Righteous Lies (Book 1: Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (22 page)

***

With Adam
latched onto Grace's breast and Jack sitting by the bed, Grace pressed the
speaker button on her hospital phone so Jack could hear her sister, Justine's,
response when she learned about the baby, and that she and Jack were married.
She hadn't told anyone about that. She'd explained about the sperm mix-up six
weeks before, but told Justine nothing about Jack. Justine didn't need to know
that he was drop-dead gorgeous...

"An
immaculate conception," Justine mused. "You always did do everything
right, Gracie. Some women wait until they're married before having sex, but you
waited until you had the baby. What's he like?"

"He's
perfect," Grace exclaimed, gazing down at Adam. "Black hair, big
eyes, the sweetest little face you'll ever see."

"I'm not
talking about the baby, Gracie. I'm talking about his father."

Grace looked at
Jack, still wearing blue scrubs, hair mussed, two-day old beard, looking much
as he had the first day she'd seen him at the fertility clinic, except now his
fingernails were scrupulously clean, and said, with an ironic smile, "He's
okay, I guess. You know how I'm attracted to nerds. I doubt you'd give him a
second glance."

"Which
means horn-rimmed glasses and a book tucked under his arm. I get the
picture," Justine said, amusement in her voice.

"Something
like that," Grace replied, imagining Jack in boots with spurs, and wearing
a snug-fitting western shirt and faded jeans, and chaps buckled around his
hips, and that pouch of denim poking out to remind her he was, without doubt,
very well-hung...

"I'll be
down to check him out next week," Justine said. "And the baby too.
And I'm glad for you, Gracie. If you're happy with the man, that's fine with
me."

Grace hung up,
feeling a little smug that she had a husband who would knock the socks off
Justine. That, followed by growing apprehension that Justine might turn Jack's
head, not in a threatening way, but one of appreciation, and maybe comparison.
Justine was every bit as beautiful as Lauren. But even though Grace had known
Jack for less than two months, she knew he'd never break his wedding vows.

She had to
brace herself before calling her parents though. They'd managed to adjust to
the sperm switch, and the uproar of her having the baby of a dead man was a
moot point. But now they'd have to come to terms with the fact that she was
married to the seedy-looking cowboy they'd met at the ranch.

"Okay,
here goes," she said. "Just don't be offended by anything they say.
Anything my mother says, that is. My father will be in the background as usual.
But you'll understand why I didn't want my mother staying with me after my baby
was born the first time... when he was still my baby... and Marc's, that is...
before he became your baby and everything got too complicated to explain to
them—"

"Honey, just
call."

"Yes...
well... here goes..."

Grace's mother
picked up the phone on the second ring. "Hi Mom," Grace said. "I
just wanted to let you and Dad know that I had the baby and married the father.
Well, I married the father first then had the baby. His name is Adam, the
baby's name that is. The father is Jack. And the baby weighs
ten-pounds-four-ounces and is twenty-two inches long and has big hands and big
feet and a head of dark hair." There, it was done.

After total
silence, while Grace waited for her mother to digest what she'd heard, her
mother said, in a cautious voice, "Grace, did you say you married the
baby's father?"

"Yes, just
before we left for New Jersey," Grace replied. "Jack suggested it and
I agreed. So your grandson is legitimate."

"Did you
say New Jersey, Grace?"

"I told
you about the umbilical cord blood transplant, Mom," Grace said. "I'll
explain later. Right now I'm nursing the baby."

"Is the
father there with you... now, while you're doing that?"

"Of
course, Mom. He's my husband."

"But he's
a cowboy."

"Yes."

"You don't
ride," her mother stated the obvious.

"I did at
camp," Grace replied.

"Does
he... do all that rodeo stuff?" Definitely negative vibes coming through.

Grace looked at
Jack, who smiled and nodded, enjoying the exchange. "Yes. Bull riding,
calf roping. The works. He's a cowboy, Mom."

"Oh."
Silence.

"Mom?"

"Well...
yes, this is all very sudden, Grace. I really don't know what to say."

