In a quiet panic, he got himself together. Okay, so he was smitten, but it would pass. His college sweetheart had taught him as much, but his father had made a good case for what DNA would provide for Jeremiah, too.
When Ally sedately grounded her feet on the floor and closed the book, he could’ve sworn that she closed her expression just as effectively, smiling politely at him as if they’d never had that discussion on the patio last night.
Just think about it, Ally….
She’d been hearing Jeremiah’s voice in her head since last night, and she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what she wanted…and it had nothing to do with the business he’d come here to talk about, either.
Even as she’d sat here for hours, she’d found that she’d been reading the same words over and over. And now that he was here, she couldn’t think at all, because her temples were drumming along with the voodoo cadence in the rest of her body.
Him, him, her pulse was saying, even while her brain was trying to cancel out every one of those beats.
She ran her gaze over him—a fantasy straight out of the ones she’d entertained last night after she’d gone to her room: Jeremiah Barron in blue jeans and a devil’s grin, those blue eyes drawing her in with their lively spark.
“When are you leaving?” she asked, and it sounded so very nonsensical. But she didn’t know what else to utter.
“I’ll take off just as soon as you either tell me to go to hell or give me a sign that you’re willing to bargain.”
As cocky as always, he sat down next to her, a buzzing space between them, even though he was about a foot away.
Her mouth was dry, so she swallowed, then said the most awkward thing she could’ve possibly ventured. “I guess it’d be tough for you to go back to San Antonio.”
He paused, as if hardly believing she’d once again brought up a topic that would serve as a wedge.
Then he seemed to accept it. “I have to return sometime. Can’t stay away and avoid real life forever. My family finally found that out, even though my dad and Uncle Abe tried for years to keep the scandal a secret. It was only when my uncle came down with cancer that it all emerged.”
He was too close, and her heart was stuttering.
But she didn’t move away from him. She liked that he seemed so different right now, more like that real guy she’d seen playing lassos with the children.
He continued, as if talking about this was inevitable. Or maybe a man like Jeremiah Barron was only using honesty to draw her in further….
“Uncle Abe knew he was dying,” he said, “and he wanted Chet to have his rightful place in the family and business, so he told my dad that it was time for it all to see the light of day. He passed away knowing that my dad eventually did right by his son.”
“I can’t imagine what your family has been through, Jeremiah.”
He didn’t respond, but his expression said it all: the tightness of his jaw, the sudden shadows in his eyes.
She missed the usual twinkle. And it wasn’t because she’d gotten used to the playboy. She just had the feeling that Jeremiah was truly a person who could make even the dourest of company lighthearted with his grin. That was a valuable talent, because everyone needed to be reminded that they could smile, even through the loneliest times.
When she looked back over at him, their mouths were only inches away.
The rain pattered against the window, her lips tingling with warmth.
“If you want to stay in the country for a little longer, I’m sure the Howards wouldn’t mind,” she said on a whisper.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t.”
And…even nearer now. Maybe she could be the one to close the distance, creating only a hush of space between them.
A tick of time.
A second that was poised to fall…
Ally closed her eyes, anticipating the press of his mouth on hers, a wicked trill grasping her heart—
As she felt his lips lightly brush over hers, a shock jolted her, one so strong that she drew back, sucking in a breath as her body flashed like it never had before.
Her pulse boomed, as if urging her to go on when it knew she shouldn’t, when it knew that flirtation was one thing, but this?
It was another.
As she stood, her blanket slumped to the ground.
Her mouth still pounded while she walked away as fast as she could go. She’d dropped her book somewhere, but she wouldn’t return to get it, even as Jeremiah said her name.
“Ally…”
He would be a mistake, and she wouldn’t carry it with her into a new life with a child, for God’s sake. She didn’t need any attachments, even a temporary one, to a guy who had told her outright that he wasn’t father material.
If there was a man in her life, he would have to be a constant.
She made it to her room, going inside, closing the door, leaning back against the wood, her common sense eventually coming back to her second by mortifying second.
She hadn’t been thinking. But what scared her even more than that was that her body was punishing her now, churning in intimate places, keening for her to go back to him.
Would it have just been a kiss?
Half of her wanted to take a chance on being that one woman who saved Don Juan, to see where a kiss might lead, no matter what the consequences.
But she wouldn’t let herself, and when she heard his boot steps coming down the hall, hesitating in front of her door, she held her breath.
It seemed like forever until he walked away.
Exhaling, she finally went to her desk, slumping into the chair. She grabbed a stack of papers—figures, numbers, all showing the success of the weekend—but she couldn’t force herself to work.
Or to forget him.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, but at some point, she could see that it was darker outside and raining harder than ever.
Idly, she reached for her phone, noticing only now that the message icon was on.
She accessed her voice mail, and it was as if fate had stepped in and guided her in the direction she needed to go.
And it wasn’t out the door to find where Jeremiah had gone off to.
