Montana Reunion (15 page)

“Are you keeping it?”

If she’d been angry with him
before, now she was livid. “How dare you ask me
that.
”

“Did I not make it clear that I
didn’t
ever
want to be a fucking dad?
What part of that didn’t you understand,
Maddison
?
I…” he paused. “I take responsibility for having unprotected sex, all right?
But fuck,
Maddie
. Fuck this.”

He was walking away from her now,
his shoulders hunched instead of square.

“Walk away, Jack,” she called after
him, watching as he turned and stood, with that distance between them, watching
her like he didn’t trust her even one little bit. Note even enough to risk
standing next to her. “You don’t want to be a dad? Then walk away. This is your
out. You don’t have to marry me, and you certainly don’t have to be a father to
our child.”

He marched back toward her again,
like a giant about to crush his enemy. “You don’t get to tell me that,
Maddison
. You don’t get to act like I did something wrong
here.”

“We both did,” she said, forcing
the words out, needing to say what she’d
lain
awake
thinking about the night before. “But I want this baby, Jack. I didn’t plan it,
I didn’t do it on purpose, but now that I’m pregnant? I’m going to do
everything I can for my child.
For our child.”

He stared at her, like there was so
much he wanted to say but couldn’t. “I trusted you.” He said it again and this
time his words hurt even more than they had before. “And I will never, ever
trust you again.”

Jack walked away again, only this
time she knew there was no chance of him coming back. No last words to say, no
reason for him to change his mind and walk back to her.

And
it hurt
.
Like he’d stabbed a knife deep in her chest that
was going to slowly, painfully kill her.

Now
she’d lost the one man she’d ever truly cared about.
Her best
friend.
Her lover.

She
was going to be the mom she’d always dreamed of being, but right now, all she
wanted was Jack.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

JACK was sitting in the dark like a
recluse. Right now, even thinking about the sun was enough to give him a
headache. He opened his eyes again and looked around the room. He hadn’t even
made it to his bedroom, and there was an empty bottle of bourbon lying on the
sofa beside him.

Damn
bourbon.
It had been his father’s weakness all his life and Jack hardly
ever touched the stuff… until last night.

Father
.
Thinking about his
bastard of a father was what had made him start drinking in the first place.
That and the fact that no matter what he did, no matter what he wanted, in nine
months time there would be a kid out there knowing he was his father.
Because he was not,
not
,
going to bail on his child.

Jack slowly placed his feet on the
ground and collected the bottle. If he had another one handy he might have been
tempted to dull the pain some more, but he had animals to feed and jobs to do.

As if reading his mind he heard a
loud woof from Rosa. He squinted, wishing his eyes were still shut, and saw his
dog sitting in the doorway.

“I hear you,” Jack mumbled.

She barked again, this time with
her head tilted at an angle.

“I know. Bad idea,” he told her,
shuffling past and heading for the shower. “You should taste my breath right
now.”

Jack turned the faucet on and
stared at himself in the mirror while he waited for the water to get hot.

He
looked like shit
. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was sticking up in
weird tufts, and his skin looked like all the color had drained from it.

And
now, not only was he going to be a dad, he was also in danger of losing his
ranch.
He’d already been in touch with his lawyer, advised him to drop the
proceedings, that he’d be fulfilling the clause.

If things could have gotten any
worse for him, now they had. There was nothing,
nothing
that could make his life get any more complicated or fucked
up.

He’d waited
all his life for his dad to die, and now he was going to be one.

The sun was beating down on
Maddison’s
shoulders so
fiercely,
she
knew her skin would start to fry if she didn’t get up. But she didn’t want to
move, let alone go back into the house. Because then there would be more
questions – answers to which she didn’t even want to think about right now let
alone talk about – and out here she was able to at least be miserable on her
own.

Instead of heading around the front
to where her parents were, she slipped in the backdoor and grabbed a hat and
shirt. At least then she could protect her skin, even if she did get hot as
hell beneath the layers.

Maddison
wandered aimlessly, just needing to move. She had that antsy feeling in her
legs, like they’d been fidgeting for days, desperate to stretch out and cover
some serious ground. And maybe her mind needed it to.

Ever since she’d found out she was
pregnant, she’d felt the need to touch her belly, like a magnetic pull that she
was unable to fight.
A
girl or a boy?
It was the question she’d been thinking about all
morning,
when she hadn’t been wondering
how to deal with Jack. How to tell him how she really felt; how to tell him
again what an amazing father she knew he’d be; and that she’d let him off the
hook if he wanted to be free.
Because she’d never push him into this, just
like she never would have gotten pregnant on purpose.

She knew where her feet were taking
her even if she didn’t want them to.
But
when had logic ever stopped her from heading over to the Gregory ranch?
It
hadn’t since she’d been home as an
adult,
and it sure
as hell hadn’t when she’d been a girl.

Maddison
didn’t want to see Jack, not yet, but she always took comfort from walking the
boundary line, being able to look left or right and see nothing but grass
stretch endlessly into the distance. And now was no different.
Except for the nervous flutter she felt in
her belly, the knowledge that the child she now carried was part of both
ranches… so long as Jack didn’t lose his.

She’d lain awake all night,
thinking about the baby.
Thinking about Jack.
Whether he’d find someone else to marry.
Whether
he’d change his mind about being a dad.
About all
the
what
ifs.

Maddison
was puffing now, out of practice when it came to walking across the fields and
up the incline.

