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turned back to taking off his gear. “My room.”
    She took a deep breath. “All right.”
    He was surprised that she relented. “Here’s my key. I’ll be there in five.” He handed it to her, and she snatched it, looking around furtively, which almost made him smile. Darla did not do sneaky well. She was more sweet than sneaky. She must have something big on her mind if she was willing to rendezvous with him. Idly, he wondered about it, decided he’d never understand the mysteries of the female mind, and promptly dismissed it. She was probably going to do the guilt trip thing, like how the night they’d spent together hadn’tmeant anything, and now that she was getting married, if he would keep the little detail about their evening under his hat, she’d be eternally grateful, blah-blah-blah.
    He’d act as if it hadn’t meant a thing to him, either, and let her go on to her newly married life with a clear conscience.
    But first he let her stew in her juices for a little bit. Then he followed after her, tapping on his door. She let him in.
    â€œWell? What’s so urgent?” He put I’m a busy man in his voice, so she’d get her soliloquy over with, thereby sparing both of them the agony.
    Darla’s eyes were huge as she stared at him; he could tell she was nervous. Judah kept his gaze away from her belly. Looking at her, knowing she was pregnant, was killing him. No man should be in love with a woman and know she was carrying another man’s child.
    â€œI’m pregnant.”
    â€œI can see that. Congratulations.”
    â€œThank you.” She swallowed. “Congratulations to you as well.”
    â€œYeah. It was a lucky ride. I need a couple more tomorrow.” He didn’t look toward his bed, because if he did, he’d be tempted to drag Darla there. And he was a gentleman. Barely.
    â€œI mean, congratulations to you, because you’re having a baby, too.”
    He laughed. “Not me. I’m—” He stopped, looked at her carefully. Her face was drained of color. “You’re not saying—”
    She nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
    He stared at her, gazing deep into her eyes. Darla was not a dishonest woman. She wouldn’t tell him this unless she believed it to be true. “I don’t get it. How?”
    â€œI don’t know! Maybe there was a tear.” She glared at him. “You’d know better than me.”
    He blinked. The condoms had been given to him by Creed at his bachelor party. The side of the box had read For The Guy Who’s Large and In Charge. Judah remembered vaguely thinking all that might be true, and that it was pretty damn competitive of Creed to try to keep the other brothers from getting themselves in the family way, just so he could stay in the lead for the ranch.
    Judah sank into a cracked vinyl chair near a tiny round table. “Why are you telling me this now?”
    She breathed in deeply, obviously trying to calm herself. “I wasn’t going to tell you at all. But then I realized that was wrong. I don’t want to have secret babies.”
    â€œBabies?” His heart ground to a halt in his chest. “Babies?”
    She nodded. “We’re having twins.”
    Judah’s world opened up, chasmlike. His pulse jumped, more fiercely than when he’d been on the back of Lightfoot. “You say we’re—”
    â€œYes.”
    He passed a hand across his forehead, realized he was sweating under his hat. “I don’t mean to be coarse, but how do you know that you’re pregnant by me and not by your fiancé?” He wasn’t about to say the man’s name.
    â€œBecause I’ve never slept with him.”
    â€œWhy not? Not to be indelicate—”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” Darla said. “We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
    Maybe the man was an idiot. Maybe his thing