Wedding His Takeover Target (15 page)

And, as Pops had so wisely pointed out, she couldn't do that hiding in the kitchen.

“Meg?” she called.

The inn's housekeeper stuck her head around the corner of the laundry room door. “Yes?”

“Everything is under control here. Leave the dough to rise and I'll deal with it later. I'm going out.”

“In this weather? Honey, you'll need sled dogs to travel now. The snow is really coming down. Visibility up on the mountains can't be good. Our guests will be returning from the slopes before dark, I'm thinking.”

Surprised, Sabrina glanced out the kitchen window. Leaden skies dumped big, fat flakes. Her heart sank. “I guess I could put the chains on the tires.”

“Can't whatever it is wait until tomorrow?”

“No. It can't wait another minute.” She pulled on her coat, hat and gloves. “Dinner is in the oven. It'll be done at five if I'm not back.”

“The girls and I can handle serving. Do what you've got to do. Just be careful out there.”

Sabrina felt a twinge of guilt at leaving the inn's staff to cope, but that is why she'd hired extra help for the tourist season. She stepped out on the back porch and the cold hit her like a blow, but she gritted her teeth and headed for the barn to get the chains for the minivan's tires. She'd made it halfway to the building when the sounds of bells caught her attention.

Her heart skipped at the memory of the carriage ride with Gavin and what had happened afterward. They'd made love and made a baby. She'd never be able to hear sleigh bells again without remembering. But right now she had more important things to do than reminisce.

She ducked her head and trudged onward, but the bells kept coming closer. She stubbornly refused to look. “Probably tourists taking a sleigh ride.”

She stepped into the cold barn, rummaged until she located the chains and headed back out the side door only to stop in her tracks. A sleigh she didn't recognize stood in the inn's driveway, but two familiar horses snorted frosty white clouds into the air from the harnesses. The man stepping down from the vehicle didn't glance her way, but she'd recognize that muscular frame and that confident bearing anywhere. Gavin. He marched toward the inn's back door.

“Gavin,” she called out, her voice cracking.

He stopped and pivoted. Her heart swooped to her stomach
like a skier plunging down the mountainside. He closed the distance between them in long determined strides.

She wet her dry lips. “What are you doing here?”

He looked tired and tense as his dark eyes prowled slowly over her, resurrecting memories of his hands and mouth doing the same. He jerked his head toward the sleigh. “Get in.”

Her breath hitched. “It's cold. Are you sure you wouldn't rather put the horses in the barn and go inside the inn?”

“If we go into that barn together, we're going to end up making love and not talking. And as much as I want you, it'll have to wait.”

A quiver started deep inside her, then worked its way outward until her entire body trembled. “Oh. I—I—” The tire chains in her hands rattled. She swallowed and tried again. “I was coming to see you.”

He took the chains from her, carried them back to the barn. She took the sixty seconds while he was out of sight to try and gather her shattered composure. Why was he here? The divorce papers? The relinquishment form? Both should have been delivered this morning.

He returned. “The sleigh is safer than slick tires. Let's go.”

He gripped her elbow and pulled her forward, hitting her body with a bolus of adrenaline. How could his touch affect her so deeply? He'd married her for land. Or had he? Was Pops right? Was Gavin running scared? Heaven knew the way he made her feel terrified her.

“Are you sure the horses will be okay?”

“They're conditioned to the weather and they have the proper shoes.” He helped her into the vehicle but this wasn't the one they'd used before. This one had runners instead of wheels. She settled on the seat and pulled the blankets over her legs. He climbed in beside her, his body only inches from hers, then released the brake and clucked to the horses. He
guided them back to the road where, thankfully, the traffic was light due to the heavily falling snow.

“Where are we going?”

“Wait and see. Are you warm enough?”

“Yes.” An electric blanket kept the chill away and the curved top kept the snow off their heads. But neither did anything for her doubts. She knotted her gloved hands and tried to find the words to broach her request. How did you order a man to be a good father? Giving him a chance to concentrate on maneuvering them through traffic was the perfect excuse to stay silent.

He turned the sleigh into the Jarrod Ridge driveway, then took the path toward the mine—the cause behind everything that had happened in the past twenty-four whirlwind days. Their meeting, dating, marriage, baby and separation.

“Look in the compartment,” he said.

Sabrina leaned forward and opened the small box in the front dashboard of the carriage. She withdrew a sheaf of papers and unrolled them. She'd seen this document before. “It's the deed to the mine.”

“Made out to you.”

She scanned the words and saw her name, verifying what he said. “Why?”

He pulled the horses to a stop beneath a covered shelter that hadn't been here last time she'd visited the mine, then he set the brake and dropped the reins. She looked around, noting the stakes and the trenches in the nearby soil rapidly getting covered with snow. “I've halted construction on the lodge.”

“Why?” she repeated.

“Because I married you under false pretenses, this land is rightfully yours.” He paused and swallowed, his dark gaze unwavering. “But I'm hoping you'll share it with me. With our child.”

Stunned, she stared at him. “What are you saying, Gavin?”

“I may have married you for the wrong reasons, but I fell in love with you for the right ones.”

Her eyes, throat and lungs burned. She searched his eyes, seeing the truth, the emotion behind the words. He
loved
her. “Gavin—”

He held up a hand. “Hear me out. You stole my heart, Sabrina, with your smiles, your generosity and your courage. You reminded me why I love this place.”

The pages crumpled in her hands. He took them from her and dropped them on the seat, then climbed down from the carriage and held out his hand. Too dumbfounded to do anything else, Sabrina placed hers in his and let him assist her from the carriage. Cold as it was, she resented the gloves separating their flesh. He led her toward the path and stopped a hundred feet away at the overlook where he'd allowed Pops to rest the day they'd hiked to the mine.

“I told Henry that if I ever returned to Aspen I'd build a house here overlooking the valley. That day I didn't have the courage to face the bitter memories I'd left here. Today, because of you, I do.”

“Gavin, I don't want to be any man's anchor. You love your job.”

“You're no one's anchor. You're the fulcrum on which everything else balances. The idea of not being able to come home to you every day, to hold you in my arms at night and to make love with you knocks me off center.”

Her knees went weak. “You're not saying this just because of the baby, are you?”

He shook his head. “I never expected to find you. The baby is a bonus—first of several I hope to have with you. Let's build a home in this spot overlooking the inn and raise a family together.”

“But you love your job—”

“I've traveled the globe because I had no reason to put down roots. I was trying to fill a void, an emptiness that you erased the moment I met you. I can limit myself to local assignments or consult on projects that won't keep me away from you for weeks on end.”

He peeled off his gloves, then hers. When they were skin to skin, palm to palm with their fingers laced he squeezed her hands. “Be my reason for coming home.”

He was offering everything she'd ever dreamed of. “I don't want you to feel as if you're giving up everything for me, for us. I don't want our child to feel like you resent his presence.”

“I love you and I will love this child and any others we might have. I promise you, Sabrina, if you'll allow me to be a part of your life, I'll be losing nothing and gaining everything.” He lifted her chin with his knuckle. “Tell me I haven't lost you, that you still love me.”

A tear scalded its way down her cheek. Gavin brushed it away before it had a chance to cool. “I do love you, Gavin. And I want to spend the rest of my life showing you how much.”

“I promise you won't regret it.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her so tenderly Sabrina's tears overflowed, then he pulled back and tugged her down the path.

“Where are we going?”

“Into the mine. I want to carve my initials next to yours in that beam for all the future Jarrod generations to see. One of these days we'll be telling our grandkids it all started with a little hole in the ground…one filled with silver and dreams, but the riches weren't in the minerals.”