Читать книгу Millionaire Mavericks: The Oilman’s Baby Bargain - Day Leclaire, Michelle Celmer - Страница 14

The following morning Mitch and Lexi drove to the real estate agent’s office to begin looking at houses. And though she still felt like death warmed over from a bout of kneeling to the porcelain gods, she put her best face on. The agent, Mark Sullenberg, was a friend of the family, which meant she and Mitch had to act happily married.

Unfortunately, he was really good at it.

There was barely a minute when he wasn’t touching her, either holding her hand or casually draping his arm across her shoulders. He was so good, so charming and sweet to her, she started to forget they were only playing a role. It made her think of that week in D.C. and how perfect it had been, how naturally they had connected, which in turn made her feel depressed and lonely, because she knew she would never feel that way again.

She just prayed they would find a house soon, so they could go back to hating each other. But after looking at half a dozen homes, they hadn’t found a thing either of them even remotely liked. They were all ultramodern in exclusive gated communities with lots of BMWs and luxury SUVs in the driveways. And they all looked the same. Lifeless and boring. By the sixth house, she could see that Mitch was getting frustrated and she was beginning to think that building new might be their only option.

“Can you show us something different?” Mitch asked Mark. “Something a bit more…”

“Traditional,” she finished for him.

“Exactly,” he said, looking surprised that she’d nailed it right on the head. “Something with some character.”

“There is one property that recently came on the market,” Mark said. “It’s just outside of Maverick County. A renovated plantation house. The only problem is that it’s located on ten acres of land, and you said you wanted to look in more of a suburban setting.”

“How big is it?” Mitch asked.

“Fifty-five-hundred square feet. It used to be a horse farm, so there’s a barn and stables.”

That caught Lexi’s attention. Her uncle on her mother’s side had kept horses when Lexi was a child. Though she had always wanted to learn to ride, her father would never allow it. Too dangerous, he’d decided. But her uncle would let her brush the horses and help feed and water them. The idea of owning a horse or two thrilled her.

She glanced over at Mitch, thinking she would reduce herself to begging if that was what it took to make him agree to at least look at it, but he appeared as intrigued as she was.

He shrugged and said, “Couldn’t hurt to look at it.”

They piled back into Mark’s car for the twentyminute ride, Lexi feeling uncharacteristically excited. For some reason, she had a really good feeling about this one.

“I’ll warn you that it’s a little run-down and overgrown,” Mark told them. “When the owner died, there was a dispute with the will so it’s been sitting empty for a while. It has a lot of potential, though.”

They pulled off the road into a long, tree-lined driveway. He hadn’t been kidding when he said it was overgrown. It would take a lot of work to get the yard in order. But Lexi couldn’t keep her eyes off the house itself. It was…amazing. A huge, white Greek revival with pillars and balconies and black shuttered windows. She could just imagine herself in the evenings sitting on the long front porch drinking lemonade and watching the sun set, or playing with the baby in the shade of the trees.

She knew without a doubt, this was the one. This was home.

Mark pulled to a stop and they all climbed out. As he’d done before, Mitch took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. But this time it was different. This time he really held on, as though he was brimming with pent-up excitement.

“It was built in 1895,” Mark told them, “and completely remodeled about thirty years ago. It’s a little rough around the edges, but an excellent investment.”

She and Mitch stood there for a moment, side by side, hands clasped, gazing up at the remarkable structure. Lexi didn’t know about Mitch, but she felt as though this was meant to be. As if, for the first time in her life, she’d finally come home.

“So, what do you think?” Mark asked.

“We’ll take it,” they said in unison, then looked at each other, startled that they were in complete agreement.

Mark laughed. “Wow, how’s that for a consensus? You haven’t even seen the inside.”

“Well, then,” Mitch said, giving her hand a squeeze, “let’s see it.”

Lexi knew at this point that it was only a formality, but they followed Mark up the porch and through the front door. The interior was a bit shabby and outdated, the kitchen and bathrooms in particular desperately needed updating, but all Lexi could see was the potential. Mitch must have felt the same way. When they concluded the tour he told Mark, “Let’s write up an offer,” and when they got back to the office to fill out the paperwork, instead of bidding low, he offered several thousand above the asking price.

Though she didn’t let it show, she felt almost giddy with anticipation. They were buying a house. A house whose renovations she would help plan, and whose rooms she would decorate however she chose. She could hardly wait to get started.

She had never felt so…alive. As though an entirely new and amazing world was opening up to her.

“I’ll submit this right away and hopefully we’ll hear something in the next day or two,” Mark told them as they were leaving. “I’ll be in touch.”

Though she was practically bursting with excitement when they were in the car on the way back to the townhouse, Lexi tried to hide it. An automatic defense mechanism she’d learned from dealing with her father. If he knew something was important to her, he would use it against her as leverage. A true politician.

Then Mitch asked, “So, you liked it?”

She could no longer contain herself. She blurted out, “I knew I wanted it the second we pulled into the driveway. If I had every house in the world to choose from, that’s the one I would have picked.”

“It’s going to need a lot of work. It’ll probably be months before we can move in.”

“I would be happy living in it just the way it is.”

He shot her a sideways glance. “The interior is a disaster. We’re going to have to gut it and start from scratch. The renovations will go much faster if it’s unoccupied.”

Although she would be happy moving in there today, he made a good point. Especially with the baby coming. The sooner it was finished, the better.

“I’ll start calling contractors today,” he said.

“Shouldn’t we wait until we know for sure that we got it?”

“Don’t worry,” he said, his tone a little smug. “We’ll get it.”

There were definitely advantages to being married to a man who was used to getting what he wanted.

“I’d like to get a horse or two,” she said, prepared for an instant argument.

