A Texas-Sized Secret
God, she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt at ease with her parents. It had always seemed as though she was putting on a production, playing the part of the perfect daughter. Only she never quite measured up. She wished things were different, but if wishes came true, she wouldn’t be here in the first place, would she?
The driveway to her parents’ house was long and curved, the better to display the banks of flowers tended with loving care by a squad of gardeners. The sweep of lawn was green and neatly trimmed, and trees were kept trained into balls on branches that looked as though they were trying to remember how to be real trees. The house itself was showy but tasteful, as her parents would accept nothing less—it was a blend of Cape Cod and Victorian. Pale gray with white trim and black shutters, it stood as graceful as a dancer in the center of the massive lot. The front door was white without a speck of dust to mar its surface. The windows gleamed in the sunlight and displayed curtains within, all drawn to exactly the same point.
It was like looking at a picture in an architectural magazine. Something staged, where no one really lived. And of course, she told herself silently, no one did. Instead of living, her parents existed on a stage where everyone knew their lines and no one ever strayed from the script. Well, except for Naomi.
Naomi herself had been the one time anything unexpected had happened in her parents’ lives. She was, she knew, an “accident.” A late-in-life baby who had caused them nothing but embarrassment at first, followed by years of disappointment. Her mother had been horrified to find herself pregnant at the age of forty-five and had endured the unwelcome pregnancy because to do otherwise would have been unthinkable for her. They raised her with care if not actual love and expected her not to make any further ripples in their life.
But Naomi had always caused ripples. Sometimes waves.
And today was going to be a tsunami.
“You’re getting quiet,” Toby said with a flicker of a smile. “Never a good sign.”
She had to smile back. “Too much to think about.”
She stared at the closed front door and dreaded having to knock on it. Of course she would knock. And be announced by Matilda, the housekeeper who’d worked for her parents for twenty years. People didn’t simply walk into her parents’ house.
And her mind was going off on tangents because she didn’t want to think about her real reason for being here.
“You’ve already made the hard decision,” Toby pointed out. “You decided to keep the baby.”
She had. Not that she cared at all about the baby’s father, Naomi thought. But the baby was real to her. A person. Her child. How could she end the pregnancy? “I couldn’t do anything else.”
He reached out and took her hand for a quick squeeze. “I know. And I’ll help however I can.”
“I know you will,” she said, holding on to his hand as she would a lifeline.
“You know,” he said slowly, his deep voice rumbling through the truck cab, “there’s no reason for you to be so worked up. You might want to consider that you’re nearly thirty—”
“Hey!” She frowned at him. “I’m twenty-nine.”
“My mistake,” he said, mouth quirking, eyes shining. “But the point is, you’ve been on your own since college, Naomi. You don’t have to explain your life to your parents.”
“Easy for you to say,” she countered. “Your mom and sister are your own personal cheering squad.”
“True,” he said, nodding. “But, Naomi, sooner or later, you’ve got to take a stand and, instead of apologizing to your folks, just tell them what’s what.”
It sounded perfectly reasonable. And she knew he was right. But it didn’t make the thought of actually doing it any easier to take. She dropped one hand to the slight mound of her belly and gave the child within a comforting pat. If there was ever a time to stand up to her parents, it was now. She was going to be a mother herself, for God’s sake.
“You’re right.” She gave his hand another squeeze, then let go to release her seat belt. “I’m going to tell them about the baby and that the father isn’t in the picture and I’ll be a single mother and—” She stopped. “Oh, God.”
He chuckled. “For a second there, you were raring to go.”
“I still am,” she insisted, in spite of, or maybe because of, the flurries of butterflies in her stomach. “Let’s just go get it over with, okay?”
“And after, we’ll hit the diner for lunch.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said.
Two
Naomi took a deep breath in what she knew was a futile attempt to relax a little. There would be no relaxation until this meeting with her parents was over.
Toby came around the front of the truck, opened her door and waited for her to step down before asking, “You ready?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Naomi shook her head, tugged at the hem of her cool green shirt as if she could somehow further disguise the still-tiny bump of her baby, then smoothed nervous hands along her hips. “Do I look all right?”
