The Texas Tycoon's Baby(61)

“What?”

He took a chance, laid his hand on top of hers as she kept hugging that book.

“That I want to be there for you, too.”

A tear wiggled down her cheek, and she reached up to whisk it away.

“I just wonder though,” he said, “if you can bear with me while I learn to trust again. While I get the rest of my life together and leave all my baggage behind.”

She nodded, but obviously couldn’t say much more.

“Mina?”

“Sorry,” she said with a croak. “I just get so emotional lately. I’m sure that’s why I overreacted when I told you about the baby.”

“You expected me to put my issues behind me. You weren’t asking too much, even though it felt like it at the time.”

He heard the words coming from him and marveled that he was able to say them.

But Mina had shown him how. Only Mina.

“I was wrong to expect that of you,” she said. “I thought you were going to bolt right out the door, but I came to realize that I’ve got to trust you, too.”

“You know I’m never going to hurt you again, right?”

She finally met his gaze, as if she knew that he was talking about her previous heartbreaks, not just the one they’d had together last night.

As if she already was willing to put all of her soul into trusting him.

The power of their visual connection would’ve sent him to his knees if he hadn’t already intended to get down on one of them.

He lowered himself to the carpet, reaching into his back pocket, coming out with a velvet box. A ring he’d bought on the way over here, too.

Now Mina really started to cry.

“Be my wife?” he asked. “Keep on being the best partner I could’ve ever found?”

She knelt down, too. “Yes, yes, I will.”

As a trill sang through him, he rested a hand on her tummy. She’d worn a baggy skirt, although she was still slender and the baby hadn’t shown him or herself much at all.

But he still knew his son or daughter was in there.

“And you?” he asked their baby. “How do you feel about this?”

“He or she wants you to just put the ring on me,” Mina said, laughing.

It felt so damned good to laugh with her as she slid the diamond-studded band onto her finger. It was a little loose, but it would do for now.

“We’ll get it fitted,” he said.

“It already fits just fine.”

They embraced, kissed, as if finding each other again after too long of a separation.

Then, suddenly, Mina sucked in a breath, drawing way from him.

“Oh,” she said, her hands flying to her belly.

“Are you okay?” His heart was palpitating like mad.

“Yes, it’s…” She brought one of his hands to her tummy. “This is the first time I’ve felt anything. Can you feel the baby?”

He thought he did—a little thump that brought the idea of having a child with her to full life.

Overwhelmed, he kissed her again, and Mina leaned her forehead against his.

“We’re going to have a little person,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Did you know that, right now, this little person probably has hair on his or her head and might even be able to hear us?”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Chet guided Mina back to a stand while he remained kneeling. He cupped her hips, pressing his lips to her tummy.

“Your mommy just made me the happiest man alive,” he murmured against her, hoping the baby really could hear. “And you’ve only made me happier.”

Mina rested her hands on Chet’s head, all of them finally connected, father, mother and child.





Epilogue




“So when’s it your turn, Ty?” Chet asked his brother as the family gathered in the grand living room in the Florence Ranch mansion months later.

Tyler looked down at Chet, who was sitting on a love seat next to Mina, holding his newborn son, Colin. Tufts of reddish hair were already peeking out from under his blue baby cap.

Tyler only grinned in answer to Chet’s question while tickling Colin’s cheek.

Mina laughed. “Evasive, Ty?”

She didn’t look as if she’d been pregnant just a couple of weeks ago, but she did seem like a newlywed, three months married in a ceremony that the family had held here on the ranch, just like the rest of the Barrons.

Zoe wandered over from where Ally was holding court with Caroline. Mina’s mom was holding the rosy-cheeked infant, and little Lizzie, who’d begged to come with her grandparents for the weekend to the ranch, was fussing with the red bow in the baby’s hair. The Barrons had invited the Fergusons over, just like they did at least once a month these days.