Maid in Montana. SUSAN MEIER
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Where was he?
Six turned into six-thirty. The sound of Brady waking crackled through the monitor, and she went to the bedroom and quickly got him dressed. Then she came back to the kitchen and slid him into his high chair that she’d already placed at the table. At seven-fifteen, Jeb finally strolled into the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her.
Leaning against the stove, arms crossed on her chest, she narrowed her eyes at him. His dark hair and brooding gray-green eyes could stop the heart of any normal woman, and Sophie had to admit hers stuttered a bit just at the sight of him. But she reminded herself that her need to keep this job trumped any romantic notions. She needed employment, not to be a lovesick puppy over a self-absorbed man.
Jeb almost asked Sophie why she was standing in his kitchen. He liked being alone when he first got up. That’s why breakfast wasn’t on her list of duties.
Instead he reminded himself he had to be nice so she’d not only stay and clean the house for the clients arriving in three weeks, but also to mend his reputation. When she left, he’d give her the thousand dollars she’d requested so that her only complaint could be that her baby hadn’t fit into ranch life. And if she just happened to stop in town on her way back to California, and mention that Jeb had given her a nice bonus, so much the better.
Walking to the counter with the coffeemaker, he said, “Good morning.”
“I’m not sure I’d drink that. I made it at four-thirty.”
He turned and gaped at her. “Why?”
“Because I thought all ranchers got up early and I was trying to please you.”
This time his eyes narrowed. “Trying to please me?”
“Because I’m sorry.”
“What the hell do you have to be sorry for? You said the agency told you it was okay to bring your son.”
“I should have confirmed that with you.”
At the repentant expression on her face, Jeb turned away from her. It wasn’t her fault that the agency had got his instructions wrong. Yet, the woman he would fire as soon as his prospective clients had seen the house, had apologized and made him breakfast.
A wave of guilt rode through him like a wild stallion. He glanced over, ready to thank her for her trouble but also to tell her that her work was all for nothing because he wasn’t a breakfast person. But when he looked at her, the words froze in his mouth. Her dark brown eyes snagged his gaze and he totally forgot the speech he had planned.
“I haven’t yet made the omelet and I can make fresh toast,” she said, her eyes brightening with hope and her lips teasing upward into a smile. “So, if you’re hungry, I can have a hot breakfast for you in no time.”
He swallowed. Good grief, she was pretty. But more than that, she was nice. Nice enough that he forgot all about counteracting Maria’s claims that he was a grouchy boss. Staring into her dark brown orbs, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. He’d feel like a heel all day if he didn’t eat the breakfast she’d planned.
“Sure. I’d love an omelet.”
“Great! You sit. I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee.”
She made the coffee first, and without another word to him, busied herself breaking eggs into a bowl and adding chopped vegetables from a plate beside the stove.
Taking a seat at the round oak table, Jeb finally noticed the high chair…and her baby. The little boy with hair pointing to all four corners of the world sat no more than three feet away from him.
The kid grinned toothlessly at him. Jeb sucked in another breath, debating how to remind Sophie that she was supposed to keep her baby out of his way, but within what seemed like seconds she appeared at the table, delicious smelling omelet on one of his everyday dishes.
“I’m really sorry about all this.”
The room suddenly felt small and cramped. To his right was a baby. A perfect, healthy, happy child. To his left that little boy’s mom. A perfect, healthy, sexy woman.
Lord, he should have kept Maria. She might have been attracted to him, but he hadn’t been attracted to her and that situation he could have controlled.
Prepared to eat his omelet in record time and get the hell out of here, he picked up his fork. Much to his horror, Sophie took a seat, putting herself between him and her baby. She lifted a tiny spoon from a small plate of mushy food and directed it to her baby’s mouth.
“I wish I had known you didn’t want a woman with a child. I wouldn’t even have interviewed.”
The kid smacked his lips at the taste of the putrid looking yellowish mush. Jeb forced breath into his lung. “It’s not your fault.”
The baby clapped his hands together with glee as Sophie got another spoon of the mush and said, “I feel responsible.”
Jeb’s muscles began to quiver from the effort of not reacting to her or her child and he knew that was stupid, foolish. She was just another woman. His housekeeper. His employee. Being attracted to her was wrong in so many ways he couldn’t even count them. He tried to convince himself that the spike in his heart rate was from having a baby so near, but he knew the real reason was Sophie herself. She was feeling guilty for things that weren’t her fault and injustice always made him want to fight for the underdog. He couldn’t fight for the woman he was firing. He was the enemy.
“Look, you have to stop taking the blame for everything.”
“I can’t help it.” She laughed. “It’s been woven into my DNA.”
Her laugh skimmed along his nerve endings like a spring breeze dances through new grass, but her words worked their way past his hormones and found his brain. He’d never wondered about this single woman’s reasons for taking a job at a ranch so far out of town she had to live in, but her last comment was very telling. Though his parents would have happily let him become a beach bum, he’d had plenty of school friends who couldn’t quite measure up to family expectations.
He glanced at the baby, and then caught Sophie’s gaze again. He couldn’t be so crass as to come right out and ask if her parents had frowned on her having a baby without being married. So, he took a shortcut and asked simply, “Crappy parents?”
“Depends on whose perspective you get. My dad’s a doctor. Salt of the earth. Wins awards.”
“And your mom?”
“University professor. Brilliant. Her students hang on her every word and she lets them hang out in her living room.”
“But she doesn’t have any room for her daughter?”
“It’s more that her daughter never really fit.” She fed the baby another spoon of yellow mush then smiled at Jeb. “With either of them. Not the surgeon filled with heart or the university professor everybody loved.”
“And you think that’s your fault?”
She shrugged. “Yes and no. I mean, logically, I know that my parents have to take responsibility for not making time for their daughter, but I also know we create our own destinies. I’d rather take responsibility than be a whiner.”
Her comment was so unexpected that he nearly spit out his coffee on a laugh. And that scared him more than feeling sorry for her. He always was a sucker for a woman who could make him laugh. And this woman had not only gotten him to sit down to breakfast, and talk about her personal life, but now she’d made him laugh. If he didn’t straighten things out between them and quickly, she’d have him spilling the story of his life. And that couldn’t happen.
He rose from the table. “Okay. Here’s how this is going to go down. I don’t want you taking the blame for things you didn’t do. I don’t want you making breakfast. I never eat when I first get up. I just take coffee to the barn with