A Texas-Sized Secret. Maureen Child

mouth worked as if he wanted to say plenty but wasn’t letting the words out. She appreciated the effort. He couldn’t say anything about Gio that she hadn’t been feeling anyway.

      When she told Toby about the baby, he’d instantly proven to be a much better man than the one she’d slept with. Toby offered to help any way he could, which was just one of the things she loved most about him. He didn’t judge. He was just there. Like the mountains. Or the ancient oaks surrounding his ranch house. He was sturdy. And dependable. And everything she’d never known in her life until him. Now she needed him more than ever.

      The Prices lived in Pine Valley, an exclusive, gated golf course community where the mansions sat on huge lots behind tidy lawns where weeds didn’t dare appear and “doing lunch” was considered a career. At least, that was how Naomi had always seen it. Growing up there hadn’t been easy, again because her parents never seemed to know what to do with her. Maybe if she’d had a sibling to help her through, it might have been different. But alone, Naomi had always felt...unworthy, somehow.

      Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Toby stopped at the gate. When he lowered the window to speak to the guard, a wave of early-summer heat invaded the truck cab.

      “Who’re you here to see?” the older man holding a clipboard asked.

      Naomi knew that voice, so she leaned forward and smiled. “Hello, Stan. We’re just coming in to see my parents.”

      “Naomi, it’s good to see you.” The man smiled, hit a button on the inside of his guard hut, and the high, wide gate instantly began to roll clear. “Your folks are at home. Bet they’ll be happy to see you.”

      He waved them through, and she sat back. “Happy to see me? I don’t think so.”

      Toby, still holding her hand, gave it a hard squeeze. She held on tightly, even when he would have released her. Because right now she needed his support—his friendship—more than ever.

      The streets were beautiful, with big homes, most of them tucked behind shrubbery-lined fences. Even in a gated community, some of the very wealthy seemed to want their own personal security as well. Of course, not everyone’s home was hidden away behind a wall of trees, hedges or stone. The palatial homes were all different, all custom designed and built. And the closer Toby’s truck drew to the Price mansion, the more Naomi felt the swarms of butterflies soaring and diving in the pit of her stomach.

      God, she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt at ease with her parents. It had always seemed as though she was putting on a production, playing the part of the perfect daughter. Only she never quite measured up. She wished things were different, but if wishes came true, she wouldn’t be here in the first place, would she?

      The driveway to her parents’ house was long and curved, the better to display the banks of flowers tended with loving care by a squad of gardeners. The sweep of lawn was green and neatly trimmed, and trees were kept trained into balls on branches that looked as though they were trying to remember how to be real trees. The house itself was showy but tasteful, as her parents would accept nothing less—it was a blend of Cape Cod and Victorian. Pale gray with white trim and black shutters, it stood as graceful as a dancer in the center of the massive lot. The front door was white without a speck of dust to mar its surface. The windows gleamed in the sunlight and displayed curtains within, all drawn to exactly the same point.

      It was like looking at a picture in an architectural magazine. Something staged, where no one really lived. And of course, she told herself silently, no one did. Instead of living, her parents existed on a stage where everyone knew their lines and no one ever strayed from the script. Well, except for Naomi.

      Naomi herself had been the one time anything unexpected had happened in her parents’ lives. She was, she knew, an “accident.” A late-in-life baby who had caused them nothing but embarrassment at first, followed by years of disappointment. Her mother had been horrified to find herself pregnant at the age of forty-five and had endured the unwelcome pregnancy because to do otherwise would have been unthinkable for her. They raised her with care if not actual love and expected her not to make any further ripples in their life.

      But Naomi had always caused ripples. Sometimes waves.

      And today was going to be a tsunami.

      “You’re getting quiet,” Toby said with a flicker of a smile. “Never a good sign.”

      She had to smile back. “Too much to think about.”

      She stared at the closed front door and dreaded having to knock on it. Of course she would knock. And be announced by Matilda, the housekeeper who’d worked for her parents for twenty years. People didn’t simply walk into her parents’ house.

      And her mind was going off on tangents because she didn’t want to think about her real reason for being here.

      “You’ve already made the hard decision,” Toby pointed out. “You decided to keep the baby.”

      She had. Not that she cared at all about the baby’s father, Naomi thought. But the baby was real to her. A person. Her child. How could she end the pregnancy? “I couldn’t do anything else.”

      He reached out and took her hand for a quick squeeze. “I know. And I’ll help however I can.”

      “I know you will,” she said, holding on to his hand as she would a lifeline.

      “You know,” he said slowly, his deep voice rumbling through the truck cab, “there’s no reason for you to be so worked up. You might want to consider that you’re nearly thirty—”

      “Hey!” She frowned at him. “I’m twenty-nine.”

      “My mistake,” he said, mouth quirking, eyes shining. “But the point is, you’ve been on your own since college, Naomi. You don’t have to explain your life to your parents.”

      “Easy for you to say,” she countered. “Your mom and sister are your own personal cheering squad.”

      “True,” he said, nodding. “But, Naomi, sooner or later, you’ve got to take a stand and, instead of apologizing to your folks, just tell them what’s what.”

      It sounded perfectly reasonable. And she knew he was right. But it didn’t make the thought of actually doing it any easier to take. She dropped one hand to the slight mound of her belly and gave the child within a comforting pat. If there was ever a time to stand up to her parents, it was now. She was going to be a mother herself, for God’s sake.

      “You’re right.” She gave his hand another squeeze, then let go to release her seat belt. “I’m going to tell them about the baby and that the father isn’t in the picture and I’ll be a single mother and—” She stopped. “Oh, God.”

      He chuckled. “For a second there, you were raring to go.”

      “I still am,” she insisted, in spite of, or maybe because of, the flurries of butterflies in her stomach. “Let’s just go get it over with, okay?”

      “And after, we’ll hit the diner for lunch.”

      “Sounds like a plan,” she said.

       Two

      Naomi took a deep breath in what she knew was a futile attempt to relax a little. There would be no relaxation until this meeting with her parents was over.

      Toby came around the front of the truck, opened her door and waited for her to step down before asking, “You ready?”

      “No. Yes. I don’t know.” Naomi shook her head, tugged at the hem of her cool green shirt as if she could somehow further disguise the still-tiny bump of her baby, then smoothed nervous hands along her hips. “Do I look all right?”

      He tipped his head to one side, studied her, then smiled. “You look like you always do. Beautiful.”

      She