Maid in Montana

Listening to the messages on his answering machine, he rooted through the stacks of paper looking for a pad to jot down a few numbers, but instead found a note of complaint Maria had left about a leaky faucet. At the time she’d lodged it, she’d been shamelessly coming on to him and he hadn’t been sure if it was a genuine complaint or a way to get him to her bedroom.

He cursed. He’d never checked this out and now that he had someone using the suite again, he couldn’t let it slide. With Sophie upstairs, he knew he could sneak into her rooms and try the faucet without her even knowing there’d been a problem. After the episode at the swimming pool the night before, that was probably for the best. He’d decided he wasn’t even going to be in the same room with her again, if at all possible. So it was good he found the note now when he could check it out.

He left his office and stealthily made his way to her suite. The door opened to a sitting room that smelled soft and feminine. Brady’s baby powders and soaps mixed with more mature scents of something smoky and sexy, undoubtedly belonging to Brady’s mom and a picture of her in her innocent one-piece bathing suite popped into his head. He could almost feel the warmth of the night, hear her soft voice as she told him about the stars, and his groin tightened. He didn’t know what it was about that woman that got to him, but she had something. He thanked his lucky stars she’d be leaving soon.

On his way to the bathroom, his gaze fell on a four-foot-by-four-foot square thing that sat in the corner of the sitting room and he stopped. Covered in net, with a bumper guard decorated with childish characters and images, the thing was obviously a convenient place for the baby to sit and play while his mother worked. But he didn’t know that for sure. He didn’t know anything about babies.

He glanced around. With no one in the room to see him, he could indulge his curiosity. He walked over to it and ran his fingers along the smooth plastic that formed a soft rim, probably to protect the kid in someway. He stooped down, peering inside at the toys Sophie had left behind. A stuffed bear. A doll made of soft-looking fabric with yarn for hair. Brightly colored balls and rattles. They were curious things, foreign, almost exotic to a man who hadn’t spent two minutes with a baby until his housekeeper had brought one to his home.

“Oh, I’m sorry!”

At the sound of Sophie’s voice, his heart all but pounded out of his chest. But with the ease that comes with years of practice, he glanced over indolently, as if she were the one in the wrong.

She stood in the doorway, wild-haired baby on her arm. Her eyes shone brightly with fear, and her breath stuttered into her chest. She should have been angry that he was in her quarters without her permission or even her knowledge. Instead she shook with fear over being in his presence—with her baby. The baby who belonged in this room more than he did.

The guilt he’d felt when she made him breakfast reared its ugly head again. He didn’t have a qualm about firing someone for not doing her job; but he wasn’t firing Sophie for not doing her job. He was firing her for having a baby.

The little boy cooed, drawing Jeb’s gaze to the smiling imp and he swallowed. Did a man ever get over a life blow like the one he had received? Would he ever be able to look at a child without feeling the horrible emptiness?

It didn’t matter. His only concern right now was getting himself out of this room before “the fixer” realized something was wrong and asked another one of her damned questions.

He pulled himself up from his crouched position. “My last housekeeper said the bathroom faucet leaks. Does it?”

“I…” She cleared her throat. “I never noticed it leaking.”

He strode to the door. “That’s what I figured.”

He left without another word. Walking down the hall, he tried to focus on being furious with Maria for making his life miserable, but his mind wandered back to soft blankets, sweet smelling toys and blue eyes filled with life and wonder.

He might feel guilty over firing Sophie, but there was no way around it. If the house were clean, he’d give her the three weeks’ pay and bonus today just to save his sanity.

CHAPTER FOUR

RIDING the fence line the next day on Jezebel, with Slim beside him on his black stallion, Thunder, Jeb knew he should be enjoying the easy camaraderie with his foreman. The sun was hot and a breeze shimmied through the wildflowers in the shiny green grass. Typically this was when Jeb’s focus was its sharpest. Instead the easy pace of the ride lulled him, and his mind wandered back to the sweet smells in Sophie’s suite, then to Sophie herself.

She’d been at the ranch three days and every one of those days he’d done something wrong. He knew that the curiosity he felt looking at Brady’s toys was an aberration that would leave as soon as the baby did. He also wasn’t worried about the conclusions Sophie might have drawn seeing him staring at her baby’s things. She’d been so surprised to find him in her suite that he doubted she’d had time to really think about what she’d seen.

