Pregnant by the Texan(7)
Stella Daniels walked through the living room of the suite in the Cozy Inn without seeing her surroundings. Visions came of Aaron when he had strolled to the table where she sat with Cole. Looking even better than she had remembered, Aaron exuded energy. His short dark blond hair in a neat cut added to his authoritative impression. The warmth in his light brown eyes had caused her heart to miss a beat.
She had a mixture of reactions to seeing him—excitement, desire, dread, regret. She hoped she’d managed to hide her tangled opposing emotions as she smiled and greeted him. Her first thought was how handsome he was. Her second was happiness to see him again, immediately followed by wishing he had stayed in Dallas where the company he shared with Cole was headquartered. His presence complicated her busy life more than he knew.
She’d offered her hand in a business handshake, but the moment his fingers had closed over hers, her heartbeat had jumped and awareness of the physical contact had set every nerve quivering. Memories taunted and tempted, memories that she had tried to forget since the one night she had spent with Aaron in October.
It had been a night she yielded to passion—which was so unlike her. Never before had she done such a thing or even been tempted to, but Aaron had swept her away. He had made her forget worries, principles, consequences, all her usual levelheaded caution, and she had rushed into a blissful night of love with him.
Now she was going to pay a price. As time passed after their encounter, she suspected she might have gotten pregnant. Finally she had purchased a pregnancy kit and the results confirmed her suspicions. The next step would be a doctor. Tomorrow she had an appointment in Austin. Her friends thought she was going there to visit her sister; Stella hadn’t actually said as much, but people had jumped to that conclusion and she had not corrected anyone. She did not want to see a doctor in Royal who would know her. She didn’t want to see one anywhere in the vicinity who would recognize her from her appearances on television since the storm. If a doctor confirmed her pregnancy, she wanted some time to make decisions and deal with the situation herself before everyone in Royal had the news, particularly Aaron.
Tomorrow she would have an expert opinion. Most of the time she still felt she wasn’t pregnant, that something else was going on. It had only been one night, and they’d used protection—pregnancy shouldn’t have resulted, regardless of test results or a missed period.
She studied herself in the mirror—her figure hadn’t changed. She hoped the pregnancy test was wrong, even though common sense said the test was accurate.
Given all that was going on, she should have turned Aaron down tonight, but she just couldn’t do it.
She looked at her hair and thought about what he had said. She would keep it up in a bun as a reminder to stop herself from another night of making love with him. In the meantime, she was going to have dinner with him, work with him and even have fun with him. Harmless fun that would allow them each to say goodbye without emotional ties—just two people who had a good time working together. What harm could there be in that?
Unless it turned out that she was pregnant. Then she couldn’t say goodbye.
She showered, took down her hair to redo it and selected a plain pale beige long-sleeved cotton blouse and a dark brown straight wool skirt with practical low-heeled shoes. She brushed, twisted and secured her hair into a bun at the back of her head. She didn’t wear makeup. Men usually didn’t notice her and she didn’t think makeup would make much difference. The times she had worn makeup in high school, boys still hadn’t noticed her or wanted to ask her out except when they were looking for help in some course they were taking.
An evening with Aaron. In spite of her promises to herself and her good intentions, the excitement tingled and added to her eagerness.