Snowed In For Christmas: Snowed in with the Billionaire / Stranded with the Tycoon / Proposal at the Lazy S Ranch. Caroline Anderson

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       CHAPTER TWO

      HE TOWED HER all the way up the drive and round into the old stable yard behind the house, and by the time he pulled up he’d got his temper back under control.

      Not so the memories, but if he could just keep his mouth shut he might not say anything he’d regret.

      Anything else he’d regret. Too late for what he’d already said today, and far too late for all the words they’d said nine years ago, the bitterness and acrimony and destruction they’d brought down on their relationship.

      All this time later, he still couldn’t see who’d been right or wrong, or even if there’d been a right or wrong at all. He just knew he missed her, he’d never stopped missing her, and all he’d done about it in those intervening years was to ignore it, shut it away in a cupboard marked ‘No Entry’.

      And she’d just ripped the door right off it. She and this damned house. Well, that would teach him to give in to sentiment. He should have let it rot and then he wouldn’t have been here.

      So who would have rescued them? No-one?

      He sucked in a deep breath, got out of the car and detached the tow rope, flinging it back into the car on top of the shovel just in case there were any other lunatics out on the lane today, although he doubted it. He could hardly see his hand in front of his face for the snow now, and that was in the shelter of the stable yard.

      Dammit, if this didn’t let up soon he was going to be stuck with her for days, her and her two-year-old son, with fathoms-deep eyes that could break your heart. And that, more than anything, was what was getting to him. The child, and what might have happened to him if he’d not been there to help—

      ‘Oh, man up, Corder,’ he growled to himself, and slammed the tailgate.

      * * *

      ‘OK, little guy?’

      She turned and looked at Josh over her shoulder, his face all eyes and doubt.

      ‘Want G’annie and G’anpa.’

      ‘I know, but we can’t get there today because of the snow, so we’re going to stay here tonight with Sebastian in his lovely house and have an adventure!’

      She tried to smile, but it felt so false. She was dreading going inside with Sebastian into the house that contained so much of their past. It would trash all her happy memories, and the tense, awkward atmosphere, the unspoken recriminations, the hurt and pain and regret lurking just under the surface of her emotions would make this so difficult to cope with, but it wasn’t his fault she was here and the least she could do was be a little gracious and accept his grudging hospitality.

      She glanced round as her nemesis walked over to her car and opened the door.

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      They said it in unison, and he gave her a crooked smile that tore at her heart and stood back to let her out.

      ‘Let’s get you both in out of this. Can I give you a hand with anything?’

      ‘Luggage? Realistically I’m not going anywhere tonight, am I?’ She said it with a wry smile, and he let out a soft huff of laughter and started to pick up the luggage she was pulling from the boot.

      He wondered how much one woman and a very small boy could possibly need for a single night. Baby stuff, he guessed, and slung a soft bag over his shoulder as he picked up another case and a long rectangular object she said was a travel cot.

      ‘That should do for now. I might need to come back for something later.’

      ‘OK.’ He shut the tailgate as she opened the back door and reached in, emerging moments later with Josh.

      Her son, he thought, and was shocked at the surge of jealousy at the thought of her carrying another man’s child.

      The grapevine had failed him, because he hadn’t known she’d had a baby, but he’d known that her husband had died. A while ago now—a year, maybe two. While she was pregnant? The jealousy ebbed away, replaced by compassion. God, that must have been tough. Tough for all of them.

      The boy looked at him solemnly for a moment with those huge, wary eyes that bored right through to his soul and found him wanting, and Sebastian turned away, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat, and led them in out of the cold.

      * * *

      ‘Oh!’

      She stopped dead in the doorway and stared around her, her jaw sagging. He’d brought her into the oldest part of the house, through a lobby that acted as a boot room and into a warm and welcoming kitchen that could have stepped straight СКАЧАТЬ