Snowbound Baby (Silhouette Romance)

by Susan Meier

  Daphne made a whimpering sound. As if by rote, Zoe rose from her seat, warmed a bottle, fed her baby and laid her in the baby drawer in the bedroom. Because the sides of the drawer were high enough, she could let Daphne sleep in it without worry that she’d get out, and she acknowledged to herself that Cooper was quite inventive when he wanted to be.

  She stopped her thoughts and squeezed her eyes shut. She had to quit thinking about him and giving him credit that he didn’t deserve. Yes, he had found somewhere for Daphne to sleep, but he’d done that for his own sanity. Everything he did, he did for himself. He was not nice. He was not thoughtful. If he came up with creative solutions they were to save himself work or ease his conscience. He was not the kind of man she wanted to fall in love with, and if it killed her, she was getting over her feelings for him.

  Daphne fell asleep. Zoe left the bedroom and walked to the window again. Staring at the big fat flakes as they fell was similar to watching a train wreck. She didn’t want to stay another day with Cooper. Yet, for some reason or another, fate had chosen to torture her.

  Finally, she decided to indulge herself in her only real activity. Showering. She forced herself away from the window and her gaze collided with Cooper, who lay on the sofa engrossed in an old movie.

  She would tell him she was about to take a shower, but she knew he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t give a damn about anything. That was why he wasn’t upset and stressing over the new storm as she was. That was why he could contentedly watch a movie. He didn’t invest any emotion in anything—especially not her. No. Not just her. People in general. He didn’t expect anything or give too much, and she needed to start doing that, too.

  She left the great room, made a quick check on napping Daphne and headed for the shower. She was sure the dull ache in her chest would go away eventually. But for now it wasn’t budging.

  She sluggishly showered, then stepped out and unenthusiastically toweled her hair until it was dry enough that she could put on her day-old sweater. She shimmied into her already worn jeans and ran a finger full of toothpaste over her teeth, then ambled into the bedroom again.

  Unfortunately, when she glanced into the baby drawer, Daphne was nowhere around and all the self-pity in which Zoe had indulged vanished with the violent pump of her heart. Her baby was gone!

  She looked around the bedroom, including under the bed, in case Daphne had crawled out of the drawer and had gotten herself stuck there, but she didn’t find her little girl. Panicked now, she scrambled out into the hall between the kitchen and great room. Immediately, she saw Daphne’s baby seat on the kitchen table, happy baby inside.

  “What is she doing out here?”

  Cooper shrugged. “I promised to take her this morning, but I went outside. So when I heard her cry, I got her.”

  Zoe noticed that his answer was simple, to the point, and that he was gathering cans from the cupboard as if he were about to make something for lunch.

  She walked to the table. “Come on, Daph—”

  Cooper half turned from the counter. “Leave her. We’re fine.”

  Righteous indignation rose up in her. She was not accepting any more of his charity. And if he didn’t really care about her as a person, then anything he did for her was charity. Or a way to make it palatable to have her around, and Zoe didn’t like that, either.

  “I don’t need your charity.”

  He shook his head with disgust. “I’m not giving you charity.”

  “Okay,” she said, as pride and anger straightened her spine, “then what would you call it?”

  “How about charity for Daphne. She doesn’t need a grouchy mother.”

  Zoe took a sharp breath. He could call her a prude. He could call her stupid. He could call her insane for all she cared. But he could not call her a bad mother. And he knew that. He knew her vulnerable spot and he’d hit it.

  Cooper cursed softly. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”

  Zoe didn’t believe it had. Thinking back to everything they’d been through in the past few days, she realized part of the reason Cooper was so good at taking care of himself was that he took things at face value. He didn’t read anything into any situation. He dealt only with facts, logic and reason. And the “fact” was he hadn’t called her a bad mother. She’d read that into his comment. He’d said she was grouchy. And she was grouchy. She couldn’t take offense at the truth.

