The Baby Bombshell (Shadow Creek, Montana) Read online

  If the clenching and unclenching of his jaw was related to his mood, she’d say this was making him angry.

  “Doesn’t sound too bright.”

  She tsked before grabbing another slice of pizza. “He’s very bright. Wasn’t he valedictorian in high school? Full scholarship, too, I believe.”

  He rolled his eyes and grabbed his own slice of pizza. Did Jack emotionally eat, too? “That means nothing. And if he were really worried, he should be here.”

  “He did offer to come over and inspect things.”

  He choked. “I’m sure he did.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you have against Ben. He and Chase are friends.”

  “Chase’s opinion is irrelevant now because he’s married and happy. He loves everyone and everything. He’s like a damn golden retriever.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. And laugh. And laugh.

  “I’m glad you find me funny.”

  She stopped laughing. Nothing about Jack was funny. Hot, not funny. Hunched down in his chair, his shoulders broad, his long legs stretched out in front of him. If he were anyone else, or if they didn’t have this history between them, she’d be tempted to crawl all over him. Or if they had been like the way they used to be. If she could just go back to before Michael and Matthew…

  “Lily,” he said, his voice deep and thick. She watched as though it were in slow motion as he reached across the counter and took her hand in his. His hands were the same. Warm, large, callused. Comforting and exciting at the same time. How she’d missed this man.

  “Yes,” she whispered, not making eye contact with him.

  “I know I don’t deserve it, but I want another chance.”

  Her heart beat heavily in her chest, achingly as she looked at him. She saw the truth, the vulnerability in his eyes, and she wanted nothing more than to jump into his arms and say that yes, they could have a happily-ever-after, but she couldn’t. “I don’t trust you anymore,” she whispered.

  He winced. “I know. It’s my job to win your trust back. If it takes me a year or another five, I’ll do it.”

  She put her head into her hands. “You’ll never be able to prove it to me.”

  “What kind of proof do you need?”

  She removed her hands from her face. “Come on, there is nothing you can do. What happened… No one could have predicted that. I’m sure you wouldn’t have thought that you would have taken off for five years. So what happens if everything is going fine in our lives and then something really bad happens again? How do I know you’re going to stand by me?”

  His mouth formed a grim line. “I can’t. All I can do is give you my word, Lil.”

  “It’s not good enough anymore,” she whispered, hating that.

  “I’m here for good, Lil. I bought a house.”

  “A house.”

  He nodded. “A ranch.”

  “A ranch. The Sheppard ranch. The one we were going to buy when we got married.” On the one hand, she was happy because it meant he was stable and thinking about being stable. On the other hand, that meant he was staying here. For good. She stared at him, torn between being happy that he held all their late night conversations and plans so dearly and being royally pissed that he was planning on carrying out their old life plans without consulting her. “And what were you planning on doing? Just hoisting me over your shoulder and placing me in the house and holding me hostage?”

  “I never forgot about it, and I’m not giving up on us. I’m turning the old barn into my workshop. It’s set on about twenty acres. The house needs some work, but I can do that. I’m finally opening up my own contracting business, got a few leads, work lined up for February.”

  “I’m happy for you. So what were you doing…for work these last five years?” She remembered she’d asked him this on New Year’s and he’d said something about working on an oil rig… Of course they’d gotten sidetracked.

  He gave her a grin that made it obvious he remembered that conversation as well. “I got a job on an oil rig. Drilling.”

  She folded and unfolded a napkin, careful not to look at him. “Oh…why?”

  “I needed money, I needed to be far away, and I needed something physical.”

  “Oh.” What was she supposed to say?

  “I realized after I left here that I wouldn’t be young forever and I wasn’t too young to be planning my future. I needed to find a way to make it, to come back here and have enough to build a life.”

  That was more than she’d accomplished in some ways. She’d always struggled financially. Her parents had been hardworking people, but neither of them had had the kind of jobs that left much room for any extra. There certainly wasn’t enough for her father’s nursing home, either. Thank God her uncle had come through.

  “Lily, I did this with you in mind.”

  “Jack, if you did this with me in mind, you probably should have consulted me. I never asked you to go and make lots of money for me.”

  “I know that. You’re right on both counts. But I wanted to. I wanted us to have a good life together.”

  “Then why didn’t you come back sooner?”

  He winced. “I found out I needed more money than I originally thought.”

  She looked away from his handsome face. “Well, none of it matters anymore anyway. I think I’m going to call it a night. I’m exhausted.”

  “Lily,” he said, his voice deliciously low and smooth, like those truffles she’d inhaled all afternoon. She didn’t pause to listen to him because she couldn’t get sucked in by the hotness of the Jack vortex she’d already succumbed to.

  “Don’t go there, Jack. Remember I have New Year’s resolutions?” She didn’t even want to think how she’d be breaking the no Jack Bailey resolution if there was a baby in the picture.

  His grin was infectious. Almost. “No. I know we’re meant to be together, Lil. I was planning on winning you back, no matter how long it took.”

  “Well, don’t go speaking in the past tense like it’s already happened.”

  His grin widened. “Fair enough.”

