How had it happened? she wondered as the enormity of her mistake hit her full force. She’d done it again, come into a family’s home as a personal chef. Only this time, instead of just becoming way too emotionally attached to the kids and even the crusty great-uncle who lived with them, she’d fallen in love with their dad.
Very unwisely, it seemed, since Dan clearly did not understand how much she feared turning into an overly dependent woman like her mother, who leaned on the man in her life for the solution to every problem. And if Dan didn’t know that, if he didn’t recognize her as the savvy and strong single mom-to-be that she was, then he didn’t know her at all! Clearly, she thought ominously, he wanted to mold her into the kind of woman he wished he’d had in his life all along.
“Well?” Dan asked finally, with an arch of his brow. “What do you think?”
Emily glared back. “How could you?” she said.
Chapter Fourteen
“What do you mean, how could I?” Dan retorted, not sure why she wasn’t happy about what he’d done.
Okay, so maybe his proposal hadn’t included her dream of living in the place where she had grown up, but surely she had to see that was no longer possible—if the two of them were to be together. His business was here in Fort Worth. So was Chef for Hire, which she’d yet to let go of. He had kids in school. A home big enough for all of them when they married, as he was sure they eventually would. Hopefully before the baby was born. And it wasn’t as if he’d asked her to give up her dream of restoring the orchard business her father had started. He had found a way for her to participate in that—even more lucratively, too! As for being in Fredericksburg, they could always visit and stay in one of the nice hotels or bed-and-breakfasts in the area.
Emily had to know all this, too. Yet she was staring at him like he’d betrayed her in the worst possible way. “You went behind my back!”
Dan clenched his jaw. He wasn’t going to apologize for fighting to give their relationship the best possible chance of succeeding, for doing what would make everyone as happy as possible. “Only because I didn’t want to present you with you an option and get your hopes up with a plan that turned out not to be viable,” he said. “And frankly, before yesterday, I wasn’t sure Tex would go for my idea at all.”
Emily folded her arms, her expression militant. “But he did.”
The sarcasm in her voice rankled. Knowing what was at stake, Dan worked to contain his own temper. “Tex saw the business benefits of putting a retail store for all of his orchards in downtown Fort Worth. Plus, by leasing space on the ground floor, the two of you can have it built to your specifications, instead of going to the trouble of converting a barn. You can open the store in a few months instead of six and stay in Fort Worth. You can have your baby here.”
Dan’s smile broadened as he thought about how much he’d managed to arrange on her behalf by calling in favors and leaning on his friends. “And even lease one of the residential units on the upper floors for as long as you want, at the business-tenant discount, which will make commuting to work a snap.”
Emily shook her head in a parody of being impressed. “You’ve thought of everything,” she murmured.
“I’ve tried,” Dan said. He stepped closer and took her rigid body in his arms.
Emily’s eyes darkened. “Except one thing,” she said with an icy hauteur that would have sent a lesser man running for the exit.
“What’s that?”
Angrily she shoved away from him. “I could never be with a man who disrespected me so thoroughly!” she fumed.
Dan stared at Emily. “Disrespected you,” he echoed, stunned. “How the hell have I done that?”
“By not including me in any of this!”
He stared at her in frustration. “I told you my reasons,” he reminded her impatiently.
“I know,” she scoffed. “You wanted to protect me.”
He felt a growing sense of helplessness. “You’ve been under a lot of stress—as your recent fainting episode and visit to the E.R. proved.”
She angled her chin at him. “I’m fine.”
“For the moment,” he muttered.
“And,” Emily countered, her eyes glittering, “I would have continued to be fine had you chosen to talk to me, instead of Tex, about your plans!”
Unlike Emily, Dan did not consider his desire to protect his woman from unnecessary stress to be a character flaw. “I’m talking to you now,” he said, pushing the words through his teeth.
“After the fact.”
He tried to reason with her one last time. “I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I didn’t respect you,” he said quietly.
“Respect me or want to keep sleeping with me?” Her low voice reverberated with hurt and disillusionment. She stared right through him. Her voice was shrill, angry and very sad. “Face it, Dan. You want me here because you don’t do well at long-distance relationships.”
Her accusation hit him where it hurt. “I’m not going to deny I think they are doomed to fail,” he said straightforwardly. “Two people can’t build anything lasting if they are never physically together.”
“So you came up with a plan to keep us in close proximity.”
Feeling more resentful with every second that passed, Dan warned, “I’m not going to apologize for wanting to be close enough to be a part of you and your baby’s life, and have you be a part of mine.”
Emotion choked her throat. “You seriously don’t think you did anything wrong here?” she whispered, aghast.
How could he? When everything he’d done had been because he wanted their relationship to have the best possible chance to succeed. He shrugged and confessed flatly, “I seriously don’t.”
They stared at each other, neither giving ground.
Emily sighed, looking as if her heart were broken. And Dan knew it was over even before she walked away.
“IT’S NOT LIKE WE DIDN’T TRY and tell you it was a mistake,” Grady told him that evening as the men all gathered at Dan’s home for an impromptu bull session.
