Wedding His Takeover Target / Inheriting His Secret Christmas Baby: Wedding His Takeover Target. Emilie Rose
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backing up one step, two. Her heavy breaths fogged the air between them. “I don’t want you to do that again.”
“When was your divorce final?”
The question blindsided her. “I’m not divorced.”
His eyes narrowed. He lifted her hand. “But you’re not still married. You don’t wear a ring.”
She yanked her hand free and debated telling him to mind his own business. But maybe a dose of the truth would scare him away. “My husband was an army medic. A hero who died saving his team in combat.”
Gavin’s jaw shifted. “That was his funeral flag on your desk and his picture on the nightstand.”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“Three years.”
“And you’re not over him.”
“I’ll never be over him, Gavin. You never forget a love like that.”
“You can’t move forward when you’re living in the past, Sabrina.”
“Maybe I don’t want to move forward.” Because forgetting the past meant opening her heart to that crushing pain again.
He was competing against a damned saint, Gavin realized. No wonder Caldwell had to bribe someone to woo his granddaughter. The old geezer had deliberately set an unattainable goal. Had Henry known all along that Gavin didn’t stand a chance of winning?
The hell you don’t.
Gavin wanted Sabrina more than ever—not just for the mine or because he liked her protective lioness attitude toward Henry, but because the passion she ignited inside him promised to be stronger than any he’d experienced before. Convincing her to test that passion would be a challenge, but he liked nothing better than tackling obstacles. He’d built his professional reputation on making a success out of projects others deemed impossible.
Peeling off his gloves, he stomped the light dusting of snow off his boots and knocked on the kitchen door Thursday morning. Caldwell opened the door and glanced past him. “Bringing out the big guns, ain’t you?”
“Yessir.”
“C’mon in and pour yourself a cup of coffee. Sabrina will be in momentarily.”
“Thanks, but I have a thermos of coffee in the carriage along with breakfast. I hope you don’t mind if I kidnap her for an hour or two.”
Henry raised his mug and smirked. “Good luck with that.”
“You could have warned me about her husband.”
“And have you quit before you started? Now that would spoil the fun, wouldn’t it?” The old man’s eyes twinkled with mischief.
“Glad I can entertain you.”
Sabrina’s soft tread carried down the hall. Gavin saw her before she spotted him. The softness of her face before her expression turned guarded had his heart slamming hard against his rib cage. Sabrina Taylor was definitely worth the battle.
She glanced from him to her grandfather and back, her wariness palpable. “Good morning.”
“Gavin here has a surprise for you.”
“What?” Suspicion laced the word and narrowed her eyes.
“A carriage ride,” Gavin told her.
Her lips parted. Interest flickered across her face before she shut it down. “It’s snowing.”
“It’s barely coming down. I have blankets, coffee and breakfast waiting in the rig.”
She brushed past him, heading for the window. The gentle bump of their shoulders aroused him like a damned schoolboy getting his first peep at a girl’s panties. If he ever— When he got her into bed, they were going to generate enough heat to melt the snowcaps surrounding the valley.
She looked over her shoulder at him. Excitement pinked her cheeks and sparkled in her baby blues. “I shouldn’t. Pops—”
“Go on, girlie. I’ll be fine for a few hours. We both know how much you miss the horses.”
Biting her lip, she hesitated. Outside the horses shifted and the tinkle of sleigh bells carried inside. He could feel her excitement, sense her indecision, and decided to give her a nudge. “If you want to see the sun rise over the mountains we need to leave now.”
“Go, Sabrina, before the road gets slick. He’s got wheels on the thing, not runners. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Gavin observed her changing expressions, and it was a toss-up whether he’d win or lose this round. He’d never met a woman more difficult to decipher.
She huffed out a breath. “Just a quick ride.”
Victory pumped through his veins. One step closer to his goal.
Six
She needed to end this Christmas card moment now, Sabrina decided as the carriage turned the corner and the inn came into view. But telling herself to snap out of the romantic fantasy Gavin had created with his horse-drawn tour of the city at sunrise and doing it were two different things. She adored horses and buggy rides—thanks to her grandmother.
Warm and toasty despite the frosty temperatures, she snuggled deeper into the fur blankets. Gavin had plied her with hot coffee, fresh beignets and stories about growing up in Aspen, and sometime during the past hour the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves and the quiet tinkling of the bells on their harnesses had combined with the light drifting snow and the crisp start of a new day to blur the line between reality and fantasy.
“You have good hands,” she offered grudgingly.
He shot her a look filled with sexual intent and the fire in his dark eyes nearly roasted her.
She gulped. “I meant you’re good at this carriage-driving thing. Your grip is steady but firm on the reins. My grandmother always said good hands were the mark of a good horseman.”
“My father made us work a variety of jobs. I drove the carriages when I had the chance.”
“What other jobs did you have?”
“We did whatever needed doing. Dad wanted us to learn the resort business from the bottom up.”
Once again, Gavin blew her preconceptions out of the water. Could he truly be that different from the spoiled men who’d attended the college where her parents taught? “You were good with Pops yesterday. How did you know how to handle the situation? Every time I try to talk to him about Grandma he gets ornery.”
“I’ve learned from experience with friends and co-workers who’ve lost loved ones to listen if they want to talk and give them space and privacy to grieve when they need it. Men don’t like to share their tears.”
When he said insightful things like that it was difficult to believe he was scheming to steal the inn from Pops. In fact, at the moment she actually liked Gavin. And that wasn’t good. Her guard was down, and she needed to keep a clear head around him. Being with him threatened the inner peace she’d fought so hard to find. But as long as they stayed out in the open nothing could happen.
He guided the horses into the inn’s driveway and then steered the carriage toward the barn. She straightened, letting the fur blanket slip. “Where are you going?”
“Henry’s letting me keep the horses in your barn while I’m working here. This pair is good for riding as well as pulling the carriage. You miss riding. So do I. We’ll ride together.”
No. No. No. “I don’t have time to ride.”
“You have to make time for the things that matter. Besides, Henry likes watching you. He says you and your grandmother rode together.”
Making