Baby Mine (Stubborn Texas Siblings Book 1) (10 page)

Jeff had knocked on Eric’s front door and had been surprised that there’d been no answer. He knew that Lillie Rose had gone in for her six week check up; it had been all that his big brother had been able to talk about for weeks. He stilled after letting himself in with the spare key Eric had entrusted him with in case he locked himself out. His eyes were glued to the living room floor.

Laying there, thrown all over the place all around the couch, were two pairs of jeans, two shirts, two pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes, two pairs of underwear and a bra. It was impossible to mistake what it all meant. His big brother had finally done it… He’d given in to his desire for Madeline.

A smile came to Jeff’s face and he looked down the hall, hearing the water running into the bathtub. A feminine giggle filtered through the walls followed by a masculine full bodied laugh. It had been so long since he’d heard Eric do more than chuckle; it took him a few minutes for him to recognize the sound as being his brother’s voice.

The baby cried and Jeff flinched. Not wanting to interrupt his brother when he was clearly so happy,
Jeff quietly opened the door and let himself back out, locking it behind him. He could afford to wait to see how the doctor’s appointment went until the following day. With any luck, his brother would tell him what was going on with Madeline … other than the obvious.

Eric was still laughing at Madeline’s joke when he stepped out into the hall butt naked to make his way into the nursery where Lillie Rose was wailing. He scooped her up into his arms and held her body tightly against his chest. Her cries turned into soft sobs and then just sniffles. He patted her diaper and noticed that it was wet so he carried her over to the changing table and put a fresh one on her. Madeline came in to the room and held her arms out.

“She’s probably hungry,” she said softly; her eyes still alight with humor.

Sighing heavily, Eric begrudgingly handed the baby over, smiling when she immediately latched on to the breast and suckl
ed as if she were starving.

“Wow… how did you know?” he asked, cocking his head, wondering about the connection between a woman and the baby she gives birth to.

“I guess I’ve gotten to the point where I can tell each of her cries apart. She has a different one for each problem.”

“Hmmm.” It was all he could think of to say as he contemplated what she’d said.

“No worries my love,” she said grinning from ear to ear. “I can do the same thing with you, even when all you do is hum.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, lifting just one eyebrow; intrigued by her statement. “I’ve got to hear this one… What is it that I’m thinking?”

“That’s easy,” she answered, her smile growing even wider. “The same thing you’re always thinking around me.”

“And that would be?” he asked, the dare clear in his tone.

“Making love … and by the way … I love you too, and I’m not that amazing,” she added, blushing.

“You really can read my mind,” he quipped, taking a step towards her. “How about now?” he asked, closing the distance between them until he stood directly in front of her; his eyes shimmering with love.

“You’re thinking about our wedding,” she answered, emotion threatening to choke her.

“Would it be wrong of me to ask you to run away with me? First thing in the morning
… just you, me and Lillie Rose. We could hop in the truck and be at one of those quickie wedding chapels, toot sweet. We could be married before lunch time tomorrow.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, settling Lillie Rose back into her crib and then looking up into his eyes as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Yes,” he answered gruffly. “I’ve never been so serious in all my life. I love you woman, and I don’t want to risk losing you or that baby girl over there,” he told her; his voice breaking with his impassioned statement.

“Then, I guess you and I have a date,” she answered, lifting up on her tip toes to brush a whisper of a kiss across his lips. “Because there’s not a thing in this whole wide world I can think
of that I’d like to do more than marry you.”

“Done,” he promised solemnly. “Just as soon as I take that picture down in the morning and let the ranch hands know that they’re running the show here for the day; we’ll take off. For now; what do you say, you and I go to bed? I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly in need of a nice soft flat surface to rest my wary load.”

“You just want to make love again,” she teased as they walked arm and arm towards the master bedroom.

Eric chuckled, feeling lighthearted and happy for the first time in what felt like forever. “I could certainly be convinced without much effort,” he admitted huskily.

“You are hopeless,” Madeline teased, leaning her head on his shoulder after he closed the bedroom door.

