Sheila paused only long enough to take a breath. “Speaking of hellholes, I don’t know what you’re doing in that primitive armpit but I need you to get back to Portland right now. You’ll laugh about this, I’m sure, but there’s the most ludicrous rumor going around that you were seen kissing Peter Logan at some event or other around Christmas.”
She closed her eyes at the sheer loathing in her mother’s voice when she said Peter’s name. Here it comes, she thought. The confrontation she had been expecting. “Oh?”
“Yes! That brainless society reporter for the Weekly even ran a picture he claims is the two of you together in some steamy kiss. Can you believe that? I haven’t seen the picture yet but Penelope Danner phoned me in Italy and told me all about it. You need to do damage control right away and have those idiots run a correction. As if you’d even be caught dead anywhere near that bastard!”
Katie’s gaze fell on Peter, who had absently pulled her feet into his lap and was rubbing her toes through her thick socks. “Um, right.”
“Besides, Peter Logan can have his pick of any woman in Portland. Why would he bother with you?”
Ah. She should have been expecting that one, too, but it still managed to slice at her self-confidence with brutal efficacy. “That’s a very good question,” she said quietly.
Sheila went on as if she hadn’t heard her, which was probably true. “When will you be going back to Portland?”
“I’m not sure right now. Most likely by the end of the week.” And then wouldn’t the you-know-what hit the fan?
“Good. I need you to talk to your brother.”
“Which one?”
“Who do you think? As if Danny has anything to do with anybody out in that isolation chamber of his. No, I’m talking about Trent, Mr. Holier-than-Thou, unnatural child. Ever since your father named him CEO, he thinks he can run the world. You’re just about the only one he listens to. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. But you need to do it in person, not from that godforsaken ranch.”
She sighed. “What did he do?”
“Nothing yet, but he’d like to. If Trent had his way, I’d be stuck in some retirement condo in Arizona wearing muumuus and watching game shows all day. He doesn’t want me to have any fun. Now he’s threatening to use his influence to have my country club membership yanked. Can you believe that?”
“What did you do to provoke him?”
“How do you know I did anything?” Sheila asked, affront in her voice.
Because I know you, she thought. Because I have spent twenty-eight years being one of the many victims of your lies and manipulations and petty jealousies.
She didn’t say that, of course. “Trent rarely does anything without a good reason.”
“I should have known you would take his side.”
Of course, Katie wanted to say. Why wouldn’t I, when Trent has been more of a parent to me than either you or Jack combined?
“I’m not taking any sides,” she murmured. “I just wanted to know why Trent is angry with you.”
“Because he’s a tight-assed spoilsport, that’s why. He’s all bent out of shape because I found out some good dirt on the Logans’ precious baby factory.”
“Children’s Connection?”
She regretted her instinctive question when Peter paused the foot rub, his interest sharpened. Oh, she was glad he couldn’t hear Sheila’s end of the conversation, especially with the venom in her mother’s tone.
“It’s pathetic the way the Logans throw money at that place, especially since it’s nothing but a big joke. It’s scandalous, that’s what it is. A big fat scam. If Portland knew all the chaos surrounding that place, they would be outraged. First that Sanders baby was kidnapped and now there are rumors about a black-market baby ring operating out of the place. I even found out—I won’t tell you how—that they can’t even keep track of whose sperm they’re giving whom.”
A terrible sense of dread washed over her and she tried to avoid Peter’s interested gaze. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t have a chance to do anything before your brother blackmailed me to keep my mouth shut.”
“What would you have done?” she asked impatiently.
“Nothing much. Just make a few phone calls to some friends in the media. Not those idiots at the Weekly, of course, who can’t even get a photo caption right, but some of my other contacts. I would have loved to see the egg on that bitch Leslie Logan’s face once the scandal broke, sending her precious clinic headed for the toilet. Can’t you just see it?”
Katie closed her eyes. Nothing Sheila did should surprise her but this was vindictive, even for her. “But you didn’t say anything.” She prayed that was the case.
“No. Trent told me if so much as a whiff of rumor surfaced about the stupid clinic, he would make sure I never was invited to another society event. How did I raise such an ungrateful son?”
Again, a sharp rejoinder swelled in her throat. She wished she had the courage to let it out. You didn’t raise him, she wanted to snap. You made Trent raise himself and then he turned around and raised the rest of us while Jack was working and you were sleeping with half of Portland.
As usual, she bit her tongue and Sheila went on without noticing her silence. “So now you understand why you need to get back to Portland ASAP so you can handle Trent for me.”
“This is between you and Trent. I’m staying out of it. And I’m not sure when I’ll return to Portland. Maybe never.”
The idea held enormous appeal, she had to admit. Maybe she could hide away here forever to avoid the impending storm when her mother found out about the baby.
“What’s gotten into you, Katherine Celeste?” Sheila asked.
“Fresh air does wonders for a person’s sanity. Maybe you ought to try it some time,” she couldn’t resist adding.
Peter, shamelessly eavesdropping at the end of the couch, made a strangled noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. It wasn’t very loud but Sheila still heard it.
