Hot-Shot Doc, Secret Dad (Cowboys, Doctors...Daddies) Page 10

  Once at the military academy, they parked and walked to the front of the school, where a large group of families gathered at the auditorium entrance. Exactly at 10:00 a.m. the doors opened and they got ushered to their seats by upperclassmen.

  Julie’s pulse jumped around inside her chest as she was watching for her son, realizing today was a monumental day whether James knew it or not. He was about to meet his father.

  Now her cheeks flushed, too, but having Trevor by her side gave her confidence that things might work out for the best. She prayed the two would like each other and form a bond. James needed that desperately.

  Soon the various classes entered, their cadet uniforms reminding Julie of police officers with the long-sleeved pale blue shirts, epaulets on shoulders, patches on the sleeves and gray slacks with black stripes down the leg. Hardly thinking, with her heart thumping so hard she felt it in her ears, Julie reached for Trevor’s hand and squeezed for support. Immediately, Trevor placed his free hand on top of hers. It felt so natural, yet unraveling to be touched by him.

  James entered with his seventh-grade class, looking straight ahead, and walking with the best posture she’d seen on him ever. She still needed time to get used to his shorter military haircut, especially since he’d been wearing the scraggly longer style with his skateboarding friends back in California one short month ago, and she really did love his thick wavy hair.

  “That’s him,” Julie whispered and pointed out her son to Trevor, second row, fourth in. He sat straighter to get a good look. Pride for their son welled in her chest.

  “He’s taller than I thought,” Trevor whispered, his laser stare assessing James.

  “I swear, he grows on a weekly basis these days.”

  Trevor smiled, and patted her hand, and Julie wondered if he was thinking back to when he was that age himself, or if he was as amazed by their son as she was. From this angle, with Trevor’s strong, jutting-out chin and his bright eyes devoted solely to checking out James, she voted for the amazed option.

  And why did the hand-holding feel so intense and wonderful?

  No, she couldn’t let herself dream of something that wasn’t possible.

  Within minutes, the introductions were completed and a few short welcoming speeches were given, and then a tour of the dorms, where the spotless rooms of two to three bunk beds each were almost unbelievable. The upperclassmen guided the tours and told how their days began at six and lights-out was at ten. How the boys were responsible for themselves and their schedules, and excuses weren’t accepted.

  Then finally it was time for the meet and greet. Julie could hardly wait to get a hold of her boy. He stood in the school foyer along with everyone else, in the at-ease stance and looking so young. Yet he seemed far more mature than the last time she’d seen him the day she’d brought him to the school. James’s eyes lit up and a lopsided smile creased his serious face the instant he saw her.

  Do not cry. Do not cry!

  Wow, she’d never connected the dots before—that smile was a younger version of Trevor’s knock-your-socks-off grin.

  “May I hug you?” Julie didn’t have a clue if that would be okay with James or not, and the last thing she wanted to do was break any written or unwritten rule.

  “Hi, Mom,” James said, letting Julie erase the distance between them, and accepting her hug and kiss without protest.

  She fought to not overdo it, so after one kiss on the forehead and a quick tight squeeze she let up and stepped back. “Hi, James.”

  She wanted to say Hi, baby or sweetie or honey, just about every endearment she’d ever said to him, but for the sake of her son she reined it all in. “You look great. How are things going?”

  “Not bad. Better than I thought.”

  Hopefully he was being honest. Trevor had stood back, and Julie glanced over her shoulder as James led her away to the visitation garden. They’d made their plan and Julie would stick with it. Trevor already understood.

  “Would you like some lemonade?” James asked as they passed a table with cookies and drinks.

  Who was this polite kid? Not that he’d ever been rude to her, but surely he’d never been this formal when it had been the two of them? “Sounds good. Thanks.”

  Like a young man, James got their drinks and led his mother to a secluded table to visit. Over the next hour she got an earful about the school, how things worked and what the academic classes were. She found out about study hall, lights-out and mandatory sports classes. Her mother’s instinct wasn’t detecting any red flags, and again she hoped with all her heart she’d made the right decision putting James here.

  After a brief tour of the dorms earlier, her hunch was he’d fit right in. Her son was a social animal, with a good personality, when he wasn’t being teased or tormented by jerks. She prayed there weren’t any jerks or bullies in his dorm room.

  Soon, it was lunch time, and after that Julie brought up Trevor. “James, I’ve brought a guest today, my new boss. I’ve been telling Dr. Montgomery all about you, and he was kind enough to drive me here.”

  After a quick perplexed flicker in his eyes, James relaxed. “That’s cool. Where is he?”

  Julie turned and found Trevor directly behind her, talking to some other parents, but keeping her and James in his peripheral vision. She waved, and her heart fluttered at the thought of introducing father to son. Trevor stood holding his hat, chatting, but noticed her immediately, as if he’d been keeping tabs on her and James—which Julie was positive he had—and smiled. The effect of his handsome gaze on her senses never ceased to surprise her. Damn, he was good-looking. And damn if her son wasn’t his younger spitting image.

  Trevor strolled over, a kind expression smoothing out his brows, and waited for Julie to introduce them.