"That's a
first. But it's all okay. He's good to me. Talk to you later, Mom. My son needs
another quart of milk" She hung up before more questions could get
through.

She moved Adam
to the other breast. After he clamped on, Adam let out a little soft moan, and
soon he closed his eyes and smacking sounds could be heard.

Jack smiled.
"He's a real chow hound," he said, eyes on his son. "You doing
okay with this?"

"Not
exactly," Grace said. "Every time he latches on he acts like it's his
last meal."

Jack stroked
Adam's soft hair as he nursed, then moved his hand to Grace's breast and held
it there, and said, "I'm proud of you, honey, proud of everything you did
in there. And now seeing you like this." His hand remained on her breast.

"You mean
like Dolly Parton?" Grace said, more aware of Jack's hand on her breast
than the baby on her nipple.

"No, like
Adam's mother. Your breast feels hard so you must be uncomfortable with so much
milk, and you could let the doctor give you something to dry you up, but you're
not." He removed his hand from her breast.

 
Grace looked up at Jack, and said, "What
I need is another baby. I still want Marc's baby. Susan doesn't want him and there's
this little empty place in my heart for the baby I set out to have." She
brushed her finger over Adam's soft round cheek and he stopped sucking and
looked up at her. She smiled and said to Jack, "You're right. He's
absolutely perfect, and he's going to look just like you, which makes me very
happy." She looked at Jack then, and added, "And if you say he's well
hung, I guess that's good too."

"It is.
He'll appreciate it later," Jack said. "And speaking of that... I
read the book on circumcision and watched the DVD."

"And?"

"Maybe
we'll wait some," Jack said. "I want to find out more."

"Everything
was pretty much laid out in the book and on the DVD," Grace said.
"What more do you need to know?"

 
"If it really makes a difference in
bed."

And there was
only one way he could find out, Grace realized. But that was still a few weeks
away. And she was becoming increasingly anxious to prove the survey wrong.

***

After Susan and
Sam finished at the cord blood bank, where they took Ricky to have his blood
drawn for testing, they stopped by the hospital to see Adam, who was asleep in
a hospital infant crib beside Grace's bed. Sam patted Jack on the back, as Jack
sat looking into the crib, and said, "You have your boy now, bro. He's a
fine little guy."

Jack reached
over and touched Adam's cheek, and Adam gave a little sleepy smirk, which
brought a smile to Jack's lips. "Grace did all the work," he said.
"All I did was deposit sperm in a cup." He smiled at Grace and
winked.

Grace looked
beyond Jack and saw a nurse standing in the doorway, with a very curious look
on her face. "Well, you may have gotten off easy up to this point,"
Grace said, "but your job is just beginning. You get to tell him all about
boy things... the facts of life and all that stuff."

Until now,
Susan hadn't said anything. Then she went up to stand by the bed, and said to
Grace, "You're so lucky it's all over. He's a real sweet baby."

"Yes, he
is," Grace said, looking through the clear plastic walls of the crib at
her son. "He already reminds me of Jack, with that mop of dark hair. And
look at the size of those hands. And five perfect little fingers on each."
Grace reached inside the crib and lifted Adam's little hand and held it, and
her heart filled with love. And when she looked at Jack and saw him watching
her, she felt as if he might be starting to love her a little too...

A light
knocking in the doorway caught their attention. A man, with an emblem on his gray
shirt, with the insignia of the lab that would be preparing the cord blood for
transplant, stepped into the room. Already knowing who Sam and Susan were, he
introduced himself to Grace and Jack as a representative from the blood bank,
and said, "Your son's blood kit is at the lab and technicians are running
tests for viability and to determine if there's a close enough match for a
transplant. If there is, the cord blood cells will be processed for
transplantation. We believe there's an excellent chance since you men are
identical twins."

Susan looked at
the man, her fingers laced together above, but not touching, her belly, and
said, "When will we know?"

"We'll
know by tomorrow," the man said. "But there's also a chance there
won't be enough stem cells in the cord blood to engraft. We can manipulate the
stem-progenitor cells in the lab with a goal of increasing their numbers, but
it has to match up with your son's blood first."

