The Tycoon's Marriage Bid

But to choose Alex now…that was a different kettle of fish entirely.

Instead of calling Belle, Nikki had left a voice mail message for Emily, one of her stepsisters-in-law, that she’d decided to stay in Montana for a few more weeks, and would call when she got back.

Then she’d hurriedly called Alex.

She still wasn’t sure she’d made the right choice, either.

The cadence of the tires on the highway deepened and she looked ahead as Alex slowed and turned off on a narrow road. It had recently been plowed, judging by the freshly turned snow neatly mounded at the sides. Not even a thin layer of white powder marred the single lane, which seemed barely wide enough to accommodate the SUV’s bulk.

After another ten minutes or so, the pavement ended, but the SUV took the graded gravel in stride. And before long, Alex pulled to a stop in front of a sprawling cabin.

Enormous logs. Stone foundation. A lone window that would let in only twelve square inches of sunlight at a time.

The place looked as if it had been built as a miniature fortress about a million years ago, and for a moment Nikki found herself longing for the confining hospital room.

Alex propped his wrist over the top of the steering wheel as he peered through the windshield at the structure before them. His long, blunt-tipped fingers slowly drummed on the dashboard.

“The sheriff recommended this place?” Nikki finally asked. It was the only glimmer of hope she held.

“He gave me a list of three places. This was the only one available right now. Owner’s name is Tucker. Spends winters in Arizona.”

“Maybe I should just go back to the boardinghouse.” Not that she knew how she’d pay for it.

She realized she was nibbling at her thumbnail, and hurriedly dropped her hand to her lap.

“Can’t.” Alex was still looking ahead at the dwelling. He seemed as enthusiastic as she was to actually look inside it.

But then Alex lived on the top floor of the Echelon, the finest hotel in Cheyenne. Well, the entire state of Wyoming, for that matter. The Echelon wasn’t enormous, but it was “quality.”

“Has she already rented out the room I was using?” Nikki’d had the room reserved for a week, Sunday to Saturday. It was only Friday.

He lifted his shoulder. “Called over there this morning and some girl answered. Said Tiff’s is more or less closed for a while. The owner—Hadley—had some personal stuff to take care of.”

Nikki was chewing her thumbnail again. “I hope she’s okay.” Hadley was a nice woman, about Nikki’s age. Tiff’s hadn’t been booming with business by any stretch, and Nikki had felt as if Hadley was more a taker in of strays than a dedicated innkeeper. Still, Nikki had had a reason for wanting to stay at Tiff’s. And Hadley had been more than accommodating.

“Town’s small enough,” Alex murmured. “Gossip would have gotten around fast enough if she weren’t okay.”

True enough. Her mother’s family, the Clays, all lived in or near the small town of Weaver, Wyoming, and Nikki knew how effectively gossip could travel there.

Alex’s fingers stopped drumming on the dashboard. “Don’t move. I’ll take a look inside.”

Nikki propped her elbow on the armrest and dropped her chin in her hand. “I’m not going anywhere,” she murmured to his back as he got out of the vehicle.

How could she?

She’d been lifted from the hospital bed into a wheelchair to exit the hospital, and then lifted from the chair into the SUV that had been idling, warm and cozy, at the curb outside the hospital entrance.

And Alex had done the lifting.

The doctor’s instructions had been adamant. The only thing Nikki was allowed to do was sit up for very brief periods of time every few hours. And use the bathroom more or less under her own steam.

She was embarrassingly grateful for that particular mercy.

Her thumbnail found its way between her teeth again. She watched Alex go up the rickety-looking steps. The security system consisted of a door key hidden inside the ancient metal mailbox affixed to the wall alongside the door.

He glanced back at the SUV for a moment, then went inside.

Nikki wondered what he was thinking.

When she’d been in his employ, she’d believed she’d been able to anticipate his thoughts.

But now she couldn’t. The uncharted waters were too vast for her to navigate.

He’d left the door open, but she could see little inside because of the shadows from the steeply pitched porch roof. Assuring herself that the sheriff would not have recommended a place to Alex that had crumbling floorboards and other hazards he could be encountering in there alone, she focused instead on the landscape.

Dozens of winter-bare trees dotted the land around the cabin. And there were evergreens that seemed to reach a mile into the sky.

She suspected that during the rest of the year, the beauty of the landscape compensated for the stark log cabin. Now, though, the place seemed terribly barren.

And her eyes were burning all over again.

She blinked rapidly and sniffed hard. Enough with the waterworks, already. This was just another unexpected challenge to work through. It wasn’t as if it were the only hitch in life she’d ever encountered.

As long as she followed the doctor’s instructions, the baby would be fine. As long as she concentrated on that, she’d get through this. And when the doctor sprang her, Alex would go on his way again, and she would get on with her life.

Nothing all that different than what she’d been doing since last summer, anyway.

The door beside her opened and she jumped.

Alex released her safety belt. “I’ll take you in.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to leave the warmth of the SUV, where she could entertain fanciful notions of wriggling behind the wheel and driving off. “Is it as ancient inside as it looks outside?”

“Not exactly.” He slid his arms beneath her.

The third time to be carried by him.

She buried her face from her chin up to her nose in the ivory scarf wrapped around her neck, and tried not to breathe. Tried to pretend she wasn’t fifteen pounds heavier with baby weight, and tried not to justify just how smoothly Alex traipsed across the snow to the cabin.

Yes, he was a large man. But he was a tycoon, not a lumberjack. Carting her—carting anything—around wasn’t really his style.

Yet he managed it with as much style as he did most everything else.

She stifled a sigh, only to hold her breath a moment later when he went up the steps, which creaked ominously. He turned sideways to go through the door, then kicked it shut behind them.

The solid slam seemed to echo inside Nikki’s head as she stared in disbelief at the interior.

“Oh…my…word.”