He’d already made his traditional trip out to the forest to cut a Christmas tree for his grandfather, and then he’d had the traditional argument over why he didn’t want one for the main house. Jake didn’t do Christmas. Hadn’t in years. In fact, the last holiday season he had “celebrated” had been on his first tour of duty in a war zone.
The guys in his company had built a “tree” out of whatever they could find—mostly discarded enemy weapons—and decorated it with string and bullets and paper “snow” torn out of padded envelopes sent from home. Missing their families, they’d all sung some carols, built a fire and pretended they were home. Until the enemy mortar fire exploded into camp, destroying the makeshift tree and killing two of Jake’s friends.
He hadn’t bothered celebrating since. For Jake, December was just a month to get through. Get past.
“Just as I’ll get through this one.”
“You say something?”
He turned to look at Anna as she hustled into the room and went straight to the stove where a huge pot of beef and barley soup was bubbling and sending out aromas designed to bring a hungry man to his knees.
“No,” he said, pushing old memories aside to focus on the here and now.
“Fine then.” She gave the pot a stir, then turned and braced both hands at her hips. Anna was in her fifties with graying blond hair, a thick waist and a no-nonsense attitude that Jake appreciated. “Charlie’s back from town. He’s just pulling into the front drive now.”
“Good.” Jake set his coffee cup down onto the counter. “I’ll go meet him.” His foreman had left the ranch in the four-wheel-drive Jeep more than an hour ago, without a word of explanation. And since Jake needed to talk to him about getting some hay out to the cattle before the next snow hit, he was anxious to find out what the hell had been important enough to drag him away from ranch business. He started across the room, then stopped. “Did he tell you why he went into town?”
Anna’s eyebrows lifted as she gave him a cool, hard glare. “He did.”
What was she mad about? “And?”
“And,” she repeated, tapping the toe of one boot against the floor, “you should go and see for yourself.”
Anna was usually a reasonable woman, Jake thought, but at the moment, she looked angry enough to come at him with the spoon she still clutched in one hand.
Maybe Christmas was getting to everybody.
“Fine, I’m going.” Shaking his head, he headed out of the kitchen and down the long hall toward the front of the house. Maybe Charlie knew what the hell was going on with his wife. Muttering darkly, Jake snatched his coat off the newel post at the foot of the stairs and shrugged into it. Then he tugged on his hat, grabbed the doorknob, yanked on it and almost plowed right into Cassie, standing on his front porch.
Her smoke-gray eyes shone with surprise, and her dark blond hair streamed down her shoulders from beneath a knit purple hat. She wore a heavy black coat and knee-high boots. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and as he adjusted to the shock of finding her on his front steps, he finally noticed what she was holding.
A baby.
Wrapped toe to neck in some kind of zip-up covering, all Jake could see of the child were big blue eyes—just like his own. A jolt of emotion shot through him so hard, he gripped the doorknob tight, to keep from falling over in shock.
“What the hell?”
“Jake,” Cassie said, “meet your son. Luke.”
Seven
“My son?” Silently, Jake congratulated himself on the self-control that kept his voice from raging with the fury erupting inside him. He looked into those soft gray eyes, read her defiance, and that damn near pushed him over the edge.
He couldn’t believe this. For nearly a year and a half, this woman had haunted him, waking and sleeping. Hell, he’d hardly known her and shouldn’t have given her another thought once she was gone. But he had. He’d missed her body and the soft, slick feel of her skin beneath his palms. The sound of her voice. Her laughter. The smoke-gray eyes that betrayed everything she was thinking, feeling. He’d missed the feel of her in his arms, the sighs as he entered her and the gasping groans when they each found their release.
Jake had even fantasized a couple times about seeing her here again.
He just had never imagined her carrying his child along with her.
His child.