The Texas Billionaire's Baby

by Karen Rose Smith

In professional mode now, Gina tapped another line of the blueprint. “You might also want to consider a wall with an observation window. That way if a parent doesn’t want to come in and get involved, they can just make sure their child is okay.”

  James grinned and patted her shoulder. “That’s an excellent idea.”

  Reflexively, Gina leaned back and his hand fell away. Even after all these years, she didn’t appreciate a man touching her without her giving the signal it was okay. But James didn’t seem to notice that she was uncomfortable with his gesture.

  Logan stood, signaling the meeting was over. “Work on those changes, Wolfe, and then bring the plans back to me.”

  Realizing the meeting had come to an end, James Wolfe stood, rolled up the plans and inserted them into the protective tube. “I’ll take a few days with these then give you a call. When’s the ground-breaking ceremony?”

  “Mid-June,” Logan responded. “As soon as I finalize the changes, we’ll move forward.”

  James extended his hand to Gina.

  She clasped it and shook it. “It was nice to meet you,” she said politely.

  “It was good meeting you, too. Take care now. Logan, I can see myself out.”

  Moments later, she and Logan were standing alone in his study. “I didn’t mean to throw a wrench into what Mr. Wolfe had already designed.”

  “I invited you to this meeting for your input. I’m pleased you gave it. Your ideas are sound.” Logan reached for the knot on his tie and pulled it loose.

  “I know kids,” she said softly. “And what they need.”

  After unfastening the shirt button at his neck, Logan came around the table and stood close to her. She didn’t feel crowded by him. Oddly, she welcomed his nearness in the same way she’d shied away from James Wolfe’s proximity, as well as his touch.

  Logan’s voice was low when he asked, “And what do you need, Gina?”

  His green gaze was piercing and unsettled her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “My architect is interested in you.”

  “He was just being friendly.”

  “But you weren’t being friendly back.”

  “I…” She stopped, took a deep breath, then gave a nonchalant shrug. “I wasn’t interested.”

  Logan came another step closer. Her temperature went up a few notches, especially when he said, “You’re not stepping away from me.”

  What was he doing? Testing her? Trying to identify any attraction between them? Did he still feel attracted? Was that possible?

  “I know you,” she murmured, standing her ground.

  “Not anymore, you don’t. I’m not that kid who didn’t know up from down or right from left, or much about what made women tick.”

  “You know what makes women tick now?” she teased, trying to lessen the intensity in the room.

  He gave a short laugh. “Not by a long shot. But I do have a hint. After all, being married gives a man much-needed insight. If he doesn’t learn fast, he’ll go under without a lifeline.”

  Trying to take a step back from the sexual tension that had developed between them, she responded, “Basically, I guess men need to know women want to be respected, and listened to and that most care deeply about love and family.”

  Logan still held her gaze. “I learned family is important and children are the most important. Amy died so Daniel could live. I had trouble wrapping my mind around that one for a while. She gave up her life and our life for our little boy.”

  Immediately, Gina felt sympathy for Logan because he still seemed perplexed by the idea. Yet she knew a father’s love could be as fierce as a mother’s. “Logan, if you were in the middle of the ocean and Daniel fell overboard, you’d jump in after him without a second thought to try to save him.” She’d seen him with Daniel. It was obvious that Logan cared about his son and wouldn’t let anything hurt him if he could help it. Just as his wife had done, in her own way.

  Shaking his head, Logan said almost to himself, “You’re still that young, compassionate girl who could talk to a horse and understand the expression in its eyes, aren’t you?”

  “Why does that unsettle you?” she asked, feeling as if this conversation was quickly going down a dangerous road.

  “Because I wanted you to have changed. To have become hard and ambitious and uncaring, because then I still wouldn’t…be attracted to you.”

  She practically stopped breathing. His words made her feel as if she was eighteen again, and they were standing close, about to kiss.

  She shook her head, anxious to get rid of the rush of emotion. “We’re not who we were back then.” She knew that more than anyone.

  “Maybe not. But I feel something when we’re in the same room, just like I did back then. In fact, this close, I know exactly what I feel.”

  What should she do? She hadn’t been involved seriously with a man since Logan. After the date rape, she couldn’t think about “serious,” though she’d tried over the years…tried without success. Counselors had told her she’d find a satisfying relationship when she found a man she could trust. But she never had.

  Was Logan saying he wanted to kiss her? Should she let him?

  He laid his hands on her shoulders, maybe just to see how that would feel. It was a contact that was almost chaste, a contact that could be comforting. Yet it wasn’t chaste or comforting.

  “Why did you ask me to work with you on the day-care center?” she asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the truth.

  “I told you, you’re an expert. I wanted your input.”

  “The real reason.”

  He cocked his head as if to say at one time she never would have questioned him. “I really did want your ideas. But I guess I also wanted to see what would happen if the two of us were together in the same room, without Daniel.”

  “Did you get your answer?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  His hands tightened slightly, but she felt no sense of panic.

  “Why did you agree to work on the project?” he asked.

  “I guess I wanted to see what type of man you’d become.”

