Montana Reunion by Soraya Lane Read Free Book Online Page B

whole baby thing so soon, but it had kind of slipped out.
    “Sorry, I thought that maybe you’d
just overacted about that last night.” Maddison cringed inside. He’d been pretty firm about that particular topic, which meant
the chance of him changing his mind was almost nil . Especially so soon. Changing Jack’s mind could take a while,
she knew that.
    “What part of I don’t ever want to be a dad didn’t I make clear?” His voice was
deep, his fury barely contained.
    “Jack, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have
said anything.” It wasn’t like him to overreact.
    “But you want a baby, right?” he
asked.
    She took a deep, shaky breath.
“Yeah, I want to be a mom, and I know my time could be running out. But if you
need longer to get your head around the idea, time to figure it out, then I
guess we can renegotiate later.”
    His laugh wasn’t one she’d ever
heard him utter before. “You say it like one day I’ll wake up and just change
my mind. That I’ll just decide I’ve been wrong all these years and want a
child.”
    Now she’d started, she wasn’t going
to back down without at least being honest. “Jack, as your friend, I’m telling
you that you’ll make a great dad.” She laughed. “I can’t actually imagine
another guy who’d make a better dad, and I’m saying that straight from my
heart. Whether it’s with me or not, it has to happen one day.”
    “ Maddison ,
I’m all in if you want to get married. I’ll sign a pre- nup ,
I’ll treat you like a woman deserves to be treated, and I’ll do everything in
my power to help your dad out when he needs it. To be a son
to him. But I need to make myself clear.” He paused, reaching for her
hand and giving it a squeeze. “I will never, ever change my mind about becoming
a parent, and I need you to understand that.”
    “Never?” Her pulse was beating fast. What if Jack
was her last chance at having a baby? Because if she married
him, then she wouldn’t exactly be able to go off and find a donor, have a baby
on her own.
    He stood and started to pace, hands
clenched into tight fists at his sides, and she wished she’d never said
anything. That she’d just kept quiet.
    “Do you
remember the day my mom died?”
    Jack stared into Maddison’s eyes, wishing he wasn’t the reason that they’d
flooded with tears. But he had to be honest with her, couldn’t let her agree to marrying him, to going ahead with what they’d
discussed, without being completely honest with her. He owed her the truth, and
he needed to be clear.
    “You know I remember it, Jack,” she
replied.
    He started to pace again, not able
to sit still. The sun was fierce outside, just like the day he’d been working
with his mom. The day that was still so vivid to him it was like it had
happened yesterday.
    The
truck was huge, but they knew the driver and he was calling out to them. Jack’s
shirt was stuck to his chest, perspiration dripping down his neck and his
forehead, soaking through his clothes. His mom was still smiling though, never fazed by the weather or how hard the work was,
so long as she was outside doing something.
    Jack shook his head, trying to push
the memories away and failing. They were like a movie, playing through his
mind, gnawing at him whenever he failed to keep the wall up that kept them at
bay. That stopped them from resurfacing.
    “My dad had always been hard on me, Maddison , you know that. But the way he looked at me
that day, the change in him, was…” he blew out a big breath. “I know you were
there through so much of it, but I still don’t think even you could understand
how he looked at me from that day forward. The way he went from loving me as
his son, to hating me, despising me with so much fury, blaming me for
everything. From marrying my mom in the first place and
moving to the ranch, to having me. He made it all my fault.”
    “He was a bastard to you, Jack,” Maddison said, her voice so low and powerful that it made
him stop.