Page 27 of Pregnant by the Texan
They parted and Stella drove to town hall, trying to focus on work there and stop thinking about Aaron.
It was seven when she went down to meet Aaron in the Cozy Inn dining room, which had gotten to be a daily occurrence. She thought about how much she looked forward to being with him as she glanced once more at her reflection in the mirror in the elevator. Her hair was in a neat bun, every hair in place. She wore a thick pale yellow sweater and dark brown slacks with her practical shoes. The night air was chilly, although it was warm in the inn.
She stepped off the elevator and saw him only a few yards away.
Tonight he was in slacks, a thick navy sweater and Western boots. He looked sexy and appealing and she hoped he asked her to dance.
“You’re not in your usual spot tonight. I thought maybe you decided not to come,” she said.
“Never. And if something ever does interfere with my meeting you when I said I would, believe me I’ll call and let you know unless I’ve been knocked unconscious.”
She laughed. “I hope not. I had a productive day, did you?”
“Oh, yes, I did. Let’s get a table and I’ll tell you all about it, because a lot of it concerns you. I’ll bet they were pleased at town hall with the checks you got yesterday.”
“Oh, my, yes. We have three families that are in a desperate situation and need money for a place to stay. Then some of it will go to buy more supplies where needed. Do you want me to keep going down the list?”
“No need.” He paused to talk to the maître d’, who led them to a table near the fireplace. Mesquite logs had been tossed in with the other logs and the pungent smell was inviting.
Stella ordered ice water again. When they were alone, she smiled at him. “I saw Paige Richardson today. She agreed to cochair my Christmas-drive committee.”
“You didn’t waste time getting that going.”
“No, we need to as soon as possible. Actually, I kept $2,000 of the check from Lubbock to open a fund at the bank for the Christmas drive. She is recruiting some more members for the committee and I have Megan’s and Julie’s help.”
“I talked to Cole about it and then we talked to Gil Addison and Nathan Battle and the TCC is willing to tie the Christmas drive in with their Christmas festival. They’ll invite all the families and children to receive their gifts during the festival.”
“That’s wonderful, Aaron. Thank you. Paige was going to contact Amanda Battle and see if she will be on our committee.”
“That’s a good person to contact. So you’re off to a roaring start there.”
“Now tell me more about the Dallas trip.”
“Here comes our waiter and then we’ll talk.”
They ordered and she waited expectantly. “Next week you have one little fifteen-minute spot on the noon news in Fort Worth. This will be your chance to kick off the Christmas drive and maybe get some donations for it.”
“I’m looking forward to getting news out about the Christmas drive.”
“Good. That night I have the oil and gas executives lined up. We will meet them for dinner and you can talk to them about the storm and what people need. I know you’ll reach them emotionally because you have so many touching stories.”
“Thank you. I’ll be happy to do all of these things but I still say I wasn’t meant to be a fund-raiser,” she said, suspecting she wasn’t changing his mind at all.
“You’ll be great. You’ll be fine. You’ve been doing this sort of thing since the storm. I’ve seen your interviews. I even taped one. You’re a natural.”
“Aaron, every cell in your body is filled with self-assurance. You can’t possibly understand having butterflies or qualms.”
“I have to admit, I’m not burdened with being afraid to talk to others about subjects I know.”
Smiling, she shook her head. “I don’t know everything about my subject.”
“You know as much as anybody else in Royal and more about the storm than about ninety-eight percent of the population. You went through it, for heaven’s sake. You were at town hall. You were there for all the nightmarish first hours after the storm and you’ve been there constantly ever since. I heard you crawled under debris and rescued someone. Is that right?”
“Yes. I could hear the cries. She was under a big slab of concrete that was held up by rubble. Not fun, but we got her out. It was a twenty-year-old woman.”
“That’s impressive,” he said, studying her as if he hadn’t ever seen her before. “If you did that, you can talk to people in an interview. After we eat let’s go up to your room or mine and go over ways you can handle the interview.”
When their tossed green salads came, Aaron continued to talk. She realized he was giving her good advice on things to do and she soaked up every word, feeling she would do better the next appearance she made.
