hoping to do, even though every logical bone in her body had told her doing so would be selfish and irresponsible.
She already loved this baby. Even though it was too early to tell the baby’s sex, Kate’s gut told her the baby was a girl. Kate’s gut had been pretty vocal lately. Every instinct she had demanded her baby girl would want for nothing. So Kate had spent the past three months following to the letter the advice not only of her doctor but also every pregnancy book she could get her hands on. By golly, this was going to be the happiest, healthiest baby ever born. And if she had anything to say about it, this baby would have the best of everything.
That included the best parents. Kate knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Beth would be a much better mother than she would be.
She saw the evidence all the time in her family-law courtroom. Some women—like Beth—were born to be mothers. Others just weren’t. In her professional opinion, Kate knew she fell into the latter group.
Suddenly angry with herself for dwelling on the issue for so long, she shoved the files she’d been reviewing into her briefcase and headed for the door. The brisk walk to her car made her feel no less grumpy. When she reached the parking lot to find him leaning against her Volvo, her mood plummeted even further.
She’d never quite been able to pin down what it was, but something about Jake Morgan just rubbed her the wrong way. It wasn’t only his confident charm—a trait she’d learned long ago to neither like nor trust in men. Maybe it was that slow, sensual gaze of his that seemed to undress a woman and make love to her all at once. Or maybe it was just the pure testosterone that emanated from him in waves. He was just too much. Too masculine. Too charming. And entirely too smug.
Not to mention too in her way.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she approached her car.
His long legs were crossed at the ankles. The faded denim of his jeans stretched taut across his thighs. His only defense against the unusually cold May evening was a long-sleeve flannel shirt worn unbuttoned over his T-shirt. With the sleeves rolled up, no less.
Typical. Probably thought he was too manly to need a coat. Or maybe he knew how good he looked and didn’t want to ruin the effect.
She pulled her keys from her coat pocket and used the remote to pop the locks. With a shrug of his muscular shoulders, he pushed himself away from her car.
“I came to see you.”
“I assumed as much.” She opened the rear door and slid her briefcase onto the seat. She made no move to climb into the car herself. He was standing too close to the driver’s door for her to comfortably edge past him. “You always lurk in parking lots by women’s cars? That could be construed as stalking.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “And here you always pretend not to have a sense of humor.”
Even though she had been joking, his insinuation annoyed her. So she said, “I don’t joke about that kind of thing.”
“No, of course not.” He faked a serious frown, but his twitching lips gave him away. “By the time I got here, the building was closed for the night.”
“The guards usually leave at 5:30.”
He nodded. “I figured as much. But this was my only free evening this week and I think we need to talk.”
“Why?”
This time he chuckled. “Don’t look so suspicious. I just want to talk about the situation with Beth and Stew.”
“So talk.”
“You really want to discuss this in the parking lot? We’re just a block away from the restaurants on the square. Besides, it’s too cold.”
The thought of sharing a meal with Jake sent a shiver of apprehension through her. Georgetown, once a sleepy college town, had grown as the sprawl from Austin crept up IH 35. Like many small Texas towns overtaken by suburbia, Georgetown struggled to maintain its own identity. The historic town square, situated around the Williamson County Courthouse, with its collection of locally owned stores and restaurants was one of the ways Georgetown distinguished itself from larger, more liberal Austin.
While food sounded good to Kate, the romantic atmosphere of one of the local restaurants did not. Dinner was entirely too intimate. Too datelike. She sniffed dismissively. “Then you should have worn a coat.”
“I meant for you. You’re shivering already.”
He was right, of course. Ever since the pregnancy, she’d been unusually cold. Which, for some reason, she didn’t want to explain to him. Talking about pregnancy symptoms seemed even more intimate than dinner.
Suddenly she was aware how intimate their relationship already was. The bond they shared was so much deeper than just the sexual bond that usually accompanied intimacy. They’d created a life together.
A part of Jake was in her.
The thought unnerved her, so she fisted her hands on her lapels and pulled her jacket more closely around her body. She didn’t want to eat dinner with him. Didn’t want to do anything with him. Yet there probably were things they should talk about.
“Okay, then. Dinner it is.”
Fifteen minutes later she found herself opposite him in a booth at one of the restaurants on the square, a mug of hot tea in front of her, a bowl of tortilla soup and a plate of cheese enchiladas on the way.
As she sipped her tea, she studied him over the rim of her mug. He sat in the middle of the bench with one arm stretched across the back, making his shoulders appear even wider so that he seemed to take up the entire booth.
Jake was so different from all the other men she knew. Men with manicured hands and suit jackets custom-made to make their shoulders appear wider than they were. Her gaze drifted down to Jake’s hand where it rested, palm down on the Formica beside his beer. His hands were big, muscular even, with long tapered fingers that ended in clean but unmanicured nails. They were unquestionably masculine. Tough, almost.
Had she ever noticed a man’s nails before? She didn’t think so. There was something oddly personal about looking at Jake’s hands. Warmth swirled through her body, pooling somewhere deep inside of her. Where she carried his baby.
She jerked her gaze back to his, cursing the blush she could feel on her cheeks. His eyes were practically gleaming with amusement. As if he could read her thoughts and knew just how unsettled he made her feel.
A scowl settled on her face and she sat up straighter. “Don’t—”
“Let me stop you right there,” he interrupted. “We both know you don’t like me.”
“I don’t know you well enough to like you or not,” she protested.
“Okay, don’t approve of me.”
Well, she couldn’t really argue with that. They’d only met on a handful of occasions and she’d never been able to relax around him. She saw right through his laidback charm to the testosterone-fueled masculinity beneath. It was less that she didn’t approve of him and more that she simply didn’t know what to do with him. Which made her very nervous. She also couldn’t
