Righteous Lies (Book 1: Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (13 page)

Feeling
suddenly weary, after she'd laid out the utensils, along with the dry
ingredients for the pie, she lowered herself to an overstuffed chair in the
living room and looked around. It had been a strange afternoon with Maureen,
both pleasant and troubling. Pleasant because Maureen was such an open person, but
troubling because when she asked Maureen a few questions about Jack's ex-wife she
was disturbed to learn that not only was Lauren Hansen a strikingly beautiful
woman with jet black hair and cerulean-blue eyes—though Maureen was quick to point
out that she wasn't all that beautiful—Lauren had also been a child model, won
the Miss Teen Oregon contest, was chosen Rodeo Queen, and had been a champion cutting
horse rider. Of course Jack would have been in love with the woman.

As for Grace,
she could never be able to ride a horse the way Jack would expect his wife to
ride, and brown hair, brown eyes and a non-descript nose and mouth did not add
up to striking. But then, maybe she wasn't destined to marry the father of her
baby. Maybe she was destined to be Adam Jackson Hansen's mother, the woman with
all the cats, who lived in the little house on the Dancing Moon Ranch.

Her attention
was drawn to Mei Ling, and the fact that ever since letting her out of the cat
carrier, she'd been restless. But now, the cat bed was empty. The house had
been closed, so she knew Mei Ling was inside, but after going to each room to
call her, Mei Ling didn't come out from wherever she was, and with Grace's
belly sticking out so far now, she was afraid that if she got down on hands and
knees to look under things, she wouldn't be able to get up.

Deciding that
nothing could be done until Jack came home, she wrote a note with a marker
saying, KEEP DOOR CLOSED SO MEI LING WON'T GET OUT, and taped it to the front
door. She wouldn't be going to the lodge for dinner, since she and Maureen had
eaten in town, and all she wanted was to shower, put on her gown and her robe,
and wait for Jack to come home to look for Mei Ling. Cats often hid somewhere to
have their kittens, so Grace fixed up a box with a door cut in it and fresh
towels inside, and hoped Mei Ling would use it.

She was also
anxious for Jack to see how she'd fixed up the baby's room as well as her
bedroom, with the bedspread from her house and a throw rug, which she put
beside the bed. Most of all, she wanted Jack to get used to having her around.
She missed curling up in bed with a man at night. She could imagine laying in
bed with Jack, spoon style, with his arms around her and his hands caressing
all the places that tingled whenever he was around, it seemed.

After a long,
hot shower beneath a pulsating jet spray, she stepped out of the glass-enclosed
stall, her mind filled with lustful thoughts of having Jack in the shower with
her, his hands soaping her, his palms cupping her breasts and stroking her big
round belly and moving down to tease
that
part of her. But the fantasy ended there because she was almost ready to give
birth, and Jack was too focused on his unborn son to realize the woman carrying
his child had needs too. A need to be held, and a need to be loved, and a need
to be wanted. And a need to express those feelings in a physical way, limited
though it might be at this point.

She defused
some of her pent-up sexual energy by drying her hair briskly with a towel, then
combing her fingers through it to un-snag the tangles, leaving it in a
disorderly mess around her face. Then she put on a lightweight flannel gown and
terrycloth robe and looped the belt above her protruding belly. But when she
left the bathroom, she was startled to see Jack standing at the end of the
hallway. The sight of him, looking like a figure out of a cowboy movie—tall,
broad-shouldered, denim-clad, wide leather belt and scuffed western boots with
spurs—near took her breath away.

Jack made no
move to approach her, as if not sure what to do next, yet looking like he
wanted to do
something
but not
knowing what. To get around the awkwardness, Grace said, "Your mother and
I went shopping. Come see the baby's room." She headed down the hallway,
hearing the clink of spurs and the sound of boots on floorboards as Jack
followed. She walked into the nursery and stopped, and Jack stood behind her
and looked over her head. "How do you like it?" she asked.

"It's
nice," Jack replied.

"Everything's
ready I think, but the shower pulsing against my belly stirred up your son and
he's kicking up a storm right now," she said. "Do you want to feel
him kick?"

