can fail.”
“I always checked after we were done and they were intact.”
Kayla remembered him checking and how she’d interpreted it as thoughtfulness. “There must have been something you missed.”
“A million-to-one chance against a girl that every guy in the school knew had a birthmark on her hip.”
“It would have been easy for someone to find out about a birthmark without having had sex with me,” Kayla retorted. She’d always figured it was Marcy who’d shared that information after Jackson had stopped dating her and asked Kayla out. Marcy’s locker had been close to hers in gym class, so it would have been easy to spot something normally covered by clothes.
“Regardless, you’re going to drop this, now and forever,” Jackson ordered.
Kayla raised her eyebrows. Would he have been so peremptory toward another man?
“Perhaps I could have been more tactful when you announced you were pregnant,” he continued, “but that was a long time ago. I have my daughter to consider, and girls are very sensitive to this sort of thing.”
“Girls are sensitive to...?” Kayla repeated in disbelief. “That’s pretty damn patronizing. Teenagers are sensitive to everything and gender doesn’t make much difference. You’re obviously even more chauvinistic than you used to be.”
Jackson made a dismissive gesture. “I don’t care what you call it. I didn’t sleep all night, trying to think of ways to protect Morgan from any wild rumors you might start.”
There were lines of exhaustion under his eyes and dark beard stubble on his jaw, so he might have stayed up all night. Jackson was more gorgeous and sexy than ever, but otherwise, she wasn’t impressed with what she’d seen of him as an adult.
“I’m going to try this again,” Kayla said carefully. “No one is asking you take responsibility for Alex. I’m well able to take care of him myself. I wouldn’t have called you in the first place, except my son is here in Schuyler. We can get genetic tests and I could go through the court to force it, but I doubt a judge will consider it necessary. The resemblance between the two of you is unmistakable. Because of it, people are already talking, and I don’t think it’s fair for your daughter to learn about it on Facebook or get a tweet that she has a brother.”
Her words seemed to pull Jackson up short. In the silence Kayla took out her smartphone and brought up Alex’s latest school photo.
She held it out. “Let me introduce you to your son.”
As he stared at the screen, the stunned expression on Jackson’s face spoke volumes.
* * *
JACKSON FELT THE way he had when a bronco had tossed him at the Schuyler Rodeo Days and he’d landed on a fence railing. By comparison, having two broken ribs and twenty-three stitches was a picnic. Deep down he wanted to believe the picture was a fake and didn’t prove a thing. But the kid looked like him. No question about it.
Pain went through Jackson’s gut. He might have been a rebellious teen, but the McGregors took care of family, no matter what. It was part of their code. The idea that he had a son he hadn’t known or supported was a hard pill to swallow.
“Well?” Kayla prompted.
“I suppose he’s overdue for a father,” Jackson choked out.
She crossed her arms over her stomach. “You’re assuming I stayed a single mom? Maybe on welfare or delivering pizzas?”
“Of course not. You have a different last name, so I figured you’d got married.”
“Divorced now, but I got married when Alex was three. Curtis is an accountant in Seattle. He legally adopted Alex the year we were married.”
Adopted? Jackson was floored. “How could the court allow it without my permission?”
“They didn’t need permission—you weren’t on the birth certificate,” Kayla retorted.
“Didn’t you think Alex had the right to have his father listed?”
“Oh, gee, let me think. I was barely seventeen and the father of my baby had denied any possible responsibility, calling me a slut and—”
“I never called you a slut,” Jackson said hastily.
“It boils down to the same thing. I didn’t want your name anywhere near my son. Frankly, I’m not crazy about having you near him now. I was hoping you’d changed, but the only change I’ve seen has been negative.”
Jackson pulled a slow breath into his chest, reminding himself that Kayla was the injured party and he had only himself to blame for missing so much of his son’s life.
“Look, I’m sorry for not believing you, but you did have a reputation,” he reminded her, still wanting to believe he hadn’t screwed up that badly.
Too late, his conscience mocked him.
“My so-called reputation was almost certainly invented by your on-again, off-again girlfriend,” Kayla informed him crisply. “If any boys claimed something else, it was bravado talking. Marcy was spiteful and wanted you back. And she got what she wanted—you dumped me without a word and got engaged to her. I understand you married her right after graduation.”
Kayla’s expression reminded Jackson of the chin-up, ready-to-take-a-hit attitude she had exuded as a belligerent kid. Back then she’d fascinated him, the street-savvy newcomer, so different from the girls who’d grown up around Schuyler. She’d also been one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen. And Josh was right—Kayla was still hot. Her long legs were topped by a tight rear end covered in formfitting jeans, while her snug T-shirt revealed the kind of curves that made a man’s blood simmer. The mother of a teenager shouldn’t look so provocative.
As for Marcy being spiteful enough to spread malicious lies? It was possible. Hell, it was more than possible. She’d turned out to be less than admirable, more interested in his generous trust fund than in him. In fact, he suspected Marcy had gotten pregnant deliberately, hoping he would marry her. Maybe if she’d realized her mother had inherited a fortune that would come to her one day, she wouldn’t have been so eager to get married.
“We can discuss what happened later, but right now I want to see my son,” Jackson said.
“That’s up to Alex.”
“Kids don’t always know what’s best.”
“I agree,” Kayla told him, “only it isn’t that easy. He...uh, ran away to Schuyler. That’s the only reason I’m here. I never planned to return.”
“Is he okay?” Jackson demanded. “How far did he get on his own?”
“We live in Seattle. He showed up at my grandparents’ house rather quickly and says nothing bad happened on the road, but it scared the hell out of me.”
“It scares me, and I didn’t even know about it beforehand. But don’t you think Alex running away to Schuyler had something to do with wanting to see his birth dad?”
An odd mix of emotions crossed Kayla’s face. “No. Alex had no idea where his biological father lived before last night. Actually, the whole thing started a few days ago when he found out that Curtis had adopted him. We were waiting to tell him about it.”
Jackson opened his mouth to make a snide remark about Kayla’s parenting decisions, then stopped. He wasn’t in a position to pass judgment. “Well, now that Alex knows, doesn’t he want to meet me?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You didn’t ask?”
Kayla gave him a hostile look. “Of course I asked, but in case you don’t know it already, teenagers don’t always give direct answers.”
Yeah, Jackson knew