Cowboy In Charge

“—which made the split permanent.”

“I know it did, but—”

“Legally permanent,” she said heavily, leaning forward as if to emphasize her point.

He frowned.

She kept coming. The quick glance he caught of her suddenly greenish pallor clued him in. She was halfway to unconsciousness and ready to drop.

As he caught her to him, the door behind her swung open. A little boy stood just inside the frame. And somewhere in the apartment behind the kid, a baby let out an earsplitting screech.

* * *

LAYNE DID THE best she could with toothbrush and mouthwash and comb, but it wasn’t much. And it was quick.

The symptoms she had been battling for two days now had gotten worse instead of better, and the short time on her feet showed her just how shaky this flu had left her. She gave thanks that when she had gone to answer the door, she hadn’t been holding the baby.

The last thing she remembered before passing out was the look of alarm on Jason’s face. When she had come to, she found herself cradled like a baby herself in his arms. She had fainted for only a second, he assured her. Still, ignoring her protests, he carried her into the small living room and deposited her on the couch.

Moments later, her stomach had heaved and she had bolted and here she was now, hiding in her bathroom the way she and her friends had hidden in the girls’ room at school when they wanted to exchange gossip about the boys.

The only boy she’d ever had eyes for was Jason.

She heard her son’s footsteps as he marched down the hall. He came to a stop in the bathroom doorway. As awful as she felt, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him. He and Jill were the lights of her life. Suddenly, he frowned, his eyebrows bunching together. She inhaled sharply, which led to another bout of coughing. Scott had her blue eyes and brown hair, but his frowning expression was pure Jason.

“Mommy sick?” he asked.

“Mommy’s better,” she said. She just didn’t know how long that would last.

“I’m hungry.”

The thought of food made her stomach quiver. “No problem, honey. How about—”

“Soup?”

She nodded. Luckily, she had made chicken soup a few weeks ago. The surplus she had stored in the freezer had gotten her through these past couple of days. She still had a large bowl of the soup in the refrigerator.

“Yes-s-s. Es-s-s. Soup for Scott for supper,” he chanted in a singsong, laughing. He was learning the alphabet from his babysitter, who ran a day care from her house. To reinforce his lessons, here at home she played sound and word games with him. The sentence game was his favorite, and she had been so proud of him the day he’d created that sentence all by himself.

“Yes, soup for Scott for supper,” she repeated in a singsong. “That sounds super, sweetie.”

He laughed again. “That man will have soup, too?”

She froze. No, that man will be long gone by suppertime. “I’m not sure about that.” She looked at the small clock she kept on the bathroom vanity and realized it was time to wake her daughter from her nap. “Come on, let’s go get the baby and start that soup.”

“Start soup for Scott for supper,” he chanted, his voice fading as he went back down the hall toward the living room.

She tightened the long belt of her fuzzy robe and took one last look in the mirror. The teenage girl who had once fallen for Jason cringed and longed to reach for her makeup bag. But the woman she’d become lifted her chin and nodded at the reflection in the mirror.

Let him deal with her just the way she was now. It served him right for showing up unannounced after all this time.

She wasn’t about to recall the way her heart had pounded and her head had swum and a tremor had run through her when she had opened the door to find him standing in the hallway. They were all simply reactions to the flu—and anyone could have passed out after getting hit with all those symptoms.

She also wasn’t about to dwell on the past or worry about the intervening years or feel embarrassed by what had happened just a few minutes ago. She was going to get rid of Jason. Again. And hope this time he stayed gone.

As she turned to leave the bathroom, Scott began to yell. “Help! Help! You’re not my daddy! Leave my sister alone!”

Every single word he screeched made her heart sink faster. She hurried down the hall and burst into the living room.

The baby lay in her playpen on the opposite side of the room, closer to the kitchen. Her beet-red face and gleaming eyes were sure signs she had woken up cranky and crying.

And, lost in thought, her mommy hadn’t heard a peep.

Scott had taken a stance with his back to the playpen and his arms outstretched toward Jason as if holding a wild animal at bay. Jason stood a couple of feet from him, his hands patting the air presumably to calm her son.

Fighting another wave of dizziness, she put her hand on the door frame. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

Chapter Two (#ulink_4eac0717-2d9d-5a93-81ab-811d448d8173)

Jason froze. Wasn’t it bad enough to have the kid yelling and fending him off as if he were a tiger ready to pounce? He didn’t need Layne standing there looking at him as if she considered him something much worse.

With a jerky movement, he showed her the yellow plastic pacifier he was holding. “I didn’t know how long you’d be, and she looked like she was getting ready to start bawling up a storm again.”

“Again?”

Confusion replaced her rebellious tone, making him swallow his irritation. She must not have recovered from her earlier fainting spell as completely as he’d thought she had. He nodded. “She was crying when I carried you in here and going even stronger when you bolted.”

“Oh.” Still looking shaky, she started across the room.

“Sit on the couch. I’ll bring the baby to you.”

When he moved forward, the boy tensed. “You’re not my—”

“It’s okay, Scott,” Layne said quickly.

“But Miss Rhea says—”

“I know. But I’m right here, and I know this man.”

Still eyeing him suspiciously, the kid stepped aside. “Okay. We can have soup now? I’m hungry.”

The baby let out another screech. Jason put the pacifier in her mouth and bent over to lift her, supporting her head with one hand the way he’d seen Greg do with his daughter. Good thing he had. She couldn’t have weighed much more than a kitten, but she was twice as wiggly and not nearly as cute with that red, wrinkled face. Sort of like her mama right now.

He’d think about that—and worry about whose kid she was—later. Layne looked ready to drop again, but if he didn’t move soon, she would probably refuse to wait until he carried the baby over to her. He hurried across the room. “Sit,” he said gruffly. “You don’t want to take the chance of standing with her and passing out a second time, do you?”

She sank to the couch and took the baby from him. The girl immediately stopped crying and nuzzled the front of Layne’s robe like a calf looking for her mama’s milk.

“What’s that about soup?” he asked.