“Not hopeless. I’m full of hope for the first time in five long years, and I owe it all to you… and Lillie Rose of course. What we have might very well have started out as a bit of a war over who that sweet baby girl belonged to
… but where it led, I will spend the rest of my life being grateful for. With a tiny bit of luck, we’ll be able to give Lillie Rose a little brother or sister … then there will be no more arguing over who has more rights with any of our kids. The baby will be yours and it will be mine. He or she will be ours.”

Madeline laughed. “That reminds me of a song…”

“What song would that be?” he asked, intrigued.

“Baby mine, don’t you cry… baby mine, dry your eyes, rest your head close to my heart, never to part baby of mine,” she sang in a perfect soprano voice.

“Hearing you sing like that makes me wish I was the one you were singing to,” he murmured in a voice full of grit and desire.

“Shut up and kiss me,” she demanded, falling back on the bed.

“Yes ma’am.” The words were said with a grin a mile wide. Doing as she asked made him just as happy as it made her. He just knew that they would have a fantastic life together and he was determined to see what he could do about making a baby with Madeline the old fashioned way. The sooner the better.

As he walked her to the bed, he began to hum and it took him a minute to realize it was the same song Madeline had just been singing…. “Baby mine,”
he sang soft and low… “Let’s see what we can do about making us another one, shall we?”

There were no more words as they came together. None were needed, because they both knew that their future together was going to be as amazing as their lovemaking was.

Four years later, Eric was out in the field, holding his two year old son in his arms, watching Lillie Rose as she excitedly held on to the mane of the pony one of his ranch hands had lifted her onto. His nerves were shot as she rode the pony around in a circle without him sitting right behind her.

The boy sitting on his hip kicked and reached out towards a horse. “Brian ride too,” he chanted in a high pitched voice full of excitement.

“Not today,” Eric soothed rubbing the boy’s back. “You know how Mommy feels about you being on a horse without Daddy or Uncle Jeff.” His brother stood at his side and grinned.

“I’d be happy to take Brian for a ride, if you’d like bro.”

Eric nodded his head in agreement. “I’d appreciate it. Maddie will be home from work soon. I’d like to have supper ready and waiting for her. She spends entirely too much time on her feet, stressing out over this latest project she’s working on finding a cure for … I don’t even remember what it is she’s working on this time. All I know is she’s adorable with the excitement she brings home every day after work.”

Jeff laughed. “Dude, you would say she’s adorable no matter what she does. Admit it… you’ve got it bad.”

“Sure do,” Eric readily agreed. “I never would have thought I could feel this way about another woman after Vic died; but I honestly feel as if she’s up in Heaven and she was looking down on me … I think she saw how miserable and alone I was, and she pulled some strings with the big man upstairs to see that Madeline and Lillie Rose were sent into my world to force me back to life.”

“Well, they did that for sure,” Jeff observed, nodding his head.

They both looked up when a car pulled into the driveway. Eric’s smile was unmistakable and they both turned at the same time. Surprise filled both of their faces when they saw their sister climb out of a very nice muscle car. She walked over to them like a woman with a purpose. When she stood beside Jeff, she held her hands out to Brian and the toddler anxiously went to her.

Laurie looked at her big brother. “Sorry I came out without any notice. I just finished rebuilding the car and had to take it out for a test drive. Figured I hadn’t seen either of my brothers for a while. Thought it was time. I also thought perhaps I should check on my sister-in-law.”

Eric grinned at the mention of his wife. “She’s working, Laurie.”

“I can’t believe you allowed her out of your sight … or anywhere near a car for that matter. As far along as she is…”

“My wife has a mind of her own, Laurie.”

Jeff laughed and crossed his arms, leaning against a fence post. “What he means is that he has no control over Madeline.”

“Why would I want to control her? She’s a smart woman… Besides, there is no safer place on the planet for her to be than the hospital where she works. She’s two floors from the maternity ward and she’s surrounded by doctors. As to driving, I took her to work myself and when her shift comes to an end, I have every intention of going to pick her up if she can’t get a ride with a friend.”

