Would that someone be Tara?
She neither saw nor heard Jack return, but when Cait called dinner, as if by magic he appeared in the meals room. With his gaze hooded and broad shoulders back, he’d promptly pulled out a chair for her at the table. She’d grinned to herself. Jack might be a lot of things, but Beau would learn his manners in this house.
The baked meal smelled divine, but Jack’s masculine just-showered scent easily trumped it. His wet hair, slicked back off his brow, was long enough to lick the back of his white collar. He’d shaved, too, although the shadow on his jaw was a permanent feature … an enduring sexy sandpaper smudge.
When the baby was settled in the playpen beside the table, Jack had threaded his hands, bowed his head and said a brief but touching grace about missing loved ones and taking new ones into their home. Maddy had swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. There was a deeper, more yielding side to this seemingly impenetrable man. There must be. In that moment, Maddy regretted she wouldn’t come to know it.
As they sat down to dinner, Cait told Maddy of Leadeebrook’s main dining room, with its long, grand table and crystal chandelier set in the center of a high, molded ceiling. But that room was kept for special occasions. She and Jack mainly ate here, in the meals area off the kitchen. After promising to show Maddy around the house the next day, Cait flicked out her linen napkin and asked to hear all the news from the city.
Jack didn’t seem to care either way. The gold flecks gone from his eyes, he seemed more distracted than ever. While he cut and forked his way through the meal, the ladies chatted, watching over the baby who played with his bunch-of-keys rattle.
When Beau began to grumble, Maddy left to put him down. After firmly taking charge earlier, she was interested that Jack didn’t say boo about helping with Beau’s first bedtime in his new home. Maybe the memory of that wet shirt still haunted him, but Maddy suspected thoughts of Tara and her reaction to his guardianship of the baby weighed heavily on Jack’s mind tonight. How would he handle the divide?
Beau had drifted off without a whimper. After laying a light sheet over his tiny sleeping form, she tiptoed back into the kitchen. That’s when Cait had suggested she join Jack outside here in the cool.
Maddy had grown warm all over at the thought, which only proved that being alone with Jack under the expansive Southern Cross sky was not a good idea. But she’d made the effort. She didn’t want to provoke any fires—physical or anything else—but neither could she afford to leave here, for the most part, a stranger. Jack had to know that if he needed her, for Beau’s sake, despite any personal hiccups, she would always be there. Dahlia would’ve wanted that, and Maddy wanted that, too.
She and Jack needed to be able to communicate, at least on some level.
She’d found him here, one shoulder propped up against an ancient-looking tree, while he rubbed a rag over a bridle.
“Is the baby down?” he asked.
With nerves jittering in her stomach, she nodded and inched closer. “Now he’s down, he shouldn’t wake up till around seven.”
Stopping at his side, she joined him in taking in a view of the hushed starry sky while that rag worked methodically over the steel bit. A horse’s whinny carried on a fresh breeze. A frog’s lonely croak echoed nearby. And Jack kept polishing.
If anyone was going to start a conversation, it’d have to be her.
She shifted her weight. “How long have you had the black horse?”
“From a colt.”
“Bet he was glad to see you back.”
“Not as glad as I was to see him.”
She raised her brows. Well, a cowboy’s best friend was supposed to be his horse.
She leaned against another nearby tree, her hands laced behind the small of her back. “Where did you ride off to earlier?”
“I needed to catch up with Snow Gibson. He lives in the caretaker’s cabin a couple miles out.”
Maddy recalled an earlier conversation. “Cait said Snow’s quite a character.”
A hint of a smile hooked his mouth and they both fell into silence again … tangible and yet not entirely uncomfortable. Guess there was something to be said for the advantages of this untainted country air.
Giving into a whim, she shut her eyes, tilted her face to the stars and let more than the subtle breeze whisper to her senses. She imagined she felt that magnetism rippling off Jack Prescott in a series of heatwaves and her own aura glowing and transforming in response. She imagined the way his slightly roughened hands might feel sliding over her skin … sensual, stirring. Enthralling.
Opening her eyes, willing away the awareness, she shut off those dangerous thoughts and focused on a heavy star hanging low on the horizon. She wasn’t here to indulge in fantasies, no matter how sweet or how strong. She was here to do a job and get back to where she belonged.
Besides, Jack’s affections were spoken for. Tara had made her position on that clear: Hands off.
Suddenly weary, Maddy pushed off the tree.
She shouldn’t have come out here. Talking with Jack was like trying to push an elephant up a hill. She needed to accept this situation for what it was. She needed to chill out and let things between herself and Jack unravel naturally. Right now, she needed to say good-night.
She was about to take her leave when Jack’s deep graveled voice drifted through the night.
“This property’s been in my family since 1869.” He angled his head toward a long stationary shadow to their left. “See that trough?”
He began to walk. Maddy threw a look at the back door then inwardly shrugged. Slapping the impression of bark from her palms, she followed. If he was making an effort, she would, too.
“This trough was a wedding gift,” Jack was saying. “My great-great grandfather suggested to his wife he should cut a hole in the bathroom wall and they could use it as a tub as well as to water the horses in the yard.”
Maddy blanched. She had a feeling he was serious. Thank heaven for modern-day plumbing. How had women survived out here back then?
“I carved my initials here when I was six,” he went on and swept one long tanned finger over an etching in the wood. “Our dog had just had pups.” He pointed to several nicks—One, two, three … Seven pups. He straightened and, studying her, weighed the bridle in his hand. “You never had a dog? “
“I had piano lessons and lots of dresses.”
“But no dog,” he persisted.
“No dog.”
Something rustled in the brush nearby at the same time he lifted and dropped one shoulder. “You missed out.”
Focused on the brush—was it a snake, a dingo?—she admitted, “I was attacked by a Doberman cross when I was young.”
His expression froze before he blindly set the bridle down on the trough. “Maddy … God, I’m sorry.”
Weeks spent in hospital, years of fighting the phobia. She made herself shrug. “Could’ve been worse.”
He held her gaze for several heartbeats then slipped her a wry smile. “I got the shakes once. I broke my arm jumping a stallion over a creek when I was ten. He was the most cantankerous horse I’ve ever known.”
Maddy openly grinned. Quite the confession coming from Crocodile Dundee.
He walked again, a meandering comfortable gait that invited her to join him.
“Piano and dresses,” he murmured. “So you were a mummy’s girl.”
“My