Confessions: He's The Rich Boy / He's My Soldier Boy

She’d even, for a brief period, fancied herself in love with Turner Brooks, a rough-and-tumble cowboy whose house she cleaned on a weekly basis.

Nadine squelched that particular thought. She hadn’t let herself think of Turner for several months. He was happily married now, reunited with Heather Tremont, the girl of his dreams. He’d never even known that Nadine had cared about him.

Why was it that she always chose the wrong men?

“Masochist,” she reprimanded herself, as the lane curved and suddenly the lake, smooth as glass, stretched for half a mile to the opposite shore. Mountains rose above the calm water, their jagged snowcapped peaks reflected in the mirror that was Whitefire Lake.

Nadine parked and climbed out of her old car. She shoved her hands into her pockets and shivered as a cold breeze rushed across the water and caught in her hair. Rubbing her arms, she stared past the gazebo, private dock and boathouse and tried to see her own little house, situated on the far banks of the lake, but was only able to recognize the public boat landing and bait-and-tackle shop on the opposite shore.

Her small cottage was a far cry from this, the three-storied “cabin” that had once been the Monroe summer home. The manor—for that’s what it was, in Nadine’s estimation—looked as if it should have been set in a rich section of a New England town. Painted slate gray, with navy blue shutters battened against the wind, it was nestled in a thicket of pines and flanked by overgrown rhododendrons and azaleas.

This was where the Monroes spent their summers, she thought, surprised at her own bitterness—where Hayden had courted Wynona Galveston before the accident that had nearly taken the young socialite’s life. He’d never called Nadine, never written. Nadine had told herself that the pain and disappointment were long over, but she’d been wrong. Even now, she remembered her father’s face when he’d come home and caught her trying to sneak out and visit Hayden before he was transferred to San Francisco. She’d begged and pleaded until Ben had agreed to take her over to County Hospital while her mother had been working at the library, but George Powell, his shift shortened that day and for many days thereafter, had come home early and caught them. Thin lines of worry had cracked her father’s ruddy skin, and anger had smoldered bright in his eyes.

After sending Ben out of the room, he’d rounded on his daughter. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?”

“I can’t, Dad. I love him.”

She’d been banished to her room, only to come down later and find her parents engaged in another argument—a horrid fight she had inadvertently spawned.

“I’ll kill that kid,” George had sputtered.

“Daddy, you wouldn’t—”

He changed tactics. “Well, I’ll let him know how I feel about him using my daughter. No one’s going to get away with hurting my little girl.”

“You think you can stop him?” Donna had interjected bitterly, pinning him with a hateful glare. “Haven’t you learned yet that those people have no souls? How could you hurt a man like Hayden Monroe? The way you hurt his father? By giving him everything we ever owned.”

“Stop it!” Ben had snarled. “Just stop it!”

At that point Nadine’s father had nearly broken down; it was the only time Nadine had seen him blink against tears in his usually humor-flecked eyes.

Now, years later, she saw the irony of the situation. Obviously, because her name was no longer Powell, the attorney who’d paid off her father hadn’t recognized her. Instead, he’d offered to hire her at an exorbitant rate to clean the place from stem to stern. “...and I don’t care how much time it takes. I want the house to look as good today as it did the day it was built,” Bradworth had ordered.

That would take some doing, Nadine thought, eyeing the moss collecting on the weathered shingles of the roof.

She’d almost turned down the job, but at the last minute had changed her mind. This was her chance to get a little of her father’s lost fortune back. Besides, anything to do with the Monroes held a grim fascination for her. And she needed to prove to herself that she didn’t give a fig what happened to Hayden.

So now she was here.

“And ready to wreak sweet vengeance,” she said sarcastically as she grabbed her mop, bucket and cleaning supplies.

The key she had been sent turned easily in the lock, and the front door, all glass and wood, opened without a sound. She took two steps into the front hall, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Cloths, which had once been white and now were yellow with age, had been draped over all the furniture and a gritty layer of dust had settled on the floor. Cobwebs dangled from the corners in the ceiling, and along the baseboards mice droppings gave evidence to the fact that she wasn’t entirely alone.

“Great. Spiders and mice.” The whole place reminded her of a tomb, and a chill inched up her spine.

