World's Most Eligible Texan (4 page)

As quietly as possible, with shaking hands and tears stinging her eyes, she gathered her things and dressed. Then she slipped downstairs and called Royal's only cab.

In minutes she was standing on the drive, praying that Aaron wouldn't waken. Today she was supposed to go to Midland to see her closest friend, Jessica Atkins, a fellow teacher. Aaron probably couldn't find her if he wanted to. She suspected he wouldn't even care. Yet he hadn't seemed that way last night.

“Of course, he didn't, ninny!” she whispered to herself. “Get real. He seduced you—it was a one-night stand and you fell into his arms eagerly. Practically jumped into his arms.”

The cab whisked her away, and when the tall iron gates began to swing shut behind her she was certain she was closing a part of her life away. From this time forward, last night would only be a memory, yet she knew she had given Aaron much more than just her body.

Embarrassed and saddened, she had ridden home, packed for the weekend swiftly and rushed to her car to drive to Midland and the haven of Jessica's small frame house. No matter how many miles she put between them, she couldn't get Aaron out of her thoughts. The realization that they hadn't used any protection came to her. Aaron had asked if she was protected, and, totally lost to the moment, wanting him as she had never wanted anything in her life, she had whispered yes.

 

“You know better than that!” she said aloud to herself.

Realizing she was sitting in the Royal Diner, talking to herself, Pamela took a deep breath. Aaron had asked if she was protected. She couldn't blame him. And if he learned about her pregnancy—that must never happen. She wouldn't even consider the possibilities.

She thought about the Blacks. Everyone in town knew that his parents had been into missionary work; his brother was a minister, channeling funds to worldwide missions, his older sister was a doctor in a third-world country. She didn't know what his other brother did, but they were good people and used their enormous wealth to help others. Aaron had told her how he had gone into the diplomatic service because he thought he could try to do something to help world situations.

She ran her fingers across her brow. Aaron Black must never know he was the father of her baby. He would be a man to marry out of a sense of duty and doing the right thing. Aaron…

Such a pang hit her she clutched her middle. Longing rolled up through her like a tidal wave. Along with her body, she
had given her heart to him. She knew that. But she was realistic. She was a veteran of watching pillars of the community sleep with her mother, give Dolly tokens of appreciation—or much more than tokens—cars, jewelry, but always they eventually turned their backs on Dolly and went their own way. And out in public she had seen them meet her mother and seen the furtive glances, the coolness, the lack of respect they had treated Dolly with.

She couldn't bear that with Aaron. Aaron Black's baby. Again, she pressed her hand to her flat stomach and felt a surge of maternal joy. She already loved this baby with her whole heart and she would devote her life to her precious child.

She would have to move from Royal because there would be too much gossip here, but that was something she didn't have to worry about today. She just had to keep her condition a secret until her plans were made. It was a secret to be kept most of all from Aaron Black. He had already gone back to Europe, so there was little chance of his finding out unless Justin Webb or Matt Walker or another one of those buddies of Aaron's learned about it and told him. And if he did find out, Matt was a good enough friend to respect her wishes. She could trust Matt to be the friend he always had been.

Once again the enormity of what she had done struck her. How could she have been so like her mother? How could she have thrown over all her caution when she had spent a lifetime being cautious? The man could charm the proverbial birds out of the trees, but that was no excuse. She had met charmers in college and had managed easily to say no. What was it about Aaron Black that twisted her into knots, melted her reserve, dissolved all barriers she kept up?

She clutched her middle again, aghast when she thought about how easy she had been, how careless, and what Aaron must think about her.

“Are you feeling better, Pamela?”

“I'm fine, thanks,” she said, aware of the waitress ap
proaching the table. Sheila's pink uniform was bright and her gaze was sharp.

“What happened was scary. I guess you'll get over it as time goes by. Sorry you won't get to go to Asterland to teach this semester. I heard the program was suspended.”

“That's right, but with my ankle hurt, I wasn't able to teach right after the crash,” Pamela said, wishing they could stop talking about it.

Sheila turned away, and Pamela stared at the giant burger and golden fries on her plate and knew she couldn't eat a bite. Nor could she leave the entire burger and fries without stirring up a storm of comments. She sipped some of the chocolate malt, ate two bites of the burger, and then she couldn't get down another morsel. She wrapped the burger and a few fries in her napkin and jammed them into her purse. Her purse would reek of hamburger, but she didn't want any gossip starting now. No one ordered one of Manny's juicy burgers and then left it with only a couple of bites taken out of it.

