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“Maggie…”
She placed one hand on the back of her son’s head, holding him to her tenderly. “And in case you were wondering why I waited until now to tell you about Jonas… It’s because I was worried about how you’d react.” She laughed shortly, sharply. “Imagine that. Wonder why?”
He muttered something under his breath, and judging by the expression on his face, she was just as happy she’d missed it.
“The sad truth is, Justice, I never wanted my son to know that his own father hadn’t wanted him.”
His eyes went colder, harder than before, and Maggie shivered a little under his direct gaze. A second passed, then two, and neither of them spoke. The hall light was soft and golden, throwing delicate shadows around the wide, empty passage. They were alone in the world, the three of them, with an invisible and apparently impenetrable wall separating Maggie and her son from the man who should have welcomed them with open arms.
At last, Justice turned his gaze to the boy who was watching him curiously. Maggie watched her husband’s features soften briefly before freezing up into that hardened, take-no-prisoners expression she knew so well. After several long moments he lifted his gaze to hers, and when he spoke, his voice was so soft she had to hold her breath to hear him.
“You’re wrong, Maggie. If I was his father, I would want him.”
Then he brushed past her, the tip of his cane making a muffled thumping sound as he made his way to his room. He didn’t look back.
And that nearly broke Maggie’s heart.
Chapter Five
“Run the calves and their mamas to the seaward pasture,” Justice told Phil, his ranch manager, three days later. “You can leave the young bulls in the canyons for now. Keep them away from the heifers as much as you can.”
“I know, boss.” Phil turned the brim of his hat between his hands as he stood opposite the massive desk in Justice’s study.
Phil was in his early fifties, with a tall, lanky body that belied his strength. He was a no-BS kind of guy who knew his job and loved the ranch almost as much as his boss. Phil’s face was tanned as hard and craggy as leather from years spent in the sun. His forehead, though, was a good two shades lighter than the rest of him, since his hat was usually on and pulled down low. He shifted uneasily from foot to foot, as if eager to get outside and back on his horse.
“We’ve got most of the herd settled into their pastures now,” he said. “There was a fence break in the north field, but two of the boys are out there now fixing it.”
“Okay.” Justice tapped a pen against the top of his desk and tried to focus the useless energy burning inside him. Sitting behind a desk was making him itchy. If things were as they should be, he’d be out on his own horse right now. Making sure things were getting done to his specifications. Justice wasn’t a man to sit inside and order his people around. He preferred having his hand in everything that went on at King Ranch.
Phil Hawkins was a good manager, but he wasn’t the boss.
Yet even as he thought it, Justice knew he was lying to himself. His itchy feeling had nothing to do with not trusting his crew. It was all about how he hated being trapped in the damn house. Now more than ever.
The past few days, he’d felt as if he was being stalked. Maggie was following him around, insisting on therapy sessions or swims in the heated pool or nagging at him to use the damn cane he’d come to hate. Hell, he’d had to sneak away just to get a few minutes alone in his office to go over ranch business with Phil.
Everywhere he went, it seemed, there was Maggie. Back in the day, they’d have been falling into each other’s arms every other minute. But nothing was as it had once been. These days, she looked at him as if he were just another patient to her. Someone to feel bad for. To fix up. To take care of.
Well, he didn’t need taking care of. Or if he did, he’d never admit it. He didn’t want her being paid to be here. Didn’t want to be her latest mission. Her cause. Didn’t want her touching him with indifference.
That angry thought flashed through his mind at the same time a twinge of pain sliced at his leg. Damn thing was near useless. And three days of Maggie’s torture hadn’t brought him any closer to healing and getting on with his life. Instead, she seemed to be settling in. Making herself comfortable in the log house that used to be her home.
She was sliding into the rhythm of ranch life as if she’d never left it. She was up with the dawn every day and blast if it didn’t seem she was deliberately close enough to him every morning so that Justice heard her talking to her son. Heard the baby’s nonsensical prattle and cooing noises. Could listen in on what he wasn’t a part of.