To dispel the mood, she began throwing open windows, doors and shutters, allowing cool, fresh mountain air to sweep through the musty old rooms. What a shame, she thought sadly. French doors off the living room opened to an enclosed sun porch where a piano, now probably ruined, was covered with a huge cloth. Plants, long forgotten, had become dust in pots filled with desert-dry soil.

It looked as if no one had been to the house in years.

Well, that wasn’t her problem. She’d already been paid half her fee in advance and spent some of the money on Christmas presents for the boys, as well as paying another installment to the care center where her father resided. The money hadn’t gone far. She still had the mortgage to worry about. Soon John would probably need braces and God only knew how long her old car would last. But this job, which would take well over a week, quite possibly two, would stretch out the bills a little. And the thought that she was being paid by Monroe money made the checks seem sweeter still.

Covering her head with a checked bandanna, she decided to work from top to bottom and started on the third floor, scouring bathrooms, polishing fixtures, sweeping up cobwebs and airing out the rooms that had obviously once been servants’ quarters. Paneled in the same knotty pine that covered the walls, the ceiling was low and sloped. She bumped her head twice trying to dislodge several wasp’s nests, while hoping that the old dried mud didn’t contain any living specimens.

As she turned the beds, she checked for mice or rats and was relieved to discover neither.

By one-thirty she’d stripped and waxed the floors and was heading for level two, which was much more extensive than the top floor. Six bedrooms and four baths, including a master suite complete with cedar-lined sauna and sunken marble tub.

Summer home indeed. Most of the citizens of Gold Creek had never seen such lavish accommodations.

In the master bedroom she discovered a radio and, after plugging it in and fiddling with the dial, was able to find a San Francisco channel that played soft rock. Over the sound of rusty pipes and running water, she hummed along with the music, scrubbing the huge tub ferociously.

As she ran her cloth over the brass fixtures, a cool draft tickled the back of her neck.

Suddenly she felt as if a dozen pair of eyes were watching her. Her heart thumped. Her throat closed. She froze for a heart-stopping second. Slowly moving her gaze to the mirror over the basin she saw the reflection of a man—a very big man—glaring at her. Her breath caught for a second, and she braced herself, her mind racing as she recognized Hayden.

Her insides shredded and she could barely breathe. He looked better than she remembered. The years had given his body bulk—solid muscle that was lean and tough and firm.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his blue eyes harsh. His face was all bladed angles and planes, arrogant slashes that somehow fit together in a handsome, if savage, countenance. His hair was black and thick and there was still a small scar that bisected one of his eyebrows. And he was mad, so damned angry that his normally dark skin had reddened around his neck.

Her heart broke when she realized he didn’t remember her. But why would he? He must’ve been with a hundred girls—maybe two hundred—since they’d last seen each other in the middle of a sultry summer night.

“I was hired to be here,” she said, still unmoving. Her voice caught his attention and his eyes flickered with recognition.

“Hired?” he repeated skeptically, but his eyes narrowed and he studied her with such intensity that she nearly trembled. “By whom? Unless things have changed in the past four hours, this—” he motioned broadly with one arm “—is my house.”

“I know that, Hayden.”

He sucked in his breath and he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “I’ll be damned.”

“No doubt.” Slowly, never moving her gaze from his reflection in the mirror, she turned off the water. Struggling to her feet, she was aware, as she turned to face him, that the front of her sweater and jeans were wet, her hair hidden, her face devoid of makeup. “What I’m doing is cleaning your bathtub,” she said calmly, though she was sure her eyes were spitting fire.

“That much I figured.” An old dog, golden and grizzled, sauntered into the room and growled lowly. “Enough, Leo,” Hayden commanded, and the retriever obeyed, dropping onto the floor near the duffel bag Hayden had apparently carried inside.

Hayden, satisfied that Leo wouldn’t give him any more trouble, swung all his attention back to the small woman who stood like a soldier in front of his tub. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Nadine?”

“In the flesh,” she quipped, though she didn’t smile.

“Why are you here?”

