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Sounded like a cat mewling. Justice moved toward the sound with slow, uncertain steps. Just one more reason to hate his damn cane and his own leg for betraying him. A few months ago he’d have stalked down this hallway with long strides. Now he was reduced to an ungainly stagger.
He followed the sound to the last door at the end of the hallway. The room Maggie was to stay in while she was on the ranch. At least he’d been able to order that much. He’d wanted her as far from his bedroom as possible to avoid the inevitable temptation.
Outside her door he cocked his head and listened. The house made its usual groaning noises as night settled in and the temperature dropped. Seconds ticked past and then he heard it again. That soft, wailing sound that he couldn’t quite place. Was she crying? Missing him? Regretting coming to the ranch?
He should knock, he told himself. But if he did and she told him to go away, he’d have to. So instead, Justice turned the knob, threw open the door and felt the world fall out from beneath his feet.
Maggie.
Holding a baby.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Hello, Justice. I’d like you to meet Jonas. My son.”
Chapter Four
“What? Who? How? What?” Justice jolted back a step, hit the doorjamb and simply stared at the woman and baby on the wide, king-size bed.
Maggie’s gaze locked on his as she answered his questions in order. “My son. Jonas. The usual way. And again, my son.”
Pain like Justice had never known before shot through him with a swiftness that stole his breath and nearly knocked him off his feet.
Maggie had a son.
Which meant she had a lover.
She was with someone else.
Everything in him went cold and hard. Amazing, really, how big the pain was. He’d told himself he was over her. Assured himself that their marriage was done and that it was for the best. For both of them. Yet now, when he was slapped with the proof that what they’d shared was over, the sharp stab of regret was hard enough to steal his breath. The thought of Maggie lying in another man’s arms almost killed him. But then, what had he expected? That they’d get a divorce and she’d join a convent? Not his Maggie. She had too much fire.
Clearly, it hadn’t taken her too long to move on. Her son looked to be several months old, which meant that she’d rolled out of his bed into someone else’s real damn fast. Which made him wonder whether she’d been involved with someone else already when they’d had that last weekend together. That thought chewed on Justice, too. All the time they’d been rolling around in his bed, she’d had another guy waiting for her? What the hell was up with that?
He wanted to shout. To rage. But he didn’t. He locked up everything inside him and refused to let her see that he was affected at all. Damned if he’d give her the satisfaction of knowing that she still had the power to cut him.
He had his pride, after all.
“Not going to say anything else?” she asked, swinging her legs off the bed and lifting the baby to sit at her hip.
He wiped one hand across his whiskered jaw and fought for indifference. “What do you want me to say? Congratulations? Fine. I said it.” His gaze stayed locked on hers. He wouldn’t look at the chubby-cheeked infant making insensible noises and gurgles.
“Don’t you want to know who his father is?” she asked, moving closer with small, deliberate steps.
Why the hell was she doing this? Did she really enjoy rubbing the fact of her new relationship in his face? He hoped she was enjoying the show because, yeah, he did want to know. Then he wanted to find the guy and beat the crap out of him. But that wasn’t going to happen. “None of my business, is it?”
“Actually, yes,” she said, turning her head to plant a kiss on the baby’s brow before looking back at Justice. “It sort of is. Especially since you’re his father.”
Another jolt went through Justice, and he wondered idly how many lightning strikes a man could survive in one night. Whatever game she was trying to run wouldn’t work. She didn’t have any way of knowing it, of course, but there was no possible way he was that baby’s father.
So why the hell would she lie? Was the real father not interested in his kid? Is that why Maggie sought to convince Justice that he was the father instead? Or was it about money? Maybe she was trying to get some child support out of this. That would be stupid, though. All it would take was a paternity test and they’d all know the truth.
Maggie wasn’t a fool. Which brought him right back to the question at hand.
What was she up to?
And why?
He stared at her, reading a challenge in her eyes. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at the child. It was there, though, in his peripheral vision. A babbling, chortling statement on Justice’s failure as a husband and Maggie’s desire for family, provided by some other guy.
Pain grabbed at him again, making the constant ache in his leg seem like nothing more substantial than a stubbed toe.
“Nice try,” he said, fixing his gaze on her with a cold distance he hoped was easily read.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, Maggie, I’m not his father, so don’t bother trying to pawn him off on me.”
“Pawn him—” She stopped speaking, gulped in air and tightened her hold on the baby, who was slapping tiny fists against her shoulder. “That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“Really?” Justice swallowed past the knot in his throat and managed to give her a tight smile that was more of a baring of his teeth than anything else. “Then why is he here?”
“Because I am, you dolt!” Maggie took another step closer to him, and Justice forced himself to hold his ground. With the weakness in his leg, if he tried to step back, he might just go down on his ass, and wouldn’t that be a fine end to an already spectacular day?
