Rodeo Daddy: Book 3 in the Stubborn Texas Siblings Trilogy (6 page)

Jeff’s phone rang and he carefully extracted himself from
Dana’s bed. “Yo,” he whispered softly as he crept out of
the room. His brother’s booming voice was on the other
end of the line and he sighed sitting down on the couch
with a flourish.

“What do you want, Eric?” he asked, glancing back down
the hall, wishing he could climb back into the bed and wake
Dana up by making love to her again. She’d always been
long gone by the time he woke up the morning after they’d
slept together in the past. It had been a serious turn on to
open his eyes to find her beautiful face laying on the pillow
beside him, her hair spread out over the white pillowcase
looking like a sunrise.

“What explanation can you possibly have for skipping out
on our sister when you knew she was in labor? Why is it
that our nephew has been in this world for well over twelve
hours now and still, you’ve yet to even call to make sure
Laurie is alright? I happen to know you aren’t allowed to
ride, what with your bum leg, so what could possibly be so
important that I had to call you in order to find you?”

“I have my reasons,” Jeff snapped back at his brother. Eric
was the king of guilt-trips; nobody could hand them out
with quite the ease that his big brother did. “Look… It’s a
really long story, and clearly, you haven’t spent much time
talking to our sister yourself, or you’d already know at least
the largest part of my reason for being A.W.O.L. Give a
guy a break, will you? I’ve got my own mess I’m trying to
work through right now. I knew that Laurie had both you
and Travis. She didn’t need me, and I was definitely needed
somewhere else.”

He heard a noise coming from the nursery and cursed under
his breath as he realized that Alexis had woken up. Any
moment now, she’d start crying. Knowing he had to get off
the phone before Eric heard it and started asking questions,
Jeff cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his head in
agitation. “I can’t talk right now. It’s technically still the
middle of the night for me, since unlike you, I don’t have a
herd of animals waiting for me to go take care of them.
Come around mid-day sometime, I give you my word; I’ll
come down to the hospital to see our sister and our new
nephew. Until then, I’ll just say goodnight.”

Having said that, he hung up the phone and ran down the
hall towards the nursery. With any luck, Dana was still
sound asleep and it would be a chance to spend a little time
with his daughter without having someone looking at him
as if he was incapable of being a good parent.

He may have never intended to be part of the lives of any
children he may inadvertently father through the sperm
donor program he had actively donated to for well over
twelve years now, but that had nothing to do with Alexis.
She was the result of an ongoing affair with a beautiful
woman who Jeff still had yet to get out of his system. Most
likely because of a broken condom, but who knew… there
might have been a time or two when they’d gotten too
carried away to think twice about donning protection before
they’d fallen into each other’s arms. Lord knew they’d been
hot enough for each other for that sort of thing to have
happened.

His eyes grew wide as he realized he’d just had exactly that
happen. Protecting her from possible pregnancy had been
the furthest thing from his mind when he’d claimed her the
night before. A colorful curse word popped into his head
and he had to bite his tongue to keep it from escaping his
lips. The last thing he needed was to say it in front of
Alexis. His kind of luck, it would end up being one of the
things she would latch onto and parrot later on. Dana would
have ammunition to get him away from his daughter, and
that wasn’t something he was about to hand her. Not
willingly. Especially not when there was a very good
possibility he could have just knocked her up for the second
time.

Alexis was standing up in the middle of her toddler bed,
rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her tiny fists when
Jeff opened her bedroom door. She looked up at him and a
broad smile played across her face as she lifted her arms up
in the air saying “Up me,” in the cutest tiny little voice he
could remember ever having heard in his life.

Jeff happily lifted his daughter up into his arms and carried
her over to the white dresser with the miniature pink roses
painted all over it, tugging a drawer open with the hand that
wasn’t holding onto the very excited little girl. She babbled
incoherently as he showed her several different outfits
asking her which one she wanted to wear. He knew that
women thought a lot about what they wore, and since
Alexis was a girl, he felt the need to empower her at an
early age by giving her the option to wear whatever she
liked.

She pointed at a cute little pink pair of overalls and a
cuddly soft pale yellow shirt. Jeff didn’t think they went
together very well but he didn’t want to stifle his daughter’s
creativity so he shrugged his shoulders and helped her put
the clothes on before carrying her out to the kitchen to see
about getting them all something to eat.

