Intimate Surrender

Like many of Jack Crosby’s actions, Sweetwater had been purchased to please one of his many girlfriends, then had been forgotten as soon as her father moved on to more nubile pastures. But she decided that was old family business she didn’t particularly need to share with Peter Logan.

“Does your family spend much time here together?” he asked.

She tried to remember when the Crosbys had last done anything together.

“We all came out for Christmas once right after Jack bought it,” she remembered. “Trent and Ivy have been out to ski occasionally. Sweetwater is only about an hour from the Jackson Hole ski resorts.”

He broke a roll in half and liberally spread some of Margie’s strawberry preserves on it. “Is that why you’re here? To ski?”

She wasn’t sure quite how to answer that. She certainly couldn’t tell him she had escaped to Sweetwater first because she’d been ill and then because she had been desperately in need of a safe haven, a sanctuary where she could come to terms with her pregnancy and figure out how she was going to map out the rest of her life after this unexpected detour.

“I’m not much of a skier,” she finally said.

She would have preferred to leave it at that but he pressed on. “So why are you here?”

Katie fought the urge to gnash her teeth at what was beginning to feel like an interrogation. “I like it here. Of all my siblings, I probably spend the most time here. This is where I come when I need to relax and recharge. I love the mountains, even in the winter. I like the solitude of it and the slow, easy pace. I guess I just needed a break from the rain.”

“So you decided howling winds and three feet of snow would be more to your liking?”

“It doesn’t snow all the time,” she muttered. She frowned suddenly, remembering something that had been puzzling her since he arrived. “How did you know how to find me, anyway? Only a few people knew I was coming.”

“You know, it’s amazing. The truth can open all kinds of doors. Maybe you ought to try it sometime.”

Before she could control it, her breath caught as the jab poked under her skin. She deserved it, she acknowledged, especially with the secret she still kept from him, the one she knew she could never tell him. Knowing his contempt was warranted didn’t make it any easier to take.

“Who told you?”

“I phoned your office. Once I gave your assistant my name and told her I needed to speak with you on an urgent matter, she was eager to help. She said you were staying at the family ranch and gave me the number here. From there, it was easy to connect the phone number to a location.”

She should have known. If Peter hadn’t been there, Katie would have groaned and banged her head against the back of her chair a few times. She loved her sixty-year-old assistant dearly but Lila Fitzgerald had a romantic streak as wide as the Columbia Gorge. She read the Weekly faithfully and must have seen the picture of them together at the bachelor auction.

Katie could just guess at the wild speculation that must have been running amok through Lila’s feverish imagination when Peter had called looking for her.

What kind of gossip was raging around the water coolers at Crosby Systems about her and Peter Logan because of that blasted picture? There were already some on her team who thought she didn’t have the experience or the know-how to lead the R & D division. What would her co-workers think when they saw a picture of her consorting with the man many considered to be the enemy?

What would her family think?

She already knew Sheila would be livid. She could only be grateful her mother was in Europe and wouldn’t be returning for several weeks. What about Trent and Ivy and Danny? They wouldn’t care so much that Peter was a Logan, but they would worry whether he had hurt her. And when she turned up pregnant, she knew they would wonder at the timing. She just had to hope she could brazen it out.

“I’m still not sure why you went to all the trouble to come out here. If you had the number, why couldn’t we have had this delightful little reunion over the phone?”

Peter didn’t have a rational answer to that. He only knew that the moment he found out where she was, he’d known he would come after her. He’d used the excuse of finding out what she had learned about the super-router project, but the truth was he’d been consumed with the need to see her again, corporate spy or not.

He’d be damned before he told her that, though, and he opted to change the subject. “Are you going to eat this delicious stew or just push it around in the bowl?”

Color crept along her cheekbones but she still looked far too pale for him. “I’m not very hungry.”

“Still feeling sick?”

Her gaze flashed to his, then back to the bowl of stew. “No. I’m fine.”

He didn’t want to worry about her. He wanted to wrap himself up in his well-deserved fury.

She had deceived him, had possibly stolen Logan secrets from him, jeopardizing a project that had been in the works for years. Maybe even jeopardizing his own future at Logan.

She was a Crosby, for hell’s sake. That alone should have been enough to squash any softness he might be tempted to feel.

So why was he fighting the completely inappropriate urge to take care of her?

“Have you seen a doctor?” he asked abruptly.

That color spread until even her nose was pink. “It’s just a—a bug. Nothing to worry about.”

“Is it contagious?”

A corner of her lush mouth lifted at that, then settled back into solemn lines. “No. I can guarantee you won’t catch this particular bug.”

A particularly strong gust of wind rattled the big window, but the merry little fire put out plenty of heat.

Peter couldn’t help wondering what they would be doing right now if circumstances had been different. If she wasn’t ill, certainly, but also if he had never learned her true identity.

Two days ago he would have given everything he had to be right here with the woman who had haunted his dreams for three months. To be alone with Celeste in an isolated ranch house, snug and warm and enchanted, would have been a fantasy come true. They would have snuggled under a blanket and listened to the wind howl outside while they kissed and touched and made love a dozen times.

The reality of their situation was so far removed from that fantasy that he gave a humorless laugh.

“What?”

“Just wondering what your brother would say if he knew I was here,” he improvised quickly.

“I’m old enough that I don’t need to ask my brother’s permission for much these days.”

The depressing reality of their situation here made his voice sharper than he intended. “Do you bother to ask him which unwitting business rivals to seduce, or do you figure that out all on your own?”

He regretted the words and the end to their temporary détente as soon as they escaped, especially when he saw hurt flare in her brown eyes. Was the emotion real, he wondered, or was she just a damn good actress? Whatever the answer, he didn’t like seeing her wounded.

Her chair scraped the wood floor and she pushed it back and rose, her expression now veiled. “I’m tired and I don’t have the energy to trade barbs with you, so what do you say we call it a night?”

He opened his mouth to apologize for his cruelty then stopped himself just in time. He didn’t have a damn thing to be sorry about. She was the one who had screwed him over.

“Sweetwater has six bedrooms suites,” she went on. “Two on this floor and five upstairs. Each has clean linens and a wood stove or fireplace for warmth. I’m sure you’re capable of starting your own fire, or you can sleep here on the couch if you would rather.”

“Kate—” He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. Not an apology, damn it. She cut him off anyway before he could form any kind of coherent sentence.

“Good night, Peter,” she murmured in a voice every bit as cold as that bitch of a wind, then she picked up her bowl with its untouched stew and carried it to the kitchen.

Three

After her grand exit, Katie knew she had no choice but to hide here in her bedroom for the rest of the night.