A Cold Creek Secret
The dog barked a little yippy greeting at him but didn’t move from her spot at the woman’s feet.
He took off his hat and coat and hung them in the mudroom, then returned to the family room. His touching her forehead—or perhaps the dog’s bark—must have awakened her. She was sitting up and this time her eyes were finally wide open.
They were a soft and luscious green, the kind of color he dreamed about during the harsh and desolate Afghan winters, of spring grasses covering the mountains, of hope and growth and life.
She gave him a hesitant smile and his jaw sagged as he finally placed how he knew her.
Holy Mother of God.
The woman on his couch, the one he had dressed in his most disreputable sweats, the woman who had crashed her vehicle into Cold Creek just outside his gates and whose little pink panties he had taken such guilty pleasure in glimpsing, was none other than Mimi frigging Van Hoyt.
A man was staring at her.
Not just any man, either. He was tall, perhaps six-one or two, with short dark hair and blue eyes, powerful muscles and a square, determined sort of jaw. He was just the sort of man who made her most nervous, the kind who didn’t look as if they could be swayed by a flirty smile and a sidelong look.
He was staring at her as if she had just sprouted horns out of the top of her head. She frowned, uncomfortable with his scrutiny though she couldn’t have said exactly why.
Her gaze shifted to her surroundings and she discovered she was on a red plaid sofa in a room she didn’t recognize, with rather outdated beige flowered wallpaper and a jumble of mismatched furnishings.
She had no clear memory of arriving here, only a vague sense that something was very wrong in her life, that someone was supposed to help her sort everything out. And then she was driving, driving, with snow flying, and a sharp moment of fear.
She looked at the man again, registering that he was extraordinarily handsome in a clean-cut, all-American sort of way.
Had she been looking for him? She blinked, trying to sort through the jumble of her thoughts.
“How are you feeling?” he finally asked. “I couldn’t find any broken bones and I think the air bag probably saved you from a nasty bump on the head when you hit the creek.”
Creek. She closed her eyes as a memory returned of her hands gripping a steering wheel and a desperate need to reach someone who could help her.
Baby. The baby.
She clutched her hands over her abdomen and made a low sort of moan.
“Here, take it easy. Do you have a stomachache? That could be from the air bag. It’s not unusual to bruise a rib or two when one of those things deploys. Do you want me to take you into the clinic in town to check things out?”
She didn’t know. She couldn’t think, as if every coherent thought in her head had been squirreled away on a high shelf just out of her reach.
She hugged her arms around herself. She had to trust her instincts, since she didn’t know what else to do. “No clinic. I don’t want to go to the doctor.”
He raised one dark eyebrow at that but then shrugged. “Your call. For now, anyway. If you start babbling and speaking in tongues, I’m calling the doctor in Pine Gulch, no matter what you say.”
“Fair enough.” The baby was fine, she told herself. She wouldn’t accept any other alternative. “Where am I?”
“My ranch. The Western Sky. I told you my name before but I’ll do it again. I’m Brant Western.”
To her surprise, Simone, who usually distrusted everything with a Y chromosome, jumped down from the sofa to sniff at his boots. He picked the dog up and held her, somehow still managing to look ridiculously masculine with a little powder puff in his arms.
Western Sky. Gwen. That’s where she had been running. Gwen would fix everything, she knew it.
No. This problem was too big for even Gwen to fix.
“I’m Maura Howard,” she answered instinctively, using the alias she preferred when she traveled, for security reasons.
“Are you?” he said. An odd question, she thought briefly, but she was more concerned with why she was here and not where she wanted to be.
She had visited Gwen’s cabin once before but she didn’t remember this room. “This isn’t Gwen’s house.”
At once, a certain understanding flashed in blue eyes that reminded her of the ocean near her beach house in Malibu on her favorite stormy afternoons.
“You know Gwen Bianca?”
She nodded. “I need to call her, to let her know I’m here.”
“That’s not going to do you much good. Gwen’s not around.”
That set her back and she frowned. “Do you know where she is?”