“Quite frankly, I’m amazed you let her out of your sight at all,” Laurie said, juggling the excitable toddler on her hip. She looked up where Lillie Rose was giggling as the pony she was riding sped up. “Nor can I believe you actually allowed your daughter to climb on a horse without you.”

“What can I say?” Eric asked, shrugging his shoulders. “Maddie has taught me how to let go of my need to control everything. I have to trust my wife and her ability to take care of herself, and I have to show my daughter that I trust her… She has to have confidence in herself and she’s not going to get that if I’m hovering over her, acting like she’s going to fail at every little thing.”

“When’s the last time you went to Victoria’s grave? Or do you even bother now that you’ve got this new family?” their sister asked, searching Eric’s eyes for the truth.

“I took the whole family to go see her just last weekend. I’m not ignoring my past, sis… I just came to the realization that I can’t let it consume me or control how I live my life in the present.”

“Madeline has been really good for him, sis,” Jeff said, resting his hand on Eric’s shoulder. She turned her head to look at her little brother and arched a single eyebrow at him.

“I’m glad about that… but I have to ask. If you are so supportive of our big brother moving on with his life, when are you going to follow his example? When are you going to give up your adolescent way of life and grow up already?”

“I don’t have to allow a woman to trap me into a marriage in order to grow up, Laurie.”

She rolled her eyes and Eric laughed. “As much as I agree with you, you’re hardly one to talk. Last I checked, you’re so busy fixing people’s cars, no man has ever come onto your radar.”

Before Laurie could answer, Eric’s phone rang and his lips curved in a wide smile. “That would be my wife… if you’ll excuse me…” he walked away, lifting the cell phone to his ear. He stilled in his steps and froze. Both of his siblings rushed to his side, putting a hand on each shoulder in support.

He was shaking when he hung up and he swallowed hard. “I need a ride to the hospital… now. I’m not sure I can drive right now…”

“What is it?” Jeff asked at the same time as Laurie asked “What happened?”

“Maddie…” was all he uttered, his knees going weak.

Laurie rushed to the truck where the car seats were, placing Brian in one of them while Jeff called out to the ranch hand to keep an eye on Lillie Rose. Eric got in the passenger seat and stared out the side window as Laurie drove.

She hadn’t even brought the truck to a full stop before Eric jumped out and ran inside. He was long gone by the time Jeff and Laurie made their way inside with Brian. There was a group of women sitting in the waiting room and Jeff recognized them as Madeline’s friends. He went over to them and asked what was going on.

“All I know is that she was working and
she went into labor… I got the call telling me that she’d passed out in the middle of the contraction that had sent her to her feet. Maddie had listed me as her next of kin before she met and married you … I guess the woman who went into her file to see who to contact was new or something. She had to have pulled an old contact sheet. I was at the restaurant with everyone else when I got the call. I swear, that’s all I know.”

Back in the room, Eric went to the bed side and held his wife’s hand. She had woken up just in time to push their daughter into the world and she looked pale and exhausted. “You did
good,” he told her, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. “But you scared the crap out of me…”

“I’m sorry,” she said, yawning. “Is she okay?”
Madeline asked the doctor nervously. She was anxious since the baby was so early. She hadn’t been due for another four weeks.

“She’s a little on the small side,” the doctor answered, “But she seems healthy enough.”

“Thank God,” she murmured weakly.

Madeline faded off to sleep and Eric took his daughter in his arms, looking down into her face. He’d had a hard time coming to grips when Madeline had informed him of her decision to name the baby girl after his first wife. Looking into her eyes, his eyes filled with tears.

“Welcome to the world, Victoria,” he whispered softly. Emotion clogged his throat as he rocked her in his arms, humming a lullaby. He hadn’t even realized what it was he was humming until Madeline began to sing along with him.

“Baby mine, don’t you cry…. Baby mine, dry your eyes. Rest your head close to my heart, never to part… baby of mine.”