Snowbound Baby (Silhouette Romance)

by Susan Meier

  He trudged up the hill, gratefully unlocked the truck door and climbed into the cab. He nearly hugged the steering wheel because, to him, this vehicle meant freedom. Lots of days he was secretly glad he could get away from everything, head for the open road and just listen to country music stations from Texas to Canada. Having this job prevented arguments with his partner, saved him and his partner from growing tired of each other’s company, gave his partner a chance to bring women to the ranch and gave Cooper a chance to find women in unexpected places.

  And kept him from being with any one person so long that she got all the wrong ideas.

  When Bonnie—a seemingly easygoing, undemanding woman he dated and might have actually considered settling down with—had dumped him five years ago, she’d said he all but ignored her and he knew it was true. He had thought she was the kind of woman who didn’t care about all the touchy-feely stuff other women wanted. But, apparently she had. And he had missed the signals she had been tossing out for him to understand that. Most days he didn’t think of anything but the obvious, which for him always had something to do with his own personal well-being. That was actually why he’d cared for Daphne. Not because he was nice but because it was common sense. If he didn’t feed her and entertain her she would scream. He hated screaming. So he’d cared for the baby to make his own life more comfortable.

  But how did a guy explain that to a woman with stars in her eyes?

  He didn’t.

  He should leave. Right now. He was out the door. There hadn’t been a scene. He hadn’t made a promise he wouldn’t keep. He hadn’t even led Zoe on. She might be dreamy-eyed about the kiss and think about him for an hour or so. She might even sputter and spit a bit when she realized he wasn’t coming back. But he wouldn’t have hurt her. She’d forget him within a day or two of getting home.

  Unfortunately, he could not get his truck up this mountain when there was at least two feet of snow on the road. He might be able to get down….

  Damn! He knew that was too dangerous. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to Zoe simply to leave.

  Yet, it also wouldn’t be fair to Zoe to go back to that house with her having the wrong idea about that kiss.

  On the other hand, if he didn’t go back, she might not curse him and sputter about irresponsible men. She could worry that he had been hurt. And that wasn’t fair. Worse, if he didn’t go back and the furnace broke, she and Daphne might freeze. The kid was already out of milk. Water had kept her from killing him the night before, but if this road didn’t get plowed in the next few days…

  He sighed. When in the hell had his life gotten so complicated?

  Friday afternoon. When his semi had lost its ability to go forward.

  With another sigh, he raised a trucker on his radio and asked about road conditions. Things were bad. Twenty-four to thirty-six inches of snow had fallen. The state had begun to plow, but even the main arteries weren’t open yet.

  Cooper thanked the trucker and wished him well, then signed off and did what he knew he had to do. He pulled a duffel bag of spare clothes from the compartment behind his seat and tossed it in the space beside him, ready to take it with him when he went back to the house because he knew his conscience wouldn’t let him leave Zoe and Daphne alone. Plus, now that the storm itself had subsided, he had to get his check. Nobody would be driving up the mountain, but anybody walking by could break into his truck and steal the one and only true valuable he had.

  He leaned around and removed the cover that hid the safe, then fiddled with the lock. When it opened, he pulled out the white envelope containing the certified check. He wished he hadn’t been forced to pay off the mortgage now, but he had no choice.

  Just as he had no choice but to go back to that house. He couldn’t strand Zoe. So he was stuck. And his libido was just going to have to play gin rummy or something until he could leave. He was sure the road would be cleared in another day or two. Forty-eight hours wasn’t that long to control himself. Lord knows, he’d done it before.

  That logic satisfied him until he returned to the house. Zoe stood in the hallway that separated the open great room from the kitchen. Her pretty yellow hair had dried and hung sexily around her, but her blue eyes were wide and round as if she hadn’t expected him to return.