“Not at the ranch, I’m afraid. Not even in the country, actually. She’s at a gallery opening in Milan.”
Oh, no. Mimi closed her eyes. How stupid and shortsighted of her, to assume Gwen would be just waiting here to offer help if Mimi ever needed it.
Egocentric, silly, selfish. That was certainly her.
No wonder she preferred being Maura Howard whenever she had the chance.
“Well, Maura.” Was it her imagination, or did he stress her name in an unnatural sort of way? “I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere tonight. It’s too dangerous for you to drive on these snowy roads even if I could manage to go out in the dark and snow to pull your vehicle out of the creek. I’m afraid you’re stuck for now.”
Oh, what a mess. She wanted to sink back onto the pillows of this comfortable sofa, just close her eyes and slide back into blissful oblivion. But she couldn’t very well do that with her host watching her out of those intense blue eyes.
As tough and dangerous as Brant Western looked, she had the strangest assurance that she was safe with him. On the other hand, her instincts hadn’t been all that reliable where men where concerned for the past, oh, twenty-six years.
But Simone liked him and that counted for a great deal in her book.
As if sensing the direction of her gaze, he set the dog down. Simone’s white furry face looked crestfallen for just a moment, then she jumped back up to Mimi’s lap.
“I’m assuming Gwen didn’t know you were coming.”
“No. I should have called her.” Her voice trembled on the words and she fought down the panic and the fear and the whole tangled mess of emotions she’d been fighting since that stark moment in her ob-gyn’s office the day before.
Gwen had been her logical refuge as she faced this latest disaster in her life. Mimi’s favorite of her father’s ex-wives, Gwen had always offered comfort and support through boarding schools and breakups and scandals.
For twenty-four hours, all she had been able to think about was escaping to Gwen, in desperate need of her calm good sense and her unfailing confidence in Mimi. But Gwen wasn’t here. She was in Milan right now, just when Mimi needed her most and she felt, ridiculously, as if all the underpinnings of her world were shaking loose.
First driving her car into a creek and now this. It was all too much. She sniffled and made a valiant effort to fight back the tears, but it was too late. The panic swallowed her whole and she started to cry.
Simone licked at her tears and Mimi held the dog closer, burying her face in her fur.
Through her tears, she thought she saw utter horror in her host’s eyes. He was an officer in the military, she remembered Gwen telling her. A major, if Mimi wasn’t mistaken, in some Special Forces unit.
She had a vague memory of him telling her that. Major Brant Western, Company A, 1st Battallion, 75th Ranger Regiment.
She would have thought a man would have to be a fairly confident, take-charge sort of guy to reach that rank, but Major Western looked completely panicked by her tears. “Hey, come on. Don’t cry, um, Maura. It’s okay. You’ll see. Things will seem better in the morning, I promise. It’s not the end of the world. You’re safe and dry now and I’ve even got a guest room you can stay in tonight. We’ll get that cut on your eye cleaned up and bandaged.”
She swiped at her tears with her sleeve and a moment later he thrust a tissue in her face, which she seized on gratefully. “I can’t stay here,” she said after she’d calmed a little. “I don’t even know you. I passed a guest ranch a few miles back. Hope Springs or something like that. I’ll see if they’ve got availability.”
“How are you going to get there?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Your SUV is toast for now and Pine Gulch isn’t exactly flush with cab companies. Beside that, the way that wind is blowing and drifting, it’s not safe for anybody to be out on the roads. That storm has already piled up seven inches and forecasters are predicting two or three times that before we’re done. I promise, you’re completely safe staying here. The guest room’s even got a lock on the door.”
She had a feeling a locked door wouldn’t stop him if he set his mind to breaking in somewhere. No doubt this man, with his serious blue eyes and solid strength, could work his way through just about anything—whether a locked door or a woman’s good sense.
“Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.”
That was certainly true enough. Just the idea of food made her stomach churn. Ironic that she’d been pregnant for more than ten weeks and hadn’t exhibited a single symptom, not the tiniest sign that might have tipped her off. Then the day after she found out she was pregnant, she started with the morning sickness, along with a bone-deep exhaustion. If she had the chance, she thought she could sleep for a week.