  An unexpected sense of calm enveloped her. Using logic and reason really seemed to work.

  She took a step back from the table. “Don’t worry about it. I am grouchy and feeling sorry for myself and all kinds of other stupid things. So maybe I do need a few minutes alone. Though I’m not sure what it’ll accomplish.” She combed her fingers through her hair. “I wish I had a book…or more space to pace in. I wish I could stop the world long enough to clear up a few of my problems.” She smiled uneasily. “But I can’t. So maybe a few minutes alone will make me feel better.”

  “Why don’t you put your coat on and go for a walk?”

  She laughed and shook her head. Texas boy. Thought it would be fun to walk in the snow. She showed him her tennis shoes. “If I walk in two feet of snow in these, I’ll ruin them.”

  He shrugged. “Sit on the porch. Some days when I feel the weight of my problems, I sit on my porch and look out at how big the world is and realize I’m sort of small and in the grand scheme of things my problems are small and I feel better.”

  She nodded. Having already made a fool of herself in front of this man, she decided not to argue with his advice or mention that his sentiment was awfully poetic for a man who was so pragmatic. Instead, she walked into her bedroom and put on her insubstantial red leather jacket. Knowing that wouldn’t be enough to fend off the cold, she took a blanket from her bed, walked through the hall and front door and sat on the top step of the porch.

  And for some reason or another, maybe it was because she was alone in a pristine world, or maybe because she felt as insignificant as Cooper had suggested she would, she suddenly found herself smack-dab up against the truth of why she was so upset. She didn’t care about her house. She didn’t care about money. She didn’t even care about apartments or going to college. She was lonely and tired of being alone. And she thought somebody like Cooper Bryant, who had been deserted by his family and more or less shoved aside by life, would understand that and see her as the answer to his loneliness, too. But he didn’t.

  Cooper looked out the window and seeing Zoe cry made his chest hurt so much he almost couldn’t breathe.

  Daphne wailed.

  He turned toward the kitchen where he’d left the baby in her travel seat and saw Zoe’s energetic daughter slapping her chubby hands against her sausage-like thighs. He pulled her from her seat and instead of grabbing his nose, pulling his hair, or twisting his lips, Daphne cuddled into his neck.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. It almost seemed that if one of these two Montgomery girls didn’t get to him, the other did. Daphne was sweet and fun. Zoe was sexy and determined. And life was simply kicking the heck out of them. First, Daphne’s dad had left. Now, Zoe’s parents had let the taxes go unpaid on the only break life had given her.

  Daphne snuggled against his shoulder and he sighed heavily. There was no way in hell he was letting his two girls suffer. He couldn’t change Zoe’s life. He couldn’t change that her parents had left her or that her ex-husband was an idiot. Yet he wanted to do something. He had to do something! He couldn’t let life beat her down anymore. He and Zoe might have both lost their parents at eighteen, but he hadn’t been left alone. Ty had made sure he had gone to college. Then, even after he left his brothers, fate had been kind to him in finding him a partner. No one had ever done anything for Zoe.

  So he had to. But what? Cuddling Daphne as he paced, Cooper racked his brain and suddenly the answer came to him. So simple. So clear. He could pay the taxes on her house. Actually, if he gave her the certified check he’d had prepared to pay off his brothers, he wouldn’
t be merely paying the taxes on her house. He would essentially be handing her four years of college tuition and support for those years so she could go from poverty to a normal life.

  It meant facing his brothers.

  No, it meant facing his brothers as a failure. No check. No explanation. Just the simple admission that he couldn’t pay the mortgage, so they could foreclose. Seeing him humbled was what they wanted. They didn’t want his ranch. His brother had more money and material objects than they knew what to do with. But that was good because that meant he could take care of his partner.

