A Cold Creek Secret. RaeAnne Thayne

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.

      In only a few days, the provider of half her baby’s DNA was marrying another woman. And not just any woman but Jessalyn St. Claire, Hollywood’s current favorite leading lady, sweet and cute and universally adored. Marco and Jessalyn. “Messalyn,” as the tabloids dubbed the pair of them. The two beautiful, talented, successful people were apparently enamored of each other.

      It was a match made in heaven—or their respective publicists’ offices. Mimi wasn’t sure which.

      She only knew that if word leaked out that she was expecting Marco Mendez’s baby, Jessalyn would flip out, especially since the timing of Mimi’s pregnancy would clearly reveal that they had carried on their affair several months after Marco had proposed to Jessalyn in such a public venue as the Grammy Awards, where he won Best Male Vocalist of the year.

      Mimi probed her heart for the devastation she probably should be feeling right about now. For two months, she had been expecting Marco to break off the sham engagement and publicly declare he loved Mimi, as he had privately assured her over and over was his intention.

      The declaration never came. She felt like an idiot for ever imagining it would. Worse, when she had gathered up every bit of her courage and whatever vestiges of pride she had left and finally called him to meet her at their secret place after the stunning discovery of her pregnancy, he hadn’t reacted at all like she had stupidly hoped.

      Arrogant, egocentric, selfish.

      She was all those things and more. She had secretly hoped that when Marco found out she was pregnant, he would pull her into his arms and declare he couldn’t go through with the marriage now, that he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and the child they had created.

      She was pathetically stupid.

      Instead, his sleek, sexy features had turned bone-white and he had asked her if she’d made an appointment yet to take care of the problem.

      When she hesitantly told him she was thinking about keeping the baby, he had become enraged. She had never believed Marco capable of violence until he had stood with veins popping out in his neck, practically foaming at the mouth in that exclusive, secluded house in Topanga Canyon he kept for these little trysts.

      He had called her every vile name in the book and some she’d never heard of. By the time he was done, she felt like all those things he called her. Skank. Whore. Bitch.

      And worse.

      In the end, she’d somehow found the strength to tell him emphatically that keeping the baby or not would be her own decision. If she kept the baby, it would be hers alone and he would relinquish any claim to it. She wanted nothing more to do with him.

      If he touched her or threatened her again in any way, she would tell her father, a man both of them knew had the power to decimate careers before he’d taken a sip of his morning soy latte.

      She pressed a hand to her tiny baby bump.

      “I’m sorry I picked such a jerk to be your daddy,” she whispered.

      She loved this baby already. The idea of it, innocent and sweet, seemed to wrap around all the empty places in her heart. The only blessing in the whole mess was that she and Marco had, unbelievably, been able to keep their affair a secret thus far.

      Oh, maybe a few rumors had been circulating here and there. But she figured if she stayed out of the camera glare at least until the wedding was over and then took an extended trip somewhere quiet, she just might muddle through this whole thing. She had no doubt she could find someone willing to claim paternity for enough money.

      Or maybe she would just drop out of sight for the rest of her life, relocate to some isolated place in the world where people had never heard of Mimi Van Hoyt or her more ridiculous antics.

      Borneo might be nice. Or she could move in with some friendly indigenous tribe along the Amazon.

      Staying with Gwen at least until the wedding was over would have solved her short-term problem, if she hadn’t been too blasted shortsighted to pick up the phone first.

      Why couldn’t she still stay here?

      The thought was undeniably enticing. Gwen might not be here but, except for her absence, the ranch still offered all the advantages that had led Mimi to fly out on a snowy February afternoon to find her exstepmother. It was isolated and remote, as far from the craziness of a celebrity wedding as Mimi could imagine.

      She thought of her host wading through a creek in the middle of a blizzard to retrieve her luggage. He seemed a decent sort of man, with perhaps a bit of a hero complex. Maybe Major Western could be convinced to let her stay just for a few days.

      She closed her eyes, daunted by the very idea of asking him. Though she had never had much trouble bending the males of the species to her will—her father being the most glaring exception—she had a feeling Brant Western wouldn’t be such an easy sell.

      Later. She would wait until the sun was at least up before she worried about it, she decided with a yawn.

      When she awoke again, a muted kind of daylight streamed through the curtains and an entirely too male figure was standing beside her bed.

      “Morning.” Her voice came out sultry and low, more a product of sleepiness than any effort to be sexy, but something flared in his eyes for just a moment, then was gone.

      Okay, maybe convincing him she should stay wouldn’t be as difficult as she had feared, Mimi thought, hiding a secret smile even as she was a little disappointed he wouldn’t present more of a challenge.

      “Good morning.” His voice was a little more tightly wound than she remembered and she thought his eyes looked tired. From monitoring her all night? she wondered. Or from something else?

      “Sorry to wake you but I haven’t been in to check on you for a couple of hours. I was just seeing if the dog needed to go out again.”

      “Did you take her out in the night?”

      He nodded. “She’s not too crazy about snow.”

      “Oh, I know. Once in Chamonix she got lost in a snow drift. It was terrifying for both of us.”

      She shouldn’t have said that, she realized at once. Maura Howard wasn’t the sort to visit exclusive ski resorts in the Swiss Alps, but Brant didn’t seem to blink an eye.

      “I’m on my way to take care of the horses. I’ll put her out again before I leave and I’ll try not to lose her in the snow. How’s your head?”

      “Better. The rest of me is a little achy but I’ll survive. Is it still storming?”

      He nodded tersely as she sat up in bed and seemed intent on keeping his gaze fixed on some fixed spot in the distance as if he were standing at attention on parade somewhere. “We’ve had more than a foot and it’s still coming down.” He paused. “There’s a good chance you might be stuck here another day or two. It’s going to take at least that long for the plows to clear us out.”

      “Oh, no!”

      Though secretly relieved, she figured he expected the news to come as a shock, so she tried to employ her glaringly nonexistent acting skills. Then, pouring it on a little thicker, she stretched a little before tucking a wayward curl behind her ear.

      She didn’t miss the way his pupils flared just a little, even as he pretended not to pay her any attention.

      “I’m so sorry to be even more of an inconvenience to you, Major Western.”

      “Around here I’m plain Brant.”

      “Brant.”