Page 49 of The Honorable Texan
She had a good reason to look pale, but she couldn’t tell him what it was.“I’ll be fine tomorrow,” she replied.
“Violet…” he began softly.
“See you tomorrow, boss man,” she interrupted with a faint smile, and walked away.
Blake watched her go with odd twinges of guilt.If he’d been a proper fiancé, he’d have picked her up and carried her to his own car and driven her home.He’d have stayed with her, too.He didn’t understand his own nebulous feelings.He’d spent a miserable weekend trying to resolve them.The futility of his situation had made him moody.He resented the knowledge that Violet was pregnant.He resented the trapped feeling he’d had all weekend, which had kept him from phoning her, despite their passionate interlude in the office.The baby was as much his fault as hers, of course, but he wasn’t facing facts well.He was being selfish.It was just that his whole life had turned upside down.He was uneasy about being a husband, much less a father.He’d been alone for so long.But that was no reason to let Violet suffer for something that was his own fault.She was sick, and it was his responsibility to take care of her now.
Resolutely, he turned and started toward her car, but it was only in time to see her drive out of the parking lot.She was gone in a heartbeat and he felt like the world’s biggest louse.She was sick and he was letting her go home alone.
While he was debating his next step, and reaching into his pocket for his car keys, Libby stepped to the door to tell him he was wanted urgently on the phone.One of his clients had been arrested.
He went back inside, fate having decided the next move for him.
* * *
Violet cried allthe way home.She’d hoped that Blake really cared about her, that he wanted her for keeps, that he’d be thrilled when he learned about the baby.But he already knew, God knew how, and he wasn’t thrilled.He was only marrying her for appearances.He felt trapped.He didn’t want Violet in any way at all, except perhaps physically.It was a harsh blow.
She stayed in her car until the tears stopped and she was able to act with some sort of normalcy.She checked her eyes in the mirror to make sure they weren’t red.She didn’t want to alarm her mother.About one thing Blake was right: her mother would be horrified if she knew about the baby.
With a forced smile, she called to her mother as she walked in.Mrs.Hardy looked up from her soap opera and waved and smiled absently, going right back to the action on the screen.
It was a reprieve.Violet went into her bedroom and changed into loose jeans and a sweatshirt.She did lay down for a few minutes, certain that her motherwouldn’t be moved by a hurricane until her program went off.
She had to make a decision, and quickly.She couldn’t hop on a bus and leave town.It would be impossible to move her mother right now, and not only because of the impending legal problems if Janet Collins was ever found and prosecuted for the death of Violet’s father.She couldn’t leave because her mother wouldn’t survive being uprooted.She loved Jacobsville.
That being the case, temporarily Violet had only one possible course of action.She had to get out of Blake’s office.She was uneasy about calling Duke Wright back and going to work for him again, but she didn’t have a list of potential employers.She wouldn’t be able to hide her pregnancy for a long time, but for several weeks at least she wouldn’t show.That gave her a little time to make decisions.
She picked up the phone and called her former boss.
* * *
Minutes later, shewalked into the living room.The credits were rolling on Mrs.Hardy’s soap opera, and the elderly lady was drying her eyes.
“It was so sad,” she told Violet.“Harry had loved Eunice for years and years, and just when he asked her to marry him, he died of a heart attack.”
“Yes, that’s sad, all right.”She bent and kissed her mother gently.“How are you feeling?”
“I should be asking you that, dear,” she replied with a pointed stare.“You look very pale.Are you all right?”
“I think I’ve picked up a bug,” Violet told her.“I came home early.It was okay with the boss man,” she added with a forced smile.“I’m going to fix something nice for supper.”
“If you like,” Mrs.Hardy said, but she looked worried.
Violet wasn’t about to tell her the rest, that she’d just agreed to go back to work for Duke Wright.Her former employer hadn’t been able to replace her, and he was overjoyed that she was willing to come back.
The only bad thing was that she’d agreed to be in his office Monday.Now she had to tell Blake Kemp that she was leaving again, and why.It made her sick at her stomach even to contemplate it.
* * *
Blake phoned heras soon as he’d pacified his worried client, but Mrs.Hardy answered the phone and said she was sorry, but Violet had gone to bed with a headache.He hung up and went home.But he didn’t sleep.
All night long, his selfishness haunted him.Violet was sweet and kind, and she loved him.He could look for the rest of his life and never find a woman half as honest as she was.Ever since she’d come to work for him, she’d nurtured him, cared for him, to the extent that his heart lifted just at the sight of her in his office.Since they’d become intimate, his body ached for her night and day.He knew that he was her first man, that she wanted no one else.And now she was carrying his child under her heart.After all that, he’d proposed to her only because he felt an obligation, not because he wanted her or his child.
Now, with his mind finally functioning again, he realized what a lucky man he was.Why had it taken him so long to know it?
He got up before dawn and made himself a big breakfast.He was going to the most exclusive jewelry store in Jacobsville and he was going to buy Violet a diamond so big that it would blind her.Perhaps he’d felt trappedinto proposing before, but he was only beginning to see what a wise thing he’d done.He was going to make Violet believe that she was the luckiest woman on earth.He’d bring her flowers, take her to the theater, buy her presents.He laughed at his own lightheartedness.He’d never felt so happy.
* * *
