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That only made the kid madder.
Then inspiration hit.
He ripped open the box of baby biscuits and offered him one.
The kid gave him a look that said, “It’s about time, stupid,” and snatched the cookie from his hand.
Furiously gumming the goody, he surveyed J.D. with interest. Waving a little fist, his squirming changed to a happy wriggle. Legs and arms bounced, never still. David cooed his approval.
It kinda made J.D. feel good.
He twisted and withdrew from the back seat, sure he’d need to see a chiropractor the next morning. Straightening, he grinned at the woman.
“I got him to stop crying.”
She nodded her head but didn’t meet his eyes.
His accomplishment left her monumentally unimpressed.
Silence surrounded them as she replaced the nozzle. Crickets tuned up for their evening encore.
Then she looked up and met his gaze.
Something about her eyes disturbed him. They were green. Deep. Sincere.
“Thank you.”
He grunted some sort of reply, Lord only knew what, and got back in the car.
They headed to the diner in silence, broken occasionally by a contented gibberish from the baby.
When they pulled into the parking lot, he gestured toward the back seat. “There’re diapers in the bag, if you think he might need a change.”
The woman looked away for a moment, brushed her eyes. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugged.
Charity. Might as well get it over with in one big horse pill to swallow. He didn’t like to give it, couldn’t imagine taking it and completely understood how hard it was to accept. For a gold digger, Maggie seemed unusually sensitive about asking for help.
“There’s formula and some other stuff, too.”
Her eyes locked with his, her pretty little mouth turned down at the corners.
He held up a hand forestalling her protest.
“Now that’s the way we are around here. Southern hospitality, nothing more. And you can pay me back when you find your debit card.”
“Yes. I’ll pay you back.”
A cold day in hell.
“Why don’t you change the baby. I’ll go on ahead and order us some food. Burgers okay?”
She nodded. He watched as she flipped the seat forward, contorted her spine and reached for the car-seat latch. Her faded T-shirt inched up toward her ribs. A ribbon of skin peeked out of the gap, pale and vulnerable.
J.D. turned and headed for the restaurant before he did something stupid. Like placing his palm against the warm, bare small of her back. Somehow he didn’t think she’d buy his pretext of helping.
He found a booth and watched her lumber toward the restroom door, her child on one hip, an enormous diaper bag banging against the other.
She was thin. Way too thin. Eric didn’t normally go for the anorexic type, though J.D. had to admit there was a certain charm to her wide-eyed, heart-shaped face.
He accepted the menu from the waitress while mentally castigating his brother. Disgust and disappointment got all tangled together in one messy package.
Damn him.
Damn Eric for lying. For saying he’d changed. Damn him for putting their grandmother through this. For being the favorite, whether he deserved it or not. And damn him for dumping one more mess in his half brother’s lap.
J.D. didn’t realize he’d been brooding until the waitress cleared her throat.
He looked up and she flashed a smile. She looked familiar. She’d graduated with Eric. What was her name?
“Darlene,” he read off her name tag. “Sorry, guess I was daydreaming.”
“No problem, J.D.”
How’d she know his name when he couldn’t remember hers without reading it?
It was simple really. He was a McGuire, even if only by name and not blood. The McGuires stood for something in this town—they were respected, if not revered. Their money bought a lot of goodwill.
He made a mental note to leave her a generous tip, then ordered cheeseburgers for himself and the redhead. French fries. Coleslaw. Two large sweet teas. Eric’s latest mistake looked like she could use some protein. That, carbohydrates and caffeine might get her through what he had to tell her.
J.D. watched her make her way to the table. Dark circles ringed her eyes. She looked like she might blow over with the slightest breeze.
Maggie swallowed, forcing herself to meet J.D.’s gaze as she made her way around the tables. It wasn’t a crime to be poor, but the pity on his face said it sure was sad.
Smoothing her hair, she wished she’d had a place to shower and change before confronting the McGuires. Despite splashing her face with cold water and finger-combing her hair, she knew she looked like hell. Her mother would have disowned her.
Maggie stifled a hysterical chuckle as she slid into the booth. Her mother had disowned her. But for crimes much more serious than a lack of personal grooming.
The man watched her bounce David on her knee. The cookie was long gone and he started to fuss. Poor thing, it had been a long day for them both.
Pulling the bottle from a side pocket, she said, “I mixed it with warm water in the restroom.” Help, so rare and unaccustomed, left a lump in her throat. How different things might have been if… She refused to go there. “Thank you. For the formula and the other stuff.”
“No problem. Southern hospitality.”
She could get used to this Southern hospitality. And it scared her.
“Give me the receipt. I’m a student and I’ll pay you back when…”
When?
When she paid the rent? When she had cupboards stocked with food and wipes and diapers? When she graduated from college, her mortuary-science degree in hand?
That was the only chance she might have of repaying the man.
“Here. You pay me when you can.”
