A Texas-Sized Secret

She stared at the closed front door and dreaded having to knock on it. Of course she would knock. And be announced by Matilda, the housekeeper who’d worked for her parents for twenty years. People didn’t simply walk into her parents’ house.

And her mind was going off on tangents because she didn’t want to think about her real reason for being here.

“You’ve already made the hard decision,” Toby pointed out. “You decided to keep the baby.”

She had. Not that she cared at all about the baby’s father, Naomi thought. But the baby was real to her. A person. Her child. How could she end the pregnancy? “I couldn’t do anything else.”

He reached out and took her hand for a quick squeeze. “I know. And I’ll help however I can.”

“I know you will,” she said, holding on to his hand as she would a lifeline.

“You know,” he said slowly, his deep voice rumbling through the truck cab, “there’s no reason for you to be so worked up. You might want to consider that you’re nearly thirty—”

“Hey!” She frowned at him. “I’m twenty-nine.”

“My mistake,” he said, mouth quirking, eyes shining. “But the point is, you’ve been on your own since college, Naomi. You don’t have to explain your life to your parents.”

“Easy for you to say,” she countered. “Your mom and sister are your own personal cheering squad.”

“True,” he said, nodding. “But, Naomi, sooner or later, you’ve got to take a stand and, instead of apologizing to your folks, just tell them what’s what.”

It sounded perfectly reasonable. And she knew he was right. But it didn’t make the thought of actually doing it any easier to take. She dropped one hand to the slight mound of her belly and gave the child within a comforting pat. If there was ever a time to stand up to her parents, it was now. She was going to be a mother herself, for God’s sake.

“You’re right.” She gave his hand another squeeze, then let go to release her seat belt. “I’m going to tell them about the baby and that the father isn’t in the picture and I’ll be a single mother and—” She stopped. “Oh, God.”

He chuckled. “For a second there, you were raring to go.”

“I still am,” she insisted, in spite of, or maybe because of, the flurries of butterflies in her stomach. “Let’s just go get it over with, okay?”

“And after, we’ll hit the diner for lunch.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said.

Two (#u8cabe050-bdf9-559e-9e79-783225adaab4)

Naomi took a deep breath in what she knew was a futile attempt to relax a little. There would be no relaxation until this meeting with her parents was over.

Toby came around the front of the truck, opened her door and waited for her to step down before asking, “You ready?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Naomi shook her head, tugged at the hem of her cool green shirt as if she could somehow further disguise the still-tiny bump of her baby, then smoothed nervous hands along her hips. “Do I look all right?”

He tipped his head to one side, studied her, then smiled. “You look like you always do. Beautiful.”

She laughed a little. Toby was really good for her self-esteem. Or, she thought, he would be, if she had any. God, what a pitiful thought. Of course she had self-esteem. It was just a bit like a roller-coaster ride. Sometimes up, sometimes down. Naomi’d be very happy if she could somehow reach a middle ground and stay there. But it was a constant battle between the two distinctly different voices in her head.

One telling her she was smart and talented and capable while the other whispered doubts. Amazing how much easier that dark voice was to believe.

And she was stalling.

“You’re stalling,” Toby said as if reading her mind. Her gaze snapped to his.

“Think you know me that well, do you?”

“Yeah,” he said, a slow smile curving his mouth. “I do.”

Okay, yes, he really did. Probably the only person she knew who could make that claim and mean it. Even her closest girlfriends, Cecelia and Simone, only knew about her what she wanted them to know. Naomi was really skilled at hiding her thoughts, at being who people expected or wanted her to be. But she never had to do that around Toby.

Taking her hand in his, he started for the front door. “Come on, Naomi. We’ll talk to your folks, get this out in the open, then go have lunch so I can get a burger and you can nibble on a lettuce leaf.”

