Snowbound in Sweetwater Ranch

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Why not?” Peter asked.

  Sheila looked baffled by his question. “What?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be attracted to Katie?”

  Sheila arched one of her carefully waxed eyebrows. “I’ve seen the women you date. Katherine couldn’t even be a bat girl in your league. She wears baggy clothes and she never does a thing with her makeup. She’d rather have her nose stuck in a book than have her nails done, and she wouldn’t be able to tell a Dior from a Wang if her life depended on it. I love my daughter, Mr. Logan, but you have to admit, she’s a mess.”

  Peter stared at her for several long moments, then shook his head, utter contempt in his eyes. “You are one first-rate bitch.”

  Sheila sputtered as if no one had ever called her that before, but Peter ignored her.

  “Have you ever even looked at your daughter?” he asked.

  “Of course I’ve looked at her. She’s come a long way since college when she was fat and had hair like Cousin Itt. But she’s not one of your slinky super-models and she never will be.”

  Never in his life had he come so close to belting a woman. It was all he could do to keep his hands clenched at his sides, especially when he saw how pale Katie was.

  Her hands were trembling and she looked mortified to have them fighting over her like this. He wanted to gather her close and kiss away all the pain he saw in her eyes.

  He couldn’t believe any mother would be so cruel to her own child. Mothers were supposed to think their children were the most beautiful creations on the planet. They were supposed to do anything they could to defend them from attacks like this one, not be the one doing the attacking.

  How could Sheila be so blind about her daughter’s loveliness?

  Or was she?

  Maybe she saw it clearly enough to feel threatened by it. The idea made sense. He had a feeling Sheila Crosby was just the kind of woman who would grind anybody she viewed as competition under the heels of her four-inch stilettos, even her own daughter.

  “You’re right, she’ll never be a supermodel. She’s too short.” He smiled at Katie who gazed back at him with wide, confused eyes. “But with a few more inches, she could walk any runway in the world.”

  He laughed as Katie visibly shuddered at the image. He loved this woman. Loved her fiercely.

  He turned back to Sheila. “The first time I saw Katie, I thought she was the most stunning thing I had ever seen. Since I’ve come to know her better, I’ve come to realize the woman inside is even more beautiful than what she shows to the world.”

  Sheila narrowed her gaze at him as if trying to figure out what game he was playing. It never would have occurred to her that he could be sincere, he realized, despising her fiercely.

  How could she have raised someone as sweet and loving as Katie? he wondered, until he remembered Katie said her brother had basically raised her and her siblings.

  Maybe he needed to rethink his animosity toward Trent Crosby. He had done a damn good job with his sister.

  “If you ever looked closely at your daughter the way I do,” he went on, “you would see a beautiful, smart, courageous woman any mother should be proud of.”

  He leaned forward until Sheila could look nowhere but at him. “If you ever really saw Kate through anything other than your own middle-aged narcissism and envy at anyone younger and prettier than you, you would also see a woman who could have any man she wants. For some incredible reason, she wanted me and that makes me the luckiest damn idiot in the world.”

  Sheila’s features filled with a deep rage that aged her at least a dozen years. “Get out,” she snarled.

  During his little speech Katie hadn’t taken her gaze from him. She looked stunned, so awed by his words that he wanted fiercely to kiss her. Wouldn’t Sheila just love that?

  Katie seemed to collect herself and turned back to Sheila. “Sweetwater isn’t part of your divorce settlement, Mother. You can’t order anybody around here.”

  “Then you kick him out! See if you can get that brain you’re so damn proud of to work for five seconds and realize he’s just using you to hurt Crosby Systems and the Crosby family.”

  “No. He’s the father of my baby and he’s asked me to marry him. I—I’ve decided I will.”

  She didn’t look at him when she made her declaration—a good thing, he supposed, since he was sure someone had just shoved a bowling ball into his stomach.

