feet tall, 170 pounds, light brown hair. He always wore a surgical mask, but if he hasn’t altered his hair, I think I could pick him out of a photo lineup.”
It’d be a bear to sort through all the doctors in the state, but Josh made a mental note to ask the analysts at Quantico to work on it. They might get lucky.
“You know if the baby’s a boy or girl,” she said.
The out-of-the-blue comment threw him for a moment. But Josh just nodded. “Why? You want to know?”
She shook her head. Groaned softly. “This seems crazy, huh? Me pregnant with your baby.”
Yeah, it did. Of course, when they’d made the baby, it was before the shooting, when they were still on good terms. They weren’t on good terms now, but like the flashbacks he’d been having, Josh was going to have to put that aside, too.
“I’m scared of you,” Jaycee went on. “Scared you’ll try to fight me for custody or something.”
Again, the comment threw him, and he wasn’t sure it was a good thing to have that possibility out in the open like this. Especially since he had plenty of other things to work out in his head.
“I want to be part of the baby’s life,” he settled for saying. It was a safe response. And an honest one. He might want more than just a part, and while he didn’t say that aloud, it seemed as if Jaycee picked up on it.
She swallowed hard. “And that’s what scares me. You have a normal life. Good roots and a law-abiding family. I don’t have any of that.”
She didn’t. Both her parents had served hard time for an assortment of crimes, and he’d heard that Jaycee had been brought up in foster care. His parents had divorced when he was a kid, and his mother had left, but it wasn’t the same. So yeah, by her standards he did have a normal life.
Well, except he was suffering from PTSD and might never recover. That wouldn’t look good on a custody challenge if that was what he decided to do.
He took the final turn to the ranch, and Jaycee got an immediate glimpse of his “normal” life. There were now six houses on the grounds, assorted barns, outbuildings and miles and miles of pasture for the horses and cattle raised on the ranch.
“Five of my cousins had houses built after they got married and started families of their own,” he explained. “My other cousin, Mason, lives in the main house with his wife and dad.”
“The one who’s getting married this weekend.”
“That’s right. Boone Ryland. He’s marrying a former deputy, Melissa Garza. She retired recently, and that’s how I got the job.”
Jaycee made an idle uh-huh sound, but her attention wasn’t on anything he’d pointed out, but rather the children in the fenced playground on the side of the main house.
“There’s so many of them,” she whispered. “It looks like a day care.”
It did. “They’re all kin. Last count, my cousins have nine offspring, and Mason and his wife have one on the way.”
And at the moment it seemed that all nine were out playing while a few of their moms watched.
Josh slowed when he reached the playground. The moms all waved. One of the kids, Kimmie, who was four years old, saw him and blew him a kiss.
“The little red-haired girl seems to like you,” Jaycee mumbled.
She did. Though Josh couldn’t understand why. He’d never been comfortable around kids, and they seemed to be uncomfortable around him. All except for Kimmie. That gave him a little hope that his own child might feel the same way.
He drove past the playground to the back part of the east pasture to a weathered-looking barn and pulled to a stop in front of it.
“You live here?” Jaycee asked, sounding skeptical and surprised.
Another dose of his version of normal. “The top floor’s been converted into an apartment. But if you like, I can get you a guest room in the main house.”
She glanced back in the direction of the children and their moms. Then the barn. “Your place will be fine.”
Josh bit back a smile. Barely. That’d been his reaction when he’d first returned home. “The kids grow on you,” he confessed.
At least that’s what he’d heard anyway.
He led her up the side stairs to the studio-style apartment. Even though the barn was isolated, it still had all the conveniences of a real house.
Jaycee paused in the doorway, her gaze moving over the room. But there wasn’t much to see. Other than the bathroom, it was just one big open space, with the modest kitchen and sitting area on one side and his bed on the other. There were clothes scattered on the floor. Dishes in the sink. Just the way he’d left it when he’d gone to work earlier.
“You haven’t been sleeping well,” she commented. Jaycee tipped her head to the unmade bed. The covers were in a tangled heap. His prescription pain meds were on the nightstand.
“Sometimes,” Josh settled for saying.
He went in, too, shutting the door behind them, and he tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter before he set the security alarm. A first for him since the ranch had always felt so safe, but nothing felt safe enough now.
“A security system in a barn?” she murmured.
“Yeah. Mason had it installed a few years ago after some intruders managed to get onto the grounds. Most of the buildings have security.”
That put some renewed fear on her face.
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “It was nothing recent. Nothing to be concerned about.”
But of course, they were both still concerned.
Jaycee inched across the room to the huge bay window at the far end of the room. It was late afternoon, and the butter-colored sun hit her just right to spotlight her.
Josh felt that punch of heat.
A punch he definitely didn’t want to feel but, like the other things going on in his head today, he couldn’t seem to push this one aside.
“Should we try to clear the air?” Jaycee asked with her back to him.
“No.” And he didn’t have to think about it. No way did he want to discuss the shooting with her. Besides, they were well past the air-clearing stage.
She turned, met his gaze. “Then at least let me say I’m sorry.”
He didn’t want to hear it, but it would have been petty to blast her for an apology that he couldn’t accept. Josh was still trying to figure out what to say when she crinkled her nose and slid her hand over her belly.
“Are you okay?” he quickly asked.
“It’s just the baby kicking.”
It