Her jaw slid to one side, as if she found him amusing—some kind of joke. “I was hired by William Bradworth to clean this place and—”

“Bradworth doesn’t own it,” he cut in, sick to death of the pushy attorney. “I should have been told. Oh, hell!” He shoved his hair from his eyes. “What I meant was—”

“Save it, Hayden,” she replied quickly. “I don’t care what you meant.” Her clear green eyes snapped in anger, but she didn’t back down. She looked ridiculous, really. The front of her clothes wet, an old bandanna wrapped around her head. Gloves, much too big, covered her hands and yet...despite the costume, she radiated that certain defiance that had first caught his attention all those years ago. She tipped her little chin upward. “Bradworth paid me to finish the job.”

“Consider it done.”

“No way. I realize this isn’t the way you do things, Hayden, but when I agree to do a job,” she assured him, those intense eyes snapping green flames, “I do it. Now, you can stand there and argue with me all day long, but I’m really busy and I’d like to finish this room before I go home.”

“You’re a maid?” he asked, and saw her cringe slightly.

“Among other things. And right now, I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me...” Quickly she leaned over the tub and twisted on the faucets again. Water rushed from the spigot and she swished the last of the scouring soap down the drain.

“What other things?” he asked as she turned off the faucet.

Sliding him a glance that was impossible to read, she explained, “Oh, I have many talents. Scrubbing tubs and waxing floors and setting mousetraps are just a few.” She yanked off her gloves, and this time she dropped them into an empty bucket. Bending her head, she untied her bandanna and unleashed a tangled mass of red-brown curls that fell past her shoulders and caused his gut to tighten in memory. “Now, I’ve got to get home, but I’ll be back in the morning.”

“You don’t have to do any more—”

“Oh, yes I do,” she said firmly, and the determined line of her jaw suggested she was carrying a sizable chip on her slim shoulders. “I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I never leave a job unfinished—no matter who’s paying the bill.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out, Hayden,” she said, as if she were harboring a grudge against him—as if he had done her a severe injustice when she had been the one who had used him.

Seethingly indignant, she grabbed her mops, pails and supplies and walked briskly past him. Her flaming hair swung down her back and her jeans hugged her behind tightly as she bustled out of the room and clomped noisily down the stairs. Hayden was left standing between the bathroom and bedroom to wonder if she was going home to a husband or boyfriend.

He heard the front door click shut and moved to the window, where he saw her load her supplies into a trashed-out old Chevy, slide behind the wheel and then, without so much as a look over her shoulder, tromp on the accelerator. The little car lurched forward, and with a spray of gravel from beneath its tires, disappeared through the trees.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered again.

Well, at least she was gone. For the time being. He should be grateful for that. He reached for his duffel bag and a flash of light, a sparkle on the rim of the tub, caught his eye. He moved closer to inspect the glitter and saw the ring that she’d obviously forgotten. Frowning, he walked into the bathroom and picked up the tiny band of gold. A single blue stone winked up at him. Simple and no-nonsense, like the woman who wore it.

He wondered if this were a wedding band or an engagement ring, and told himself it didn’t matter. He’d take the damned piece of jewelry back to her and write her a check for services rendered as well as those not rendered. He didn’t need a woman hanging around right now, especially not a woman who, with a single scalding look, could set his teeth on edge and his blood on fire.

* * *

HAYDEN MONROE! BACK in Gold Creek! Nadine couldn’t believe her bad luck. She never should have agreed to work for the bastard, and she had half a mind to wring Aunt Velma’s long neck! But she couldn’t afford to say no to the sum of money that attorney Bradworth had offered. And she’d never expected to come face-to-handsome-face with Hayden again. She’d known, of course, that someone would be staying in the house, but she thought it was probably going to be rented or sold. She hadn’t expected Hayden. The last she’d heard about him, he’d moved to Oregon and was estranged from his father.

Ben had been right about Hayden and his dad. They were both cut from the same cloth—dangerously handsome, extremely wealthy; men who didn’t give a good goddamn about anything or anyone. Just money. That’s all they cared about. What was the saying? Fast cars and faster women? Whatever money could buy.

Hands clenched over the steering wheel, she mentally kicked herself. It was all she could do not to take him up on his offer and quit. But, in good conscience, she couldn’t tell him to take his job and shove it, as she’d already spent a good part of the money. And she didn’t want her two sons to lose out on the best Christmas they’d had in years because of her own stupidity.

