He had his pride, after all.
“Not going to say anything else?” she asked, swinging her legs off the bed and lifting the baby to sit at her hip.
He wiped one hand across his whiskered jaw and fought for indifference. “What do you want me to say? Congratulations? Fine. I said it.” His gaze stayed locked on hers. He wouldn’t look at the chubby-cheeked infant making insensible noises and gurgles.
“Don’t you want to know who his father is?” she asked, moving closer with small, deliberate steps.
Why the hell was she doing this? Did she really enjoy rubbing the fact of her new relationship in his face? He hoped she was enjoying the show because, yeah, he did want to know. Then he wanted to find the guy and beat the crap out of him. But that wasn’t going to happen. “None of my business, is it?”
“Actually, yes,” she said, turning her head to plant a kiss on the baby’s brow before looking back at Justice. “It sort of is. Especially since you’re his father.”
Another jolt went through Justice, and he wondered idly how many lightning strikes a man could survive in one night. Whatever game she was trying to run wouldn’t work. She didn’t have any way of knowing it, of course, but there was no possible way he was that baby’s father.
So why the hell would she lie? Was the real father not interested in his kid? Is that why Maggie sought to convince Justice that he was the father instead? Or was it about money? Maybe she was trying to get some child support out of this. That would be stupid, though. All it would take was a paternity test and they’d all know the truth.
Maggie wasn’t a fool. Which brought him right back to the question at hand.
What was she up to?
And why?
He stared at her, reading a challenge in her eyes. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at the child. It was there, though, in his peripheral vision. A babbling, chortling statement on Justice’s failure as a husband and Maggie’s desire for family, provided by some other guy.
Pain grabbed at him again, making the constant ache in his leg seem like nothing more substantial than a stubbed toe.
“Nice try,” he said, fixing his gaze on her with a cold distance he hoped was easily read.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, Maggie, I’m not his father, so don’t bother trying to pawn him off on me.”
“Pawn him—” She stopped speaking, gulped in air and tightened her hold on the baby, who was slapping tiny fists against her shoulder. “That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“Really?” Justice swallowed past the knot in his throat and managed to give her a tight smile that was more of a baring of his teeth than anything else. “Then why is he here?”
“Because I am, you dolt!” Maggie took another step closer to him, and Justice forced himself to hold his ground. With the weakness in his leg, if he tried to step back, he might just go down on his ass, and wouldn’t that be a fine end to an already spectacular day?
“I’m his mother,” Maggie told him. “He goes where I go. And I thought maybe his daddy would like a look at him.”
One more twist of the knife into his gut. He hadn’t been able to give her the one thing she’d really wanted from him. Now seeing her with the child she used to dream of was torture. Especially since she was looking into his eyes and lying.
“I’m not buying it, Maggie, so just drop it, all right? I’m not that kid’s father. I’m not anybody’s father. So why the song and dance?”
“How can you know you’re not?” she argued, clearly willing to stick to whatever game plan she’d had in mind when she got here. “Look at Jonas. Look at him! He has your eyes, Justice. He has your hair. Heck, he’s even as stubborn as you are.”
As if to prove her point, the baby gave up slapping at her shoulder for attention, reached out and grabbed hold of Maggie’s gold, dangling earring. He gave it a tug, squealing in a high-pitched tone that made Justice wince. Gently, Maggie pried that tiny fist off her earring and gave her son a bright smile.
“Don’t pull, sweetie,” she murmured, and her son cooed at her in delight.
That softness in her voice, the love shining in her eyes, got to him as nothing else could have. Justice swallowed hard and finally forced himself to look at the child. Bright red cheeks, sparkling dark blue eyes and a thatch of black hair. He wore a diaper and a black T-shirt that read Cowboy in Training and was waving and kicking his chubby arms and legs.
Something inside him shifted. If he and Maggie had been able to have children, this is just what he would have expected their child to look like. Maybe that’s why she thought her ploy would work on him. The kid looked enough like Justice that she probably thought she could convince him he was the father and then talk him out of a paternity test.
Sure. Why would she think he’d insist on that anyway? They had been married. The timing for the child was about right. She’d have no reason to think that he wouldn’t believe her claims. But that meant that whoever had fathered the boy had turned his back on them. Which, weirdly, pissed him off on Maggie’s behalf. What the hell kind of man would do that to her? Or to the baby? Who wouldn’t claim his own child?
He watched the boy bouncing up and down on Maggie’s hip, laughing and drooling, and told himself that if there were even the slightest chance the boy was actually his, Justice would do everything in his power to take care of him. But he knew the truth, even if Maggie didn’t.
“He’s a good-looking boy.”
Maggie melted. “Thank you.”
“But he’s not mine.”
She wanted to argue. He could see it in her face. Hell, he knew her well enough to know that there was nothing Maggie liked more than a good argument. But this one she’d lose before she even started.
He couldn’t be Jonas’s father. Ten years before, Justice had been in a vicious car accident. His injuries were severe enough to keep him in a hospital for weeks. And during his stay and the interminable testing that was done, a doctor had told him that the accident had left him unlikely to ever father children.
The doctor had used all sorts of complicated medical terms to describe his condition, but the upshot was that Jonas couldn’t be his. Maggie had no way of knowing that, of course, since Justice had never told anyone about the doctor’s prognosis. Not even his brothers.
Before he and Maggie got married, when she started talking about having a family, he’d told her that he didn’t want kids. Better to let her believe he chose to remain childless rather than have her think he was less than a man.
His spine stiffened as that thought scuttled through his brain. He hadn’t told her the truth then and he wouldn’t now. Damned if he’d see a flash of pity in her eyes for him. Bad enough that she was here to see him struggle to do something as simple as walk.
“So who were you with, Maggie?” he asked, his voice a low and dark hum. “Why didn’t he want his kid?”
“I was with you, you big jerk,” she said tightly. “I didn’t tell you about the baby before because I assumed from everything you’d said that you wouldn’t want to know.”
“What’s changed, then?” he asked.
“I’m here, Justice. I came here to help you. And I decided that no matter what, you had the right to know about Jonas.”
If it were possible, Maggie would have said that Justice’s features went even harder. But what was harder than stone? His eyes were flat and dark. His jaw was clenched. He was doing what he always had done. Shutting down. Shutting her out. But why?
Yes,