Page 113 of Snowbound Surrender

He went to move, rolling to his side to begin the process of extracting himself from her so that he could go light the fires. That’s when his head throbbed.

With a groan, he sank back down to the bed by Miranda’s side. Moments later, her fuzzy voice formed a syllable something like, “Whaaa.” She twisted slowly to lay on her side facing him, their arms around each other because there was nowhere else to put them. At last, her eyes fluttered open, though she couldn’t quite meet his gaze.

Randall went back to thinking about his aching head. He hadn’t hadthatmuch to drink, had he? Had…he? He had. Hemust have, though it hadn’t seemed like it at the time. His breath hitched as he thought about just how guilty he was going to feel over taking advantage of Miranda when they were both a little more inebriated than they should have been.

He swallowed a few times to work moisture into his mouth, then asked, “How are you feeling?” The terrible sensation that his entire future depended on her answer had him holding his breath.

She hesitated, holding her breath too. Her gaze slowly lifted to meet his. Once it did, a smile spread just as slowly across her face, and she stretched. The lithe movements of her body had him gasping in a breath even before she said, “Wicked.”

She took another breath, let out a cat-like groan of pleasure, then all at once she snapped taut, sitting up. “Oh, dear.” She scrambled for the blanket, clutching it to her chest to hide what he would really have liked a better glimpse of. In the process, she tugged the blanket completely off of him, revealing what he would probably do best to hide. “Oh, dear!”

A borderline hysterical look came to her eyes. Randall couldn’t tell if she was about to burst into laughter or tears. “Are you all right?” He sat up straight, his arms and legs suddenly feeling too long and bulky in the narrow bed.

Miranda’s eyes drank in the sight of him, growing wider by the second. “We really did all that, didn’t we?”

“We did.” Blast it, but he couldn’t tell if she was delighted or horrified. All he could judge from the tension in her perfect, shapely body was that she was emotional. How was he supposed to know what he should be feeling if he couldn’t judge how she felt? “Does your head hurt?” he asked clumsily. “Mine hurts.” He rubbed his temples, eyes closed.

Miranda shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

He opened one eye. “Does…anything else hurt?”

Her cheeks flared pink. “Um…”

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed out in a rush.

“Don’t be!” Her eyes snapped wider.

“Don’t…be?”

“That is…um…”

He narrowed his eyes as she glanced to the side, wishing to high heaven he could read her thoughts. Then again, he had the feeling her thoughts were as unsettled as his. There was only one way to break the awkward impasse. He shifted, embracing her for a moment as he rolled over her to get out of bed.

“I need to light the fires,” he explained. “I’m willing to bet they’ve all gone out since we, uh, ended up going to bed rather abruptly.”

“Oh.”

The single syllable could have meant a thousand things. He chose to let it go, grabbing the extra blanket from the end of the bed and wrapping it around his shoulders before retreating to the apartment’s main room.

It was teeth-chattering work to find his clothes and dress, then to light the fireplace and the kitchen stove. Miranda didn’t follow him immediately out of the room. He couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or a bad one. They’d done something beyond the pale the night before. Something wonderful, something inevitable, something they’d been dancing around for days, but something that would have consequences. Partially because in all the fuss of pocketing a few items while cleaning the saloon, he hadn’t actually thought to pause long enough to fetch and use one of those French letters. Miranda could have conceived a child last night.

He would marry her. That was all there was to it. The thought actually made him smile as he shaved quickly at the washbasin under the window. Snow was still packed tight in the panes, but something about the quality of light streamingthrough told him that the sun had finally come out. That would help the digging out efforts.

It wouldn’t dig him out of the situation he and Miranda had gotten themselves into, though. He would marry her, and in spite of the circumstances, he would do it happily. But oof, his father would have a thing or two to say about that. It would mean the end of his ambitions—his father’s ambitions. Randall suspected that he would be perfectly happy to plant roots in Mistletoe, Montana. He could run a saloon. As he took the last of the rasher of bacon, half of the remaining eggs, and the loaf of bread he’d baked two days before out to start breakfast, it dawned on him that he could do quite a bit more.

Miranda finally emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed, her arms full of sheets, just as the stove was beginning to grow hot enough to cook. The hint of movement out of the corner of Randall’s eyes as he worked shot excitement straight through him, and he turned to greet her with, “Good morning, Randi.”

She swallowed, blushed, lowered her head, and finally ventured a tentative smile. “Good morning yourself, Randy.”

The conversation instantly evaporated. Miranda stood there, eyes flashing with thoughts that didn’t look like they were going to settle any time soon. Randall racked his brain, searching for a way to tell her not to worry, they would get married, run the saloon, have nine children, and live happily ever after, that didn’t sound like he regretted their lapse the day before.

At last, she cleared her throat and started for the hall. “I’ll just put these with the rest of the washing and fetch clean sheets.”

With that, she was gone.

Breakfast was well on its way to being done by the time she came back. Randall poured her a tin mug of coffee and brought it to the table as she sank gingerly into a chair. He hid his wince. That was probably his fault. He shouldn’t have been so…exuberant. But she’d definitely liked it at the time. He banished that thought by returning to the stove and finishing the French toast he was cooking. She said nothing as he fried two pieces in the skittle, slid them onto a plate with the bacon he’d cooked earlier, dusted it with powdered sugar, and brought it to her along with a small jug of maple syrup.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, back to not meeting his eyes, then proceeded to devour her breakfast as if she hadn’t ever eaten before.