Grady opened up five bottles of beer as Travis plated pizza, Jack divvied up the wings and Nate grabbed a roll of paper towels to use as napkins.
Dan switched on the big-screen TV and turned the channel to the Dallas Cowboys football game. With Walt and the kids still in Aspen with his ex-wife and Emily absent, his house was impossibly lonely.
Even if his family had been there, Dan thought on a disgruntled sigh, it still would have been empty without Emily.
How had she become such a big part of his life so quickly?
And why was she being so unreasonable? Didn’t she feel as deeply about him as he did about her?
Was it all about needing a man during this momentous time in her life and he just happened to be there? Had she been seduced by the vision of a big, close-knit family as much as by him? Or was it something more along the lines of what his ex had felt, that being with Dan—and the rest of the family—was just not ever going to be enough to make her want to stay and sign on for a lifetime of bliss?
Aware the guys were waiting for some explanation, Dan shrugged. “I’d like to think her unreceptive reaction was the result of pregnancy hormones.”
“Face it,” Grady said. “You screwed up by not including her in the development of the alternative business plan.”
Guilt warred with hurt pride. “I was trying to protect her!” he argued.
“Women don’t want to be protected—they want to be included,” Travis stated.
So Emily had said, Dan reflected as his friends chowed down. “That’s still no reason for her not to forgive me,” he grumbled.
“You have to give her time,” Nate said.
Dan didn’t think time was going to make a bit of difference. He’d seen the disgusted way Emily looked at him before she’d marched off in stormy silence.
Dan continued to defend himself. “It’s not as if I set out to hurt her.”
“No, just rearrange her li
fe,” Grady noted.
Dan looked over at his friend. The McCabe men were known for their way with the opposite sex.
“Maybe it’s not what you were offering her so much as what you weren’t,” Travis speculated.
Dan set his untouched plate on the coffee table in front of him. “Speak English,” he commanded.
“You’re asking her to deep-six her plans to move to Fredericksburg and stay here,” Travis concluded as if the problem with that was obvious.
And it seemed to be, Dan thought, to everyone in the room but him.
“And yet from what I can tell,” Travis continued sagely, “you haven’t offered her anything else that really matters.”
The heck he hadn’t! Dan thought. “I want to be part of her and her baby’s life.” In his book that was no small pledge.
“And that makes you different from everyone else in her realm in what way?” Jack asked in his usual linear-thinking way.
“I’m sure lots of people have offered to help her when the baby is born.” Grady peered at Dan, considering. “Why did you go so completely over the top to make sure she stayed in Fort Worth?”
Nate jumped in with his two cents. “And more important, if you expect her to say yes and do what you want, what are you going to give her that no one else can?”
IT WAS INCREDIBLE, EMILY thought on Sunday afternoon, how cold and empty the loft felt with all her stuff gone, save for one small suitcase and a few cleaning supplies. Incredible to think that life, which had seemed so perfect yesterday, was now one giant mess of lost hopes and dreams.
She filled the bucket with warm water and cleanser. Set it on the floor. Lowered the mop and then stopped as the buzzer sounded.
Unfortunately it wasn’t the visitor she’d hoped to see. But one she needed to talk to nevertheless.
“Hello, Tex,” Emily said a moment later, ushering him in.
He shoved his hands in his pockets as she resumed mopping the floor. “Dan told me what happened. I wasn’t sure you’d still be speaking to me.”
“To either of you,” Emily corrected.
Tex stepped to the left of the cleaning. “Look, just because Dan had an idea—which was a great one, by the way—and I concurred with him, doesn’t make our idea wrong.”
That was the hell of it, Emily thought. Moving the retail business and tearoom to Fort Worth was a great idea. She wished she’d thought of it! “It doesn’t make the way you went about it right, either,” she pointed out grumpily.
Tex shrugged in concession, moving once again. He watched as she dipped the mop back in the bucket of sudsy water and worked the lever that wrung out the excess moisture. Finished, she slapped the mop back down on the floor.
Tex exhaled and tried again. “Okay, so I had an inkling you’d be ticked off.”
And hence had known not to do it, but had gone ahead anyway, just as he had when they’d been engaged in what seemed like light-years ago, Emily thought.
“I also agreed with Dan that there was no point in getting you all excited about something if the business case wouldn’t support it.” Tex defended himself in the same straight-talking way Dan had. “And since Dan and his friends had one set of information, me another, it made sense for us all to talk before taking things any further.” Tex lifted a hand before she could interrupt. “In retrospect, I get that we should have included you from the very beginning of the idea stage, Emily. Frankly, I’m sorry we didn’t. But it doesn’t change the bottom line.”
“And that is?”
“Dan had one heck of an innovative idea that could stand to net you and me both a handsome income for years to come. If he went about it the wrong way, so be it. It doesn’t mean your friendship with him, if that’s all it is—and I’m thinking it’s a helluva lot more than that—has to end.” Tex paused. “So what’s really going on here, Emily?” he asked. “What exactly has you running scared? And why won’t you do what you usually do with a problem, which is face it head-on?”
Because, Emily thought, I’m scared. The stakes are too high.
