The Texan's Baby (Texas Rodeo Barons) Read online

  Unexpected Consequences

  As a powerful Dallas oil executive, planning is what Lizzie Baron does best. But she certainly didn’t plan on getting pregnant following one memorable night after a rodeo in Fort Worth. Now she needs to figure out how she’s going to raise a baby with a man she barely knows.

  Aspiring bronc rider Chris Miller always hoped he’d see Lizzie again, though not quite like this. The pregnancy is a surprise—and so is finding out she’s a member of the powerful Baron clan—but the more Chris gets to know Lizzie, the more he realizes he wants to be with her. When Lizzie learns Chris works for a rival company, she feels betrayed. Can two perfect strangers trust each other enough to become the perfect family?

  There she was, pushing him away again.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to go with you?” Chris asked.

  “People will get the wrong idea.”

  “So what? Eventually they’re going to know we had sex. You said it yourself. Showing up together makes it look as if there was more to it than a one-nighter. Unless there’s another reason why you don’t want me around?”

  Lizzie blushed.

  “Is there another reason, Lizzie?”

  “Like what?” She lifted her chin and he saw the spark of defiance in her eyes. He liked it. Liked her when she got a little fired up. She’d been this way before, too. A little on edge. Exciting.

  He moved closer, saw her pupils widen, and that’s when he knew. The cool, calm demeanor wasn’t completely real. Oh, he had no doubt that she wanted it to be, but it wasn’t. Another step put him directly in front of her, close enough that he could smell the light floral scent of her shampoo, see the way her pulse beat heavily at her throat.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Shh,” he ordered as he contemplated his next move.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the Texas Rodeo Barons miniseries! I’m so thrilled to be kicking it off with The Texan’s Baby, a story about how sometimes the things we need most happen when we least expect it—and don’t recognize it either. That happens for Lizzie Baron when she crosses paths with Christopher Miller. That evening changes both their lives forever. At first it seems like their chance encounter turns their worlds upside down, but before long it’s clear that this accidental pregnancy really is a blessing in disguise.

  I’m new to the Harlequin American line, and when change happens it can be a teensy bit scary. It can also be wonderful, and over the past months I’ve met and gotten to know many of the authors of this amazing line. Every single one has been welcoming and generous and down-to-earth. I got to meet several of them in person in Atlanta in the summer of 2013, and our wonderful editors, too. I have to say, I think I landed in clover! Working with the other authors on this project has been a fabulous experience. They write from their hearts, and the women behind the words are just as warm and friendly as the stories they write.

  I hope you enjoy Lizzie and Chris’s story, and come back for the other great titles in the series, starting with Trish Milburn’s The Texan’s Cowgirl Bride, out next month!

  Happy reading,

  Donna

  THE TEXAN’S BABY

  Donna Alward

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A busy wife and mother of three (two daughters and the family dog), Donna Alward believes hers is the best job in the world: a combination of stay-at-home mom and romance novelist. An avid reader since childhood, Donna has always made up her own stories. She completed her arts degree in English literature in 1994, but it wasn’t until 2001 that she penned her first full-length novel and found herself hooked on writing romance. In 2006 she sold her first manuscript, and now writes warm, emotional stories for Harlequin.

  In her new home office in Nova Scotia, Donna loves being back on the east coast of Canada after nearly twelve years in Alberta, where her career began, writing about cowboys and the West. Donna’s debut romance, Hired by the Cowboy, was awarded a Booksellers’ Best Award in 2008 for Best Traditional Romance.

  With the Atlantic Ocean only minutes from her doorstep, Donna has found a fresh take on life and promises even more great romances in the near future!

  Donna loves to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website, www.donnaalward.com, or follow @DonnaAlward on Twitter.

  Books by Donna Alward

  HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

  1485—HER RANCHER RESCUER*

  HARLEQUIN ROMANCE

  4240—HONEYMOON WITH THE RANCHER

  4251—A FAMILY FOR THE RUGGED RANCHER

  4270—HOW A COWBOY STOLE HER HEART

  4311—THE LAST REAL COWBOY

  4317—THE REBEL RANCHER

  4347—SLEIGH RIDE WITH THE RANCHER

  4368—LITTLE COWGIRL ON HIS DOORSTEP*

  4384—A COWBOY TO COME HOME TO*

  4401—A CADENCE CREEK CHRISTMAS*

  *Cadence Creek Cowboys

  Other titles by this author available in ebook format.

  To Trish, Barbara, Pamela, Cathy, and Tanya—for making this newbie feel at home.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  Two minutes and thirty-three seconds to go.

  Lizzie Baron stared at her watch with dismay. It had only been twenty-seven seconds since she started the timer on her watch. She refused to look until the full three minutes was up. Instead she checked her reflection in the mirror of the executive bathroom of the Baron Energies offices. She brushed a flake of mascara off the crest of her cheek and tucked a strand of rebellious hair behind her ear. She smoothed her skirt—a straight, businesslike skirt in boring charcoal-gray that ended just a shade above her knee, and checked the buttons of her matching fitted jacket for stray threads.