He tipped his head to one side, studied her, then smiled. “You look like you always do. Beautiful.”
She laughed a little. Toby was really good for her self-esteem. Or, she thought, he would be, if she had any. God, what a pitiful thought. Of course she had self-esteem. It was just a bit like a roller-coaster ride. Sometimes up, sometimes down. Naomi’d be very happy if she could somehow reach a middle ground and stay there. But it was a constant battle between the two distinctly different voices in her head.
One telling her she was smart and talented and capable while the other whispered doubts. Amazing how much easier that dark voice was to believe.
And she was stalling.
“You’re stalling,” Toby said as if reading her mind. Her gaze snapped to his.
“Think you know me that well, do you?”
“Yeah,” he said, a slow smile curving his mouth. “I do.”
Okay, yes, he really did. Probably the only person she knew who could make that claim and mean it. Even her closest girlfriends, Cecelia and Simone, only knew about her what she wanted them to know. Naomi was really skilled at hiding her thoughts, at being who people expected or wanted her to be. But she never had to do that around Toby.
Taking her hand in his, he started for the front door. “Come on, Naomi. We’ll talk to your folks, get this out in the open, then go have lunch so I can get a burger and you can nibble on a lettuce leaf.”
She rolled her eyes behind his back, because damn it, he really did know her. All women watched their diets, didn’t they? Especially pregnant women? At that thought, memories of that vile video Maverick had sent her rushed into her mind again. She saw the actress waddling, staggering across a mock-up of Naomi’s own television set, and she shivered. She refused to waddle.
Naomi swallowed a groan and took the steps to the wide front porch beside Toby. He was still holding her hand, and she was grateful. A part of her brain shrieked at her that it was ridiculous for a grown woman to be so nervous about facing her parents. But that single voice was being systematically drowned out by a choir of other voices, reminding her that nothing good had ever come from having a chat with Franklin and Vanessa Price.
“You ready?”
She looked up into his eyes, shaded by his ever-present Stetson, and gathered the tattered threads of her courage. She had to be ready, because there was no other choice. “Yes.”
“That’d be more believable if you weren’t chewing on your bottom lip.”
“Blast,” she muttered and instinctively rubbed her lips together to smooth out her lipstick. “Fine. Now I’m ready.”
“Damn right you are.” He grinned, and her nerves settled. Really, Naomi wasn’t sure what she’d ever done to deserve a best friend like Toby, but she was so thankful to have him.
Before she could talk herself out of it or worry on it any longer, she reached out and rapped her knuckles on the wide front door. Several seconds ticked past before it swung open to reveal Matilda, the Price family housekeeper and cook.
Tall, thin and dressed completely in black, Matilda wore her gunmetal-gray hair short and close to her head. Her complexion was pale and carved with wrinkles earned over a lifetime. She looked severe, humorless, although nothing could have been further from the truth. Matilda smiled in welcome.
“Miss Naomi,” she said, stepping back to open the door wider. “You and Mr. Toby come in. I’ll just tell your parents you’re here. They’re in the front parlor.”
Of course they were, Naomi thought. She knew the Price family schedule and was aware that it never deviated. Late-morning tea began at eleven and ended precisely at eleven forty-five. After which her mother would drive into town to one of her charities and her father would go to the golf course or, on Tuesdays, the Texas Cattleman’s Club to visit with his friends.
Waiting in the blessedly cool entry hall, Toby took his hat off, then bent to whisper, “Always makes me twitch when she calls me Mr. Toby.”
“I know,” Naomi said. “But propriety must be maintained at all times.” Appearances, she knew, were very important to her parents. It had always mattered more how things looked than how things actually were.
She glanced around the home she’d grown up in. The interior hadn’t changed much over the years. Vanessa Price didn’t care for change, and once she had things the way she wanted them, they stayed.
Cool, gray-veined white marble tile stretched from the entry all through the house. Paintings, in soothing pastel colors, hung in white frames on ecru walls, their muted hues the only splash of brightness in the decorating scheme. A Waterford crystal vase on the entry table held a huge bouquet of exotic flowers, all in varying shades of white, and the silence in the house was museum quality.