She rolled her eyes behind his back, because damn it, he really did know her. All women watched their diets, didn’t they? Especially pregnant women? At that thought, memories of that vile video Maverick had sent her rushed into her mind again. She saw the actress waddling, staggering across a mock-up of Naomi’s own television set, and she shivered. She refused to waddle.

Naomi swallowed a groan and took the steps to the wide front porch beside Toby. He was still holding her hand, and she was grateful. A part of her brain shrieked at her that it was ridiculous for a grown woman to be so nervous about facing her parents. But that single voice was being systematically drowned out by a choir of other voices, reminding her that nothing good had ever come from having a chat with Franklin and Vanessa Price.

“You ready?”

She looked up into his eyes, shaded by his ever-present Stetson, and gathered the tattered threads of her courage. She had to be ready, because there was no other choice. “Yes.”

“That’d be more believable if you weren’t chewing on your bottom lip.”

“Blast,” she muttered and instinctively rubbed her lips together to smooth out her lipstick. “Fine. Now I’m ready.”

“Damn right you are.” He grinned, and her nerves settled. Really, Naomi wasn’t sure what she’d ever done to deserve a best friend like Toby, but she was so thankful to have him.

Before she could talk herself out of it or worry on it any longer, she reached out and rapped her knuckles on the wide front door. Several seconds ticked past before it swung open to reveal Matilda, the Price family housekeeper and cook.

Tall, thin and dressed completely in black, Matilda wore her gunmetal-gray hair short and close to her head. Her complexion was pale and carved with wrinkles earned over a lifetime. She looked severe, humorless, although nothing could have been further from the truth. Matilda smiled in welcome.

“Miss Naomi,” she said, stepping back to open the door wider. “You and Mr. Toby come in. I’ll just tell your parents you’re here. They’re in the front parlor.”

Of course they were, Naomi thought. She knew the Price family schedule and was aware that it never deviated. Late-morning tea began at eleven and ended precisely at eleven forty-five. After which her mother would drive into town to one of her charities and her father would go to the golf course or, on Tuesdays, the Texas Cattleman’s Club to visit with his friends.

Waiting in the blessedly cool entry hall, Toby took his hat off, then bent to whisper, “Always makes me twitch when she calls me Mr. Toby.”

“I know,” Naomi said. “But propriety must be maintained at all times.” Appearances, she knew, were very important to her parents. It had always mattered more how things looked than how things actually were.

She glanced around the home she’d grown up in. The interior hadn’t changed much over the years. Vanessa Price didn’t care for change, and once she had things the way she wanted them, they stayed.

Cool, gray-veined white marble tile stretched from the entry all through the house. Paintings, in soothing pastel colors, hung in white frames on ecru walls, their muted hues the only splash of brightness in the decorating scheme. A Waterford crystal vase on the entry table held a huge bouquet of exotic flowers, all in varying shades of white, and the silence in the house was museum quality.

Idly, Naomi remembered being a child in this house and how she’d struggled to find her place. She never really did, which was why, she supposed, she still felt uncomfortable just being here.

Toby squeezed her hand as Matilda stepped into the hall and motioned for them to come ahead. Apparently, Naomi told herself, the king and queen were receiving today. The minute that thought entered her mind, she felt a quick stab of guilt. Her parents weren’t evil people. They didn’t deserve the mental barbs from their only child and wouldn’t understand them if they knew how she really felt.

But at the same time, Naomi couldn’t help wishing things were different. She wished, not for the first time, that she was able to just open the front door and sail in without being announced. She wished that her parents would be happy to see her. That she and her mom could curl up on the couch and talk about anything and everything. That her dad would sweep her up into a bear hug and call her “princess.” That she wouldn’t feel so tightly strung at the very thought of entering the formal parlor to face them.

But if wishes were real, she’d be sitting on a beach sipping a margarita right now.

Her parents were seated in matching Victorian chairs, with a tea table directly in front of them. The rest of the room was just as fussily decorated, looking like a curator’s display of Louis XIV furniture. Nothing in the house invited people to settle in or, God forbid, put their feet on a table.