  But as if she realized he really was standing in the foyer, she hadn’t conjured him in her imagination, her entire face changed, relaxed, became filled with relief. And Cooper felt something inside him respond to that look. He didn’t feel happy. He didn’t feel glad to be back. What he felt was something more primal, more instinctive. It was almost a sense of duty that had clicked in. As if he had a mate’s responsibility to this woman. Worse, that feeling of responsibility didn’t fill him with fear or anger. It felt very natural.

  That almost made him groan. First, he could not be responsible for someone he didn’t really know. Second, he never put his name and the word “mate” in the same thought process with a woman. Something was terribly wrong here and he suddenly suspected he knew what it was. Because he’d cared for Daphne, his desire to seduce Zoe had come head-to-head with her motherhood. So to make seducing her acceptable, he was thinking like a mate. Not a husband…God forbid. But something more primitive. Because he wanted to be primitive with her. The way he wanted to make love to her was raw and natural, not nice or respectable.

  The very fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about this should have scared him silly but he capped the hypothesis by realizing that by respecting Zoe, he was actually giving her the wrong idea. When he thought that he knew he’d finally gotten to the bottom line. Unless he wanted her hearts-and-flowers notions to take root, he had to stop being nice to her.

  The easy way for him to get her to dislike and mistrust him the way she had originally would be to make a pass at her. Not implement some sweet seduction, but make a cool, calculated suggestion, as he had when he’d been willing to trade his story for sex. If he came on to her as his true I-only-want-sex self, their relationship would probably go back to normal. No thoughts of kisses or “having feelings.”

  Yeah, he was going back to behaving like his obnoxious self. No more of this letting her think he was Mr. Nice Guy.

  He wasn’t.

  For Zoe, the rest of the morning and afternoon passed almost like a typical day at home. She made a fresh batch of formula, earning a groan from Cooper, who had apparently endured Daphne’s temper the night before because he hadn’t had anything but water to put in her bottle.

  Then she found a washing machine in the basement, and though she had to hang her and Daphne’s clothes on a line she strung in the great room, by the end of the afternoon they had something clean to wear.

  Cooper watched replays of classic games on a sports channel and only grunted when she tried to make conversation. At first she thought he might be angry that he had been forced to care for Daphne the day before, but then she remembered the real reason he’d left her alone that morning. His thank-you kiss had turned into something he hadn’t intended it to be. And his response wasn’t the only unexpected reaction. She could all too easily recall the softness of his lips, the way he nibbled and nipped and finally given himself over to the incredible kiss. And when he’d fallen over the edge, she had, too. How could she help it? The man dripped sex appeal. He was gorgeous, street-smart, worldly. If she hadn’t known that before he kissed her, she certainly knew it now.

  Peeling potatoes to put around the roast she had baking, Zoe suppressed a shiver. No first kiss had ever stolen her breath the way his had. No kiss had ever reached into her soul with emotion the way his had. But Cooper Bryant was nothing like the man she envisioned herself with in her second time around romantically. She didn’t want somebody so practiced in the ways of the world. She wanted an average guy. She didn’t want someone brimming with sex appeal. She wanted a guy who wanted a family.

  And Cooper had abandoned his family.

  She stopped her thoughts and took another breath. He’d said his brot
hers had kicked him out of their lives, but it was fairly clear from the things he said and how he behaved that he kept himself out. He absolutely, positively, definitely was the wrong, wrong, wrong guy for her.

  However…

  She had asked for a sign that he might want an invitation to Christmas dinner and if that kiss wasn’t a sign, she didn’t know what was.

  More than that, though, she didn’t know everything about him. Heck, she hardly knew anything about him. There could be extenuating circumstances in his family situation. He might secretly long for everything she wanted and simply be unable to admit it because he was still hurting from his brothers’ rejection….

