Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,52

guy away. He lured a fourteen-year-old girl in with promises of true love and she fell for it. He’s thirty-five,” she added coldly.

“What a mess,” Sari said.

“It’s worse than that. She’s pregnant,” Glory said.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” Jessie laughed. “She can just go to a clinic and have them take it out.”

“She and her people are deeply religious,” Glory replied. “Not everybody thinks of termination as birth control, Jessie.”

There was a whip in her voice. The other women knew why. Glory had lost her first baby after a horrible fight with her husband when they were first married, before they really knew much about each other. It had taken her two years to get pregnant again. She and Rodrigo had one child, a boy, and Glory’s precarious health made another unlikely. Her blood pressure was extremely high and she’d already had angioplasty for a blocked artery that had caused a mild heart attack.

“You people take everything so seriously,” Jessie muttered.

“Babies are serious business,” Mr. Kemp broke in. Everybody except Jessie knew that he’d been in love and engaged, and his fiancée had died after a local woman spiked her drink with a drug. The fiancée had been pregnant at the time, and the child died with her.

“Babies are a nuisance. They cry and keep everybody upset, and you never get your waistline back again. I’d never want one,” Jessie said.

“I would,” Bernie said on a long, happy sigh.

“Good luck with that, in your physical condition,” Jessie said sarcastically.

“If I could have a child, with my blood pressure, there’s no reason Bernie couldn’t have one with her limitations.”

Bernie smiled at her. “Thanks.”

“Not a chance I’d take,” Jessie muttered.

“Thank you for your input, Miss Tennison, and how about that call I asked you to make half an hour ago to the DA in Bexar County on the Ramsey matter?” Kemp asked shortly.

Jessie flustered. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot. I’ll get him for you right now, Mr. Kemp!”

Kemp gave her an angry glance, smiled at the other women and went back into his office.

* * *

Bernie went to lunch at Barbara’s Café and there was Mikey, holding down a table for them. He got up as she joined him, after she’d given her order and paid for it.

“I could have gotten the tab, honey,” he said.

“I can pay for my own stuff,” she teased. “But thanks for the thought.”

His hand slid over hers and held it tight. “You don’t look so good. Bad morning?”

“Sort of,” she said. “But it’s improving already,” she added with a loving glance at his handsome face.

He grinned. “That’s better. I like it when you’re happy.”

“I usually am.” She didn’t mention the confrontation with Jessie or the woman’s harsh words. She pushed them to the back of her mind while she and Mikey had nice pieces of roast beef with perfect mashed potatoes and gravy and home-cooked green beans.

“This is so good,” she sighed. “I love to cook, but it’s hard for me to stand for long periods of time. Still, I used to do it when I lived at home with my parents.”

“We were going to talk last night,” he mused.

She flushed.

He laughed sensuously. “We didn’t do a whole lot of talking, though, did we, baby,” he whispered. “It’s hard to think of things like that when I’m with you. I just go nuts when I touch you.”

“I go nuts, too,” she whispered back, and her face colored even more as she looked at his mouth and recalled the havoc it could create suckling at her breast. She caught her breath just with the memory of how it had felt.

“Oh, this won’t do,” Mikey said, and shifted uncomfortably. “We’d better not think too much about last night. Especially in a roomful of people.”

She laughed softly.

He laughed, too.

“What sweet memories we’re making, honey,” he murmured as he forced himself to go back to his roast beef. “And we’ll make plenty more, I promise you.”

“You still have your shadow, I see,” she replied under her breath, glancing out the front window at the black sedan parked there.

“They’re being careful. After all, one guy almost got by them.” He made a face. “It makes me wish I’d made fewer enemies along the way. This isn’t the first time I’ve had somebody come after me over territory.”

She was looking at him with open curiosity.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing much. Just... Well, there’s a coin-shaped depression in your back,” she began. “I felt it last night.”

“Noticed, did you?” He wasn’t offended. He just smiled.