  “James, this is Dr. Montgomery. And this is James.”

  They smiled and shook hands, and Julie could only imagine what must be going through Trevor’s mind.

  *

  Trevor reached for the boy’s hand and shook, hoping the friendly mask he wore wouldn’t give away the gamut of emotions stirring throughout his mind and body. It felt oddly like meeting himself when he was a preteen.

  “How’s it goin’?” he asked, feeling lame the instant it left his lips.

  “Pretty good.”

  “Seems like a pretty good place to go to school.”

  “I guess.”

  Oh, man, it felt like his saddle was slipping, and he couldn’t fix it. If only he could figure out how to get the boy to open up. “You know, your mom is out of earshot. If you want to be honest, I’m all ears.”

  The time-travel version of himself thought, quirking a corner of his mouth as he did. “Sometimes it feels kinda like I’m locked up.”

  “You can’t do whatever you want when you want to?”

  James shook his head.

  “You don’t get any free time?”

  “If we get all our morning classes’ homework done, after sports, we have an hour before dinner. Then we have to get the afternoon classes’ homework done before lights out.”

  “Have you been getting all your homework done on time?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What would you do if you got that free time?”

  “Back home, I’d ride my skateboard. I don’t have one here, though.”

  “So if you had a skateboard, you think that would be incentive to get you to finish your homework on time?”

  James flicked a hopeful glance at Trevor, then nodded. Trevor sure hoped the kid wasn’t playing him, but his gut told him otherwise.

  “You want me to talk to your mom about that? Not that I have any influence or anything, but she seems like a very reasonable person.” He was careful to say person rather than woman, which was the only way Trevor thought about Julie lately, not as his RNP or that girl he used to know. Nope. She was a woman, and she was driving him crazy. Now that he’d met his son, he ached to come clean, tell him who he was, but they’d made a deal, he and Ju
lie, and he’d stick to it. Today was just a meet-the-kid kind of day. The rest…well, they’d just have to wait and see how things worked out.

  “That’d be good. Thanks.”

  “Okay, then. Oh, hey, your mother tells me that you like horses.”

  James nodded thoughtfully.

  “Did I mention I happen to live on a ranch?”

  “No, sir, you didn’t.”

  He wanted to tell him to knock off the formal sir business, but what exactly should he tell the boy to call him? He wasn’t about to let him call him by his first name, in case the time came when he might be called Dad. Dr. Montgomery sounded so dang formal, and hey, you was just too common.

  “I notice they call you kids by your last names around here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why don’t you call me Montgomery instead of sir?”

  “Okay.” James was looking more confused by the minute. Evidently he wasn’t expecting to see Trevor beyond today.

  “So back to my mentioning the ranch. It’s a cattle ranch, but we have all kinds of horses.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah, and I found out today that parents can sign their kids out for home visits on the weekends if the kids are keeping up with their schoolwork and chores.”

  Now he had James’s full attention.

  “What I’m saying is, how would you like to go riding with me next weekend, that is if it’s okay with your mother, and provided you stay on top of your studies all week?”

  “Would she do that, do you think?” James’s hopeful gaze almost did in Trevor.

  “I don’t see why not. I’d really enjoy your company, and I’ve got some pretty awesome trails I could take you on. Oh, and I’m her boss, so I think we stand a good chance she’ll say yes.”

  James smiled and something inside Trevor’s chest popped wide open. He wanted to be the father his son had never had. He wanted to make up for lost time. He wanted to be the male influence on the rest of this boy’s life. He wanted to love him as his own. Which he was!

  But hold on.

  All in due time. The kid had enough new things to get used to. Knowing he was talking to his birth father might set him back. A lot. “Let’s shake on it.”

  Just as they shook hands an announcement came over the loud speaker. “Visitation day is about over. Take the next five minutes to say your goodbyes. All cadets, fall in with your company at fourteen hundred hours, sharp.”

  Trevor wanted to forgo the handshake and hug the daylights out of the boy, but practiced discipline and settled for the manly shake. Julie rushed over, not the least bit concerned about protocol, and hugged James. By the slight quiver to James’s chin, Trevor understood the boy was fighting back his true feelings, too.

  “Mom, I know I messed up, and I’m trying to make up for my mistakes.”

  “I know you are, honey. You know I love you no matter what, but I want the best for you, and right now I believe this place is it.”

  “I guess.”

  “Hopefully one day you’ll understand.”

  They hugged again, and Trevor saw the truest kind of love that ever existed, the love of a mother for her child, the kind he’d felt from his own mother until her last day. The scene moved him deeper than he’d felt since his mother’s dying day. It was his turn to fight back the emotions surging through his core and up the back of his throat, swallow, and take a deep breath.

  One thing became apparent as he stood there watching Julie and James hugging and weeping: he wanted to experience the same thing, to let himself open up and feel love without limits for the son he’d never known he had. He had a lot of years to make up for, but he’d do his best, starting with bringing James to the ranch.

  Trevor cleared his throat. “Uh, Julie?”

  She turned, huge eyes glistening with moisture. “Yes.”

  “Not to put you on the spot or anything, but James and I were thinking it would be fun to go for a horse ride at the ranch sometime. Would that be okay with you?”