  “You couldn’t tell from our sessions with Daniel?”

  “Daniel was a buffer. You could hide behind fatherhood.”

  His eyebrows quirked up as if he definitely didn’t like her conclusion.

  She added, “You could concentrate on Daniel and not give me a second thought.”

  “Did you want a second thought?” he returned quickly.

  “As impossible as it is, I already told you what I want.” She had returned to Sagebrush hoping for his forgiveness. Now…since she knew about his father’s stroke, it really seemed impossible. How could she tell him why she’d really left when it would change forever how he viewed his dad and their relationship?

  Logan’s gaze searched hers. He must have seen the corner of her mouth quiver because he focused there. “Dammit, Gina.” He bent his head and before she had time to think, to protest or to back away, Logan Barnes was kissing her with more passion, more heat than he had when she was eighteen.

  At first she stiffened, ready to run. Then she told herself to relax. This was Logan. To her surprise, she wasn’t panicking. She wasn’t imagining she was somewhere else. In fact, she was enjoying his kiss. It swept her back into the dream of romance that she’d given up.

  Yet this wasn’t a dream and she doubted if romance was on Logan’s mind. When he put his arms around her to hold her tighter and his tongue slid into her mouth, she balked, put her hands on his chest and pushed away.

  He released her. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done that but I wanted to see—” He swore.

  She felt almost dizzy…breathless…and completely unnerved, too. “A kiss has to mean something, Logan. That one didn’t. It was some kind of test. If we want to heal what happened between us, we have to do it with talking, not acting on a remnant of attraction that will only embarrass us both.”

  “Heal what happened between us?” Logan
asked incredulously. “How would we ever do that? It was as if our breakup had a domino effect. How do I heal the fact that my father had a stroke and I was powerless to help him—and you weren’t here for me when I needed you?”

  “Are you saying you don’t want to try to tear down this wall between us?”

  Instead of answering her, he asked, “What do you know about walls?”

  She realized he was merely taking a stab in the dark. “I know they protect us. Things happen, Logan. Things hurt us when we least expect. We want to keep ourselves safe. That’s why we build walls.”

  He didn’t respond, just ran his hand over his face then stuffed his hands into his front pockets. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to continue to work with Daniel.”

  Because he’d kissed her? Because there might be more left than that spark of attraction? She’d returned to Sagebrush to finish something with Logan. She had to see it through.

  “I want to work with Daniel. He’s making progress, and one of these days, he’s going to grab on to a piece of furniture and take steps away from it without even realizing he did. I’d like to see that. And I’d also like to see your day-care center come together for the sake of the children.”

  Logan gazed out the window over the expertly manicured grounds and pool area. Then he swung around to face her. “Are you doing this to make up for leaving?”

  There were so many reasons to help him and Daniel…and not all of them had to do with guilt. “I do feel I owe you something. But for now, I just want to help Daniel walk.”

  Maybe by the time she did that, she’d figure out if Logan could ever forgive her. Maybe she could tell him at least one of the secrets she’d kept hidden for way too long.

  Chapter Four

  The Rigoletti household was unusually quiet when Gina let herself in. Gina knew her mom was happiest when her kids were all under one roof, talking, laughing and eating.

  “Anyone home?”

  “In here,” her mother called from the kitchen, as expected.

  “In here,” her dad called from the living room where he sat in his favorite easy chair watching golf. The ranch-style house wasn’t big, but it had always held a lot of love.

  Gina went to the living room first and kissed her dad on the cheek. “Who’s winning?”

  “Nobody you’d know,” he returned with a smile that said it was okay if she didn’t follow golf. “Go help your mom. She and Angie had some to-do and she’s a little…frazzled.”

  Ever since Gina had returned, there had seemed to be more than the usual tension between her and her younger sister. They had been close once, but now that she was back in Sagebrush, Angie was keeping her distance. Gina knew that when her sister was ready to talk, she’d talk. But for now it made for uncomfortable Sunday dinners. Had her mother mentioned their rift to Angie?

  Gina patted her dad on the shoulder. His face was weathered from all the hours he’d spent as a mail carrier walking his beat, so to speak. He always said his route kept him in shape and he didn’t want to give it up. But last year, the heat and his new blood pressure medication hadn’t mixed, and he’d decided to retire.

  “I do want to know who wins,” she told him with a wink, then she went to the kitchen.

  Her mother’s favorite room resembled a homey café with its bright yellow cupboards and blue-and-yellow gingham curtains. She took pride in everything about it, from the copper-bottom pan on the stove, to the hand-worked placemats on the table. The house didn’t have a dining room, but the kitchen table was long enough for the whole family, grandkids included.

  Gina hugged and kissed her mother and received a warm hug in return. “What can I help you with?”

  The spaghetti sauce was already simmering on the stove, the smell of fresh garlic, tomatoes and onion wafted in the air. She also caught the scent of fresh-baked bread.

  “I’m almost finished with everything for today. Are you bringing Raina to dinner tomorrow?”