Idly, Naomi remembered being a child in this house and how she’d struggled to find her place. She never really did, which was why, she supposed, she still felt uncomfortable just being here.
Toby squeezed her hand as Matilda stepped into the hall and motioned for them to come ahead. Apparently, Naomi told herself, the king and queen were receiving today. The minute that thought entered her mind, she felt a quick stab of guilt. Her parents weren’t evil people. They didn’t deserve the mental barbs from their only child and wouldn’t understand them if they knew how she really felt.
But at the same time, Naomi couldn’t help wishing things were different. She wished, not for the first time, that she was able to just open the front door and sail in without being announced. She wished that her parents would be happy to see her. That she and her mom could curl up on the couch and talk about anything and everything. That her dad would sweep her up into a bear hug and call her “princess.” That she wouldn’t feel so tightly strung at the very thought of entering the formal parlor to face them.
But if wishes were real, she’d be sitting on a beach sipping a margarita right now.
Her parents were seated in matching Victorian chairs, with a tea table directly in front of them. The rest of the room was just as fussily decorated, looking like a curator’s display of Louis XIV furniture. Nothing in the house invited people to settle in or, God forbid, put their feet on a table.
The windows allowed a wide swath of sunlight to spear into the room, illuminating the beige-and eggshell-colored furniture, the gold leaf edging the desk on the far wall, the white shades on crystal lamps and the complete lack of welcome in her parents’ eyes. It was eleven thirty. They still had fifteen minutes of teatime left, and Naomi had just ruined it.
She was about to ruin a lot more.
“Hello, Mom, Dad.” She smiled, steeled herself and released Toby’s hand to cross the room. She bent down to kiss the cheek her mother offered, and then when her father stood up to greet Toby, she kissed her dad’s cheek, too.
“Hello, dear,” Vanessa Price said. “This is a surprise. Toby, it’s nice to see you. Would you like to join us for tea? I can have Matilda brew fresh.”
“No, ma’am, thank you,” Toby said after shaking Franklin’s hand and stepping back to range himself at Naomi’s side.
Franklin Price was a handsome man in his seventies. He wore a perfectly tailored suit and his silver hair was swept back from a high, wide forehead. His blue eyes were sharp but curious as they landed on his daughter. Vanessa was petite, and though in her seventies, she presented, as always, a perfect picture. Her startlingly white hair was trimmed into a modern but flattering cut, and her figure was trim, since she had spent most of her life dieting to ensure it. Her jewel-bright blue summer dress looked casually elegant and at the same time served to make Naomi feel like a hag.
“Is there something wrong, dear?” Vanessa set her Limoges china teacup down onto the table and then folded her hands neatly in her lap.
There was her opening, Naomi thought, and braced herself to jump right in.
“Actually, yes, there is,” she admitted, and glanced at her father to see his concerned frown. “You’ve both heard about this Maverick who’s been contacting people in Royal for the last several months?”
“Distasteful,” Vanessa said primly with a mild shake of her head.
“I’ll agree with your mother. Whoever it is needs to be apprehended and charged,” her father said. “Prying into people’s private lives is despicable.”
“He’s caused a lot of trouble,” Toby said and took Naomi’s hand to give it a squeeze.
Her mother caught the gesture, and her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Maverick contacted me this morning,” Naomi blurted out before she could lose her dwindling nerve entirely.
“You?” Vanessa lifted one hand to the base of her throat, her fingers sliding through a string of pearls. “Whatever could he do to you?”
Still frowning, Franklin Price looked from Naomi to Toby and back again. “What is it, girl?”
Oh, here it comes, she told herself. And once the words were said, everything would change forever. There was no choice. Toby was right—she couldn’t keep hiding her baby bump with loose clothing. There would come a time when the truth just wouldn’t remain hidden.
“I’m pregnant,” she said flatly, “and Maverick is about to send a video out onto the internet telling everyone.”
“Pregnant?” Vanessa slumped back against her chair, and now her hand tightened at the base of her throat as if she were trying to massage air into her lungs.
“Who’s the father?” Franklin’s demand was quiet but no less fierce.
“Oh, Naomi,” her mother said on a defeated sigh. “How could you let this happen?”
“Who did this to you?” her father asked again.
