The Texas Billionaire's Baby by Karen Rose Smith

understanding twisted a knife in his gut.
    “More than anything else, Logan, I want to be friends again.”
    Friends. Could he do that? Could he relegate Gina to that category? Even in friendship, there had to be loyalty. His rational mind told him she’d been young. She’d had a future ahead of her. She’d been afraid to risk believing in them. Yet another part of him wondered about that loyalty and if she’d break it again.
    However, risking friendship was a hell of a lot easier than risking more.
    He had no intention of risking more ever again.
    “I don’t know, Gina. It can’t be forced.”
    Sadness clouded her eyes as if she knew the trust she’d broken with him was going to affect them for the rest of their lives. Still, she forced the clouds away and smiled. “I won’t force anything. That would make us both uncomfortable, but—”
    She looked pensive and uncertain for a few moments. Finally she said, “My family is having a picnic by the lake on Sunday. We’ll probably play softball, eat hamburgers. Would you and Daniel like to come? There will be children for him to play with.” She stopped. “You probably already have plans.”
    He imagined extending this invitation hadn’t beeneasy for her. They still weren’t from the same side of the tracks. Their lifestyles were very different. That didn’t matter to him—but did she feel the same way?
    “What about your parents? They weren’t fans of mine.”
    “My dad respects what you’ve done with your father’s company. And my mother knows we’re not young and naive anymore.”
    He couldn’t keep from touching Gina. He just couldn’t. He held her chin gently and asked, “When did you stop being naive?”
    Something flickered in Gina’s eyes that almost made his breath hitch. For that moment, he thought he glimpsed excruciating pain. But from what? Another breakup? Was that her MO? Love ’em and leave ’em?
    She recovered quickly, all expression dropping from her face.
    She responded, “College was a learning experience for me. I lost my naïveté there.”
    Partial truth? Complete truth? Just when in college had she lost that naïveté? He had the feeling it had to do with a boy and it had to do with sex. That was an old story. But he didn’t press her for more.
    Suddenly emotion flickered in her eyes and he could see she was worried that asking him to the picnic had crossed a line. Maybe it had. Long ago he’d told himself that if she ever came back to Sagebrush, he’d avoid her. So why had he asked her to become involved in the day-care center? Why continue Daniel’s care with her?
    Why continue thinking about her night and day?
    Because Gina was a puzzle to him now, one he wanted to unlock, to understand. Maybe he never would but he had to try. Maybe if he tried and succeeded, some of his own shadows would finally vanish.
    “All right,” he decided. “I’ll come to your picnic. I’m sure Daniel will find it a lot more fun than crawling around his playroom with me. Hannah will be gone for the weekend and it will be just the two of us.”
    “Gone?”
    “She does have a life,” he said with a smile. “She’s made us her family, but she has a son in college as well as a sister and nieces and nephews in the area.”
    “You trust her, don’t you?”
    “Implicitly. She was our housekeeper before everything turned…serious. She was wonderful with Amy and when Daniel came home, she mothered him when he needed it most.”
    Gina’s eyes grew shiny.
    “What are you thinking?” he asked, leaning closer, reaching out and twirling one of her curls around his finger. “Everything’s in your eyes, no matter how you try to hide it.”
    “You’ve had a tough road,” she murmured, her voice catching.
    She was obviously feeling compassion for what he’d gone through and that touched him in a way a woman hadn’t in a long time. Maybe that was why he revealed, “When Amy died, I wanted to—” He halted, then went on. “There’s