The Texas Tycoon’s Christmas Baby

by Brenda Harlen

  “I’m not worried,” he said, and continued with the task. Then, “I thought you’d be at the store.”

  “Is that why you came home in the middle of the day—so you could sneak out again without seeing me?”

  “No.” He put the rag down, looked up at her. “I wanted to see you. I just thought I’d have to wait until you got home to do so.”

  She started down the ladder, and he stepped back, out of her way. “I decided to take a couple of days off.”

  “Why?”

  “It occurred to me that I needed to make some changes around here if I wanted to feel like it was my home, too.”

  “Then…you’re staying?”

  She lifted her chin, almost defiantly. “I’m staying.”

  He’d been prepared to plead, to beg, to do whatever he needed to do to keep her in his life. And while he didn’t think she’d made her decision to make things easier for him, he was both relieved and grateful. “I’m glad.”

  “Are you?”

  He nodded. “I’ve missed you.”

  “No one told you to go,” she said, silencing an exuberant David Lee Roth with the press of a button. “Or to stay away.”

  “I know. I just needed some time.” And though she didn’t ask, he told her, “I’ve been sleeping at the office. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say I’ve been trying to sleep at the office.”

  “Your choice,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, it was,” he agreed. “And not one of the smartest choices I ever made.”

  “And now?” she prompted.

  “Now I want to come home,” he said. “To be with you, to start our life together. But I understand, if that’s going to happen, I need to be honest with you about some things. I need to tell you about Kara.”

  Penny sat on the edge of the bed that was covered by an old sheet to protect it from paint splatter. He sat on the blanket chest so that he was facing her, so close that their knees almost touched.

  “We met when I was in my second year of college, she was a drama major—bright and fun and beautiful. And I was completely infatuated.

  “It wasn’t all smooth sailing,” he told Penny. “In fact, it wasn’t smooth at all. She started to demand more and more of my time, she was clingy when we were out in public, and when we weren’t together, she accused me of being with other girls. Of course, the more possessive she got, the less I wanted to be with her. We broke up. We got back together.

  “She seemed to thrive on the constant drama, but it made me crazy. So, at the end of the year, after we both finished our exams and were going our separate ways for the summer, I suggested that we take a break.

  “She cried and pleaded, but she’d been crying and pleading for months, and I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I came home for the summer and went to work at Foley Industries. With every day that passed, I half-expected she would show up—it was the kind of thing she would do—but she never even called. A few weeks later I learned, through a mutual friend, that she’d got a minor part in a stage production in some little town not far from where she lived.

  “I went up one weekend to check out the play, and we had a great couple of days together. She seemed happier, more secure about who she was and what she was doing, and we talked about getting back together when we returned to school in September. She called me a few weeks later to invite me to come up for the yearend cast party. I had responsibilities at my job and couldn’t get away, and she got ticked. She accused me of caring more about my job than her, and then she hung up on me.

  “I should have called her back, tried to make her understand. Or maybe I should have taken the time off of work because I knew it meant a lot to her. But I didn’t—and as it turned out, that was the last conversation we ever had.

  “She went to the cast party with her friends, and I don’t know if there was alcohol or drugs or both—Kara was always game to try anything at least once—but she ended up falling off of a bridge into the river below and drowning.”

  “Oh, Jason.” There were tears of empathy in Penny’s eyes as she reached out to take both of his hands in hers. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I felt so lost and so guilty. My experience with Kara taught me to be wary, to never let myself get too deeply involved. I didn’t want anyone to matter that much again. I certainly had no intention of ever falling in love again.” He leaned forward and kissed her. Softly, gently. “You blew all my plans to pieces by making me fall in love with you.”

  Her breath caught, the fingers that were linked with his gripped tighter. “What did you just say?”

  He smiled. “I love you, Penny. Maybe it took me a while to realize it, but I finally did. Kara was my past. You are my present and my future. And I know that there are no guarantees in life, but I want a life with you. For now and forever.”

  “Well, that works out pretty good,” she said. “Because that’s what I want, too.”

  Then she wrapped her arms around him, pressed her mouth to his, and as Jason sank into the kiss, engulfed in the warmth of her embrace, he knew that he was finally home.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Penny was awakened by a kiss on Christmas morning. She lifted her arms without opening her eyes, winding them around Jason’s neck to pull him closer.

  “You’re going to make me forget that I’m holding a breakfast tray,” he warned against her lips.

  Her eyes flickered open. “You brought me breakfast in bed?”

  “Just some cinnamon rolls I heated up, and some fresh fruit and yogurt.”

  She shifted into a seated position so that he could set the tray across her lap.

  “This is so sweet.”

  He shrugged. “Well, everyone does the decorating of the tree and hanging of stockings, but I thought we should start some Christmas traditions of our own.”

  “I like this one,” she said, stabbing a plump ripe strawberry with her fork and popping it into her mouth.

  “Well, hurry up with it,” he said, “because we have to check under the tree to see what Santa brought.”