Thank heavens, so far, both she and Thad Delner led such straight and square lives that no one could conjure up gossip about them going together to the ball. And everyone in town knew he went to represent the school. Also, everyone in town was sorry about the loss of his wife, whom he had deeply loved. But once word got out that she had left the ball with Aaron Black, that would be another matter.

She slid out of the booth, paid and rushed from the diner before she had another conversation with anyone else. A few people were beginning to appear for lunch and she greeted them perfunctorily without even seeing who they were.

She drove home, her thoughts still churning, but an absolute determination growing within her that Aaron Black should never know about the baby. Their baby. She would call Jessica to tell her to watch for teaching jobs in Midland. The teaching position in Asterland was suspended this semester and by the next term, she would be very pregnant and she wouldn't want to go to Asterland even if it were possible. She wanted her baby born here in Texas where she had friends.

Midland was larger than Royal, far enough away that her life would be her own, yet close enough she could get back to see her friends in Royal when she wanted to.

At least she didn't have to worry about running into Aaron. He was halfway around the world and most likely had forgotten about her by now. She could imagine the kind of women in his life and wondered whether, while home in Texas, he had simply been amusing himself with the country girl that she was. In many ways Royal wasn't a typical small Texas town because of oil money and all the wealth it produced. Basically, though, Royal
was
a small West Texas town and she was pure country.

She turned onto her street and saw her two-story brick apartment complex. She drove through the open wooden barriers that never closed and turned down the row to the back of her tiny apartment and her carport. As she approached her carport, her heart thudded. Seated on the tailgate of a shiny black pickup was Aaron Black.

H
er throat went dry and it was difficult to breathe. She felt hot, embarrassed, as if she were nine months pregnant instead of only weeks. There he was, and more than that, he looked marvelous. Her pulse raced like a shooting star. He looked as good in jeans and a plaid woolen shirt as he had in a tux. He wore scuffed boots and slid casually to his feet with his hands hooked into his wide, hand-tooled leather belt. A lock of brown hair fell across his forehead.

His green eyes were just as she remembered—going right through her. How could she keep her secret?
Why was he here and not halfway around the world?
What was she going to say to him? What did he want?

A cynical voice answered
that
question in a flash—another easy night with her. Her chin raised and her lips compressed while she tried to breathe deeply and wondered if she was going to faint right in front of him. Except she wasn't given to fainting. It might be a lot easier if she could.

“Go away, Aaron Black,” she mumbled as she parked, and
knew he was watching her every move. And then he was at the door, opening it and holding it for her.

When she stepped outside and looked up at him, her heart skipped beats. Gazing at him solemnly, she wrestled with her feelings because she wanted to walk right into his arms.

“Hi, Pamela.”

She couldn't say a word.

“Well, hi, there, Aaron, it's good to see you,” he said in a teasing voice while he ran his finger lightly along her cheek. “Cat got your tongue? Some reason I developed the plague and you want to avoid me?”

At his touch, tingles flashed through her, and she knew she was hopelessly lost unless she got her wits together and her defenses up. She drew herself up. “Hi, Aaron. I thought you were in Spain.”

“Well, I was,” he drawled in that mellow voice that was like a stroke of his fingers. Darn, if he would just quit looking at her like she was a bit of steak and he was a starving man. “But I came home because I wanted to see you.”

“You came home to see me?” she whispered, shocked and unable to believe she had heard correctly. Did he
know?
She rejected that notion instantly.

He looked around while a gust of cold wind buffeted them and spun leaves into the air. “Could we maybe talk inside?”

“Oh! Of course. Come in,” she said, feeling ridiculous and knowing the women in his life knew how to handle moments like this smoothly and casually, while she was acting like a twelve-year-old with her first crush. She moved ahead of him, reached out to unlock the door and dropped her keys. He scooped them up, reached his long arm around her and unlocked the door, pushing it open and waiting for her to enter. Too aware of how close he was behind her, she stepped inside. He made her fluttery and overly conscious of him and of herself and her condition.

She glanced around her tiny kitchen and thought of his palatial family home in Pine Valley. Her whole apartment would fit into his kitchen.

She opened her purse to drop her keys inside and the smell of the hamburger wafted into the air. His brows arched and he reached down to pull the wrapped burger from her purse. She could hear the laughter in his voice. “You carry hamburgers and fries in your purse?”

