Teresa Southwick - The Bachelor's Baby

He gritted his teeth. “Not yet.”

“Yet?” she asked suspiciously. “What does that mean?”

“You’re not the only one who plays by the rules. I’m not leaving until you hear my proposition.”

Tucker suppressed his anger at her dismissal. He needed a clear head, something he could never manage when he was mad as hell. Like now. Casey Wright had confessed, unburdened her conscience, come clean and told him about his son. Her halfhearted attempt to find him didn’t cut it, as far as he was concerned. He didn’t trust a woman who would keep secrets from him, especially something as important as the fact that he was going to be a father. If she expected him to walk out of his son’s life, she’d better think again.

“This is a proposal that you might want to seriously consider,” he repeated.

“If this is about marrying you,” she said quickly. “That’s out of the question.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to.”

“Oh. Good, because the answer would have been no.”

“Fine. I don’t want to get married, either. But I’ve got another idea. Will you hear me out?”

She stared back at him, her delicate jaw rigid with stubbornness. Big green eyes in a pixie face, surrounded becomingly by short, jagged-cut blond hair, regarded him suspiciously. He realized he had lied when he told her she wasn’t as cute as he remembered. She was cuter.

When she took a deep breath and nodded, he knew she would listen. “I don’t think I’ll like it, but the least I can do is hear you out.”

“How do you know you won’t like it?” he asked, irritated.

“I just do. But go ahead.”

Still on one knee beside her rocking chair, he felt as if he should propose marriage to her. It was the honorable thing to do. He couldn’t. It might be noble, but it wasn’t right. Not for Casey or Jason or him. Marriage implied love and commitment that would last forever, and he didn’t believe that was possible. But he could offer her the next best thing.

“I want you and Jason to move in with me on my ranch.” He took one look at her face and added, “Temporarily. Say, three months. A month for every one I missed out on.”

“You want—” She stared at him for a moment.

Then she moved. Beneath the soft little blanket that hid his son and her breast, she squirmed as she righted the straps of her bra and shirt. She threw off the flannel covering, lifted the contented baby to her shoulder and burped him. With quick, angry movements, she arranged a small plastic chair in the crib.

“What’s that?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

This baby thing was all new to him. Everything was fascinating. Especially the feeding part, he decided, noticing the way her T-shirt molded to the soft curve of her breasts.

She spread the chair straps wide with one hand as she held the baby in her other arm. “This is called an infant seat. I’m going to put him in here in a semiupright position.”

“Why?”

“If I put him on his tummy when it’s full, he’ll throw up. If I put him on his back, I’m afraid he’ll spit up and aspirate it into his lungs.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No, it’s not.”

“What does he do when he sits in the chair—infant seat?”

“Nothing.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Probably. Pretty soon he’ll get tired and take a nap.

“How does he get tired from doing nothing?”

She glared at him. “I don’t know. And I don’t know what makes you think you have the right to make a suggestion like you just did.”

“You think moving to the ranch is a bad idea?”

“Very bad.”

“Why? You said you don’t want to leave him. The way the world is today, a wacko on every corner, I don’t like the idea of him with a total stranger—”

“I’d never leave him with someone untrustworthy.”

“I have a right to approve of my son’s caretaker.”

“You never heard of Jason until today. This isn’t your problem or your business.”

As she heaved a huge sigh, her chest went up and down in a tantalizing way that made his blood race and his pulse pound. She had a lot of things to explain, like why she hadn’t tried harder to find him. Why she hadn’t returned the calls he’d left on her voice mail. Whether or not she ever would have told him he had a son. But one thing was clear to him, the attraction that had provoked him into taking her to bed against his better judgment hadn’t lessened in a year.

As he watched her strap the baby in the chair, Tucker carefully gathered his thoughts. “Casey, I’m sensing that you don’t like the fact much, but the reality is, I’m Jason’s father. Everything about his welfare is my business.”

“Damn. This is exactly what I was afraid of.” She glared at him and marched out of the room.

Tucker glanced at the baby, sitting quietly in his crib. “Hey, there, little fella. Son,” he said, testing the word. He liked the way it sounded.

He wound up the music box on the mobile mounted on the crib rail. Strains of music filled the room as the suspended animals slowly turned. Jason waved his arms, trying to catch the moving figures, Tucker guessed.

He reached out a finger and the baby grabbed on. “Good grip, buddy,” he said. Jason grinned.

The mobile’s movement drew the baby’s wideeyed blue gaze. As he smiled and gurgled happily, dimples formed in his cheeks. Tucker noticed again the resemblance. The boy was a Smith through and through. Although there was some of his mother in him, too. He was sort of bald at the moment, but the little bit of hair he had was light. Looked like it might turn out to be wheat colored like Casey’s.

