Intimate Surrender

Two

“That settles it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Even though the only light in the room came from the snapping flames in the fireplace, Katie could see the determination in Peter’s eyes and she wanted to weep. Just when she thought she had hit absolute rock bottom in her life, somehow she managed to cartwheel down another few feet.

She suddenly wanted nothing in the world more than to curl up on that couch in front of the fireplace, wrap herself in her grandmother’s wedding-ring quilt and sob.

What had she done to deserve this? Okay, maybe she hadn’t been exactly forthcoming to Peter Logan three months earlier. In retrospect, she knew she should have told him her real name the moment he struck up a conversation with her, at the first sign of flirtation.

She wasn’t sure why she had kept that important little detail to herself—maybe because she had been so shocked that the gorgeous and sought-after Peter Logan could actually be flirting with someone like her—boring, quiet Katie Crosby.

Who could blame any woman for being caught up in the magic of the evening? With a glamorous makeover, a new hairstyle, the designer clothes, she had felt like someone else. A stranger alluring enough to catch the interest of one of Portland’s most wanted bachelors.

The champagne she had overindulged in hadn’t helped any. She hadn’t been thinking with a clear head but she did know she hadn’t wanted the night to end. She also knew that the moment Peter found out her last name that flattering desire in his eyes would have changed to contempt and coldness faster than she could blink.

Okay, so she had perpetuated a tiny deception on the man by keeping her identity concealed. Was that really such a hideous crime that someone felt the need to take her calm, organized world and shake the dickens out of it as if she was stuck in some nightmarish live snow globe?

She thought things were bleak before when she was just pregnant and alone. Now she had the delightful added bonus of facing the reality that she was pregnant and alone and heartily despised by her baby’s father.

The real hell of it was, seeing him again like this only served to remind her vividly of the heat and astonishing wonder of that night. Of kissing his hard mouth and touching those muscles underneath his clothes and burning only for him.

He hated her, she knew he did, but still she couldn’t control the way her insides trembled and sighed just seeing the firelight wash across those gorgeous, masculine features.

“Looks like we’re in for a long night,” he said abruptly and rose to his feet. “While you round up a flashlight and some candles, I’ll go bring in some extra firewood.”

Of course he would take charge, she thought. As Logan Corporation CEO, he was no doubt used to giving orders and having his minions obey without question. She should have been offended by his whole master-and-commander routine but she had to admit a tiny part of her wanted to let him throw his weight around a little, to let someone else carry the burdens of her worries for a while.

She sternly squashed the tempting impulse, ashamed of her weakness for even entertaining it for a second. “You don’t need to do that. Clint loaded several days worth of wood on the back porch for me before he left. There’s also a gas-fired generator out back that will juice up the appliances until the power kicks back on.”

“You act as if you’ve been through this before.”

“A few times. The power can be unreliable at best out here, especially during winter storms. I’ve had enough experience with outages that I should be perfectly fine. Believe me, you can head into town for the night with a completely clear conscience.”

She might as well have been talking to the river rocks on the fireplace. His only answer was a raised eyebrow and a challenging stare.

Katie sighed. It was worth a try. The idea of spending even one night in such close quarters with Peter Logan was enough to send her into major panic mode.

He was staying, though, and she realized grimly that no amount of arguing would change his mind. The same man who had the kindness as an eighteen-year-old college student to rescue a fat, awkward adolescent from the ugliness of her peers more than a decade earlier would never leave a woman alone out here in the middle of a blizzard.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about generators, do you?” she asked. “I’ve seen Clint start it but never done it myself.”

“Between the two of us, we should be able to figure it out, don’t you think?”

Relieved that he seemed willing to put aside his animosity, even temporarily, she nodded. “Sure.”

He cocked his head. “Are you sure you’re up to it? You’re still looking a little green around the edges. Maybe you should just take it easy and lie down here by the fire. I’m sure I can handle starting up a generator on my own.”

She refused to let him see how very much she would like to do exactly that, just curl up on this couch and let him handle everything. Trying her best to conceal the greasy nausea writhing around in her stomach, she mustered a small smile.

“Don’t worry about me.” Using the fire’s glow for illumination, she crossed the vast room to the hall storage closet. On the shelf near the door, just where she expected it, she found a large battery-powered lantern Clint and Margie kept available for exactly these kinds of emergencies. Wouldn’t she love it if the engineers on her R & D team were half as efficient as the Sweetwater caretakers? she thought.

“This should help,” she said to Peter. She led the way toward the utility porch off the kitchen. It seemed as if in just the few moments since the power had gone out, the temperature in the rooms away from the fireplace had dropped significantly. The Mexican tile floor in the kitchen was freezing, even through her thick wool socks.

All she could see outside the greenhouse window above the sink was thick blackness, but she could hear snow hurling against the logs and the wind moaning under the eaves.

It sounded lonely, mournful, and she shivered despite the sweater Ivy had sent her for Christmas from her new husband’s country of Lantanya, where Max was king.

The lantern gave off enough light that Peter must have seen her reaction. “Everything okay? Do you need to sit down?”

She knew the concern in his voice was just the courtesy he would show anyone but she couldn’t help being warmed by it. She had a feeling he wouldn’t be so solicitous if he knew the secret she carried under that sweater, though.

“No. The cold just took me by surprise, that’s all. The generator is this way.”

With the lantern held out in front of her, she carefully navigated through the mudroom to the utility porch that housed the home’s utilities—the furnace, water heater and the backup generator. The large room was vented with outside air for safety reasons and Katie found it even colder here than in the kitchen, so cold she could see her breath in the dim light she held in her hand.

“Any idea where to start?” Peter asked.

“Clint told me he left instructions.” She held the lantern up higher and scanned the room.

“This what you were looking for?” Peter asked, plucking a clipboard from a nail near the generator. He handed it to her and she saw several laminated cards secured neatly to it.

“I’ll say this for the man—he doesn’t have much to say but he’s an absolute genius at organization.” Katie leafed through the cards until she found guidelines for the gas-fired generator, beneath a page detailing how to relight the pilot on the furnace and one for checking the heating oil level on the outside tank.

“Here we go.” She studied the instructions, smiling a little at Clint’s meticulousness. “This doesn’t look bad.”

She reached to replace the clipboard on the nail but misjudged the distance in the dim light and stumbled a little against the wall. The back of her hand scraped across the nail, hard enough to break the skin, and Katie couldn’t contain a quick intake of breath.

“What’s wrong?”

It was silly, she knew, but she suddenly didn’t want Peter to know she was the world’s biggest klutz. She might have been blessed with brains by some genetic quirk, but she had definitely been passed over when it came to grace and poise.

She had always been the most accident-prone of her siblings. If there was one thing worse than being fat and ugly in a family of beautiful people, it was being fat and ugly and clumsy.

Peter already thought she had some deadly disease. He didn’t need to know about this.

“Um, nothing,” she murmured, tucking her hand against her side. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.” He sounded more resigned than angry, as if he expected nothing else. “You might as well tell me what happened.”

Her hand throbbed wickedly and she could feel blood beginning to drip from it. She wouldn’t be able to hide it from him for long and she suddenly felt foolish for trying. “Just a scratch. It’s nothing.”

“Let me see.”

She recognized the CEO in his voice, that unmistakable note of command. Her father had it and now Trent shared it in spades. She had spent her entire life surrounded by powerful men, she suddenly realized. With all that experience, why wasn’t she better at dealing with them?

With a weary sigh, she thrust out her hand. Peter took the lantern from her and set it on top of the furnace, then gripped her hand and tugged it under the circle of light.

“It doesn’t look very deep,” he decided after studying it for a few moments.