else had said to her. Seeing her wide blue eyes, dimples and irresistible smile, Aaron had a sudden, unreasonable compulsion to meet her. He’d thought he knew almost everyone in Royal, but she was a stranger.
Then Justin Webb had spoken to him and he’d turned to shake hands with his physician friend. The next time he’d looked back, the woman was gone from sight. It had taken him twenty more minutes to work his way through the crowd and get introduced. Another two minutes and he had her in his arms, moving on the dance floor. And then later—images taunted him of her in his arms, of the heat of her kisses, her eagerness—memories still fresh enough that his body reacted swiftly to them. Pamela Miles.
Breaking into his thoughts, a car slid to a stop before his Georgetown home and Brad Meadows, his stocky neighbor, emerged. Brad walked around the car to open the door for his wife, and then he opened the back door and leaned inside. In minutes he straightened up with his little girl in his arms. As they rushed toward their front door, they were all laughing, but then the curly-headed three-year-old looked at Aaron’s house and evidently saw him standing in the window because she smiled and waved. Feeling a pang as he watched them, Aaron smiled and waved in return.
Brad Meadows had a family, a beautiful wife and a precious little girl. Aaron ran his hand across his forehead as Pamela’s image floated into his thoughts again. “What the hell is the matter with me?” he mumbled. Since when did he envy a guy being married?
Yet he thought about his own family when he was growing up and what fun he’d had with his two brothers and sister. He glanced around his quiet living room. Empty house, empty life.
The thought nagged at him—why did he feel this way so often lately? Except that night with Pamela Miles. The loneliness, the feeling that he was missing something important in life, the hollowness he had been experiencing the last few years had vanished from the first moment he’d looked into her eyes. From that first glance the chemistry between them had been volatile. It had erupted into fiery lovemaking that at the slightest memory could make him break into a sweat. But there was something deeper than physical need. At least there had been for him.
The next morning she had been the one who’d slipped out without a word. When he’d stirred, she was gone. He had tried to shrug off the evening. When had he let a woman tie him in knots? If the lady wanted to end it that way—fine. He had to return to Washington and then to Spain and his busy life. And he knew she was going abroad to Asterland as an exchange teacher. If he wanted, he could look her up there after he was back in Spain.
He had left Royal without seeing her, flown back to D.C. and then to Spain. Two days after the ball, a private jet had left Royal, Texas, bound for Asterland with Pamela Miles on board. Not far from Royal, the plane had had to make an emergency landing. When Matt Walker, a rancher and a fellow member of the Texas Cattleman’s Club, called about the landing and about other strange happenings in Royal, Aaron had tried to call Pamela, but to no avail.
The hospital had released Pamela soon after the landing and Aaron knew so little about her, he couldn’t easily find her. It was clear that the lady wasn’t interested in seeing him, so he tried to put her out of mind.
But Pamela Miles had a persistent way of staying in his thoughts until he was driven to constant distraction—something so foreign to his life that he decided to see her again.
As he watched snowflakes swirl and melt on the slushy narrow Georgetown street, an emptiness struck him with a chill that was far colder than the snow. He had gone into the diplomatic corps from Army intelligence, thinking he could make a difference, help change things a little in the world, but now he was losing that feeling.
Lately he had been too aware of his thirty-seven years and what little he had in his life that was really important. But the night of the Texas ball, that desolation had vanished. Pamela had brought him to life to an extent he wouldn’t have guessed possible.
He swore, looking at the phone in his hand as an annoyingly loud recorded message told him his receiver was off the hook.
Aaron stared out the window, no longer seeing swirling snow or the neighboring houses with warm glows spilling from open windows. He was seeing sprawling, mesquite-covered land and a willowy, blue-eyed woman.
“Dammit,” he said. “Pamela, I know there was something you felt as much as I did.” He shook his head. He was being a world-class sap. The lady wasn’t interested. She had made that clear. Maybe so, but he was going home to find out.
The following afternoon, the last day of January, Aaron gripped the wheel of a family car left for him at the airport as he sped down the hard-packed dusty road toward a sprawling ranch in the distance. Mesquite trees bending to the north by prevailing southern winds dotted the land on either side of the road, but all he could think about was Pamela.
He was home and he was going to find his lady.
One
“Well, I can tell you what’s making you nauseated, Pamela.”
She sat on the examining table with her legs crossed, the silly light cotton gown covering her as she faced white-haired Doctor Woodbury who had been treating her since she was born. She tilted her head to one side and waited, long accustomed to his blunt manner.
“You’re pregnant.”
“Pregnant!” Pamela’s head swam and she clutched the table she was seated on with both hands. Pregnant. It was only once. One night three weeks ago. She couldn’t be.
Dr. Woodbury was talking, but she didn’t hear anything except the ringing in her ears. Her teaching job—they wouldn’t want her. Pregnant! She was going to have a baby. Baby…baby… The word echoed in her mind. Impossible! But of course, it was possible. That night with Aaron Black. She closed her eyes and clung tightly to the cold metal, feeling as if she were going to faint.
“Knowing you as I’ve done through all these years, I’m guessing you’ll want to keep this baby.”
Dr. Woodbury’s words cut through the wooziness she was experiencing. …keep this baby…
She opened her eyes and placed her hand protectively against her stomach. “Yes! Of course, I’ll keep my baby,” she snapped, her head clearing swiftly. How could he think she wouldn’t!
His blue eyes gazed undisturbed at her as he shrugged stooped shoulders. “After she had you, your mother had two abortions. She wasn’t having any more babies.”
“I’m not my mother,” Pamela said stiffly, suddenly seeing how not only Dr. Woodbury, but everyone else in town would see her—with morals as loose as her mother’s had been. The town tramp. That was what Dolly Miles had been called too many times. Pamela remembered the teasing, the whispers, and worse, the steady stream of men who came and went through the Miles’s tiny house.
She was shocked to learn there had been two abortions. When she thought about it, though, she wasn’t surprised. Dolly thought of no one except herself. Two abortions. Pamela had a strange sense of loss. She might have had brothers or sisters. She pressed her hand against her stomach as she tried to focus on what Dr. Woodbury was saying.
“I’m keeping my baby.”
“I thought you would,” he said complacently. “You seem in perfectly good health. I’m going to put you on some vitamins, and then you make an appointment to come back this time next month.”
The rest of the hour she moved in a daze that lasted through running errands, getting her vitamins and heading to the Royal Diner to eat. It was early for lunch and the diner would be empty, which suited her fine. Right now she didn’t feel like seeing anyone. Thank heavens Aaron Black had gone back to Spain. She would have three or four months before her pregnancy would show, so she would have to make her plans in that time.
The brisk wind was chilly, catching the door to the diner and fluttering the muslin curtains at the windows, following her into the diner in a gust that swirled dried leaves around her feet. The little brass bell over the door tinkled. She glanced at the long, Formica counter top, the