Mackinnon 03 - The Bonus Mom (16 page)

Over and through it all, she kept track of Whit, and outside when the crew was all leaving, she noticed her two brothers aim toward Whit.

She galloped in front of Whit at breakneck speed. Stood in front of him, folded her arms.

Tucker and Ike stopped dead, glanced at Whit, then at her...and then both of them started laughing like hyenas.

“Whether you like it or not, Whit, it looks like she’s going to protect you from us.”

“If you two don’t start being nice to me, I’d hate to tell you what I’ll be giving the kids next Christmas. I’m thinking a boa constrictor. In a cage with a loose lock.”

That didn’t help. They laughed even harder.

To make matters worse, she suddenly felt Whit’s hands on her shoulders from behind. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I appreciate your protecting me. They’re pretty scary.”

“You think they’re funny, but you weren’t their little sister.”

“I get that. But I like how they treat their little sister.”

“That’s only because you can’t help it. You have that same twisted Y chromosome. You’re not responsible for occasional Neanderthal opinions.”

“Whew. I’m relieved you don’t find me responsible.”

The whole time she was having this insane conversation with him, his hands were still on her shoulders from behind, and the cars were backing up, lights on, disappearing down the mountain. Heaven knew when night had come on, but the sky was muddy black, clouds blustering against each other and occasionally spitting.

Obviously they needed to head inside, but she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready for nightfall, for all the sudden silence.

And she definitely wasn’t ready to face Whit.

Chapter Thirteen

“Y
ou realize that your brothers set us up so we could be alone tonight,” Whit said.

“I know. They’re both as subtle as sledgehammers.” Cold rain kept drooling from the sky. Silver drops slid in her hair. In her eyes.

But she was intensely aware that something was different about Whit. He didn’t seem to notice the cold, the dark, the rain. He just kept looking at her. There was a calm in his face, in his gaze.

“I told your brothers what I’d given you for Christmas,” he mentioned.

“Oh? And what’d they say?”

“Well, once I told them, they stopped trying to pour moonshine down my throat. That peach moonshine...” Whit shook his head. “That’s quite a drink. On a par with...”

“Gasoline?”

“That wasn’t my first thought, but close enough. Tucker and Ike had been grilling me nonstop. When I confessed about the present, they both stopped talking altogether. They had this crazy idea that you loved the present.”

“I did. I do.” Blast it. Tears blurred her eyes again. Showing up like they did before, out of the blue, and including a soft thick feeling in her throat. “I more than loved it, Whit.”

Slowly, cautiously, he came closer. Used the edge of his thumbs to wipe the spill of tears. “I thought you were crying because I’d disappointed or upset you.”

“No. Never that. Just the opposite. It’s just...there isn’t much that moves me to tears. Not like this.” She had to get past that lump in her throat, needed to tell him—wanted to tell him—exactly what his present had meant. “Most of my life, I’ve thought of myself as kind of invisible. My parents would sometimes forget that they were leaving me alone. My first boyfriend in high school—he was a good guy, no question—but when we broke up, he was with someone else in less than a week. Easy for me to start thinking of myself as forgettable. And then, of course, there was George. George said he loved me. I don’t actually doubt that he meant it...but when push came down to shove, apparently he didn’t know me at all. Never saw me. Not really.”

“You might be giving me a whole lot more credit than I deserve, love. Your brothers just thought you’d like the present.”

She laughed, but there was still a lump in her throat. Still the threat of emotional tears. Yet she raised her face to his.

And right there, so easily, his lips were waiting for her. Waiting for the chance to connect, the way Whit connected with her every second since he’d shown up in her life. He offered softness, tenderness.

“It’s starting to freeze. And you’re cold,” he said.

“I don’t want to go in yet. I want you to show me...your plan.”

He pulled a stocking cap from his jacket pocket. Popped it on her head. Took off his jacket, wrapped it around her...then wrapped an arm around her, as well.

Ignoring dark and chill, snugged tight against him, he explained about the unique gift he’d given her. When she’d opened the envelope, she’d seen the rough sketched drawing of the yard around the lodge...but almost immediately understood what he was giving her and why.