  Perfect.

  One minute, seventeen seconds.

  Three minutes had never, ever in the history of the world, been this long. She was sure of it.

  Her stomach churned uneasily but she told herself it was just nerves. Stress. She worked long hours at her job and didn’t get much downtime. Everyone at Baron was on edge since they had recently lost a major contract in the Gulf. The tension level in the downtown Dallas office could be cut with a knife most days. Stress could definitely have caused her period to be late, right?

  Except, a little voice inside her head reminded her, your period was due before that particular piece of bad news, remember?

  Twenty-six seconds.

  She breathed in and out. She was not pregnant. It wasn’t possible. Well, it was. Technically. But highly improbable. She didn’t have time for this. And a one-night stand with a rodeo bum...well, how often did people get pregnant from one night?

  She smiled grimly at the reflection of her face, her skin oddly pale under the unflattering fluorescent lighting. The answer to that was simple. It always only took one time for someone to get pregnant. Granted, the chances went up with frequency of... She swallowed. They hadn’t exactly slept a lot
that night.

  Zero seconds.

  Lizzie took a deep breath. Putting off looking wouldn’t change the result. She reached for the stick and stared at the little window.

  A plus sign.

  She was pregnant.

  Just flipping wonderful.

  * * *

  LIZZIE GOT OUT of her car, blinking in the brightness of the San Antonio sun. She’d used the almost four-hour drive to prepare, to work out what she was going to say. The first thing she’d done after taking the home test was visit the doctor, where her pregnancy had been confirmed. Lizzie hadn’t wanted to say anything to anyone until she was 100 percent sure the first test hadn’t been a false positive. Her mind was still reeling with the news, and she was trying to sort out how she was going to tell her family....

  They were going to seriously freak. And be disappointed. Who, in this day and age, went around having sex with strangers? She bit down on her lip. She was a joke. A statistic. A casualty of the 1 percent of condoms that failed at a crucial moment.

  She’d always felt like the responsible one. When Delia Baron left her kids, Brock had been on his own, and Lizzie had stepped in and mothered her younger siblings. Then her dad had married Peggy and adopted her boys, Jacob and Daniel. Those years had been pretty good. They’d all lived together out at Roughneck Ranch—the name a deliberate hat-tip to the oil industry that had put the Baron name on the map. Lizzie had cared for Peggy a lot, which meant Peggy’s death had been especially hard to take.

  Now her father was married again, this time to a much younger wife. Lizzie might have resented Julieta, who was only ten years older than herself, except Lizzie had found an unexpected friend and support in her stepmother.

  Telling her would probably be the easiest of the family. Julieta never judged. She was always after Lizzie to get out and enjoy life more. Lizzie was fairly sure, though, that this wasn’t what Julieta meant.

  For one night only she’d allowed herself to cut loose. What a fool she’d been for thinking she could work out her frustrations by being so self-indulgent, that she could be irresponsible without repercussions and consequences. It was totally out of character.

  But sometimes she felt as though she was the one who took on all the heavy lifting in the family, was the rock for all her brothers and sisters when they went through stuff. She was tired of being Lizzie who never made mistakes, Lizzie who did everything right. Lizzie, Brock Baron’s firstborn.

  Yeah, Jacob was pretty much the same age as she was, but he was her stepbrother. Lizzie was the oldest and her brother Jet was the baby. Sometimes she wished they were reversed in the birth order, because Brock wouldn’t give up the idea that Jet would take over Baron Energies one day. Problem was Jet wasn’t remotely interested.

  Lizzie, on the other hand, had missed out on her fun years because she had been too busy getting her education and stepping into a role at the family company. She was supposed to set an example.

  It was a lot of pressure.

  Lizzie sighed and shut the car door, feeling the heat of the sun soak through her tailored jacket. What she really needed was a coffee. A nice, big, strong coffee with two sugars and real cream. Sadly, since the moment the test was positive, she’d given up the caffeine and cut back on the sugar. The result had been three days of caffeine withdrawal headache and irritability.

  And through it all one thought had stuck in her brain. Lizzie needed to talk to him. The baby’s father.

  There was no question about that. Christopher Miller deserved to know the truth and deserved to hear it from her—not from anyone else. What if the media got a hold of the story? They’d been quick to report the lost contract in the biz pages, and she already felt extra scrutiny from all sides as she sat at the boardroom table. Only thirty and vice president of a major energy corporation—not to mention being the boss’s daughter. The old boys’ club was just waiting for her to screw up.

  Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to be able to hide her condition forever. She was already almost eight weeks along. Another couple months and she’d be showing. It would be far better to do damage control right now and get on with things.

