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She didn’t know where the defensive tone in his voice was coming from. She hadn’t accused him of being a pup still latched onto his mother’s teat.
“Not at all.” She studied him carefully as he took a seat across from her. “I just thought...well, you seem like a man who wouldn’t want to be hampered by having...his parents around.”
The idea that she thought he was a playboy who needed his privacy was more than amusing and took the sting out of the first impression he’d taken from her question.
“Actually, I don’t normally live with my parents. I have a place of my own in the Hondo Valley. But at the moment, I’m having some remodeling done to the house. Mom and Dad’s ranch house is huge, so they urged me to stay with them until the work is finished. And it’s nice to spend a little time at home.”
“I’m sure,” she murmured, then wondered if Adam knew what a precious thing a home really was. Had he ever known what it was like to be well and truly alone in the world? No. She didn’t think so. She figured the most Adam Sanders ever had to worry about was where to get his expensive shirts laundered or the color to choose for his next new vehicle.
Not that Maureen resented the man’s wealth. Since she’d acquired her master’s degree in geology, she’d made a powerful salary. She could buy herself most anything she wanted. Yet she couldn’t buy what Adam had. No one could.
“Do you have siblings?” she asked him.
He nodded. “I have a twin sister, Anna. She got married a few weeks ago to the foreman on our ranch. She and Miguel live on the property, too. Then we have a younger sister, Ivy. She’s currently in medical school at the University of New Mexico.” He sipped his coffee, then casually studied her over the rim of the takeout cup. “What about you, Ms. York? Do you have parents or siblings?”
Maureen’s gaze dropped to the half-eaten Danish in her hand. She’d been asked this question many times in the past. Normally, it never bothered her to answer. But this morning with Adam’s green eyes waiting, she’d rather have her hand chopped off.
“First of all, I told you not to call me Ms. York.”
The tips of his fingers unconsciously tapped the tabletop. The movement drew Maureen’s gaze to his hands. They were strong and square shaped, the backs sprinkled with dark hair. Faint scratch marks marred three of his knuckles, and from what she could see of his fingers, they were padded with calluses. He was a man who worked with his brain, but he obviously wasn’t afraid to use his hands, too. She liked that about him. Liked it too much.
“All right Maureen. Tell me about your family.”
“I have no family,” she said bluntly, then took a bite of the Danish as if that was all there was to say.
His brows arched upward in a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding expression. “Surely you have an aunt or uncle or something somewhere. What happened to your parents?”
Still avoiding his eyes, she said, “They were killed in a storm. We lived in a rural area of Texas where the nearest clinic was thirty miles away. My mother was expecting another baby any day, and thinking she’d gone into labor they decided they had no choice but to go to a doctor. The rain was blinding and part of the highway was flooded. Unseeing, they drove into the water and the swift current carried them away. I was four at the time.”
She recited the story in a flat, factual voice as though she was talking about someone she hadn’t known. But then it quickly struck Adam that she’d been little more than a baby when her parents had died. She hadn’t known them in the sense he or any average person would know their parents.
“You were their only child?”
She nodded. “I went to live with my maternal grandmother after that. She was the only relative around who was willing to take me in. But she was elderly and she died by the time I was eight.”
“What happened then?”
She looked at him, her lips compressed to a thin, mocking line. “Foster homes.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, the shock of her story robbing him of a better response.
“Don’t be. I managed to grow up in spite of it all.” She rose to her feet and crossed the room to a small trash can. After tossing in the half-eaten Danish and last dregs of her coffee, she turned back to him. “Well, I don’t know what you plan to do with the rest of your day, but I’m going to get to work on these charts.”
She’d lost her family, and if she had any distant relatives left, they obviously weren’t the kind you counted, he mused. It was difficult to imagine what growing up in that sort of environment had been like for her. He’d had two loving parents, aunts and uncles who adored him and two sisters who’d always put him up on a pedestal. He couldn’t imagine his life without any of them. And though she was trying to give him the impression that none of it had affected her that much, he knew better.
“I have plenty to do,” he said, then rose to his feet and followed her back over to the cabinet where she picked up the stack of seismographic charts. “But there is something I wanted to discuss with you before I go back to my office.”
