World's Most Eligible Texan

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.