“Who’s there with you? Is Jack there with that slut Toni Wells?”
Sheila despised her ex-husband’s second wife, the trophy wife she had always dreaded would replace her.
“Of course not!” she replied.
“Then who is it?”
“A friend,” she repeated.
“Why won’t you tell me who it is?”
Katie let out a frustrated breath. “Look, I have to go.”
“Don’t hang up! You have to talk to Trent.” Her voice took on a petulant note, like a spoiled child deprived of a favorite toy.
“No,” Katie said firmly. “I won’t let you put me in the middle. If you want him to change his mind, you talk to him. I’m sorry, Mother. I have to go.”
“Why?”
She scrambled to come up with a believable excuse. “The, um, horses need to be fed.” Out of old habit, she crossed her fingers at the lie, then flushed when she caught Peter’s amused look.
“Doesn’t your father have people to do that?”
Katie jerked her gaze away from that smile. “Y-yes, but they’re not here right now so I need to feed the stock.”
She could almost hear Sheila’s shudder over the phone line, but before her mother could voice her disgust of anything associated with the ranch, Katie cut her off with a hurried farewell and quickly severed the connection.
She forced herself to take several deep, carefully measured breaths to settle her nerves, just as her therapist taught her. If she needed a reminder why she and Peter could never have a happily-ever-after, Sheila had just handed her a dandy.
She couldn’t marry him. Any sweet, spun-sugar fantasies she might have been silly enough to entertain, even subconsciously, dissolved into nothing under the hard rain of reality.
If she succumbed to Peter’s dogged pursuit, she would be dooming them both to a future of tension and stress. Sheila despised the Logans so fiercely, Katie couldn’t even imagine how she could ever tell her mother she was marrying
one.
If she did, she knew Sheila’s hatred would fester and eventually bubble over, coating their lives with ugliness.
It wasn’t fair, she wanted to cry. Why did an old bitterness have to ruin any chance she might have of finding happiness with the man she loved?
“Is she angry?” Peter asked.
Katie shoved down the regrets and met his gaze. “Not at me. Trent is the one in her sights this time.”
“That surprises me.”
“Why? She and Trent are always banging heads.”
“I would have expected her to blow a gasket over that photograph.”
She had completely forgotten! “Oh, that. She’s been in Europe and hasn’t seen it yet. She’s heard rumors but of course thinks everyone must be grossly mistaken.”
“Why?” he asked.
If she didn’t know better, she would almost have thought the puzzled look on his face was genuine. Could he really not see what was so obvious to her and to the rest of the world? Or did he just choose not to acknowledge it?
“We both know I’m not exactly the kind of woman you usually date. Portland’s most gorgeous eligible bachelor and the Crosbys’ fat, nerdy, ugly duckling of a daughter belong together about as much as champagne and corn dogs.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Peter heard her words and the passion in them but didn’t believe she could say them, at least with a straight face.
Ugly duckling? Her?
Didn’t she ever look in the mirror and see the delicate features staring back at her? Those warm, expressive eyes, the elegant cheekbones, that sweetly bowed mouth that begged to be kissed?
He had been bowled over by her since that night at the charity gala, when she’d walked into the room, all grace and sophistication. From the first time she aimed that smile at him, he had been completely ensnared.
After the incredible passion they had shared, he hadn’t wanted to look at another woman. He was completely obsessed with only one. His Celeste.
Not Celeste, he corrected himself. Celeste had been a glamorous, shimmery mirage. Katie was flesh and blood, funny and stubborn and smart and real.
Even when he thought she had lied to him and deceived him, when he was sure she only slept with him to steal Logan secrets, he still hungered for her like a dying man who wants only one more moment of sunshine.
The last three days he had barely been able to take his eyes off her. She was so beautiful he couldn’t look away. Knowing she was pregnant with his child filled him with awe, with wonder, with a terrifying tenderness.
He loved her.
The realization slammed into his gut like a prize-fighter’s uppercut. If he had been standing, he would have sagged against the ropes.
He loved Katherine Celeste Crosby.
All this time he had been trying to convince her they should marry for their child’s sake. But he had only been using that as an excuse to bind her to him, he admitted now.
This couldn’t be happening. He had his life carefully mapped out and he didn’t have room for love in that plan—certainly not with Katie. What a mess. What a grade A, bona fide disaster.
“Peter? Are you all right?”
Katie looked concerned and even a little frightened, and he had no idea how long he had been standing there staring at her. He forced himself to smile with what he sincerely hoped was a casualness that belied his suddenly racing pulse.
“Everything’s fine,” he lied. “Just fine. I guess I’d better go check on the horses.”
She frowned. “Because of what I said to my mother? I was just using that as an excuse to hang up the phone.”
“I know you were but it’s a good idea. I should still see how they’re doing.”
She looked unconvinced, probably because he had only come in from feeding them an hour before and they generally needed tending only once a day. He didn’t care. He needed to get away now.
Without offering any other explanations he turned on his heel and hurried to the mudroom off the kitchen for the coveralls he used.