  “Okay. Well, then I have a lot of work ahead of me.”

  Chapter Seven

  “So I bought the old Sheppard ranch at Pike’s Crossing,” Jack said, leaning back in the booth at the Shadow Creek Tavern.

  He was sitting across from his best friend, Chase Donovan. Chase was now married to Jack’s former sister-in-law, Julia. He was happy for the both of them. He didn’t know the details, but he knew his friend hadn’t had a great childhood and he never spoke of his parents. His wife had walked out on him about a year after Michael had died, leaving Chase the sole parent of their daughter. Chase had become real close to Jack’s parents and Gwen, and his little girl was now like the honorary grandchild.

  “Congratulations,” he said, lifting up his beer. “I kind of already figured that out since you were hanging around Julia’s office,” he said with a laugh. “And there’s only one person around here stubborn or stupid enough to take on a project like that old abandoned place.”

  Julia was a realtor, and of course he’d used her to get him the house. “Stupid and stubborn, yeah that about sums me up lately.”

  Chase paused, his bottle halfway to his mouth, and then set it down on the scuffed wood-topped table. “You’re not supposed to agree with the stupid part. You’re supposed to tell me to eff off.”

  Jack let out a low laugh. True enough. That’s what he would have done. “Coming back here was a helluva lot harder than I thought it would be,” he said, thinking of the hatred in Lily’s eyes whenever she saw him.

  “I guess you’re talking about Lily, since your parents rolled out a red carpet for you,” Chase said with a smirk.

  Jack shrugged and then took a long swig of beer. As much as it felt good to be sitting across from Chase, things still didn’t feel normal. He and Chase had always gotten along; in some ways he’d felt more comfortable with Chase than his twin. Michael had been close to him
in a way no one had, but there were always differences that kept them from being completely compatible. Chase and Jack had had a bit of a hell-raiser streak that Michael could never understand. Michael had led the perfect life. Perfect wife. Perfect kid that he’d shared with Julia, little Matthew. Jack had adored that kid. Matthew had brought out this other side in him, made him soft and sappy and wanting marriage and kids and the whole damn package. And he could have had all that with Lily, because she brought out that side in him as well. But he’d walked away. Hell, he couldn’t stay in this town after they died.

  “Actually, the three women in my life are so damn pissed off at me I’m afraid to go near them if they’re anywhere close to a kitchen with knives.”

  This time Chase laughed his ass off. “C’mon. Your mother isn’t pissed. Gwen and Lily… Well, yeah, you might have some work to do there. So I’m guessing Lily is still giving you the cold shoulder?” Chase asked after Jack didn’t answer.

  “What would make you guess that? New Year’s, when you were watching from the freaking shadows while she stuffed crap in my glass?” He didn’t add what had happened after New Year’s because…hell, Lily hated him even more now. He was seriously close to revealing what he’d done and the real reason he’d stayed away for so long. Except he was worried it still wouldn’t be a good enough reason—or worse, that she’d put an end to it. Maybe he’d ask Chase. He thought twice when he saw Chase was still laughing at him.

  Chase had the good manners to at least attempt covering his smile by taking a swig of beer but then ruined it by choking on the beer because he was laughing.

  “Yeah. That,” he said, pointing a finger at Jack. “I loved the way she dumped the entire bottle while maintaining her composure. That was cold.”

  Lily had been the woman he couldn’t get enough of. Years after not being able to commit to anyone, he’d finally given in to the attraction he felt to his little sister’s BFF and gone out on a date with her. The rest had been history. She’d roped him without a protest. They’d had a physical connection that he’d never experienced with anyone and an emotional connection that he didn’t think possible. But he’d screwed it all up.

  “Well, I can’t blame her. Actually, I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to run me down with her car.”

  Chase gave him a long stare. “Look, as much as I hate gossiping, I happened to overhear a bunch of…gossip when Lily and Gwen came over for wine Saturday night.”

  Jack scowled at him. “You’re kidding?”

  Chase shrugged. “They weren’t exactly quiet, and my home office is right around the corner from the living room.”

  “What, you couldn’t close your office door?”

  “Our daughter was sleeping upstairs. I needed to be able to hear her if she called for me.”

  “Bull.”

  “Uh, do you want to know what I overheard or not? Because if you want to sit there making fun of me, then I’ll just keep this information to myself.” His friend looked very pleased with himself as he leaned back in the booth.

  Jack swore under his breath. “Speak.”

  “Apparently, Lily’s dated Ben Easton”

  Jack scowled. He already knew this but refused to acknowledge it. “Who?”

  “You remember Ben. Easton.”

  Oh, hell. Yeah, he remembered him, because he’d seen his stupid face on Lily’s phone the other night. He was in Lily’s year at high school. Jock. Honor roll. Wealthy. All-around loser, really. “Oh. Was it serious?”

  “Since I was actually in my office, not eavesdropping, I only managed to hear something about Lily saying he was a great guy…and then I got a call.”

  “What the hell kind of help is that?”

  Chase’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lucky I cared enough about you to even listen. I had to filter out half an hour of Gwen talking about her weight and their diet advice, which was useless advice by the way.”

