Page 114 of Nobodys Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars 3)

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he gave her a stiff nod.

“All right, then.” Her mother’s bony knuckles dug into the small of her back. “You go on now, Amber Lynn; Jim asked you nice and proper. And you be polite, not snippy like you’ve been with me lately.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lynn moved down off the step, wanting to laugh even as she felt her eyes tear.

Jim’s hand curled around her own. He gazed down at her, and the warm golden flecks in his hazel eyes suddenly reminded her how tender he’d been through her three pregnancies. When she was at her fattest, he’d kissed her belly and told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world. As her hand nestled like a small bird in his larger one, she thought how quick she was to forget the good and remember the bad.

He led her toward the path that curved into the woods. Despite her mother’s words, they were soon out of sight of the house.

“Pretty day,” he said. “A little warm for May.”

“Yes.”

“It’s quiet up here.”

It astonished her that he was still willing to address her as if they’d just met. She rushed to join him in this new place where neither had ever hurt the other. “It’s quiet, but I love it.”

“You ever get lonely?”

“There’s a lot to do.”

“What?”

He turned to gaze at her, and she was struck by the intensity in his expression. He wanted to know how she spent her day! He wanted to listen to her! With a sense of delight, she told him.

“All of us get up early. I like to walk in the woods as soon as the sun’s up, and when I get back, my daughter-in-law—” She faltered, then glanced at

him from the corner of her eye. “Her name is Jane.”

He frowned, but said nothing. They moved deeper into the woods where rhododendron and mountain laurel stretched on each side of the path, along with clusters of violets, trillium, and a burgundy carpet of galax. A pair of dogwood celebrated with a splash of white blossoms their escape from the fungus that had destroyed so many of the species in the Carolina mountains. Lynn inhaled the rich, moist scent of earth that smelled new.

“Jane has breakfast ready when I’m done walking,” she went on. “My mother wants bacon and eggs, but Jane fixes whole grain pancakes or oatmeal with a little fresh fruit, so Annie is generally trying to pick a fight with her as I’m coming into the kitchen. Jane’s wily, though, and she does a better job of getting her way with Annie than anyone else in my family. When breakfast is over, I listen to music and clean up the kitchen.”

“What kind of music?”

He knew exactly what kind. Over the years he’d switched their various car radios from her classical stations to his country and western hundreds of times. “I love Mozart and Vivaldi, Chopin, Rachmaninoff. My daughter-in-law likes classic rock. Sometimes we dance.”

“You and… Jane?”

“She’s developed a passion for Rod Stewart.” Lynn laughed. “If he comes on the radio, she makes me stop whatever I’m doing and dance with her. She’s like that with some of the newer groups, too—ones you’ve never even heard of. Sometimes she has to dance. I don’t think she did much of it when she was growing up.”

“But she— I heard she’s a scientist,” he said cautiously.

“She is. But mostly now she says she just wants to grow her baby.”

Time ticked by as he took that in. “She sounds like an unusual person.”

“She’s wonderful.” And then, impulsively, “Would you like to come back for supper tonight so you can get to know her better?”

“Are you inviting me?” His face registered both surprise and pleasure.

“Yes. Yes, I think I am.”

“All right, then. I’d like that.”

They walked for a while without speaking. The path narrowed, and she moved off it, leading him toward the creek. They’d come here dozens of times when they were kids and sat side by side on an old log that had long since rotted away. Sometimes they’d simply watched the water rush over the mossy rocks, but most of the time, they’d made out. Cal had been conceived not far from here.

He cleared his throat and lowered himself onto the trunk of a yellow buckeye that had fallen along the edge of the creek bed in some forgotten storm. “You were pretty tough on my son back there.”

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