He, and a woman he barely knew, shared this baby. It was an amazing, unsettling thought.

As he studied his son, Tucker’s chest swelled and his heart melted. His feelings were bittersweet. He’d missed out on Casey’s pregnancy, watching her belly grow big with his baby, being at the hospital for the birth, seeing her learn to nurse before she had become discreet about it. He hadn’t been included in bringing Jason home. He’d just missed out on the baby rolling from his tummy to his back for the first time.

His son was already three months old, and Tucker keenly felt the irretrievable loss. He didn’t intend to miss anything else. Including getting acquainted with his son’s mother, so he could better know the boy, he told himself.

He walked into the living room and frowned as he took in the feminine furnishings. Shaking his head, he was amazed at how his perspective had changed since learning he had a son. The room he once would have thought pretty and definitely female, and so suited to Casey, now became the worst possible environment for raising a boy.

The question was, how was he going to make her realize that. He had no idea what his legal rights were, with them not being married. Although he intended to find out. Still, he didn’t want to force her into a decision. It would be best for everyone if she came to the ranch because she believed it was the right thing to do.

Standing in front of the white brick fireplace, she stared at a photo on the mantel, her back to him. She must have sensed his presence, because her shoulders stiffened.

Tucker moved beside her. “You want to explain what you meant by what you just said?”

“What did I say?”

“You were afraid that would happen. Exactly what were you afraid of?”

She looked at him. “That you would try to rescue me.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You don’t look like you’re drowning. Haven’t fallen down a mountain. Far as I can tell you’re not shipwrecked. Exactly what does rescue mean?”

“That you would try and make everything better for me and the baby, which implies that things are not fine just like they are.”

“Things aren’t fine. You don’t have a job. Because of the baby. I share half the responsibility for that. Why did you decide to have him?” He held up a hand. “Don’t pretend to misunderstand. You could have taken the easy way out, but you didn’t. The path you’ve chosen is bound to have a pothole or two. So why’d you do it?”

“Because I wanted a child. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t set out for it to happen. I’m not the sort of woman who meets a man and falls into bed with him.”

“I never thought you were.” One of the things that had charmed him that night a year and a day ago, had been her shy innocence. He had known then she didn’t make a habit of going to a man’s motel room. It had pleased him that she trusted him enough to do that with him.

“When I found out I was pregnant, I was pretty upset.”

“You said you don’t have family—”

“I said no family to help.” Her eyes darkened. He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. He could only guess what she must have gone through—dealing with the pregnancy and birth all by herself.

“After the shock wore off, I realized I wanted this baby. I wasn’t getting any younger. I like kids and figured, Why not?”

“What about a husband?”

She sighed as she met his gaze. “Are we talking about you?” Before he could answer she added, “I thought about this a lot. Really I did. It just didn’t seem wise to make a difficult situation worse.”

“How would telling me about the pregnancy make it worse?”

She looked down. “Tucker, I barely knew you or anything about you. I had no way of knowing if you would insist on a marriage that neither of us wanted. I’m sorry if this sounds selfish, but I had more at stake than your feelings. I don’t mean to sound cold, but the responsibility of bringing a new life into the world was frightening enough without having to worry about what you would do.”

“So that’s why you didn’t return my calls? You did get them?”

“Yes. I tried to call you after the first one, two weeks after you’d left here. I didn’t get the message right away. I’d taken a long weekend. By the time I was able to call you back, you were gone.”

“What about the other two?”

She looked at him, then her gaze settled on a point beyond his shoulder. Her gaze darkened as she frowned at her memories. “When I got the second call, I was two months pregnant and not sure what to do, whether to tell you or not. I agonized over it.” Her fingers twisted together as she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Finally I decided you had a right to know, and I called. You were gone again.”

“Is that when you tried, not too hard I might add, to find me?”

She nodded. “I got the third call, too. By then I was so confused. I was beginning to see how much you moved around. A baby would really disrupt your life. The two of you would only be in the same city once a year.”

“That was a big assumption.”

“What else was I to think? I hardly knew you. Until ten minutes ago, I didn’t even know you had a ranch.”

“Well, I do. A prosperous one.”

She looked mildly surprised. “So how come you’re never there—prospering?”

“I’m on the rodeo circuit.”

“That part I knew. What I don’t understand is why you want Jason and me to go to the ranch if you won’t be there? Why should I pull up stakes and take my baby away from everything that’s familiar?”

“What does a three-month-old know about familiar?”

“I was talking about things that are well-known to me. I trust his pediatrician. The friends I have here are the best.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re leaving out one very important fact. You’re out of a job.” Her mouth tightened at the reminder, and he hated doing that to her. But somehow, he had to get through to her. “Admit it, Casey. It’s a good solution.”