“Not usually,” she said, snatching her lunch from him and carrying it to the counter to set it down. “I wasn't hungry. Do you want anything to drink?”

“No thanks, but help yourself.”

She shook her head. “Let's sit in the living room.”

He looked all around as they entered her tiny living room with its white wicker furniture, red, blue and yellow throw pillows, colorful prints on the walls—an attractive room to her, but a far cry from his lifestyle.

“Nice place.”

“Thank you.”

He prowled around with both the grace and curiosity of a cat and stepped into the bedroom that opened off the living room. “This is your bedroom,” he said, and she wondered how she had left her room that morning when she had dressed for the doctor's appointment. She ran her hand across her forehead, watching him as he returned to the living room and moved across the room to the sofa. He tilted his head again.

“Are you going to sit down?”

“Yes,” she replied, knowing she was acting ridiculously, but he had jolted her with his sudden appearance when she'd thought he was in Spain.

When she perched on the edge of the sofa, he sank down near her, looking relaxed and as if he owned the place. He leaned closer, and she realized she should have sat across the room from him. He ran his finger along her cheek. “Big blue eyes just like I remembered,” he said softly, and she wondered if he could hear her heart thudding.

“Why are you here?”

Again, he looked as if amusement danced in his eyes. “Glad to see me?”

“Yes,” she said cautiously. This time there was no mistaking the laughter in his eyes.

“Uh-huh,” he drawled. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” she said, bracing up and wondering what was coming.

“Why did you disappear the next morning?” His voice was quiet, his words innocuous, but his eyes nailed her and a flush heated her cheeks.

With an effort she looked away from those damnable green eyes that made her feel as if he could see every thought in her head. “I was supposed to leave town and I needed to get home.”

“Oh, yeah,” he drawled in a voice that indicated he didn't believe that answer for a second.

She knotted her fingers in her lap. “I don't usually sleep with a guy the first night I meet him,” she whispered stiffly, feeling her cheeks burn, but there it was, the flat-out bald truth.

“I know you don't,” he said in such a tender voice that she wanted to fling herself into his arms. His fingers lifted her chin and turned her to face him, and when she looked into his eyes, she felt she was melting and all her resistance was slipping away.

“Go to dinner with me tonight.”

“I can't be—”

“That's why I came home,” he interrupted.

Shocked by his statement, she stared at him. “It isn't either! You didn't come home to take me to dinner.”

“Did so,” he argued quietly. “To my way of thinking, we have some unfinished business between us,” he said, and beneath his soft voice, she could hear a steely determination.

She thought about her condition and shook her head. “I think it is finished,” she said. “You move in one world and I live in another. I'm just a country girl, Aaron, so let's be realistic. You couldn't have come home to take me to dinner!”

“Yes, ma'am, I surely did,” slipping into a West Texas drawl that she knew he didn't usually have. “And what's all this about a country girl? Where do you think I grew up?”

“Right here, but don't give me that ol' country-boy routine. You were educated in the east and you live abroad and you move in circles that I know nothing about and the women in your life—”

“Bore me witless,” he said, scooting a little closer. “I wouldn't pursue this if I didn't feel like there was something between us.”

His words devastated her, and she clutched her fingers even more tightly together.
Resist the sweet talk, resist…

She scooted away from him a few inches, keeping the space they'd had, but now she was pressed against the end of the sofa.

“We had sex between us, but—”

“That was lovemaking, Pamela,” he interrupted with such solemnity that her heart did another lurch. “It was good and fine and important.” He studied her. “Maybe we need to take some time now to get to know each other.”

“No, we don't!”

“Why the hell not?”

Her mind raced on how to answer him.
Why did he have to sit so close?
It was difficult to think. “I told you, I'm country and you're not and don't say you are. Our worlds are really different, and there is no way you can convince me that you're here because I'm so fascinating.”

“You don't think so?”

“No. How'd did you get off work in the middle of the week?”

“I asked for time off to come home to see you.”

Her jaw did drop. While she stared at him, he gazed back steadily with no amusement in his features now.

“This is important,” he announced solemnly.

Her heart stopped. Missed beats and then picked up.
No. Not now,
was all she could think.
Not now. Don't do this. He mustn't know.
Her head swam.
This can't happen now. It's too late. Much too late for us.

She shook her head. “You need to pack and go back to Spain. This is ridiculous. We're in different worlds, Aaron.
That night was special, but it was just a night. Now I need to—”

He moved closer. “Pamela, I want a chance to show you that our worlds aren't that different. There are some basic things about people that match up, and I think we ought to get to know each other a little and see how much we match up. Maybe you're right and it won't be the magic it seemed, but let's get to know each other a little better and give a relationship a chance.”

