The Texan's Surprise Baby

by Gina Wilkins

  She shifted in her seat, and he wondered if he was making her self-conscious.

  “Are you uncomfortable?” he asked.

  She smiled faintly. “The baby just kicked me in the side.”

  That, of course, drew his attention straight to her tummy. She was still so small that he hadn’t really thought much about the baby’s development. At almost six months along, it must be pretty well formed by this point, he realized. He wanted to feel the movement himself, but he knew better than to place a hand on her without permission. His female cousins who’d had children had often complained about people—even strangers—thinking they had a right to feel a pregnant woman’s stomach.

  Hannah seemed to read his thoughts. She took his hand and laid it on her swollen tummy, just above the seat belt she still wore. Only moments later, he felt a little thump beneath his palm. His eyes widened. “Was that it?”

  “Yes. He’s active this afternoon.”

  “He?”

  She shrugged, her emotions well-masked, though her voice sounded a bit huskier than usual. “Just a figure of speech. This time tomorrow, I could be saying she.”

  He focused on his hand, his attention on the movement beneath it. He pictured a little girl who looked just like Hannah—or a boy with his own mother’s big dark eyes. Both images made his chest tighten. He raised his gaze to look at Hannah only to find her studying his face with eyes that looked suspiciously moist. The next thing he knew, his mouth was on hers.

  * * *

  The console of Andrew’s sports car dug into Hannah’s left side. The baby kicked against her right rib cage. The still-fastened seat belt bit into her shoulder, and her left leg had twisted into an uncomfortable position. And yet she was in no rush at all to move out of Andrew’s arms.

  His mouth moved slowly on hers, his lips firm and gentle at the same time. The faintest hint of early evening shadow roughened his cheek when she laid her fingertips against it. His hand slid to the back of her head to hold her in place as he took his time exploring every inch of her willing mouth.

  She had known the first time Andrew kissed her that there was a volatile chemistry between them, something she had suspected from the first time their eyes met. She’d tried to tell herself at the beginning that she was deluding herself, that she was confusing gratitude and attraction, that her stinging ego was pushing her to look for validation in a man’s approval. But the more time she had spent with Andrew, the more she’d become aware of what a good man he was, and how much she genuinely admired and truly liked him. None of which had convinced her that they belonged together. Just the opposite, in fact. She had survived the end of her marriage with her heart battered but intact. Some instinct told her a bad outcome with Andrew would devastate her—not that he’d given her any reason to believe he was interested in pursuing a long-term relationship with her.

  Slowly he drew back his head, leaving her lips damp, tingling, aching for more. Her throat clenched, her pulse raced, and her already-hormonal emotions threatening to overwhelm her. Her heart still ached from the look she had seen in his eyes when he’d felt their baby move. Between that and the kiss, she couldn’t trust herself at all just then to think rationally.

  She cleared her throat. Hard. And still her voice was hoarse when she said, “We’d better go. I called Mom from the body shop and told her we were on the way. They’ll be wondering what happened to us.”

  She was relieved when he immediately drew back. Apparently he was going to stick to his promise that he was letting her set the pace now. At least until his patience ran out.

  She heard him snap his seat belt back into place, but kept her face turned to look out the passenger side window. She needed to use the remainder of the drive to get her expressions under control before dealing with her family again.

  “I moved out of my motel room while you were running your errands,” Andrew said conversationally as he drove through the resort gate. “It seemed a waste for me to take up a room when every vacancy is in demand.”

  “That was generous of you.” Hannah had no doubt that he’d had plenty of offers of spare beds from her family, since each household had at least one. “Where are you staying?”

  “Steven’s spare bedroom. The whole family volunteered, but I think I’d be most comfortable with Steven.”

  She bit her lower lip, realizing that Andrew would be staying right across a narrow road from her now rather than half a resort away in the motel. Great.

  “Unless you’d rather I stay with you instead.”

  She whipped her head around in response to his comment. “What?”

  Andrew slanted her a rare, playful grin that made him look even more like his lighthearted brother. “Just kidding.”

  Even though her lips twitched with an unexpected smile, she shook a finger at him. “Behave yourself.”

  His chuckle was more wry than amused. “If I’d done that, we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we?”

  Her cheeks warmed as erotic images flashed through her mind—again. “You hardly bear all the blame for that,” she murmured.

  He glanced at her and she thought she saw the shared memories heating his eyes. But rather than continuing the topic that had the potential to become awkward fast, he asked, “Where do you want me to drop you off?”

  “At the main building. I have to bring some things to the office.”

  He nodded and took the right turn that led toward the lake.

  It was after six now, but the resort bustled with activity. The day was still hot and bright, the lake still crisscrossed with fishing and ski boats and personal watercraft. The cordoned-off swimming area was crowded with families enjoying the cool water now that the sun had lowered a bit. Even when the resort was full with cool-weather campers, it always seemed oddly quiet in the winter months when the swimming area was closed. No lifeguard was provided at the swim-at-your-own-risk beach, but prominently posted signs reminded parents to closely watch their children. The shrieks and laughter drifting from that direction were familiar sounds to Hannah. The resort did good business year round, but summer, of course, was the prime source of annual income.

