Pregnant by the Texan(42)
“I talked to Cole about it and then we talked to Gil Addison and Nathan Battle and the TCC is willing to tie the Christmas drive in with their Christmas festival. They’ll invite all the families and children to receive their gifts during the festival.”
“That’s wonderful, Aaron. Thank you. Paige was going to contact Amanda Battle and see if she will be on our committee.”
“That’s a good person to contact. So you’re off to a roaring start there.”
“Now tell me more about the Dallas trip.”
“Here comes our waiter and then we’ll talk.”
They ordered and she waited expectantly. “Next week you have one little fifteen-minute spot on the noon news in Fort Worth. This will be your chance to kick off the Christmas drive and maybe get some donations for it.”
“I’m looking forward to getting news out about the Christmas drive.”
“Good. That night I have the oil and gas executives lined up. We will meet them for dinner and you can talk to them about the storm and what people need. I know you’ll reach them emotionally because you have so many touching stories.”
“Thank you. I’ll be happy to do all of these things but I still say I wasn’t meant to be a fund-raiser,” she said, suspecting she wasn’t changing his mind at all.
“You’ll be great. You’ll be fine. You’ve been doing this sort of thing since the storm. I’ve seen your interviews. I even taped one. You’re a natural.”
“Aaron, every cell in your body is filled with self-assurance. You can’t possibly understand having butterflies or qualms.”
“I have to admit, I’m not burdened with being afraid to talk to others about subjects I know.”
Smiling, she shook her head. “I don’t know everything about my subject.”
“You know as much as anybody else in Royal and more about the storm than about ninety-eight percent of the population. You went through it, for heaven’s sake. You were at town hall. You were there for all the nightmarish first hours after the storm and you’ve been there constantly ever since. I heard you crawled under debris and rescued someone. Is that right?”
“Yes. I could hear the cries. She was under a big slab of concrete that was held up by rubble. Not fun, but we got her out. It was a twenty-year-old woman.”
“That’s impressive,” he said, studying her as if he hadn’t ever seen her before. “If you did that, you can talk to people in an interview. After we eat let’s go up to your room or mine and go over ways you can handle the interview.”
When their tossed green salads came, Aaron continued to talk. She realized he was giving her good advice on things to do and she soaked up every word, feeling she would do better the next appearance she made.
Aaron kept up his advice and encouragement throughout the meal, and when they were through dinner, Stella didn’t want him to stop. “Aaron, why don’t we go to my room now and you can continue coaching me?”
“Sure, but a couple of dances first,” he said, standing and taking her hand. In minutes she was in his arms, moving with him on the dance floor, relishing dancing, being in his arms.
Aaron was becoming important to her. She was falling in love with him, but would he ever let go and fall in love with her? She felt he always held himself back and she still had that feeling with him. There couldn’t be any real love between them until all barriers were gone.