His thoughts a wild tangle, he fumbled to put them on and then his boots before he headed out into a frigid Wyoming afternoon.
The sky was a brilliant, cornea-scorching blue. He stood for a moment gazing at the mountains, wondering just what the hell he was supposed to do now.
If someone would have told him a week ago that he would be in love with a Crosby, he probably would have knocked their teeth out, but here he was. Somehow in the last few days her last name had ceased to matter to him. He still disliked some members of her family—her mother came immediately to mind—but he saw Katie as so much more than her name now. She was bright and funny and insightful.
The day before, she had offered a suggestion to a work dilemma he had been trying to solve long-distance and her answer had been right on the money.
These last few days had been a rare and peaceful interlude for him. He was always so busy with goals and objectives, with following the course he had charted for his life. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken time to sit and just be.
Being with Katie was balm to his soul. She calmed him and settled him and somehow quieted the strident voice in his head telling him he was never quite good enough.
He didn’t want to lose her but he didn’t see what other choice he had. Since the day he found out she was pregnant with his child, his one goal in life had been to convince her they should marry. He had done everything in his power to convince her. Now he could only be profoundly grateful for her stubbornness in continuing to refuse.
He still believed it was the decent, honorable thing to do. Intellectually he knew he should continue to press until she changed her mind. He wanted his child to have an intact home, a father and mother.
But he couldn’t imagine any hell more exquisitely painful than being married to Katie when she didn’t love him.
He would be miserable. What’s more, he would no doubt make her miserable, as well.
What was he supposed to do? A man had an obligation to take care of his child. He believed that with all his heart. But how could he sentence himself to a loveless marriage when he wanted so much more?
* * *
“The baby’s fine, then?” Katie asked Laura two days after her mother’s phone call.
“As far as I can tell.” The doctor smiled and returned her stethoscope to the weatherproof backpack full of medical supplies she had brought with her for the visit to Sweetwater.
“The heartbeat is strong and healthy,” Laura went on, “and the baby’s growth seems right on target for fourteen weeks. I’ve said it before, there are no guarantees when it comes to babies. But I’ve learned to trust my gut on these matters, and all my instincts are telling me you’re past the danger zone of losing the pregnancy.”
Katie let out the breath she’d been holding. Relief flooded through her like spring runoff, washing away the fear and worry she had carried around since the day of her fall. She wanted to hold her baby in her arms and whirl around the room.
Instead she contented herself with giving Laura a radiant smile. “Oh, thank you!”
Laura laughed. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t do anything. You’re the one doing all the hard work here.”
“I haven’t done anything but lie around.”
“That’s just what you needed to be doing. Enjoy this chance to rest while you have it because once your little kiddo enters the picture, you’ll forget you ever once had such a luxury as leisure time.”
Laura’s smile included Peter, sitting quietly in the armchair by the fireplace. “When do Clint and Margie return?” she asked.
“They called about an hour ago and said they should be here first thing in the morning,” Katie said. “Their daughter caught the flu right after the delivery so they stayed until she was back on her feet.”
“It’s a good thing you had Mr. Logan here to help out while they were gone.”
Katie managed a smile while inside some of her bleak mood returned.
Peter had been a lifesaver, she admitted. But in the two day since Sheila called, things between them had changed.
He still cared for her just as diligently as before. He still cooked for her and took care of the animals and watched over her. He still talked to her and read to her and watched old movies with her, but all with a new reserve between them.
He wasn’t cold exactly, simply stiff and withdrawn, as if trying to maintain a safe distance between them.
For two days he had been kind and solicitous but all with that same polite detachment. And he hadn’t said a single word in all that time about marriage.
Though she mourned his change of heart, she understood it and couldn’t fault him for it.
He had only heard her part of the conversation with Sheila and missed out on most of the anti-Logan vitriol her mother had spewed. Nevertheless Katie was sure the one-sided snippets were enough to remind him of all the reasons they could never make a successful marriage.
She had seen the sudden panic flare in his eyes before he rushed outside on the flimsy excuse of taking care of livestock that certainly didn’t need caring for.
She had known even then that he had changed his mind about marrying her. She tried to convince herself she was glad. Things surely would be easier between them if he dropped the ridiculous idea.
Wasn’t she a contrary thing, though? Now that he stopped asking her, she could think of nothing she wanted more than to say yes.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Laura went on, “you’re cleared to return to Portland whenever you decide you’re ready. Check in with your own obstetrician as soon as you get back. I’m sure she’ll want to see you as soon as possible. But if you were my patient, I wouldn’t put you on any other restrictions besides exercising normal caution. You’re free to resume all your regular activities.”
Oh, she didn’t want to return to Portland and all the chaos that awaited her there. She dreaded facing her family with the news of her pregnancy. Her siblings would have mixed feelings about the baby, she knew. Ivy would be thrilled their babies would be born only months apart and Trent knew she longed for a child. But she knew both of them would worry about her having the child on her own.
Snowbound in Sweetwater Ranch Page 14