“Damn, damn, damn and double damn!” she swore, her little car hugging the corners as she headed back to town. She frowned as she guided the Chevy beneath the railroad trestle bridge that had been a Gold Creek landmark for over a hundred years. Hayden Monroe! As handsome as ever and twice as dangerous. She steered through the side streets of town and stopped at the Safeway store for groceries. Christmas trees were stacked in neat rows near the side entrance, fir and pine trees begging to be taken home, but she didn’t succumb. Not yet. Not with the windfall she’d so recently received. Just in case she never finished the job. The trees would go on sale later. She picked up a few groceries, then climbed back into her car again, heading to the south side of Whitefire Lake.

She was irritated at having been caught by Hayden again, and was discouraged by the heady feeling she’d experienced when she’d stared into his blue eyes. But she was over him. She had to be. It had been years. Nearly thirteen years!

She only had to deal with him for a week or two. She rolled her eyes and bit her lower lip. Fourteen days suddenly seemed an eternity.

She had no choice, so she’d just make the best of it and avoid him as much as possible. She would simply grin and bear Hayden Monroe with his sexy smile, knowing eyes and lying tongue until the job was finished.

Then it was sayonara.

Veering off the road that circled the lake, she drove down a single lane that served as a driveway to several small cabins built near the shore. She slowed near the garage, a sagging building filled with cut cordwood and gardening supplies, and snapped off the ignition. Grabbing both sacks of groceries and her purse, she stepped onto her gravel drive. “Boys!” she sang out, not really expecting to hear a response as both bikes, usually dropped in the middle of the driveway, were nowhere to be seen and the raucous sound of their voices didn’t carry in the cool mountain air. “Boys! I’m home.”

Nothing.

Well, it was early. They were probably still pedaling from the sitter’s.

Juggling the groceries, she reached into her purse for her keys and opened the screen door, only to find that her sons had, indeed, been home from school. The back door wasn’t locked and book bags, sneakers and jackets were strewn over the couch and floor.

She left the groceries on the counter, then headed back outside. “John? Bobby?” she called again, and this time she could hear the sound of gravel crunching and bike wheels spinning.

She was carrying her mops, buckets and cleaning supplies into the house when she heard the sound of tires slamming to a stop.

“You’re a liar!” Bobby’s voice rang through the house, and Nadine walked to the window in time to see her youngest son, his lower lip thrust out stubbornly, throw a punch at his brother.

John, older than Bobby’s seven and a half years by a full eighteen months and taller by nearly four inches, ducked agilely away from Bobby’s wild swing and managed to step over Bobby’s forgotten bike. Wagging his wheat blond head with the authority of the elder and wiser sibling, John announced, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus!”

“Then you’re just stupid.”

“And you’re the liar.” John leered at his brother as Bobby lunged. Sidestepping quickly, John watched as Bobby landed with an “oof” on the cold ground near the back door.

Leaning down, John taunted, “Liar, liar, pants on fire, hang them on—”

“Enough!” Nadine ordered, knowing this exchange would quickly escalate from an argument and a few wild punches to a full-fledged wrestling match. “Look, I don’t want to have to send you to your rooms. Bobby, are you okay?”

“We only got one room,” John reminded her.

“You know what I mean—”

“John’s makin’ fun of me,” Bobby wailed indignantly. A shock of red-blond hair fell over his freckled face as he looked to Nadine as if for divine intervention. “And I saw Santa Claus last year, really I did,” he said earnestly.

“Tell me another one,” John teased, sneering. “There ain’t no such thing as Santa Claus or those stupid elves or Frosty or Rudolph, neither!”

Bobby blinked hard. “Then you just wait up on Christmas Eve. You’ll see. On the roof—”

“And how am I s’posed to get there—fly?” John hooted, ignoring the sharp look Nadine sent him. “Or maybe Dancer or Vixen will give me a lift! Boy, are you dumb! Everything comes from Toys ‘R’ Us, not some stupid little workshop and a few lousy elves!”

