CHAPTER THREE

      “SON, that sounds like a great idea.” Clay nodded thoughtfully at Jimmy’s suggestion.

      “Wha...at?” The word wheezed from Becca’s throat as she stared at him in astonishment. “What does?”

      “For me to come live with you again,” Clay said, settling his back against the pillows with an air of decisiveness. How he managed that little trick as pale and weak as he was, Becca didn’t know. She did know that she was rapidly losing her grip on the situation.

      She held up her hands as if she was trying to stop a speeding bus. “No, Clay. No. First of all, I can’t imagine that you’d want to....”

      “Then you imagine wrong. I’d love to. Thanks for the invitation.” The devil had the nerve to wink his unblackened eye at her!

      Wink? Clay? She stared at him for a second, completely losing her train of thought. She had never seen him wink. He wasn’t a winking type of man.

      He grinned at her as if he was fully aware of how he’d thrown her off her argument.

      Becca brought her scattered thoughts together. “No, Clay.” She hardened her voice. “We’ll find someone to take care of you, and....”

      “But, Mom,” Jimmy piped up. “Don’t you want Dad to come stay with us?”

      Becca looked down at her son’s puzzled face.

      Clay reached out and drew Jimmy to him. “Yeah, Mom, don’t you want me to come stay with you?” He spoke to her over their son’s head and Clay’s eyes were as pitifully soulful as a basset hound’s.

      Becca opened her mouth, but only a squeak came out. She was too stunned to offer explanations to her son, or to form words to put Clay in his place. In the seven years she had known him, he had never been manipulative. He had simply told her calmly and decisively how things were going to be done. Now, however, he seemed to be metamorphosing right before her eyes. Where was this appalling change coming from?

      “I know you have to work,” he continued when she didn’t break her stunned silence. “But I won’t be much trouble. Once the doctor lets me have crutches, I’ll be handy to have around the house.”

      “Handy?” Her voice squeaked as it shot up. “In what way?”

      “I can help out.” He gave her an even look, but mischief lurked in his eyes. “Do things around the house for you.”

      “On crutches.” Now her voice flattened out.

      Clay shrugged. “Maybe I can learn to knit.”

      “Are you kidding?”

      “I could learn,” he insisted. He lifted his hands and turned them over, front to back as if offering them for her inspection. “You know I’ve always been good with my hands.”

      She waved her fingers in the air as if batting his hands away. “I meant, you’ve got to be kidding about this whole idea. We can’t do this. It would never work.”

      “Never more serious in my life.” His gaze was direct and steady, but now there was an edge of challenge there that she couldn’t ignore. “And there’s no reason in the world it wouldn’t work.” His gaze slid to Jimmy, who was looking back and forth from one to the other of them. “We have every reason to make it work.”

      A chill ran over her. She had the feeling they were no longer talking about a temporary stay.

      “Clay,” she finally managed, though she knew she was floundering and forming her arguments badly. “How serious was that bump you got on the head?”

      The challenge died from his eyes and he smiled slightly. “Not so serious that my judgment is clouded. In fact, things are more clear than they’ve been in a long time.”

      “That’s a matter of opinion,” Becca muttered.

      Clay didn’t answer. He waited silently for the force of his will to win her agreement.

      “You have no right to do this.”

      “Maybe not,” he answered quietly. “But Jimmy does, and having me come stay is important to him. Can’t you see that?”

      “Of course I can,” she said, with a sour look that told him she didn’t need his help in understanding Jimmy. She knew he was right, but she didn’t like the way he was handling this, using their son to manipulate her agreement out of her.

      She gave her head a swift shake, rattling her good sense back into place. Reaching out, she pulled Jimmy into her arms, then knelt before him and gave his rounded cheek a light kiss. “Yes, honey, your dad can come stay with us.” Lifting her head, she looked her ex-husband right in the eye. “Until he can take care of himself.”

      Clay answered with a smile of his own that had her narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

      “So Jimmy has some idea that he and his dad and I are going to be a family again. With me taking care of Clay until he’s better.” Becca gave her fiancé a distressed look, which he met with calm brown eyes.

      “And you hadn’t anticipated that?”

      “No, of course not.” Reaching out, she lined her silverware up with the edge of the table, then folded and refolded the napkin in her lap.