Montana Reunion (16 page)

And she was right about his mom,
too. If there was one thing she’d want her son to do, it would be to step up
and
be a man
.
To
look fear in the eye and not give a shit about it.

He
knew what he had to do.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

“You sure everything’s okay?”

Maddison
looked up at her mom, leaning through the open door to where she sat out on the
porch. She was swinging back and forth in the old swing that they’d always
begged her parents not to sell, her toes trailing against the slightly rough
timber underfoot.

“I’m fine.
Just
exhausted.”
She wasn’t even close
to ready to tell them about Jack.
Or about the baby.
Right
now she needed time to process everything.

“I don’t want you to worry, but
your father’s lying down.”

That made her sit bolt upright.
“Should I go find Charley? Is there anything I can do?”

Her mom placed a hand on her
shoulder. “The one thing he’d want you to do is treat him like nothing’s wrong.
Do you know how embarrassed he’d be, if he knew I’d told you he was taking a
midday nap?”

She was right. “It’s so hard seeing
Dad like this. Knowing…”
Maddison
didn’t want to
finish the sentence.

Her mom squeezed harder before
dropping a kiss to her head. “We just need to carry on and enjoy him. It’s all
we can do. It might be a month, a year, or many years, so we just enjoy every
second as a family.”

Maddison
blinked fresh tears away. She wasn’t used to blubbering so often, but between
her dad and the pregnancy – maybe she could blame it on the hormones.

“Looks like you have a visitor.”

She wiped at her eyes and turned
slightly to see the driveway.
Jack.

“Oh.” She tried to make a
non-committal type of sound. “He might be here to see dad.”

“
Maddison
,”
her mom said with a chuckle. “Why would a rancher like Jack drive all this way
in the heat of the day for a chin wag with your father? I think it’s fair to
say he’s here to see his fiancée.”

She tried not to grimace.
“Yeah, of course.”
She
hadn’t breathed a word to anyone about their argument, had just slipped in the
back door that night and gone to her room.

Her mom disappeared back into the
house and
Maddison
walked around the front. Whatever
Jack had to say to her, it wasn’t going to be nice, but at least she wasn’t
still in her pajamas. Being caught out looking
mopey
and pathetic would have made the entire situation even worse.

“Hey Jack.”

The look he gave her made her
shiver.
Made a warm sensation tickle all the way to her toes
at the same time.
Because
Jack was smiling.
And he
was holding a bunch of flowers that must have been near impossible for him to
find in the first place, without driving at least an hour.

“These,” he said, walking toward
her with purpose in his stride, “are for you.”

She held out her hands and took
them, dipping her nose into the bouquet to inhale their fragrance. “They’re
beautiful. Thank you, Jack.”

Maddison
stood, watching him, knowing he had something to say that wasn’t coming easily
to him. He was standing straight, tall enough to block the sun from her eyes,
his big shoulders covered in his usual shirt, with the sleeves pushed up to the
elbows. His jeans were worn, faded out like they wouldn’t last more than a few
months. And his eyes – they were trained on hers, smiling, kind… forgiving.

“Jack…”

He held up his hand, and she
stopped.
Knew that she needed to let him talk, because she’d
talked enough for both of them since she’d been back.

“These are to say sorry.” He tilted
his head down, looked into her eyes as he cupped her face in his hands. There
was so much tenderness, so much compassion in his touch, in his eyes, in the
way he spoke to her, that she would have just about forgiven him for anything.
Jack couldn’t lie, and he sure as hell couldn’t act.
This was real
. “For being a jerk when you needed me to be your
friend.”

Maddison
nodded. She didn’t trust her voice right now, but she needed him to know that
she accepted his apology.

“Do I get a second chance?” he
asked

He’d shuffled his body forward, was
standing so close that she could inch forward and press herself against him.
“A second chance at what?”

At being her friend?
Her fiancé?
Her baby-daddy?

Jack stepped back and it was like
she was alone again. Only for a moment, but losing that tenuous connection to
him so suddenly after he’d apologized,
it
was pain all over again.

Only this time he didn’t walk away.
Jack pulled something from deep in his pocket, something that he cradled in his
big palm as he towered over her, before taking her hand and holding on to it
tight.

“
Maddie
,
what you said about my mom yesterday was right.”

She raised her eyebrows. “It was?”

Jack laughed. She loved the sound
of it, loved that he was relaxed in her company enough to laugh like that
again.

“Mom would have wanted me to be a
hero, not a coward. And for
all my
tough talk about
not being a dad? About being scared to end up like my old man?”

She nodded, waiting, not wanting to
interrupt him.

“It was bullshit.”

Now it was
Maddison’s
turn to laugh. “We’re all scared sometimes.”

Jack lowered his head, dipped his
shoulders toward her to reduce the distance between them. She was tall but Jack
was taller, his body big against hers.
She
liked that he made her feel delicate, like he could protect her.

“Are you scared right now?” He
voice was deep, low,
suggestive
.

“Yeah.”
The word sounded like it had puffed out on a breath.

“You have nothing to be scared of,”
he told her, mouth closer to hers than it had been less than a second ago.

“You, Jack,” she said, bravely
staring into his eyes. “I’m scared of you, of us, of everything.”

He shook his head, still holding on
to her hand. Only this time he dropped to his knee, staring up at her with an
expression that she’d never seen on his face before.

“What are you doing?” she murmured.

“Something I should have done the
day you arrived home and told me we were expecting a baby.
Before
then even.”

Maddison
focused on breathing, her heart skipping faster that it should have been.

“Jack, you don’t have to marry me.”
It hurt just to say the words, but it was true.

