That McCloud Woman (18 page)

Her
gaze snapped to his. "You have a son?" she asked in surprise.

"Had,"
he corrected.
"I lost him a little over six months ago in a car wreck."

Alayna
sank back against her chair, slowly absorbing the news. Jack had lost a son.
That explained so much. The lack of emotion in his eyes. His avoidance of Billy
and Molly. "Oh, Jack," she murmured sadly. "I'm so sorry."

He
rose quickly, shifting the baby to his arms, then rounded the table and held
the infant out to Alayna, avoiding her gaze. "I better get to work."
After making the exchange, he turned and headed for the door.

Alayna
pressed the diaper tab into place, then pulled the soft pink kimono down over
Meggie's skinny legs. "All dry," she said, smiling as she lifted the
baby into her arms. Meggie seemed more content now that she'd received the
second dose of colic medicine—at least, she wasn't crying any longer.

Humming
softly, Alayna walked to the window and looked out across the lawn and toward
the old barn. Two sawhorses were sitting in the barn's open doorway and the
Pond House's front door lay stretched across their tops. Jack stood beside the
sawhorses, stooped, his hands braced against an electric sander, a long black
cord stretched out behind him. Chips of old paint flew from beneath the sander
while a thin cloud of dust puffed around his head. She watched as he paused to
smooth a hand across the wood, testing its surface, then put the sander back in
place. A sigh shuddered through her.

She
remembered the feel of those same hands smoothing across her bare skin. Wide,
strong, rough with calluses, yet gentle. Oh, so gentle.

Slowly
she turned away from the window and moved to sit down in the rocker. Shifting
Meggie to cradle the infant in her arms, she pressed her foot to the carpet and
set the rocker into motion.

He
had a son. Jack had a son.

It
explained so much, she thought as she rocked slowly to and fro. The emptiness
in his eyes, the lack of emotion there. His avoidance of Billy and Molly. And
it explained the question he'd asked her that night in the cabin.

How do you do it? How do you let
them go?

She
realized now that he'd asked the question out of personal need, not out of
curiosity. It seemed that Jack was having a hard time dealing with the loss of
his son and handling the grief associated with that loss.

She
felt a kick against her stomach and focused once again on the baby she held.
Meggie stared up at her, her blue eyes wide and unblinking. Smiling softly,
Alayna touched a finger to the corner of the baby's mouth. Meggie turned her
face at the touch, her mouth opening and seeking as if she were a baby bird
waiting for her mommy bird to drop in a worm.

"And
where are your mommy and daddy?" Alayna asked Meggie. With a regretful
shake of her head, she reached for the bottle she'd left on the changing table
and tickled Meggie's lips with its nipple. Meggie opened her mouth and began to
suck greedily.

Alayna
rocked slowly, staring down at the baby, her mind warring against all the
injustices in the world. Lives lost in senseless tragedies. People with the
ability to produce children like rabbits, but who didn't want the burden of a
child, while others, who would trade anything for the gift of a child, were
left childless.

Why?
she cried silently. Oh, God, why?

There
was no answer to her question, but then Alayna had expected none.

But
she did recognize a similarity in her and Jack's lives. Jack had had a child,
and lost him. Alayna had never had a child, but felt the same loss. Jack had
lost a part of his heart on a highway somewhere. Alayna had lost a part of hers
in a doctor's sterile office with the words, "You're barren."

Yet,
she saw differences in their situations, as well. Alayna had discovered a way
to share her love with a child, while Jack had closed his heart from feeling
anything.

That's
not true, she thought with a shake of her head, though it had been true when
Jack had first arrived. But he had changed over the weeks he'd been with them.
She'd seen the emotion that had darkened his eyes when he'd returned Molly's
bear to her and Molly had kissed him. And she'd watched the way he interacted
with Billy, a child he claimed to dislike, offering guidance to the boy with an
equal measure of patience and care.

Oddly
Alayna felt no need to meddle, or to offer the wisdom of her education to help
Jack deal with his grief. The children—Billy, Molly, and even Meggie, she
reflected, glancing down at the sleeping face of the infant she held—were doing
a very good job of that on their own.

Jack
braced a hand on the door, holding it in place while Billy aligned the pin
above the hinge. "Just give the pin a slight tap to set it in place."

Billy
lifted the hammer and thumped it against the metal pin's head, sinking it about
a quarter of the way down into the hinge's slot. "Like that?" he
asked, looking up at Jack for approval.

"Looks
good to me. Now give it a few solid whacks, but be careful not to dent the
pin's head."

Firming
his lips in determination, Billy lifted the hammer and pounded it against the
pin, setting it deeply in place. He braced the hammer against the floor of the
porch and looked up at Jack again. "How's that?"

Jack
shot him a grin. "Good job." He held out his hand and Billy passed
him the hammer. Jack took another pin, and held it in place above the door's
highest hinge. He lifted the hammer and drove the pin into the slot in one
smooth swing.

"Wow,"
Billy murmured, impressed. "You only had to hit it once. It took me 'bout
four swings."

Jack
laughed and ruffled the boy's hair. "Yeah, but I'm bigger than you and
I've had more practice."

Laughing,
Billy ducked from beneath Jack's hand and skipped down the steps at Jack's
side. "What's next?" he asked. "Are we gonna hammer something
else?"

"Nope.
I thought we might try your hand at painting."

Billy
raced ahead a few steps, then turned, jogging backward. "Cool, dude! I
know how to paint. We paint all the time at school."

Jack
laughed, thinking that the job he had in mind for Billy might be on a larger
scale than the painting the boy had done in the classroom. "Good. Then you
won't need much instruction."

Billy
continued to jog backward, his arms pumping. "What're we gonna
paint?"