She accepted the folded slip of paper and just about drowned in the kindness in his eyes. Slipping the paper into the diaper bag, she didn’t even look at the amount. Didn’t have to. She could tell to the penny what he’d spent, allowing for regional differences. Doing without had made her a great comparison shopper. And she knew convenience stores charged an arm and a leg for this stuff. Including the cheeseburger, she owed the guy close to forty bucks.
“You know babies pretty well. You have children?”
He seemed startled at the suggestion. Why? He looked to be in his midthirties. Solid. Kind. Good-looking, in a rough sort of way. A man who should probably have a wife and a few children at home.
“Nope. Couple of my friends do, though. Once they get to that age—” he nodded to David cradled in the crook of her arm sucking greedily on the bottle “—a cracker’ll get them to quiet down if they’re hungry or bored.”
“An astute observation, J.D. I didn’t catch your last name? Though with the reunion in town, McGuire would be a safe guess.”
His lips twitched. So, he had a sense of humor.
“Yep. You nailed it. McGuire, J.D. McGuire. And you are?”
“McGuire. Maggie McGuire.”
His eyes widened at that. Then the frown was back. As if she’d uttered the most despicable thing in the world.
“That’s not funny,” he said.
“It’s not intended to be.”
“Passing yourself off as his wife won’t help.”
Maggie straightened her aching spine. She wasn’t ready for this kind of confrontation. Eric, yes. She’d had several thousand miles to prepare for dealing with Eric. But this guy? He made her feel like she was doing something wrong. Something immoral.
“I’m not passing myself off as anything. I’m merely being polite and introducing myself. You draw your own conclusions.”
“My conclusions have nothing to do with this. There are already two Mrs. McGuires. One is my grandmother. The other is Nancy, Eric’s wife.”
Wife?
The word bounced around her head, slid down her throat and twirled in her stomach, before dropping to the bottom, like one of those penny wishing wells at the Wal-Mart store.
“Th-that’s impossible. I’m his wife.”
“Look, lady, I don’t know you. But you seem like a nice enough person. My brother’s done some pretty crummy things in his life, but he wouldn’t stoop to bigamy.”
“At least we agree about something.”
Eric had been a jerk occasionally. Well, more than occasionally. But he’d been a charming, loving jerk most of the time. She simply couldn’t believe he would do something to hurt her so badly. To hurt his son so badly.
But doubts tiptoed through her mind. He’d never really believed David was his child. Their argument over his paternity had been intense. She’d started spotting immediately and feared she might lose the baby. After that, Eric had neither accepted nor rejected paternity. He had simply humored her, made sure she ate right, got enough rest, suggested a few names for the baby.
And when she’d told him he was listed as David’s father on the birth certificate, he’d just smiled a sad little smile and kissed her gently on the lips. Then he’d taken the newborn from her arms and settled into the hospital rocking chair.
No, he wouldn’t be that cruel.
“Maybe she’s mistaken? This Nancy woman?”
“Nope. I was best man at their wedding, right after Eric graduated high school. And if there’d been a divorce, I would have heard about it.”
That’s when the second shock seeped in. Everything she’d believed to be true was in jeopardy. J.D. was lying. He had to be lying.
“Look, is this some sort of sick practical joke?” Maggie held her breath, waiting for a camera crew to come out of hiding, hoping against hope that this was a new reality TV show designed to humiliate the unsuspecting.
“Is it? A joke?” she asked.
He couldn’t meet her gaze. Instead, he stared off in the direction of the door. As if he would rather have been anywhere in the world but here, breaking bad news to a stranger. “No, it’s not a joke.”
“If you’re telling the truth,” she whispered, squeezing the baby so tightly he protested, “that means I’m not married. And David is—”
“A beautiful, healthy child.” He leaned forward. “That’s all that matters.”
“Why are you being so kind?”
The man ran a hand over his head. “I’m not being kind. I’m just stating a fact. My brother is a real asshole sometimes and innocent people get hurt.”
Now she realized the man had said he was Eric’s brother, not once, but twice.
She slumped against the back of the booth. “You’re Jamie?”
“Only to my grandmother. And Eric, if I’m not too pissed off at him.”
Maggie eyed him. “You don’t look anything like him.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Same mother, different fathers. Eric’s dad was my stepdad.”
“J.D.—James David?” She tried to reconcile the man before her with her preconceived idea of what Eric’s brother would look like. She’d never even seen a photo of the man, but she’d assumed he would be fair like Eric. Blond hair, blue eyes.
“Yes, that’s me. I prefer J.D. though.” He nodded toward her son. “Is it coincidence, his name?”
“No coincidence. Eric wanted David named after you. He talked about you a lot. Kind of like you were a superhero.”
But it hadn’t always been a nice comparison. Sometimes, usually when he’d had one beer too many, the resentment would creep into his voice. The great Jamie, always doing the right thing, always thinking he was better.
“I doubt that. We don’t get along very well.”
She was silent, watching David’s eyes flutter. His daddy had a lot of faults. She only hoped her son inherited the good qualities. His generosity, his zest for life. The way he reached out and grabbed what he wanted.
“I need to talk to Eric. Sort all this out.”
