’d recognized the narrow perception most of his peer group had of intelligent males, and refused to accept it.
He could do better. He’d used his brains to figure out the most surefire method to win a lady’s attention, if not her heart, and a would-be nerd had turned into a masterful lothario.
Since then, most women had been only too happy to catch his interest. Abby was one of very few who’d been resistant. But she hadn’t always been. She’d consented to more than one dance at Brian and Paige’s wedding reception. She’d even laughed at a few jokes, until they’d talked their way into a squabble.
Now she didn’t seem to mind hurtling across the parking lot in front of him, and she didn’t try to make polite conversation. Once she reached a big blue pickup, she opened the passenger door and reached inside for a second diaper bag and a box of supplies. “If you’ll meet me at the farmhouse tomorrow morning, say around nine, we can get the rest of his things,” she said. “This is just a start.”
“Sure thing. Phenomenal. Thanks.”
Abby set the box on the pavement and looked pointedly at Wyatt. “Why don’t I hold him while you put these in your car? Then I’ll get his car seat and you can take it, too.”
Handing the baby back to her, he looped the diaper bag over a shoulder, picked up the box and strode to his car to stash both in the trunk.
Returning to Abby, he took Wyatt again, and thought about all the juggling involved in transporting a single infant. How had Abby thought she could handle two of them alone?
He was careful to hold Wyatt in the same face-out position, rocking him gently, and was surprised when the boy started to whimper. When Jack bounced harder, the bawling got louder. He cleared his throat. “Abby? Why is he crying?”
“You have a lot to learn, don’t you?” she said. “He may be hungry or wet. Try putting your fingertip in his mouth.”
Jack scowled. This was no time to make jokes.
Abby opened her eyes wide, set her hands on her hips and waited. She looked serious.
Frowning still, he stretched one hand across Wyatt’s chest so he could press a pinkie finger against the quivering lips. Wyatt immediately stopped sniveling and started sucking.
“Good,” Abby said. “Your finger should calm him until you can dig a binky out of the bag.”
“A binky?”
She chuckled. “A pacifier.”
Abby turned back to her truck, leaning across the back seat to disengage one of the car seats. She had the most delicious little tush, and the skirt she was wearing showcased it perfectly. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine what she’d look like without it.
Jack smothered a groan and looked away. The last thing he needed was to foster an attraction for Abby.
Keeping his finger in place, he lifted Wyatt onto his forearm and occupied himself with chuckling at the boy’s tiny vest and long brown curls. Abby had dressed him like a little man today, but from the looks of things, a trip to the barber would be in order before Wyatt’s first birthday.
Abby clunked the car seat down on the pavement and lifted Wyatt from his arms. “I’ll carry him to your car,” she said. “Installing a car seat takes both hands.”
Make that three to four hands, Jack thought a few minutes later as he fumbled with straps and buckles that seemed to make no sense.
