The Blackstone Heir

Good question. “Let’s see. She doesn’t fit in with what I want in life, who I am. She’s more like Luke—unpredictable, headstrong.” And makes me feel just as unpredictable. Out of control.

“She’s gorgeous.”

“She works in a bar.”

“Ah, a hard worker.”

Jacob stared hard at the bookshelves, cataloging the shapes and colors of the books but not the titles. “She kept my son a secret.”

“So she panicked and made a mistake. You enjoyed being with her before. What’s the real problem?”

Could he let his guard down? Even a little? Jacob was used to his brothers confiding in him, not the other way around. “I just— Before, it was easy. But she’s right. I kept her compartmentalized so I wouldn’t have any interference in my life.” He ran his hand across his close-cropped hair. “It had nothing to do with only wanting her for sex and everything to do with making our relationship convenient for me.”

“Relationships are anything but convenient. I’m learning to roll with it because the good far outweighs everything else.”

Jacob felt a moment of envy. Inflexibility seemed to have been bred into him. Strict adherence to standards and procedures served him well in business, not so much in relationships. At least, the few he’d had. He rarely saw a woman more than a handful of times, since he wasn’t ready for the long-term thing yet. Maybe not for several more years.

KC had taken him off guard. He could admit to himself that he’d kept her compartmentalized in his life because he’d been afraid—afraid of her taking over, afraid of losing control, afraid of being ruled by emotions instead of his brain.

I want another chance at that woman. No. “She’s my son’s mother. Better to stay close and know your enemy, right?”

Aiden’s smirk took him by surprise. “Jacob, the last time I fell for that line, I ended up married to the woman who changed my life, my way of thinking, forever. For the better, but still...”

“Not me.”

Aiden’s expression screamed famous last words, but Jacob ignored it. Aiden had vowed at eighteen never to return to Blackstone Manor—now he was happily married and living here full-time, with frequent business trips to New York to manage his art import/export business.

Would Jacob end up the same? Moving home was definitely the right choice, especially since his son was now here. But married? Not to KC. As exciting as being with her was, he wanted peace, not unpredictability.

“Jacob.”

The serious tone in Aiden’s voice cut through Jacob’s confusion. “Yeah?”

“What are you going to do about KC? About the baby?”

“Carter,” he said, clearing his throat when it tried to close. “Forcing her to give him to me would probably lead to a legal battle—and prove me to be a jackass. She might not have a lot of money, but she won’t give him up without a fight.” He frowned. “The bigger question is, what is she gonna do about me?”

Aiden thought for a moment. “Do you want her?”

“I do, but I told you, she’s not right—”

“Sometimes things don’t come the way we plan.”

And Jacob had been planning his entire life. He didn’t know if he could give that up.

“I can’t walk away. He’s my son.” Deep down he cringed at the hypocrisy of speaking as if memories of those incredible nights together had no influence on Jacob’s desire to see KC again.

“Then you need to be very careful...for you and for them.”

Jacob glanced over. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what’s going on at the mill. We still haven’t figured out who’s trying to sabotage our business, and until we do, nobody associated with us is safe. Delaying shipments and messing with customers’ orders is annoying, but what happened to Christina last year could have killed her. She wasn’t the target, but that doesn’t change the result.”

Jacob remembered all too well the night a group of thugs had set Aiden’s studio on fire...with Christina inside. The incident was one of many suspicious events at the Blackstones’ cotton mill, but it had escalated the game to a whole new level. “You think they might target my son?”

“Not on purpose, but then again...” Aiden leveled a look at him, sending unease running over Jacob’s nerve endings. “It would be for the best to keep the connection quiet. For now.”

“Right.” For now. Jacob had a lot of experience keeping things quiet in this town.

“So get control, before someone else does.”

Like KC. Jacob had been irritated and fascinated at the baby store. Until she’d burst in and started making demands, he hadn’t known what it would be like to have all that feistiness turned on him as a weapon. His whole body had lit up inside. At this rate, she’d have the upper hand in no time. Leading him about by the nose, or rather, another appendage he’d just as soon keep under control.

Jacob was grateful when Aiden moved on, pulling him back out of his convoluted thoughts.

“Back to business,” Aiden said. “I had a call from Bateman at the mill right before Canton arrived.”

Jacob had had a call, too, but he’d let it go to voice mail. He’d been too keyed up from his clash with KC to make sense of business.

A problem he never had.

Deflating like a balloon, Jacob dropped into one of the chairs facing the desk, grateful Aiden had replaced the old leather-and-wood chairs with cozy wing backs. His brother and sister-in-law were slowly updating things in Blackstone Manor—especially the study—inch by inch scraping away the depressive stench of their grandfather’s manipulation to reveal the true beauty of a home that had stood for generations in the face of natural and man-made tribulations.

“I just don’t know how to get a handle on the problems at the mill,” Jacob said, reminding them both of the year they’d spent dealing with the saboteur. “We need to find another way of catching this guy. I mean, I’m there every day, but I’m in management. And no one’s talking to me. We need someone on the floor, someone relatable. I think that’s where the problem is.”

“Definitely can’t be either of us. See if Bateman can put you in touch with someone over there to help. He’ll know who’s trustworthy.”

“Right.” His foreman had already been very helpful. Because Jacob wasn’t capable of judging anyone at the moment. Business would give him something to focus on besides KC, just as soon as they settled on some ground rules.

Start as you mean to go on, his mother had always said. For everyone involved, that was exactly what they needed to do.

* * *

As she faced off with Jake on her front porch, KC knew she was simply delaying the inevitable, but she couldn’t stop herself from arguing just for the sake of it. “What if my mom wasn’t here to watch Carter?”

KC spoke with no real hope of making a dent in Jacob’s thinking but couldn’t resist pointing out the inconvenience he was putting everyone through. Everyone but him. She hated the push-pull of her emotions. Wanting to keep him at arm’s length, yet greedy for even a little bit of his attention. When he’d finally called after two days of silence, her heart had sped up, but she couldn’t help being contrary about his sudden demand for her to take a Sunday drive with him.

“If we’re going to do this, there will be ground rules,” he said now as he waited impatiently on her doorstep. “That means we need to talk. Alone.”

That take-charge tone shouldn’t send shivers down her arms but it did. “Yes, we should,” she conceded. “But you still could’ve given me a heads-up sooner.”

She took her time walking back to the nursery. Not that she had anything important to do on Sunday mornings. Her mother usually came over before lunch for some downtime with Carter since Lola’s wasn’t open. Sometimes KC ran a few errands. Then they had family dinner with Grandma. Asking her mother to stay with Carter for a little while was really a formality, but it also wouldn’t hurt Jacob to wait on her porch a few minutes, just for giggles and grins.

Her pokiness had her changing into jeans and pulling her hair into a ponytail, but she simply refused to hurry. He didn’t comment when she finally came outside, just held the door for her to climb into his Tahoe and closed it with a firm hand.

The contained atmosphere of Jacob’s SUV didn’t settle her nerves. The interior smelled like him—spicy and dark. If she closed her eyes and breathed deep, she could almost remember what it felt like to have that scent all over her and wish she didn’t ever have to wash it away. After all, she never knew when she might smell it again.

After she’d left, been away from him for a while, she realized how sad it was to need someone so badly and yet be relegated mostly to a physical relationship. They said men did it all the time—obviously Jake had—but KC had never felt more alone than when she was lying in his arms, wishing she was good enough for him to make her a true part of his life.