As Jeb closed his eyes and looked as if he had received a blow, she could guess what was running through his mind. “That was one of the reasons I agreed to adopt Cherie’s baby, but it has little to do with why I love Kevin so much now.”
“But you’ll be much less willing to give him up because of it.”
She bristled and swung her legs to the floor, coming to her feet to face him. “I’m not willing to give him up now because he’s my son! He’s my son as much as if I had given birth to him. I got him when he was a day old. Cherie didn’t even want to see him! She hated being pregnant. I love him because he’s my baby and has been since he was born!”
Jeb rubbed his forehead. “Lord help us both,” he mumbled, hearing her agony and watching tears stream unheeded down her face. He hurt, too, and he couldn’t give up his son. “What do you want me to do? Walk out that door and forget that I have a son?”
They stared at each other, and he knew her emotions were as raw as his. She was shaking and white as snow again. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose, and when she became pale they stood out clearly. As she clutched her stomach and ran from the room, he felt as if he had just beaten her.
While he was alone, he paced the room and wondered whether he should just go and try to get back with her later, but that was only putting off what was inevitable. They were each going to have to give or else they would end up hurting Kevin, and Jeb didn’t think she would want that any more than he did.
When she returned, she looked even more pale. She moved to the sofa and sat with her feet on the floor. She looked small and hurt and defiant and he felt like a bastard for what he was doing, but he wasn’t going to give up his son to save Amanda Crockett’s feelings. He pulled a chair to face her and sat down. “We’ll have to work something out.”
“I don’t know anything about you.”
“I grew up on a ranch in Saratoga County. I have three brothers—Cameron, a rancher, lives near here with his wife, Stella, on the family land. It’s ironic that you left Houston and moved close to my family and home. My brother Selby and his wife, Jan, live in El Paso. He’s with the DEA. The youngest brother, Burke, leads wilderness treks. He and his wife, Alexa, have a home in Houston, so they’re not far away.”
“You were a paratrooper, you have a brother with the DEA and another who leads wilderness treks— your family is a little on the wild side.”
He shrugged. “I’m settled now. I bought land southwest of here and I’m raising horses. I hoped to take Kevin there.”
“You weren’t a rancher when you were married to Cherie, were you? I thought she told me she had married someone who worked in Houston.”
“I did. As soon as I graduated from Tech, I was hired as a salesman for a Houston feed company. After the second year I was promoted to district superintendent, then in another couple of years, director of marketing. That’s when I was married to her. I couldn’t have afforded Cherie before then.” He looked away as if seeing his past, and she wondered if he was lost in memories and talking out loud. “When we met, Cherie was charming, seductive, adorable. As long as she got her way, she stayed charming, but when I quit work and wanted to become a rancher, that’s when her true personality emerged. I was wildly in love with her when we married because she seemed to be everything a man could want.”
“I can imagine,” Amanda said quietly, knowing her beautiful cousin could be delightful as long as things went her way, but when they didn’t, she could be dreadful.
“Why did you decide to become a rancher?”
Jeb shrugged. “The corporate world was not for me. I grew up on a ranch, too, and I wanted to get back to that life.”
He studied her, and silence stretched tensely between them. “If you thought I had abandoned Kevin and Cherie, why did you cut all ties to your past and hide your tracks when you moved from Houston to Dallas?”
As she flushed and bit her lip and looked guilty, he wondered if she had been leading him on with an act. How much was she like Cherie? he wondered again.
“I guess deep down there was a part of me that doubted Cherie,” Amanda said, so softly that he had to lean forward to hear her, yet leaning closer was a tactical error because he could smell her perfume, see her flawless skin, watch as her tongue slid slowly across her lower lip. His body heat rose and momentarily he lost awareness of anything except a desirable woman sitting inches away. He had to fight the urge to reach out and touch her.
She twisted a string from her cutoffs in her fingers. “I wanted to believe her when she said you didn’t care and you had gone, but my cousin has never been a stickler for the truth. She tells things to suit herself. I was scared of just what’s happening now. That someday the doorbell would ring and there would be Kevin’s father—you—wanting him back.” She looked Jeb in the eye. “Maybe I shouldn’t have made it difficult for you to find us, but from all indications, you weren’t a man I wanted to get to know.”
“I suppose not, since I can take him from you.”
“I don’t think you can,” she said coolly, and he realized she was pulling herself together more and more as they talked. “Cherie has gotten mixed up with people in the past that I didn’t want to know. Her choice in men would never be mine. Sorry, that doesn’t sound complimentary, but Cherie and I are very different.”
“So I’m noticing,” he remarked dryly. He wondered if she realized exactly how guilty she looked. But she was different from Cherie. Cherie was a charmer when she wanted something, flirting and using her feminine wiles to sweet-talk someone into doing what she wanted. He had been charmed completely, but marriage had brought reality and another side to Cherie that was far from charming. Cherie would never have been as forthright as Amanda.
Amanda caught another string on her cutoffs and twisted it back and forth between her thumb and forefinger. Otherwise, she looked quiet and composed. He watched her hand, noticing that her fingers were delicate and slender. She did not wear any rings and wore a simple watch with a leather strap circling her wrist.
“I suppose we’re going to have to work something out to share him,” she said stiffly, and each word sounded wrung from her in agony. “Unless you’re still intent on going to court and trying to take him from me completely. If you do that, I’m going to fight you and we’ll just end up hurting him.”
“I agree.”
She let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “Thank you!” she said. “We agree on that much. Kevin should come first.”
“If he came first completely one of us would give him up.”
She opened her eyes to look at him and he could see the speculation in them. “Maybe not. Maybe he needs a father as well as a mother. But I have to know how you’ll be with him. There are things I don’t approve of.”
Jeb’s temper flared and he leaned closer. “Lady, I’m his father. Whether you approve or not, I’ll do what I think is best for my son. I won’t abuse him, but I suspect I’ll let him do things that you and that nanny and the other women in his life would be afraid to let him do. He acts scared of his shadow now.”
“He’s just shy,” she said defensively. She studied him as if trying to figure him out. “Would you strike a child?”
“Never. It shouldn’t ever be necessary.” Green eyes searched his, and he gazed back steadfastly.
“I hope you’re telling me the truth,” she said. “Is there any way that you can prove to me that you knew nothing about Cherie’s pregnancy? How do I know that you didn’t abandon him and now that Cherie has a successful career, you’ve decided you want your son after all?”
“I can find the person who told me, and you can talk to her.