There was a moment
of hesitation before Jack said, "Yes."

With Jack still
standing behind her, Grace un-looped the belt of her robe, allowing the robe to
fall open, and said, "Then give me your hands."

When Jack reached
his arms around her, she took his hands and placed them over her belly.
"His little foot... umm,
big
foot," she corrected, "is right about here, and if the punch behind
his kick is any indication, he's a very strong boy." She removed her hands
from on top of Jack's and ran her palms over his corded, muscular forearms
where his cuffs were turned back, then returned to cover his hands with hers,
resisting the urge to push his hands down...
 
or nudge them up. She wondered if other women
about to give birth had the urge to make love with the fathers of their babies.
But with her, she'd be making love with the father of her baby for the first
time. At least making love of sorts. There were limitations at this point.

Jack said
nothing, just stood with his chest against her back, and his arms curved around
her, and his palms against her belly.

"Jack?"
she asked, when she got no response. "Can you feel him?"

"Yes,"
Jack replied. He moved his palms down her belly to just above her pubic bone
and held them there for a few seconds, then moved them back to where they'd
been, as if realizing he'd crossed a line he shouldn't have.

Grace felt
Jack's chest rising and falling against her back, but his hands remained on her
belly, his knuckles against her enlarged breasts. "Do you feel him kicking?"
she asked.

Instead of replying,
Jack turned his hands and filled his palms with her unbound breasts. "When
did all this happen? Your breasts are much bigger than they were a month
ago," Jack said, palming her breasts, his big hands and long fingers
caressing them.

"I didn't
think you'd noticed," Grace replied, feeling aroused and excited, knowing
Jack was
finally
beginning to view
her as a women, instead of a fertility figure.

"I noticed.
Am I hurting you?" he asked, continuing to palm her breasts.

"It
doesn't matter," Grace replied. "I'm supposed to massage them every
day... and rub my nipples to make them less sensitive when the baby
nurses."

"Like
this?" Jack's thumbs began rubbing her nipples into puckered nubs.

"Yes..."
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine she was no longer pregnant, and the
baby was asleep, and she and Jack were in bed...

Jack released
her breasts and turned her around. "I didn't intend that to happen,"
he said. "The baby's room's nice." He took her by the shoulders,
looked at her soberly, and said, "Before my mother returned, you were dead
set against moving in. What made you change your mind?"

For whatever his
reason, Jack's thoughts were clearly disconnected from the intimacies of
moments before. Maybe because she was standing with him in the room where his
son died. Maybe because the time simply wasn't right...

"I moved
in because I saw the grave," Grace replied, holding Jack's gaze.

In an instant,
it was as if a cloud of sadness had settled over his face, drawing his features
down. He released her shoulders and walked over to the crib. "So you moved
in out of pity," he said, gripping the bed railing.

"No, I
moved in so you won't worry about your unborn son," Grace replied. She
walked over to stand beside him. "I want this baby. Nothing's going to
happen to him. I'm not like Susan, and I'm not like Lauren." She hadn't
intended to bring up Jack's ex-wife. It just slipped out. But maybe it would
open the door to a heart he'd kept solidly bolted inside.

"Then you
know the whole thing," Jack said, continuing to stare into the crib.

"Yes,"
Grace replied. "Your mother told me." She placed her hand on Jack's
arm. "I'm so sorry," she said, imagining him remembering his dead son
laying in the crib. "I know you're still grieving, so all I can do is
promise you this baby—" she placed her hand on her belly "—will
always be safe with me. I give you my word."

As Jack looked
into the crib, Grace saw the face of a man who'd lost everything he cherished,
even a wife he once loved. She waited, and hoped he'd put his arms around her
and hold her. Instead, he just stood looking down at the empty crib, saying
nothing, and after a while, she left him alone to mourn his son.

It came to her
then that she could not put their baby in the crib where Jack found his son
after his wife smothered him, or change their baby on the changing table where
Jack's son had been changed, or even keep baby clothes in the same dresser that
stood beneath the window.

