it hurt. She’d imagined all this time that she knew what was going on with him. If he hadn’t turned to her after Barbara left, she’d drawn comfort from the belief that he hadn’t turned to anyone else, either. His date with Charlotte tonight had been tough to accept, but at least she’d known it was a first date, and she’d secretly hoped it would be a disaster.
Now she had to face the fact that he’d had a relationship with someone months ago and might have fathered a child with her. Sebastian had always wanted kids. Matty knew that had been a bone of contention in his marriage to Barbara. Matty had wanted kids, too.
Once upon a time she’d dreamed…but Sebastian didn’t think of her that way, obviously. He’d found what he needed somewhere else.
She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth, but her words came out with a sharp edge. “So who’s the mother and why isn’t she here?”
“She’s the woman who was with us during the avalanche two years ago in Aspen, and I don’t know why she’s not here. Apparently she’s in some kind of trouble and had to park Elizabeth for a while.”
Matty remembered the ski trip on Sebastian’s birthday, right after the divorce had become final. Matty had been prepared to help him celebrate both events, but Travis, Boone and Nat had lured him off for a stag weekend. When she’d seen the televised news of the avalanche, she’d fought hysteria until she’d finally learned no one had been hurt.
Then last year the guys had gone back to Aspen on his birthday again. Matty had thought they were all trying to prove they weren’t afraid of some big old avalanche, but maybe Sebastian had simply wanted to celebrate his birthday with this woman. Really celebrate. “Did you know about the baby?”
He looked at her in shock. “You think I’d let a woman who was pregnant with my baby go through the whole thing alone? Of course I didn’t know!”
“Of course you didn’t.” Twenty minutes ago she wouldn’t have even asked, but twenty minutes ago she hadn’t thought he’d been carrying on with a woman in Aspen, either.
“Listen, can you figure out what to do with her? That crying is tearing me apart.”
Matty could see no point in getting angry, but she did anyway. She was furious with this Aspen woman for running away after “parking” her baby. Sebastian’s baby. Matty would sacrifice ten years of her life for the chance to be the mother of Sebastian’s baby, and the injustice of this situation made her see red.
But somebody had to think clearly in this two-some, and Sebastian didn’t appear to be in any shape to do it. “I suggest you bring in the two boxes from the front porch,” she said. “My guess is that we’ll find supplies in there.”
“There were boxes out there?”
“Two of them.” She couldn’t believe how rattled he was. He wasn’t the most observant man in the world, but even he would usually notice two cardboard boxes left on his front porch.
He leaped to the task with obvious eagerness, as if some action, any action, was better than standing around stewing. While he carried them in, plopped them on the floor and ripped into them, Matty finished taking the fleece sleeper off the baby. Sebastian’s baby. Every time Matty thought about it, pain stabbed her chest.
Much as she probably ought to, she couldn’t leave the subject alone. “Did she actually say you were the father?”
“No. Her note just asked me to be Elizabeth’s godfather until she could come back for her.” He crouched beside the boxes, sorting through the contents. “Hey, everything’s in here. Formula, diapers, clothes. Even a book on taking care of babies. And there’s an envelope.” He tore it open and scanned the contents. “Instructions. Birth certificate. Medical records. Some sort of notarized thing giving me permission to have her treated if she gets sick.”
Matty’s tiny hope that the baby wasn’t his began to die. “Sounds as if she means for you to keep her for a while,” she said softly.
He didn’t acknowledge hearing her. “Okay, here’s what she says about feeding. The milk’s in cans, and she’s already sterilized some bottles and nipples, but she has instructions for how to do it when these run out.” Sebastian grabbed up a can and the package of sterilized bottles and nipples. “I’ll handle this in the kitchen. Keep rocking her. I think that helps.”
“Wash your hands!” Matty called after him. She wasn’t sure if rocking helped calm Elizabeth, but it helped calm her. She couldn’t imagine what was wrong with this ditzy Aspen woman. Sebastian was the guy to run to if you had problems, not away from. If he’d accidentally fathered a child, he’d want to do the right thing. If he had any feeling for the mother, or maybe even if he didn’t, he’d want to get married and provide the kid with a name and a matched set of parents.
Any woman who didn’t realize that, especially after knowing him well enough to make love to him, had to be terminally stupid. She didn’t deserve Sebastian or this baby.
He came back in less time than Matty would have expected, but then she remembered Fleafarm’s huge litter ten years ago—more pups than faucets. He’d had to fill baby bottles a lot that spring.
He handed her the formula. “Do you know how to do this?”
“I’ll muddle through. I don’t think it’s rocket science.” She took the bottle. At first the baby was too upset and refused to latch on, but gradually she seemed to understand what was being offered and accepted the nipple.
Silence.
Except for George Strait singing a love song and the crackling of the fire, both of which reminded Matty of what had been planned for this evening. She hoped the baby had kept things from progressing very far.
Sebastian let out a heavy sigh. Then he picked up the sheaf of instructions and sat down in a wing chair facing Matty. He flipped through the papers and took out one. “She was born on January twenty-ninth, which makes her almost two months old.”
Matty didn’t have to work very hard to figure it out. Elizabeth had been conceived on or near Sebastian’s birthday celebration in Aspen last year. She looked up from the tiny baby to gaze at him. “You’re quite a piece of work, you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Everybody around here felt so sorry for you because you were having a tough time getting back into the dating game after the divorce. They were so tickled that you finally invited a woman over for dinner, for crying out loud.” Matty hadn’t been tickled, but the rest of the valley had seemed overjoyed. “Meanwhile, you’ve been sowing all sorts of wild oats with some fellow avalanche survivor in Aspen.”
He tensed. “I have not been sowing all sorts of wild oats. I’m not even sure I sowed any.”
“Then what’s this all about?”
His face darkened to a dusky rose. “It’s just that I’m not sure. We were all tanked that night, all of us except Jessica.”
Jessica. Matty hated the name on principle. “Are you saying you can’t remember if you used protection?”
“I can’t remember if I made love to her, period.”
Matty hated this subject, but she had to know the truth, and she was growing impatient with Sebastian’s dense attitude. “Look, you probably did. It was your birthday. It’s logical that if you had something going with her, you’d feel like…celebrating.”
“That’s just it. I didn’t have something going with her. We’re just friends. When you survive something like an avalanche together, you see what people are made of. Jessica has guts.” He paused. “Or so I thought.”
“Mmm.” Matty deliberately kept her response neutral, but a woman with guts didn’t desert her baby, in her estimation.
Sebastian seemed to be considering the same subject. Finally he shook his head in bewilderment. “Beats