A voice in his head said, “Until now,” and the vision of Jenna curved protectively, lovingly around his boy rose in his mind.
Taking up a Santa-shaped ornament, he dipped his brush in red frosting. “You gonna tell me about Gavin’s nightmare?”
Brush and cookie in hand, she looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”
“When I came in from the barn, I checked on him.” He shrugged. “Always do. He was gone. You heard him on the monitor, didn’t you? That’s why you came inside last night.”
Jenna tilted her head.
Yes, she’d come in for that reason, but also because he’d kissed her and then pushed her away. She was still pondering that turn of events.
“I’m not sure what he dreamed,” she said. “But he was shivering and scared.”
“Thank you for looking after him.”
“No gratitude is required, Dax.” Jenna dropped her gaze to the gingerbread boy. “I love him.”
There, she’d admitted her love for one of the Coleman men. One down and one to go.
Dax didn’t respond to the declaration, just went on painting Santa’s hat with red frosting.
After a bit, he said, “You know I’m divorced.”
The topic surprised her a little, but she was ready to hear the story from him. “Yes.”
“Gavin never really knew his mother. She left when he was a few days old.” He laid aside the paintbrush and drew in a deep breath. “She never wanted him.”
“How horrible. He doesn’t know, does he?”
“No. No. I’d never tell him such a thing, but he has to feel it. Other boys have mothers and he has never even seen his. When he was three years old, he began to notice that baby horses have mamas. Baby calves have mamas. Even his dad has a mama. Now that he’s started school, he talks about it more. He’s more clingy and the nightmares come more often.” He rubbed the side of his neck as though the worry gave him a pain. “I don’t know what to do.”
“His lack of a mother is not your fault.”
“I feel as if it is. I wasn’t the best husband in the world. Always working, constantly out in the barn or the fields or off to stock sales and shows.”
He looked so sad Jenna couldn’t stop herself. She put aside her decorations, reached across the table and touched the back of his hand. “You were making a living for your family. That’s as it should be.”
“Reba didn’t think so. She wanted parties and travel and fun.”
“Nothing wrong with those things.”
“That’s why I blame myself.”
“You didn’t understand my meaning. There is nothing wrong with those things in small increments, but they aren’t a lifestyle. Or they shouldn’t be.” No one knew that better than her. “My husband was the same way. Life was a party.” As long as she was paying the bills and didn’t stand in the way.
“Did you love him?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I thought I did. Did you love Reba?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Too much, I guess.”
The admission poked at Jenna like a pinprick.
“I need you to know something,” he went on. “She started divorce proceedings long before Gavin was born.” His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “After I caught her in bed with my brother.”
The stark pain on his face drove the breath from her lungs. She knew that kind of betrayal, too, although she’d never caught Derek in the act. The newspaper speculation had been humiliating enough.
“You must have been…shattered.”
“Yeah. We had just found out she was pregnant. I was overjoyed—and too stupid to see what was going on under my nose. I thought she was finally ready to settle down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know the last words she said to me?” His jaw worked, his fist tightened beneath her fingers, and Jenna could feel the rage and hurt coming off him in waves. “She asked me if I’d always wonder for certain if the kid she’d given me was really mine.”
Jenna had never been a violent person, but she wanted to slap a certain female named Reba. The woman was too cruel for words. “Do you?”
He shook his head. “No. Oh, I thought about it when she first left, but after a while I no longer cared. I believe he’s mine by biology, but even if he isn’t, he’s mine in here.” He tapped a finger to his breastbone. “I rocked him, walked the floor with him, diapered his bottom and spooned baby food into his bird mouth. With every new thing I did for and with my son, I loved him deeper. He’s a trooper, a hearty little soul who survived a stumbling, bumbling daddy. I just wish I could have been a mama to him, too. How could she do that to him? How could she not love a son like Gavin?”