Читать книгу World's Most Eligible Texan - Sara Orwig - Страница 10

Her 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.

Why was she going? What would she wear? Was he doing this to sleep with her again? That question brought her up short and a flash of shame and anger burned in her.

She turned to a small mirror and shook her finger at her reflection. “Pamela, you were easy. Get a backbone where he is concerned! You’ll have to send him packing tonight and stay cool, cool, cold.”

She thought of guys who had called her frigid. Where was all that coldness she could turn on so easily with others?

She looked down at her flat stomach and splayed her fingers against it. A baby. Aaron’s baby. He must never, never know. But in spite of the foolishness of getting pregnant in her first night of lovemaking, in spite of how it would turn her life upside down and in spite of all the struggles of being a single mother, she couldn’t stop being thrilled and awed. Her own precious baby. Aaron’s baby.

She knew from teaching the struggles the young single mothers and dads had, how they had to be everything for their kids and juggle jobs and schedules, but she would do it. Her own baby. Aaron’s baby. This baby had a wonderful father.

Aaron has a right to know about his baby.

That thought was an unwanted one. He might have a right to know, but if he did, she knew he would want to do the right thing, and out of duty he would insist they marry. His family would hate her and think she had trapped him. No, he wasn’t going to know, and he would marry some beautiful woman who was the right kind of woman for him and have his own family someday. She was certain of that. This was the only way it could be because Aaron would never be happy married to a woman like her. Not ever. And she didn’t want duty or pity or charity. She couldn’t bear to see him feeling trapped.

“Go to dinner and send him back to Spain. You know how to turn men off,” she said and wondered when she had started talking out loud to herself and realized it had been since she met Aaron.

She threw up her hands and went to find something to wear tonight. Her life had changed forever today—pregnant, dinner tonight with Aaron. He had come home to take her out! To get to know her better. A pang of longing made her tremble. Why did it have to be this way! “Because of my own carelessness,” she answered herself.

Long ago she could remember Dr. Woodbury asking her if she wanted a prescription for the Pill and her turning him down, saying she wasn’t dating and there was no need. When he had lectured her, she had turned a deaf ear. She should have listened, but then she touched her stomach again and knew she really had no regrets. She adored little children and this would be her own baby, something she had never dreamed possible.

Dinner with Aaron. If only— She shut her mind to following that line of thought, but she couldn’t resist touching her throat and remembering his lips brushing against her.

Aaron whistled as he drove. He was excited, eager and he had to laugh at that hamburger stashed in her purse.

“No, darlin’, I don’t know any women like you and that’s what’s so wonderful about you. I like a country girl,” he said out loud. It was refreshing to know she was going to tell him what she thought and not twist things all around or play games with him.

She couldn’t believe he was here to take her out, but he would convince her. And maybe they wouldn’t get along as well as he expected, but he had to find out. Maybe this was a bunch of foolishness on his part, but he knew he was excited, happy, and felt better than he had since the night of the gala.

At seven that evening his pulse raced while he stood at her front door and punched the bell. The door swung open and she smiled at him. His pulse jumped another notch at the sight of her. Her shiny black hair was short, straight, hanging loosely with the ends curling under just below her ears in a simple, uncomplicated hairdo that was like the rest of her. Her dress was an indigo sheath that clung to her slender figure. She didn’t wear jewelry and had very little makeup, but she took his breath away, and, for an instant, he saw her without the dress, as he remembered her from that first night, slender, curvaceous, supple, warm, so damn giving and open to him.

“Hi,” he said, his husky voice betraying what he was feeling.

“Come in,” she said quietly, her blue eyes pulling him into their depths, and he wanted to say to hell with dinner and take her into his arms and straight to that tiny little virginal bedroom she had. Instead, he watched her as he walked inside. As soon as she closed the door, he turned to face her. He inhaled her perfume, a scent of lilacs, and it was an effort to keep from reaching for her, but he knew he’d better keep some kind of distance. The lady wasn’t overwhelmed with eagerness to go out with him tonight.

“You look gorgeous.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling with her cheeks flushing and a sparkle coming to her eyes that made him feel better. Why was she so solemn? She hadn’t been that way that first night. He felt like he had done something wrong, but he couldn’t imagine what.

“I’ll get my coat. You look nice, too, Aaron, very elegant in your navy suit,” she said shyly, and he couldn’t keep from reaching out to brush her cheek lightly with his fingers.

“Thanks, darlin’. I’ve been getting ready for this date since I drove away from your place this afternoon.”

She gave him an I-don’t-believe-you look and turned to get her coat. He watched the gentle, sexy sway of her hips and tried to get his thoughts elsewhere because the slightest little thing with her could turn him on in a flash. For the first time he noticed the small elastic bandage that wrapped one slender ankle and he wondered if that was a lingering result of an injury during the rough landing of the Asterland jet.

His hands trembled slightly as he held her coat, brushing his fingers across her nape and trying to keep from taking her into his arms. She couldn’t have any idea how badly he wanted her.

“You have a bandage on your ankle,” he said when she turned around to face him. Unable to keep from touching her, he smoothed the collar of her coat.

“I had torn ligaments in my ankle because of the plane’s rough landing. I’m supposed to wear this bandage two more weeks. I thought about leaving it off tonight and seeing how I get along, but that might not be a good idea.”

“Bandage or no bandage, your legs are beautiful. You wear it as long as you’re supposed to,” he said quietly, looking into her eyes while she gazed back at him and tension coiled between them.