  She looked up at the attractive stucco condos and wished there was a way to make this look like less of a disaster. But no matter how she spun it, the bald truth remained. She’d been stupid. Impulsive. She’d let the family down—especially her dad. She knew how it would look to the shareholders and the press.

  Mark Baker, Baron’s CFO, would practically be crowing about it. He was dying to get his chance to be in the driver’s seat at Baron, urging Brock to retire. It burned her biscuits that he might have any leverage on her, the pompous jerk.

  Her headache was starting to come back, so she made her way over to one of the low stone walls by the building where there was some shade under a sycamore tree. All she had to do was remember her plan. Plans were good. Plans were soothing. Plans gave the illusion of control in the midst of chaos.

  She gathered herself together and walked purposefully to the front door of the building, stepping into a blessedly cool air-conditioned foyer. The second set of doors was locked for security, so she scanned the panel of residents for his name. There it was—C. Miller, unit 406. She pressed the buzzer and waited.

  As the seconds ticked past, she looked around. The complex was quite nice. The buildings were well kept, the grass cut neatly and urns of flowering plants flanked the entrance. It was definitely not what she’d expected from the dusty bronc rider she’d met two months ago. He wasn’t that high up in the standings, either, so how on earth did he afford this place? Momentarily she wondered if she’d gotten the wrong Christopher Miller. What if she’d come all this way for nothing?

  There was a click and then a voice. “Hello?”

  Something stirred inside her at the sound of his voice. It was just one word but it was familiar—the low grit of it skimming over her nerve endings. She swallowed. “Uh...hi. I’m looking for Christopher Miller?”

  “That’s me.”

  “It’s...uh...” She scrambled to think of what she’d said to him that night. How much she’d revealed. Plans, she reminded herself. Just stick to the script. “It’s Elizabeth.”

  There was a pause.

  “From the bar in Fort Worth.”

  The words came out strained.

  “Come on up. Elevator’s through the doors and to the left.”

  There was a click—and a buzzing sound as he let her in.

  She pulled open the door and stepped inside. The tiled floor of the lobby gleamed as if freshly waxed and potted trees were spaced throughout the small area. There was a small table flanked by two chairs to the right, adding a homey yet classy touch. An elevator waited and she pushed the up arrow button. Seconds later the door opened and she stepped inside the car.

  She could do this. She could see him and speak to him in a businesslike way and explain what she intended to do. She didn’t need anything from him. Didn’t want anything from him. He was completely and utterly off the hook.

  The doors slid open at the fourth floor and she ran her hands down her skirt and then over her hair, making sure the knot at the back was smooth and neat. Stepping out, she started down the hallway. Number 401 was on the left, 402 on the right. Two more doors to go. She would knock. Smile. Begin with “you must be surprised to see me...”

  A door opened and Christopher stepped into the hall. Her feet halted and she stared at him awkwardly, her practiced words flying out of her head. She’d definitely gotten the right guy. Around six feet, with dark hair that curled around his collar and gorgeous chocolaty eyes that crinkled in the corners. He wore jeans and a T-shirt but was in his bare feet, and his hair was glistening, as though he’d recently got out of the shower. Oh boy.

  He was staring at her, too, like she was a stranger. “It really is you,” he said
, shaking his head a little. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  * * *

  FOR WEEKS, CHRIS had been wondering if he should try to find out who she was. She’d only said her name was Elizabeth. They’d met at a honky-tonk in Fort Worth after a less-than-stellar rodeo performance on his part. She’d been sitting at the bar, sipping a beer right from the bottle. His first impression had been surprise. Despite wearing jeans and boots and a T-shirt, there was a look of class about her. She looked more the wine-and-cheese type rather than beer and chips.

  He’d had a good first round that weekend, but then he’d drawn Devil’s Spawn. The horse was aptly named, it turned out, because Chris had been launched into the stratosphere in the second round after 4.6 seconds. He’d missed out on the money. No buckle bunnies had followed him to the bar and that had been just fine with him. He’d figured he’d nurse his wounds with a beer and head back to the motel where he was staying. Take a hot bath to soothe his sore muscles.

  And then he’d seen her. He’d ordered another beer, looked over at her and she’d smiled, a soft little smile, and all his brain cells turned to mush.

  When he’d woken the next morning, the bed had been empty. The only evidence that she’d been there was the earring she’d left behind. How very cliché.

  That had been nearly two months ago. Since then he’d done better, hitting the finals in a few rodeos, bringing in a little cash to help cover his expenses. It wasn’t like this was his livelihood or anything. He was only on a leave of absence from his regular job. A job which had suddenly felt very claustrophobic after years of long hours. He missed the outdoors, missed the horses and the thrill. Missed having fun.

  This leave of absence was his one last chance. Not that he expected to earn any titles. He’d been out too long and he was getting older. Another few years and he wouldn’t be quite so resilient. If he were going to relive his youth one last time, it had to be now...before he lost his nerve. So he’d have no regrets. One last chance to live the life he wanted rather than the one that was expected of him.