“I’m his mother,” Maggie told him. “He goes where I go. And I thought maybe his daddy would like a look at him.”
One more twist of the knife into his gut. He hadn’t been able to give her the one thing she’d really wanted from him. Now seeing her with the child she used to dream of was torture. Especially since she was looking into his eyes and lying.
“I’m not buying it, Maggie, so just drop it, all right? I’m not that kid’s father. I’m not anybody’s father. So why the song and dance?”
“How can you know you’re not?” she argued, clearly willing to stick to whatever game plan she’d had in mind when she got here. “Look at Jonas. Look at him! He has your eyes, Justice. He has your hair. Heck, he’s even as stubborn as you are.”
As if to prove her point, the baby gave up slapping at her shoulder for attention, reached out and grabbed hold of Maggie’s gold, dangling earring. He gave it a tug, squealing in a high-pitched tone that made Justice wince. Gently, Maggie pried that tiny fist off her earring and gave her son a bright smile.
“Don’t pull, sweetie,” she murmured, and her son cooed at her in delight.
That softness in her voice, the love shining in her eyes, got to him as nothing else could have. Justice swallowed hard and finally forced himself to look at the child. Bright red cheeks, sparkling dark blue eyes and a thatch of black hair. He wore a diaper and a black T-shirt that read Cowboy in Training and was waving and kicking his chubby arms and legs.
Something inside him shifted. If he and Maggie had been able to have children, this is just what he would have expected their child to look like. Maybe that’s why she thought her ploy would work on him. The kid looked enough like Justice that she probably thought she could convince him he was the father and then talk him out of a paternity test.
Sure. Why would she think he’d insist on that anyway? They had been married. The timing for the child was about right. She’d have no reason to think that he wouldn’t believe her claims. But that meant that whoever had fathered the boy had turned his back on them. Which, weirdly, pissed him off on Maggie’s behalf. What the hell kind of man would do that to her? Or to the baby? Who wouldn’t claim his own child?
He watched the boy bouncing up and down on Maggie’s hip, laughing and drooling, and told himself that if there were even the slightest chance the boy was actually his, Justice would do everything in his power to take care of him. But he knew the truth, even if Maggie didn’t.
“He’s a good-looking boy.”
Maggie melted. “Thank you.”
“But he’s not mine.”
She wanted to argue. He could see it in her face. Hell, he knew her well enough to know that there was nothing Maggie liked more than a good argument. But this one she’d lose before she even started.
He couldn’t be Jonas’s father. Ten years before, Justice had been in a vicious car accident. His injuries were severe enough to keep him in a hospital for weeks. And during his stay and the interminable testing that was done, a doctor had told him that the accident had left him unlikely to ever father children.
The doctor had used all sorts of complicated medical terms to describe his condition, but the upshot was that Jonas couldn’t be his. Maggie had no way of knowing that, of course, since Justice had never told anyone about the doctor’s prognosis. Not even his brothers.
Before he and Maggie got married, when she started talking about having a family, he’d told her that he didn’t want kids. Better to let her believe he chose to remain childless rather than have her think he was less than a man.
His spine stiffened as that thought scuttled through his brain. He hadn’t told her the truth then and he wouldn’t now. Damned if he’d see a flash of pity in her eyes for him. Bad enough that she was here to see him struggle to do something as simple as walk.
“So who were you with, Maggie?” he asked, his voice a low and dark hum. “Why didn’t he want his kid?”
“I was with you, you big jerk,” she said tightly. “I didn’t tell you about the baby before because I assumed from everything you’d said that you wouldn’t want to know.”
“What’s changed, then?” he asked.
“I’m here, Justice. I came here to help you. And I decided that no matter what, you had the right to know about Jonas.”
If it were possible, Maggie would have said that Justice’s features went even harder. But what was harder than stone? His eyes were flat and dark. His jaw was clenched. He was doing what he always had done. Shutting down. Shutting her out. But why?
Yes, she knew he’d said he didn’t want children, but she’d been so sure that the moment he saw his son, he’d feel differently. That Jonas would melt away his father’s reservations about having a family.
She’d even, in her wildest fantasies, imagined Justice admitting he was wrong for the first time in his life. In her little dream world, Justice had taken one look at his son, then begged Maggie’s forgiveness and asked her to stay, to let them be a family. She should have known better. “Idiot.”
“I’m not an idiot,” he told her.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she countered. He was so close to her and yet so very far away.
The house was quiet, tucked in for the night. Outside the windows was the moonlit darkness, the ever-present sea wind blowing, rattling the windowpanes and sending tree branches scratching against the roof.