“I said ‘enough!’” Nadine warned, wondering how she would survive with both boys for the two weeks of Christmas vacation that loomed ahead. Right now, her sons couldn’t get along and Nadine’s already busy life had turned into a maelstrom of activity. John and Bobby seemed hell-bent on keeping the excitement and noise level close to the ozone layer and they couldn’t be near each other without punching or kicking or wrestling.

“You’re not really gonna send us to our room, are you?” Bobby asked, biting on his lower lip worriedly.

“Well, not yet—”

“He’s such a dork!” John called over his shoulder as he found his rusty bike propped on the corner of the house. “A dumb little dork!”

“John—”

“Am not!” Bobby screamed.

But John didn’t listen. He peddled quickly down the sandy path leading to the lake. His dog, a black-and-white mutt named Hershel, streaked after him.

“I’m not a dork,” Bobby said again, as if to convince himself.

“Of course you’re not, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that!” He pulled himself up, dusted off his jeans and kicked angrily at the ground. His eyes filled with tears and dirt streaked his face. “John’s just a big...a big jerk!”

This time Nadine had to agree, but she kept her opinion to herself, and hugging her youngest son, asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” But his hazel eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“You sure?” Nadine asked, though she suspected little more than his pride had been bruised. “How about a cup of cocoa, with marshmallows and maybe some cookies?”

“You got some at the store?” he asked, brightening a bit.

“Sure did.”

He blinked and nodded, sniffling as he tagged after his mother into the house.

Nadine heated two cups of water in the microwave while Bobby climbed into one of the worn chairs at the scratched butcher-block table. When the water was hot, she measured chocolate powder into one cup and said, “And as for Santa Claus, I still believe in him.”

“Do you?”

“Mmm-hmm. But Oreos won’t do for him. No siree. You and I’ll have to bake some special Christmas cookies and leave them on the hearth.”

Bobby sent her a look that said he didn’t really believe her, but he didn’t argue the point, either. “Thanks,” he muttered when she handed him a steaming cup and a small plate of Oreos. “John can’t help us make the cookies, neither.”

“Well, if he has a change of heart—”

“He won’t. He’s too...too...dumb!”

Nadine blew across her cup, not wanting to condemn her eldest quite yet, but needing to placate Bobby. “Look, honey, I know how tough it can be with John. I’m the youngest, too, you know,” she said, thinking of Ben and Kevin. A knot of pain tightened in her chest at the memory of Kevin, the eldest of the Powell siblings, a golden boy who’d once had it all, before his dreams and later his life had been stolen from him. Now there was just her and Ben, she thought sadly, then, seeing her son’s expectant face, she forced a grin. “Remember Uncle Ben?” She dunked a tea bag into her cup, and soon the scent of jasmine mingled with the fragrance of chocolate, filling the cozy little kitchen.

“Is he a creep?” Bobby asked, his little jaw thrust forward as he dunked an Oreo into his hot chocolate.

“Ben?” She laughed, her melancholy dissolved as she stared at the hopeful eyes of her son. “Sometimes.” Nadine wished that Ben were still around. He’d be home soon, after ten years in the army and she couldn’t wait to have him back in Gold Creek. Ben was the only member of her fractured family to whom she still felt close.

Bobby seemed placated slightly. “Well, John doesn’t know anything! I saw Santa Claus and I’m not gonna say I didn’t!” he stated with a firm thrust of his little chin. He dropped a handful of marshmallows into his cocoa and watched them slowly melt.

To her son’s delight, Nadine broke open an Oreo and ate the white center first, licking the icing from the dark wafer. “And what was Santa doing last year—when you saw him?”

Bobby lifted one shoulder. “Dunno,” he muttered. “Prob’ly tryin’ to figure out which present was mine.” His brow puckered again. “I hope he gives John a lump of coal!”

“I don’t think that’ll happen,” Nadine said as he gulped his cocoa then wiped one grubby hand across his mouth.

“Sure it will. Santa knows when John’s lying. He knows everything.”

“I think it’s God who knows so much,” she corrected.

Her son lifted a shoulder as if God and Santa were one and the same, and she didn’t see any reason to start another argument. Obviously Bobby’s imagination was working overtime. But she loved him for his innocence, his bright eyes and that mind that buzzed with ideas from the moment he woke up until he fell asleep each night.