“I will,” he conceded, seating himself at the table.
When his gaze clashed with hers, he watched Arielle slowly put her fork on the edge of her plate, her expression guarded. “Tell me what?”
“We probably won’t be going back to Dallas before the middle of next week at the earliest.”
She didn’t look as if she believed him. “You’re joking, right?”
“I’ll let you kids work this out,” Mattie remarked, quickly removing her jacket from a peg by the door. “I’m goin’ home before all hell breaks loose.”
He heard the back door close as he and Arielle sat, staring at each other over the table. “When it rains like this, the Elm Fork of the Trinity River backs up into the tributaries and the creek between here and the main road floods out,” he described. “You were asleep when we drove over the bridge, but we barely made it across. By now I’m sure it and the road are under several feet of water.”
“In other words, you’re telling me we’re trapped?” She made it sound more like an accusation than a question.
“You could look at it as being on a minivacation,” he suggested, turning his attention to his own plate.
“But I have things at school to take care of and an important appointment to keep.”
He nodded. “I’ve got things I need to do, too. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t drive you back to Dallas until the water recedes.”
Arielle’s ravenous appetite suddenly disappeared. “Isn’t there another road that’s not flooded?”
“Not really.” He shifted in his seat. “The way the creek winds around, it makes this part of the ranch a peninsula. Then, when rains are heavy, like now, the dry wash cutting through the middle of the property floods and this section becomes an island.”
“That’s kind of poor planning, don’t you think?” she asked, raising one perfectly shaped eyebrow.
Laughing, he shrugged. “I suppose it seems that way now, but when my great-great-grandfather settled here over a hundred years ago, it wasn’t. Back then, a natural water source was essential to a ranch’s survival. Besides, we’re two miles from the creek and there’s a couple hundred acres between here and the dry wash. Not exactly a threat of being flooded out here on higher ground.”
“But you knew this would happen and you still insisted on bringing me here?” If the heightened color on her face was any indication, Arielle was more than a little upset with him. “Why, Zach? Why did you do that when you knew full well how much I wanted to go home?”
“You were ill and needed someone to watch over you,” he noted, stating what he saw to be obvious. “And since you don’t have family close by, I was the only available choice.”
She shook her head. “You’re unbelievable. If I had been sick and did need someone to care for me, it would have made more sense to take me to my apartment. It was closer to the school and at least in the city, there are doctors and hospitals close by. And none of this was necessary because I’m not ill.”
Truthfully, he wasn’t entirely certain why he’d brought her to the ranch. Maybe it had been a way to make things up to her for leaving her in Aspen without so much as a simple goodbye. But whatever the reason, when he’d seen she was in need, he just hadn’t been able to walk away.
“If you weren’t sick, then why did you look like you were at death’s door?” he observed, his own irritation beginning to rise. “And why did we have to stop on the way here for you to throw up?”
He watched her take a deep breath, then, as if coming to a decision, meet his questioning gaze head-on. “Do you know why I get sick if I don’t eat? Or when I do eat, why I put food away like a starving lumberjack?”
The back of his neck began to tingle the longer they stared at each other. He had a feeling he was about to learn something that he wasn’t prepared to hear and might not like.
“No.”
“Because that’s what happens to some women when they become pregnant,” she said defiantly.
Silence reigned while he tried to process what she’d said. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Just how far along are you?” he prompted, his heart beginning to thump inside his chest like an out-of-control jackhammer.
Her gaze never wavered from his when she answered. “Three and a half months.”
He immediately glanced at the front of the sweatshirt she wore, but it was big on her and a little too early to notice any telltale thickening of her stomach. Unable to sit still, Zach rose to his feet and began to pace the length of the kitchen. It didn’t take a math degree to figure out that the baby she was carrying was most likely his.
“And before you ask, yes, I’m pregnant with your baby,” she stated, confirming his suspicions.
His stomach twisted into a painful knot as he recalled another time a woman was carrying his child. “We used protection.”
“Yes, but one of the condoms broke,” she reminded him.
He’d figured the chances of making her pregnant from that one time had to be fairly remote. Apparently he’d been wrong.
Nodding, he rubbed the tension building at the back of his neck. “I remember. But why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Her desire to be left alone to deal with the flooded-out car and her refusal to take off her bulky raincoat suddenly made perfect sense. She’d been trying to hide the pregnancy from him. With his jaw clenched so tight it felt welded shut, he asked, “Didn’t you think I had the right to know?”
He watched her expression turn from defiant to righteously indignant. “Oh, no you don’t, buster.” She stood to face him. “I’m not letting you get away with playing the victim here. You lied to me about who you were. And up until this morning, when you barged into my office and told me your real name, I thought I was having Tom Zacharias’s baby.” She started to walk away, then, turning back, added, “And just for the record, I searched desperately to find a man who didn’t even exist because I thought he needed to know that he was going to be a father.” She swiped away the tears suddenly spilling from her eyes. “When all of my efforts proved useless…you can’t even begin to imagine…how much of a fool I felt or…the emotional pain I went through. So don’t…even go there.”
Zach stood in the middle of the kitchen long after he watched Arielle rush down the hall toward the guest room. Stunned, he had a hard time believing how rapidly his life had changed in the past twelve hours. When he’d gone to the school this morning, he’d had nothing more on his mind than sweet-talking Helen Montrose into going easy on his mischievous nephew, then heading to the office to go over the contracts and blueprints for his newest resort. But along with his discovery that the old gal was no longer in charge at Premier Academy, the only woman he’d been tempted to have a relationship with since his ill-fated engagement had reappeared in his life and was pregnant with his baby.