The Texas Tycoon's Baby(14)

Or from having a family together.

She sucked in a breath, so ready for him. For a moment, she even thought he was just as ready, too. That he’d forgotten about everything except the here and now, the desire that kept bringing them together.

Her lips parted, a pulse away from a whisper in which she could say, Just kiss me. Show me that we’re not only about business. Show me what’s really in your heart…

But then something in Chet’s eyes changed—that all-too-familiar darkness taking over and switching the hue of his gaze from passion to wariness.

The return of the world and all its problems.

As frustration gripped Mina, she could see that he was desperate to cover up whatever he was feeling. When he grinned, then tweaked her cheek, just as if she was some kind of little sister or pal, she didn’t know how to react.

Not that she needed to respond, anyway, because Chet was already backing off from her, hooking a thumb into his belt loop and nudging his hat up an inch as he surveyed the pavilion again. Just as if that’s what he’d been doing all along.

“Yeah,” he said in that cowboy drawl—the one that would always mark him as a rancher who’d turned tycoon rather than the other way around. “This’ll do real nicely.”

Mina wanted to hurl questions at him, like, What just happened here? When are you going to stop running from not only me, but from everything?

But…baby steps, just like last night over dinner.

Had it all been an act though? Judging by how skittish he seemed right now, they weren’t on any more solid ground than before.

“So,” he said, “I’ll see you in an hour?”

“Okay.”

Chet was already on his way, obviously having decided that it wasn’t the greatest idea to be taking this walk with her. It seemed as if he was on the other side of the earth with this gaping distance between them.

Back to business, she accessed her iPad, raising her voice to catch him before he was gone. “You didn’t really test anything out in the spa yet. I’m going to do that later today. Should I schedule anything for you?”

“I think the spa’s best left to you. I’m not a massage-and-facial kind of guy.”

And there was that grin again—the one that might’ve fooled her if she didn’t know him so well.

As he moved down the path, she restrained a sigh, trying not to watch him in those jeans. Trying not to notice the denim clinging to his rear, his muscular thighs or even the shirt that didn’t do much to hide the corded muscles of his back through the linen.

Hopeless. She was incredibly, hopelessly in love and she didn’t know how to pull herself out of it. Leave it to her to fall for the most inaccessible man on earth.

But Mina had no control over her heart and what it did—not even a perfect administrative assistant could line up her emotions like a well-ordered office.

Birds warbled around her in the morning air as she took a stroll around the rest of the property, marking “done” on the checklist that she carried on her personal computer whenever she noticed progress being made. She kept looking at the time, bound and determined to get back to her cabin in the next ten minutes, in time for the Skype conversation she’d scheduled with her older sister, Katie, on the computer. Mina’s niece, Lizzie, had her first preschool open house tonight, and one of the activities that her niece was going to take part in was a dance number. Mina couldn’t make it, but Lizzie had begged her mom to let her show off to Mina beforehand instead.

It would be a quick chat, leaving her just enough time to meet Chet in the offices before he went to his ranch appointments.

When Mina entered the cabin, the scent of cedar welcomed her. So did the trickle of water from the rock fountain in the midst of dimly lit granite nooks and ferns in the living area.

She sat on an overstuffed leather couch, opening the notebook computer that rested on the rough-hewn coffee table. Before she logged on for two-way visual communication through the Skype camera at the top of her computer screen, Mina checked her emails.

Most were from friends, not only those she’d kept in contact with from college, but a few from San Antonio, too. She hadn’t told any of them about her pregnancy, although she’d been tempted to so many times.

Soon, it was time for her video chat, and her older sister Katie called her via the computer, which rang before Mina accessed it.

A video image appeared, featuring Katie, who looked just as tidy as always with her long strawberry-blond hair held back by a headband, her green eyes sparkling.

“Mina!” she said.

Then a tinier, younger voice came over the computer. “Auntie Mina!”

A head topped by a high red ponytail—one like Pebbles Flintstone had worn back in the day—blipped into view as three-year-old Lizzie jumped up.