The Baby Truth

“Jett, since you cooked, I’ll volunteer to clean the kitchen tonight,” Bella said, as the three of them finished the meal with slices of chocolate cake.

“I’d be glad to help,” Sassy quickly offered. “In fact, I’d feel better if you’d let me do all the cleaning.”

“Not on your life,” Jett replied.

Bella backed her brother up by saying, “Thanks for the offer, Sassy. Maybe next time. You’ve had a long day. You go along with Jett and relax in the living room. I’ll take care of everything here.”

Relax with Jett? How could she manage that, when just looking at the man whipped her pulse into a mad gallop? Putting her fork aside, she said, “Bella, I’m a maid. I’m used to doing the cleaning.”

“You’re not a maid here,” Jett pointed out.

Sassy had never planned to set foot in this man’s home, yet he was treating her as if she was a special guest. Was he just showing basic good manners? Or trying to get on her good side for some reason?

She was still trying to figure out the answers to those questions when he rose from his seat and helped her to her feet. Sassy had little choice but to accompany him to the living room. Once there, she sat on the couch while he went over to fireplace and added two more logs to the low-burning flames.

When he finally put away the poker and started toward an armchair, her coiled nerves had her suddenly blurting, “Please don’t feel like you have to sit around and entertain me. I’m sure you have other things you’d like to be doing.”

Changing direction, he strode over to the couch and eased onto the cushion next to hers. Sassy’s heart immediately kicked into a rapid flutter.

“Trying to get rid of me?” he asked wryly.

Reaching over, he wrapped a hand around hers and Sassy was instantly overcome with conflicting emotions. There was something about Jett that greatly comforted her, yet, at the same time, he made her feel things she had no business feeling. Like wanting and needing and dreaming.

“I should’ve gone to the hotel as I’d first planned,” she said ruefully.

“No. I should’ve behaved like a gentleman.” His fingertips gently stroked the back of her hand. “You didn’t ask for that kiss. Now you have the idea that I’m a wolf.”

Feeling as though she was about to break apart, Sassy drew in a deep breath and lifted her chin. “There’s no need for you to apologize. It was just a kiss, no matter what you think.”

Disapproval bent the corners of his mouth. “You hardly come across as easy, Sassy.”

She searched his face. “Well, some people back home view me as a party girl—and I have had a few boyfriends,” she admitted. “But not in an—intimate way. Barry was— He was the only man I’ve ever been close to and that happened only once. Now I’m pregnant. Folks back home might not be shocked at the news, but I surely am.”

“Every town has its gossipers. You don’t pay any attention to that sort of talk, do you?”

“I never did before. But now...”

“You don’t want it to hurt your baby,” he finished softly.

He understood. For some reason that made everything she was facing seem much less daunting and him seem, oh so special.

“Now that I’ve learned George and Gloria Matthews weren’t my parents, I regard a lot of things differently,” she said. “It hurts—the not knowing where I came from. I don’t want my child to ever have any doubts about his parents.”

“Sassy, I hope you’re not thinking that being a single mother is something to be ashamed of.”

Her low laugh was tinged with irony. “I’m not ashamed. But it’s hard to forget hurtful things that are said about you. For instance, a couple of years ago I had a little crush on a ranch hand who works for the Chaparral. Someone told him I’d like to go on a date with him, and his reply was that he’d never date a young woman who hopped from one man’s bed to the next.”

“You should have told the guy to go to hell. Did you?”

She shrugged. “After that I knew he wasn’t worth the bother. But the whole thing did get me to thinking and wondering why some people get the wrong impression about me.” She looked at him, and for the first time in her life, words began to roll past her lips that she’d never spoken to anyone before. “You see, after my parents died, I felt really alone, Jett. I didn’t have brothers or sisters. Not even cousins to hang with. And I was desperate for attention and just, well—human connection. I liked going out on dates and having fun. It made me forget that I’d lost everything that was dear to me. After a while, I suppose people began to think I was overdoing it with the dates and the guys. That probably doesn’t make much sense to you, but that’s the way I see it.”

“I’ll tell you the way I see it, Sassy. You’re beautiful and special. And you’re going make your son or daughter proud.”

He squeezed her hand, and his touch warmed her just as much as his words. And even though she could hear faint warning bells clanging in the back of her head, urging her to get up and move away from the man, she couldn’t budge from his side.