Dana entered the kitchen yawning widely as she stretched
her arms high over her head. Jeff’s jaw just about hit the
floor when he spotted her as he was setting a bowl of
oatmeal in front of Alexis. The only thing she had on other
than her underwear was his shirt and the top three buttons
were undone revealing her ample cleavage. The garment
barely hung past her rounded butt … just far enough to
make his mouth water from the sight. His blue jeans
suddenly felt ten times tighter than they had a second
before and he had to shift himself to keep the blood
circulation from being cut off by his rapidly rising erection.

He cleared his throat and pointedly looked away from her
enticing body. “I made us some oatmeal … I hope maple
and brown sugar is okay… It’s what Ma used to make for
us when we were little.”

Dana smiled over at him, her lips curving just slightly as
her left eyebrow lifted; her deep green eyes sparkling
mischievously, leaving a very naughty look on her
beautiful face that gave him all kinds of ideas that had
nothing to do with his appetite for food. Jeff groaned at the
sight and busied himself placing the full bowls onto the
table along with spoons and a couple of tall glasses of milk.

They were finished eating and Dana was stacking the
dishes into the dishwasher as Jeff washed Alexis’ face and
hands clean of the messy breakfast when he brought up his
promise to his brother. “I gave my word that I’d go down to
the hospital later today to check in on my sister… She gave
birth to a baby boy yesterday…”

“Oh? That’s good,” Dana said absently, thinking that she
would happily use that time to think about how she was
going to manage to find the strength to walk away from this
man a second time when her heart was so much more
involved this time around.

“I thought perhaps now’s a good of time as any to
introduce my siblings to Alexis…” the words were said as
he concentrated on his squirming daughter and he struggled
to keep from looking over at Dana to see her reaction. “It’s
high time my daughter met her Aunt Laurie and Uncle
Eric.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit soon?” Dana asked as panic
filled her to the point that it felt like a lead weight in her
belly.

“No. Actually, I’m going to catch Hell about the fact that
they‘re just now meeting my daughter when she’s damn
near two years old,” he said pointedly, glaring at her out of
the corner of his eye. “I’m going to be ridiculed by the
entire town for not stepping up and doing the gentlemanly
thing when I got you pregnant, and not one of them is
going to give two figs about the fact that I didn’t know I
even
HAD
a daughter. As far as they’re all concerned, I am
lower than the scum of the Earth just for sleeping with you
when we weren’t married. It’s just how things are done
around these parts.”

“Isn’t that an even better reason to hold off
on telling the
world?” Dana asked desperately. Once Jeff’s family knew
that he had a child, they would also have a claim on her
daughter’s life. Getting the playboy rodeo champion out of
the picture would have been hard enough, given the way
she felt about him, but two married couples with kids of
their own was an entirely different scenario altogether.

Jeff gave up ignoring her and turned his head to face her
after setting Alexis down on the floor so she could toddle
off to go play with her toys. “No, it’s no reason to wait.
What’s the point in putting off the inevitable? They’re all
going to find out sooner or later, and if it comes out down
the line that I knew about Alexis when I want to go see
Laurie … or Eric for that matter, and failed to tell them
about her; I’ll never hear the end of it. They’ll both accuse
me of being secretive as well as calloused and irresponsible
regarding you. Thanks, but no thanks. I have no intention
of giving them any more ammo against me where Alexis is
concerned. They find out today… and they’ll be meeting
her today as well. If you’d like to go and meet them; that
would definitely be expedient, because I have an inkling
one or both of them are going to demand to meet you
anyways.”

Not wanting to spend any more time with him than she had
to, wasn’t a good enough reason to say no and Dana knew
it so she reluctantly nodded her head in acceptance. “Very
well. I’ll just go get cleaned up and put some clothes on.
Then I’ll need to get Alexis bathed. If we’re both about to
be scrutinized by your family, we’ll need to look our best. I
still think you’re nuts if you honestly believe they’re going
to lay into you for not stepping up to the plate as a father.
More likely than not, what’ll actually happen is they’ll call
me every name in the book for keeping your child from you
and they’ll end up trying to take Alexis from me. I’m
letting you know right now; I won’t let them do it… or you
either, if that was what you were thinking. I’m her mother.
Technically, since the birth certificate says father unknown,
you have no legal rights where my daughter is
concerned…”

Jeff rolled his eyes at her and nodded towards the
bathroom. “Just go get cleaned up already… There will be
plenty of time later on to lob custody threats regarding our
daughter back and forth. Do me a favor though, will you?
Try to keep them to yourself while we’re around my
family, because if they so much as get wind of even a
thought of keeping her from me, you
WILL
be dealing with
a fight… one you can’t possibly win; and it won’t even be
me that started it. My sister will be emotional, as she just
gave birth, so I’m not so much worried about what Laurie
will say… but where my brother is concerned… Eric is a
wild card and when he feels that a family member is being
threatened in any way, he tends to act first and think about
the repercussions after the fact.”