  “Santa only delivers presents to good girls and boys,” she teased.

  “Wasn’t I good last night?”

  Her lips curved. “Very good,” she agreed. “Though I’m not sure the jolly old elf concerns himself with the type of behavior you’re referring to.”

  But she dutifully finished her breakfast, sharing bites and nibbles and kisses with Jason, then got out of bed and slipped her robe on over her nightshirt.

  There was a veritable mountain of presents under the huge balsam fir that was propped up in the corner of the living room. Certainly a lot more than had been there when she’d gone to bed the night before. And more than half of them were “from Santa,” according to their labels.

  When opened, she found a ton of baby things—rattles and bibs, board books and teddy bears, and two impossibly small Texas Rangers baseball jerseys.

  “Obviously, Santa enjoyed shopping at Baby World as much as you did,” she teased her husband.

  Jason just smiled as he tore at the paper on one of his presents.

  She’d struggled, trying to pick out gifts for her new husband. But she’d found the complete series of one of his favorite television shows, a luxurious cashmere sweater that matched the blue of his eyes, a new putter he’d coveted when they were shopping together for a gift for his father, and—after much debate—she’d gone back to Baby World and bought the big floppy dog that he’d been so disappointed about having to put back.

  For Penny, Jason had the babies’ sonogram picture framed and he gave her a coffee-table book about Venice. When she flipped open the cover, a pair of plane tickets fell out.

  “Because I want to take you for dinner at the real St. Mark’s Square,” he told her. “And I figured we better go sooner rather than later, because you won’t be able to travel in a few months.”

  “The time seems to be flying by so fast,” she admitted. “I can hardly believe that by this time next year, we’ll
have two babies crawling around.”

  “Probably trying to pull down the Christmas tree,” Jason warned.

  “Ripping bows off of presents,” Penny added.

  “Wanting to eat the ornaments.”

  “And generally running both of us ragged.”

  But she smiled after she said it, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Are you still scared?” she asked.

  He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. “Terrified.”

  She leaned her head back against his shoulder. “Me, too.”

  “But I figure we can handle anything together.”

  “I hope—Oh.”

  Jason turned her around, so that she was facing him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  But Penny only smiled as she took his hand and laid it on the curve of her belly.

  “What…it moved. He moved. They moved. One of them moved.”

  She laughed. “Yeah.”

  “Have you felt it—him—them—before?”

  “A couple of times,” she said. “But never as strong as that.”

  The flutter came again, and Jason’s eyes went wide. “Wow.”

  “It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

  “You’re amazing,” he told her, pulling her into his arms. “Thank you.”

  She tipped her head back. “For what?”

  “For not giving up on me.”

  “I love you,” she said simply.

  “Well, that’s good,” he said. “Because it so happens that I love you, too.”

  And then he kissed her.

  And as he was kissing her, he steered her toward the couch, swearing against her lips when he banged his shin on the coffee table.

  Penny giggled.

  Jason pulled back and looked around. “There really isn’t a lot of room for two rug rats to run around here.”

  “I’m sure they’ll manage.”

  He considered that for a minute. “And there’s no backyard.”

  “We’ll visit Uncle Travis’s ranch to give them a real taste of the outdoors,” she suggested.

  “That’s another thing.”

  “What is?”

  “We’re quite a distance from grandparents and aunts and uncles who might otherwise be talked into babysitting every once in a while.”

  “Is there a point to all of this, or are you just thinking out loud?”

  “I’m thinking that we need more space,” he said again. “Yeah, maybe we could manage here with the twins, but what happens when we have another baby?”

  “Another baby?”

  “Or two.”

  “Could we get through this pregnancy first?”

  “Of course,” he agreed. “I’m just suggesting that we might want to rethink our living arrangements.”

  “You want to move?”

  “Not right away. After all, it will take a while to decide on a plan, then find a builder, not to mention the time line for the actual construction.”

  “You want to build a house?”

  He shrugged. “I figure, now that we’ve got a solid foundation, we can start building our future. And I want a house with a wide porch, where we can sit together when we’re old and gray, and reminisce about where each of our children took his or her first steps. What do you think?”

  He glanced down at her, saw that her eyes were all misty and soft. “I think it sounds wonderful.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I got a really good deal on some vacant land just outside of Dallas.”

  “But you work in Houston.”

  “Foley Industries has offices in Dallas, too,” he reminded her.

  “But what about your assistant? You always said you couldn’t manage without her.”

  “Well, her husband is retired now, and, as it turns out, Dallas is actually closer to her new granddaughter, so Barb is quite happy to make the transition whenever we do.”

  “Is that really what you want?”

  “I really want to be with you, and I can do that in Dallas as easily as anywhere else,” he said.

  “Speaking of which, we have to be there for dinner in less than six hours, so we’d better start getting ready, if we don’t want to be late.”

  Jason tugged on the belt of her robe and the knot came undone. “Who says we don’t want to be late?”

  They made it on time…barely.