“
Maddie
,
I don’t have a lot to remember my mom by, not physical things, but I still
remember her telling me as a child, when we were riding around the farm, that
one day she’d give me her engagement ring to give my wife.”

Emotion clawed at
Maddison’s
throat when Jack opened his palm. “I remember
it.”
Of course she remembered it.
The
blue sapphire surrounded by diamonds that his mom had always worn, even when
she was working on the ranch, wasn’t a memory that would just disappear.

“You can’t give this to me.”
He couldn’t.
Because
Jack didn’t love her, had only ever planned to marry her out of convenience.
And if he’d changed his mind now it was because of the baby, which
still
made it convenience only.

“I can’t think of anyone she’d have
loved me to give it to more than you.”

She appreciated the gesture, but
still… “Jack, she wanted you to give it to the woman you love,”
Maddison
said, the words hard to expel.

“
Maddison
,”
he started, pulling her down so she was on her knees with him, the ring flat
beneath both their palms. “We’re kidding ourselves that our engagement was ever
about convenience.”

Heat crept up her neck, flushing
her face.
Jack was right, it had become
so much more than something convenient to her, her feelings toward him building
every single moment she’d spent with him
.

“I love you,
Maddison
Jones,” he said, touching his forehead to hers. “I’ve loved you since you were
a gangly girl, and I love the woman you’ve become.”

“You do?”

“I do,” he said with a laugh. “It
doesn’t change the fact that I’m scared as hell of being with you, but I do
love you.” Jack paused, his voice turning husky as he slid one hand down to
touch her belly, fingers pressing gently against her. “And I know I’ll love
this baby just as much.”

“Jack, I don’t want you to…”

“What?” he interrupted. “Love you?”

She sighed. “Feel you
have
to tell me this.”

Jack wasn’t deterred. He raised her
left hand and gently slid the ring into place on her finger, his eyes never
leaving hers, even when he raised her hand and dropped a kiss to her skin.

“I thought you’d know by
know
that I’m a stubborn bastard. I only say things when I
mean them, and for the record?” He shook his head before moving closer, so
their bodies were pressed together tight. “I’ve never told a woman I loved her
before.”

Maddison
grinned,
nerves mixing with anticipation.
“Never?”

“Not even to get her into bed,” he
said, grinning when she thumped him on the arm. “You,” he continued, pinning
her arms down and trailing barely-there kisses across her
jaw,
“are the one I’ve been waiting to tell.”

“Oh yeah?” she managed, sucking in
a sharp burst of air when he nipped at her skin, before trailing his way to her
lips and placing a feather-light kiss to her mouth.

“Yeah.”

Jack cradled her head, held her so
gently it was like all the bones in her body melted, leaving her supple and
liquid beneath his touch.

“You do realize that someone could
be watching us, right?” he muttered.

Maddison
forced her eyelids open to find herself staring straight into Jack’s eyes.

“So will you marry me?”

She blinked, trying to find her
words. “Are you sure?”
She had to ask.

Jack dropped another kiss to her
mouth almost before she finished her question.

“
Maddison
Jones, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” He grinned. “And just to
clarify, there will be nothing
convenient
about our marriage.”

Jack waggled his eyebrows and made
her laugh, sending her from tears to happiness quicker than she could respond
to him.

“I want you to be my friend, my
wife, my lover and the mother of my children,” he was holding her hands again.
“Screw being scared,
Maddison
. Because I’ve made
myself a promise that I never plan to break. I’ll never be the dad my father
became. You helped me to realize that.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, you did.”

Silence stretched between them. But
it was comfortable, easy.

“Well, if that’s the case, I guess
I’ll have to say yes.
Given that I’m knocked up and all.”

Jack’s eyes glinted
mischieviously
. “You’re lucky you
are
knocked up, otherwise I’d throw you over my shoulder and
manhandle you back to my place.”

She grinned. “Maybe you won’t have
to kidnap me.”

He stood and pulled her to her
feet. “Why?”

“Because I’ve already said yes,
haven’t I?”

“About that trip to my place…”

He winked at her, giving her a
second’s head start back to his car.
And
she ran like her life depended on it.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

JACK hadn’t felt so relaxed in as
long as he could remember. When they’d been together last time, it had been
lust. Sure, he’d always cared about
Maddison
, but
they’d been flirting, drinking, teasing and they’d had sex.
Now?
Now he was ready to admit that the woman in his arms was the woman he loved.

She was lying back on his bed,
sunlight streaming in and bathing the bed, and there was nothing rushed about
what they were doing.

“
You feeling
guilty about taking the day off work?”

He laughed, covered her body with
his, nibbling at her ear to make her giggle back at him. “Not a bit.”

She let out a low moan as he kissed
her, slowly moving his lips against hers, tasting her, tangling his tongue
against hers. She pressed her breasts harder against his chest, arms looped
around his back, but he wasn’t going to hurry. Not this time. Unless…

“Are you sure we can’t hurt the
baby?”

That made her
laugh
. She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back, shaking
her head. “You’re so big that you think you’re
gonna
bump into a baby the size of a peanut?”

He pushed her right back, taking
her hands and pinning them above her head. “Don’t get smart with me,
Maddie
.”

His growl didn’t scare her, only
made her laugh some more. “You doing that
was
what got
us in trouble last time.”

Jack loosened his hold, so she
could pull away if she wanted to, before turning his attention back to her
neck, to the little hollow there that made her arch her back when he kissed and
sucked.

“Jack?”

He didn’t stop, but he did move his
mouth, finding hers again and kissing her, forcing himself not to just strip
her bare and have his way with her when she started to grind against him, mouth
wet and hot against his.