Snowed in With My Small Town Billionaire

Chapter 26 Gwen

26

C H A P T E R

Gwen

G wen was stunned. This was the moment she had been dreading.

“Sawyer, I love you so much. I fell in love with you, too. But I can’t marry you. You know how my father is. If I marry you, he’ll make sure that I never see Mom and Brent ever again. Mom is one thing because she is an adult and can make her own choices. But Brent is just a little boy and it would devastate him. I’m so sorry.”

He nodded and Gwen thought that she saw tears forming in the back of his eyes. “I understand,” he said, hoarsely.

She stood on her toes and brushed a kiss across his lips before running out of the room. Gwen felt his eyes on her as she left. She wanted more than anything to turn around and tell him that she would marry him.

How could I do that, though? How could I choose Sawyer over my own family? How could I do that to Brent?

With tears streaming down her face, she ran past Lucas in the hallway.

“Gwen, what’s…” he started to say.

She didn’t hear the rest of it, because she ran outside of the house. Gwen walked past the cars and into the deep snow, staring off into space. Her heart and soul were shattered. Nothing hurt more, though, than seeing the look on Sawyer’s face.

Samantha, Maddie, and Emilia joined her.

“We’re fixing to leave now. I wanted to give you my number so we could stay in touch,” Samantha said. Gwen hastily wiped her eyes and handed Samantha her phone.

“I would like all of your numbers as well,” she sniffed.

Maddie looked at her and touched her arm. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Sawyer asked me to marry him.”

“Isn’t that a good thing,” Samantha asked.

“I had to tell him ‘No.’”

“Because of your father?” Emilia asked.

Gwen nodded.

“If it was me, I wouldn’t let my father stand in the way of being with someone I loved,” Samantha said. “You don’t live with him, you don’t answer to him, and he doesn’t get to dictate your life.”

“I know. If it was just him then I would.”

“But he’s basically holding your nephew hostage,” Maddie concluded. “He would make sure that you never got to see Brent again, at least until the boy is old enough to drive.”

“That’s exactly right,” Gwen said.

“He’s a neat kid and loves you to death. I can understand choosing him over Sawyer. Maybe once Brent is older, you can reconnect with Sawyer,” Emilia said.

“He’ll find someone else by then. Sawyer is an amazing man. He’s smart, sweet, and an amazing man. There will be someone who will realize that and snag him up.”

“If the man is truly in love with you, he won’t fall in love with anyone else so easily. I’m sure that Sawyer is well aware of the situation and knows that you didn’t turn him down because you don’t love him. He’s not the kind of man to hold a grudge,” Maddie said.

“He’s not, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to wait around for six years until Brent can get a driver’s license, either.”

“I’m really sorry,” Samantha said.

“Enough about me. What about you guys?” Gwen asked.

“Lucas asked me to marry him. I’m going to finish school and get a job that is close to Estes Park. He already has a very successful business going, so there’s no way I could ask him to give that up and move to wherever I might get an entry-level engineering position,” Samantha said.

“That makes sense. I like Lucas. He’s a great guy, too,” Gwen said. “Maddie, what about Darren?”

“No marriage proposals. However, we will be seeing each other when we get off this mountain. He is an amazing man and I love him. He loves me. I think right now, though, he is more worried about Zaid, which I understand.”

Emilia laughed. “I asked Zaid to marry me. He was worried about being a crippled man. I told him to stop being an idiot. Right now, I’m waiting for him to let me know what hospital they are taking him to.”

“You were a great nurse,” Gwen said. “If I’m ever in a life-or-death situation, I’ll be calling you.”

“Well, we better get going. We’re going to drop Emilia off so that she can be ready to roll when she gets the text. We’ll have to get together soon,” Samantha said.

The women hugged each other and walked back to their car.

“Gwen, come on. Let’s go. I’m ready to get off this blasted mountain,” her father called.

She slowly walked back to the car. Sawyer and Lucas were coming out of the lodge. The two men hugged Tessie and Millie and shook hands with Oliver and Daniel.

Sawyer stopped and looked at her for a minute. They locked eyes and Gwen wanted so much to run into his arms. Then, she looked over at Brent and walked over to him.

Gwen got into the backseat of the SUV and sat next to Brent.

“Are you okay, Aunt Gwen?”

She sniffed and wiped the tears that had started pouring down her face again.

“Stop moping,” her father said. “Sawyer is no good for you, anyway. He would just use you up and throw you away. I don’t know what you were thinking. He’s a billionaire. You’re just a poor school teacher who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together.”

“Jerome, stop,” Audrey said. “I’m tired of hearing the garbage coming out of your mouth.”

Brent and Gwen looked at each other in shock.

Then, Gwen said, “I love him. He asked me to marry him.”

Her father growled loudly. “You go right ahead and I’ll disown you. You will no longer be my daughter. Do I make myself clear?”

No one spoke another word during the entire drive back to her apartment. She got out of the vehicle, quickly unloaded her belongings, hugged Brent and her mother, and went inside. Before she did anything else, she went next door and knocked.

“Hey, Brenda, I came for Mochi,” Gwen said when her neighbor opened the door.

Brenda, an older woman with gray hair, hugged her tightly. “I heard about the avalanche. I was praying that you were okay. I’m so glad to see that you made it home.”

“It was a little harrowing, that’s for sure. So much happened and sometime soon, I’ll make dinner and tell you all about it. There were actually two avalanches, we had a guy break his leg and get an infection, and both Brent and I managed to get lost. I also had the chance to eat snowshoe hair and ptarmigan for dinner because the resort was running low on food. The generator ran out of gasoline, so the only heat we had was from the fireplaces.”

“That sounds very harrowing,” Brenda said.

“It was stressful, to say the least. But everyone was wonderful. People pitched in to help out in the kitchen, to cut wood, and do other chores when needed.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it.”

“Soon, I promise. Right now, though, I just want to take a shower for more than five minutes in hot water, change into comfortable clothes, order a pizza, and enjoy not being in the same room as twenty other people.”

“That sounds like a good plan. You just bring this baby back anytime you need me to watch her. She and Spooky got along great.”

Gwen shut and locked the door behind her and plopped down on the couch holding her long-haired kitty.

“I missed you so much, Mochi. Did you have fun with Brenda and Spooky?”

“Meow.”

The gray cat stared into Gwen’s face as though she was reading Gwen’s thoughts. Then, Mochi purred and rubbed her face against Gwen’s. The simple action made Gwen burst into tears. The entire trip had been incredibly overwhelming. There hadn’t been time to deal with her own fears. Now, she had a whole new problem to deal with -- a broken heart.

Gwen knew, that as long as she lived, she would never love another man the way that she loved Sawyer, and she knew that she would never settle for less than what her soul craved.

“I guess it’s just you and me, Mochi,” she whispered into the cat’s fur.