Justice stood not a foot from her, close enough that she felt the heat of his body reaching out for her. Close enough that she wanted to lean into him and touch him as she’d wanted to during the therapeutic massage she’d given him earlier.
Instantly, warmth spiraled through her as she remembered his response to her hands moving on the weakened muscles in his leg. His erection hadn’t been weak, though, and hadn’t been easy to ignore, especially since being near him only made her want the big dummy more than ever.
“Look,” Justice muttered, breaking the spell holding Maggie in place, “I’m willing to do the therapy routine. I don’t like it, but I need to get back on my feet. If you can help with that, great. But if you staying here is gonna work, you’re going to have to drop all of this crap about me being your baby’s father. I don’t want to hear it again.”
“So you want me to lie,” she said.
“I want you to stop lying.”
“Fine. No lies. You are Jonas’s father.”
He gritted his teeth and muttered, “Damn it, Maggie!”
“Don’t you swear in front of my son.” She glanced at Jonas and though he was only six months old, she could see that he was confused and worried about what was happening. His big eyes looked watery, and his lower lip trembled as if he were getting ready to let a wail loose.
Justice barked out a harsh laugh. “You think he understood that?”
She glanced at the baby’s big blue eyes, so much like his father’s, and stroked a fingertip along his jaw soothingly. “I think he understands tone,” she said quietly. “And I don’t want you using that tone in front of him.”
He blew out a breath, scowled ferociously for a second, then said, “Fine. I won’t cuss in front of the kid. But you quit playing games.”
“I’m not playing.”
“You’re doing something, Maggie, and I can tell you now, it’s not going to work.”
She stared up at him and shook her head. “I knew you were stubborn, Justice, but I never imagined you could be this thick-headed.”
“And I never figured you for a cheat.” He turned and started to painstakingly make his way out of the room into the hall.
Just for a second she watched him walk away and her heart ached at the difficulty he had. Seeing a man as strong and independent as Justice leaning on a cane tore at her. His injuries weren’t permanent, but she knew what it was costing his pride to haltingly move away from her.
But though she felt for him, she wasn’t about to let him get away with what he’d just said.
“Cheat? A cheat?” Maggie inhaled sharply, cast another guilty glance at her son and gave him a smile she didn’t feel. She wouldn’t upset her baby for the sake of a man who was so blind he couldn’t see the truth when it was staring him in the face. “I am not a cheat or a liar, Justice King.”
He didn’t look back at her. He just kept moving awkwardly down the hall, his cane tapping against the floor runner. If his plan was to escape her, he’d have to be able to move a lot faster than that, Maggie told herself. Quickly, she walked down the hall, stepped out in front of him and forced him to stop.
“Get out of the way,” he murmured, staring past her, down the hall at his open bedroom door.
“You can think whatever you like of me, but you will, by God, not ignore me,” she told him, and the fact that he kept avoiding meeting her eyes only further infuriated her. This had so not gone the way she’d hoped and expected.
When Jefferson called her, asking her to come help Justice, she’d taken it as a sign. That this was the way they would come together again. That the time was finally right for Justice to meet the son he didn’t know about. Apparently, she had been wrong.
“Are you too cowardly to even look at me?” she demanded, knowing that the charge of coward would get his attention.
Instantly, he turned his dark blue gaze on her and she saw carefully banked anger simmering up from their depths. Well, good. At least he was feeling something.
“Don’t push me, Maggie. For both our sakes. If you want me to watch my tone around your son, then don’t you push me.”
He was furious—she could see that. But beyond the anger there was hurt. And that tore at her. He didn’t have to be hurt, darn it. She was offering him their son, not the plague.
“Justice,” she said softly, smoothing one hand up and down her baby’s back, “you know me better than anyone. You know I wouldn’t lie to you about this. You are my son’s father.”
He snorted.
Insulted and stung by his obvious distrust, she stepped back from him. How could he believe that she was lying? How could he have ever claimed to love her and not know that she was incapable of trying to trick him in this way? What the hell kind of a husband was he, anyway?
“I’m trying to be understanding,” she said, but her temper simmered just beneath the words. “I know this is probably all a surprise.”
“You could say that.”
“But I’m not going to say it to you again. I won’t argue. I won’t force you to admit your responsibilities—”
“I always face my responsibilities, Maggie. You should know that.”
“And you should know I’m not a liar.”
He blew out a breath, cocked his head to one side and stared into her eyes. “So what? We call it a draw? A standoff? An armed truce?”
“Call it whatever you want, Justice,” Maggie said, before he could say something else that would hurt her. “All I’m going to say is that if you don’t believe me about Jonas, then it’s your loss, Justice. We created a beautiful, healthy son together. And I love him enough for both of us.”