  His brothers’ lawyer’s letter had said that if he couldn’t pay the mortgage balance before December 24, he had to tell Ty face-to-face. If he were the only one losing the ranch, he would have ignored that provision, but because he had a partner who stood to lose everything he’d invested, Cooper intended to accommodate it. He would go and see his brother Ty, all right. But it wouldn’t be to grovel as he expected was Ty’s intent in that provision. No, he would demand a check for the equity he and his partner had earned on the ranch, so Dave wouldn’t lose his investment.

  Then, Cooper would continue driving truck and saving, and in a few years he would have another down payment for another ranch.

  So he could give Zoe his check. Not because he was a saint. And not because he wasn’t selfish. But because for him, starting over wasn’t all that hard. He’d played this out once. He knew what to do. Zoe, on the other hand, was trapped and he simply could not stand by and do nothing.

  But now that he’d gotten her back up, there was a good possibility she would refuse his “charity” and he had to figure out a way to get her to accept the money. Today’s snowfall had granted him the grace of one more day before he and Zoe would be heading home. But it was only one day, so he had to do something quickly. Something he knew she couldn’t resist. Unfortunately, the only thing she couldn’t resist was him.

  He didn’t want to give her the wrong idea, but this time tomorrow she’d be in her house on the other side of this godforsaken mountain and he’d be on his way to Texas. Short of seducing her, he had to do whatever it took to get her to accept the check.

  When Zoe entered the front foyer, her tears were dry. She blamed her red nose on the cold and happily took Daphne from Cooper’s arms, swearing that the hour and a half outside was exactly what she needed.

  He sighed with relief. “Great. I fed Daphne a bottle. Why don’t you put her down for her nap, catch a nap yourself, and maybe fix yourself up a bit?”

  She gave him a confused look.

  “I made a special stew for supper and I just thought it would be nice….” He kicked the toe of his boot along the linoleum. “Ah, damn it, Zoe. Look, this storm isn’t like the last one. It’s passing through. The roads will be cleared late tonight or early tomorrow. We’re going to be leaving and there are some things we need to discuss.” He paused and caught her gaze. “I think I’ve figured out a way to solve your problems.”

  “You have?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it right now. We both said things we didn’t mean this morning and it made me think about you and your life and I have a proposition for you. So you go take a nap and fix yourself up and I’ll check on the road conditions and finish dinner. Then while we’re eating I can make my proposal.”

  She drew a long breath. “Let’s just talk about it now.”

  He put his arm around her shoulder and guided her to her bedroom. “No. Daphne needs a nap and I want to check on the road conditions to be sure the road crews really will get to us tonight or tomorrow. And I don’t want to rush this. I want it to be special.”

  He walked away. Zoe stood frozen for a few seconds, then spun to watch his retreating back.

  Special?

  And hadn’t he used the word proposal?

  Yes, but he’d also used the word proposition. It was totally out of the realm of possibility that he would ask her to marry him. But it wasn’t so far-fetched to consider that maybe he wasn’t going to leave her…. Maybe he’d decided to let her come to Texas with him!

  Zoe had never felt her spirits lift so fast. One second her heart was in the black pit of despair, the next it was on the highest mountain singing for joy. From their argument that morning she knew he wouldn’t want her to “live with him” in the conventional sense, but because of that argument she also knew he thought of her as someone special. He liked her. And if she went to Texas with him it would only be a matter of time before he loved her.

  She put Daphne down for her afternoon nap and then slipped up the steps in search of an attic. Cooper was in freshly laundered clothes. She’d worn the same two sweaters and pants for days. True, she had laundered them, but she was tired of them. She wanted to wear something pretty. And her only shot at something pretty would be finding some discards in the attic that she could somehow mix and match to make herself look and feel beautiful.

  But the attic was filled with old hunting jackets, vests and smelly boots. She almost believed she was going to have to be Scarlett O’Hara and make a ball gown out of drapes, when at the back of the attic she saw a trunk. Everything inside looked to be from the forties, and, sadly, everything exceptionally pretty or dressy enough to be worthy of a special dinner was also made from wool. Because everything in the trunk smelled funny, anything she wanted to wear would have to be washed, and that counted out all the wool clothes.