And
what she saw made her stop.

From the boundary, looking across
to his farm, she could see the graveyard. The burial plots where generations of
Gregory family members had been buried. She always stared at the large
gravestones, always smiled at the way the large tree positioned behind them
seemed to sweep down and across with its low branches, as if reaching to touch
them. But today the instinctive smile froze on her face.

Because she saw a man bent over in
front of one of the stones. It had to be Jack, even though she couldn’t be
sure. She watched as the man stood straighter,
then
sat down on the grass.

It was stupid, because she knew he
needed space, knew he needed time to just
be
.
But she climbed the fence away, started walking toward him, because they needed
to talk – now more than ever. And if he didn’t want to talk, then
Maddison
would do what she always did. She’d sit right
beside him and wait it out, so he knew she was there for him whenever he was
ready.

She refused to
believe that Jack was no longer her friend.
Because if she
did, her heart was going to break all over again.

Jack knew someone was approaching.
He stared hard at the gravestone, the inscription that he always read over and
over, even though he’d known it by heart since he was a boy, and wiped at his
eyes.

It didn’t matter how many years had
passed, he could still shed a tear when he thought about his mom – about that
day, about losing her, about growing up without her.

And he’d put money on the fact that
it was
Maddison
standing behind him, because aside
from his brother, she was the only person who’d ever come here with him.

“Hey.”

Her soft voice made him wish things
were different between them, but it didn’t take away his anger.

Jack looked over his shoulder,
acknowledged her. “Hi.”

He listened to her sigh then sit
down. She knew him too well, would just wait him out, but he wasn’t interested
in going back in time with her today.

“I was just leaving.” Jack didn’t
mean to sound so rude, but he wanted to be alone.

“Can I say something?”

He could tell from the croak in her
voice that she was close to tears, and he hated it. “
Me
saying no has never stopped you before.”

She sighed again before standing
and shoving her hands deep into her pockets. He was watching her now, unable to
be so rude as to keep his back to her.

“I meant what I said the other day,
Jack. You
would
be an amazing dad, no
matter what you think.”

He fought against the urge to grind
his teeth. “Leave it,
Maddison
.” It came out as a
growl and he couldn’t help it.

“I can’t leave it, Jack.” She moved
around to sit across from him, so she could look at his face. He stared
straight ahead, refused to make eye contact with her. Because she was still
Maddison
, and that meant he didn’t want to say something to
her now that he’d regret for the rest of his life.

“Jack, whether you want to accept
it now or not, we’re having a child. You can walk away if you have to, but I
won’t.
Can’t.
And I need you to know that…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” He’d gone from not wanting
to hear a word she had to say, to needing to know what she’d come all the way
over here to say.

She took a deep breath, looked away
from him. It gave Jack the chance to study her face, to look at her silhouette.
She was so fucking gorgeous it took his
breath away
. And they’d come so close to…

“I knew your mom, Jack, and I loved
your mom. And if you gave a damn what she would think? If you want to be the
kind of man she’d be proud of? You wouldn’t let fear stop you from being a
father.”

Jack stood, anger pulsing through
him so violently he was fighting not to slam his fist into the tree. “Don’t you
ever
,
ever
bring my mom up
again.
You hear me,
Maddison
?”

She rose too, came to stand so
close to him he could have grabbed hold of her. But she wasn’t scared, stared
him straight in the eye. Her hair was blowing around her face, but she made no
attempt to restrain it. Just stood dead still and stared at him.

“You can hate me all you like,
Jack. I don’t expect you to forgive me.
But if you want to be
the opposite of your dad?
Then you know what you need to do.” She
reached out to him, touched his hair,
trailed
her
fingers down his cheek. “I know the kind of man you could be right now, the
kind of man you want to be. But you’re so hard headed that you’re going to end
up being like your father without even realizing it.”

He was so angry with her, but he
couldn’t push her away. Because he knew she was right,
and he hated it.

“In nine months time, we’re going
to have a child. And like it or not, you’re going to be a dad.”

He could see the dampness in her
eyes, knew how hard it was for her to talk to him. To say what she was saying.

“I trusted you.” Jack had said it
before but last time he’d yelled it at her like he was cursing. Now he said it
because he had to.
Because he needed to know if she’d
entrapped him.
Needed to know if she’d genuinely been
utterly caught up in the moment,
like he
had been
.
“We were best
friends,
Maddison
.”

Now she was crying. Tears were
starting to fall fast down her cheeks, curling down her chin and dripping down
onto her top. Her bottom lip was trembling, but still she held his gaze.

“You’re still my best friend,
Jack.” She choked out the words. “I would never break your trust.
You know that.
” He was staring at her.
“I’ve been on the pill most of my life, Jack, and I just forgot, alright? I
wasn’t thinking about anything but you that night, not even about how I’d
been wanting
a baby for so damn long. And now I’ve got one.
Only now?
I’ve lost you.”

Maddison
turned and walked away, head down, leaving him alone.
Letting
him brood on his own.

He should have called out to her.
Gone after her.
But he couldn’t. Because he needed to figure
out what the hell had just happened, what he was going to do.

She
was right.

If he couldn’t trust
Maddison
, there was no one left in the world he
could
trust.
Because
she was best friend.
Because she’d never hurt him, not intentionally.
Even after all these years, he knew she couldn’t. No matter what had changed,
no matter how badly she wanted something,
Maddison
Jones would never break his trust.

Which meant he’d screwed up.
Bad.