  Now that hovering, hopeful cloud switched over to Julie’s sparkling eyes. “I think that’s a great idea.”

  “Cool!” James jumped in.

  Not to become putty in the boy’s hands, Trevor manned up. “You know the deal, right, James?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Remember, you can call me Montgomery.” For now.

  “Okay, Montgomery, I’ll keep my end of the bargain. I promise.”

  The final alarm sounded and Julie managed one last kiss before James rushed off to his Charley Company. Trevor stood there with a kind of pride he’d never experienced before, and he hardly even knew the boy.

  Julie’s hand slid around his elbow, and Trevor looked down, suddenly feeling like a family man.

  “Great kid,” he said.

  “I think so, too. He just got off course, but now I know I made the right decision.”

  “I think so, too.”

  They smiled at each other, and a new understanding planted itself deep inside Trevor’s chest. Meeting James was the beginning of a whole new part of his life, one he planned to stand by from here on out.

  As they walked back to the car, Julie felt snug on the crook of his arm, and her light perfume teased his nose. It would have been so easy to stop and kiss her again, but he reminded himself he didn’t do that kind of relationship anymore, and Julie didn’t deserve the kind he’d become way too good at.

  “I was thinking,” he said as he opened the car door for Julie to get inside.

  “I’ve heard that can get people into trouble.” She smiled sassily up at him, just before slipping inside.

  “So true. But let me run this by you. I was thinking about buying James a skateboard.” He closed the passenger door and took his time strolling around to the driver’s side, to give her time for that little gem to sink in.

  “Seriously?” she said the instant he opened the door.

  “As incentive for him to keep up on his schoolwork. He told me they get an hour of free time before dinner if they’ve finished all their morning classes’ homework.”

  “They do pile the work on here, and he told me he feels locked up.”

  “Yeah, he told me that, too. It’s hard not to feel for him, but it’s for the best.”

  “I know, I have to stand my ground on that. Isn’t the horseback riding enough incentive for now?”

  “Well, yes, probably, but I’d kind of like to give him something he can keep and maybe think of me when he uses it.”

  “That’s very sweet.” There was that too-good-not-to-look expression Trevor found harder and harder to resist on Julie. “So what’d you think of him?”

  Slipping back into stiff-upper-lip mode, Trevor tightened his jaw. He couldn’t possibly let her know what he really thought, how everything had changed in one afternoon, and that he planned to be a part of the kid’s life from here on out. “Nice kid.”

  Fortunately, she didn’t buy his subtle response and socked him in the arm. “What’d you really think?”

  “Like I just traveled back in time and met myself.” Like I want to be a father in the truest sense of the word.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THAT EVENING, TREVOR insisted he and Julie have dinner together before he took her home, and they stopped at the Sweet Pea Diner on Main Street in Cattleman Bluff. Having lived in California for so long, seeing the main street in town often reminded Julie of a movie set. But she loved how her hometown worked to keep history alive instead of bulldozing everything down and starting over. She remembered coming to Sweat Pea Diner with her parents for fried chicken sometimes on Saturday nights when she was a child, and that made her smile as they walked inside.

  “Wow, it smells great,” she said as a rush of buttermilk biscuits and frying chicken hit her head-on. “Must have been hungrier than I thought. My mouth is watering.”

  “You hardly ate lunch, I noticed,” Trevor said as they followed a waitress who seated them in a black vinyl booth with a spec
kled beige Formica table top. It was by the window, which was covered in lacy valances and half curtains. The lady in the pink apron with Sweet Pea Diner in bold black print across her chest handed them menus and left.

  “I was too nervous to eat. I kept wondering what James would think about your being there.”

  “If anyone should have been nervous, it was me.”

  “Were you?”

  “Very, but it didn’t turn out so bad, did it?”

  “No. The day was pretty darn good.” She smiled and studied Trevor’s face; his brows nearly met as he looked over the menu. The choices didn’t seem that perplexing, and she wondered what he might really be thinking so hard about.

  Once they ordered, they got their sodas right away along with a basket of those delicious-smelling biscuits. Julie dug right in and buttered one, spread some of the homemade Sweet Pea honey on top, and took a big bite, the crazy sweetness melting in her mouth. Wow, she’d forgotten how great the local orange-clover honey was while out in California.

  “So I guess you’ll have to ride out with me next weekend to sign out James for the day,” Trevor said.

  “I sure will. I’m going to be jealous to share him with you, but I want him to get to know you.”

  “Why don’t you plan on having supper with us at the Circle M, then we can drive him back to school together?”

  It sounded like a lot of togetherness to her, but since she wanted what was best for James, and she was pretty sure that meant bringing his father into his life, she’d go along with Trevor’s plans. For now.

  She took another bite of biscuit, this one not quite as sweet as the first, then looked at Trevor. He’d broken her heart so thoroughly when she’d been seventeen that she didn’t think it was possible to ever pick up the pieces again. If it hadn’t been for the pregnancy back then, she’d sworn she couldn’t have gone on living. Ah, the overdramatic days of being a teenager. Thank goodness they were over! She’d never put herself in a position again to let a man make or break her life.