  A gaggle of teenagers burst from the building as Hannah and Andrew approached, sodas and candy bars in their hands providing evidence that they’d visited the convenience store. A middle-aged couple who’d camped often at the resort for the past five years called out a greeting to Hannah as they made their way toward the boat slips with fishing rods in their hands. She waved back and wished them luck with their fishing outing.

  “Did you ever get tired of living in the middle of a resort when you were growing up?” Andrew asked her as he reached around her to open the door. “Always being surrounded by so many people?”

  “I’d have been surrounded by even more people if I’d grown up in an apartment in the city,” she said with a shrug. “But at least here we had the lake and the playground and plenty of room to run and ride our bikes and skate. When I wanted time to myself, I could always retreat to my room or to a hammock in our backyard, because the family compound was off-limits to guests. Our parents taught us about staying alert around strangers, never running off alone, water safety and so on, but I’d say it was pretty much an ideal place to grow up.”

  “And you plan to stay here in your trailer after the baby’s born?”

  “That’s the plan,” she said lightly. “For a while anyway. At least I’ll have plenty of family around to help out.”

  He looked as though he wanted to say something more, but now they were inside and surrounded by people, several of them relatives, so he couldn’t.

  “I’ll see you later,” she told him, already digging in her bag for the paperwork she had to drop off at the office and the prescription bottles to be delivered to various family members.

  Andrew nodded and turned toward the diner. “Later,” he said, making it sound like a promise.

  Hannah saw her grandmother making a beeline in her direction, and she pointed a ste
rn finger. “Don’t even start,” she warned. “You may ask about the errands I ran or what happened to my car, but no more matchmaking.”

  Mimi sighed dramatically, not even bothering to pretend ignorance. “Fine.”

  Nodding in satisfaction, Hannah handed her grandmother the prescriptions she had picked up for her, then headed for the office.

  * * *

  Between the pandemonium at the resort and Aaron’s brand-new romance with Shelby, there had been little chance for Andrew and Aaron to speak privately since Andrew arrived. Andrew thought that was a good thing in some ways because it had always been so hard for him to hide anything from his brother. So he found himself on guard when he and Aaron were finally alone together at almost ten Thursday night.

  They’d been playing a card game with Shelby and her parents and brother when a call had come in about some trouble at Campsite 32. C.J. had automatically risen to respond, but Aaron volunteered instead, reminding his girlfriend’s father that he was the newest member of the employee roster and should be the one to take the night shift. Andrew had come along because it was time for the gathering to end and because he was curious.

  They’d parted from Steven outside his parents’ house. Because of his mending leg, Steven was getting around in one of the resort’s green golf carts. Andrew had a key to Steven’s trailer, where he’d be bunking for the night, and Steven urged him to feel free to let himself in and make himself at home when he returned from accompanying Aaron.

  Andrew and Aaron hopped into another golf cart. It wasn’t a long walk to the problem site but the cart would get them there more quickly. Aaron took the wheel. “I think I’ve memorized the grounds during the past week,” he murmured. “If I’m right, site 32 is lakeside, almost in the center of the row.”

  “Sounds about right,” Andrew agreed, calling on his own vague memory of the resort map. “What, exactly, is the problem we’re responding to?”

  “Noise complaint. C.J. told me it usually just takes a warning from management to get them to quiet down.”

  Andrew knew it was rare that local law enforcement had to be summoned to the resort, though it did happen occasionally. For general complaints, guests were encouraged to call the 24-hour service number, which was routed to various Bell family members, depending on who was on call for the night. For true emergencies, such as medical crises or other dangerous situations, they were instructed to call 9-1-1. Staying on the main road that circled through the resort, Aaron drove past two intersecting roads on the right, the first leading between rows of RV pads, the second through the tent-camping area. He swung right at the end of the road between another two rows of RV pads, the ones on the left located at the lakeside.

  The pads were identified with reflective markers that glowed in the cart’s headlamps, but they didn’t need to read the numbers to know they had reached the right place. They could hear the raised voices even from several yards away. Swapping a look with Andrew, Aaron parked the cart in front of the double-cab pickup that had been used to tow the expensive fifth-wheel camper parked on the concrete pad. The windows of the camper had been cranked open to let in the cooler evening air, and the violent shouting inside was all too audible. A few crashes sounded along with the yells. Several people from nearby campsites hovered on the perimeters, looking toward the fifth-wheel in irritation, with curiosity and some concern. Aaron gave a wave to indicate that they should return to their own sites, and most of them did, with the exception of a few gawkers.

  Andrew walked a step behind his brother as they approached the camper. Aaron still wore the green polo shirt with the resort logo, and he looked very official striding purposefully toward the camper. Andrew was still amused that this was the career that excited Aaron after the others he had tried had left him cold.

  Aaron rapped on the door of the camper, firmly enough to be heard over the ruckus inside. A momentary lull was followed by the door being jerked open. Even standing to one side, Andrew could smell the reek of alcohol that wafted from the open doorway. An unsteady bear of a man with a sagging belly barely contained by a camo-print T-shirt over ragged denim cutoffs filled the doorway. “What?”