“I just don't think we should.” She could barely get out the words.

“What will it hurt?” he persisted softly, lacing his fingers in hers and running his thumb across her knuckles and scrambling her thoughts.

If you only knew, you would run like crazy.
She stared at him, her heart pounding, knowing that she had to send him on his way.

“You're sitting close.”

“I'm glad you noticed. What will it hurt?”

I will be in love with you more than I am now,
she thought,
and you'll find out I'm carrying your baby, and then you'll want to marry me for all the wrong reasons.
She knew she could never, ever let him know about the pregnancy. Send him on his way back to Spain.

“One little dinner date,” he said softly, leaning forward to brush his lips against her throat. “Just go out with me tonight, okay? Come on. I'll bet we'll have a good time getting to know each other a little better,” he coaxed. He was close enough that she could feel his warmth, smell his woodsy aftershave.

“We shouldn't—”

“You'd rather eat alone than with me?” he whispered.

“No, but—”

“Good. It's settled.” His lips trailed kisses lightly along her throat, and she ached to turn her head and kiss him fully. With that first brush of his lips, she was lost. He leaned back. “I'll pick you up about seven. I made reservations at Claire's.”

Her eyes opened. What had she done? How did he get his way so easily with her?

“Aaron, you couldn't have come back from Spain to take me to dinner.”

“Yes, I did.”

If he was lying, he was doing a magnificent job of sounding convincing, but then she knew in his job he must be accustomed to some slick talking to get what he wanted.

“But what about your job? You can't just leave on a whim.”

“I have so many vacation days piled up, I can take off for a long time. When I started this job, I was in love with it. I guess I thought I was doing my part to help save the world. I gave it my everything. I didn't take vacations very often, so I have a lot of days coming. Besides, I asked for a leave of absence and they granted it.”

Appalled, she stared at him. “Leave of absence! You're in Royal for more than tonight?”

“Don't sound so thrilled,” he drawled, and his eyes were full of questions. “You keep looking at me as if I'm some kind of monster.”

“No! Oh, no! I just am shocked about your leave of absence. It takes some adjusting to think of you in Royal instead of Spain.”

He placed both hands on either side of her face while his gaze probed hers. “Why does it take some adjusting to have me here? That's not too flattering.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, heat burning her cheeks. Why couldn't she control her darn blushes! “I'm just surprised.”

“Well, get used to it, lady, because I came home for us to get to know each other a little better,” he said in a husky voice.

She pulled away from him and stood, her knees bumping his knees. He was on his feet instantly and his hand rested on her waist, stopping her from moving away from him.

“Pamela, I don't know what's going on in that pretty head
of yours, but yes, I want us to get to know each other better. I've been thinking about you constantly since that night.”

“Oh, my heavens! I don't believe it.”

He frowned. “Well, you better believe it, and I'll do my damnedest to convince you because memories of you have played hell with my work. You've got some notion in your head about the kind of woman I want in my life, but you're wrong.”

“Oh, Aaron,” she said, his words tearing at her.

“At least, let's just take a little time. Maybe we're not compatible, but let's give ourselves a chance to find out.”

She didn't have that option. In spite of her longing, her feelings for him, his charm and persistence, she knew she had to keep her secret from him and send him packing back to Spain.

“I don't think that's a good idea.”

“You promised dinner tonight. I'm holding you to that.” She gazed up at him, aware of his hand on her waist, his nearness, his green eyes filled with determination and a look that kept her pulse racing.

He brushed her lips lightly with a kiss and moved away. “I'll see you at seven, darlin'.” He strode through her tiny apartment and opened the back door. “I doubt if that hamburger is fit to eat now. I'll feed you tonight.”

And then he was gone, and she stared at the closed door, frozen in shock over how once again she had capitulated to what he wanted. She heard the roar of the pickup. A pickup and cowboy boots and jeans. He had looked at home in them, but she knew better. He was a diplomat who lived in Europe and had spent nearly all his adult life abroad. He was First Secretary at the American Embassy in Spain. She could imagine the women he knew, beautiful, sophisticated—they didn't drop keys and carry hamburgers in their purses. She rubbed her temples and moved restlessly around the room. When he'd asked her out, all her resolve had just melted away. She was jelly where he was concerned, and she was going to have to do better tonight.