Intimate Surrender

“I told you it was just a scratch.”

“Still, you’ll need to put something on it.”

“Can it wait until we’re finished here, Dr. Logan?”

“I hope your tetanus shot is up to date. That nail looked a little rusty.”

Someone with her inherent klutziness would be foolish not to keep current with her shots. Her last tetanus booster had been the previous summer after an unfortunate encounter with a conch shell on her brother Danny’s Hawaii retreat.

“Don’t worry, you’re not going to be trapped in the middle of a blizzard with someone suffering from lockjaw.”

“Well, at least I’ve got that much going for me. I guess things really could be worse.”

His dry tone surprised a laugh from her. Not much of one, she had to admit, but a laugh nonetheless.

He smiled in automatic response, his teeth gleaming in the artificial light. They stood close together under the pool of light spilling from the lantern. He still held her hand, and his fingers were warm and hard on her skin.

His gaze met hers for a moment and suddenly she could think of nothing except their night together, how they had laughed at nothing and kissed and laughed some more.

Everything inside her seemed to clench at the memory, a long, slow tightening of muscle and nerves. She saw something kindle in his eyes, something hot and wild and dangerous.

Before she realized it, she swayed a little toward him, then caught herself just in time. Horrified at her response, she wrenched her hand out of his grasp and stepped back so quickly she nearly stumbled again.

“We’d better get this thing fired up.”

For a moment, he only stared at her with an odd look in his dark eyes—a combination of awareness and a baffled sort of anger. “Right,” he finally muttered. “The wind sounds like it’s kicking up a notch.”

To her vast relief, he turned his attention to the generator. It was a little trickier than Clint’s instructions had led her to believe, but soon they had it going and switched the power current over to the generator.

Despite the tension simmering through the room and the pain still throbbing from her finger, she felt like Benjamin Franklin with his kite and his key when the lights flickered back on.

She grinned. “Bingo.”

He gazed at her for a charged moment, that strange expression in his eyes again. She waited for him to say something but he continued to watch her, as if he couldn’t quite figure her out.

She cleared her throat. “Would you like something to eat? Margie left a pot of beef stew on the stove for me that’s probably still hot and she made fresh rolls this morning. It’s probably not what you’re used to, but she’s a wonderful cook.”

“Let’s take care of that cut of yours first.”

She absolutely did not want him touching her again, not when she couldn’t stop remembering how his body had felt inside her, how his mouth had explored her skin.

“I’ve got it. You could add another log to the fire, though, and turn off any lights and nonessential electronics throughout the house. We’ll need to conserve what generator power we have. Here, take the lantern. I’ve got another one in my bedroom.”

He nodded and held out his hand. Their fingers brushed as they exchanged the light, and tiny sparks jumped between them. Just static electricity, she told herself.

They returned to the kitchen together, then split up as she headed for her bedroom suite. She left the overhead light on long enough to locate another battery-powered emergency lantern in her closet, switched it off and carried the lantern to the bathroom to get first-aid supplies.

While she rummaged through the medicine cabinet for a bandage and antibiotic ointment and washed the blood off her hand, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looked horrendous. Her hair was spiky and windblown from her time outside earlier and she hadn’t bothered with makeup. Her eyes looked unnaturally huge in her pale face and her mouth had a pinched, sickly look to it.

No wonder Peter looked at her like he couldn’t quite believe Katie Crosby and the glamorous Celeste could be the same person.

She could scarcely believe it herself. She had been playing a part that night, a thrilling masquerade. Stuck alone here with her, Peter would see the real her. The boring, sensible Kate who wore long underwear and read dry technical manuals and who would never dream of going home with a handsome man and making love all night long.

Well, okay, she dreamed about it, she admitted to herself with a long, honest look in the mirror. She dreamed about it every night and remembered in exquisitely painful detail how she had come alive for the first time in her life that night.

Perhaps it was best that he see her for the person she really was. Not glamorous, not glitzy. Just Katie. That night she had been Cinderella at the ball, dressed up in borrowed finery. It had been wonderful and magical dancing the night away with Prince Charming, but midnight had come and gone. There would be no glass slipper for her—but she had been left with a magical, wondrous gift.

She touched her abdomen. Could she keep the baby a secret from him in such close quarters? It was only for one night and then he would be gone again. She was only thirteen weeks along and wasn’t really showing unless someone knew her well enough to recognize that the tiny swelling at her stomach hadn’t been there a few weeks ago.

She would just have to make sure she stayed in baggy clothes so he wouldn’t have that close a look.

The pesky morning sickness could be explained away by a lingering stomach bug, she hoped.

It would be a little tricky to pull it off, but what other choice did she have? She couldn’t tell him. This was her baby. He might have unwittingly donated the sperm but that didn’t make him a father. Bad enough that she deceived him by not telling him her name—she couldn’t bind him forever to a Crosby because of a quirk of fate.

Besides, Peter Logan was not the father she wanted for her baby. He was far too much like her own father—completely consumed by his work. She knew what it was like to wait in vain for a few crumbs her busy, important father might scatter her way. She wouldn’t do that to her own child. Better for her baby never to know a father than to suffer from inattention and indifference.

She could carry off the deception for one night, then they would go their separate ways and Peter would never have to know about the baby. She would invent an imaginary lover for the inevitable questions from her family and friends about her child’s paternity—a man she had fallen hard for but who had been unattainable.

Not so very far from the truth, she thought grimly. In fact, too close for her own comfort.

With a weary sigh, she quickly brushed her hair and debated touching up her face with some of the makeup tricks Carrie Summers had shown her. In the end she decided against doing anything more than a quick brush of lipstick and a little blush on her cheeks so she didn’t look so ghastly pale.

She returned to the gathering room to find that Peter had pulled a small table and two chairs near the fireplace and had set out two place settings. She nibbled her lip, fighting the urge to turn back around and hide out in her room for the rest of the night.

Dinner for two in a dimly lit room in front of a crackling fire looked entirely too romantic, too intimate.

He stood by one of the chairs waiting for her with a challenging kind of look in his eyes and she knew she couldn’t be cowardly enough to run away. She squared her shoulders and sat down.

“I hope you don’t mind me moving the furniture around a little,” he said. “I figured this would be more comfortable than eating in a cold dining room.”

“The dining room is rarely used anyway. When I stay here, I usually eat in the kitchen with the Taylors.”

“Those are the caretakers?”

She nodded. “Their daughter is having her first baby. They’ve gone for moral support.”

“I hope they made it through the storm.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. Clint’s used to driving in this weather.”

She returned to stirring her stew and the Herculean effort of swallowing the occasional bite.

“This is quite a place you’ve got here,” Peter said. “Somehow I never would have figured the Crosbys to go for rustic and isolated.”

The faint note of derision in his voice raised her hackles. She wasn’t sure if it was aimed at her family or at the ranch, both of which she loved dearly. Either way she didn’t like it. A sharp retort formed in her throat but she squashed it. In the interest of peace, she should probably do her best to avoid needless bickering.

“My father bought it as a retreat several years ago when it seemed like everybody was moving west.”