When he walked back to the farm, his mind was fogged from her. He'd never known a woman who could leave him so dazed, so weak-kneed. He passed the pigsty, where the stock caught the scent of man and grunted hopefully. In the chicken coop, hens clucked and fluttered over their feed. Distracted, Jared nearly tripped over one of the barn cats, who'd come out to stretch in the sun.
Rubbing a hand over his face, he made it to the back door. The smells of breakfast hit him hard, and his stomach realized it was ravenous. He could have eaten the sausages Devin was grilling, and the skillet along with it.
'Coffee.' He nearly whimpered the word as he stumbled to the counter.
Devin glanced at him, then over at Shane, who was already gulping down his second cup. A look of pure enjoyment passed between them.
'Your shirt's inside out,' Devin said mildly.
Jared scalded his tongue on the coffee, cursed, then collapsed at the kitchen table.
With a grin cracking his face, Shane leaned on the counter near the stove, where Devin was frying up breakfast. 'Brother Jared looks a little rough this morning. Looks like he spent the night crawling through the woods.'
'I guess I should have sent out that search party.' Enjoying himself, Devin cracked eggs into the pan. 'It's tough on a man, spending the night in the haunted woods. Alone.'
'I feel real bad about it. Let me get you some more coffee, Jare.' All solicitude, Shane brought the pot to the table. 'Then you can tell us all about it. Don't leave out a thing. We're here for you.'
Jared picked up the coffee Shane had just topped off and scalded his tongue again. 'I'm in love with a former erotic dancer with a tattoo.'
With an expert's finesse, Devin flipped eggs. 'She was a stripper?'
'Where's the tattoo?' Shane wanted to know. It earned him a halfhearted jab in the gut. 'Okay, just give me the general area.'
'I'm in love with her,' Jared repeated, weighing each word.
'Well, hell, you've been in love before.' Shane strolled over to take biscuits out of the oven. 'At least you've picked one that's interesting this time.'
'Shut up,' Devin muttered. He heaped food on a platter and came to the table. Then he sat and studied Jared's face. A long moment later, he leaned back and took a considering breath. 'All the way in love?'
Experimentally, Jared rubbed the heel of his hand over his breastbone, which ached from the way his heart was swelling. 'Feels like it.'
With a shake of his head, Shane dumped biscuits into a bowl. 'Man, we're dropping like flies. First Rafe, now you.' He brought the biscuits to the table, sat, and propped his head on his hands. 'It's getting scary.'
'Did you tell her?' Devin asked.
'I've got to work it out.'
'Next thing you know, we'll have to put on suits again and get married.' Grumbling at the thought, Shane started to fill his plate.
'I didn't say anything about
'You weren't married, you were contracted.' Cheering up, Shane shoveled in a man-size mouthful of eggs. A good solid breakfast always lifted his mood. 'You might as well have cuddled up with a spreadsheet.'
'What the hell do you know about it?'
Shane washed down the eggs with coffee. 'Because I never saw you look then the way you look now, bro.'
Devin ate slowly and nodded in agreement. 'Is it the kid that bothers you?'
'No, Bryan's great.' Frowning, Jared helped himself to what was left on the platter. He liked the boy, liked spending time with him, talking with him. And the truth was that one of the reasons his marriage had been doomed was that he'd wanted children, and his wife hadn't.
No, the boy didn't bother him. It was the man who had helped create him who stuck in his craw. And, he realized, the other men since.
He just couldn't intellectualize them away. And he didn't like himself for it.
He caught Devin's look, that quiet, knowing look, and jerked his shoulders restlessly. 'I just have to get used to it.'
Devin dashed some salt on his eggs. 'The trouble with lawyers is, they like to gather up all the little facts, every little piece. Then they can argue either side. You were always good at that, Jare. Dad used to say you could twist something simple around from right to wrong and back again. Maybe this is one of those times you should just take it as it is.'
Jared wanted to. And he hoped he could.
He didn't move in with her, technically. But he spent most of his nights there, and some of his clothes found their way into her closet, his books onto her shelves.
He got into the habit of swinging by after work to pick up Bryan on practice nights. More often than not, they lingered on the field, tossing the ball.
If a case kept him late at the office, he phoned her. Sometimes he phoned her just to hear her voice.
With casual regularity, he brought her flowers, and baseball cards or some other treasure for Bryan. They were a trio on outings, and they gave the town a great deal to buzz about.
Bryan accepted him without question—a fact that both pleased and distressed Jared. He wanted to believe it was because the boy cared for him, considered them a kind of family. But he wondered if Bryan was simply accustomed to having a man stake a claim.
When that nasty toad of a thought jumped into his head, Jared did what he could to bat it away. It was, after all, the now the mattered. The way she looked at him. The way she laughed when she watched him and Bryan tussle on the lawn. The way, he thought, she arched her back after she'd been bending over the flowers she tended, or how complete her concentration was when she worked in her studio.
It was the way she smelled that mattered, when she walked out of a steaming bath. It was the way she strained against him night after night in bed, as if she could never get enough. And the way she would reach for his hand when they sat together on the porch swing in the evening.
Court had kept him late, and the strain of the day refused to be shaken off. He'd brought work home, and he knew that the headache that was drumming behind his eyes would be violent before it was over.
He stopped off in town to pick up aspirin, searching the shelves in the general store for something that promised to kick big holes in the drums in his head.
'Hi there, Jared.' Mrs. Metz, armed with a loaf of bread and a box of Ring Dings, cornered him. She was an expert at the ebb and flow of gossip.
'Mrs. Metz.' The rhythm of small towns was too ingrained for him to hurry on, and he liked her, had fond memories of her feeding him homemade cookies. And chasing him off with a broom. 'How's it going?'
'Fair to middling. Need some rain, that's for sure. Spring's been too dry.'
'Shane's a little worried about it.'
'We're going to get some tonight,' she predicted. 'A storm's brewing. Heard that Morningstar boy played a good game Saturday.'
'Three RBIs, initiated two double plays.'
She gave a cackling laugh that sent her trio of chins waggling. 'You sound like a proud daddy.' Before he could comment, she hurried on. 'Seen you and the boy and his mama here and there. She's what my boy Pete would call a stunner.'
'Yes, she is.' Jared chose a painkiller at random.
'Hard, though,' Mrs. Metz continued, shifting her ample weight to block his retreat. 'Raising a boy on her own, I mean. Not that lots of women don't find themselves in that kind of fix today. She's from out west, isn't she? I guess the boy's father's still out there.'
'I couldn't say.' Because it was the literal truth, the pounding in his head increased.
'You'd think the man would want to see his son now and again, wouldn't you? They've been here close on four months now. You'd think he'd want to come around and visit a fine-looking boy like that.'
'You'd think,' Jared said, careful now.
''Course, some men just don't give two hoots, much less a holler, about their children. Like Joe Dolin.' Her