But, her more rational self argued, weren’t they just as high—if not higher—if she did nothing?
She’d been so very close to getting what she really wanted. What she had always wanted.
“Life takes detours, Emily,” Tex said quietly.
Emily knew where this heading. “It’s what happens—” she used a popular cliché “—when you’re making other plans.”
“It doesn’t mean that what you want is out of reach. Especially now.”
Emily thought about what Tex had said all the way to her hotel. By the time she checked in, she knew what she had to do.
DAN HAD JUST CARRIED the boxes of Christmas lights out of the garage when Emily turned her van into his driveway.
Stunned by how hungry he was for the sight of her, he let his eyes rove over her. She wore a red turtleneck sweater and a black leather jacket. Her glossy dark hair fell over her shoulders in loose disarray. Her lips were a soft cranberry-red, her expression…tense.
He wondered if she had come by to tell him she quit and collect the cooking utensils she’d left at his house. Or if she was going to give him another chance. Her brief glance, as she slid out from behind the wheel and shut the door, gave no clue.
Pulse thundering, he straightened and met her halfway.
In a drift of soft, sexy perfume, she looked up at him. He looked down at her. Without a word, she went up on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
Surprise shot through Dan, along with a healthy dose of desire. He kissed her the way he’d been wanting to kiss her for what seemed like forever. She kissed him back in exactly the same way, then ever so slowly disengaged. “I thought we should get that out of the way,” she said in a careful, neutral tone that had him wondering if that had been an I-want-to-make-up-with-you kiss or a goodbye kiss. She took his hand in hers, held it firmly. “I also really think we should talk.”
Dan nodded. It wasn’t like him to let the woman in his life take the lead, especially in a situation like this, where things could easily go the wrong way. But after all that had happened, he figured he should let Emily call the shots, if only to show her how much he respected her feisty, independent nature. “Living room?” he suggested.
“How about the kitchen?” she returned, looking more coolly determined than he had ever seen her.
Hand in hand, they headed for the coziest room in the house—at least since she had been there. She moved to the stove and put the kettle on to boil. Her lips twisted in a rueful line. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
“So have I.” About you. And life. And family. And everything we could still have…
Emily swallowed and looked him in the eye. “If the offer to continue to cook for your family is still open,” she said quietly, “I’d like to take it.”
Her proposal wasn’t what he’d been anticipating. But it was a step in the right direction of getting her back in his life. “For as long as you want,” Dan agreed huskily.
“But only on one condition,” she amended, and his heartbeat picked up.
Dan lifted his hands in surrender. “Name it.”
She paused. “I don’t want to be paid.”
Dan let that sink in. “I’m not sure how I feel about that,” he said finally. “It’s a lot of work.”
Emily took both his hands in hers. “It’s become a labor of love. And I don’t want to be doing it as an employee of your family any longer. I want to be doing it as a, well, friend.”
Dan’s heart sank.
He’d been hoping for much more than that.
He’d also promised himself he wouldn’t leap ahead or steer her anywhere she wasn’t ready to go. Not this time. With effort he held himself back.
Her eyes began to sparkle. Tilting her head to one side, she continued in a low tone laced with mischief, “And I know how you like to think outside the box.”
He chuckled ruefully. “My hab
it of doing that seems to have gotten me in pretty big trouble the last few days.”
Emily tugged him close. “Trouble can be good.”
Trouble with Emily felt very good. Still, Dan didn’t want to jump the shark again. Delighting in the warmth of her body, pressed against his, he rested his hands on her waist. “What are you saying?”
“Quite simply—” her voice suddenly sounded as emotional as he felt “—that I love you.” She drew in a jerky breath. “I’ve been in love with you for a while now—I just was afraid to admit it to myself and to you.”
Even though Dan understood, he had to know. “Why?” He eyed her determinedly.
Trembling, Emily splayed her palms across his chest. “Because it scares me,” she whispered. “I’ve never wanted anything or anyone as much as I want a life with you.”
Happiness welled up inside him. Aware Emily’s eyes weren’t the only ones that were getting wet, he admitted gruffly, “I feel the same way.” Kissing her sweetly, he murmured, “I love you, Emily, so much.”
She held him tight. “Which is why you went to so much trouble to find a way for us to be together.”
He stroked a hand tenderly through her hair. And wanting there to be no doubt about the depth of his feelings for her, he said, “So you could achieve your dream of resurrecting the business your father started and owning your own tearoom.”
“And staying in Fort Worth to have my baby,” Emily said happily. She gazed into his eyes.
Dan flashed a crooked smile. “That’s really what you want?”
“Yes. My obstetrician is great. I love the hospital. I love the city. And I especially love being here with you and your family, seeing them—and you—every day.” Emily sighed with contentment.
“You sure?” Dan asked as he kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear. “I thought you wanted to go home again.”
Emily wound her arms around his neck and kissed him in all the familiar, wonderful ways they had both missed so much. “Home is where the heart is, Dan,” she whispered. “And my heart is right here, with you.” She drew the words from the deepest recesses of her soul.
A Baby for Mommy Page 17