Dana nodded her head and gulped, spinning on her heal and
running for the bathroom without saying another word. Jeff
was sorry he’d frightened her, but she’d needed to hear the
truth before she said or did something to bring out Eric’s
protective side. She was right… his brother wouldn’t take
kindly to hearing that she’d never bothered to even try to
inform him of his impending fatherhood. If she would have
compounded that error by mentioning a custody battle, Jeff
was in no doubt whatsoever that his brother would have let
her have it with both barrels.

Laurie was sitting up in the bed, holding onto a bald baby,
swaddled in a soft blue blanket, looking happier than Jeff
could remember ever seeing her. Her husband Travis stood
at her side, looking down at them both with a look of such
love and devotion it almost hurt to glance his way, since it
reminded Jeff of the fact that he’d missed out on this
moment with Alexis.

Eric was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room
with his boots propped up on a stack of magazines that
Madeline had brought for him to look through since he
refused to leave the room and go back home until his sister
was released to go home. Swallowing the lump of emotion
in his throat, Jeff made his way over to the bedside; Alexis
clutched in his arms as he walked with Dana following
behind him. Her head was bent and her shoulders slumped
as she walked. If Jeff had bothered to look back at her, he
would have seen the expectation of rejection coming her
way, written clearly over her expressive features.

He only had eyes for his sister and the precious baby boy
she held in her arms though and Dana was thankful for the
brief reprieve. It was only a matter of time before Jeff
figured out that her emotions where he was concerned were
stronger than ever and that her biggest fear was losing both
him and their daughter. The longer she could put that
eventuality off, the better.

Laurie looked up at Jeff, beaming with happiness and then
her eyes landed on the little girl in his arms and they
widened in shock. He’d told her about having a child, but
with his past opinions on fatherhood, she hadn’t expected
to ever see him with his daughter; let alone carrying her to
meet the rest of his family. Then she saw the woman walk
in behind him and her eyes grew even larger. She handed
her son over to Travis and held her arms out towards Jeff.

“Let me get a good look at that little peanut,” she
demanded with a tear sliding down her cheek. Eric sat
forward on the edge of his seat and watched as Jeff
carefully transferred the tiny little girl over to their sister.
The child had red hair that hung in adorable ringlets down
to her shoulders. Her eyes seemed too big for her face and
her cute little button nose looked so much like his brothers’
there was no doubt in his mind that Jeff had fathered the
tyke.

He narrowed his eyes as he examin
ed his brother’s features.
Jeff was watching Laurie with the little girl as he wrapped
his arm proprietarily around the red-head at his side.
Surprise filled Eric as realization dawned that not only was
his brother a father, he was actually involved with the
mother… It wasn’t just one of the children born from one
of Jeff’s many sperm donations to some anonymous
recipient. His brother had enjoyed an affair with what
looked like a rather normal looking woman, and a child had
been born of the affair. For Jeff to bring both the woman
and child to meet both their sister and himself was a huge
statement of intention that Eric wasn’t even sure Jeff was
quite aware he was making.

“How old is she?” Eric asked from the other side of the
room, unable to hold his tongue any longer. Jeff looked
over at him and offered a half smile. “Not quite two years
old,” he said, holding his head up high, daring his brother
to say something about the fact that he was just now
meeting his niece for the first time.

When Eric opened his mouth to say something, Laurie cast
him a glare that was sharp enough to make their normally
unflappable big brother snap it back closed again. She
turned her attention back to Alexis and offered her a finger
to hold onto. The little girl searched her face for a moment
or two and then smiled widely, showing off her pearly
white teeth before turning around and pointing at Dana.
“Mommy…”

Dana beamed and rewarded her daughter with a teary-eyed
smile. “That’s right, baby girl… I’m your mommy.” Jeff
piped in, not wanting to be left out. “And I’m your daddy.”
He knew that making that statement boldly in front of both
of his siblings was no different than opening up that can of
worms he’d been looking to avoid touching, but he needed
his daughter to know that he was just as important as Dana
was in her life. Or rather that he would be. No other option
would be tolerable to him, nor would it be allowed with
either of his siblings now that they’d met the sweet little
angel that he’d fathered.

Eric held his face so taught, for a few moments, Dana
wondered if his jaw would snap clean off his face… until
he opened his mouth and spoke, then she was left
wondering if her own had dropped down far enough to fall
onto the floor.