"The
gazebo."

Billy
stumbled to a stop. "The gazebo?" he repeated. "The one by the
pond?"

Jack
stopped, too, frowning. "Yeah. You got a problem with that?"

Billy
stole a glance at the house, then looked back at Jack and grinned. "Nope.
Race you!" he challenged and took off at a run for the barn.

Jack
hesitated only a second, then loped after him. He caught up with Billy quickly,
scooped the boy up underneath his arm and raced on.

Billy
squealed, laughing as he bounced roughly against Jack's side.

Nine

«
^
»

"
I
t
sure is hot."

Jack
wiped the excess paint from his brush, then nodded his head as he straightened
to stand before one of the gazebo's support columns. "Yep, it is," he
replied.

"I'll
bet the water's cool, though."

Jack
glanced over at Billy. The boy was standing, staring wistfully at the pond, his
paintbrush hanging uselessly at his side, dripping paint onto the grass. Jack
bit back a smile. "Yeah, I'll bet it is. You can take a break, if you want
to. You're due one."

Billy
whipped his head around, his eyes wide with excitement. "I can go
swimming?"

"Can
you swim?"

Billy
grinned. "Sure I can!"

Jack
gave him a nod. "Fine with me, then. Strip down to your drawers, so you'll
have some dry clothes to put on when you're done."

Before
the instructions were even out of Jack's mouth, Billy had dropped to the ground
and was shucking off his shoes and socks. He hopped back to his feet, peeling
his shirt over his head. He gave his jeans a shove over his hips and kicked
free of them, leaving him wearing nothing but a pair of Scooby Doo briefs. Jack
shook his head, laughing as Billy raced for the pier.

Billy
and those jeans of his, Jack thought, still chuckling. They were so big the kid
didn't even have to bother with unbuttoning or unzipping them. He just gave
them a shove and they dropped to the ground.

"Hey,
Jack! Watch this!"

Billy
stood at the end of the pier, waving wildly. Jack grinned and returned the
wave. Taking a deep breath, the boy pinched his nose between thumb and finger
and jumped in. Water splashed a good four feet in the air when the kid hit the
surface in the worst belly flop of a dive Jack had ever seen.

Jack
winced, feeling the sting on his own flesh, then shook his head, smiling
wistfully. He remembered a time when he and his twin brother Travis used to
have contests to see who could make the highest splash. Of course, Travis had
always won. Of the two of them, Travis was the most athletic, the most daring.
He could swim like a fish, hunt like a hound and had nerves of steel.

Jack
frowned as he thought about his brother, wondering how Travis was managing
alone, running the building business they owned in partnership. Jack shook off
the guilt that rose, and focused his gaze on the pond, watching the ripples
smooth, the water's surface turn to glass once again.

The
boy ought to be coming up for air by now, he thought, and took a step toward
the shore. He took another step, then he was running, stripping his shirt over
his head. He ran down the pier, the boards pitching wildly beneath his feet.
Keeping his eyes glued to the spot where Billy had jumped in, he kicked off his
boots, took a deep breath and dived in.

Water
burned through his nose as he plunged beneath the surface. He kicked hard,
driving himself deeper, his arms pushing against the weight of the water and
searching. Squinting his eyes against the murky water, he spun slowly, looking
for some sign of Billy.

His
lungs screamed for oxygen, and Jack knew that he had to find Billy soon. Time
was running out.

He
felt something brush the back of his calves, and he whipped himself around.

Billy!

He
grabbed the lifeless boy hard against his chest and kicked furiously for the
surface, swimming with one hand and holding Billy tight against him with the
other. He broke through the surface, gasping for air. He quickly rolled Billy
to his back and his face to the sky. The boy's eyes were closed, his mouth
slack, his skin a deathly white. Pond water dribbled from his mouth.

Swallowing
back the fear that rose, Jack wrapped an arm around the boy and swam for the pier,
towing the boy along with him.

"Don't
you dare die on me, Billy," he threatened, his voice raw. "Don't you
dare die."

Jack
sat beside the hospital bed, his shoulders hunched forward, his elbows on his
thighs, his hands dangling between his knees. His gaze was fixed on the little
boy who lay on the bed, a monitor bleeping a record of his vital signs while he
slept.

Alayna
wondered what was keeping Jack upright. He had to be exhausted after sitting
beside the bed all through the night. "Jack?" she called softly.

When
he didn't respond, she tiptoed across the room and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Jack?"

He
twisted around at her touch, brought her into focus and slowly rose. "Did
you talk to the doctor?"

The
sight of his ravaged face nearly brought Alayna to her knees. She pressed her
fingers to her lips to still their trembling. "Y-yes. H-he's going to be
all right," she said. "The scan showed no sign of brain damage."

Jack
dropped his chin to his chest and heaved a breath of relief. "Thank
God," he murmured.

"Jack,"
Alayna said, reaching out to touch his arm, "why don't you go home and get
some rest. I'll stay with Billy."

Jack
spun and sat back down, resuming his watch. "No. I'll stay."

"But,
Jack—"

"No,"
he repeated more firmly. "I need to be here when he wakes up."

Alayna
wanted to argue with him, insist that he go home and get some sleep, but she
knew that she'd just be wasting her breath. Jack wasn't leaving Billy's side
until the boy woke up and assured Jack himself that he was going to be all
right. Jack blamed himself for the accident and nothing anyone could say or do
would convince him otherwise.

Wanting
to comfort him, to ease his guilt, she placed a hand on his shoulder. She felt
the tension in him, felt the shudder that passed through him before he lifted
his hand and covered hers with his own. The strength of his grip, the
desperation in it, brought tears to her eyes.

"If
anything had happened to him… If he had… I—"