Snowbound in Sweetwater Ranch

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Outside the ballroom, she scrambled to come up with an excuse for not accompanying him to Dorothea’s side. “I need to find the ladies’ room and repair my lipstick.”

  He looked reluctant to have her leave his side. “Will you meet me right back here, then, after I deliver these to Dorothea?”

  She couldn’t think of an excuse not to meet him so she simply nodded, fighting the urge to cross her fingers at the lie.

  As soon as he went inside the ballroom, she hurried to the hotel’s porte cochere, feeling again like Cinderella escaping the ball.

  Unfortunately her pumpkin wasn’t waiting for her. She couldn’t see the Crosby driver Trent had sent for her in the row of limousines lined up outside and was forced to wait while the doorman paged him.

  She wasn’t able to escape so easily. Five moments later, her ride still hadn’t appeared and her heart sank when she spied Peter hurrying through the lobby.

  “You’re leaving?” he asked when he reached her, disbelief and something else that sounded suspiciously like hurt in his voice.

  She cleared her throat. “I was, ah, feeling a little under the weather. I think I had a little too much champagne.” That was at least true enough.

  To her relief, he didn’t question her claim. “Are you waiting for a taxi? My driver is right there. I’ll drop you off.”

  “You can’t want to leave the gala so early.”

  “Can’t I?”

  That sizzling heat was back in his eyes and she couldn’t help feeling tremendously flattered. He would rather drive her home than stay at a benefit for his family’s pet charity.

  “I can’t let you take me home. You have obligations here.”

  “No, I don’t. I told you this year was my brother’s turn. The only obligation I made was to show up and I did that. Now I’m free to leave.”

  She opened her mouth to argue with him just as she spied her driver pulling into the entrance in one of the Crosby Systems’s limousines, complete with the discreet company logo on the side. When Peter saw her climb inside, he would figure out immediately who she was.

  “Okay,” she said quickly and headed toward the Logan limousine he’d gestured to earlier. “Let’s go, then.”

  He followed her, looking a little disconcerted at her rapid about-face. He opened the door for her and she slid inside.

  And sealed her fate.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  What time was it? Katie had no idea since she had unplugged her alarm clock to conserve power and her watch was somewhere jammed into her suitcase, but she assumed it was long after midnight.

  The storm still raged outside, hurling snow at the windows and moaning under the eaves. The room was cool and she realized while she’d been lost in the past, she had let the fire burn down to embers.

  She rose from the bed and threw another log on the glowing cinders, then stood in front of the fireplace watching the flames leap to consume new fuel with fierce, enthusiastic crackles.

  Her hand went to her abdomen, to the tiny life she had only learned was growing there a few days before but already loved so dearly.

  Oh, Katie, she thought with a sigh. What a mess you’ve created, all because you got carried away by the magic of the night and caught up in your own lies.

  In the limousine that night, Peter had asked where he could drop her. For the first time, she realized the trouble her spontaneity had gotten her into. What was she supposed to tell him? She couldn’t very well give him her address in Lake Oswego. Though he likely had no idea where Katherine Crosby lived, her last name was on the mailbox of her town house.

  “Can’t we just drive for a while?”

  “I thought you were feeling under the weather.”

  Caught in another lie. She grimaced and improvised quickly. “It must have been the crowds at the benefit. I’m fine now.”

  “Good,” he said. His smile was just short of wolfish but it still sent sensual little shivers rippling down her spine.

  He leaned forward to talk to the chauffeur. “Lou, it’s a lovely night for a drive.”

  The driver, a man in his late fifties with a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache, smiled back at him. “It is indeed, Mr. Logan.”

  “The lady likes Christmas lights. Maybe you could show us some of the holiday decorations around town if you know of any particularly festive spots.”

  “I surely do,” the driver said with a cheerful wink in the rearview mirror at Katie.

  She lost track of time there in that limousine. They drove all over Portland talking and laughing and drinking champagne as the limousine driver took them to one brightly decorated spot after another.

  With each sip of champagne, she felt her natural restraints melt away. When Peter raised the privacy barrier behind the chauffeur and kissed her again, all the heat from before on the balcony flared to life again. She had never known anything like that, had been outside of her head with desire, and she never wanted to stop.

  She must have murmured something to that effect because in between more of those mind-numbing kisses he asked if she would go home with him. To her surprise, she heard herself eagerly agree.

  They barely made it inside his vast loft before they were ripping clothes away and coming together in a fiery explosion. They had made love in every corner of his loft, she remembered now, flushing a little when she remembered her uninhibited response to him. Her breasts, now sensitive and achy from hormones, tingled at the memories flooding through her mind.

  They had used protection every time but one, she remembered. She had slept a little and had awakened to find he had turned to her in his sleep. He awakened, poised to enter her. That time had been tender and slow and incredibly sensuous. And condomless, she remembered, although he had pulled out before his orgasm.

  After he finally fell fully asleep, the enormity of what she had done hit her like a building crumbling around her head. She had slept with Peter Logan, not once but four times! It had been the most wonderful, magical night of her life.

