Snowbound Baby (Silhouette Romance) (11 page)

When he didn’t reply, Zoe couldn’t tell if he didn’t argue because he’d fallen asleep, or if he was actually considering what she had said.

In case he was thinking about it, she pushed on. “You know…we have a built-in opportunity to see if we could have something because the sheriff is selling my parents’ house.” A new idea came to her and she blurted it out before she could stop herself. “I could move to Texas with you and stay with you until I got on my feet.”

But even as she said the words, Zoe knew she wouldn’t be staying with him until she got on her feet. She was already halfway in love with him. She would be totally in love with him after a few weeks of living with him. And she knew she’d spend those weeks desperately trying to make him love her.

Unfortunately, she also knew he’d be in his home territory and he could slide back into his routine and easily ignore her. Worse, he could end up wondering what the hell had possessed him to let her move to Texas with him. Assuming he even let her go with him at all.

Her suggestion of moving to
Texas with him would only work if she could get him to realize right now, while they were still stuck in Pennsylvania together, that he wanted more from her than something casual.

Recognizing he was asleep by his deep breathing, Zoe rose from the bed. But when she reached the door she stopped. She felt better.

A lot better.

Almost as if she had hope in her life again.

In the great room, she peered into the drawer to make sure Daphne was still napping, then she sat on the sofa and analyzed what had happened in that bedroom. She couldn’t feel hope about her feelings for Cooper. He’d probably fallen asleep before she’d made her suggestion about Texas, but if he hadn’t, he had ignored it. When he was well again, he could yell at her for even asking. So she knew her unexpected infusion of well-being had not come from him.

She thought about everything they had said in those few minutes of conversation. When that reaped no results, she focused only on what
she
had said and she suddenly realized that buried in their discussion was her admission that the county sheriff would be selling her house.

She gasped softly. Whether she’d intended it or not, in that short discussion, she had let her house go.

She leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes. The truth was the house might come with free rent, but it was an albatross. It cost too much to heat. The roof needed to be patched. The faucets leaked. The furnace was on its last leg. Maybe that was why it didn’t hurt to let it go.

Even if Cooper Bryant didn’t want
her, she was going to be okay. She and Daphne wouldn’t end up on the street. They’d end up in an apartment, probably shared with someone she’d find through a newspaper ad. And her new roommate could be good company. Who knew? She might end up with a best friend…or someone who could become as close as a sister.

That thought intensified the hope she felt. But she heard a sound from the bedroom and spun to face the closed door.

The idea of a sisterlike roommate did give her some sense of a happy future, but she’d much, much rather move to Texas. Still, she couldn’t be the one to bring it up again. She’d given Cooper plenty of hints that she would be willing to start something with him. But more than that, she couldn’t say or do anything that would cause him to put up those walls again. She had maybe one more day before Cooper would leave and she wasn’t going to ruin the chance that he might see the obvious for himself.

Cooper awakened at around four o’clock in the morning. Realizing his virus had run its course, he pushed himself out of bed. Though there was a bit of residual stiffness, he no longer felt he could throw up. He no longer felt weak. All of this was very good news.

He pulled on the jeans and T-shirt he had dropped at the side of the bed, then went in search of his boots. He found them, shoved his feet inside, grabbed his jacket and left the house. From the porch he looked out at the moonlight glistening off the packed snow. The air was crisp and clean. The world was a silent winter wonderland, and he let himself absorb the peace before he jogged down the steps and headed for the driveway.

The other good news of
the morning was that in spite of his fever-induced delirium, he remembered talking with Zoe about selfishness. He didn’t recall exactly what he had said, but he knew he had made his point that selfishness wasn’t the way to go. Even though she’d argued a bit about needing to change something in her life, Cooper had no doubt she wouldn’t take the selfish route because she was a smart woman. She would be okay. And that meant he had to leave before he did any more damage to her fine, upstanding set of morals.

With the moon lighting his way, Cooper walked out to the road. When he saw it hadn’t yet been plowed, he sighed. But he also understood that the state had been busy clearing the main arteries. He was sure this road would fall into the department of transportation’s radar some time within the next twenty-four hours and he and Zoe could go their separate ways.

All he had to do was behave himself for about sixteen more hours and he wouldn’t have to worry that he’d ruined a perfectly sweet woman.

