Dynasties Collection

“In the office,” she called back.

He made his way down the short hall. She sat behind the old wooden desk with her hair twisted up, baring her neck and that spot near her nape that she liked for him to nibble. Seeing her hit him with a pulse-accelerating punch of desire to the gut. “Where’s Henry?”

“Out with the judge.”

“And your guests?”

“Visiting art galleries.”

He pushed the door closed and turned the lock. Her eyes widened. “It’s early. Why aren’t you at the construction site?”

“Blake has everything under control.” He circled the desk, grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. He studied her from her face to her breasts outlined to mouthwatering perfection by the purple sweater and then down. He liked the surprise. “You’re wearing a skirt.”

“I attended Erica’s bridal shower today.”

He skimmed a hand over her hip and then beneath the hem and back up her thigh. She wasn’t wearing pantyhose. But she was wearing panties. Too bad, but not for long.

She gasped as he tugged the cotton down her thighs. “Gavin, we need to talk.”

Why did women always want to talk when they communicated so much better on a more basic level? The panties fell to her ankles. “In a minute. First, I need this.”

He hooked a hand around her nape, pulled her forward and kissed her, covering her soft lips, stroking them with his tongue and lapping up her unique flavor. “Mmm. You’ve been eating chocolate mints again.”

Ever since the night he’d painted her nipples with chocolate she’d had a craving for the things.

“Just one.” Her breath caught when he cupped her breast and found her tight nipple, then a moan slipped free. Her breasts were so sensitive a man couldn’t help playing with them. But he wouldn’t taste them today—not with the threat of Henry or the guests interrupting him.

He lifted her skirt, finding her curls already wet and her slick little nub swollen and waiting for his attention.

“Gavin, please.” Her breathless voice egged him on.

“I will, baby. I will please you. I know exactly what you like.” He caressed her until she trembled in his arms, then turned her, planting her hands on the desk’s surface. He buried his face in her neck and her perfume filled his nose as he opened his mouth over the warm, satiny flesh beneath her ear. She bowed her back, pushing her bottom into his groin. Hunger surged through him, making his erection pulse in her warm crevice.

He quickened his finger, listening to the telltale sign of her panting breaths. When he thought she was close to the edge he ripped open his pants and shoved the fabric out of the way. Then when her muscle tension told him she was on the verge, he rolled on a condom and eased into her, filling her and sending her over the edge.

She felt so damned good. Slick. Hot. Wet. He gritted his teeth to keep from losing control right then as her muscles contracted around him with the rhythm of her orgasm. Once she settled, he stroked her again, this time using his penis as well as his hand to push her toward the next peak. He teased her as well as himself, alternating fast and slow strokes. Her body drew tight and he backed off once, then repeated the process a second time, making her wait for release. When he couldn’t stand the pressure building in his gut any longer he caressed her past the point of no return and quit fighting.

Climax exploded through him in hot brain-numbing bursts leaving his legs weak and shaking in the aftermath. He had to brace his arms on either side of hers to remain upright. His chest burned as he struggled to fill his lungs.

How could it be that good every time? How long would it take before his craving for her waned?

Sabrina squirmed free long before his legs regained stability. She hastily righted her clothing, and ducked to scoop up her panties. “That was—”

“Fantastic.” He dropped the condom in the trash can beneath her desk and refastened his pants.

“I was going to say unexpected.” When she met his gaze again, the pink drained from her cheeks. Worry clouded her eyes. “Gavin, I have something to tell you.”

Her tight tone indicated whatever it was couldn’t be good. “Is Henry okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine.” She chewed her bottom lip and shifted on her feet. Her fingers tightened and relaxed on the panties in her hand. “I’m pregnant.”

Shock winded him. The blood drained from his head and tension instantly knotted his previously relaxed muscles. “How?”

She searched his face as if trying to gauge his reaction. “I’m guessing I conceived that first time in the tack room. That’s the only time we haven’t used protection.”

He didn’t want to be a father.