“I can’t impose on you this way.”
He shrugged. “Once you’ve made a guy wade through a frozen creek twice, what’s a little further inconvenience for him? Let me go grab some clean sheets for the bed and we’ll get that cut cleaned up and you settled for the night.”
She wiped at the tears drying on her features. What choice did she have? She had nowhere else to go. After he left the room, she leaned into the sofa, holding Simone close and soaking in the fire’s delicious heat.
Now that she thought of it, this just might be the perfect solution, at least while she tried to wrap her head around the terrifying future.
No one would know where she was. Not her father—as if he’d care. Not Marco, who would care even less. Certainly not the bane of her existence, the paparazzi, who cared only for ratings and circulation numbers.
The world outside that window was a terrifying place. For now she had shelter from that storm out there, and a man who looked more than capable of protecting her from anything that might come along.
She only needed a little breathing space to figure things out and she could find that here as easily as anywhere else.
Only one possible complication occurred to her. She would have to do her best to keep him from calling for a tow when the snow cleared. She knew from experience that people like tow-truck drivers and gas station attendants and restaurant servers were usually the first ones to pick up a phone and call in the tabloids.
She could see the headlines now. Mimi’s Ditchscapade with Sexy Rancher.
She couldn’t afford that right now. She only needed a few days of quiet and rest. Like that blizzard out there, the media storm that was her life and this latest—and worst—potential scandal would hopefully pass without ever seeing the light of day.
She only needed to figure out a way to stay safe and warm until it did.
Chapter Two
When When Brant returned to his living room, he found Maura Howard—aka Mimi Van Hoyt, tabloid princess du jour—gazing into the fire, her features pale and her wide, mobile mouth set into a tense frown.
A few years ago during one of his Iraq deployments, he’d had the misfortune of seeing her one miserable attempt at moviemaking at a showing in the rec hall in Tikrit. He was pretty sure the apparent turmoil she was showing now must be genuine, since her acting skills had been roughly on par with the howler monkey that had enjoyed a bit in the movie.
As long as she didn’t cry again, he could handle things. He was ashamed to admit that he could handle a dozen armed insurgents better than a crying woman.
“Everything will seem better in the morning,” he promised her. “Once the storm passes over, I can call a tow for your car. I’m sure they can fix it right up in town and send you on your way.”
Her hands twisted on her lap and those deep green eyes shifted away from him. In pictures he’d seen of her, he always thought those eyes held a hard, cynical edge, but he could see none of that here.
“I, um, can’t really afford a tow right now.”
If she hadn’t said the words with such a valiant attempt at sincerity in her voice, he would have snorted outright at that blatant whopper. Everybody on the planet who had ever seen a tabloid knew her father was Werner Van Hoyt, real estate mogul, Hollywood producer and megabillionaire. She was a trust fund baby whose sole existence seemed to revolve around attending the hottest parties and being seen with other quasi-celebrities at the hippest clubs until all hours of the day and night.
Did she think he was a complete idiot? The SUV in question was a Mercedes, for heaven’s sake.
But if Mimi wanted to pretend to be someone else, who was he to stop her?
“The rental car company should take care of the details. They would probably even send another vehicle for you. Barring that, I’m sure Wylie down at the garage will take a credit card or work out a payment plan with you. But we can cross that bridge once the snow clears. Let’s get your face cleaned up so you can get to bed.”
She didn’t look as if she appreciated any of those options, at least judging by the frustration tightening her features. He had a pretty strong feeling she probably hadn’t been thwarted much in her life. It would probably do her a world of good not to get her way once in a while.
He had to bite his lip to keep from smiling. Big shocker there. He hadn’t found much of anything amusing since that miserable afternoon three weeks ago in a remote village in Paktika Province.
Longer, come to think of it. His world had felt hollow and dark around the edges since Jo’s death in the fall. But somehow Mimi seemed to remind him that life could sometimes be a real kick in the seat.
He had to give her credit for only flinching a little when he cleansed the small cut over her eye and stuck a bandage on it.
