How could she live with herself knowing that she’d brought Luke the kind of pain no child should ever know? The pain of knowing that your parent didn’t want you.
To make matters worse, she couldn’t sleep.
Luke wasn’t the problem. He’d been sleeping through the night since he was two months old, bless him. No, it was her own mind that was keeping her awake. Thoughts of Jake refused to quiet down and go away.
This was not how she had expected her trip to Montana to go. Cass had been prepared for Jake’s anger, but the thought that he might now want to take custody of Lucas had never occurred to her. As for the proposal, that hadn’t been real and they both knew it. He was just angry—he had a right, she could admit that—but he didn’t want her, he wanted his son.
He couldn’t have Luke.
Even sharing her son was going to be hard at first. After all, since Luke’s birth, Cass had been on her own, doing everything herself. Yes, that was her own doing, but the fact remained that things were going to be changing now.
Remembering the last of their conversation hours before, she cringed.
“I know you believe that proposing to me is the right thing to do,” she said, struggling to keep a calmness she wasn’t feeling in her voice, “and I appreciate the thought. But this isn’t the 1950s and I don’t need you to step in and save my reputation. Luke and I are doing fine on our own.”
“But you’re not on your own anymore, Cassie,” he said, voice as dark as the shadows crouched in his eyes. “There’s me to contend with, too. And I don’t give a flying damn about some fifties ideal. I asked you to marry me because you’re the mother of my son and I figured you’d rather be where he is.”
“I will be. In Boston.”
“Montana. Get used to it.”
How was she supposed to get used to an ultimatum?
She flipped onto her side, facing the crib and the wall of windows, and punched at her pillow. It wouldn’t help her sleep, but it took care of a little of the frustration clawing at her.
How could you argue with a man who spoke in two-word sentences?
But he’d had more to say today, hadn’t he? And then the proposal? Her stomach swam with nerves and...pleasure?
Oh, God. She slapped one hand to her forehead. How could she even pretend to enjoy that dogmatic demand for marriage? She had to be as crazy as he was.
Desire was one thing, she told herself firmly—letting it get out of hand was something else. She had to remember what was important here. Luke. That’s why she’d come back to Montana. Keeping her son safe had been the goal.
Though now she had to worry about Jake’s trying to get custody, so had she really ensured Luke’s safety?
When the door to her bedroom opened quietly, a spear of light from the hallway slanted across her bed, lighting up the darkness. She didn’t turn to look. She didn’t have to. She could feel Jake’s presence. What she didn’t know was what he wanted. But she’d had enough of arguing for the night, so she feigned sleep, not moving a muscle as he stepped into her room.
The door remained open and the light looked like a golden slash through the shadows. He moved so softly, all she heard was the whisper of his jean-clad thighs. Holding her breath, she waited to see what he would do. If he came to her, if he kissed her, Cass knew she’d be lost. All of these months without his touch left her vulnerable to his slightest caress.
But he didn’t come to her. Instead, he walked to the crib. Cass heard Boston’s tail thump against the floor before Jake shushed him with a quiet command. Cass looked at the man in the shadows and watched as he bent low over the crib, reaching down to the sleeping baby. She saw him smooth his work-roughened hand over his son’s head and her heart twisted at that gentle action.
“Hello, Luke,” Jake whispered in hardly more than an expelled breath. “I’m your father. You don’t know me yet. But I promise you will.”
Luke snuffled and made the little squeaky sound that always made Cass think he was dreaming.
Jake watched the sleeping boy for what felt like hours. Cass’s heart ached for the man and for herself. She was in serious trouble here and she knew it. Because the simple truth was, she loved Jake Hunter—a man determined to keep his heart locked away behind a wall of his own making.
Then finally, as quietly as he’d arrived, he left her room, shutting the door behind him.
* * *
By morning, the wind had died down a little and the sky looked as if it had been cast out of molten silver. Huge clouds settled over the mountain, looking as though they might drop right out of the sky any minute. It was cold, too, but Cassie had Luke bundled against the weather, zipped into his baby snow sack. When she carried him outside and stepped off the porch, she gulped in a breath of air that was so cold it felt like icicles being shoved down her throat. She probably should have stayed in the house, but she wanted to talk to Ben, and making an old man come out in the cold seemed mean somehow.