Now, he walked her down to the fork in the road that marked the MacKinnon property, ambled up the drive, motioning and explaining as they went. “It’s quite a slope,” he said, “and I could see both that the soil tends to be dry, and tends to get a ton of sun. To make the most of both those issues, I’d want to plant into raised beds, do a gravel mulch. The thing about rosemary...”

He looked at her.

“The thing about Rosemary is that she’s as close to perfect as anything on earth.”

She gulped. “Doggone it, Whit. You’re going to make me cry again.”

“I don’t think so. I’m just telling you the straight truth of the matter. They used to say rosemary was for remembrance. I think that’s because she’s so unique. No one could forget her. No one would want to forget her. She attracts birds and butterflies, the beautiful and gentle things around her. She’s just as pretty in summer as in winter. She’s got this fresh, pretty scent that affects everyone and anything around her.” He motioned. “I think a hedge type of rosemary would be perfect; she’d greet everyone as they were coming up the drive. Up closer to the house, we could use a ground cover variety, mix up the blue and pink flowers, have a display that welcomes people coming in. Of course, people already know your door is always open to everyone....”

“Whit,” she said, but damnation if her eyes weren’t watering again.

“Once she’s planted, she’s extraordinarily self-sustaining. But that isn’t to say she wouldn’t thrive even more with care and attention. I have this idea about transplanting certain vulnerable plants. You dig the hole, make a nest for the plant, where it’s warm and soft and safe. Then you put her in, and kind of ‘love her in’—no tools, just your hands. Rosemary isn’t a complaining or whining kind of plant, so if she isn’t thriving, you need to pay attention. She’s strong. She can weather all kinds of trouble. But that’s not to say she doesn’t need some cherishing, some cosseting, some plain old everyday love. She...”

Okay. He was going to talk all night if she let him. So she swung around in his arms, lifted up, invited a kiss.

Eyes closed, she cherished the mold and meld of his lips on hers. She tasted love. She tasted hope. She tasted the future.

She also stopped for just a second. “Whit. Did I tell you that I love you?”

“Maybe not in exact words.”

“I’m glad you figured it out. But I’d still like to use the exact words. I love you, Whit. More and in a different way than I ever expected to love anyone. You know me, the one no one else ever has.”

“I need you in my life, the way I’ve never needed anyone.” His eyes had a fierce shine. “Before the new year, I’d like to pick out a ring.”

“Before the new year, I would love to wear your ring.”

She knew they needed to talk about the girls. About where they would live, and how they could manage and balance their lives. But she wasn’t remotely worried that they could come up with solutions, or that they could conquer any and all challenges in front of them.

Right now, all that could wait. She stole another kiss, then took his hand.

“Before we both freeze to death, I’m taking you in the house.”

“I’ll take you in. Anywhere, anytime,” he said. “Merry Christmas, my love.”

“And all the Christmases ahead of us.”

They both smiled, and aimed for the house.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
Doctor, Soldier, Daddy
by
Caro Carson.

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Chapter One

River Mack Ranch, Texas

“Y
ou’re letting a baby choose your wife?”

Jamie MacDowell chose not to answer that question. Instead, he contemplated the campfire as he let his brother’s outraged tone roll off his back. Braden, his oldest brother, cared. That was the real emotion behind the outrage. Jamie had gotten much better at recognizing emotions in the past two years.

“Hire a nanny for the baby. You don’t have to marry anyone.” His other brother, Quinn, sounded less outraged—but more condescending.

The sounds of the Texas twilight settling over their parents’ land filled the silence as Jamie stretched his legs out. He flicked a glance around the fire. It figured: he’d taken the identical pose as his brothers. Braden, Quinn and now Jamie sat with jean-clad legs stretched out fully, each man with his right cowboy boot crossed over his left. It was funny, really, the subconscious mannerisms families shared.

Two years ago, Jamie would have probably uncrossed his ankles, just to be different. But that was before Afghanistan. Before more than a year spent sewing up soldiers in an army hospital.

Before he’d brought his son, Sam, to the United States.

“A nanny can do the job perfectly well,” Quinn continued. “You don’t need a wife to take care of a baby.”

“To take care of my son,” Jamie corrected him. It was going to take his brothers some time to get used to the news that he was a father. He hadn’t communicated much while he was deployed. Returning to Texas with a nine-month-old had shocked them all. “Not ‘a baby.’ My son.”