  “You’re going to marry him?” Sheila looked as if she would spontaneously combust any second now.

  Katie continued, “If he still wants me after he sees what kind of in-laws he’ll be taking on.”

  Somehow Peter found his voice, though it sounded as if he’d swallowed a cubic yard of gravel. “He does.”

  She finally met his gaze, and the tentative smile in her eyes had him tumbling hard for her all over again.

  “You’ve gone absolutely mental,” Sheila shrieked. “Wait until the rest of the family hears about this. They’re going to go through the roof!”

  “No, they won’t.”

  Katie blinked as a sweet assurance settled in her heart. She had been so worried about her family’s reaction at learning of her pregnancy but she suddenly realized as she listened to her mother rant that Sheila was the only one in the family who would be angry.

  A huge weight lifted from her shoulders and she suddenly couldn’t wait to tell the world about the baby.

  “Trent and Ivy will be thrilled for me. Danny will be, too. They love me and want the best for me, regardless of some silly feud we had nothing to do with. When they realize this is what I want, they’ll accept it. Jack might bluster a little but I’m sure Toni will eventually make him come around.”

  “I never will!” her mother snarled. “You can be sure of that! If you marry this…bastard, to me you’ll be one of them and so will the brat you’re knocked up with.”

  “If I were you, I would choose my next words very carefully.” Peter’s voice was tungsten-hard, the threat unmistakable. As usual, Sheila didn’t heed the warning signs.

  “You’re not me,” she snapped. “You’re a Logan. A filthy, lying, son-of-a-bitch Logan!”

  “Stop right there.” Katie stepped forward, her face hot from shame and embarrassment. “I’m sorry you feel that way. If you can’t accept my child and be civil to Peter and his family, then I suppose we have nothing more to say to each other.”

  Her mother had never physically struck her but somehow Katie sensed that if Peter hadn’t been standing beside her, she would have felt the sting of her mother’s hand for the first time in her life. Instead Sheila stared at her for a long moment, then stomped out of the house, slamming the door so hard the windows quivered.

  As soon as her mother left, Katie wanted to sink through the floor and disappear. Maybe if she were lucky, the force of that slamming door would collapse the roof in the next ten seconds, burying her in eight feet of snow so she wouldn’t have to face Peter.

  She had to settle for burying her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “I’m afraid Sheila can be a little, um, difficult.”

  His laugh held deep amusement at her understatement. “I guess you could say that.”

  “I don’t blame you for changing your mind about wanting to marry me, Peter. No matter what you said to my mother, you don’t have to go through with it.”

  “I never changed my mind.”

  “Then why haven’t you said a word about it for the last few days?”

  He said nothing for so long she finally dropped her hands and squared her shoulders to face him. His mouth was tight and his eyes were dark with an unreadable expression, something deep and tender that sent butterflies somersaulting around her stomach.

  “I meant what I said to your mother. I think you’re a beautiful, smart, courageous woman. I didn’t tell her everything, though.”

  He reached between them to clasp her fingers. The butterflies went into cartwheels and handsprings as her heart began to pump.


  “No?” her voice sounded like a mouse’s tiny squeak but he didn’t appear to notice.

  Peter shook his head. “I didn’t tell her that night we spent together was the most incredible, magical night of my life. I didn’t tell her how I searched for you for weeks and how empty and lonely my life seemed from the moment I woke alone in my bed until I found you again.”

  He was quiet again, then his gaze met hers. “I didn’t tell her I fell in love that night.”

  For one brief moment, a brilliant, piercing joy washed through her, then she realized what he said and the joy quickly turned to ashes. “You fell in love with an illusion. Celeste wasn’t real.”

  “She’s part of you, whether you can see it or not.”

  Katie made a skeptical sound and Peter raised their entwined fingers and kissed the back of her hand. “She is. You’re right, though, maybe I didn’t know the real you after that single incredible night. But we’ve had more than that here and I’ve only fallen more deeply in love with you every day we’ve been together.”