“We should go, Aaron,” she reminded him solemnly. He took her arm, still wondering about the barriers she had thrown up between them. When they left, she locked her apartment. He took her arm to walk to the car, looking at the flash of her shapely legs again as she slid into his black car.

When he entered the stream of traffic in the street in front of her apartment complex, Aaron glanced in the rearview mirror out of habit. He had spent years abroad, sometimes involved in intrigue, sometimes residing in countries that didn’t welcome Americans, so he was accustomed to checking his surroundings and did it without thought. And, through habit, he noticed the black car turning into traffic a few cars behind him. When he got to Claire’s, Royal’s finest restaurant, instead of driving up immediately for valet parking, he circled the block.

“If you’re looking for a parking spot, they have plenty in the back of their lot,” Pamela said.

“Just driving around,” he answered casually, aware she was watching him. In the rearview mirror, he saw the same black car turn the corner behind him, just as he turned another corner.

“I think we’re being followed,” he said, glancing at her to see what her reaction would be.

“Have you brought someone all the way from Spain to follow you around Royal, Texas?” she asked, her voice filled with disbelief. “Surely not!”

He turned back toward Main Street and slid to a stop at the curb, knowing he was squarely in front of a fire hydrant, but he would be there only briefly. She didn’t guess she might be the one being followed.

“No, darlin’, I don’t think so,” he drawled, waiting. The car swung around the corner and had to pass him. He watched and pulled into the street behind the car.

The sedan had darkened windows, but when he drove behind it, he could see the silhouettes of two men. He noted the license tag, memorizing the number. At the corner they turned away from the restaurant and he turned toward it, driving up in front to let a valet park his car, but the incident worried him. He took her arm to walk to the front door of the restaurant.

“If they weren’t following you—no one would be following a second-grade school teacher, Aaron. That’s absurd.”

“Maybe.” He remembered talking to Justin about the site of the forced landing of the Asterland jet and all the questions the plane’s malfunction had raised. Was Pamela in any danger? He reached out to open the door for her.

“You’ve spent too much time involved in European intrigue. You’re in Royal, Texas, with a teacher from Royal Elementary. Nothing exciting here.”

He stopped to face her, suddenly blocking her way. Startled, she looked up at him. “Au contraire,” he said solemnly, brushing her hair away from her cheek. “Being with you is the most excitement I’ve known in a long, long time.”

“There you go again, pouring on charm thicker than molasses,” she teased, making light of his statement, but her words sounded breathless and pink filled her cheeks.

“I mean it, lady,” he said and moved out of her way, following her inside. He passed her to talk to the maitre d’ and then they were ushered to a table with candlelight, a red rose in a crystal vase and a white linen tablecloth. When he ordered a bottle of French white wine, she interrupted.

“Aaron, I’ll just drink water. I’m not much into wine or drinks.”

She had been that night. She’d had wine at the gala and another glass at his house. Maybe that had been a once-in-a-year thing. He knew so little about her, but he wanted to know everything. He ordered the wine for himself and water for her, wondering why everything she liked or said or did was so important to him.

“Do you like French food?” he asked. “If not, Chef Etienne does broil steaks—a concession to the steak-eating Texans. I know because I’m one of them.”

She studied the fancy menu. “I see salmon that I’d like.”

When their waiter returned for their order, Aaron said, “The lady will have the saumon fumé avec pommes de terre primeurs au beurre de persil,” he ordered in what sounded to her like flawless French. “I’ll have a steak, medium rare, and a baked potato.”

“You really do speak French fluently, don’t you?” she asked as soon as they were alone.

“You make it sound like I rob gas stations often,” he answered with a twinkle in his eye.

“Sorry. It’s just another difference between us.”

“Well, I won’t converse with you in French, darlin’,” he said, lapsing into a West Texas drawl.

She smiled slightly, but she didn’t look happy.

“Believe me, we wouldn’t be out together if there weren’t differences between us,” he said and she shrugged her shoulders slightly.

All through salads, his sizzling steak and her smoked salmon and new potatoes, he sensed a reserve in her that she hadn’t had before. Something wasn’t quite right, and he didn’t know what it was. But when he looked into her guileless blue eyes, his heart raced. In their depths was desire.

He could feel that same volatile chemistry between them, that urgency that made sparks dance between them and kept him touching her lightly as often as possible. He wanted her in his arms, as close as possible. He wanted another night with her like the one they’d had. And he knew she was responding to his touches and looks. No matter how coolly she seemed to act, he could see her fiery response in her eyes. Buddies who knew he had taken her home the night of the gala had teased him unmercifully, talking about the ice maiden, the woman no man could touch. He’d learned about her mother. Justin had clued him in on that one, and he dimly remembered hearing things about Dolly Miles and the men who slept with her. Did that have something to do with Pamela’s reserve? But Dolly Miles was of his parents’ generation. Growing up, Aaron had paid little attention to rumors about Dolly Miles. He hadn’t even known she’d a daughter, but Pamela was much younger than he was.

Over candlelight, he gazed at her, and for once couldn’t eat much of a delicious steak. All he wanted was to devour the woman, looking regal and poised, sitting across from him. He even loved the smattering of freckles across her straight nose. And she was country in all the best ways, down-to-earth, practical. Except there was something she was holding back. He could sense it and there was no mistaking the cool reserve that held her in check most of the evening. Occasionally, he could bring forth a laugh and then the reserve was gone, and once she seemed to forget herself and reached over to grasp his wrist while she told him about a little boy in her second-grade class.