“Everyone’s fine,” the nurse assured them. “Even the happy father is coming around.”
“Coming around?” Justice repeated. “What—”
“He got a little light-headed in the delivery room,” the nurse hedged.
“You mean he fainted?” Justice asked her, grinning like a big brother who would now have something on his sibling for the rest of his life.
“Justice…” Maggie said.
“You’ve been invited in to meet the newest member of your family,” the nurse told them. “If you’ll follow me.”
“What was it?” Maggie asked. “Girl or boy?”
“I’ll let the new mom tell you that,” she said, leading them through a set of double doors and down a brightly lit hallway.
Two immensely pregnant women were wandering the halls, shuffling with slow steps as they hung on to IV poles for support. Their husbands were right on their heels, murmuring encouragement. In one room a woman moaned, and from yet another a new baby’s indignant wail rose up like a discordant symphony.
Maggie felt Justice’s hand on the small of her back and relished that small intimacy. Here at least, they were together. A team. Two people who had survived hours of expectation and were now about to be rewarded.
In Bella’s room the new mom lay back, exhausted and gorgeous against her pillows, a tightly wrapped bundle cradled in her arms. Jesse stood beside her, still looking a little pale and glassy-eyed but happier than they’d ever seen him.
Maggie hurried forward, held on to the bedrail, stared down into a red, wrinkly face and declared it, “Beautiful. Just beautiful, Bella. So…boy or girl?”
“Boy,” Jesse said proudly. “And we’re keeping the J-name thing going, too. Uncle Justice, Aunt Maggie, I want you to meet Joshua.”
Justice moved in closer, leaning over Maggie to get a good look at the newest King. She felt his breath on her cheek as he reached over, pulled the tightly wrapped white blanket down a bit so he could get a better view of the baby. She felt his indrawn breath as he studied his brother’s son and heard the soft sigh escape him as he looked at Bella.
“He’s a beauty, Bella. Good thing he looks like you.”
“Hey!” Jesse grinned.
“Don’t you think you’d better sit down?” Justice asked, a teasing note in his voice. “I hear the delivery was a little rough on you.”
Jesse scowled and cast a disgusted glance at the open door even as Bella laughed delightedly. “Big-mouth nurse,” he muttered before turning a look back on Justice. He jerked his head to one side, silently telling his brother he wanted to talk in private.
When they were far enough from the two women in the room, Jesse said, “I’m a father now, too, Justice. And I’m telling you, Jonas is your son. Don’t lose this. Don’t blow everything for your pride.”
Justice, though, turned to look at Bella and Maggie, illuminated by the overhead light, both women looking down on that tiny boy with delirious smiles. “Now’s not the time, Jesse.”
“There’s no better time, Justice,” his brother told him. “Don’t waste another minute.”
Jesse moved back to his wife then, and Maggie soon joined Justice to go back to the ranch, leaving the new family to settle in together. As they stepped out of the hospital into the cold, clear night, Justice stopped, took a deep breath and thought about what Jesse had said to him, both here and at the ranch. What if he was right about all of it? What if Justice had been clinging to bad information for ten years?
“Wasn’t he beautiful,” Maggie asked, hunching deeper into the sweater she’d brought along with her. “So tiny. So perfect. So…” She stopped talking then, looked up at Justice and asked, “What is it? Is something wrong?”
He met her gaze and knew what he had to do. For all their sakes, it was time for the truth to come out.
“I want a paternity test run on Jonas.”
Eight
A few days later, Justice was still feeling the effects of Maggie’s fury. After an hour of lunges, wall squats and some fast walking on a treadmill, Maggie still wasn’t finished with him.
She’d set up a massage table in the pool house behind the main house and had him stretched out atop it like a prisoner on a rack. Sunlight drifted in through heavily tinted windows that allowed the people inside to enjoy the view but kept anyone outside from peering in. The bubbling of the hot tub at one end of the pool sounded overly loud in the strained quiet, and quiet purr of the air conditioner sounded like a continuous sigh.
Justice paid no attention to his surroundings, though. Instead, he kept a wary eye on Maggie. Her hands were sure, her professional demeanor was firmly in place but her eyes were flashing with suppressed rage. He winced as she took hold of his foot and, lifting it, pushed his leg toward his chest. Muscles he’d been working hard stretched and pulled, and he ground his teeth together to keep any moans from sliding out of his throat.
He curled his hands around the edges of the table and held on while she forced him to push against her hands. Resistance training, she called it. Torture was more like it, Justice thought.
“You’re enjoying this,” he muttered.
“No, I’m not.”
“Bullshit. You’re pissed off and you’re getting a charge out of making me pay.”
“Justice,” she said on a rush of breath, “I’m a professional physical therapist. I would never, under any circumstances, harm a patient under my care. Now push against me.”
He did and still managed to say, “You’re not trying to hurt me—I get that. But if it’s a by-product, it won’t bother you much, I’m thinking.”
“I’m doing what’s best for your rehabilitation,” she said, “and resisting torturing you, despite how tempting the idea might be.”
He pushed into her grip, focusing his strength, and he had to admit that since she’d been manhandling him, his leg was stronger and getting better every day. It still ached, but it was manageable and he rarely needed the cane anymore.
“I didn’t ask for the test specifically to piss you off,” he muttered, unwilling to leave it alone. Wanting her to see his side.
She inhaled sharply, set his leg down on the table and fisted her hands at her hips. “What do you want me to say, Justice? That I’m fine with you arranging for our son to be poked with a needle because you don’t trust me? Not gonna happen.”