As if she’d been held down against her will, Naomi thought on an internal groan. Oh, she couldn’t tell them about Gio. About how stupid she’d been. How careless. How could she say that the baby’s father was an Italian gigolo with whom she’d spent a single night? But what else could she say?
They were waiting expectantly, her mother just a little horrified, her father leaning more toward cold anger. She’d proven a disappointment. Again. And it was only going to get worse.
“I’m the father,” Toby said when she opened her mouth to speak.
“What?” she whispered, horrified.
Toby gave her a quick smile, then fixed his gaze on her father. “That’s why I came here with Naomi today. We wanted to tell you together that we’re having a baby and we’re going to be married.”
Naomi could only stare at him in stunned silence. She hadn’t expected him to do this. And she didn’t know what to do about it now. A ribbon of relief shot whiplike through her, and even as it did, Naomi knew she couldn’t let him do this. As much as she appreciated the chivalry, this was her mess and she’d find a way to—
“We wanted to tell you before anyone else,” Toby went on smoothly. “Naomi’s going to be living with me at my ranch.”
“Toby—”
He didn’t even glance at her. “No point in her staying at her condo in town, so she’s moving to Paradise Ranch in a few days.”
“But—” She tried to speak again. To correct him. To argue. To say something, but her mother spoke up, effectively keeping Naomi quiet.
“Living together isn’t something I would usually approve,” she said primly, “but as you’re engaged, I think propriety has been taken care of.”
Propriety. Naomi had often thought her mother would have been happier living in the Regency period. Where manners were all and society followed strict rules.
“Engaged.” Her mother said the word again, as if savoring it. “Oh, Naomi, you’re marrying Toby McKittrick. It’s just wonderful.”
Vanessa rose quickly, moved to stand beside her husband and then actually beamed her pleasure.
Naomi had never been on the receiving end of that smile before, so it threw her a little. Then she realized exactly what her mother had said. She wasn’t thrilled about the baby, but about her daughter marrying Toby. Handsome. Stable. Wealthy Toby McKittrick. That was the kind of announcement Vanessa Price could get behind.
And that realization only made Naomi furious. At Toby. She hadn’t expected her parents to be supportive, but having Toby ride to the rescue felt, after that first burst of relief, more than a little annoying. She’d only wanted him here for moral support. Not to sweep in and lie to save her. The whole purpose of coming here to tell her parents the truth was to get it over with.
Now not only had the moment of truth been postponed, but Toby had added to the mess with a lie she’d eventually have to answer for.
“Toby—”
He looked down at her, gave her a smile, then surprised her into being quiet with a quick, hard kiss that left her lips buzzing. Shock rattled her. He’d never kissed her before, and though it hadn’t been a lover’s kiss, it wasn’t exactly a brotherly kiss, either.
When he was sure she was shocked speechless, he turned to face her parents. “Naomi’s a little upset. She wanted to be the one to tell you about us getting married, but I just couldn’t help myself. And we’re heading over to her place today to start packing for the move, so we wanted to see you first.”
“Understandable,” Franklin said with an approving nod at Toby, followed by a worried glance at Naomi. “I’ll say, you worried me there for a moment with news of a pregnancy. But since you’re marrying, I’m sure it’s fine.”
Great. All it had taken to win her parents’ approval was the right marriage. God. Maybe they were in the Regency period.
“I don’t see your ring,” Vanessa pointed out with a deliberate look at Naomi’s left hand.
Naomi sighed, then lifted her gaze to Toby as if to demand, this was your idea—fix it.
Then he did. His way.
“We’re going right into town to see about that. And if I can’t find what I want there,” Toby announced, “we’ll drive into Houston.” He dropped one arm around Naomi’s shoulders and pulled her up close to him. “But we wanted you to know our news before you heard about Maverick’s video.”
“No one pays attention to people of that sort,” Vanessa said with assuredness.
Naomi wondered how she could say it, since the whole town of Royal had been talking about nothing else but Maverick for months. But Vanessa didn’t care to see what she considered ugliness, and it was amazingly easy for her to close her eyes to anything that might disrupt her orderly world.