“Ally, this is Michele from the adoption service provider. I have some great news. We’ve got a birth mother who fell in love with your portfolio, and she wants to meet with you….”
Afterward, Ally held the phone to her chest as tears fell. This was really happening. And she’d made all the right decisions, even in the hallway.
Eventually, she dried her face and wrote a note to Jess, preferring to do that instead of having to listen to any more of her aunt’s doubts about an adoption.
Then Ally went to Jess’s room, slipped the paper under her door, said goodbye to the Howards and left the mansion, heading to California and the life that she’d been meant for.
“She’s gone,” Jessica said as Jeremiah stood in the dining room with her, where one last banquet had been laid out. “Gone?”
He sounded as if he’d been smacked with a sledgehammer to the head.
One more night. That’s what he’d been hoping for. All it would’ve taken was another kiss. He should’ve still had a few hours to persuade Ally, too.
But here Jessica was, telling him that she wasn’t here anymore. She even seemed put out about it, too, for some reason.
He must have seemed bewildered, because Jessica got curious.
“Are you all right?”
Get a grip, Jer, he thought.
He called up his grin to pull him through. “She didn’t say anything about leaving today.”
“She had to get back to her place in California because…” Jessica pursed her lips together. “Why?”
She blinked at the force of his tone. “It’s just personal business. I have to leave it at that, Jeremiah.”
Anger was rising in him. Punctured pride. That’s what it had to be, because he’d been rejected—royally rejected—and word would get ar
ound about it soon enough. His friends would hear about it, then his family.
But there was another reason this injured him. It confirmed that he wasn’t good enough. Not for Ally.
Maybe not for anyone. Ever.
Then he thought about his father—how he probably would not even react to Jeremiah’s failure when all Jeremiah had ever wanted, really, was a response out of the man.
He couldn’t figure out what made his feet move out of the room. Impulse. A rash sense of being put in his place by Ally yet again.
But something else, something he couldn’t grasp, niggled at him, and Jeremiah abandoned it on his way to his room, taking out his smart phone, accessing his upcoming schedule.
He looked at what he would be able to cancel businesswise, what he could reschedule and what he couldn’t avoid before going out of town. He was going to need at least a week and a half to get his affairs in order before taking any kind of vacation.
Then he dialed up his personal assistant, Rita.
“I’ve got a small research project for you,” he said, going on to give her details about Ally…as well as what he knew about where she lived in California. Rita would do the rest.
He hung up, not having finished any business with Ally Gale, professional…
Or personal.
Chapter Four
Ally pushed back her wide-brimmed hat, lifting her face to the haze-veiled September coastal sun as its warmth spread over her garden, which was resplendent with herbs like rosemary and cilantro, plus vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, beans and lettuce.
It was so good to be home.
She’d been hoping for this kind of peace and quiet when she’d returned from Texas over a week and a half ago. Lord knew she had needed it most of all the day after her return, when she’d met with the birth mother of the child she planned to adopt.
Thank goodness the meeting had gone off without a hitch though. As the adoption services facilitator had sat nearby, Cheryl had interacted with Ally as if she really liked her, and Ally’s nerves had been laid to rest as they had started to get to know each other.
From what the facilitator had previously told Ally, the birth mother had taken her time in choosing the person she wanted her child to be with. But when she had come upon Ally and her portfolio, as well as her background information and glowing personal recommendation testimonials, she had made her decision.
Good thing, too, as Cheryl was due to give birth in only a couple more weeks.
As Ally watered the tomatoes with the garden hose, she couldn’t help smiling. She was going to have what she wanted most soon: a baby, a family…
When she thought of having a husband to go along with the rest of it, she tried to shut down the longing. But it was impossible, because the rest of her became a tangle of heartbeats and adrenaline.
A man, to have and to hold, to be with and love.
The sensation of Jeremiah’s lips skimming over hers came, unbidden…so soft and gentle, his mouth like a velvet stroke through the deepest and most intimate parts of her body….
She tried to shut that down, too, because she’d made her decision about Jeremiah Barron. He was the last thing a mother-to-be needed.
But there was just something else about him. Something that scared her—a powerful feeling she’d never felt before, not even with Marco. Yet a playboy like Jeremiah would only take advantage of her feelings and leave them like so much debris when he was done. She’d made a good choice in leaving him behind.
A woman’s lilting voice came from behind her, bringing Ally out of her reverie.
“Well, there she is. You must’ve come out here right when the sun rose.”
Ally hadn’t noticed anyone approaching, but she should have heard Mrs. McCarter, the housekeeper who’d worked for Ally’s parents ever since she could recall, limping with the aid of her cane. Behind her, there were rolling green, oak-laced hills, plus a small vineyard that rested in the near distance next to the country road.
“I thought you might have jet lag after getting in so late last night,” Ally said, “so I thought I’d let you sleep in.”
