The Texas Tycoon's Baby(37)

“A girl can only slumber for so many hours.”

He stood there a second longer, then nodded to her.

“Okay, then,” he said, and it sounded like a dismissal. “There’re horses in the stables if you want a ride. Lots of room for walking until our car leaves for the rehearsal dinner at six sharp.”

“I’m invited to the dinner?” She’d thought the wedding summons had been just that—for the ceremony and reception, not for the family events.

He looked bewildered. “Of course.”

She held back a smile. Chet wasn’t making a big deal out of it, but this made her his date. It really did.

He cleared his throat, then tipped his hat to her with the hand that carried the tackle box. “I’ll see you then.”

“I heard there’s a cute fishing hole on the property.” She didn’t want him to go. “Is that where you’re off to?”

“A cute fishing hole?” he asked.

This certainly didn’t feel like a date, with him clearly just dying to get going.

But Mina was tired of this limbo. She’d come here to get to the bottom of him, and he wasn’t going to slip away that easily.

She was gradually finding out that the more personal room she gave Chet Barron, the more skittish he got. Obviously, a woman couldn’t grant him too much time to think.

“I’d like to see where you’re off to, if you don’t mind,” she said, walking over to him. “I grew up in the suburbs, remember? Fishing holes are a curiosity to me.”

“All I do is use the pole to put the hook in the water, Mina. It’s not a big event or anything.”

“I know, I know—and too much talk scares the fish away, so I’ll keep chatter to a minimum.”

He spread out an arm, inviting her to walk next to him.

There was a slight bounce in her step as they strolled down a path that cut through the grass as it turned from a manicured lawn to that of a meadow.

“Last night,” she said, getting the “chatter” out of the way before they got to the fishing hole, “Ally asked if I’d like to hang around while she gets ready tomorrow. I thought that was nice of her.”

Chet kind of grunted, and she didn’t know what to make of that.

“I guess,” she added, “that she just wants me to feel included for some reason.” She realized she was twisting the hem of her T-shirt and stopped.

“She asked you to join her because she likes you.” He slowed their pace, came to a halt. “And because we arrived together.”

“In the same car.” Testing. Test, test.

“No, together together.”

So he was admitting it—that this was a date.

She wanted to bust out and ask, So what exactly does this mean?

But her common sense said that she had him on a hook, and it was quite possible that he would find a way off of it if she pushed him. The truth was that Chet had actually come a decent way recently, and she just had to get him a little further in.

Just a little.

But, much to her surprise, he was the one who went forward.

“I haven’t been honest with myself lately, but I’m trying, Mina. Bit by bit, with my real father, my situation in life…my relationship with you…I’m trying.”

She nodded, letting him go on.

“I want to be with you,” he said, his gaze wounded, confused. “But I’m not sure if I’m in any shape for it. That’s why I’ve been hanging back.”

“You haven’t hung back all of the time.” She meant about how they’d been intimate, how he’d given her his body, but not anything else, at the resort.

“You’re right,” he said. “I haven’t.”

He sounded like he was being hard on himself, just as he’d been when he’d apologized right after the first time they’d made love.

The last thing she wanted was to regress back to those days, so she reached out, touched his arm, showing him how she appreciated his efforts.

“You are trying,” she repeated. “That’s all I can ask right now.”

He didn’t say anything, and she tightened her grip on him.

“You’re going to make it through everything, Chet. I’ll be damned if you don’t.”

As if he’d come to the end of what he had to say for now, he faintly smiled, then walked on.

Progress, she thought. They were getting there.

They took a path that led downhill, toward a bunch of cottonwoods. Soon they came to a secluded pond with large rocks jutting into the water. A particular flat one made for a perfect seat, so they headed toward it.

To get there, they had to negotiate some smaller rocks that peered just above the water.