“It’s a pretty small cut and shouldn’t leave a scar.”
“Thank you,” she said in a subdued voice, then gracefully covered a yawn. “I’m sorry. I’ve been traveling for several hours and it’s been a…stressful day.”
“Don’t worry about it. Your room is back here. It’s nothing fancy but it’s comfortable and you’ve got your own bathroom.”
“I hate to ask but, speaking of bathrooms,” she said, “Simone could probably use a trip outside.”
“Yeah, she has been dancing around for the door for the last few minutes. I’ll take her out and try to make sure she doesn’t get swallowed by the snow, then bring her in to you.”
“Thank you for…everything,” she murmured. “Not too many people would take in a complete stranger—and her little dog, too—in the middle of a blizzard.”
“Maybe not where you’re from. But I would guess just about anybody in Cold Creek Canyon would have done the same.”
“Then it must be a lovely place.”
“Except in the middle of a February blizzard,” he answered. She didn’t object when he cupped her elbow to help her down the hall and he tried to store up all the memories. How she smelled of some light citrus-floral, undoubtedly expensive perfume. How her silk turtleneck caressed his fingers. How she was much shorter than he would have guessed, only just reaching his shoulder.
The guys would want to know everything about this surreal interlude and Brant owed it to them to memorize every single detail.
Like the rest of the house, the guest suite was on the shabby side, with aging furniture and peeling wallpaper. But it had a comfortable queen-sized bed, an electric fireplace he’d turned on when he made up the bed and a huge claw-foot tub in the bathroom.
The main house had been mostly empty for the past two years except for his occasional visits between deployments. Since he left Cold Creek a dozen years ago for the military, he had rented the house out sporadically. Gwen Bianca stayed in the small cabin on the property rent-free in exchange for things like keeping the woodpile stocked and the roof from collapsing in.
His last tenants had moved out six months ago and he hadn’t bothered to replace them since the rent mostly covered barebones maintenance and county property taxes on the land anyway and was hardly worth the trouble most of the time.
Now that Gwen had announced she was moving away, he didn’t know what to do with Western Sky.
“It’s not much but you should be warm and comfortable.”
“I’ll be fine. Thank you again for your hospitality.”
“I don’t know if this is a warning or an apology in advance, but I’ll be checking on you occasionally in the night.”
“Do you think I’m going to run off with your plasma TV?”
He fought another smile, wondering where they were all coming from. “You’re welcome to it, if you think you can make a clean getaway on foot in this storm. No. There’s a chance you had a head injury. I don’t think so but you were in and out of consciousness for a while there. I can’t take any chance of missing signs of swelling or unusual behavior.”
She sat on the edge of the bed with a startled sort of work. “I appreciate your…diligence, but I’m sure I don’t have a brain injury. The air bag protected me.”
“I guess you forgot to mention you were a neurologist.”
She frowned. “I’m not.”
“What are you, then?” he asked, curious as to how she would answer. Heiress?Aimless socialite? Lousy actress?
After a long pause, she forced a smile. “I work for a charitable organization in Los Angeles.”
Nice save, he thought. It could very well be true, since she had enough money to rescue half the world.
“Well, unless your charitable organization specializes in self-diagnosing traumatic brain injuries, I’m going to have to err on the side of caution here and stick to the plan of checking on you through the night.”
“Don’t tell me you’re the neurologist now.”
“Nope. Just an Army Ranger who’s been hit over the head a few too many times in my career. I’ll check on you about every hour to make sure your mental status hasn’t changed.”
“How would you even know if my mental status has changed or not? You just met me.”
He laughed out loud at that, a rusty sound that surprised the heck out of him.
“True enough. I guess when you stand on your head and start reciting the Declaration of Independence at four in the morning, I’ll be sure to ask if that’s normal behavior before I call the doctor.”
She almost smiled in return but he sensed she was troubled about more than just her car accident.
None of his concern, he reminded himself. Whatever she was doing in this isolated part of Idaho was her own business.
