Read Online Texas Two Step: Texas Montgomery Mavericks, Book 1 by Cynthia D’Alba - Free Book Online
Authors: Cynthia D’Alba
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much as he needed her.
Olivia took advantage of Mitch’s sleeping state to study the dark, thick eyelashes resting on his cheeks, eyelashes most women would kill for. How unfair was it that men got such incredible lashes while women curled, mascaraed, glued on fake lashes—anything to get the look of the lashes Mitch sported with no effort.
She lightly brushed his hair off his face, tried to store mental photographs of every detail. The telltale pale of his forehead where his cowboy hat rested glistened in the soft moonlight kissing his face. From his nose down, there was a slight tanning where even the best Stetson couldn’t block the relentless Texas sun.
A little snore escape his parted lips, making Olivia grin. She remembered that snore. There were nights when she couldn’t sleep and would’ve given anything to hear his snore beside her, feel the warmth from his hot body, take comfort from him being near. Nothing—nor anyone—had ever dulled the ache for him she carried deep inside.
There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t have done for him, including giving him up when he’d asked her to. She’d wanted to tell him about the pregnancy, but the timing could not have been worse. Then fate had continued to cause a domino effect of events that kept her from telling him about their baby.
Thinking about her son jerked her guilt front and center again. She slipped from the bed and put Mitch’s robe back on. Mitch would have been—hell, could be—the best father in the world, but she couldn’t risk Adam’s future on it.
She moved quietly from the bedroom into the suite’s living room, where she paced and debated and cursed fate. Each time she reached the balcony, she was sure she should tell Mitch everything. By the time she’d walked back to the suite’s bar, she was positive she and Adam were doing great without him, or any man. Besides, who knew how he would react to the fact she had a son.
The carpet blurred as tears burned her eyes.
Damn it, Mitch. Joanna might have been a long-time friend, but did you have to be the good guy and step up to the marriage plate with her?
Why blame him, you chicken , she chastised herself. You could have told him.
And if she had, even more stress and turmoil would have been heaped onto the chaotic mess that had come with James’s death. She couldn’t do that to Mitch.
James dead. Joanna pregnant with James’s child. Mitch stepping up to marry his childhood friend, Joanna. Doing what he thought his brother would have wanted.
Or at least Joanna had said she was pregnant. No baby had ever been born, and from what Olivia had heard no abdominal baby bulge had ever been noted. Joanna had miscarried the baby early in the second trimester. Remembering her own pregnancy, Olivia realized her pregnancy pooch hadn’t become obvious until she was well into her sixth month, so maybe it was possible that Joanna had been pregnant.
Had there ever been a baby, or had the pregnancy been one of Joanna’s elaborate schemes to get James to marry her, only to have it backfire when he died? Mitch’s mother, Sylvia Landry, had always been convinced of the latter.
Years later, Sylvia had confided to Olivia’s mother that if she’d been of sound mind, she never would have let Mitch marry Joanna. But once the deed was done, everyone had tried to make the best of the situation.
Marrying a Landry had been Joanna’s goal. Without James, that left her good friend Mitch. Maybe Olivia should have spoken up, stopped the marriage, told Mitch everything, forced him to—
Stop it. You made the best decision you could at the time.
“Livie?”
Startled, she stumbled into the coffee table and clasped a hand over her jumping heart. Hastily, she dried her eyes on the arm of the robe and turned toward him. “I think I’d better go.”
He went to her and wrapped her in his arms. “What is it, sweetheart?”
For just a moment, she allowed herself to soak in the heat from his arms, allowed
Olivia took advantage of Mitch’s sleeping state to study the dark, thick eyelashes resting on his cheeks, eyelashes most women would kill for. How unfair was it that men got such incredible lashes while women curled, mascaraed, glued on fake lashes—anything to get the look of the lashes Mitch sported with no effort.
She lightly brushed his hair off his face, tried to store mental photographs of every detail. The telltale pale of his forehead where his cowboy hat rested glistened in the soft moonlight kissing his face. From his nose down, there was a slight tanning where even the best Stetson couldn’t block the relentless Texas sun.
A little snore escape his parted lips, making Olivia grin. She remembered that snore. There were nights when she couldn’t sleep and would’ve given anything to hear his snore beside her, feel the warmth from his hot body, take comfort from him being near. Nothing—nor anyone—had ever dulled the ache for him she carried deep inside.
There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t have done for him, including giving him up when he’d asked her to. She’d wanted to tell him about the pregnancy, but the timing could not have been worse. Then fate had continued to cause a domino effect of events that kept her from telling him about their baby.
Thinking about her son jerked her guilt front and center again. She slipped from the bed and put Mitch’s robe back on. Mitch would have been—hell, could be—the best father in the world, but she couldn’t risk Adam’s future on it.
She moved quietly from the bedroom into the suite’s living room, where she paced and debated and cursed fate. Each time she reached the balcony, she was sure she should tell Mitch everything. By the time she’d walked back to the suite’s bar, she was positive she and Adam were doing great without him, or any man. Besides, who knew how he would react to the fact she had a son.
The carpet blurred as tears burned her eyes.
Damn it, Mitch. Joanna might have been a long-time friend, but did you have to be the good guy and step up to the marriage plate with her?
Why blame him, you chicken , she chastised herself. You could have told him.
And if she had, even more stress and turmoil would have been heaped onto the chaotic mess that had come with James’s death. She couldn’t do that to Mitch.
James dead. Joanna pregnant with James’s child. Mitch stepping up to marry his childhood friend, Joanna. Doing what he thought his brother would have wanted.
Or at least Joanna had said she was pregnant. No baby had ever been born, and from what Olivia had heard no abdominal baby bulge had ever been noted. Joanna had miscarried the baby early in the second trimester. Remembering her own pregnancy, Olivia realized her pregnancy pooch hadn’t become obvious until she was well into her sixth month, so maybe it was possible that Joanna had been pregnant.
Had there ever been a baby, or had the pregnancy been one of Joanna’s elaborate schemes to get James to marry her, only to have it backfire when he died? Mitch’s mother, Sylvia Landry, had always been convinced of the latter.
Years later, Sylvia had confided to Olivia’s mother that if she’d been of sound mind, she never would have let Mitch marry Joanna. But once the deed was done, everyone had tried to make the best of the situation.
Marrying a Landry had been Joanna’s goal. Without James, that left her good friend Mitch. Maybe Olivia should have spoken up, stopped the marriage, told Mitch everything, forced him to—
Stop it. You made the best decision you could at the time.
“Livie?”
Startled, she stumbled into the coffee table and clasped a hand over her jumping heart. Hastily, she dried her eyes on the arm of the robe and turned toward him. “I think I’d better go.”
He went to her and wrapped her in his arms. “What is it, sweetheart?”
For just a moment, she allowed herself to soak in the heat from his arms, allowed
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