World's Most Eligible Texan

“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.