As if startled awake, Jackson came to sudden, shimmering life, his voice harsh, his back steel-rod straight. “What?” His fingers tightened painfully on Phoebe’s shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
Phoebe sighed wearily. She had tried to tell herself for days the landlady wasn’t serious, but as the same threat came with increasing frequency, she was finding it tougher and tougher to dismiss.
The little lady tightened her mouth. “Maybe it’s my duty to report the unusualness of these circumstances.”
“These circumstances,” Jackson repeated. He stalked around the love seat as if he needed to move. “Social Services.” He practically spat the words from his mouth.
Phoebe reached out to put her hand on his arm. The skin was hot, and his muscles twitched with tension. “It’s okay, Jackson.”
“It’s not okay,” he said, his voice hoarse, his expression grim. “It’s never okay to take a child away from someone who loves it.”
Mrs. Bee’s expression didn’t soften. “She’s not his mother.”
Jackson’s voice went hoarser still. “This child doesn’t have a mother. He has Phoebe, who’s doing a good job caring for him.”
Though his words warmed her, Phoebe didn’t take her hand from his arm. Some strange and powerful emotion radiated from him, and it worried her. She stared into his face, aware that something was going on behind his eyes, some pain he was reliving…or maybe some pain he was anticipating. “Jackson?” she said softly.
He stood stiffly for another moment, then visibly relaxed, even coming to sit beside Phoebe and slide his arm along the back of the love seat. “Anyway,” he said, his voice now quite deliberate and gentle. “This whole conversation is unnecessary.”
There was something dangerous left in his voice, though, and a glitter in his eyes that seemed to make even Mrs. Bee wary.
“What do you mean?” she said cautiously.
Jackson cupped Phoebe’s shoulder with his palm. The heat of his touch streaked down her arm, and she squeezed her hand into a fist in response. “I mean Rex has the kind of two-parent, stable home life you want so much for him. Or will have, anyway.”
Phoebe’s mouth went dry, and another ripple of heat coursed through her body.
Mrs. Bee’s eyes were wide. “What are you saying?” the older lady asked.
“I’m saying Phoebe and I are getting married.”
“What were you thinking of?” Phoebe asked Jackson, her voice tense.
He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “I—” He couldn’t say the past. He couldn’t tell her what had happened in his own life. He never talked about it. Never thought about it, if he could help it. “She left, didn’t she?”
Phoebe stared at him. “Left thinking that we had some sort of secret whirlwind courtship going! Left thinking we were going to the justice of the peace to tie the knot this afternoon!”
Jackson rubbed at his neck again. “When she asked us the wedding date, I thought it best to go for soon.”
“Uh!” She let out a frustrated exclamation, then hurriedly soothed a startled Rex. “I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered to him, rubbing her lips against the baby’s head.
“I did it for him,” Jackson said quietly. And for Phoebe. Because years ago he’d been in a situation eerily similar.
Phoebe’s shoulders slumped, and a defeated sigh escaped her. “But what are we supposed to do?”
Jackson had been thinking about that since the instant he’d made the shocking announcement. Not really so shocking to him, considering how Phoebe and Rex brought out in him this odd rescue impulse. He hadn’t so much thought through the idea as he’d just whipped it out like a sword in defense of the woman and child.
He sat down on the love seat beside Phoebe, watching her hand stroke Rex’s small back. Jackson couldn’t allow her to lose the baby to Social Services. “Look. Let’s talk about Mrs. Bee. Would you say she’s a little—dotty?”
Phoebe rolled her eyes. “As dotty as that itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie, yellow polka-dot bikini. She latches on to stuff and then won’t let it go. A couple of months ago it was a campaign to license pet reptiles like dogs. I’m not kidding. She circulated petitions and everything.” Inhaling a deep breath, she closed her eyes. “And now she’s moved on to me and Rex.”
Jackson could feel Phoebe’s escalating fear. “Let’s calm down for a minute,” he said, wanting to touch her in reassurance, but denying himself the pleasure. “How much trouble could she make?”
She shrugged. “No telling. But if she contacted someone it would definitely be awkward explaining that I don’t know where Rex’s father is.”
“That’s what I thought.” He rubbed his palms against his bent knees. “And if you’re hoping for custody—”
“I am, if it’s what Teddy wants.”
Jackson nodded. “Then it’s best that there are zero calls on file.”
“Well, then, what do you suggest?” Phoebe closed her eyes, then opened them. “We can’t really be thinking of getting married.” She swallowed. “Can we?”
Jackson smiled grimly. “That’s where Mrs. Bee’s dottiness is going to work for us. She seemed perfectly satisfied when she walked out of here, right? So now we go out this afternoon and come back, grinning like happy newlyweds and say it’s done.”
Phoebe groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding. Say it’s done? We’re done for.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “Dotty is going to work for us, I promise you. Nothing will have to change.”
“But—”
He put his hand over her mouth to halt further protests. “In a month I’m outta here. In a month you and Teddy will settle the situation with Rex. Or a month will give you time to find a new place to live, if that’s still necessary. But I bet Mrs. Bee quickly moves on to some other fixation.”
Suddenly registering the warm, smooth skin of Phoebe’s lips, he snatched his hand away.
“What do we tell other people? How do we act around the other tenants?”
Jackson shrugged. “I leave that up to you. For myself, I’m going to live my life just as I have every day before.”
“Like every day before?” she echoed, raising one skeptical brow.
For some reason his pulse started hammering like a death knell. “Yeah.”
“Like every day before.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Despite the fact that you’re now ‘married’ and the father of one?”
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