He especially didn’t want to be an overbearing, fault-finding parent like his had been. Gavin could almost smell the smoke of his plan for a short marriage going up in flames. He’d expected Sabrina to tire of his long, work-related absences and demand a divorce. And then they’d never see each other again. That blueprint had been part of the Auckland job’s appeal. Distance of that magnitude meant fewer visits, less face time.

But now he and Sabrina would be permanently tied by a child. A child he would fail unless he found a better role model than Donald Jarrod.

Twelve

Gavin’s bleak expression dropped a lead weight in Sabrina’s stomach, erasing any lingering afterglow.

“Children were never part of the plan.”

She blinked at his bluntness. “We didn’t discuss them one way or the other. Are you telling me you don’t ever want children? Or you don’t want them with me?”

“My job involves too much travel for me to be a good father. I’d be an absentee one at best.”

Her heart sank upon hearing him confirm her fears. “So you are going back on the road when your year in Aspen ends?”

“Yes.”

“What about me? What about us? You know I can’t leave Pops, and the inn has been in my family forever. I can’t just abandon it or turn it over to strangers to manage.”

“I never intended for you to leave the inn. I’m going back to the lodge.”

“Wait. Don’t you want to talk about this?”

“There’s nothing to discuss. You’re pregnant with my child. I’ll make sure you have the assistance you need when I’m away on the job, and I’ll provide for the kid.”

Pain pierced her chest. She winced. “So you did marry me to get the deed. Then what? What was your plan after you had what you wanted, Gavin?”

He stared at her through eyes devoid of emotion—eyes that had only moments ago burned with passion. For her. She knew then that Gavin would never care for her the way she did him, and the reason he’d never said he’d loved her wasn’t because he didn’t know how to verbalize the words, but because he didn’t feel them.

Getting buried by an avalanche would have been less painful, less chilling than the realization that sex and land were all that mattered to him. For her the relationship was about so much more than just physical satisfaction.

She wrapped her arms around her middle. “If you married me to get the land then you have it. Mission accomplished. You don’t need me anymore. And I don’t need you. I’ll give you an uncontested divorce if you’ll sign over your rights to my child.”

“Our child.”

Numbly, Sabrina shook her head. “I grew up feeling unwanted and in the way and like a burden to my parents. As long as I’m breathing, my child will never experience that. If you don’t want him or her, if you don’t want us in your life, then you and I have nothing more to say. I’ll send someone for my things. Now please get out.”

Gavin let himself into the Black Spruce Lodge a few minutes before noon. The heavy snow falling had shut down construction. Just as well. With everyone on the site yapping about tomorrow’s Thanksgiving plans they weren’t getting much work done anyway, and he’d been eager to escape the chatter for the solitude of his home-away-from-home.

He hadn’t told anyone that he and Sabrina had split, but when he showed up at the family dinner without her they’d figure it out.

The silence of the house echoed around him and the sterile smell of hotel disinfectant lingered in the air. In the short time Sabrina had lived here she’d made her mark—particularly in the small kitchen. Each night when he’d come home from the site the delicious scents of the recipes she’d been testing had greeted him at the door, and the refrigerator had been filled with tasty and sometimes decadent morsels for him to munch on.

But not this week. This week the place smelled like sanitizer. His refrigerator was empty and Sabrina’s flowery shower gel wasn’t on the shelf by the tub. And even though he’d asked the maid not to, she still left chocolates on his pillows—chocolates that reminded him of making love to Sabrina, of painting her nipples and then lick—

He wiped a hand down his face, trying to sever that thought, but it was too late. Heat built like steam in his groin—heat that would have no outlet. He hung up his coat and headed for the minibar and a shot of Dewar’s. It burned all the way down his throat.

An odd restlessness rode his back. Why? He was used to hotels. Hell, he spent most of his life in generic, temporary accommodations. Free. Unencumbered. Uncluttered. And he liked it that way. So why did it feel as if something were missing now?