  Of course, everyone else was already there when Jason and Penny arrived at the McCords’ Dallas mansion. The house had been decorated to the nines, as it was for every holiday, but this year there was something extra—love was in the air, as tangible as the scent of pine and as intoxicating as the wine that was being poured at the table.

  It had been a busy year for both families, and though there had been some trials and tribulations, everyone was looking forward to continuing to build the new relationships they’d established and to strengthen the bonds between the families.

  “Grandma Eleanor,” Olivia said, fairly bouncing up and down in her seat at the table. “I have something to tell you.”

  “What is it, sweetie?”

  “You’re going to be a grandma again.”

  “That’s true,” Eleanor said. “Because Auntie Penny’s going to have a baby in June.”

  “And my new mommy’s going to have a baby, too,” the little girl proclaimed.

  Unlike when Jason had announced Penny’s pregnancy exactly one month earlier, the response to Zane and Melanie’s news was overwhelmingly positive.

  “And before you say anything, Dad,” Zane announced, “yes, we are planning to get married.”

  “And definitely before the baby comes,” Melanie assured everyone.

  “Speaking of weddings,” Eleanor said, shifting her attention to Tate and Tanya. “I just want to express our pleasure and gratitude that you were able to be here to celebrate with us today, despite your wedding being only a week away.”

  “Christmas is about family,” Tanya said easily. “And I’m thrilled to be joining this one.”

  “And how are plans for your wedding coming?” Paige asked Katie.

  “I’ve learned that a wedding is like a snowball,” the bride-to-be responded. “The more you try to keep things rolling, the bigger and more unwieldy it seems to get.”

  “You wanted the big, formal wedding,” Blake reminded her. “I just wanted to make you happy.”

  And it was obvious that they were.

  “I have an announcement to make, too,” Charlie said. “No, I’m not getting married or going to be a father,” he hastened to assure them. “But it has to do with my father.” He looked toward the head of the table, where Rex was seated, where Devon—the man he’d always believed was his father—used to preside. “I’ve decided to legally change my name to Charles McCord Foley.”

  Rex’s hand shook slightly as he put his glass down, and his eyes shimmered with an unfamiliar moisture. “Is this really what you want to do?”

  “Yes, it’s really what I want, so long as it’s okay with you.” He paused. “Dad.”

  Eleanor didn’t try to hide the tears that spilled onto her cheeks.

  “It’s more than okay,” Rex said gruffly. “It’s the best Christmas present you could give me.”

  Olivia, bless her, lightened the moment by announcing, “I’d rather have a puppy.”

  Everyone laughed, but her father shook his head firmly. “You already have a kitten, and you have a baby brother or sister on the way, definitely no puppy.”

  As she pouted, Jason leaned closer to whisper in his wife’s ear.

  “I’ll bet you she has a puppy before she has the baby brother or sister.”

  Penny shook her head. She’d seen, firsthand, how easily the little girl wrapped her daddy around her finger. “I’m not taking that bet.”

  Eleanor wiped her cheeks with her napkin, then lifted her glass. “To the Foleys and the McCords—a merging and ever-growing family.”

  Penny lifted her glass of nonalcoholic wine. “
It’s growing even more than you realize.”

  Paige, somehow instinctively guessing what her sister was going to say before she made the announcement, gasped. “Really?”

  Penny nodded.

  “Really what?” Tanya demanded.

  It was Jason who answered the question. “Penny and I are expecting twin boys in early April.”

  “Twins?”

  “Boys?”

  “I think you’re going to need a bigger place,” Travis said.

  Jason nodded. “We’re hopefully going to start building early in the new year, not just because of the twins, but because I hope to have more babies with my incredible wife.”

  “Speaking of houses,” Rex said, nudging his wife.

  “I was going to wait until we were opening presents,” she told him, but the excitement in her voice revealed her eagerness to share more news. “Since Travis has finally put a ring on Paige’s finger—”

  “I had to wait for my sister-in-law to create the perfect design,” he told them, raising Paige’s hand for everyone to see, then bringing it to his lips and brushing a kiss over her knuckles.

  “As I was saying,” Eleanor continued, “since the engagement is now official, I wanted to give you a special gift to commemorate the occasion.”

  But it was Paige who held up the envelope that had been hidden beneath her plate.

  Travis’s smile was quizzical as he lifted the flap and pulled out the folded papers. His eyes grew wide when he opened the document and realized what it was. His gaze went to Paige, who smiled and nodded, then to Eleanor, who also nodded.

  “It’s the deed to Travis’s ranch,” Paige announced to everyone, since her fiancé seemed too stunned to say anything.

  “That’s quite an engagement gift,” he finally said.

  “I wish I could say that I’d thought of it,” Eleanor said. “But it was Paige’s idea. She thought it appropriate that the land you’ve worked for so long should finally be yours.”

  “Ours,” he said, squeezing Paige’s hand.

  “Yours,” she said, and leaned over to brush his lips with a quick kiss. “Until we’re married, then it will be ours.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Beneath the table, Jason linked his hand with Penny’s.