Tomorrow, she'd
talk to Jack about going back to her house to pick up the new crib she'd
bought, with its headboard displaying pictures of monkeys hanging on it, and
the matching changing table and four-drawer dresser, along with the antique
rocker she'd had refinished to match the set. Then she'd insist he take the old
nursery set to the thrift shop, along with the boxes in the hall closet. It was
time to rid Jack's house of ghosts.

After drying
her hair and turning back her bed for the night, Grace returned to the nursery
to find Jack standing at the window. She could see his reflection in the glass,
but he didn't see hers because he was staring out at nothing, a faraway look on
his face. Walking over to the crib, she put her hand on the railing, and said, "I
can't put our baby in this crib. Every time you'll look at him you'll remember
your son and I can't live with that, so you can either pick up the new nursery
set at my house and replace this one, or take me home." When he turned to
look at her, she said, "I'm sorry if I sound insensitive, but that's the
way it is."

Jack's mouth
twitched in a kind of smile of understanding. Then he walked over to stand
beside her, and said in a cheerless voice while peering into the crib, "I
was thinking the same thing. I do see him the way he was. But I don't know if another
crib would make any difference."

"Then
let's set up the nursery in the bedroom where I'm staying and move me into this
room," Grace said. "We could repaint the other bedroom, and with the
nursery furniture from my house, everything would be different."

"That's a
lot of trouble," Jack replied, while continuing to peer into the crib.

"If it
brings you peace of mind, and makes it so you can look down at our son and see
only him, it's worth whatever it takes," Grace said. "You could pick
up a gallon of paint in town tomorrow, and since the other bedroom's a corner
room with two log walls, you'd only have to paint the interior walls, so when we
move in the new nursery furniture everything will be fresh."

Jack's brows
were gathered, and his eyes intense. Then he drew in an extended breath, and
said, "What should we do with Jackie's furniture?"

Grace thought
about that. Because Jack referred to it as
Jackie's
furniture
, the nursery set seemed to have a kind of hold on him, like a
perverse memorial, the last physical bond he had of his son. But to keep it
would be like holding onto the frayed piece of a rope that broke when a loved
one fell from a mountain. The loved one died, but the rope was the last
contact. "We can give it to the women's shelter," she said.
"They can always use another nursery set."

"I
suppose," Jack replied, in an uncertain voice. "It's just
furniture."

Grace placed
her hand over his on the crib railing, and said, "We also need to have a
picture of Jackie framed and hang it in the living room. He needs to be with
family. You do have pictures, don't you?"

Jack nodded.
"Some, but they're... somewhere. Maybe my mother has them. Things got
moved while I was... gone."

"We'll
also put together an album," Grace said. But Lauren Hansen would not be present.
Those pictures she'd burn, like getting rid of the frayed rope.

"What
color paint?" Jack asked, surprising Grace that he was finally coming
around.

"Pale
yellow," Grace replied. "The new nursery furniture has monkeys on it,
and one of them is holding a cluster of yellow balloons. Later, I'll pick up a
yellow baby bedspread."

"I guess
you're right."

Before Jack
could have second thoughts, Grace went over to the changing table and started
clearing it out. "I'll give you the keys to my house and you can pick up
the furniture tomorrow," she said. But before she could clear out the
dresser, Jack picked it up, filled drawers and all. As he edged his way through
the doorway, Grace looked across the hallway into Jack's bedroom, and realized,
with the new arrangement, she'd be able to see him at night if their doors
happen to be open, for whatever reason, which led into an imaginary
conversation with her older sister, Justine, whose numerous intimate relations
with men went back years...

 
'Yes,
Justine, I'm living with Jack. And no, we're not sleeping together.'

'Is there something wrong with him?' Justine
would ask.

'Yes, he's circumcised and the doctor cut a
little too close...'

Grace couldn't
help smiling at her own joke, imagining the expression on Justine's face when
she finally saw Jack and knew he was anything but a man with a missing part.
That is, if she ever let Justine meet Jack. Justine was the kind of woman whose
looks stopped men dead in their tracks, and Justine's little sister, Grace, was
the kind of woman men walked right past without noticing...