“Now, Naomi, don’t you worry over this Maverick person,” her mother said firmly. “You and Toby have done nothing wrong. Perhaps you haven’t done things in the proper order—”
Meaning, Naomi thought, courtship, engagement, marriage and then a baby. Still, her mother was willing to overlook all that for the happy news that her daughter would finally be settled, with a more than socially acceptable husband. Which meant that when she had to tell them that she absolutely was not going to marry Toby, the fallout would be epic.
“We should be going now. We need to get Naomi all moved in and settled at the ranch. Sorry for interrupting your tea,” Toby was saying, and Naomi told herself to snap out of her thoughts.
He was going to hurry her out of the house before she could tell her parents the truth. And she was going to let him. Sure, she’d have to confess eventually, but right this minute? Naomi just wanted to be far, far away.
“Nonsense,” Franklin said. “You’re always welcome here, Toby. Especially now.”
Naomi muffled a sigh. All it had taken was the promise of a “good” marriage to fling the Price family doors wide-open. She could only imagine how fast they would slam shut once they knew the truth.
“I appreciate that, Mr. Price.”
“Franklin, boy. You call me Franklin.”
“Yes, sir, I will,” Toby promised, but didn’t. “Now if you’ll excuse us, I think we’ll just go get Naomi’s things and find that ring we talked about before Naomi changes her mind and leaves me heartbroken.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened. “Oh, she wouldn’t!”
Toby winked at Naomi, completely ignoring how tense she’d gone beside him. To her parents, this suddenly imagined marriage was very real. She knew Toby thought he’d made things better, but in reality, he’d only made the whole situation more...complicated.
“You two enjoy yourselves, and, Naomi, we’ll talk about a lovely wedding real soon,” her mother called after her. “We’ll want to have the ceremony before you start...showing.”
“Oh, God,” Naomi whispered.
Toby squeezed her hand and hurried her out of the house. Once outside, he bundled her into his truck before she could say anything, so it wasn’t until he was in the truck himself, firing the engine, that Naomi was able to demand, “What were you thinking?”
He blew out a breath, squinted into the sun and steered the truck away from the front door and back down the flower-lined drive. “I was thinking that I didn’t like the way your folks were looking at you.”
His profile was stern, his mouth tight and a muscle in his jaw flexing, telling her he was grinding his teeth together. Naomi sighed a little. She hadn’t thought he’d take her parents’ reaction so personally on her behalf, though in retrospect, she should have. He’d always been the kind of man to stand up for someone being bullied. He took the side of the underdog because that was just who Toby was. But she didn’t want to be one of his mercy rescues.
“I appreciate the misguided chivalry,” she said, striving for patience. “But it just makes everything harder, Toby. Now I’m going to have to tell them that I’m not moving in with you, our engagement is off and make up some reason for it—which my mother will never accept—and then I’ll still be a single mother and they’ll be even more disappointed in me than ever.”
“They don’t have to be.” He shot her one fast look. “We move you out to Paradise today. We get married. Just like I said.”
Naomi just stared at him. Since he was driving, he didn’t take his eyes off the road again, so she couldn’t see if he was joking or not. But he had to be joking. “You’re not serious.”
“Dead serious.”
“Toby,” she argued, “that’s nuts. I mean, it was a sweet thing to do—”
“Screw sweet,” he snapped with a shake of his head. “I wasn’t doing it to be sweet and, okay, fine, I didn’t really think about it before saying it, but once the words were out, they made sense.”
“In a crazy, upside-down world, maybe. Here? Not so much.”
“Think about it, Naomi.”
She lifted one hand to rub her forehead, hoping to ease the throbbing headache centered there. “Haven’t been able to do much else since you blurted out all that.”
“Then think about this. There’s no point in you raising a baby on your own when I’m standing right here.”
“It’s not your baby,” she pointed out.
“It could be,” he countered just as quickly. “I’d be a good father. A good husband.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
She lifted both hands and tugged hard on her own hair. Nope, she wasn’t dreaming any of this, which meant she had to get through to him. What he’d just said had touched her. Deeply. To know that he was willing to throw himself on a metaphorical grenade for her meant more than she could say. But that didn’t mean she would actually allow him to claim another man’s child as his own. It wouldn’t be fair to him.