A nervous little laugh slipped out of her. “I’ve been talking too much. What in the world did you put in that spaghetti, Jett? Truth serum?”

A faint grin grooved his cheeks. “I didn’t put any serum in the spaghetti, but I can truthfully say that kiss I stole earlier this evening... It didn’t happen because I thought you were easy. Understand?”

She smiled faintly. “Okay, Jett. I understand.”

But, frankly, Sassy didn’t understand. Why had that kiss happened? Had it only stemmed from basic male attraction or because he was lonely? Oh, Lord, it didn’t matter, she tried to tell herself. After meeting the Calhouns, she’d start making plans to go home.

* * *

The next morning, after Bella left to make the forty-five mile trip over to Truckee, California, to visit their mother, Jett invited Sassy to join him on his feeding rounds. After being cooped up in the house since yesterday, she’d jumped at the chance to get outdoors and see part of the J Bar S.

After pulling on a pair of jeans, boots and a warm jacket, she walked down to a big red barn with the two collies, Mary and Max, trotting happily at her side. Once she reached the building, she found double doors swung wide and Jett inside, tossing hay bales into the back of a work truck. Bits of dried grass and dust flew all around him and floated through the shafts of morning sunlight.

Careful to stand out of the way, Sassy watched him finish with the hay, then add several sacks of cattle feed on top of the load. The effortless way he handled the heavy sacks told Sassy he was accustomed to doing much more than just sitting at a desk shuffling legal papers.

When she’d first met him in the airport yesterday, she’d taken note of his headgear. This morning he was wearing the same battered gray hat. Sweat stained the band and the repetitive pressure of his fingers against the crown had caused one of the creases to split and create a hole in the felt.

Sassy had learned to read a lot about a cowboy’s character in his hat. And Jett’s was definitely full of personality. The fact that he chose not to replace the worn piece of equipment with a new one said he was sentimental about his possessions. Plus, he didn’t need fancy to make him feel important. She liked that about him. But then, that was the problem. She liked far too many things about the man.

He motioned for the dogs to jump up onto the truck, and once they were settled on top of the feed sacks, he shut the tailgate and looked over to her. “I’m all set here,” he said. “Are you ready?”

She moved to where he stood. “Ready and bundled in my warmest clothing.”

“I promise you’re not going to be cold. This old truck looks a little rough, but the heater still works great.” He reached for her elbow. “Come along and I’ll help you climb up.”

Once they were settled in the cab, Jett backed the vehicle out of the barn, then steered it onto a dirt track packed hard from constant use. As they headed toward the open range, Sassy wondered if the space in the cab had suddenly shrunk. Jett felt so near she could practically feel the heat of his body and smell the masculine scent emanating from his clothing.

“The cattle are on the other side of this mesa. Not far from here,” he said, as he steered the truck in a northerly direction. “They’ve been getting fed every day so we won’t have to hunt them. They’ll be waiting for us.”

Trying to get her mind off him and onto their surroundings, she peered out the windshield at the rough terrain. “How long have you had this ranch?”

To their left, fir-covered mountains were less than a quarter mile off, while to the immediate right, the land swept away to scrubby desert terrain full of sagebrush and juniper. It was wild and beautiful land with more wide open space to it than the Chaparral, which was surrounded by steep mountains.

“My maternal grandparents, Adah and Melvin Whitfield, used to own this property,” he said. “Along with a nice herd of cattle. But age caught up with them, and they decided to scale down to a smaller ranch in southern California where the climate is much easier. Rather than sell this place they gave it to my mother, but she never was interested in country living. She sold the cattle, and I bought her out of the property with the assurance it would always remain in the family. That happened about six years ago, and since then I’ve been trying to build it back into the ranch it was when my grandparents lived here.”

“What about your dad? He’s not interested in ranching?”

Jett laughed, but the sound held little humor. “I learned all I know about cattle and ranching from my grandparents. Dad wouldn’t know one end of a cow from the other. And he wouldn’t want to learn. More than likely, he’s playing rhythm guitar with some hole-in-the-wall band and finding gigs wherever he can.”

The stilted tone in his voice should have put her off, but Sassy had never been one to contain her curiosity. Besides, she’d already told him so much about herself, it would hardly hurt him to reveal a few facts about his personal life.

“So, he doesn’t live around here?”