The Texas Tycoon's Baby(36)

There were more important things to talk about, anyway.

“Where’s Eli?” he asked.

Jeremiah shot another look to Tyler, who nodded, as if he was telling his brother to go ahead.

“He’s not here tonight,” Jeremiah said, “but he’s got a pass from the rehab center for the rest of the weekend.”

Tyler added, “He’ll be here tomorrow evening for the rehearsal dinner in town.”

“Chet?” Jeremiah asked. “Is that okay?”

“Yes. I’m not going to make this difficult for everyone, especially during your wedding, Jeremiah.” He looked up. “I’m finally going to make things right between me and Eli. It’s well past time.”

Tyler put a hand on Chet’s shoulder, and Jeremiah patted his other arm. Brothers. Chet wasn’t even going to think of them as half siblings anymore. Not if he wanted them all to come together.

He really was ready to face that.

Jeremiah held up his whiskey, as did Tyler. A toast, sealing a silent promise—one that Chet regretted having put off for this long.

Near the fireplace, Ally and Zoe were chatting up Mina pretty well. Mina looked comfortable with the others, smiling and talking just as if she belonged.

He watched the fire play with the color of her hair, watched how she tilted back her head every time she laughed. She fit in, all right, and for some reason, it sent a flood of warmth through him.

Being here on Florence Ranch was only highlighting how Tyler and Jeremiah had something with Zoe and Ally that Chet had never experienced. One look at Mina sitting so naturally among them made Chet think that everyone could have what his brothers did, even during the crisis they’d been surviving for the past months. Everyone—even Chet.

Jeremiah, the scamp, was unable to hold back any longer. “Careful, Chet—the women are warming up to your assistant pretty thoroughly.”

At the blunt observation, a familiar panic attacked once again. “Mina is just here because she’s…”

Chet tripped over his words, and before he could search for the right ones, Jeremiah supplied them.

“Because she’s your date?”

Straight-to-the-point Tyler looked baffled. “Isn’t that what she is, Chet?”

Yes. No.

Damn it.

Chet turned his back on the women and lowered his voice. “I’m not sure how to define it, so let’s not define it at all, okay?”

His brothers just drank their cocktails, though Jeremiah smirked behind his glass.

There wasn’t much else to say, not right now, when Chet didn’t have anything figured out. All he knew was that he wanted to glance behind him again, keep Mina in his sights, because whenever she was in them, he felt better about life in general.

And about himself, too.



Mina and Chet hadn’t stayed too long in the lounge. They’d bunked down in their respective rooms, and Mina had taken to her guest cottage like a bee to honey.

Her bed had soft sheets and was surrounded by pastel, sunrise artwork. She had a little kitchen where she could see bright flowers peeking out of a window box just outside, framing a view of the big house. It was “rustic chic,” with a farmhouse-type minikitchen, complete with an old-fashioned lantern hanging over the stove.

She had just about everything she needed but Chet, who’d only said a quiet good-night to her before Millie, the household manager, had walked her to the cottage, explaining where things were and how to work them before leaving.

But why had Mina expected Chet to be in her cottage tonight when he’d come “home,” to where all his problems were?

Even though her pulse limped along at his absence, she got a decent night’s sleep, awakening just after dawn to a cloud-strung sky outside. After she got ready for the day, she went outside to sit on the stoop, drinking a mug of herbal tea that steamed in the cool morning.

It wasn’t but fifteen minutes later that she witnessed Chet sauntering by on a nearby path, garbed in cowboy gear and carrying a fishing pole and tackle box in either hand.

Boom went her heart, and it didn’t calm down, even as he walked farther and farther away.

Well, this wouldn’t do—her on one side of the ranch and him on the other. She would never get him to see that he needed her in his life.

She set down her mug and walked as fast as she could to catch up to him, her skirt swishing around her legs and boots. The nippiness of the morning tweaked her arms, which were bared by her big, short-sleeved T-shirt, but she didn’t go back for a sweater.

“Morning,” she called out.

He stopped in his tracks, looking over his shoulder.

Was there a boom moment in him, too?

“I thought you’d be sleeping in,” he finally said.