Bride Under the Mistletoe: The Magic of a Family Christmas. SUSAN MEIER
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made her want to groan in frustration. Second, she was making this harder than it had to be. All she had to do was find a few documents for him. The faster she found them, the sooner she’d be at home making cookies.
She squeezed Harry’s hand. “I can get you anything you need.”
“Thank you.”
Cullen turned and resumed his walk to the executive suite. Wendy and Harry scurried behind him.
In her office, she stripped off her coat and removed Harry’s. Cullen stood patiently by her desk as she rummaged through her purse for the key to the filing cabinet. Walking over, she noticed the door to her boss’s office was open. Papers were strewn across his desk.
“Oh, you’re already working?”
Cullen nodded. “I typed a few letters. But there isn’t a printer in the office. I’m guessing I have to send my things to a remote printer, but I’m not sure which one is which.”
“E-mail them to me and I’ll print them.”
“Why don’t you just come to the computer with me and show me which printer to send them to?”
Okay. So he didn’t want her to see what he’d written. No big deal. Whatever he wanted to print was probably personal. Not her business. She not only got the message; she also agreed. The less she knew about this man and the faster she got away from him, the better.
She unlocked the cabinet, pulled out the accordion file that contained the backup documentation for the financials for the year that had passed and handed it to him.
He glanced at the packet, then back up at her. Her stomach flip-flopped. His eyes were incredible. Dark. Shiny. Sexy. And the perfect complement to his angular face. He had the look of a matador. Strong. Bold. Everything about him was dramatic, male.
“Is the forecast in here?”
With a quick shake of her head, she rid herself of those ridiculous thoughts, not sure where the heck they kept coming from but knowing they were absolutely wrong. She returned her attention to the open drawer and pulled the file folder for the five-year plan. “Here you go.”
“Great.”
Cullen took the folder from her hands and stepped back. He’d thought that bringing in Paul’s administrative assistant would make his life easier, but this woman wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. For a widow, she was young and incredibly good-looking. Long, loosely curled red hair fell to the shoulders of her thick green cable-knit sweater. Her cheeks had become pink in the cold, accenting the green of her eyes. Low-riding jeans hugged a shapely bottom.
He wasn’t sure what the heck had happened when she’d fallen into his arms after she’d slipped on the ice. Their eyes had met and he’d felt a jolt of something so foreign it had rendered him speechless. He couldn’t blame it on the fact that she was attractive. He knew hundreds of gorgeous women. Women even prettier than she was. He couldn’t say it was because she was sexy. He knew sexy women. And he couldn’t say he’d felt a jolt because he was happy to see her. He didn’t know her.
But whatever the hell that jolt was, he was smart enough to ignore it.
He was also taking that damned bell off the door. The whole point of having an executive entry was so the workers didn’t know when he was there or he wasn’t!
“Come on. Show me how to send these letters to a remote printer.”
She followed him into the office of the current company president and her little boy followed her.
“What’s your name?”
“Harry.”
Cullen couldn’t help it; he laughed. “Like Harry Potter?”
“No, like my grandpa.”
He turned to Wendy Winston. “So your father was a Harry?”
“No, his grandfather’s name was Harry.”
Confused, Cullen stopped and faced them again. He looked from Wendy to Harry and back to Wendy again. They didn’t look a thing alike. So the kid probably resembled his dad which meant that Grandpa Harry had been her late husband’s dad. Whatever the deal, he really didn’t care. He was trying to make light conversation so the afternoon would go more smoothly. If they wanted to play guessing games, he wasn’t interested.
He turned and walked behind the desk, falling into the uncomfortable desk chair. With a few keystrokes he minimized his letters and left a blank screen. He rose and motioned for Wendy to take a seat in the chair.
“Show me which printer to send these to.”
She sat. “Okay. Well, you just do all the things you need to do to print—” Using the mouse, she clicked the appropriate icon to get the print menu.
When the print menu popped on the screen, he leaned down to get a closer look. The scent of something floral drifted to his nose. With a slight movement of his eyes, he took in her shiny red hair—more the color of cinnamon than autumn leaves—then let his gaze drift down to her shapely breasts.
Damn it! Why did he keep looking at her?
“Once you get this screen, you scroll to the top, click this menu to get the available printers, and choose this printer.Your documents will be sent to the printer by my desk.”
He cleared his throat. “Okay. I get it. Thank you. You can go now.”
She rose from the desk chair and caught Harry’s hand. “I can leave?”
“Yes. All I wanted were the financials and production reports, and to know which printer was closest.” He plopped down on the chair again and she turned to go but another thought struck him. “Wait!”
She faced him.
“You aren’t leaving town, are you?”
She laughed and he frowned. The last review in the personnel file for Wendy Winston had described her as quiet and unassuming, but extremely capable. He’d never know that from her behavior today. Of course, the way he kept staring at her, his attention continually caught by parts of her body he normally wouldn’t look at with an employee, wasn’t normal either. All because she’d fallen into his arms.
So maybe that brush had affected her as much as him? And maybe he should just ignore the way she was acting?
After a few seconds of silence, she gasped. “Oh, you weren’t kidding about my leaving town?”
“Why did you think I was kidding? Everybody else in this company is out of town.”
She gaped at him. “Because it’s the holiday! People are going to parties and visiting friends and relatives for Thanksgiving!”
“Right.” Because his holiday had been uneventful he’d almost forgotten it altogether. He looked down at his papers, then back up at her. “I’m not Scrooge. I’m just trying to make sure I don’t lose my source for information.”
She pulled in a breath. Her breasts rose and fell. Realizing he was staring, he jerked his eyes upward, cursing himself for acting like a horny teenager.
“No, Harry and I are staying in town. Even weekends.”
“Great.” Forcing his mind off her sweater and to the mission he was here to accomplish, he rubbed his hands together over the keyboard. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
She turned and left the office. Though Cullen had thought his attention was on the family business, where it was supposed to be, he couldn’t resist glancing up to watch the sway of her hips as she left.
Because her back was to him, he braced his elbow on his desk and his chin on his closed fist, letting himself watch as he tried to figure this out. He felt bewitched. But he couldn’t be. They hadn’t spent more than ten minutes together. And she wasn’t his type. He liked blondes. And she was a widow. A serious woman, not