  “Sir, I’m Aaron Walker. I work for the resort. We’ve had some complaints about the noise and I need to ask you to keep it down.”

  “Tell you what,” the man snarled in response, “you tell those complainers that I’ll mind my business and they can just mind their own.”

  Andrew swallowed a sigh. Didn’t look like this would be an easy one.

  He heard a woman’s voice inside the camper. He couldn’t make out all the words, but it sounded as though she were asking her companion, whom she called Neal, to calm down and come inside. The man looked over his shoulder and unleashed another string of curses, followed by a less-than-original threat for her to keep her mouth shut or else.

  “I hope you won’t make it necessary for me to call the authorities,” Aaron told the jerk somewhat wearily. “It would be best if you go inside and sleep it off tonight so you can enjoy the rest of your stay with us.”

  Neal surged forward, his already-ruddy face going even darker in the dim security lighting. “You know what I think would be best? I think it would be best if you just shut your trap.”

  Andrew moved forward to stand beside his brother, who shot him a warning look. Aaron was reminding him silently which one of them was the resort representative, and that he could handle this. Andrew merely shrugged, making it just as clear that he always had his brother’s back.

  Seeing a second man, Neal hesitated, frowning as he looked from Aaron to Andrew and back again. He blinked a few times, maybe wondering if the booze was affecting his vision, then snarled. “Seriously? They sent the Jonas brothers to give me orders?”

  “Sir—” Aaron began, but didn’t get a chance to finish the warning. The intoxicated Neal drew back a meaty fist and swung it toward Aaron’s jaw. He never connected. Proving he still remembered the self-defense training he’d taken since he was a kid, Aaron blocked the wild punch, caught the man’s arm, spun him around and had his face pressed against the side of the camper before the guy even knew what was happening.

  There was no need for Andrew to help, but he shifted his weight meaningfully, prepared to do so if necessary. “Want me to call the cops?” he asked his brother, reaching for his phone.

  Staring at Andrew with the eye not smashed against his camper, Neal sagged in surrender. “All right, let me go. No need to call the cops. There won’t be any more trouble tonight.”

  “He’s just tired,” the chubby bleached blonde in the camper doorway said anxiously. “We got into an argument and it got out of hand. We’ll be quieter now. Please don’t call the police.”

  Aaron looked at Andrew as if to seek his opinion. Andrew paused a moment for effect, then nodded gravely. “I think you should give them another chance, Aaron. I doubt they’ll disturb the other campers again tonight.”

  “We won’t,” the blonde promised breathlessly. “Will we, Neal?”

  Straightening slowly when Aaron released him, Neal shook his head, looking resentful but cowed.

  Bidding them both good-night, Aaron moved toward the golf cart, nodding toward the remaining onlookers, who returned to their own sites now that the confrontation had ended so anticlimactically. Andrew hopped into the passenger seat of the cart just as Aaron pushed the pedal to put it into motion.

  “Might as well take a lap around the resort while we’re out, just to make sure everything else is as it should be,” Aaron commented.

  Andrew nodded. “Sure. Why not?”

  Aaron drove away from the camper in the opposite direction from the family compound. The campgrounds had fallen quiet now; 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. served as the official “quiet time” in the resort. As he had before, Andrew thought about how much he enjoyed the resort after dark. Strings of multicolored plastic lanterns in whimsical shapes decorated many of the campsites. Families and friends gathered around campfires, convers
ing in carefully modulated volume, only the occasional bark of laughter straying into noisier territory. Moonlight glittered on the inky lake waters spotted between the campers and trees. Overhead, stars were scattered across the cloudless sky. A battered old pickup truck with a rough-running motor passed them, then turned into the tent-camping zone, leaving a trail of smoky exhaust behind it.

  He glanced at his brother, who was scanning the grounds as he drove. “Glad to see you remembered some of your training. Nice moves back there.”

  Aaron shrugged. “He was big, but more fat than muscle. And the booze didn’t exactly enhance his speed or balance.”

  “Not to mention his judgment.”

  “That, too. I’m just glad he gave up as easily as he did. I’d have hated to get into a full-out brawl my first week on the job.”

  “You handled it well.”

  “Thanks, bro.”

  “No second thoughts about working here?”

  “None. How could I get bored when there’s something different to deal with every day?”

  “You’re basing your future career on your relationship with Shelby in some ways,” Andrew felt obliged to point out. “It would be difficult for you to continue working here if you and Shelby split up.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  Andrew twisted in his seat, genuinely curious. “How can you possibly predict that after only a couple of weeks with her? How do you know?”

  Aaron’s laugh was a bit sheepish but no less confident. “I just know. I’ve known almost from the minute I met her. It was like a bell went off in my head, you know? Like I heard this voice saying, ‘Here she is, man. The one you’ve been looking for.’”

  Gazing out the windshield of the cart, Andrew thought of the other times he’d heard similar sentiments from members of his family, with their history of short courtships and long marriages. He’d always wondered if he would ever have that experience.