  “Oh yeah, Gwen.” More guilt. His sister moped around the house complaining about the weight she’d put on in the last five years. She was blowing everything out of proportion, but he felt guilty because it was like everything had imploded when he left, even that. “I uh, made her more pissed off at me as well.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “I offered diet advice.”

  Chase went perfectly still. “Are you stupid? You can’t offer a woman diet advice unless you have a death wish, man.”

  He groaned and scrubbed his hands down his face. “I know. It was supposed to be helpful, because she was complaining and I wanted to solve the problem for her.”

  “She doesn’t want you to solve a problem. She wants to talk about it and complain about it. Your job is to sit there and nod, looking interested, maybe sympathetic, and tell her she looks beautiful just the way she is.”

  He scowled. “I did. She told me I was only being nice. So then I gave weight loss advice.”

  Chase shrugged. “You’ve been away from women too long.”

  “Anything else useful?”

  “They did talk about you.”

  His palms sweat like a teenager before his first kiss. “What’d they…uh, say?”

  “They talked about your stupid beard for at least fifteen minutes.”

  He frowned. And then rubbed his bearded chin. “My beard?”

  Chase nodded. “No one likes it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “What else?”

  “They analyzed why you have a beard now.”

  “What the hell?”

  Chase nodded, looking pleased with himself. “Also, Gwen really went to bat for you. So did Jules. They both said you deserved a second chance.”

  He cleared his throat and ignored the stab in his gut. “What did Lily say?”

  “I didn’t hear.”

  He grabbed the bucket of peanuts and began shelling and popping them into his mouth. Maybe Gwen was onto something about this emotional eating. The emotional part caused him to stop and push the bucket away. “So basically you missed the most important part of the conversation. She’s not still going out with that loser, Ben, is she?”

  “Ben’s a winner, remember? Women sometimes like losers. Maybe she’ll forgive your sorry ass.”

  “Are you attempting to offer me some kind of advice or trying to make me feel worse?”

  “Worse, so that you’ll realize what an idiot you are if you let Lily go again.”

  “I’m not going to. I’m going to win her back.”

  “You can do it, Charlie Brown.”

  “I’m not sure why I actually thought I missed you.”

  His friend laughed and he found himself joining. He actually had missed this.

  “So you’re happy with Jules?” he asked, and then had to watch his friend’s face turn all soft.

  “Very.”

  …

  Jack stood in the darkened kitchen. It was midnight, everyone long since gone to bed. Of course, he hadn’t been able to sleep. He had screwed up and hurt these people. He saw it in their expressions, in their subdued welcome. But none of them knew what it was like to lose someone connected to you.

  Jack never really believed the crap about souls and intuition and sixth senses until half his soul had been ripped out of him one night. The night Michael had died, before the phone call had come in, he’d known. He’d hurled up the contents of his dinner down the toilet and moments later the phone rang with the news he’d already felt in his gut.

  He and Michael had been connected in a way that no one else ever could. He knew his brother before they’d left their mother’s womb; before their parents met them, they knew each other.

  “Jack,” his mother whispered from the doorway of the kitchen.

  He turned around, taking in her shadowed figure. He was still shocked at the change in his parents. Five years seemed like nothing to him. Yet for both of them, in their seventies, five years seemed liked decades on their faces. Her red velour robe hugged the plump contours of her body, and for a second he wished he could b
e a kid again. Wished he could run up to her and rest his head on her lap and feel her arms around him. He wished he could go back to before he was a screw-up. Before Michael and Matthew died. Before he’d become a goddamn wimp and walked out on Lily. But, most of all, for the longest time, he wished he’d been the one who died.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said, when she walked over to the table and pulled out a chair.

  He twisted off the lid of his beer, purposely grinding the sharp edges of the cap against the palm of his hand.

  She straightened out a place mat on the table and then patted it down. “Trouble sleeping, honey?”

  He leaned against the counter and shrugged slightly. “I’m okay.” He took a long drink of the cold beer, concentrating on the way it contrasted with the warmth in his throat, concentrating on anything other than the fact that he didn’t know what the hell to say to his mother.

  “How are things with Lily?”

  He looked up sharply. He had no idea how his mother still knew so much. “Fine.”

  “Wrong.”

  He sighed heavily. “Well, not bad.”

  “You hurt her, Jack. She’s still in love with you.”

  There was no point in fighting her, and maybe she’d have better advice than Chase. “I thought the ranch might help in showing her that I’m here to stay this time around.”

  She nodded. “Yes, but she needs to know from you. She needs proof you’ve changed. It has to be more than that. She needs to know you have faith, Jack. And she needs to have faith in you.”

  He tried not to look dismissive, but they’d all grown up knowing their mother and father were believers. They believed in God, they prayed, they went to church. They had that blind faith that made him cringe. He had none of it. “Faith in what, Mom?” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice and be as respectful as he could.

  “Faith in a higher power. God. Or as your generation loves to say, ‘the universe.’” The sight of his mother using air quotes for universe almost made him smile. Except it was all pretty damn sad.