But Mitch said, “We could do that.” Then he added offhandedly, “It would be a good atmosphere for raising kids.”

It was the first time since she’d told him she was pregnant that he’d acknowledged the baby. She wondered how he would react when she told him the truth. Would it change his feelings for her? Make him dislike her a little less?

Probably not. Knowing Mitch, he would be even angrier, and hold it against her for the rest of her life. It would probably be in her best interest to at least wait until they had signed a mortgage to tell him the baby was really his. Just in case.

“Did you want to go to my appointment with me today?” she asked, unsure of what his reaction would be, and wondering how she would feel if he refused.

He was quiet for a moment, eyes on the road, then asked, “Do you want me to?”

She realized that yes, she did. Even though he didn’t know it yet, this was his baby and he shouldn’t miss out on anything. From the first prenatal visit to the birth, she wanted him to be there for every minute of it.

He hates you. He thinks you’re selfish and spoiled.

But if she denied him this opportunity, wouldn’t she be proving him right?

Before she could talk herself out of it, she told him, “I want you to.”

“Then I’ll come,” he said.

He reached over and turned the radio on to a country-western station, ending the conversation, yet she couldn’t help but feel as though they had made some sort of progress today. Although progress toward what, she wasn’t exactly sure.

The doctor’s appointment wasn’t at all what Mitch had expected. In fact, he hadn’t known quite what to expect.

He figured they would take her temperature and blood pressure, which they did, and she was asked to pee in a cup. Typical doctor-visit stuff. What he hadn’t been expecting was the internal exam.

Though he’d seen Lexi intimately on more than one occasion, and his first instinct was to do or say anything to annoy her, this just didn’t seem the place, so he turned his back while she stripped from the waist down and got up on the table.

Even though the process went quickly, he gained a whole new respect for what women had to endure during a routine exam. Between all the poking and prodding and the giant cotton swab the doctor used for God only knows what, he felt grateful to have outdoor plumbing.

Then the doctor pulled out a piece of equipment that looked a lot like some recreational sex apparatus. It was long and narrow with a cord coming out one end that was attached to a monitor.

“This is an internal ultrasound,” the doctor explained. “So we can get a better idea of the baby’s development.”

Lexi looked a little nervous so Mitch took her hand.

As the doctor inserted it, she gasped and said, “Cold,” then winced a little as he made adjustments. Suddenly, up on the monitor popped a hazy black-and-white image.

“There’s the fetus,” the doctor said, pointing to a white area on the screen. “And these are the arms and legs.”

Mitch didn’t see anything but a fuzzy blob at first, but as the doctor gestured to the different body parts, it began to take shape. With its oversize head and stubby appendages, it looked more alien than human.

“This flutter is the heartbeat,” the doctor told them.

“Can we hear it?” Lexi asked.

He turned the volume up and the rapid whoosh of the baby’s pulse filled the room.

Mitch had never even considered being a father, and here he was listening to his baby’s heartbeat, looking at its tiny form on a monitor.

Lance’s baby, he reminded himself.

In a way, he felt as though he was stealing something invaluable from his brother, an opportunity to see his child develop. But he was sure that Lance and Kate would eventually have children and he would experience it all with her. This might be Mitch’s only chance.

“Everything looks great,” the doctor told her. “I’ll see you in a month.”

When they were back in the car and on their way home, Lexi sat so quietly gazing out the window that Mitch began to think maybe something was wrong. He couldn’t help but ask, “Are you okay?”

“Seeing the baby, hearing the heartbeat. It suddenly seems so…real.”

She looked so dazed and bewildered he wondered if the weight of the responsibility was finally sinking in. Wouldn’t it be ironic if, now that he’d finally begun to accept the situation, she changed her mind and decided not to have it?

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She looked over at him, surprise on her face. “No, of course not! I just…” She shrugged, then shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Tell me,” he said.

“You’ll just make fun of me.”

“I promise I won’t make fun of you.”

She studied him for a moment, as though she wasn’t quite sure she could trust him. Finally she said, “I guess I’m just a little…scared.”

He didn’t think Lexi was scared of anything, and was surprised that she would admit it to him, of all people. “Scared of what?”

“Being a bad parent. What if I do everything wrong?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “You probably will.” But he didn’t have the heart to knock her down when she looked so vulnerable and unsure of herself. She was opening up to him and he couldn’t use that against her. Besides, there was always the very slim, one in a million chance that she would be a good mother and stick around. Maybe he should give her the benefit of the doubt.

So she would only disappoint him later? What was the point?

“You’ll do the best you can,” he told her, wishing he actually believed it, but Lexi seemed to buy it because she smiled.

A minute later, he pulled into his driveway and cut the engine, but when he looked back over at Lexi she was frowning.

“What’s wrong now?” he asked.

She turned to face him, looking almost nervous. “Mitch, there’s something I need to tell you. Something you should know.”

He had no idea what she was going to say, but he had the feeling he wasn’t going to like it. “What?”

She hesitated, lip wedged between her teeth. Then she said, “About the baby…”

“What about it?”

“I thought you should know…”

She looked so nervous, he started to worry something was really wrong. “What are you trying to say?”

After another pause she finally said, “I just wanted to say thank you for coming with me today. For being a part of this.”

And here he’d thought it had been something important. Half a dozen snarky comebacks were just dying to jump out, but instead he said simply, “You’re welcome. Now, we better get inside and get ready or we’ll be late for dinner. I get the distinct feeling your father isn’t one to tolerate tardiness.”

She smiled and nodded. “That’s a fairly accurate assumption. I love my father, but to be honest, the sooner this evening is over and he flies back to D.C., the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

Well, that was one thing they could agree on. So, why did he get the feeling there was something else? Something she wasn’t telling him?