“I put one of my T-shirts on the bed there for you to sleep in. I’ll bring your little purse pooch back after I let her out. Let me know if you need anything else or if you get hungry. The Western Sky isn’t a four-star resort but I can probably rustle up some tea and toast.”
“Right now I only want to rest.”
“Can’t blame you there,” he answered. “It’s been a strange evening all the way around. Come on, pup.”
The little dog barked, her black eyes glowing with eagerness in her white fur, and followed him into the hallway.
The wind still howled outside but he managed to find a spot of ground somewhat sheltered by the back patio awning for her to delicately take care of business.
To his relief, the dog didn’t seem any more inclined to stay out in the howling storm than he did. She hurried back to where he stood on the steps and he scooped her up and carried her inside, where he dried off her paws with an old towel.
He refused to admit to himself that he was trying to spare Mimi four cold, wet paws against her when the dog jumped up on her bed.
When he softly knocked on the guest room door, she didn’t answer. After a moment, he took the liberty of pushing it open. She was already asleep, her eyes closed, and he set the dog beside her on the bed, thinking she would need the comfort of the familiar if she awoke in a strange place in the middle of the night.
From the dim light in the hallway, he could just make out her high cheekbones and that lush, kissable mouth.
She was even prettier in person, just about the loveliest thing he had ever seen in real life.
She was beautiful and she made him forget the ghosts that haunted him, even if only for a little while. For a guy who only had a week before he had to report back to a war zone, both of those things seemed pretty darn seductive right about now.
Not the most restful sleep she had ever experienced.
At 6:00 a.m., after a night of being awakened several times by the keening wind outside and by her unwilling host insistent on checking her questionable mental status, she awoke to Simone licking her face.
Mimi groaned as her return to consciousness brought with it assorted aches and pains. The sting of the cut on her forehead and the low throb of a headache at the base of her skull were the worst of them. Her shoulder muscles ached, but she had a feeling that was more from the stress of the past two days than from any obvious injury.
She pushed away her assorted complaints to focus on the tiny bichon frise she adored. “Do you need to go outside, sweetie?” she asked.
Instead of leaping from the bed and scampering to the door as she normally would have done, Simone merely yawned, stretched her four paws out, then closed her eyes again.
“I guess not,” Mimi answered with a frown at that bit of unusual behavior. Simone usually jumped to go outside first thing after a full night of holding her bladder. Mimi could only hope she hadn’t decided to relieve herself somewhere in this strange house.
She looked around the bedroom in the pale light of predawn but couldn’t see any obvious signs of a mishap in any corner. What she did find was her entire set of luggage piled up inside the door, all five pieces of it, including Simone’s carrier.
The sight of them all stunned her and sent a funny little sparkle jumping through her. Somehow in the middle of the raging blizzard, Major Western had gone to the trouble of retrieving every one of them for her.
In the night, more vague recollections had come together in her head and she vividly remembered he had been forced to wade through the ice-crusted creek to reach her after the accident. In order to retrieve her luggage from the SUV, he would have had to venture into that water yet again. She could hardly believe he had done that for her, yet the proof was right there before her eyes in the corner.
No. There had to be some catch. He just seemed entirely too good to be real. The cynical part of her that had been burned by men a few dozen too many times couldn’t quite believe anyone would find her worth that much effort.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, to the tiny secret growing there.
“Are you okay in there, kiddo?” she murmured.
She had bought a half-dozen pregnancy books the moment she left the doctor’s office but hadn’t dared read any of them on the plane, afraid to risk that someone would see through her disguise and tip off the tabloids about her reading choices. Instead, she’d had to be content with a pregnancy week-by-week app on her cell phone, and she had devoured every single word behind her sunglasses on the plane.
At barely eleven weeks, Mimi knew she wasn’t far enough along to actually feel the baby move. Maybe in a few more weeks. But that didn’t stop her from imagining the little thing swimming around in there.
Something else that didn’t feel quite real to her, that in a few months she was going to be a mother. She had only had two days to absorb the stunning news that her brief but intense affair with Marco Mendez had resulted in an unexpected complication.