Deciding to forego lunch due to a lack of appetite, he opened his briefcase and extracted the Auckland file. He’d work until he got through the data. He considered lighting a fire, but that too brought back memories of making love to Sabrina in front of the crackling flames. He’d even given her rug burn on that—

He drowned the thought with another gulp of Scotch and headed upstairs to the loft office—where the fireplace was out of sight. He settled on the leather sofa and tried to focus on the geological reports, but it was slow going. His lids grew heavier with each passing second when normally the technical pre-construction specs fascinated him. He loved the challenge of anticipating problems before they arose. But not today.

What do you expect when you’re not sleeping at night?

That was only because he was worried about failing a kid as badly as Donald Jarrod had failed his children. Gavin and each of his siblings had baggage from their father’s brand of tough love.

Twenty minutes later—yeah, he was watching the clock—a knock at the door gave him an excuse to abandon his fruitless attempt. He made his way downstairs and opened the front door. A clean-cut twenty-something guy in a suit stood on the stoop. “Gavin Jarrod?”

“Yes.”

“This is for you, sir.” The young man handed over a thick envelope, then turned and departed before Gavin could dig a tip out of his pocket.

Curious, Gavin scanned the return address. An attorney’s office. “What in the hell?”

He hadn’t spoken to Henry since the separation, but the old man might have followed through with his promise to muck things up with inspectors since Gavin had hurt his granddaughter. The construction crew had barely begun. Plenty of stuff could go sour at this point.

He opened the tri-folded sheets expecting to find some kind of injunction to halt work on the lodge.

Divorce Petition.

The words hit him like a one-ton I beam slamming into his chest. Sabrina had filed for divorce. He flipped through the pages, skimming the legalese, most of it predetermined by their prenup, and then he came upon a second document—a form asking him to relinquish his paternal rights to the child she carried.

Gavin staggered backward until the living room sofa hit the backs of his legs. His knees buckled. He collapsed onto the cushion.

If he signed this then he’d have no reason, no right to contact Sabrina ever again or to see their child, and no reason to ever return to Aspen.

Sign it. It’s the best thing you can do for both of them. You’ll make a lousy husband and a worse father.

He pulled a pen from his pocket. His hand shook, quaking over the page until his eyes blurred. He couldn’t do it. He dropped the pen, shot to his feet and walked away from the papers lying on the table.

The idea of going another day—let alone a lifetime—without seeing Sabrina made it hard to breathe. His chest and throat burned as if a hot steel band constricted him. He glanced over his shoulder at the papers on the table. Signing them was the easy way out of all his problems. So why did the idea of walking away from her feel as if he were ripping out a part of himself? He’d never wanted a wife, and he’d sure as hell never wanted children.

Because you’ve fallen in love with the woman you married under false pretenses.

The realization stunned him. He didn’t do love.

Until now.

In their short time together, Sabrina had gotten to him and breached barriers he didn’t let people cross. She’d shown him how warm and welcoming a real home should be and reminded him how much he loved Aspen when his father wasn’t acting as a domineering killjoy. She’d taught him that real love meant sometimes putting another’s happiness ahead of your own.

For a moment when she’d been telling him about the baby there’d been a glow of hope and excitement in her eyes making them sparkle more than the diamond on her finger. And he’d killed it with his knee-jerk reaction and cruel words.

He wanted to see those emotions light up her face again. He couldn’t live a lifetime wondering if she and the child they’d created together were happy and flourishing. And leaving Aspen to avoid her the way he had his father seemed repugnant.

The most important lesson he’d learned from Sabrina was that bad parents didn’t necessarily make an emotionally crippled child. Look at her. Despite her parents’ lack of interest he’d never met a warmer or more generous woman. She relished making even strangers feel welcome in her home.

And she hadn’t let losing her husband or her first baby stop her from trying love again. She believed her late husband was the courageous one, but that man had nothing on Sabrina. Any child would be lucky to have her for a mother. Gavin fisted and released his hands by his side. He wanted a chance to raise that child with her even though he didn’t have the skills to handle the job.

Maybe with Sabrina’s help he could learn how to be a father.

You could end up failing Sabrina, your child and yourself.

But that was a risk he had to take. If it wasn’t too late.

