Page 28 of A Texas Hero

“You need a baby. When are you and Noah going to get busy and give me a little niece or nephew?”

“Pretty soon, I think.” Twyla smiled and moved with her phone into the kitchen.

There was Noah, his back to the video, cooking something on the stove. Sigh. To have a man cooking dinner for her. And here Zoey sat, eating popcorn because Archer had insisted he wasn’t hungry.

“What’s for dinner?” Zoey asked.

“It smells delish,” Twyla said, pointing the camera to Noah.

He turned and flashed his dimpled smile. “Tuscan salmon with penne pasta.”

Damn, did he have to be cooking Italian tonight? She thought of Archer again and how amazing he’d looked in that leather jacket. Dark and sexy. Brooding. Like an expensive cologne commercial.

“Same me some leftovers.”

She hung up with Twyla, and loneliness settled in her bones. She’d always pictured a life with a husband, a couple of children. It wasn’t supposed to be taking this long. Dating wasn’t actually the problem; Twyla used to joke about how easy it was for Zoey to get a boyfriend. She’d signed up for kickboxing classes once and started dating the instructor.

The issue of finding a good man, however, was entirely different. Every single time she got close, something went wrong. Either he had a fear of commitment, a lack of ambition, a reluctance to have children, or his idolizing of her father got to be too much. Zoey always saw this last one as a big red flag.

Zoey didn’t believe in settling. That attitude was probably why she was thirty and still single, but there was no way her mother would be proud if Zoey accepted less than everything she deserved.

Chapter Eleven

The next morning, Zoey checked on her chilled pumpkin bars. After refrigerating overnight, they were perfect. She’d felt notably better the prior evening after taking out her sorrows baking. Something about measuring ingredients, mixing and taste testing soothed her soul. The exacting nature of baking left nothing to the imagination and seemed to be the only way Zoey could cook. When it came to food, she wasn’t terribly creative. Give her fashion and makeup any day of the week, but cooking remained a challenge.

Last night, in the middle of mixing batter, Zoey came to a decision: she had to know if Archer would be interested in her, if not for their unique situation. She didn’t believe that every man could possibly be attracted to her, even if she didn’t downplay her looks. Looks were important to some men—the wrong kind of men. Last night, she’d devised a plan.

Her phone pinged and she picked it up from the kitchen counter. There was no caller ID.

Did you get my flowers?

How was it Scott again? She’d blocked him. Had she screwed that up somehow? She wasn’t the techiest person. Then she noticed it was a different number. He had a new phone, or a burner. Had it come to this? Using burners? Didn’t only drug dealers use those?

Yes, got them, and while that was nice of you, it wasn’t necessary.

At least you had something to give the nurses at the hospital.

Zoey sucked in a breath. Had he seen her going to the hospital? Had he been there too? For the first time since this all started, Zoey felt a pulse of alarm sweep through her.

Are you following me?!!

Don’t be crazy. I know you go there almost every Monday. Did you actually give them to the nurses?

He inserted an eye roll emoji. Of course, he knew that she went to the hospital regularly. They’d dated so he knew her schedule. Wait: He knew her schedule. But no, her father was wrong. A bodyguard was overkill. She simply had to stop engaging with Scott, as Archer had suggested.

Archer waltzed in from the patio, aviator shades on, moving like a panther.

“We need to talk. Why was the alarm disarmed when I woke up this morning?”

“Well, good morning to you, too, Archer!” Zoey met him halfway. “The gardener is coming this morning and I disarm it so it doesn’t accidentally go off and send the cops over.”

“No.”

“No, I didn’t disarm it? Or no, my gardener isn’t coming?”

He lowered his shades. “No, do not ever disarm the alarm again. You can only do that when there are no threats.”

“And when would that be? When there’s peace on Earth?” Zoey put a hand on her hip.