In an effort to still the trembling in her hands, she gripped the graphed papers with their squiggly lines. She didn’t know why it had shaken her to speak to Adam about her past. After all, lots of people had lost their parents when they were young. Lots of people had grown up in foster homes. It wasn’t anything unusual or something to be ashamed of. But for some reason there was a lump as big as a fist in her throat.
“What did you want to speak to me about?” She forced her gaze to lift to his, then inwardly sighed with relief when she didn’t find pity or distaste in his eyes. More than anything, she wanted Adam Sanders to see her as a strong, successful woman. A woman who’d made it on her own and was proud of her accomplishments.
“Where are you staying? Here in town?”
She nodded and named the motel. “Why do you ask?”
Adam’s eyes drifted to her mouth. It was full and moist, the color of a strawberry when it turned juicy and ready to eat. The thought had him inwardly groaning with self-disgust. “I, uh, I just wanted to say there’s no need for you to stay in a motel. We have plenty of room out at the ranch.”
She drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Is this invitation from you or your parents?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to admit he’d first objected to the idea, but he quickly squashed it. Maybe Maureen York wasn’t the cool, self-assured woman he’d originally thought. Maybe he’d let her success as a scientist cloud the picture he’d envisioned of her. She might actually need another human being from time to time. And he wouldn’t be adverse to helping her if she would truly appreciate it. And him.
“Actually, the invitation is from all of us, and I told my parents I’d speak to you about it today.”
Without making any sort of reply, she turned and moved away from him. The gold-framed glasses dangled from her fingers as she mulled over his suggestion.
Adam jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and tried not to stare at the tall, shapely line of her figure from behind. He didn’t understand his reaction to this woman. He’d had plenty of girlfriends in the past, and if someone asked him what his taste in women ran to, he’d have to say petite and delicate. The sort who looked as if the slightest squeeze from a man’s hand would crush their bones. He normally loved blond hair and had always had a penchant for blue eyes. Soft and delicate and needy. Those were the things he’d always looked for in a woman. Those were the things his Susan had been made of.
But Maureen York was none of those things. She was tall with a full, ripe figure that was a far cry from delicate. She wasn’t even close to being thin. She was downright curvy. Her hair and eyes were both dark. And she was at least three or four years older than him. An older woman had never turned his head before. But God help him, she was the sexiest female he’d ever encountered.
“Look, Maureen, it’s not that difficult a question. You either want to stay in a boring motel room or you want to come out to the ranch. Which will it be?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. A scowl wrinkled her brow. “I don’t want to be a problem for any of you.”
He shrugged as though her presence around the place would be insignificant. “The Bar M has hundreds of cattle and two barns full of horses. One more mouth to feed won’t put us out.”
“You really know how to...make a woman feel wanted.”
A smug smile dimpled one of his cheeks. “I’ve been told that before.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have,” she replied dryly, then walked back to where he stood. “Tell your parents I really appreciate their thoughtfulness, but I—”
“What about my thoughtfulness?”
She cast him a doubtful frown. “Somehow I really don’t believe you want me in your home.”
“It’s my parents’ home,” he reminded her. “I just happen to be staying there, too, for the time being. Besides, I invited you, didn’t I?”
She shrugged. “Yes. But you also accused me of trying to kill you.”
“I can forget about that if you can.”
By nature, Maureen was a forgiving person. She’d never been one to harbor grudges, and even though Adam had said plenty of things to anger her, she wouldn’t continue to hold it against him. No, forgetting their past quarrel would be easy. It was the other things the man did to her that had Maureen worried. Spending more time around him than was necessary would be deliberately asking for trouble.
“As far as I’m concerned, our first meeting is over and forgotten. I’m sorry you were hurt and I can understand and forgive your anger toward me.”
Her head was tilted downward, her eyes veiled by thick, dark lashes. He took advantage of the unguarded moment to feast his eyes on her smooth skin. Beneath the golden tan, a faint dusting of freckles sprinkled the bridge of her nose and the ridge of her cheekbones.