But the way his barriers had fallen at the swimming pool couldn’t be dismissed so easily. He was her boss, yet he couldn’t help asking why she didn’t wear a bikini. He couldn’t stop himself from looking at her legs. He couldn’t keep his voice level, disciplined, authoritative. So he’d planned to simply avoid her, but that hadn’t worked out, either. After their contact in her suite, he had to admit he was considering working in the barn and even staying out of the kitchen except to get coffee.

He shook his head in disgust. He hated being out of control. Shouldn’t he be able to handle this better?

Of course he should! So what if she was attractive? He was an enormously successful businessman, whose big, bad ranch foremen all but shivered in their boots when they had meetings with him. How could one five-footsix California girl cause him to forget everything he knew about keeping employees in line?

They were almost back at the barn when Jeb came out of his thoughts and asked Slim about the trouble they’d been having with hikers walking the ranch trails.

“Did you hear anything I said?”

“I heard everything you said.”

“Then you’d know I already told you I met with the guy who seems to be organizing the hikes and told him it was no problem for him to bring people on the ranch as long as they stayed in the back of the property, away from the cattle and picked up after themselves.”

As Slim said that, Sophie came around the corner of the barn. “Hey!”

“Hey!” Slim called, waving to her. “How’s Brady?”

Jeb glanced over at him. He knew the kid’s name?

“He’s fine. We’re both great.” She turned and displayed a backpack-like baby carrier in which Brady sat, chewing on a thick plastic ring. “We’re going for a walk.”

Slim nodded and smiled and Jeb took advantage of everybody’s preoccupation with chitchat to peek at the length of leg exposed beneath her jean shorts. Today her thick hair was caught up in a bouncy ponytail and she wore a fancy top with seashells or something dangling from the U-shaped neckline, but as always Jeb’s attention was caught by her legs. They were perfect.

“Oh, don’t mind him. I don’t know where the hell his mind’s been all morning.” Slim poked him in the arm. “Are you in there, Jeb?”

Jeb’s heart froze in his chest. He hoped to hell they simply thought he’d been woolgathering and no one had caught him staring at Sophie’s legs, but one look at Slim’s sly expression and he knew his foreman had caught every second of it.

Shading her eyes from the sun with her right hand, Sophie smiled up at him as Jezebel began to do a two-step, once again picking up on his nervousness around his housekeeper and her baby.

“I asked if you minded if Brady and I explore.”

“No. I don’t mind if you take a walk.” He tugged on his horse’s reins, directing Jezebel toward the barn. “But you’re not familiar enough with the ranch to explore. Stay on the dirt roads.”

Sophie nodded and walked off. Jeb watched Slim’s gaze follow her, before he yanked on the stallion’s reins and turned him in the direction to catch up with Jeb. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Probably for the sins you’ve committed,” Jeb agreed.

“You like her.”

Jeb stopped his horse. “No. I just think she’s got great legs.”

“And a pretty face and a sweet personality—”

“And a baby.”

Slim laughed. “You can fool most people with that gruff voice and apparent hatred of kids, but you forget I know things about you that most people don’t know.”

Jeb headed for the barn again. “Whatever.”

Slim laughed again. “Don’t whatever me. Especially when I think it’s a damned good sign that you like this girl.”

“Right. And you think the fact that she has a baby makes her perfect for me.”

Slim grinned. “And from the fact that you brought it up first, I’m guessing you’ve already thought of it, too.”

He hadn’t. Not until that very second. But as Slim pointed out it was a “sign” of sorts that the thought had even popped into his head. But where Slim saw it as a good sign, Jeb only felt stupid. Desperate. He hated both.

He looked Slim in the eye. “I keep you around because you’re good at your job. But even you don’t get to poke into my personal life. Let this alone or Sophie won’t be the only one going in three weeks.”

With the dusting and window washing done and nothing else to do, Sophie cleaned the kitchen after lunch the next day.

“What are we going to do once this kitchen is cleaned, Brady?” she asked the baby who sat in the high chair, chewing a teething ring, watching his mom with his big blue eyes. “The man doesn’t even have furniture in most of the rooms. Once I dusted the woodwork and windowsills and ran a dry mop over the hardwood floors, I was done.

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