  His kiss was sweet and tender and warmed all the cold, empty places inside of her. She clung to him, tears trickling down her cheeks.

  “Blasted hormones,” she mumbled through her tears. She had cried more the last week than she had her entire adult life.

  “I hope those are happy tears,” Peter murmured.

  “They are. Oh, they are.”

  She kissed him with all the love and longing she had been saving for years. When he drew away several moments later, both of them were breathing raggedly and Peter’s eyes were dazed, aroused.

  He said only one word. “Wow.”

  She laughed even though those dratted tears continued to fall. He gently wiped one away with his thumb before it reached her cheek, then shook his head as if to clear it.

  “I told your mother you could have your pick of any man in the world. Why did you pick me that night? I figured out a long time ago you weren’t after Logan secrets. Why did you come home with me?”

  Was that insecurity in his eyes? she wondered. Could he really not know how irresistible he was?

  “You don’t remember the first time we danced, do you? Not the night of the gala but long before then.”

  He shook his head, baffled.

  “I do. Every second of it. I was fifteen years old and fat. Not chubby, fat. Sheila dressed me in ruffles and bows for my first big society event during one of my visits home and I looked hideous, with thick glasses and all those flounces.”

  She grimaced at the memory. “I felt even more miserable than I’m sure I looked. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be home with a good book. Even boarding school would have been better.”

  Though he was confused, he didn’t interrupt her story, curious where this was all going.

  “I was an easy target for several girls who—who liked to pick on anyone more vulnerable than they were. We were standing in a corner of the ballroom and they started making fun of me, saying I looked like a giant pink birthday cake with all my flounces, which was nothing but the truth. I was trying my best not to let them see me cry but I was losing the battle. Then you came over.”

  He should remember. He wanted to remember but he’d been to so many of those kinds of functions, and this one just didn’t stand out.

  “You were eighteen and heading to college and all the girls were crazy about you.”

  She smiled a little. “You probably didn’t know that, did you? As I remember, you were busy even then trying to follow in your father’s footsteps. Anyway, Angelina Mitchell was the prettiest of the group and she preened a little, certain, I’m sure, that you were going to ask her to dance. But you didn’t. You walked right up to me—shy, fat Katie Crosby!—and asked me in this deep, confident voice if I would do you the great honor of dancing with you.”

  He could feel himself flush, though he wasn’t sure why. He still couldn’t remember the event, maybe because he had often danced with wallflowers at country club functions or other society events. He had never had much interest in the popular girls. At least the wallflowers usually made halfway decent conversation and wanted to know more about him than what kind of car he drove.

  He cleared the sudden gruffness from his voice. “I guess we danced, then?”

  She nodded and he felt about a hundred miles tall at the stars in her eyes at the memory. “I know you were only being kind, rescuing me from what you must have figured out was the other girls’ bullying, but it was the most romantic moment of my life. I think I fell in love with you that night.”

  His arms tightened around her and he closed his eyes, supremely grateful for a mother who drilled kindness and good manners into her sons.

  “I haven’t felt beautiful very often in my life,” Katie went on. “That was the first time. The second time was the night of the charity gala. When you danced with me, I was fifteen years old again, in the arms of the most wonderful boy I’d ever met. I didn’t want it to end. That’s why I didn’t tell you my name, because I wanted that night to last forever.”

  He shifted his hand to the swelling of her abdomen, to their child growing there. “In a way, I guess it has.”

  Her smile was radiant as she kissed him again. “That was the perfect thing to say,” she murmured. “This baby is a gift. A precious way to help us always remember a wonderful, magical night. I love you, Peter. I loved you when I was fifteen and I love you a million times more now.”

  “When will you marry me?” he asked, when he could speak again through the emotions clogging his throat.

  Doubts flickered in her eyes again. “Are you sure? You saw tonight what you might be in for. And what about your parents? They won’t be thrilled about all this.”

