A Texas-Sized Secret (Texas Cattleman's Club: Blackmail 6)

“Plus,” Cecelia added, “we’re all pregnant at the same time. Our kids can grow up friends.”

“I’m more pregnant,” Simone pointed out. “There’s three in here.” She patted her slightly rounded tummy. “Remember?”

Cecelia laughed. “You always were a show-off.”

Naomi smiled, too, because it was so easy to be with these women. They’d been a trio for so long she couldn’t even imagine her life without them in it. She had great friends. Cecelia, Simone—and Toby.

Bottom line, worries and all, it came down to the fact that she was marrying her best friend. How bad could it be?

“Is it time for a break?” Cecelia asked from the bed. “Come on, let’s let the new fiancé finish this up when he gets here.”

“Cec,” Simone said, “if you’d pack as much as you talk, we’d be finished by now.”

“Talking’s more fun,” Cecelia said, but she dutifully pushed herself off the bed, walked to the closet and dragged Naomi’s garment bag down off the high shelf. “Fine. I’ll get as much of her stuff into this thing as I can. But there’s no way we’ll get all your clothes in one trip, Naomi.”

“I know.” Her condo was small, but the closets were huge. It was really what had sold her on the place. “You know what?” she said, making up her mind on the spot. “Cec, do what you can with that bag. Simone, when we fill up this box, we’re stopping. That’s it. I’ve got enough to live on, and it’s not like I’m moving to the moon. Toby and I can come back to get the rest another time.”

“Deal. I feel ice cream coming on,” Cecelia said from the depths of the closet.

Simone sighed. “Ice cream. I love ice cream. And I’m going to be much bigger than you guys will be, so I shouldn’t have any. But I’m weak.”

“You’re safe, then,” Naomi told her with a shrug. “I don’t have ice cream in the house.” In fact, she didn’t have anything fattening in the condo. She’d never seen the point in testing her own willpower.

“Oh, that’s just wrong.” Cecelia came out of the closet, laid the garment bag on the bed, then picked up her purse. “I’m going up to the store for ice cream and maybe cookies. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

When she was gone, Simone said, “Thank goodness for Cec. I really do want ice cream now.”

Naomi laughed. “I guess we do have to have some priorities, huh?”

“Ice cream is top of the list,” Simone said. Then she hooked one arm around Naomi’s shoulders. “I know what you’re thinking. Everything’s changing.”

“Yeah,” Naomi agreed, wrapping one arm around her friend’s waist, “that’s it exactly.”

“I was feeling the same way just a few weeks ago, but then I remembered the most important thing.”

“What’s that?” Naomi asked.

“Change can be good, too.”

“You’re right,” Naomi said and looked around the room again.

This condo had been perfect for her once. When she was single, with nothing more to think about than the career she was trying to forge. But the condo wasn’t who she was anymore.

It was time to figure out who she was becoming.

* * *

“We can’t sleep in the same bed.”

Later that night, Naomi was at Paradise Ranch, staring up at Toby in stunned surprise. Sure, they had a no-sex agreement, but look at him.

He took a breath and blew it out again in obvious exasperation. “Naomi, you know I’ve got a housekeeper. If Rebecca sees we’re not staying in the same room, how long do you figure it’ll be before the rest of Royal knows it?”

“But—” She looked at the gigantic bed against the far wall of Toby’s bedroom and shook her head. Sure, it was big enough for four or five people, but was it big enough for the two of them?

The room was cavernous, just right for the master of the house. There was a black granite fireplace tall enough for Naomi to stand up in, with two chairs and a table sitting in front of the now cold hearth. Along one wall were bookcases stuffed with hard-and soft-backed books, family pictures, and framed patents Toby had received for his many inventions. Across from the bed, a gigantic flat-screen TV hung on the wall, and French doors on the far wall led out to a wide wooden balcony that overlooked the fields behind the house and the really spectacular pool.

But her gaze kept sliding back to that bed. A massive four-poster, with heavy head-and footboards, the mattress was covered in a dark red quilt that looked as if it had been hand stitched. Toby’s mother, Joyce, was a quilting fiend, so she was probably behind that. And there was a small mountain of pillows propped against that headboard, practically begging a person to climb up and sink in.