AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The revelation shook her. She’d only just arrived and was the man’s employee. She had no right to think of him as a…friend. As a man.
But she did.
Stunned by the emotion splashing around inside like a raft on the Colorado rapids, she stroked Sophie’s sleeping face with one finger, thinking.
Dax’s gravelly voice scraped across the silence, quiet and dangerously attractive. “She’s a good baby, isn’t she?”
“I think so, but I haven’t been around babies much, so I have no one to compare.”
He cocked to one side, resting his weight on a hip. The tension from earlier tonight had inexplicably dissipated. Puzzling man. Fascinating man.
“No nieces or nephews?”
Jenna shook her head and met his gaze. “I was an only child.”
“Are your parents still living?”
She could hear the unasked question. If they’re still alive, why aren’t you with them? Wouldn’t they want to know about their grandchild? She focused her attention on Sophie’s fingers, lifting the tiny digits up one by one, unable to look her employer in the eye.
“No. They’re dead.” At least to her, but her pulse rattled at the lie. “Yours?”
“Dad’s gone. Mom moved to Austin some years back to be near my sister, Karina. Once in a while they drive up here or I take Gavin to see them. Not as often as I’d like. Life’s busy.”
“What about Christmas? Won’t you see them then?”
“I don’t know yet. Haven’t given it much thought.”
The holiday was only weeks away. “Doesn’t Gavin have a list a mile long?”
“Two miles.” He smiled again.
“Who’s Grandpa Joe?”
Dax chuckled. “Gavin’s good buddy and my ninety-two-year-old great-granddaddy. He’s in a care facility over in Saddleback, feeble as a kitten but sharp as a tack.”
Gavin wandered back into the room. “Grandpa Joe is my best friend.” He hopped onto the bed, his little body slithering beneath the comforter. Water glistened on his hair and around his mouth. He’d apparently combed his hair as well as having that final drink. “I’m ready. Tuck me in.”
Dax stepped to the bedside and bent low, pulling the boy into a hug before settling him again with the covers tucked snugly beneath the small chin. “’Night, sport. Sleep tight.”
“’Night, Daddy. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. ’Night, Miss Jenna.”
“Good night, Gavin. Sweet dreams.”
Dax gave the child one final pat on the chest and straightened, turning for the door. Jenna, baby in arms, moved past him and started down the hall. As the light snapped out, she heard Gavin’s voice one last time. “See, Dad? Having a mama in the house isn’t so bad after all.”
Dax knew he was dreaming, but the knowledge didn’t stop the parade of emotions. In his dream, Gavin was still a baby and he was an exhausted, confused single dad, asleep in his half-empty king-size bed, wishing his wife would come home and help with the baby. And Gavin was crying. Demanding a bottle. Screaming for the mother that would never come.
Dax burrowed deeper into the pillow. Sometimes if he let the baby cry for a few minutes, they could both go back to sleep. After all, he was dreaming. The dream would end, along with the deep ache of regret and the incessant crying.
The cries grew louder.
Reba’s mocking face flickered through the dream like a ghost. Ignoring her son’s tears, she danced before Dax with a flowy scarf over her face, laughing as she looped arms with another man and flitted away with only a parting glance at her devastated husband and crying child.
The sorrow in Dax’s gut turned to acid. He hadn’t had this dream in years. He needed to wake up.
Thrashing against the tangle of covers, he fought off sleep and sat upright. A film of sweat covered his body, and his chest heaved, but he forced his breathing to calm. He’d long ago stopped loving Reba. Why had he dreamed about her tonight?
A mewling cry from the far back of the house was his answer.
A baby was crying. Gavin? He shook his head. No, couldn’t be. The baby was Sophie. Jenna’s pink baby doll was crying.
Still mired in a kind of half sleep with cobwebs in his brain, he threw his feet onto the floor and padded down the hall toward the sound.
The house was dark except for the glow of a three-quarter moon splashing pale whiteness across the carpet. Dax needed no other light to maneuver in his own home. Even the nursery, as little as he’d used those rooms, was familiar. The baby’s room had two entries, one from inside Jenna’s bedroom and the other from the hall. He quietly pushed open the hallway door and stepped to the crib.
