"Lexie was my girlfriend," Riley said wistfully. "Eden, do you remember I brought her home?" Eden shook her head and punctuated the action with a huge sigh.
"To be honest, Ri, I don't remember her, but I'm surprised this hasn't happened before. Considering the amount of girls you went through then and since, you're lucky you're not the father of twelve." Eden wasn't laughing. She was actually deadly serious, and Riley didn't rise to the sibling censure, but it still made Jack wince.
"Has the press gotten involved yet?" Jack was just being pragmatic. It was Riley and Eden's reality. The press followed the Hayes family like vultures.
"Not so far. She didn't mention taking the story to the press, and there was no threat in her visit. She was just resigned. But we should think about keeping it quiet. Whatever the outcome." Eden's voice was firm. Jack wanted to defuse the tension in the car, but mostly he wanted to see the soft-hearted side of Eden rather than this practical side of her.
"Eden, can you tell us about her?"
Eden was quick to answer, and this time she had affection in her voice. "Small. Itty-bitty girl with blond hair to her waist and huge brown eyes. Very quiet. She didn't say anything, just looked at me and the ranch and the horses and then hid her face."
"I don't understand. Why'd the aunt bring her to the D? Poor kid just lost her momma." Jack made the question sound more like an observation and qualified it with his reasoning. "Surely she could have waited to make sure Riley was there."
"Apparently the girl asked her aunt to find your family quickly."
"She asked her that?" Riley looked sharply at his sister.
"Wanted to meet her daddy she said."
And with that statement Jack knew it wouldn't matter if Hayley had Hayes blood or not. She was theirs.
They were going to be daddies.
* * * *
The ranch didn't look any different from when they'd left. The road was as pitted, the fence as pristine, and the horses turned out in the paddocks and acreage of the Double D. Donna was waiting for them at the main house, eager to hand out hugs to the two men. In fact, Jack felt like they'd never left.
"I have coffee," his momma said simply, "and cookies." Typically, his mom was dealing with a crisis using a combination of caffeine and chocolate and her patented hugs.
Seated at the scarred kitchen table, they spoke very little about the elephant in the room to start with. No one asked the question that really needed an answer. No one said "what are you going to do?" to Riley. Instead, by the time Jack and Riley had moved to the bedroom, they had covered everything from the weather to the honeymoon to the oil market. Conspicuous by its absence was any in depth discussion about Hayley or her mom, other than the rehashing of what had been said before. They were in a curious kind of limbo until the next day and discussing what-ifs and maybes would serve little purpose.
Riley was in bed first, lying back on the pillows and staring up at the ceiling. His cell phone was in his hand, and he was nervously turning it over and over. Jack reached over and removed the cell in a quick motion before Riley could argue. He placed it on the table, climbed into bed, and stopped anything Riley was going to say in protest with a searching, breath-stealing kiss. The connection wasn't the kind of kiss that served as a prelude to sex; it was just comforting, easy and right.
"There's nothing we can do tonight." Riley closed his eyes and rolled onto his side away from Jack then scooted back so he could be the little spoon. Six foot plus of muscled man needed his support, and Jack would be there whenever it was needed. Whether either of them would ever fall to sleep was debatable, but at least they were together.
C
HAPTER
4
Riley leaned against the cold wall of the shower, his back flat to the tiles and the water hot against his chest and legs. Woken from a fitful sleep by the sun shining through open drapes was not a good start to any day. Added to which Jack was missing from the bed, and it did nothing for his nerves about the morning ahead. Exhaustion was clouding the edges of his thoughts, and even after two cups of hot black coffee, it was all he could do to stand upright in the walk-in shower. A note on Jack's pillow, a simple missive saying 'Horses restless—back soon', was enough to explain why his husband wasn't still asleep next to him. Riley sent up a quick thought. He hoped the horse was going to be okay. More than halfway through her pregnancy, Taylors Wood was restless and seemingly needy of Jack's touch. He knew exactly how that felt, minus the pregnant part. He wanted Jack's arms around him now, and he squashed the irrational jealousy he felt for a horse. Jack had this way of smoothing the jagged peaks and troughs of Riley's emotions—settling him with calm control.
Take the news Riley could have fathered a child for instance. That little nugget of information would be enough to have some partners running for the hills, but all Jack had said was that everything would be all right. Riley desperately wanted to believe him. But how could things be the same again? Was he a father? Had Lexie left college pregnant with his baby? Who was this great aunt? Why hadn't Lexie told him? Did it even matter if Hayley was his or not if the kid was alone in the world?
He didn't remember exchanging an awful lot of information with Lexie about a family she may have had, but he did remember the weekend he had taken her home to his with absolute clarity. She was his rage against the machine. His way of showing Gerald, the man he'd thought was his father, he could make something of himself and find a nice, well brought up girl all on his own. His mom had been civil, Gerald had been suspiciously quiet, Jeff hadn't even been at home, and Eden had been young and chatty. He was surprised Eden couldn't remember Lexie; hell, it wasn't as if he took girls home on a daily basis. Then again, Eden had been a teenager in her own world. Lexie hadn't been the daughter of family friends. She had been all his and very different. She didn't talk Paris fashion or todie-for shoes with Eden and certainly didn't fawn all over him for what he had, or for what his family had.
He hadn't managed to get his own way with her on date one, except for one smack in the face for the unshakeable Riley Hayes. She had thrown his initial clumsy drunken pass back in his face with an icy cold look of disdain, and that had sealed her fate as his next conquest. Incredibly bright, funny, sassy, she was just exactly what a young guy who wanted for nothing needed. She was a challenge.
Riley remembered dark brown hair, wide blue eyes, and a body to drool over, encased in tight denim and T's that ended just below her ample breasts. He also recalled her shutting him out of her room naked after coming back from classes to find him lounging on her bed. It had taken a long time and many underhanded processes to get into Lexie's pants, and it had been so worth it. She was enthusiastic in bed and everything Riley wanted in a partner at that time. Being bi meant he had the pick of everyone, but girls were where it was at when he was at college, his fumbling with boys no more than mutual masturbation when drunk. Jack had been his real first male, and his only now, for the rest of Riley's natural life. Jack was his, and he was Jack's.