She was everywhere. Her or the baby. Or both. He heard her laughing with Mrs. Carey, smelled her perfume in every room of the house and caught her playing with her son on several occasions. She and the baby had completely taken over his house.
There were toys scattered everywhere, a walker with bells, whistles and electronic voices singing out an alphabet song. There was a squawking chicken, a squeaky dog and a teddy bear with a weird, tinny voice that sang songs about sharing and caring. Hell, coming down the stairs this morning, he’d almost killed himself when his cane had come down on a ball with a clown’s face stamped on it. There were cloth books, cardboard books and diapers stashed everywhere just in case the kid needed a change. That boy had to go through a hundred of them a day. And what was with all the books? It was not as if the baby could read.
“Uh, boss?”
“What?” Justice shook his head, rubbed at his aching leg and shifted his gaze back to Phil. That woman was now sneaking into his thoughts so that he couldn’t even talk about ranch business. “Sorry,” he said. “My mind wandered. What?”
Phil’s lips twitched as if he knew where his boss’s mind had slipped off to. But he was smart enough not to say anything. “The new grasses in the east field are coming in fine, just like you said they would. Looks like a winner to me.”
“That’s good news,” Justice said absentmindedly. They’d replanted one of the pastures with a hardier stock of field grass, and if it held up to its hype, then the herd would have something to look forward to in a few months.
Running an organic cattle ranch was more work, but Justice was convinced it was worth it in the long run. The cowboys he had working for him spent most of their time switching the cattle around to different pastures, keeping the grass fresh and the animals on the move. His cows didn’t stand in dirty stalls to be force-fed grains. King cattle roamed open fields as they’d been meant to.
Cattle weren’t born to eat corn, for God’s sake. They were grazers. And keeping his herds moving across natural field grasses made the meat more tender and sweet and brought higher prices from the consumer. He had almost sixty thousand acres of prime grassland here on the coast and another forty thousand running alongside his cousin Adam’s ranch in central California.
Justice had made the change over to natural grazing and organic ranching nearly ten years ago, as soon as he took over the day-to-day running of King Ranch. His father hadn’t put much stock in it, but Justice had been determined to run the outfit his way. And in that time, he’d been able to expand and even open his own online beef operation.
He only wished his father had lived to see what he’d made of the place. But his parents had died in the same accident that had claimed Justice’s chances of ever making his own family. So he had to content himself with knowing that he’d made a success of the family spread and that his father would have been proud.
“Oh, and we got another offer on Caleb,” Phil was saying, and Justice focused on the man.
“What was it?”
“Thirty-five thousand.”
“No,” Justice told him. “Caleb’s too valuable a stud to let him go for that. If the would-be buyer wants to pay for calves out of Caleb, we’ll do that. But we’re not selling our top breeding bull.”
Phil grinned. “That’s what I told him.”
Some of Justice’s competitors were more convinced it was his breeding stock that made his cattle so much better than others, and they were continually trying to buy bulls. They were either too stupid or too lazy to realize that fresh calves weren’t going to change anything. To get the results Justice had, they were going to have to redo their operations completely.
The door to the study swung open after a perfunctory knock, and both men turned to look. Maggie stood in the open doorway. Faded jeans clung to her legs and the King Cattle T-shirt she wore in bright blue made her eyes shine like sapphires. She gave Phil a big smile. “You guys finished?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Phil said.
“No,” Justice said.
His ranch manager winced a little as he realized that he’d blown things for his boss.
Maggie looked at her husband. “Which is it? Yes or no?”
Frowning, Justice scowled at his foreman, silently calling him traitor. Phil just shrugged, though, as if to say it was too late now.
“We’re finished for the time being,” Justice reluctantly admitted.
“Good. Time for your exercises,” Maggie told him, walking into the room and heading for his desk.
