“You know exactly when,” Adam said smiling, lifting his own glass. “To the women.”
“The women,” Travis said wryly, clinking his glass to theirs.
“The women,” Jackson agreed and shared a toast with his brothers. His friends.
“This is amazing,” Dani said the following Saturday. She was holding baby Lydia, jiggling her on her hip and watching as her son Mikey carefully held Emma King’s tiny hand and helped her walk across the crowded lawn. “Would you look at my gorgeous son? Why isn’t he that nice to his baby sister?”
Casey laughed and did a little jiggling of her own as Mia started to fret. “Because Emma’s new to him, he’s a sweetie like his daddy and he’s nuts about his little sister and you know it.”
Dani flashed her a smile. “Okay, yeah. He is. Just hope he likes the new one as much.”
Casey shrieked and reached out to hug her best friend. “You’re pregnant again? That’s so great!” Eyes cautious suddenly, she said, “Itis great, right?”
Dani laughed. “Yeah, it’s great. Mike’s excited about it. Just look at him.”
Casey’s gaze swung to where Mike Sullivan stood among the King brothers, laughing and talking as they drank beer and grilled steaks on Jackson’s shiny new barbecue. Her friend’s husband did look every inch the contented male and Casey was glad he’d been able to take the day off to join them all for the picnic Jackson had suddenly decided to throw.
Her gaze fixed on the man most in her mind and she felt her heart give a little ache. He’d come to mean so much to her in the last month or so. She hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t wanted it. But the unthinkable had happened anyway. She’d fallen in love with a man she knew wasn’t interested in forever.
“Uh-oh,” Dani said from beside her. “I see that look. And if you don’t want Jackson to see it, you’d better go to your happy place.”
Chuckling, Casey tore her gaze from Jackson to focus on her friend again. “The problem with that suggestion is that Jacksonis my happy place.”
“Oh, honey, that just sucks.”
More laughter. “Very eloquent.”
“You know, there may be more to this relationship than you think,” Dani said, squatting now to sit Lydia on the quilt spread out at their feet.
“I don’t think so.” Casey kneeled down, set Mia on the quilt beside Lydia and smiled at her daughter before saying, “Jackson was really clear right up front. He wanted six months. Well, one of those months is gone now. And he hasn’t said anything about wanting to renegotiate. Hasn’t mentioned that his feelings have changed…” Her gaze drifted, as it always did whether she wanted it to or not, to Jackson.
In the bright spring sunlight, his dark hair shone and his eyes glittered. Standing with his brothers and Mike, with smoke from the barbecue twisting and swirling about him in the wind, he almost looked as if he’d stepped out of a dream. He laughed and something inside her fisted. His gaze slipped to hers and she felt the immediate swell of response in her body.
She sighed and deliberately looked at Dani, watching her. “Oh,” her friend said on a sigh, “you’ve got it really bad, don’t you?”
“Afraid so,” she said.
“Not hard to understand,” Dani told her, waving one hand to indicate their surroundings. “This place is awesome. Jackson’s gorgeous and he’s crazy about your kid. You’d have to be made of stone to not be affected by it all.”
Casey nodded and turned to smile up at the two women approaching them. “You’re absolutely right about all of it, but let’s change the subject, okay?”
“Oh. Right.”
“Hi,” Gina King said as she plopped down onto the quilt beneath the shade of an ancient elm tree. “Julie and I thought we’d join you two here, if that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay,” Casey said and smiled as Julie, nestling her infant daughter to her chest, sat down beside her.
“Your son is just the cutest thing,” Gina said, grinning at Dani. “The way he acts with Emma just touches my heart.”
Naturally, the surest way to win Dani’s friendship forever was to praise one of her children. And as she settled in to talk babies with Gina, Casey watched as Julie opened her shirt to feed baby Katie.
“She’s beautiful,” Casey said softly, reaching out with one hand to trace a fingertip across the tiny girl’s forehead. Already, Mia was growing up and Casey could see the day ahead when her little girl would no longer be her baby, needing only her. She would have liked to have more children, she thought longingly. But having Mia had been so expensive, the chance of repeating the experience was slim and she already knew that conceiving any other way was nearly impossible. But as she considered that, a new thought whispered through her mind and disappeared again when Julie started talking.
“Thanks, Travis and I think she’s gorgeous, of course.” Julie hissed in a breath when Katie latched onto her breast, then grinned and said, “I wanted to tell you again, how much Ilove your ideas for the bakery Web site.”
Pleased, Casey smiled back, pushing regrets and worries out of her mind for another day. “I’m so glad. I think it’s going to be fun getting the King family sites up and running.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Gina crowed. “Someone else who thinks work is fun! I swear, to hear Adam grumble you’d think I’m the only wife in the world who has a job. And I work right there on the ranch! He sees me every day.”
“Mike does the same thing,” Dani put in, “but some of that might be because we’ve become ships that only occasionally bump in the night!”
“Travis hates it too,” Julie agreed with a small laugh.
“He used that bakery of mine as a tempting offer to get me to marry him in the first place and now he grumbles because I want to spend so much time there.” She laughed delightedly. “But then I remind him how hard it is to pry him out of the tasting room at the winery.”
It felt good to be with these women, listen to them all complain lovingly about their husbands. But it also brought home a simple truth to Casey. She could complain all she wanted about Jackson, but she didn’t really have the right, did she? He wasn’t her husband. He was her lover.
Hertemporary lover.
No matter how much she felt at home here, with these women, with the King family, at this amazing hilltop mansion, none of it really belonged to her.