The Texas Tycoon's Baby(34)

Leaning her head back on the seat, she turned her gaze to him. “I’m glad you came.”

She didn’t say anything else about it, but Chet got the feeling that there was a lot more going through her mind than her dad’s birthday and the cruise her parents would be taking.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Sure.” She paused as the limo hummed underneath them, tires over blacktop. Then she said, “It’s just…I had a little talk with my mom, and it made me realize something that I didn’t expect.”

“What’s that?”

She tucked an auburn strand of hair behind her ear, as if it was a good excuse to hesitate again. “She said that their opinions shouldn’t matter so much to me. At first, I interpreted that to mean that I wasn’t important enough to care about. It stunned me. But when I started to really think about it, I understood that she didn’t mean it that way.”

“And?”

Mina looked so forlorn on the other side of the limo. “It really drove home how I’ve always believed that I was something my parents had to get used to, something they had to fit into their lives, like a square peg in a round hole, so I tend to overreact about how they react to things. I suppose I’ve even come to like how the family is so protective and interested in everything I do, because it shows that they actually want me.”

Chet leaned forward. “Everyone in that family thinks the world of you, Mina. You have to talk yourself into recognizing that?”

“I guess. Especially since Katie and Amy never had any big realization like mine, as far as I know. My parents were financially ready for another child when it came time for Amy, years later.”

“I doubt your parents ever even think of what happened with you.”

“You’re right.” She looked out the window again. “It’s amazing to realize that I’ve spent so much of my life trying so hard to please them so they’d never regret having me.”

Her words were a slight hit to his gut. “A man and woman should never regret having a child.”

It’d just come out, bald and truthful.

As she watched him, her gaze was forthright. “No, they shouldn’t.”

Was she thinking about him now, and not her own life? Thinking about how he might’ve felt the night when Abe and Eli had taken him into a private room and told him who he really was?

Mina seemed ready to say something else—something with major substance to it, because he could almost feel it in the air between them.

But then she went quiet again, and Chet respected her silence, leaning back, his mind stretched in a million different directions.

And every one of them seemed to lead to Florence Ranch.



The ranch was smack-dab in Texas Hill Country, reigning on the top of a rise, surrounded by pines, a creek, meadows and guest cottages. There was even a swimming hole nearby—a place Chet had visited a few times during his youth when Eli would invite Abe and his family over.

More innocent times, as far as Chet had known.

The limo climbed the driveway up to the Greek Revival mansion, known affectionately as the “big house,” and Chet couldn’t help but think about how different it was from the home of Mina’s parents, which had been far more modest and…

Well, cozy.

Theirs was a house that was more on par with his old cabin up in Montana. No fuss. No fancy stuff. Just a place to wander around in at your leisure, a place to set your boots in without having to worry about how they might dirty up the floor.

After the limo came to a halt, Chet didn’t wait for the driver to open the door. He exited first, extending his hand to help Mina out of the vehicle.

When she alighted, she ran her gaze over the mansion, then removed her hand from his.

“I can never get used to this place,” she said.

“Same here.” And that was the truth. Every time he arrived, he felt like a visitor, even after all these months of knowing that he should belong.

The driver went to get their bags, and Chet took them from the guy, thanking him and letting him go to his cabin down the hill for the night. He was a Barron employee, so he stayed on the property, just as the ranch hands and other staff did.

While Chet and Mina climbed the few stairs that led to the entry, the front door opened.

It was Tyler, Chet’s oldest half brother.

“Here they are.” Tall and solidly built in his jeans and Western shirt, Tyler’s coloring resembled Aunt Florence’s, with their dark brown hair and green eyes. He didn’t have much of Eli in him at all—not like Chet and Jeremiah did.

After Chet hung his hat and coat on an intricate iron rack, Tyler took his bag from him, then enveloped him in a fraternal hug. Chet was getting used to this kind of thing, so he returned the gesture, lingering for a second longer than he usually did.