  Then suddenly she saw a simple, sleeveless white cotton dress sprinkled with purple violets. It was sweet and feminine and could be laundered. She grabbed it and ran down the steps to the basement where she tossed the garment into the washer. She waited until the cycle was finished, then brought the dress upstairs. But rather than dry it in the great room, where Cooper could see it, she hung it on a hanger from the curtain rod in her bedroom, right above the furnace vent. Within two hours it was dry. Then she showered, put on makeup and slid into the dress.

  When she walked out of her bedroom, all the lights had been dimmed and the television had been tuned to an all-music channel. Soft rock glided through the air. Daphne happily played in the dresser drawer in the center of the great room floor.

  At the kitchen table, Cooper glanced up from cutting a chicken and said, “Oh. Well…” He paused as his eyes took a slow inventory. Then he swallowed. “Don’t you look nice.”

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  Fighting a serious case of butterflies, she walked into the kitchen. Because she didn’t have shoes that complemented the dress, she wasn’t wearing any. Barefoot and in the airy sleeveless dress, she probably looked like a woman about to go on a picnic with her lover, rather than a woman stranded in a cabin in the middle of a cluster of snowstorms.

  She saw Cooper swallow again. “You really look nice.”

  And Cooper felt really funny. If he still had a stomach it had fallen to the floor. He couldn’t stop staring at her, but when he noticed it was beginning to make her uncomfortable he reminded himself that he had to get her in an amiable enough mood to take his check.

  The gentleman he usually kept buried rose up in him and pulled out her chair.

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  Zoe made dinner very easy. She kept her voice low, her comments quiet and Cooper relaxed, knowing soft-spoken, quiet Zoe could be persuaded to accept the money. She wasn’t the arguer or the spitfire. She was the woman with common sense. The check was as good as in her bank account.

  But as quickly as he realized that, sadness enveloped him. He might succeed in putting the money in her hands, but he also knew they weren’t going to see each other again. He longed for a kiss. One more kiss. A kiss to remember…

  He glanced at her, thinking how pretty she looked, how innocent, and reality intruded. Their attraction was much too potent to risk another kiss.

  Still, he wanted something special to make this a night they could both remember. A slow romantic tune floated from the television and, inspired, Cooper rose. “Would you like to dance?�
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  She smiled shyly and agreed and Cooper’s heart did a somersault. He couldn’t believe everything was going so smoothly. He’d thought for sure she would immediately demand to know his proposition. Instead, she seemed to want to make this night as memorable as he did.

  As he pulled her into his arms and began to glide around the floor, he realized again how well they fit together. The warmth of her pressed against him felt so wonderful, so natural, he couldn’t help admitting that though they might not be perfect partners, they did have “something.” He had no idea what it was, but there was clearly a connection between them. Swaying in rhythm with the soft music, they both knew it. And she probably wanted a kiss as much as he did.

  Unable to resist, he lowered his head and kissed her. As always, the world spun. But this time it didn’t tilt off its axis. This time he understood the sexual attraction had been seasoned with genuine affection and he enjoyed it because it was the last kiss he would get from her, or give her. This was the end for them. Except he had to give her his check.

  Compelled by the truth of that, he pulled away. There would never be a more perfect moment. He slid his hands from her waist so he could clasp her fingers and said, “Zoe, I know we haven’t known each other very long, but we’d be foolish if we didn’t acknowledge that in these past few days we’ve become very close.”

  She nodded.

  “We’ve shared a lot of things about our lives that I’m guessing we’ve never shared with anyone else.”

  “Yes.”

  He drew a quiet breath. “So, I want you to have my check.”

  She blinked. “Your check?”

  “Yes.” He pulled the folded white envelope out of his back pocket. “This is the certified check I had written to pay off my brothers. It’s more than enough to pay the taxes on your house and probably put you through all four years of college. I want you to have it.”