Page 43 of Snowed in with the Rancher

Olivia took a long shuddering breath and tried to calm the racing of her heart. She's wanted his time, his attention, his words. And now she had them. No takebacks, she reminded herself silently.

If only,she thought. If only she hadn't left that ship without his contact information. If only she'd been able to tell him about the girls before they were born. If only they'd both had those months when they could have gotten used to what was coming—together. But they hadn't.

“I want you to be happy,” he continued. “I need you to tell me how I can make that happen.”

“You can't,” she answered softly. She knew this drill. When you were an orphan and a single mother at twenty-four, you learned that no matter what dreams you might have, in reality, the only person who could make you happy was you. The only person you could rely on was…you. “No one can make me happy. I have to build a life here that fulfills me, and the happiness will follow.”

She shifted so she could look up at him. “I have the right ingredients. I have a great job. I have the girls. And I have your parents.” Despite her sorrow, she smiled. “They've been such a blessing. I couldn't have asked for better grandparents for the girls.”

Tate smiled in return. “They're crazy about them.”

“And the feeling is mutual.” Olivia laughed. “You should have seen the four of them the other day. I walked in to pick them up, and they were performing a skit. They had your dad dressed up as the prince inThe Little Mermaid.”

Tate chuckled and shook his head. “They've probably added ten years onto his life. He's already talking about which rodeo events they'll be best at in high school, and I'm pretty sure he's rewritten his will. I just hope he leaves me enough land to earn a living. Otherwise, I'll have to ask Jackie and Melissa to hire me as their foreman when they inherit the place.”

Olivia's heart grew warm, the way it always did when she and Tate were just being themselves without all the other pressures. If only they didn't have to make decisions about where to live and what to call each other. If only they weren't required to define what this was between them.

But the world didn't work that way. And children didn't work that way. And Olivia knew that eventually, she wouldn't want to work that way anymore, either.

So she put on her big-girl pants, and she did what she always did. She took the situation in hand and addressed it head-on. “I want you to know that I love you, too,” she said. She heard his breath catch as he pulled her closer, stroking her hair while she laid her head against his shoulder once more. “And I'm not angry with you. I don't have any right to ask you for something you can't give. I don't spend a lot of time regretting things in my life, but I do regret not finding you before I left that ship. Maybe if we could have done all this together…”

He kissed the top of her head. “None of that. We have to believe we're all where we're supposed to be.”

She swallowed. “I think I need to move out,” she told him quietly. “It's too hard on all of us this way. You feel smothered, I feel abandoned. The girls are just confused.”

He cleared his throat once before speaking; his fingers continued to sift through her hair as he said, “You can't live in that house before the repairs are done. I know it's not my place to tell you what to do, but it's a matter of safety. I can't allow the girls to sleep in a building with substandard electrical.”

She nodded. She was too tired to fight about something simply on principle. “I agree.”

He paused as if turning the problem over in his mind. At last, he said, “Then if you really feel you need to go, I think you should move out to the ranch. My folks have plenty of space, you'll have built-in babysitting, and I'm there all day every day for anything you need.”

Olivia knew that until she could find a home of her own, his idea was the best solution. And she was grateful. But she was also sad, because she knew that the chances that she and Tate would ever be anything but friends and possibly co-parents were quickly evaporating.

This wasn't the outcome she'd hoped for when she'd seen him standing on the ridge in that snowstorm.

“You don't think they'll mind?” she asked.

“I think they wouldn't have it any other way.” He checked his watch. “It's too late now, but as soon as the celebration is over tomorrow, I'll talk to them.”

“We'lltalk to them,” she corrected.

He smiled. “Yes, ma'am.”

Then they just gazed at one another, breathing the same air, feeling the same electricity that was always there when they were together.

Tate's voice was low and so rough that it sent vibrations through Olivia's chest. “There has never been and there will never be anyone like you. Not for me. “

She had no idea what to say to that as his lips lowered to hers. He kissed her as if she were breakable, and deep in her chest, she wondered if she actually might be. She wondered if Tate McConnell might do what losing her parents, being left alone with twins, struggling to make ends meet, and feeling utterly alone for years hadn't.

She wondered if this moment might be the one that finally broke her.

When he slowly pulled back from the kiss, she kept her eyes closed and whispered, “Take me to bed. Just for tonight, Tate. Let's pretend it's like it could have been.”

He didn't speak again as he stood and pulled her with him. In silence, they made their way up the stairs and to his bed, where he laid her down and undressed her as if she were the most precious thing in his world. Then, as he slid inside her, his lips on hers, his skin everywhere, Olivia shuddered as tears quietly flowed down her cheeks and her heart inside her chest split into a thousand fragments so tiny they might never be glued together again.

EIGHTEEN

By the time morning arrived, Tate was alone in his bed, Lobster snoring away on the oversized pillow on the floor.

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