Pamela Britton - The Texan's Twins

“I don’t have my whole life ahead of me,” she heard herself say. “I only have the here and the now.”

Only after she said the words did she wonder why in the name of heaven she’d made the confession. That’s what happened when the only company you kept were twin girls. Girlfriends? What were those? Any fledgling friendships she might have formed once she’d graduated college were toast now that she’d moved. As she sat there thinking about it, she admitted she’d never felt more alone in her life than in that moment sitting there with Dallas magazine’s bachelor of the year next to her.

He stared at her, she realized. Analyzed her. Tried to determine the look on her face.

Unhinged mother.

She wanted to tell him that’s what he saw. Someone living life on the edge...and about to come unglued.

“You okay?”

No. She was most definitely not okay because following on the tail of her loneliness came an unbidden urge to cry. It made her angry, that urge. She’d never been one for stints of self-pity, yet here she was, suddenly looking out the side window of his sixty-thousand-dollar truck and wondering if she had the strength of will to hold on to her tears.

“Fine.” But even to her own ears her voice sounded high, her nose clearly stuffed with the crud that clogged your nostrils and your throat when you tried so hard not to weep.

He flicked on his directional. It took her a moment to recognize the click-click of his blinkers, and then a moment more before she realized what he was about to do.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no. Do not pull over. I’m fine.”

“You need a tissue.”

“I do not.”

But, damn it, she was crying. Crying. In front of Jet Baron.

He pulled over.

When she glanced through her lashes the world was a blurry mess. She had no idea where they were and so she sucked in a breath, hoping it would help to clear her eyes and her airway, which made her sound like an asthmatic yappy dog, and that only made her want to cry even more.

“You’ve had a rough spell, haven’t you?”

It was too much. The long night. The early morning. The mistakes on her report. Meeting Brock Baron. Seeing the surprise in his eyes. No. It went back further than that. Losing Darren. The new job. The move away from everything she loved.

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

A blurry box formed in front of her eyes. Tissue. She had no idea where he’d pulled it from. Reluctantly, she snatched one and dabbed at her eyes. At least the urge to sob seemed to have faded. Could she be hormonal? Was it close to her time of month? To be honest, she couldn’t recall anything. Time seemed to be an endless blur of get up, take care of the twins, get ready for work, race around the office, go home, cook dinner, bathe the twins, tuck them into bed, fall into her own bed—exhausted—then get up and do it all over again.

“You mind me asking why the father of your twins isn’t doing more?”

Another sucked-in breath, this one hitching in her chest again. “Oh, you know,” she said airily, waving her hand through the air. “He’s a little busy, what with being dead and all.”

Silence.

From the left side of the vehicle came the whoosh of a car passing them. He’d pulled to a stop at the base of an off-ramp—she had no idea where. To their left cars whizzed by on the freeway. Actually, she was kind of glad she’d stunned him into silence. It gave her a moment to catch her breath.

“Wow,” he said at last. “You’ve been handed a rotten deck of cards, haven’t you?”

He had that right.

“When? How?”

She stiffened.

“If you don’t mind me asking.”

He handed her another tissue. This time she took it without hesitating. She’d stained the first one black. Great. She probably looked like a panda bear.

“He was a hellfighter.”

And that said it all. Jet Baron was no fool. He knew what a hellfighter did. Knew the risk involved in trying to put out the flames of a burning oil well. She’d known, too. She’d warned herself away from Darren at least a half a dozen times that first night they’d met, but something about his bright blue eyes and his sparkling smile and the way he’d stared out at the world—as if he’d owned it and so nothing bad would ever happen to him—had drawn her to him like a kitten to catnip. She’d thought him invincible. She’d been dead wrong.

“So I take it he died on the job?”

“Yup. Two months before we were supposed to get married. I found out I was pregnant afterward. Darren never even knew.”

“Damn.” He shook his head. “That’s a tough gig.”

“Eyup.”

She felt better now. At least her lungs didn’t sound like a clogged exhaust pipe. Just a momentary breakdown. No big deal.

Except you broke down in front of the boss’s son.

Who’s staring at you right now.

She had to look away again. What she needed was a swift kick in the rear. That’s what Darren would have done. He’d never let her wallow in self-pity.

“Do you need anything?” Jet asked. “A helping hand? A shoulder to cry on? A shot of whiskey?”

That actually made her smile. “No.” She leaned her head against the smooth leather seat. No faux leather for the prince. “I’m fine.”

He stared at her again, and she wondered what he saw. A woman with raccoon eyes and tear-stained clothing, no doubt. She glanced down and realized she did indeed have a Cheerios in the cup of her bra. She should have known.

“How long has he been gone?”

Damn it, why shouldn’t she feel sorry for herself? It sucked big-time that she had no one to count on, no husband to help ease her burden, no family to share in the raising of her children. And her girls...her poor girls. They would never know their father. That, more than anything, broke her heart.

“Jasmine?”

“Five years ago.”

She wasn’t looking at him, but she could tell her words surprised him.

She inhaled, released her breath, inhaled again. She did that over and over again until her eyes stopped burning and her heart stopped breaking—but the cracks would always remain.

“You’ve been doing this a long time on your own.”

Yup. School. Working whatever job she could find. Raising the girls.

“I’m sorry,” he added. “Nobody should ever have to raise a child on their own, much less two.”

Damn it, she felt her eyes begin to burn again. She didn’t want him to see her like this. Didn’t want him to be nice to her. She wanted to go back to the way things had been this morning when she’d walked into her office and she’d been looking down her nose at him. Jet Baron the dilettante. Instead, he’d fixed her report, invited her to tour his family’s facilities and handed her tissue.

“I am, too,” she said.

She heard him shift. A hand reached for her own. She thought about twisting in her seat, turning away so he couldn’t do what he was about to do—touch her. Instead, she watched as long fingers enveloped her own. Warm fingers. Soft fingers. No. Not soft, she realized. He had calluses on the inside. He worked outdoors a lot, she remembered. Rodeo.

“Let’s see if we can’t put a smile back on that face of yours.”

He released her.

Jasmine couldn’t move. It had been a long time since a man had touched her. A long time since she’d felt soft tingles of desire skate up and down her arm. A long time since she’d experienced the need, the want, the longing to have a man do more than touch her.

Dear God.

She was attracted to Jet Baron.

Chapter Five

They arrived at the community airport less than fifteen minutes later, although Jet kept sneaking glances at his passenger the whole time. She’d spent the first five minutes fixing her makeup, not that she needed any, he thought. She was quiet now, which, he supposed, was better than crying. He hated when women cried—and with three older sisters, he’d seen a lot of crying over the years.