“Then I’ll just go—” Phil waved his hat in the direction of the door “—back to work.” He nodded at her. “Maggie, good to see you.”
“You, too,” she said, giving the other man the kind of brilliant smile that Justice hadn’t seen directed at him in far too long.
“He hasn’t changed at all,” Maggie mused.
“You haven’t been gone that long.”
“Funny,” she said, “feels like a lifetime to me.”
“I guess it would.” Justice didn’t want her in here. This was his office. His retreat. The one room in the whole place that hadn’t been colored by her scent. By her presence. But it was too late now.
As she wandered the room, running her fingertips across the leather spines of the books in the shelves, he told himself that from now on, he’d see her here. He’d feel her here. He’d be able to close his eyes and imagine her with him, the sound of her voice, the sway of her hips, the way the sunlight through the window made her hair shine like a fire at midnight.
Squirming uncomfortably in his chair now, Justice said, “You know, if you don’t mind, I’ve got some paperwork to catch up on. Things pile up if you don’t stay on top of them. Think I’ll skip the exercises this morning.”
She gave him the sort of smile she would have given a little boy trying to get away with cutting school. “I don’t think so. But if you want, we can change things up a little. Instead of a half hour on the treadmill, we could walk around the ranch yard.”
Sounded like a plan to him. He hated that damn treadmill with a raging passion. What the hell good was it, when a man had the whole world to walk in? Who would choose to walk on a conveyor belt? And if she didn’t have him on that treadmill, she had him doing lunges and squats, with his back up against the wall. He felt like a lab rat, moving from one maze to the next. Always inside. Always moving and getting exactly nowhere.
The thought of getting outside was a blessing. Outside. Into the air, where her perfume would get lost in the wind rather than clinging to every breath he took. “Fine.”
He pushed up from his black leather chair, and as he stepped around the edge of the desk, Maggie approached and held out his cane. He took it, his fingers brushing against hers just enough to kindle a brand-new fire in his gut. He pulled back, tightened his grip on the head of the blasted cane and started for the door.
“You’re walking easier,” she noted.
Irritation spiked inside him. He remembered a time when she had watched his ass for a different reason. “Yeah,” he admitted. “It still hurts like a bitch, but maybe it’s a little better.”
“Wow. Quite the compliment to my skills.”
He stopped and turned to look at her. “Maybe I’m doing well enough to just cut the therapy short.”
“Ooh, good effort,” she said and walked past him toward the front door.
Now it was his turn to watch her ass, and he for damn sure wasn’t doing it to check out her ability to walk. Then something struck him: the fact that she didn’t have her son on her hip. “Uh, don’t you have to watch…”
“Jonas?” she provided.
“Yeah.”
“Mrs. Carey has him. She loves watching him,” Maggie said, striding down the hall to the front door. Her boots, which clacked against the wood floor, sounded like a quickening heartbeat. “Says he reminds her so much of you it’s almost eerie.”
Justice scowled at her back. She managed to get one or two of those pointed digs in every day. Trying to make him see something that wasn’t there. A connection between her son and him.
He should just tell her, he thought, snatching his battered gray felt hat off the hook by the door. Tell her that he was sterile and be done with it. Then she could stop playing whatever game she was playing and he wouldn’t have to put up with any of this anymore.
But if he did that, she’d know. Know everything. Why he’d let her go. Why he’d lied. Why he felt less than a man because he hadn’t been able to give her the one thing she’d wanted. And, damn it, once he told her the truth, she’d feel sorry for him—and he couldn’t stand that. Better for him if she thought him a bastard.
* * *
Maggie listened to the uncertain steps of her husband coming up behind her and stopped on the porch to wait for him. She took that moment to admire the sweep of land stretching out in front of her. She’d missed this place almost as much as she’d missed Justice. The wide yard was neatly tended, the flower beds were spilling over with bright, colorful blossoms and from somewhere close by, the lowing of a cow sounded almost like a song.