  And he didn’t even know her name.

  She had spent the last three months trying to forget, but the memory of that night was scored into her mind like circuits on a motherboard.

  For a woman who had graduated summa cum laude from Stanford, it was remarkable how stupid she could be, she thought now as she gazed into the flames.

  When she missed her first period, she hadn’t really been surprised. She’d always had irregular periods, especially during times of stress. And even when it was regular, she had a longer than usual cycle. After she missed the second period, she started to become concerned but still it never even occurred to her that she might be pregnant until her breasts started to ache at even the slightest pressure and she started throwing up in the mornings.

  This should be such a happy time. It was, she assured herself. She was excited about the challenge and joy of motherhood. But part of her yearned to have someone to share her excitement with.

  She couldn’t tell Peter, she thought again. If her resolve started to waver, she only had to look around her at this house her father had bought for one of his mistresses. Not because he thought his children would enjoy a ranch or because he wanted to spend time with them here, but for a woman. It was so typical of Jack.

  Everything she knew about Peter told her he was cut from the same cloth. Maybe not the womanizing part, but his obsession would always be Logan Corporation. Something else would always come before his child, just as work and women had come first for her father.

  She couldn’t do that to her child. She wouldn’t.

  With a sigh, she returned to bed and pulled the quilt around her chin once more. She lay there for a long time, listening to the wind moan and trying not to want what she knew she could never have.

  * * *

  Peter awoke quickly, as he always did, his mind already racing with a dozen things requiring his attention. The board of directors meeting in a week, the paperwork for a new merger Logan was considering, the marketing plan
for the super-router.

  He was unlikely to accomplish any of those things while he was stuck here at some godforsaken Wyoming ranch house with the deceitful, manipulative Katherine Crosby, however.

  He sighed and watched his breath puff out in a little cloud. In a freezing godforsaken ranch house, he amended. A gust of wind rattled the wide picture window that probably had a spectacular view under normal conditions. All he could see now in the pale early-morning light was snow. It was a virtual whiteout.

  A glance at the huge river-rock fireplace in the gathering room showed him the fire was all but out. The temperature had dipped even colder in the night. Why hadn’t the furnace clicked on, he wondered? Maybe the oil lines were frozen somehow or the pilot light had gone out. He would have to take a look at it this morning. What was the point of having a generator if they couldn’t keep the furnace running?

  For now he could at least work on the fire. He rose and selected a log from the supply next to the fireplace and tossed it onto the embers. He had to spend a few moments stoking it to get any sparks but after a moment the wood caught and began to burn merrily.

  He didn’t have time for this, he thought as he watched the flames. He had enough figurative fires of his own to tend to. Logan was at a critical point with this super-router, poised to make huge market gains. Besides that project, he had at least a dozen other items awaiting his attention.

  He could only imagine what his family would say when he turned up missing. He had mentioned his destination to a few people, including his secretary, and had filed a flight plan, but he hadn’t told his parents or any of his siblings. He didn’t know if they would believe he could drop everything to chase after Katie Crosby.

  Hell, he could hardly believe it himself. He had a reputation as someone who always kept a cool head, no matter the crisis. He had worked hard for that, had prided himself on his self-possession in tough circumstances. It was a skill he had picked up from his father, one necessary to run a huge company like Logan Corporation.

  He wasn’t exactly sure how he’d completely lost that cool head he was supposed to have. His brother Eric might take off after a woman on a whim like this but not Peter. Peter had spent his whole life trying to show he was responsible, dependable. He just wasn’t the sort to let his emotions dictate his actions.

  But he hadn’t been himself since the moment his gaze met Katie’s at the Children’s Connection auction. It sounded corny when he tried to put it into words but that whole night seemed surreal, like something out of an incredibly erotic dream. Instant heat, complete enchantment.

  What about her had affected him so strongly that night? She had been elegantly beautiful, but he had certainly dated his share of beautiful women. No, there was something more, something he still couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  Maybe it was that she hadn’t seemed particularly impressed that he was one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in Portland. Or maybe it had been the way she seemed completely oblivious to her own appeal, or that soft, genuine smile of hers that had seemed fresh and almost innocent.

  Whatever had mesmerized him, he still couldn’t believe the spontaneous attraction between them. He enjoyed the company of women but that night had been different.

  It had been a night of firsts for him—the first time he’d ever blown off a charity obligation, the first time he had ever driven around Portland with a woman just to look at Christmas lights, the first time he had ever taken a woman he had just met back to his apartment for an all-night session of lovemaking.

  He hadn’t intended to. It wasn’t at all like him. When he’d offered her a ride home, all he’d been thinking about was flirting with her a little, finding out where she lived so he could make plans to see her again. Maybe stealing a kiss or two. But she had kissed him with such eager, wild abandon, he hadn’t been able to think about anything but touching her, tasting her, coming inside her.

  He blew out a breath. He had wanted Celeste—Katherine Crosby—with a fierceness he had never known before. Their lovemaking had been the most intense of his life, fiery and hot one moment, slow and sensual the next. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for that kind of stomach-clenching heat.