“Right. He can be well cared for by a good nanny.”

Jamie uncrossed his ankles. Neither of his brothers were parents. They didn’t understand the impact, the complete sea change, of having a child. When he held Sam, Jamie knew that he was holding the most important thing in the world. It was a powerful emotion, one that ultimately made his life utterly simple. What his son needed, Jamie would provide.

His son needed a mother.

Not a nanny.

“I’m working in the E.R.,” Jamie said. “You know the hours. What nanny is going to be available nights, days, whole twenty-four-hour periods without notice?”

“Get a live-in nanny.” Naturally, Quinn had an immediate answer. He was a cardiologist. That particular species of doctor tended to be very math-oriented. Their world was physics. Pressure, diameter, beats per minute. Black and white.

In contrast, as an emergency physician, Jamie often had to wing it. Thinking on the fly, he came up with theories, tested and discarded them, until he’d diagnosed and stabilized whatever emergency had brought the patient to the hospital.

In Afghanistan, there’d been only one kind of emergency: injury. Some injuries were catastrophic, caused by explosives that destroyed so much of the body, Jamie raced the clock to stop the bleeding and keep the heart beating. Some were minor, a finger sliced open when a rifle was cleaned carelessly. All of them—
all of them
—required stitches. Sewing. Surgery. Jamie had performed more surgery as an emergency physician in the United States Army than many surgeons did in civilian life.

“What if I get deployed again?” Jamie asked both brothers. “Will the nanny guarantee her services for the length of my deployment? Will she write to me about Sam? Send me photos?”

Braden abruptly sat up from his lounging position. “I thought you were back to reserve duty, the one-weekend-a-month thing until your commitment was up. Did you sign a new contract?”

Jamie wanted to smile at the predictability of Braden’s response. Like Quinn and himself, Braden was also an M.D., but he ran the research side of a massive corporation. He thought in terms of contracts and legalities, of facts on paper. Like Quinn, Braden saw everything as black and white.

The way their father had seen the world.

Jamie stopped lounging, too. With a firm thunk, he set his half-finished bottle of beer on the dry Texas ground by his chair. He wasn’t like his father. Sam would have a better man to raise him.

“I’m in the reserves for another six months. I could be recalled to active duty tonight.”

Now Quinn sat up abruptly. Jamie felt their tension as both men looked at him intently.

“It’s okay,” Jamie said quietly. “It’s highly unlikely the army will send me back in the next six months.”

Braden dropped his gaze to the crackling fire. “It’s not that we aren’t proud of you.”

“I know. I’m proud to have served, too. There are times I’ve considered volunteering to go back. There’s so much work left to be done there.” Work that he’d seen one brave woman undertake. Work to promote literacy in the population. Work to provide health care to the poorest of the poor. Work to end the slavelike conditions in which so many Afghani girls were raised.

Work that had ultimately killed that one brave woman, leaving Jamie to raise Sam alone.

“A nanny’s not good enough. I want a wife. If something should happen to me, Sam will still have a legal guardian. An American legal guardian.”

“He’s your son, Jamie. Do you think we’d let the state put him in an orphanage?”

“No.” Jamie was touched. Braden had said
your son.
He, at least, was getting used to the idea of Sam being a MacDowell, not just a baby brought home from a war-torn country. “But Mom’s getting a little old to start over again with an infant, and look at you. Both of you. A couple of bachelor doctors with insane working hours. Sam needs a full-time parent.”

“Then hire a lawyer and make the nanny his legal guardian.” Quinn was still seeing in black and white, apparently, but Jamie had already come up with that theory and ruled it out.

“It’s easier to get married. A wife’s custody is rarely questioned.”

There had been no way to legally marry Sam’s mother, not on the American base, nor in any Afghani court or mosque. In the end, after her death, that had meant no locals would claim Sam as their own, either. Jamie had been able to get Sam out of the country by mixing State Department regulations and medical necessity, but if the paperwork ever got scrutinized…

If. He wouldn’t worry about that now. And if
If
happened, Sam belonging to an American husband and wife would be beneficial, compared to Sam being the child of a bachelor soldier.

Yes, Sam needed a mother. An American mother. Simple.