Just for a second or two, all of Maggie’s thoughts and worries drifted away, just drained out of her system as if they’d never been there. She took a deep breath of the sweet air and smiled at two herd dogs, a mutt and a Lab, chasing each other across the front yard. Then she sensed Justice coming up behind her, and in an instant tension coiled deep in the pit of her stomach.
She would always sense him. Always be aware of him on a deep, cellular level. He touched something inside her that no one else ever had. And when they were apart, she felt his absence keenly. But feeling connected to a man who clearly didn’t share the sentiment was just a recipe for disaster.
“It’s really beautiful,” she whispered.
“It is.”
His deep voice rumbled along her spine and tingled through her system. Why did it have to be him who did this to her? she wondered and glanced over her shoulder at him. He wasn’t looking at the ranch; he was watching her, and her knees went a little wobbly. Maggie had to lock them just to keep upright. The man’s eyes should be illegal. His smile was even more lethal—thank heaven she didn’t see it often.
“You used to love it here,” he said quietly, letting his gaze slide from her to where the dogs chased each other in dizzying circles.
“I did,” she admitted and took a deep breath.
From the moment she had first seen this ranch, it had felt like home to her. As if it had only been waiting for her to arrive, the ranch had welcomed her. Maggie had always been amazed that she could stand on her porch and feel as though she were in the middle of the country, when in reality the city was just a short freeway ride away.
Here on the King Ranch it was as if time had not exactly stood still but at least had taken a break, slowed down. She’d always thought this would be a perfect place for her children to grow up. She’d imagined watching four or five King kids racing through the yard laughing, running to her and Justice for hugs and kisses and growing up learning to care for the ranch as much as their father did.
But those dreams had died the night she’d left Justice so many months ago.
Now she was nothing more than a barely tolerated visitor, and Jonas would never know what it was like to grow up among his father’s memories.
Or to grow up with his father’s love.
Justice was deliberately closing himself off from not only her but also the child they’d made together. That was something she couldn’t forgive. Or understand. Justice had always been a hard man, but he was also a man devoted to family. To his brothers and the King heritage. So how could he turn his back on his own son?
In the past three days, Justice had done everything in his power to avoid so much as being in the same room with Jonas. Her heart twisted painfully in her chest, but she wouldn’t force him to care, even if she could. Because then his love wouldn’t mean a thing. To her or her son. So she would be professional and keep her emotions tightly leashed if it killed her.
“Loving this place didn’t keep you here,” he pointed out unnecessarily.
“No, it didn’t,” she said. “It couldn’t.”
He shook his head and frowned, squinting out from beneath the brim of his hat. “It could have. You chose to leave.”
“I’m not going over that same old argument again, Justice.”
“Me neither,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just reminding you.”
Maggie inhaled slowly, deeply. She told herself to bank her temper, to not let him get to her. It wasn’t easy, especially since Justice had always known exactly which of her buttons to push to get a reaction. But as satisfying as it would be to shout and rage and give in to her frustration by telling him just what she was thinking, it wouldn’t do a darn bit of good.
“We should walk.” She spoke up fast, before her temper could override her more rational side. Then she turned to offer him her arm so she could assist him getting down the short flight of steps leading from the porch to the yard.
Instantly, he scowled at her and stepped around her, the tip of his cane slamming down onto the porch. “I’m not completely helpless, Maggie. I can get around without holding on to your arm. You’re half my size.”
“And trained to help ambulatory patients get around. I’m stronger than I look, Justice. You should remember that.”
He shot her one hard, stony glare. “I’m not one of your patients, damn it.”
“Well, yeah,” she countered, feeling the first threads of her patience begin to unravel, “technically, you are.”
“I don’t want to be—don’t you get that?”
She felt the cold of his stare slice right into her, but Maggie had practice in facing down his crab-ass attitude. “Yes, Justice. I get it. Despite the great trouble you’ve taken in trying to hide how you feel about me being here, I get it.”
His mouth flattened into a grim line, and she glared right back at him.