Mrs. McCarter had told Ally to call her by her first name, Marlene, now that Ally was an adult, even though she didn’t because she thought it didn’t sound right. As Mrs. McCarter sat down on a wooden bench, a breeze tickled the strands of short white hair that peeked out from beneath her yellow canvas hat. She folded both hands on the head of her mahogany cane and smiled and, like always, the humor traveled to her light brown eyes.
“Ah, the price of getting old,” the woman said. “Sorry I drifted off before I could milk all the details out of you about your birth mother.”
“I knew we’d have plenty of time to talk today and even long after that.”
“So talk. Tell me everything.”
For a second, Ally’s mind snagged on the thoughts she’d been having about Jeremiah—a temptation she wasn’t going to confess.
Taking up where they had left off last night, Ally said, “After meeting Cheryl, the adoption became much more real for me. It stopped being a dream, because there’s a whole new batch of feelings that I didn’t expect to be having.”
Mrs. McCarter merely listened, just as she had on the phone when Ally had asked her to come out to the coast, to be here to keep her company. Jess would arrive in a few days, after she’d taken care of some of her own business. Ally’s aunt still hadn’t given her full blessing to the adoption, but at least this would be a step in the right direction, as Ally had made it clear that she was going through with it whether or not she had Jess’s approval.
Ally shed her gardening gloves. “You should’ve seen the birth mother. She’s not much more than a girl, even though she’s twenty. She’s got these big blue baby-doll eyes, and when she sat in the big wingback chair that the facilitator has in her office, she was just about swallowed up. She looked so young, even with a belly out to here.”
Curving her hand through the air, Ally indicated the birth mother’s swollen tummy. The gesture made her throat close up tight. If Marco had wanted her as a wife, she might’ve been just as pregnant as Cheryl by now.
She expected to feel pulled down by the thought, yet where there should’ve been sadness, there was only regret at having wasted her time on a man who’d preferred jetting around on business to settling down with her….
Before she realized what was happening, Jeremiah’s face, with that charming grin and the twinkle in his eyes, covered everything, including the regret.
Ally erased the image from her mind, although there was still something vibrating around the area of her heart.
Mrs. McCarter said, “How did this Cheryl seem to feel about letting her child go for adoption? Reluctant? Relieved?”
“Neither one, really. She told me that she never meant to get pregnant—not now and not in the future. She’s a college student on scholarship, and she’s got plans for a career as a lawyer.” Ally didn’t cotton to those sorts of ambitions, although she respected that Cheryl had them. “She knows that if she has a baby now, she’ll have to give up all the opportunities she’s worked so hard for. Plus, she said that she can’t afford to raise a child the right way, and I think that trumped everything else.”
“Her boyfriend won’t support her and a baby?”
“There is no boyfriend.” Ally stood, brushing the dirt from her jeans, then slipped her veggie- and herb-filled garden basket over her arm. “He was just a fling who didn’t want any part of the pregnancy. When he was served papers for the adoption, he denied he was the father.”
“Poor girl.”
“Yeah. But she’s not the sort who asks for pity. And she said that she doesn’t want the child to pay for her mistakes.”
“Well, it sounds like you both made the right decision. You were meant to have this baby.”
Ally smiled gratefully at the older woman. She’d known that Mrs. McCarter would be a stabilizing force, just as when Ally was growing up she’d been there to o
ffer a hug or two while Ally’s parents went on weekend philanthropy trips. As the head of their household, she’d done more than just mind the books and run the Gales’ personal business.
Mrs. McCarter leaned back on the bench, her hat shielding her skin from the sun. Her complexion was smooth, pale, parchment thin, soft as any grandmother’s.
“Sounds to me,” the older woman said, “that Cheryl thought very carefully about her options. There are just some women out there who don’t feel the need to be a mother. I’m a prime example.”
“You would’ve been a fantastic one.”
“It wasn’t in the cards.” Mrs. McCarter winked at her. “I always had the best of arrangements. I would enjoy having fun with you, playing, taking you to the park and the like. But if you started to cry or fuss, I simply handed you off to your mom. I was quite pleased with the circumstances.”
Ally laughed, helping the older woman off the bench, linking arms with her as they strolled on the path toward the house, which lorded it over the sweeping landscape with its modern glass-and-cedar sleekness. The surrounding shrubs could’ve used a good trim, but Ally was minding the landscaping budget, even thinking she would do some of it herself.
Being outdoors would be good for the soul, anyway.
Just as they approached the back door, Ally heard the roar of a truck coming up the long drive.
“Are you expecting company?” she asked Mrs. McCarter.
“At my age? You give me a lot of credit.”
Laughing again, Ally let go of her friend and went ahead toward the garage area, where a flatbed pickup was pulling in, the back brimming with… Rosebushes?
Yes. Layer upon layer of red, yellow, white and pink petals spilling over the sides of their planters like a surreal fantasy.
And as if that wasn’t surprising enough, the delivery man alighted from the truck, dressed in boots, jeans and a cowboy hat.
Ally could only stare as her mind raced to catch up with the sprint of her pulse.
Taming the Texas Playboy Page 5