The Durango Affair - Brenda Jackson [25]
“Don’t. There’s nothing to apologize for. I’m glad I was here.”
She hated to admit it, but she was glad he’d been there, too. Although she had gone through the same ordeal alone countless times, it had felt good to have a shoulder to lean on. And it had been extremely nice knowing that that particular shoulder belonged to the man who had a vested interest in her condition.
She also didn’t want to admit that she was fully aware of how handsome he looked this morning. Though to be honest, he always looked good in jeans and the Western shirts he liked to wear. Deciding she needed to think about other things, she walked over to the window and glanced out. She noticed the weather was still stormy. “Will you have to go out today?”
He moved to stand beside her and glanced out the window, as well. “Maybe later. The reports indicate the weather will begin clearing up soon.”
“It will?” she asked, surprised, turning to face him.
“Yes.”
She smiled brightly. “That means there’s a possibility I’ll be able to leave today.”
“Yes, there is that possibility,” he said. “I know you can’t eat a heavy breakfast but is there something I can get for you that might agree with your stomach?”
“Um, a couple of saltines and a cup of herbal tea might work.”
“Then saltines and herbal tea it is,” he said, turning and walking toward the kitchen.
“And Durango?”
He turned back to her. “Yes?”
With her heart pounding she said, “I’ve made a decision about your proposal. I think we should talk about it.”
He nodded. “All right. We can sit and talk at the kitchen table if you’d like.”
“Okay,” she said, and followed him into the kitchen.
“So, what have you decided?”
Savannah lifted her head from studying the saltines on the plate in front of her. She had thought things through most of the night but his actions that morning had only solidified her decision.
She set down her cup of tea and met his gaze. “I’m going to take you up on your offer and marry you.”
She watched as he sat back in the chair and looked at her with something akin to relief. “But I’d like to explain the reasons for my decision and why I still won’t sleep with you,” she added.
“All right.”
She paused after taking another sip of her tea, and then said, “I think I told you I didn’t want to get married just because I was pregnant.”
He nodded. “Because of that ordeal with your father, right?”
“Yes.”
“How did your parents meet?”
“In college. When Mom showed up at her parents’ house with my father over spring break in her senior year of college and announced that she planned to marry him after she graduated and that she was pregnant, my grandparents hit the roof. You see, my maternal grandparents never approved of interracial romances, so they weren’t too happy about my parents’ relationship.”
“I can imagine they weren’t.”
“Those were certainly not the future plans that Roger and Melissa Billingslea had for their daughter. But nothing would change my mother’s mind. She thought Jeff Claiborne was the best thing since raisin bread and when they couldn’t convince her that he wasn’t, my grandparents threatened to disown my mother.”
“Did that work?”
“No. Mom and Dad were married a few months later. According to Mom things were great at first, but then he lost his job with this big corporation and had to take a job as a traveling salesman. That’s when things started going downhill. Dad began changing. However, it took almost fifteen years for her to find out that he’d been living a double life and that he had a mistress as well as another daughter living out west.”
Durango took a sip of coffee. Chase had pretty much told him the story one night over a can of beer.
“It wasn’t easy for me and Rico growing up,” she said, reclaiming his attention. “Some people view children from mixed marriages as if they are from another planet. But with Mom’s help we got past all of that, and eventually my grandparents came around. And it didn’t take long for them to try to take over our lives. My grandmother even paid for me to go to an