Adam had the strongest urge to lean forward and press his lips to her cheeks and nose, to taste each little brown Beck. “I’m not angry anymore.”
The huskiness of his voice lifted her eyes to his, and in that moment Maureen knew he was seeing her not as a co-worker, but as a woman. The idea was both terrifying and thrilling.
She nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I’m glad. But I’m still not sure....”
“How are you moving your things up from Houston? Or have you already?”
She shook her head. “I sold some of my furniture. What’s left I’m going to have shipped with my clothes, household goods and other items in a moving van. As soon as the paperwork on the house is finalized,” she added.
His expression turned incredulous. “The house! You mean you’ve already bought a house?”
Maureen refused to be chagrined. “Yes. I found one yesterday. Of course, it’ll be at least a couple of weeks before the abstract can be read by a lawyer and everything can be signed.”
“All I can say is, you don’t waste time, lady.”
She’d wasted...no, she swiftly corrected herself, she’d lost the past ten years of her life. She hadn’t wasted them. But things were going to be different now. Last night, she’d vowed to put her ex-husband and their dead baby behind her once and for all. She was going to move into her new house, focus on building herself a different life and forgetting everything that she’d lost.
“I can’t afford to waste time.”
One brow arched curiously at her remark. “You have a date to keep?”
Her face grew stiff and devoid of emotion. “I don’t have dates.”
His slow perusal of her brought a tinge of color to her cheeks. Adam didn’t let her discomfiture stop him. “You’ll probably think I’m impertinent,” he said. “But I’m going to ask why anyway.”
She turned her head away, but not before Adam spotted the faintest tremble at the corner of her lips. “You are being impertinent, and my personal life—or lack of one—is none of your business.”
Yesterday, her clipped words would have put a smug smile on his face. He would have found enjoyment in the knowledge that she could be wounded. But today, all he could feel was an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch her.
“You’re right,” he said quietly, then cleared his throat and jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “It is none of my business. So let’s get back to the initial question. Would you like to come stay at the ranch?”
She glanced at him, and for a split second he saw a flash of raw hunger in her eyes. The brief sight of it stabbed him right in the breastbone.
“It is tempting. I hate motel rooms.”
Latching onto the uncertainty in her voice, he said, “The Bar M is beautiful. We have a swimming pool, there’s always plenty of good food to eat, and you’d have a room off to yourself. You wouldn’t have to see me or anyone else, unless you wanted to.”
She did want to see him. That was the whole problem. But it wasn’t as if she was going to throw herself into Adam Sanders’s arms. Since David had walked out on her, she’d developed a willpower as strong as steel. She could resist any man.
“You make it sound very appealing.” She looked at him with sudden resolution. “I think I’ll accept your invitation, Adam.”
He didn’t know which pleased him more—her calling him by his first name or the fact that he’d won her over and she was going to be staying on the ranch.
Resisting the urge to grab her hand and smother the back of it with kisses, he said, “Good. After work this evening, I’ll help you get your things from the motel and then you can follow me home.”
Follow me home.
As Maureen watched him leave the lab, she tried her best not to take his words literally. This brief stay on the Bar M with Adam and his family would only be a glimpse of what she would never have.
The more she reminded herself of that fact, the safer her heart would be.
Chapter Three
Adam glanced in his rearview mirror. She was back there. Just as she’d been when he’d checked five minutes ago.
He’d really done it this time! What the hell had he been thinking? It would have made much more sense to simply reimburse Maureen for her motel expenses instead of inviting her to the ranch.
But that was the whole problem, he argued with himself. The Bar M was only his temporary home. He had to consider his parents’ feelings in the matter. And he knew how pleased they would be that he’d been able to persuade Maureen to stay the next few weeks with them.
Chloe and Wyatt had always been generous people. Not just with their money or the things it could afford them to give, but generous of themselves. Adam had long wished he possessed at least a fraction of their generosity.
But now as Maureen followed him closely up the pine-lined lane to the ranch, he wished when he’d looked into Maureen’s warm brown eyes this morning, he’d been a bit stingier with his hospitality. In spite of the physical attraction he felt for her, he didn’t want to get involved with her. Or any woman. And he was going to make damn sure he didn’t.
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