  Boy, was she ever reaching! Particularly since his behavior after the kiss had negated any sort of message she’d thought was in that kiss. He’d grabbed the first excuse to leave the house, and when he’d returned he hadn’t spoken one word beyond his groanings about Daphne’s formula. Not even to tell her about the road conditions. She’d assumed he hadn’t heard anything good since he’d brought his duffel bag, showered and changed into clean clothes before settling on the sofa. So she hadn’t asked and he hadn’t volunteered.

  He was clearly sorry he’d kissed her. But that was fine since he wasn’t right for her. He was too old, too complicated. The last thing either one of them needed was to get involved with the other.

  The best thing to do would be forget that kiss happened. And she would. Because that was the right thing to do. For both of them.

  With the potatoes in the oven, she strolled into the great room again. Casually. Confidently. The same way she had Saturday morning before either one of them had even considered kissing. Positive this behavior would take them back to how they’d felt about each other before that kiss.

  “You never told me if you raised anyone on your radio.”

  “I did.”

  She smiled. And he was right back to being as rude as he had been on Saturday morning. Thank God. “And what did this person say?”

  “About what?”

  “About the road conditions. Did you get any information?”

  “Parts of the valley actually got thirty-six inches of snow.”

  She gasped.

  “My thought exactly.” He nestled into the sofa, as if to get back to his classic game. “So even the main arteries aren’t open. My guess is we have another two days before anyone remembers there’s a road on this mountain.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  He shifted his gaze to the television and Zoe knew the conversation was over. Fine. She’d endured a weekend of him already. She could do another two days.

  She checked on Daphne, who continued to sleep soundly in the drawer on the floor of the bedroom, but when she walked into the hall again she realized she had absolutely nothing to do. Except straighten the kitchen. Though they continually tidied up their messes, it wouldn’t hurt her to do a little extra cleaning. Maybe dust out a cupboard. Wipe down the refrigerator.

  Because the owner of the house was a basically neat person—or family—arranging the cupboards and wiping out the refrigerator took only an hour. When Zoe was done, she paced behind the sofa so Cooper couldn’t see her, but she was beginning to get annoyed with the way he hogged the television. She understood that he was angry with himself for kissing her, probably angry with himself for being nice to her, and even angry with himself for insisting she come along with him Friday afternoon to find shelter, but that didn’t give him the right to make her miserable.

  Luckily before she could say anything to him Daphne woke. Without taking her from the bedroom, Zoe changed her and played with her. When the timer on the stove rang, she came out, turned off the oven, fed Daphne some baby food, then served dinner for herself and Cooper. But rather than eat at the table, he fixed himself a plate and took it into the great room where he continued to watch TV. With Daphne in her travel seat, Zoe cleaned the kitchen. When that was done, she bathed the baby, put her in fresh pajamas, fed her a bottle and put her to sleep.

  She almost lay down on her bed too, but she wasn’t tired. And, damn it, she was bored and that stupid Cooper had hogged the one and only form of entertainment long enough.

  She stormed into the great room. “Give me the remote!”

  Drowsy, Cooper raised his gaze to meet Zoe’s. He knew she was bored. He’d deliberately squandered the television. He’d not spoken. He’d eaten alone. All so she would realize he was an inconsiderate, selfish guy who wasn’t going to change.

  If he kissed her now, she’d probably slap his face.

  He sat up on the sofa. “Sorry,” he said a tad arrogantly, as if he were clueless to the fact that he’d been rude. He tossed the remote at her, then patted the sofa cushion beside him.

  Looking as if she hadn’t expected his easy acquiescence, Zoe cautiously caught the remote and even more cautiously sat. She hit a few buttons, bypassing the nightly news, two sitcoms and a movie in favor of an hour-long drama that she probably suspected they both would enjoy.

  Even when she was mad at him she couldn’t help being nice.

  She was such a babe in the woods that Cooper almost felt guilty for what he was about to do, but not quite. He wanted to kill her infatuation. He didn’t want her thinking he was something he wasn’t. He didn’t want her sympathy. He didn’t want her affection. If she could make love without any of those, then he was her guy. If not, he wanted that out in the open, too, so she didn’t accidentally tiptoe back to her crazy ideas about him.

