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For the next five minutes, she told him what he’d done. How she’d come back from outside to find his diaper off and that he’d scooted through poop smearing it all over the sheets.
“Gross,” he said laughing.
“No kidding,” she replied. “He had to have a bath and then I put his sheets on to wash. Been a very busy morning.”
“Not to mention the neighbor outside,” he said. “Why did she tell you this?”
Cristina was not about to mention how she’d had a photographer up on a ladder trying to take Wyatt’s picture this morning.
“We were talking,” she said. “I should not have gone outside. It was all my fault.”
Blake sank onto the couch and she went into the bedroom and put a sleeping Wyatt in his bed. What was she going to do with Blake for the next hour while the baby slept?
When she walked back into the living room, he was staring down at the floor, his hands steepled together. He glanced up at her and she could see the worry lines on his face.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“All right,” she replied and sat across from him. She didn’t want to sit next to him for fear of touching him. And if she touched him, she feared her reaction to him.
“Once a month, my brothers and I have a board meeting. We had one this week and I told my brothers about Wyatt. They can’t wait to meet him, but they’re insisting on a DNA test.”
She tensed.
“I know he’s mine, but you have to understand that they’re just trying to protect the ranch. To make sure no one takes advantage of us.”
Of course, they were. She should have known this was coming. And could she blame them? No.
“As long as you’re going to pay for it, I have no problem. But just realize that could become public record and everyone will learn you have a son. Are you prepared for that?”
The thought of the reporter trying to get photos of Wyatt filled her with fear. This could make her life even more challenging.
He reached out and took her hand. Warmth flooded her body. “He’s my son. As far as I’m concerned, I’d like to shout it out to the world. The only reason I’m not telling everyone is to protect you and him.”
She’d never considered his position before. How the world treated and accepted him and the consequences of all that money. Now she was experiencing it firsthand.
“Understand, but we can’t tell everyone just yet,” she said thinking about what she wasn’t telling him. How there were weirdos now hanging out in the parking lot.
Yes, she was keeping secrets from him, but for good reason.
“Agree,” he said. “Not yet anyway. When do you want to take him to get the test?”
While she knew Wyatt was Blake’s son, a trickle of fear spiraled down her. This would give him full parental rights. Was she ready for this?
“I’m off next Friday. Every other weekend, I get three days off because sometimes I can get stranded.”
“Who takes care of Wyatt when you’re stranded?”
“My mother,” she said. “It’s only happened once, but you never know.”
They sat gazing at each other, and she did her best not to let her insides get all twisted up in knots. Why did she still feel this way about Blake?
“I’d love for you and Wyatt to come out to the ranch and meet my brothers. I’d like to make a weekend of it. You guys could stay at my house, meet my brothers, and I’d like to take you to meet Hannah Newhouse Burnett.”
Cristina gasped. “The artist Hannah Newhouse? The painter who liked to paint the same landscapes as Georgia O’Keeffe?”
“Yes,” he said grinning.
Cristina had admired the artist’s work for years. Long before she married Jacob Burnett.
