The Texan's Surprise Baby (Bell Family 2)

He studied her face as if trying to decide whether those words held deeper meaning. “I’ll see you in the morning before I leave,” he said at length. “And I’ll call you from Dallas.”

She nodded.

“And you’ll think about what I’ve suggested?”

She drew a breath. “We’ll discuss many things when you get back, but you might as well know now that marriage is off the table. That’s not an option.”

“Don’t just reject the idea out of hand. Take some time to think about it.”

“That’s not necessary.” She rose then to fully face him. “I’m not interested in being married again. I was married before for all the wrong reasons, and I’m not going to go through that again.”

A muscle jumped hard in Andrew’s cheek. “You’re comparing me to your ex-husband?”

“Of course not.” She couldn’t blame him for being insulted if he believed that. “You’re nothing like Wade. Not in any way. But I’m still not going to marry just because I got pregnant. I prefer to remain single. As for our daughter, she’ll have two large, loving families who will always put her best interests first. She won’t lack for anything she needs.”

“Hannah—”

She walked past him to open the door. “I really need for you to go now, Andrew. I’m very tired.”

He studied her with narrowed eyes, then nodded. “We’ll talk later.”

She remained silent.

Andrew moved toward the door, pausing directly in front of her. Before she could prepare herself, he reached out to snag the back of her neck and plant a hard kiss on her lips.

“Get some sleep,” he said gruffly when he released her.

As if that would be possible now, she thought as she closed the door behind him and leaned her throbbing forehead against it. She wished there was a pill she could safely take to soothe both her headache and her broken heart.

Chapter Ten

“Andrew, you big dummy.”

In response to Shelby’s disgusted condemnation immediately after he’d answered his phone, Andrew frowned in bewilderment. “What did I do?”

“For a very intelligent man, you can be such a dummy.”

Standing on the rock patio of his parents’ suburban Dallas home Monday evening after dinner, he drew a deep breath of warm night air and held on to his patience with an effort. “Okay, we’ve established that you think I’m a ‘dummy.’ Now, maybe you’d care to explain why?”

“Just how badly did you screw up your proposal to Hannah? You must have really made a mess of it.”

He grimaced. “Hannah told you I proposed?”

“Well, no. I sort of guessed. She wouldn’t even confirm whether you did or didn’t, but you just let me know I was right. And you must have screwed it up big-time.”

Shelby and her uncanny theories. Andrew shook his head, thinking that her family really should take her more seriously, as he and Aaron had learned to do. “Why do you say that?”

“I guessed because of the look on Hannah’s face every time Mimi hints about her marrying you, which hasn’t been as often as I expected, by the way. Someone must have ordered her not to nag, probably Aunt Linda. Anyway, I got the feeling that you did propose and that Hannah turned you down. Probably

because you made a complete mess of it.”

“I didn’t propose,” he almost growled, growing increasingly uncomfortable with her barrage of blame. “Well, not exactly. I just suggested to her that marriage should be an option we consider for the future. With the baby coming and all. I told her it made sense financially and, uh, logistically.”

“Oh, my God.”

Suddenly hearing his own words in his head, he frowned. Surely he hadn’t worded it quite that awkwardly. “It sounds worse now than it did then.”

“It would have to.”