“Not at all.”
“You want to make your father proud,” he surmised and she nodded.
“That’s not so unusual. Besides I really like the industry,” she added. “Lots of exciting people and events. It’s where I belong.”
She believed that and finally her father was believing it, too. She’d seen the look in his eyes when she’d told him at sixteen she wanted to be an account executive with the firm; he didn’t think she had it in her. He’d said the words, You’re more like your mother, which meant she wasn’t strong enough. Her mother had been a gentle person and, no, she hadn’t been able to beat the leukemia, but she and her mother were two separate issues, two separate people. And once she had the client’s signature on the bottom line …
“You must be chomping at the bit to get back,” Jack said, coming to stand beside a weathered post and rail fence.
Her lips twitched. “I won’t deny I’ll be happy to leave the flies behind.”
“They don’t eat much. It’s the bull ants you have to worry about.”
“So I’d better not stand in one spot for too long.”
He chuckled—a rich easy sound that fit him as well as those delectable jeans. She couldn’t think of another man with more sex appeal … the energy he expelled was as formidable and natural as thunder on a stormy night. On the What Makes a Man Maddeningly Irresistible list, Jack got double ticks in every box.
When she realized their shared look had lasted longer than it ought to, a blush bloomed over her cheeks. As the heat spread to her breasts and belly, Jack rubbed the back of his neck and moved off again.
“How did you meet Dahlia?”
“A university friend,” she said, willing the husky quality from her voice. “Dahlia was a couple of years younger than me. We were enrolled in different majors, but we met at a party and hit it off. She had the best laugh. Infectious.” Kind of like yours, she wanted to say, only not so deep.
Looking off, he scrubbed his temple with a knuckle. “Yeah. I remember her laugh.”
Maddy stayed the impulse to touch his arm—to offer some show of comfort. Men like Jack were all about strength, intelligence and making decisions. Jack was a leader and leaders didn’t dilute their power with displays of emotion, either given or received. In an emergency, he would act and act well. Even standing in the uneventful quiet of this night, Maddy found a sense of reassurance in knowing that. Some silly part of her almost wanted to admit it out loud.
Instead she said, “You must have missed that sound when she left here.”
A muscle ticked a strong beat in his jaw and he let out a long breath. “My wife begged me to go after her but I was determined not to. Some sorry home truths came out that last night. I figured if Dahlia wanted to find her own way, I wouldn’t stop her.”
But his tone said he regretted it.
“She didn’t like Leadeebrook?”
“She liked it okay,” he said, crossing his arms as he strolled, “but she didn’t feel the same way I feel. The way my father felt, too. She didn’t want to stay here, ‘shrivel up and die,’ as she put it. She’d said she’d had enough of station existence to last a lifetime.”
Which would have cut her brother’s loyal Prescott heart in two.
“And your wife … how did she feel about the station?”
He searched the sky as if she might be listening and looking down, and Maddy knew in that moment that he’d loved his wife very much.
“This was Sue’s home. Always will be.” His thoughtful expression sharpened then, frowning, he angled toward the house. “Was that the baby?”
Maddy listened then shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything. Cait said she’d keep an ear out.” They walked again, toward a timber structure she thought was the stables. When next she spoke, Maddy put a lighter note in her tone.
“Tara Anderson is obviously a big fan of the land, too.”
His gaze caught hers and as his look intensified, Maddy’s skin flared with a pleasant, telling warmth. The way he was looking at her now, she could almost fool herself into believing that she, not Tara, was the woman with whom he was involved … that the primal heat smoldering in his eyes was meant for her and her only.
When a different, more guarded light rose up in his eyes and he broke the gaze, Maddy’s shoulders dropped and she told her pulse to slow down. Dynamic in every sense of the word, he was more of a man than any she’d known. That was the reason she imagined heat waves rippling off him and wrapping themselves around her. Not because this moonlight was affecting him as it was clearly affecting her.
“Tara and I have known each other a long while,” he said. “Her uncle and my father were friends. Sue and Tara became good friends, too. They shared similar values, similar interests. So do we.”
“Are you going to marry her?”
A red-hot bolt dropped through her middle at the same time her eyes grew to saucers and she swallowed a gulping breath. Had she actually said that? Yes, she’d been wondering—a lot. But to ask …
She held up both hands. “I’m sorry. That is so none of my business.”
Beneath the star-strewn sky, Jack’s gaze held hers for a protracted moment. Then he set his hands low on his belt and tracked his narrowed gaze over to the distant peaks of the Great Dividing Range.
He nodded. “There’s been talk of it.”
Maddy let out that breath. So Tara had good reason to be so demonstrative this afternoon. She saw Jack as her future husband. A husband who’d gone to a funeral and had brought back a baby.
Maddy chewed her lip. She shouldn’t ask—she might not like the answer—but she couldn’t keep the question down.
“Does Tara like children?”
He scratched the tip of his ear. “That’s a sticking point. Tara wants a family very much …”
He’d been slow to accept responsibility for Beau. He approached his guardianship as a duty to be performed rather than a gift to be treasured. Now he was admitting that he didn’t want a family.
Maddy knew one day she wanted be a mother. Caring for Beau had only heightened that knowledge. She couldn’t imagine why any person wouldn’t want to have their own family—to give and receive unconditional love. What had Jack’s first wife to say about his aversion to fatherhood? More importantly, what did that admission mean for Beau?
She’d hoped, she’d prayed, but did Jack have what it took to be a good father to that baby? And there was Tara. She hadn’t shown an interest in Beau other than out of shock and suspicion yet she wanted children of her own. If she and Jack married—if they had children together—would Tara see Beau as a nuisance or inconvenience when her own brood came along? If that were the case, what sort of family would poor Beau grow up in? What sort of damaged self-image would being an add-on leave him with?
A whinny sounded in the night and Maddy was brought back.
“Herc can hear us,” Jack told her and jerked a thumb at the stables. “Want to meet him?”
Deep in thought, Maddy absently agreed but before long the scent of horse and leather pulled her up. With a sneeze tickling her nose, she made an excuse.
“It’s getting late. We probably shouldn’t disturb him.”
Jack laughed and kept walking. “Herc won’t mind the company.”
She pinched her nose. “I think I might be allergic.”
That