  “She said she’d love to come again.” Gina hesitated a moment, then commented, “Dad said you and Angie had a disagreement?”

  Gina’s mother’s black hair was straighter than her own and she wore it tucked behind her ears. As a little girl, Gina had thought her mom was the prettiest woman in the world and she still did. Mary Rigoletti was usually talkative, but now she kept silent.

  “Mom?”

  “You and Angie haven’t talked much since you came back to Sagebrush.”

  “No, we haven’t,” Gina admitted. “She doesn’t seem to want to talk…or to be around me. When I ask her what’s wrong, she says nothing. But she seems uncomfortable and I wish she’d tell me why.”

  Mary sighed. “She feels beholden to you.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why. You helped her through nursing school. Without your help, she would have been saddled with more loans than she has.”

  “We always planned that I would help her. That’s why I accepted the scholarship.” And left Logan. She didn’t say it aloud, but she knew her mother could hear the words anyway.

  “I think she wants to start paying you back.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Not where pride’s concerned. If she comes to you with the idea, don’t refuse her outright. Think about it.”

  After studying Gina, her mother asked, “How about a slice of fresh-baked bread?”

  “That sounds great.”

  A few minutes later, the two women sat with glasses of iced tea, munching slices of buttered bread. “Why did you stop in today?” her mother asked.

  “Can’t I come over to visit?”

  “Sure. But I think you have something on your mind.”

  Of course, she did. She might as well tell her mother what was happening before she found out from someone else. Gossip traveled the streets of Sagebrush with frustrating regularity.

  “I saw Logan Barnes.”

  Her mother set her bread on her dish. “You saw him? What does that mean?”

  Fourteen years ago, her parents had opposed her association with Logan on the grounds that she was too young, that she had a future ahead of her, and engagement and marriage were out of the question. After all, her older sister had opted for a young marriage and it had been hard going for her. Now Gina didn’t know what her mother would think about her life colliding into Logan’s again.

  They’d never discussed him after she’d left Sagebrush for college. They hadn’t discussed him throughout the years. But now she supposed they had to. However, as a professional, she could reveal nothing she knew from Daniel’s records or her sessions with him.

  “What do you know about him?” Gina asked, hoping to jump off from that.

  “Only what’s in the newspapers, and the rumors at the butcher shop. After his daddy died about five years ago, he took over the denim factory and everything else. He’d already expanded into other businesses in Dallas and Houston and even in foreign places. Rumor has it, the Barnes empire is three times the size it was when his father was living.”

  “I meant about his personal life,” Gina murmured.

  Her mother studied her daughter, then folded her hands in front of her on the table. “Actually the Barnes family wasn’t in the news much for a couple of years after you left. Then, about five or six years ago, Logan married Amy Dunlap, who moved here from Dallas and made her mark in real estate. There was a splash about that in the paper. She was at the epitome of her career when she got pregnant. I’m not exactly sure what happened after that. I just know the baby was delivered early and she died and Logan now has a son. I think Angie knows the whole story but she’s not talking. She just says that little boy fought for his life and won.”

  “Daniel is a cutie.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  “Yes, I have. I can’t say more about it than that.”

  Her mother didn’t need Gina to spell it out. “And I can’t ask any questions because you can’t answer them. Just tell me this, are you and Logan inter
ested in each other again?”

  Gina was shaking her head before any words came out of her mouth. “That won’t happen. He’s still angry I left. In fact…his father had a stroke that same night. I know Logan believes it happened because they argued about me.”

  “Oh, Gina. The same night? I heard he was ailing but never heard the cause.”

  “I think Logan blames me for his father’s stroke.”

  Gina and her mother had always been close. She’d confided in her about every teenage aspiration and dream, though they’d disagreed about her situation with Logan. Her mother had known exactly how she’d felt about everything. But that had changed after the rape. Gina hadn’t told anyone about it except the counselor she’d seen. Even now, all these years later, she couldn’t bear to see hurt in her parents’ eyes. If she told them—

  She didn’t want to revisit the shame. She didn’t want to feel again as if some of it were her fault. On some level, she knew it wasn’t. Her counselor’s voice still echoed in her head every time she thought about it. You did nothing wrong. His actions weren’t your fault. You said no. He didn’t listen.

  Still, Gina had gone to the party knowing full well there would be liquor there. She’d gone with the boy up to his friend’s room. She’d been stupid and naive and had paid dearly for it. To admit all that to anyone close to her wouldn’t have helped back then. There was no point in divulging it to her mother now.

  “What’s troubling you?” her mom asked.

  Gina sighed. “At some point, Logan and I are going to have to talk about all of it.”

  “To make peace?”

  “I don’t know if we’ll ever make peace. When someone hurts you as badly as I hurt him, peace is hard to come by.”

  “Not if the two of you want it.”

  She knew she did, but she wasn’t sure about Logan. If he could forgive her—

  That seemed to be an unreachable dream.

  “I don’t know how often you’re seeing Logan…” Her mother hesitated then went on. “But we’re planning a picnic and softball game at the pavilion at the lake next weekend. Why don’t you ask him and his little boy to come?”