Page 36 of One More Baby for the Boss

“You have a minute,” Elijah said. “As long as you leave by five to eight, he’ll be there in plenty of time.”

Alex bit her lip, her eyes still on Jack, who was now carefully maneuvering the family tree sculpture into the passenger seat. “What did you want to talk about?”

“About the other night,” he said. “We haven’t had a chance to discuss… what happened.”

“And you want to do thisnow?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Do you really think this is the best time?”

“I know it isn’t. And I’m sorry. I should have brought it up sooner, I know that.”

“It’s not as if that’s your sole responsibility,” she said. “I could have brought it up too, and I didn’t. I guess I’ve been nervous to talk to you about it.”

“Did we make a mistake?” He held his breath. If they had, if he had created an environment that made her want to consider leaving Jack behind…

Alex shook her head quickly. “No,” she said. “No, it wasn’t a mistake.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear that you feel that way,” he said. “I was worried I might have taken things too far.”

“If anyone took things too far, it was me,” she said. “I started it.”

That was debatable, Elijah thought. Looking back on that night, it was hard to remember who had escalated things and when. He had been the one to open the bottle of wine, but she was the one who had come to stand so close beside him. He’d touched her face — touched her lips — but then she had kissed his hand. And from there, the whole thing had spiraled out of control in a hurry.

“It was both of us,” he said, and Alex nodded her agreement. “And if it wasn’t a mistake, then I think we’re all right… aren’t we?”

“I’m all right if you are.”

They lingered for a moment, looking at one another, and Elijah would have given all the money in his bank account to know what she was thinking. Did she fantasize about that night the way he did? Had she also struggled to get it off her mind? How did she feel about it now?

She glanced at the clock over the stove. “Ireallyneed to get going,” she said. “And you have that meeting to get to. I’ll meet you at the school at ten, right?”

“Right,” Elijah said.

“Make sure you’re on time. Maybe even a little early, if you can swing it. I think Jack is nervous about presenting his project, and he’ll feel better when he sees you.”

“I’ll come straight there from my meeting,” Elijah assured her.

She smiled at him and hurried out the door. He watched through the window as she got in the car and she and Jack pulled away, heading for the school.

Only once she was gone did he realize that, in his relief over the fact that Alex hadn’t regretted their night together, he had failed to ask the question he really needed to know the answer to — was there any possibility that it might happen again?

It wasn’t a fair question to ask, of course. Elijah couldn’t have answered it for himself. He didn’t know whether or not he wanted something more to happen between the two of them. It was painful to think of saying right here and now that he didn’t. But it was just as difficult to think about the implications of what might happen if they didn’t resist.

CHAPTER 17

ALEX

“Is my dad going to be here soon?” Jack asked eagerly, tugging on Alex’s arm.

Alex checked the time on her phone. It was ten minutes to ten, and she was beginning to wonder the same thing herself. “I’m sure he’ll be here any minute,” she told Jack. “Do you need to go up to the front of the room with the other kids and start getting set up? You want to be ready when it’s time to give your presentation.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, his face falling slightly. “I just wanted to see Dad before I went up there, that’s all.”

“Well, you’ll see him afterward,” Alex said. “Nothing to worry about.”

She wasn’t at all sure that that was true, as a matter of fact. She was beginning to feel very worried about where Elijah was. He should have been here by now — a meeting with a ranch foreman shouldn’t have taken this long. And he had promised to come directly here. He’d given her the impression that he understoodhow important this was to Jack, and that nothing would stop him from being here on time.

Alex could think of only two possibilities. Perhaps she had been wrong and Elijah simply hadn’t understood the importance of today. It was hard to believe that such a thing could be true, after all the work that Jack had put in to his family tree — especially knowing that Elijah had witnessed all that hard work. But it was possible that the significance of the moment had eluded him somehow.

The other possibility, which she found difficult even to allow herself to think about, was that something might have happened to him. Maybe he had been hurrying to get over here — shehadtold him to hurry — and he’d gotten into a car accident. She felt sick to her stomach at the thought, and it was strange to find herself feeling as though her world could be so upended by an incident involving someone she hadn’t even known that long. But she knew that if something were to happen to him it would wreck her, and that wasn’t even to mention what it would do to Jack.

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