  And then she disappeared.

  He could still vividly recall the hard knot of betrayal that had lodged in his gut when he had awakened to find her gone. If it hadn’t been for her soft perfume clinging to tangled sheets, and a polite note that could have been written by a stranger, he would have thought maybe it had all been some wild dream, the kind of thing he thought he’d outgrown when he left adolescence behind.

  He had searched the loft for something she might have left behind, something that might help him trace her, but had found nothing. All that day he had paced his apartment, overwhelmed with the feeling that he had held something rare and precious in his hands for one fleeting second and then let it slip away.

  That odd feeling of loss was the real reason he was so angry at her now, he acknowledged. He had been such a gullible fool. He had believed she had been as caught up in the magic of the night as he was, had wanted him just as fiercely as he had her, when she had only been using him as a pawn in this bitter feud between their families.

  He hated thinking of the way he had missed her these three months. How could he miss a woman he had just met, one he didn’t really even know? He hated remembering how for three long months, with no solid clue how to find her, he waited for her to contact him, looking for her as discreetly as possible.

  That damn picture in the Weekly hadn’t helped matters. How could he ask questions about the woman—like, oh, maybe her name—after the picture of them in a passionate embrace was plastered all over the paper?

  In a million years, he never would have connected his Celeste to Katherine Crosby.

  Since the moment he had seen the article identifying her the day before, he had been racking his brain trying to remember if they had ever met before the night of the gala. He had to think they must have bumped into each other at some function or other. Portland wasn’t that big and, despite the infamous enmity between the families, the Crosbys and Logans moved in the same circles. How had he completely overlooked her?

  He thought he remembered her as someone who tended to lurk in the background. He knew she was the vice president of research and development at Crosby Systems, but other than that, he thought maybe she was almost as reclusive as her brother, Danny, who was holed up on some island in Hawaii.

  If someone had asked him a week ago about Katherine Crosby, he would have been hard-pressed to come up with a description, but he thought maybe she used to wear thick glasses and had long, bushy hair that all but hid her face. Had she been a little plump? Damn it, he couldn’t remember. All he could picture was the lithe, sensual woman who had completely ensnared him the night of the gala.

  And now here they were holed up together at some Wyoming ranch. Katherine Crosby, with her baggy sweater and her wool socks, hardly seemed like the elegant creature he had flirted with and danced with and kissed on a moonlit balcony. This woman was quiet, almost nervous around him.

  She should be nervous, he thought. He couldn’t remember ever being so furious at another human being before.

  What was he going to do about it? He had no real evidence she had stolen anything from him that night. He couldn’t press charges, even if he wanted to. He didn’t. Bringing it all out into the open would only expose what a gullible idiot he’d been.

  So what could he do? Nothing. Not one damn thing. The knowledge didn’t sit well with him at all, not for a man used to seizing control of every situation.

  He would have to wait out this storm for the next day or so, just until he could return to Portland and try to figure out just how much damage his stupid indiscretion had cost the company—and the family—he loved so dearly.

  It irked him to lift a finger here to help a Crosby, but he wasn’t any good at inactivity so he decided to take a look at the furnace while he waited for her to awak
en.

  He changed out of the sweats he’d slept in and into jeans and a sweater then headed for the utility room off the back porch where they had started the generator earlier.

  The generator still hummed away. He checked the fuel level and saw the tank was still nearly full, so he turned his attention to the furnace. As he suspected, the pilot light had somehow gone out in the night, he soon discovered. It only took him a moment to relight it, and he was rewarded with the click and whir of the furnace coming to life.

  That chore out of the way, he returned to the kitchen to put on some coffee. He was just pouring a cup when Katherine came in from her bedroom. She had changed into another pair of jeans, slightly less disreputable than the pair she’d been wearing the day before, and a Stanford sweatshirt.

  “Good morning,” she murmured, just enough sleepy huskiness in her voice to make him wonder what it would have been like to wake up with that sexy voice next to him.

  “Have you looked outside yet?” he asked gruffly, angry at his instant response to her. “I don’t think good morning really applies here.”

  She glanced out the kitchen window and grimaced. “It’s freezing in here.”

  “Your pilot light on the furnace went out. I just lit it again. It should warm up in a minute.”

  Surprise flickered in her brown eyes. “Um, thank you. You’ve been busy this morning.”

  “Coffee’s fresh if you’d like some.”

  She shook her head. “I’d better not. Thanks, though. I’ll have some herbal tea.”

  She was riffling through the cupboards looking for it—and he was trying to figure out why she wouldn’t have coffee when there had been clear longing in her voice—when he heard the low rumble of an approaching motor. A snowmobile, by the sound of it.

  “That would be Darwin Simmons from the Bar S. He’s taking care of the stock while Clint and Margie are gone.”

  A moment later the front doorbell rang. Katherine went to answer it and Peter followed her. She answered the door and he saw a heavily bundled figure in a thick snowmobile suit, only two blue eyes showing out of all the winter gear.