her tiny apartment and opened the back door. âI doubt if that hamburger is fit to eat now. Iâll feed you tonight.â
And then he was gone, and she stared at the closed door, frozen in shock over how once again she had capitulated to what he wanted. She heard the roar of the pickup. A pickup and cowboy boots and jeans. He had looked at home in them, but she knew better. He was a diplomat who lived in Europe and had spent nearly all his adult life abroad. He was First Secretary at the American Embassy in Spain. She could imagine the women he knew, beautiful, sophisticatedâthey didnât drop keys and carry hamburgers in their purses. She rubbed her temples and moved restlessly around the room. When heâd asked her out, all her resolve had just melted away. She was jelly where he was concerned, and she was going to have to do better tonight.
Why was she going? What would she wear? Was he doing this to sleep with her again? That question brought her up short and a flash of shame and anger burned in her.
She turned to a small mirror and shook her finger at her reflection. âPamela, you were easy. Get a backbone where he is concerned! Youâll have to send him packing tonight and stay cool, cool, cold.â
She thought of guys who had called her frigid. Where was all that coldness she could turn on so easily with others?
She looked down at her flat stomach and splayed her fingers against it. A baby. Aaronâs baby. He must never, never know. But in spite of the foolishness of getting pregnant in her first night of lovemaking, in spite of how it would turn her life upside down and in spite of all the struggles of being a single mother, she couldnât stop being thrilled and awed. Her own precious baby. Aaronâs baby.
She knew from teaching the struggles the young single mothers and dads had, how they had to be everything for their kids and juggle jobs and schedules, but she would do it. Her own baby. Aaronâs baby. This baby had a wonderful father.
Aaron has a right to know about his baby.
That thought was an unwanted one. He might have a right to know, but if he did, she knew he would want to do the right thing, and out of duty he would insist they marry. His family would hate her and think she had trapped him. No, he wasnât going to know, and he would marry some beautiful woman who was the right kind of woman for him and have his own family someday. She was certain of that. This was the only way it could be because Aaron would never be happy married to a woman like her. Not ever. And she didnât want duty or pity or charity. She couldnât bear to see him feeling trapped.
âGo to dinner and send him back to Spain. You know how to turn men off,â she said and wondered when she had started talking out loud to herself and realized it had been since she met Aaron.
She threw up her hands and went to find something to weartonight. Her life had changed forever todayâpregnant, dinner tonight with Aaron. He had come home to take her out! To get to know her better. A pang of longing made her tremble. Why did it have to be this way! âBecause of my own carelessness,â she answered herself.
Long ago she could remember Dr. Woodbury asking her if she wanted a prescription for the Pill and her turning him down, saying she wasnât dating and there was no need. When he had lectured her, she had turned a deaf ear. She should have listened, but then she touched her stomach again and knew she really had no regrets. She adored little children and this would be her own baby, something she had never dreamed possible.
Dinner with Aaron. If onlyâ She shut her mind to following that line of thought, but she couldnât resist touching her throat and remembering his lips brushing against her.
Â
Aaron whistled as he drove. He was excited, eager and he had to laugh at that hamburger stashed in her purse.
âNo, darlinâ, I donât know any