But first he had to talk to his siblings. What he was considering wouldn’t affect just him. He had to find a way to prove to Sabrina that she was worth more to him than a hole in the ground.

“Kinda overdid the cooking, didn’t you?” Pops said.

Sabrina glanced up to see him looking over the top of his glasses at the kitchen work island laden with pies, cakes, cookies and an assortment of other dishes she’d prepared for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal.

She shrugged and continued kneading the dough for Friday’s sourdough coffee cake. “I had a lot of new recipes I wanted to try, plus all of Grandma’s favorites.”

“Did cookin’ fix what ailed ya?”

Her fingers twitched in the malleable mix. “I’m sorry?”

“Colleen always baked when she was upset. I ate best when she had issues to think through.”

Sabrina ducked her head. Was she so transparent? “I’m fine, Pops.”

He snorted. “You gonna let him get away with it?”

She considered playing dumb and asking “Who?” but Pops wouldn’t buy it. He’d been hovering since she’d moved back in, and his worrying about her wasn’t good for him. His agitation would only worsen once she told him about the baby. She hadn’t found the nerve to do that yet. “Let Gavin get away with what?”

“Running scared.”

“He’s not running scared. He married me for the land. He got it. He’s history.”

He shook his head. “If he was history you wouldn’t have cooked enough to feed a church congregation.”

Embarrassment burned her skin like a heat lamp. “The inn is at full occupancy. I want to have plenty to go around. You know our guests are ravenous when they return from the slopes.”

He tsked and shook his head. “Never known you to back down from a challenge, girlie. Always admired your grit. Until now.”

She flinched. “What would you have me do?”

“Nope. I’m not giving you the answer. You have to figure that out for yourself. But I’ll tell ya this much. Hiding in the kitchen and baking into the wee hours every morning ain’t gonna solve your problems or make you happy.” He shuffled out of the room.

The spacious room suddenly felt crowded and hot. She needed a break. Sabrina quickly washed and dried her hands, then plucked at her cowl-neck sweater. If only she could turn back the clock to October, back to when she’d been normal and numb. No. She smoothed a hand over her tummy. She didn’t want to go back. Going back meant undoing the miracle she and Gavin had created and forgetting those wonderful, magical, Christmas-card moments they had shared.

The only thing she’d change if given the chance was to slow everything down. Her relationship with Gavin had been too … everything. Too fast. Too intense. Too perfect. Too good to be true. And now … too painful.

What else could she do? She’d fought for her parents’ attention and failed to get it. Then she’d begged Russell to come home and share her grief after she’d miscarried. And even though his superiors would have granted him leave, Russell had chosen to stay with his men and do his job over being with her. She wasn’t going to set herself up for another rejection from Gavin.

If you don’t have the guts to ask for something, then you don’t deserve it. Sabrina heard her grandmother’s voice as clearly as if Colleen Caldwell were standing in the kitchen kneading dough and dispensing advice the way she’d done every summer of Sabrina’s life.

But was her grandmother’s wisdom right?

Sabrina fussed with the tie strings of her apron. No. She wasn’t going to beg for love. She wanted a man who chose to be with her, one who needed her as much as she did him. If Gavin wasn’t that man then she didn’t want him.

Yes, you do.

Sad, but true. She still loved him. Gavin had hurt her, but he’d also taught her how to play again, how to feel, and he’d shown her a side of Aspen she’d never experienced before—Aspen through the eyes of a native who truly loved this place, even though he let his father drive him away.

And that was the key, she realized. When you loved something or someone, you couldn’t let them push you away. You had to push back and fight for what you wanted.

She couldn’t walk away without at least making an attempt to see if what she’d shared with Gavin was more than just an act on his part. His touch, his lovemaking, his smiles had all seemed too genuine to have been nothing more than a pretense to seduce her into marriage.

And didn’t her child deserve better than an emotionally and geographically distant father? Yes. And the only way this baby had a chance at having an involved father was if Sabrina found the courage to confront Gavin and demand he be a better parent to their child than his or hers had been to them. If he’d already signed the relinquishment papers her lawyer had sent him then she’d just have to change his mind.

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.