“I’m fine with a marriage based on practicality,” he told his brothers. “I never planned on getting married for any other reason.”

“You’re sure about that?” Quinn asked.

Jamie sat back in his camp chair and picked up his beer. He brushed the sandy dirt off the bottom of the bottle. When he’d been in Afghanistan, he’d told himself the dry soil wasn’t so different from Texas. He’d even been able to squint at the landscape and imagine himself home, if home had a lot of barbed wire and sandbag bomb shelters.

“I’m sure,” Jamie said. “Doctors make lousy husbands—look at Dad. He had no time for Mom. No time for any of us. Without Mom, we wouldn’t have had a parent at all. My kid needs a mother.”

Braden studied the label on his own beer bottle for a moment. “You’re not being fair to Dad. We had those fishing trips.”

“Yeah, once a year we’d saddle up the horses and pack up the tents and come out here to spend, what? Four days? With a guy we barely knew.”

“Still, he tried.”

“Yeah, he would have made a fine uncle. Not my idea of a father. My son is going to have a real parent, someone there for him every day, not just for a camping trip now and then. If something happens to me, he’s going to have another parent to finish raising him. I’ll be damned if I’ll leave him alone in this world. I’m getting married, and that’s it.”

“Slow down, Jamie. What happens if you find this perfect mother, but then you fall in love with another woman, someone you want for something besides mothering? Are you going to divorce the mother of your child to marry the woman you’re crazy about? An affair won’t cut it. I don’t care what this ‘perfect mother’ agrees to, she’s not going to be a Mrs. MacDowell and willingly turn a blind eye to her husband having an affair.”

“I’m not going to cheat on my wife, even if we aren’t in that kind of a marriage.”

“You need to think this through. I’ve been in love, Jamie.” Braden rarely talked about it, but he’d been engaged once. “It can hit you like a lightning strike.”

Jamie stood up and pulled the keys to his truck out of his pocket. “It already did, Braden, it already did.”

“But, then—”

“She died. Her name was Amina. She was brilliant. Beautiful. An Afghani woman who translated for me on medical missions. She died during the birth and she left me a son.”

Jamie dumped the rest of his beer onto a struggling scrub plant, then chucked the bottle into the bed of his pickup truck. “Lightning won’t strike twice.”

The shocked silence wasn’t what Jamie had intended to cause. He clapped Quinn on the shoulder and used the side of his boot to push his still-full beer cooler toward his brother’s camp chair. “You finish these for me this weekend. Mom’s been watching Sam long enough. I’m gonna run.”

Jamie had been away from his son for nearly two hours, and that was too long.

Braden followed him to the pickup. “Jamie. You never told us about the mother of the baby. Sam is really your child, then? Your biological child?”

Damn it. Even his own brothers hadn’t believed Sam was his son. How would he convince the State Department? He needed to be married and have Sam legally adopted by his wife, in case they started asking.

“I’m not in the mood for a big-brother lecture, Braden.” He loved his oldest brother. Braden had filled more of a father role for him than their father had, but when it came to his own life, Jamie knew what he was doing. He’d come to the ranch today to let his brothers know what his plans were as a courtesy, not so they could tell him he was wrong to want to secure a second parent for Sam as quickly as possible.

“I’m not lecturing,” Braden said in a voice made for lecturing. “When do we meet this not-really-a-wife of yours?”

“I don’t know who she is yet.” Jamie opened the truck door and stepped up on the running board. “No woman I already know fits the bill.”

“No woman will. I can’t imagine who is going to want your son and not want you.”

Ah, the blind loyalty of family. Braden was certain women would fall all over his little brother. He didn’t know that most women gave up pursuing Jamie nowadays. His mourning for Amina showed somehow, he was sure.

His son was the only thing that brought a smile to his face now. As he thought of Sam, Jamie felt himself start to grin. “This isn’t about me finding a wife. This is about Sam finding a mother. That’s why I’m letting him choose her.”

Jamie closed the truck door. As he drove away from the old homestead, a new feeling settled over him. A certainty that he was on the right course. Contentment, almost. He’d loved Amina, and now he loved their son. Building his life around his son’s needs was the right thing to do.

He wondered whom Sam would fall in love with. He wondered whom his son would choose for him to marry.