How many mornings like this had he missed over the years? He didn’t want to think about it, refused to count the days. There would be too many for him to handle and way too many for him ever to replace.
Scott glanced toward the crib. Jason looked in that direction, too, and saw Jill staring wide-eyed at the mobile of puppies and kittens hanging at one end of the crib. Could babies her age even see that far? She looked only a few weeks old.
Scott threw aside his covers and crawled to the edge of the bed. “Morning now. Mommy says time to do the diaper. De-e-e,” he said in a singsong. “Time to do the diaper.”
Jason frowned, knowing he’d have to draw the line there. He’d just mastered the task of tucking Jill into her crib without waking her, and even that had about taxed his skill.
But Scott padded over to the small white dresser and pulled a diaper from the bottom drawer. He returned to stand in front of Jason with the diaper held out toward him and with the same expression of expectancy as when he had wanted him to hug the bear. A look of complete trust.
He suddenly wished Layne would look at him that way.
Even better at the moment, he wished Layne would wake up and walk into the room.
“I’m green at this, pardner,” he admitted, taking the diaper.
“Green?” Scott said, looking at him with his mouth open, probably expecting to see him turn into an alien before his very eyes.
“A greenhorn,” he explained, feeling foolish again. How could he explain that concept to a three-year-old? How could he explain anything when he’d never had the practice? The chance? All he could do was try. “It means I’m new at this. A beginner. Someone who’s just learning.”
“I learn my ABC’s!” Scott grinned.
He smiled back at him. “Yeah, that’s it. Just like you learn your ABC’s. I’m a greenhorn at doing diapers.”
“De-e-e,” the boy chanted again. “Greenhorn at doing diapers.”
This time, Jason laughed aloud and ruffled the boy’s hair.
Why couldn’t he be such a quick study?
It was a sobering idea. Especially when he connected the thought to getting what he wanted from Layne.
In the years he’d been gone, once he’d stopped sending her those envelopes she kept returning, he’d given up worrying about her. She was an adult. She could take care of herself—as she had made all too plain to him. No doubt about it, the woman had a way with words.
But the boy...
When he’d left, the child hadn’t been close to being born yet, hadn’t even made his appearance evident in the swelling of Layne’s belly. Hadn’t, somehow, been real to him. Now, his son was very real, as smart as a whip and as loving as his mama. A little boy his daddy could be—and was—proud to know was his.
But could he be the kind of man, the kind of daddy, to make his little boy proud of him?
* * *
FOR THE TENTH time already that morning, Layne sighed. Her comment to Jason last night about being her son’s sperm donor had been cruel—and yet it certainly had been truthful. In any case, Jill’s fresh cries to be fed had saved her from having to hear his response. He had left the room at a speed she would have found laughable...if not for the thoughts that assailed her as she watched him walk out the door.
He had taken one look at her getting ready to nurse and had bolted, just as he’d done in the living room earlier. The sight made her think of so many shoulds, her heart hurt. Instead of running, he should have felt comfortable watching her feed the baby. He should have had that experience with Scott. He should have been in the delivery room the day their son was born.
The one thing he never should have done was leave.
After she had finished nursing, returned the baby to her crib and staggered blurry-eyed back to her own bed, it had taken her almost till dawn before she was finally able to fall into an exhausted sleep. She felt grateful it let her forget the memories. At least, until she had woken up to find them at the front and center of her mind again.
As she dressed, she left a terse message on a friend’s cell phone. She hated to call Shay O’Neill. Though they hadn’t been in many of the same classes all through school, they had gotten closer during the past year or so. Shay worked just down the street from SugarPie’s at Cowboy Creek’s ice cream parlor, the Big Dipper. After she closed up the shop, she would often stop in at SugarPie’s. On a quiet night, the two of them would spend some time chatting. Right now, Shay had enough on her mind. But Layne desperately needed some help to send Jason on his way.
In the kids’ room, she found both the bed and the crib empty. As she went down the hall toward the kitchen, she heard Scott’s voice raised in question and the deep rumble of Jason’s reply. The sound of his voice made her chest hurt.
Yesterday, her first sight of him standing in the hall had stolen her breath. He looked good, so good. Better than she ever remembered him looking, from the day he had first walked into her classroom in grade school. Even then he had been gorgeous, and with that one glance at him, her fate had been sealed.
Seeing him so unexpectedly last night had shaken her. She couldn’t deny it.
But she couldn’t do anything about any of this now except send the sights and thoughts and feelings and memories—and her oh-so-sexy-looking ex—back to the past where they all belonged.
In the kitchen, Jill lay in her carrier on the table. Scott knelt on a chair, his attention focused on one of his coloring books.
Frying bacon scented the air, and a bowl of beaten eggs sat on the counter. Jason stood at the stove. He wore a snug blue T-shirt and had tucked a red-checkered hand towel into the waist of his jeans. His dark hair waved and tumbled, free-falling in the way that had always made her breath catch to see it. After they made love, he would comb his fingers through the strands to tame them, then laugh as she rumpled them again.
He eyed her from across the room. A familiar stubble darkened his jawline. The set of that jaw told her he wasn’t completely overjoyed to see her.
He gave her a tight smile. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”
Thank goodness, her stomach didn’t roil at his words. She nodded and took her seat at the table.
Also thank goodness, having both Jill and Scott in the room would keep Jason from following the conversational path he had attempted to lead her down the night before. It was pointless for him to tell her why he was here. It was just as senseless for her to obsess about shoulds. There was nothing between them, and the sooner she saw the last of him, the better.
“I’ll have these done in just a minute.” He beat the eggs and poured them into her largest frying pan with a practiced ease that surprised her.
“When did you learn to cook?” she asked.
He laughed. “I might say the same about you if you made that soup from scratch.” He eyed her questioningly, and she nodded. “Not bad. But neither of us was too handy in the kitchen a while back, were we? I learned out of necessity since I have to take a turn in the bunkhouse. I’m still not so hot at it, so the boys let me get away with handling only breakfast. But I do a darned good omelette.” He stirred the eggs in the pan, then looked sideways at her. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. Much better.”
“You didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
“Enough. Believe me, lately, a two-hour stretch is a marathon.” She eyed Jill’s fresh jumper and noted the lumpiness of the diaper beneath it. Jason must have made an effort. Tears rose to her eyes. She blinked them away. “You changed the baby?”
“Me and Jason did,” Scott said. “De-e-e. Greenhorn at doing diapers.”
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