He trudged back to the cabin and glanced at his wristwatch. It was nearly five o’clock and he knew that Daphne usually woke before six o’clock, so after stripping off his denim jacket, he went into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. He watched it brew, then drank a cup, letting the minutes tick away until five-thirty, when he began frying bacon.

Around ten till six, the
sounds of Daphne’s whimpers and wake-up cries drifted down the steps. At five till six, Zoe padded into the kitchen with Daphne.

“Good morning.”

This was where he hit the dilemma. If he wasn’t at least polite, Zoe would go back to believing the selfishness theory he had hoped he had wiped clean yesterday. But if he was too nice, she would get all the wrong ideas…. He stopped his thoughts. It might be true that Zoe was coming to like him as much as he feared he liked her, but once they left this house it wouldn’t matter if Zoe thought she was head over heels in love with him. They would never see each other again. It was better to err on the side of caution.

He smiled. “Good morning.”

“I see you’re feeling better.”

“A hundred percent better. But you probably know exactly how I feel since you had the same thing.”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

“Listen, why don’t you let me feed Daphne while you go shower? I know what it’s like to be her keeper for twenty-four straight hours, so I know you could use a break.”

She licked her lips. “Really?”

“Sure.” He’d expected a more joyful reaction, not something so analytical, and he concluded he must not have gotten his point across the day before. Knowing he couldn’t let her leave this house with the wrong idea, he decided he had more explaining to do. “I remember talking yesterday about selfishness—”

Her eyes widened. “You remember our conversation from yesterday?”

“Yes, and I want to make
sure you got my message. I don’t want you thinking that by becoming selfish you can make your life better. You can’t.”

She frowned, then slowly asked, “That’s all you remember?”

“Yeah,” he said, but he searched her eyes. He experienced the usual slam in the gut that he always got when he looked into their blue depths, but this time he saw something that made him realize their conversation had gone a lot further. And whatever they’d discussed, it was important.

“What else did I say?”

Taking a step back, she licked her lips. “Nothing,” she said, but a current of electricity passed between them. More than attraction, it hinted that they’d come to an understanding…or something.

His eyes narrowed. “What else did
you
say?”

She drew a breath.

“Zoe?”

She sighed. “It’s not important. Really.”

He studied her for a second, feeling a strength of connection to her that had no basis. Finally, he said, “I think it is. I think I must have given you another wrong impression about me and I’d like the chance to fix it.”

She sighed again. “All right. What if I tell you this? You didn’t give me any wrong impressions.”

“I think I did. It isn’t just your behavior. I
feel
something—”

“Damn it!” she said, interrupting him. “You just aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

“No.”

“All right, then, here’s the deal. We had a really nice conversation because you were too sick to argue. You even held my hand. So I got brave enough to ask if I could come live with you when the sheriff sells my house.”

He frowned as the words began to
sink in. Now that she mentioned it, he remembered holding her hand and how right it had felt. He remembered drifting off to sleep picturing her in the house on his ranch. Picturing her with the horses. Picturing her in his bed.

A shaft of white-hot desire shot through him, but he ignored it in favor of getting to the truth. “You asked to live with me….” He closed his eyes and realized what had happened. He’d been too weak to fight his feelings, and she’d seen them.

Unwilling to let her hope for another thing she couldn’t have, he shook his head. “Zoe, do not even go there.”

Her chin lifted. “Why not? It’s my life and—”

“That’s exactly the point. This is your life and you’re not the kind of girl to live with someone!”

“How do you know that when I don’t even know that for sure?”

“I know,”
he said, getting angry now. She might not have been a virgin when he met her, but Zoe Montgomery was pure. Not the vague kind of pure people associate with sexuality, but pure about life. She wanted life’s best. In less than a week, he’d corrupted her.

He headed for the door. “I’m going outside to see if the snowplow came through.” He knew it hadn’t but she didn’t know he knew. “When I get back there’ll be no more talk of living together! You’re too good for that, Zoe,” he said, slamming the door behind him.

M
idmorning another snowstorm hit. For
two solid hours Zoe held Daphne on her lap and stared out the window. She reminded herself that even though Cooper Bryant didn’t want her, she could get a roommate. She also told herself that once she got rid of her albatross house, she could get loans and grants and go to school, and eventually land a job that paid well. Things were not
that
bleak. So what if Cooper Bryant didn’t want her to live with him? She hardly knew the man.

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.