  “When they get to know you, they’ll love you as much as I do.” It was true, he realized. His mom and Katie would bond instantly. His father might be a little harder to win over but he would be impressed by her brains and her business sense. Affection would soon follow. Terrence wouldn’t be able to resist her.

  “Marry me, Katie,” he urged, his hand still on her abdomen. “Right now. Tonight. We can fly to Las Vegas and be married by midnight. I don’t want to waste another moment.”

  She drew in a deep breath, then covered her hand with his, until they were both cradling the child growing there.

  “All right.” She gave him another one of those radiant smiles. “Let’s go now. We have a new family dynasty to create.”

  One that would be built on joy and laughter and love.

  EPILOGUE

  “You look beautiful, Katie. I don’t have to ask if Logan is making you happy. If the power suddenly went out in here, you would give off enough of a glow to light up the whole place.”

  Katie smiled at Trent, handsome and commanding in his tuxedo. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “Good. You deserve it. And I guess if Peter Logan is the one making you so happy, he can’t be all bad.”

  Trent’s bluster was mostly for show, she knew. Her brother and her new husband had actually gotten along remarkably well after she and Peter returned from their brief honeymoon. The two men were alike in far more ways than they were different.

  As she and Trent twirled around the Hilton ballroom—where it all began, she thought with a smile—Katie gazed around at the crowd that had gathered to celebrate her marriage to Peter. Hundreds of people were here. Leslie Logan had thrown herself with enthusiasm into organizing the reception. She had invited not only all the Logan and Crosby employees but also employees at Portland General Hospital and Children’s Connection, until the big room was filled to bursting.

  Even the Portland Weekly society reporter was there. Katie had made a special point of making sure he received an invitation, since without that picture she and Peter wouldn’t have found each other again.

  Everyone she loved was in this room, she thought. Except Danny, who hadn’t been able to leave his island retreat.

  Her father was dancing with Ton
i. Ivy, glowing from pregnancy herself, was in the arms of her handsome king.

  To her surprise, Sheila had even come, though under duress. She still wasn’t at all pleased about her daughter marrying a Logan. But after Jack had surprised Katie by threatening to take Sheila back to court to reduce her alimony if she didn’t support her daughter, Sheila seemed to resign herself to it.

  She was coldly polite to Peter, but that was more than Katie ever expected.

  Like a magnet finding north, her eyes turned automatically to her husband, currently smiling down at Dorothea Aldridge as they whirled around the room together.

  She turned back to her brother. “Peter is wonderful. Every day I fall more in love with him.”

  Trent sighed. “You know, I envy you. I wish my own trip down the aisle had turned out as well as yours.”

  She hugged him, her heart aching for him even in the midst of her bubbling joy. She knew how much the failure of his marriage stung him. “I know. I do, too. But maybe the Crosby luck is finally changing. Ivy and Max are deliriously happy, just as Peter and I are. We both found love—maybe you and Danny will have your turn soon.”

  Trent looked skeptical but before he could reply, Peter whirled Mrs. Aldridge toward them and tapped Trent on the shoulder.

  “Dorothea says now that I’m no longer available, dancing with me isn’t nearly as much fun as it used to be. She’s got this thing for bachelors. Since I told her you’re the most eligible one I know, she decided she didn’t want to waste her time dancing with an old married man like me and insisted we trade partners.”

  “We Crosbys are better dancers anyway.” Trent smiled at Dorothea, who chuckled and allowed herself to be handed off to him. The two of them spun away, leaving Peter to take Katie into his arms.

  “Smooth. Very smooth, Mr. Logan,” she mimicked her words of that night months before.

  He played along. “When a beautiful woman crosses my path, I’m not stupid enough to give her any chance to slip away.”

  “This woman doesn’t want to slip away,” she murmured. “She doesn’t want to be anywhere but right here, in your arms.”