Baby's First Homecoming. Cathy McDavid

grave.

       Her son’s, on the other hand, lit up at the sight of her, and he babbled excitedly, just as he had three weeks ago when he’d seen her for the first time since the day he was born.

       Giving Jamie up for adoption was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

       Facing Clay, telling him about it, was coming in a very close second.

      * * *

      “HE WANTS DOWN.” Sierra sat on the couch, assuming, hoping that Clay would sit there, too, and Jamie would crawl across the cushions to her.

       Only Clay had chosen the chair, a hand-me-down that used to reside in the living room long before she’d left for college.

       Jamie squirmed and wriggled and whined, pushing ruthlessly at Clay’s chest in a bid for freedom. The resemblance between them, same hazel eyes and blond hair, same disarming smile, was striking enough for Sierra realize she wouldn’t have gotten away with lying about her child’s father’s identity for long.

       “I won’t take off with him,” she repeated his earlier promise.

       Clay released Jamie, reluctantly depositing him on the hardwood floor. He immediately scrambled over to Sierra, then abandoned her just as quickly to explore the cozy apartment. The two-person breakfast set fascinated him. He squeezed between a chair and the table legs, then plopped on the floor beneath the table, cooing with satisfaction.

       Sierra hadn’t visited the old bunkhouse in years. As with the main house, the transformation amazed her.

       “Why didn’t you tell me about Jamie?”

       It was like Clay to ask the toughest question first.

       She collected her thoughts before replying. “The simple answer is I found out you and Jessica were back together and getting married. Showing up at the wedding and announcing I was carrying your child didn’t feel like the right thing to do.”

       “That’s not reason enough. You denied me my son.”

       “Yes, I did.” And she would do it again, given half the chance.

       “Why?”

       She wasn’t going to admit she’d fallen in love during their two-week affair and that the announcement of his marriage so soon after it ended had crushed her. Clay would sense her vulnerability, and she wasn’t about to give him any advantage.

       “I denied myself my son, too,” she said.

       “I don’t see how.” He glowered at her as if she were a criminal when what she’d really been was a victim—of his callousness and the Stevensons’ heartlessness.

       “I didn’t learn I was pregnant until after Dad told me you and Jessica had set a date.”

       “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you myself.” Clay’s glower momentarily abated. “I owed you that much.”

       He had. And admitting it almost two years too late didn’t diminish her anguish.

       “I was never very regular,” she continued without acknowledging his apology. “It wasn’t until the flu bug I thought I’d caught didn’t go away that I finally considered the possibility I was pregnant. You have to understand what a shock it was. We’d used protection.”

       “I do understand. But that’s still no reason to keep Jamie a secret.”

       “I didn’t tell my family, either, not that it matters.”

       “It does, actually. I was going to give Ethan and Gavin hell for not telling me.”

       “Today was the first I’d heard you and my brothers were friends again.”

       “More than friends. Gavin and I are partners in a mustang stud and breeding business, and Ethan works for me at the rodeo arena, breaking and training broncs.”

       “Wow!” Friends and business partners and coworkers. It was a lot for Sierra to absorb all at once.

       “You’d have known we’d reconciled if you’d ever talked to your family.”

       “I deserved that.” She may have, but it still stung.

       “I didn’t say it to be mean.”

       Hadn’t he?

       The glower had returned, raising her hackles.

       “Regardless, at the time I found out I was pregnant, you and my family hated each other and had for years. Which is the reason we snuck around those two weeks.”

       “I wanted to tell them about us, if you remember.”

       “Right. Like I was supposed to say, ‘Hey, Dad, I’m dating Clay, the son of the man who sold the land that was in our family for four generations.’ They’d have disowned me.”

       “That’s not true.”

       “They wouldn’t have been happy. Dad despised your father.”

       “For the record, I never agreed with what he did to your family. We’ve hardly spoken in years.”

       “That’s too bad.”

       “No, it isn’t.” Clay ground out the words as if they tasted foul.

       Whatever had transpired between him and his father must have been quite ugly.

       “He’s family.” Sierra was just now rediscovering how important family was, even when the parent was a soulless man like Bud Duvall.

       “So is Jamie,” Clay said. “My family.”

       They both looked at their son.

       He’d grown bored with his pretend cave beneath the table and had crawled out. Before he could interest himself in an electrical outlet or a lamp cord, Sierra rose from the couch, located a ring of keys on the counter and gave them to him. Thrilled, he sat on the floor between the kitchen and living room and proceeded to investigate his new toy with avid concentration.

       “I’d have taken care of you and Jamie,” Clay said.

       “You would have.” His sense of duty was nothing if not strong. Unlike his father’s. “Jessica, I was pretty sure, might have objected to you having a child with another woman.”

       He didn’t answer, letting her know she was right.

       “I refused to be responsible for ending your marriage before it even began.”

       “That was my decision to make. Not yours.”

       “Blame the hormones. I was confused and—” she decided to be honest with him “—hurt. I wasn’t thinking entirely clearly.”

       She’d also been depressed. Deeply depressed. Enough that her obstetrician had become concerned and prescribed private counseling along with a support group. Sierra’s health insurance didn’t cover counseling, and she wasn’t earning enough money to pay for it out of pocket. She did attend a support group. Three meetings. Talking with other single mothers in similar situations had only made her feel worse, not better.

       Chronically sick, hormonal and at an all-time emotional low, she’d been an easy target for someone with a personal agenda. Like the Stevensons.

       “I didn’t intend to hurt you, Sierra. Those two weeks we had together were wonderful.”

       “Not wonderful enough, I guess.” The wound he’d left her with ached anew.

       “You were going back to San Francisco. My job was here. If I led you to believe we had a future—”

       “You didn’t.”

       Sierra had been the one to hope for the impossible. Clay and Jessica had dated for years. Six, no, seven. They were constantly breaking up, only to reconcile days or weeks later. Sierra had been a fool to think he wouldn’t run back to Jessica the second she snapped her