"What
about this baby?" Susan said, pointing to her belly with a stiff finger.
"Is there any chance at all with him?"

"A remote
one," the man said. "It's your brother-in-law's DNA we're looking to
for a match. But we'll check your baby's blood too, on the unlikely chance he's
a match."

Susan clasped
her hands together and started to rest them on her belly then snapped them away
and dropped them to her sides. Tears filled her eyes and she started shaking.

Sam put his arm
around her and pulled her against him. "Honey, it's going to be okay."
He looked at the man from the lab. "Assuming there's a match with my
brother's son, how soon before we can start our son on chemo?"

"Right
away," the man said, "but you do understand that stem cell
transplantation carries a ten percent mortality risk for the recipient due to
infection. Chemotherapy will empty your son's bone marrow and suppress his
immune system so he'll have to be in isolation for a month. But even after cord
cells have been injected into his bloodstream and begin to create healthy
marrow, recovery will still take three to four months, if all goes well."

"We
understand," Sam said. He looked at Susan, who was shaking and sobbing,
and said to the man," I need to get her back to the hotel so she can rest.
It's been a tough two days. Call us at the hotel as soon as you know." Sam
tightened his arm around Susan, and left.

After the man
from the lab had gone, Grace said to Jack, who was reaching over the infant
crib to stroke Adam's cheek, "Susan doesn't want her baby. You saw the way
she reacted. Before Adam was born I couldn't keep my hands off my stomach.
Sometimes I held them beneath, like cradling him in my hands, and other times I
rested them on top, but Susan never touched her stomach. Not once. In fact she
made a conscious effort to avoid touching it. Please talk to Sam. At least tell
him we'll take the baby."

The look of
affection on Jack's face of moments before, as he gazed at Adam, changed to discontent.
More than discontent. Protectiveness... And Jealousy. And it came to Grace that
Jack was afraid if she had Marc's son she'd love him more than she did Adam,
because Jack assumed she loved Marc more than she loved him.

She put her
hand out for Jack to take, and when he did, she said, "I didn't make empty
vows to you, Jack. I vowed to love and honor you in sickness and in health, for
better or for worse, and I intend to stand by that. Marc and I had five
wonderful years to get to know and love each other, and I hope the same for us.
And I could never love Marc's son more than I love Adam. I want both babies. I
can love them both."

Jack released
her hand and went to stand at the window. "You feel that way now, when you
have help here and Adam's sleeping most of the time," he said, looking
out, "but when we're back at the ranch and he's older and demanding your
time, and you're exhausted because you can't sleep at night because he's
keeping you awake, and he starts fussing and crying to be fed or changed or
just being held, things will change. And if you had another one also demanding
your full attention—"

"I am not
Lauren," Grace said, cutting Jack short. "I will not kill your son,
and it makes me angry that you're comparing me to her. You can compare me in
any other way—Lauren's beautiful, she's a champion rider, she can probably knit
and paint and cross-stitch and do all the things I can't—but I will never kill
your son. Now, if you don't mind, I'm tired. It's been a very long day."
She clamped her jaws shut.

Jack turned
from the window, stared into the crib for an inordinate amount of time, then
kissed Grace on the forehead, and said, "Thank you for my son." And
left.

...we don't want to rush into something we
might have to undo...

Which was
exactly what Jack did when he made a snap decision to marry her. But now, Grace
had the sinking feeling that Jack wanted to start undoing it.

The rest of the
evening was a blur of nurses coming in to check Grace, and hand her Adam to
nurse, and make sure everything was functioning as it should be. But she was so
exhausted from the stress of the flight, and the difficult birth, that she
managed to drift back to sleep each time. But during those short periods of
wakefulness in between, she wondered if she should simply ask Jack for an
annulment and set him free...

But the next
morning, in the light of a new day, seeing the gold band on her finger, and
feeling the warm weight of her baby in her arms, and knowing she had a man in
her life who was worth loving, she allowed herself to feel a certain amount of satisfaction...