The words hung in the air, and silence was the only answer
that Eric’s words were greeted with. Jeff stared at his
brother, Laurie was watching Dana’s expression and Eric
had his eyes firmly planted on the little red-headed miniversion of Dana in his sister’s arms. He was too
preoccupied to care how much tension his question had
caused throughout the room.

“Who said anything about a wedding?” Dana asked,
chuckling nervously despite her unease at the tell-tale tick
in Jeff’s jaw at the mention of the word. He may want to be
a part of Alexis’s life and she may not have much of a
choice but to let him be, but she knew Jeff better than even
his own family did, if Eric actually believed there was a
chance that his brother would ever say the words “I do” in
front of a preacher.

“I did,” Eric answered, still not taking his ey
es off Alexis.
“If my brother cared enough for you to risk impregnating
you, he can damn well make an honest woman of you and
give his daughter the legal right to bear our last name.”

Dana opened her mouth to argue when Jeff startled the Hell
out of her, and from the look on Eric’s face, he’d managed
to shock his brother too when he spoke. “When you’re right
you’re right. Alexis should be a Schmidt, and I have every
intention of making damn sure she will be.”

Laurie cleared her throat and anxiously handed Alexis back
to Jeff before taking her son back into her arms, cradling
him close to her chest. She could see the tension mounting
between her brothers and knew them both well enough to
know that she was the only one in the world that could
possibly defuse the bomb that was threatening to go off
between them if something wasn’t said or done here pretty
soon.

“Well, I for one am thankful that you brought
Alexis and
her lovely mommy here to meet us today, Jeff. Aren’t you
glad, Travis?” she asked, looking up at her husband
hopefully, praying he’d see her desperation and agree with
her no matter how he might actually feel about the
situation.

Not missing a beat, Travis nodded his head in agreement.
“Absolutely. What better way to celebrate our son’s birth
than to meet his cousin for the first time? Couldn’t have
asked for a better gift for the new Mommy, there Jeff.
Wouldn’t you agree, Eric?” he asked pointedly, putting
Laurie’s oldest brother on the spot. If the man dared to
argue, it would be no different than spitting at his only
sister on this, the most important day of her life. – Her first
full day as a mother and the day she got to introduce her
precious baby boy to her brothers… the two most important
men in her life other than her husband and her precious
baby boy.

“Damn it, that’s a low blow,” Eric mumbled under his
breath as he dragged his hand over his hair, making it stand
on end. “Jeff has been an irresponsible sot for long enough.
He’s a
FATHER
now… having just become one yourself,
one would think you’d get where I’m coming from,
Travis… He should have to be held accountable for his
actions. He knowingly took this nice woman to his bed
where he failed to properly protect her before having his
way with her and leaving her pregnant and alone. By
whatever miracle, she’s back in his life now and Jeff has a
chance to make an honest woman of her, the way you both
know damn good and well, Pa would have insisted he do,”
he added, looking from Laurie to Jeff frantically. “As the
oldest, it falls on
MY
shoulders to make sure the wild child
of the family steps up to the plate and takes responsibility
for his actions and does the right thing by both his daughter
and the woman who gave birth to her.”

Jeff’s jaw ticked as he glared at his brother. “I did not come
here to have insults and demands thrown at me as if I’m
some adolescent who stayed out after curfew and knocked
up the damn captain of the cheerleading squad. I came to
see my nephew and I brought Alexis to meet her Aunt
Laurie. I foolishly
THOUGHT
you’d give me the benefit
of the doubt that I was fully capable of running my own
damn life, but hey… I guess some habits are too damn hard
to break, huh brother? You got too used to running both
Laurie’s and my lives for us, and we both foolishly allowed
it. Well, not any more, big brother. Whatever happens
between Dana and I is strictly up to the two of us. I won’t
put up with you trying to step in and tell me how to live my
life. It’s
MY
damn life, not yours and I’ll thank you to stay
the Hell out of it!”

Jeff grabbed Dana by the hand and stomped out of the
room without saying another word. In that moment, he was
so angry with his brother, he knew if he had said something
more, it would be harsh and later on down the line…
possibly
WAY
down the line, sooner or later, he’d most
likely end up regretting it, and he was equally sure that if
the words came out of his mouth that he was thinking,
they’d be words that he’d never be able to take back, and
things between himself and his big brother would never be
the same again because of it. They were all better off if he
just removed himself from the situation until they all had a
chance to cool off.