  As she became engrossed in the television show, he slowly raised his arm along the back of the sofa, resting it behind her. She appeared not to notice.

  He inched closer. This time she shifted uneasily and glanced at him in her peripheral vision. Jerking his eyes in the direction of the television, he pretended not to see her looking at him. When she returned her attention to the show, he lifted his hand from the sofa back and gently dropped it on her shoulder.

  For that she turned and stared at him. He frowned as if someone in the television show had done something confusing. When she glanced away, it was all he could do to hold back a smile. He’d never known that slowly making a pass at someone could be so amusing.

  A commercial came on and neither one of them moved. He feigned being hypnotized by the screen. Zoe seemed as if she wasn’t even breathing. When the show finally returned, and she relaxed enough to pay attention to the TV again, Cooper began playing with her hair.

  Wow. Soft. And wonderfully springy. He glided his fingers through a curl and when he let it go, it rolled back. That made him smile. In fact, it completely stole his focus. This time when he slid his fingers through a thick lock, he watched them ripple through the strands, then watched her hair spring back into place.

  “Your hair is amazing.”

  Cautious, she peeked at him. “It’s naturally curly.”

  “Mine’s straight,” he said, then unwound a long lock to see it bounce back.

  “Good for you.”

  He heard the slight quiver in her voice and realized that while he had become analytical, she was falling victim to the movement of his hand through her hair. The knowledge that she was responding sent a shiver of arousal through him and reminded him to get back to his mission. This seduction wasn’t supposed to be successful. He was supposed to disgust her. He shifted another few inches closer, let his hand drift from her hair to her shoulder and down her arm.

  “What are you doing?”

  He should have known that a talker like her wouldn’t just get angry and tell him to stop. Nope. She wanted a syllabus.

  “I’m seducing you. Should I give you the steps or is the broad definition enough?”

  She stared at him. “Are you—”

  Nuts? he suspected she was about to ask, so he kissed her before she could say anything else.

  Her lips were as soft as he remembered, her mouth as yielding. Once again, Cooper felt himself tumble to the edge of reason, but
this time he didn’t let himself plummet over the precipice. He could enjoy a kiss, be drawn into a kiss, nibble and suckle and twine his tongue with her in a kiss, but he absolutely refused to lose control.

  That was his last coherent thought before reason totally deserted him. Overwhelmed by her softness and the sheer pleasure of kissing her, he couldn’t think of anything else, until suddenly, she jerked away from him and jumped off the sofa.

  “You’re not seducing me!”

  “Why? Because I ignored you this afternoon? Honey, what’s going on between you and me has nothing to do with getting along, or making a commitment or even exchanging phone numbers. And right now your body’s telling me you feel the same things I do. Do you want to do this or not?”

  “You are so crude!”

  “I’m certainly not hearts and flowers.” There. It was out. The thing he’d wanted to deny all day. The thing he wanted her to understand. The thing he needed for both of them to get beyond, so they could make these next two days at least passable.

  “Well, I’m a hearts and flowers kind of girl.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say I wouldn’t be romantic.”

  “I don’t want romance. I want love.”

  With that, she turned and left the room. Cooper heard her door slam and he reached for the remote, satisfied that any romantic notions she’d entertained had been killed.

  But halfway to changing the channel, he realized he felt like scum. He tamped down the guilt by reminding himself that the air had needed clearing between them. But then he heard an odd sound. A click.

  He rose from the sofa to see if he could determine the sound’s origin and realized it had come from Zoe’s bedroom. Specifically her bedroom door. He heard the click again. It was a key. Because the house was old, the bedrooms needed keys to lock them. Cooper hadn’t thought to look for his, but apparently Zoe had found hers.

  And she’d locked her door.

  A foreign sensation gripped him. He felt creepy. She’d just told him she didn’t trust him.