Maid in Montana

Sophie’s eyes were dark, smoky, sexy. Her complexion smooth, perfect. Her lips plump, kissable. Jeb’s heart speeded up, scrambling his pulse.

He told himself to pull away and get the hell out. But he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Barely breathed. Not because she was so pretty, or even because she was suddenly so close. But because she had the same look of confusion on her face that he was sure was on his.

Her baby yelped, and Jeb jumped as if someone had exploded a firecracker. He grabbed his files and headed for the door without a word. What could he say? I nearly made the biggest mistake of my life and kissed you? An employee? A woman with a baby? He couldn’t believe he’d almost kissed her. How would he ever explain it to the woman who looked as confused by the attraction as he was?

Susan Meier spent most of her twenties thinking she was a job-hopper—until she began to write and realised everything that had come before was only research! One of eleven children, with twenty-four nieces and nephews and three kids of her own, Susan has had plenty of real-life experience watching romance blossom in unexpected ways. She lives in Western Pennsylvania with her wonderful husband, Mike, three children, and two over-fed, well-cuddled cats, Sophie and Fluffy. You can visit Susan’s website at www.susanmeier.com



BY

SUSAN MEIER

CHAPTER ONE

JEB WORTHINGTON watched the aging sport utility vehicle chug up the tree-lined road leading to his ranch. He pulled on his horse’s reins, stopping Jezebel, and reached for his small binoculars.

Yep. Just as he suspected. His new housekeeper, Sophie Penazzi, had arrived.

Adjusting the glasses, he watched her get out of the car, taking in her straight, shoulder-length brown hair that, if he remembered correctly, was a color almost identical to the dark brown of her eyes.

She stretched, working the kinks out of her back and shoulders from the long drive. The smooth, even tan of her skin brought visions of her in a bikini, rushing into the crashing waves of the Pacific, surfboard under her arm. It didn’t surprise him that he’d envision her that way. Not only did her résumé list her home as Malibu, but also there was a part of him that would pay very good money to see her perfect bottom in a bikini.

He dropped the glasses to his thigh. Those were exactly the kinds of things he could not— would not—think about his new housekeeper. He’d lost the last one because she’d made a pass at him and he’d fired her. But instead of admitting she’d been let go because she’d tried to use her position as a springboard to becoming mistress of the house, Maria had promptly gone into town and trashed his reputation, claiming she’d quit because he was a grouch, too difficult to work for. The only way he’d recoup his standing with the locals would be to be nice to this new housekeeper, proving Maria had lied.

But being nice came with trouble of its own. Or maybe better said: Being nice to a live-in employee came with rules of its own. A line had to be drawn. He didn’t want to be accused of sexual harassment or even flirting. And he wouldn’t. He’d find a middle ground.

He nudged Jezebel, urging her to increase her pace.

Sophie bent into the rear compartment of her SUV. After setting several suitcases on the ground behind her vehicle, she lifted out an odd looking thing covered in net, at least four feet long and flat as a pancake. From the brackets on the side, he suspected that whatever it was, it was folded up. God only knew what it became when she unfolded it.

Once again, he nudged Jezebel, this time increasing her walk to a trot.

Adjusting the glasses so he could watch her as he rode, he saw Sophie slam the rear hatch, open the back door and bend inside.

There was more?

She pulled out a small seat and what looked to be a cooler and Jeb took Jezebel to a full gallop. What the hell was this woman doing? Planning to take over a wing of his house? Sure, she had to live with him, but he remembered telling her that her quarters were a bedroom, sitting room and a bathroom. She didn’t get to spread out all over his home.

He galloped past the outbuildings and barn, slowing Jezebel when they neared the driveway and taking her down to a walk when they reached the pavement.

Obviously hearing the clip-clop of Jez’s approach, Sophie turned around. Shading her eyes with her hand, she looked up at him and called, “Hey! Good morning.”

Her bright brown eyes shone with joy, accenting her pert little nose, wide smile and nicely defined chin. He should have kept his eyes on her face, but the blue top clinging to her breasts and the jeans outlining her perfect bottom drew his gaze downward until he’d taken in every feminine inch of her.

Irritated with himself, he nearly cursed. Why had he hired someone so cute?

A glance at her mountain of gear only increased his ire. Obviously she was all wrong for this job. He reined Jez a few feet ahead of the car, and growled, “What are you—”

Too late. Sophie ducked into her back seat again and Jeb stopped talking. Not only was she providing him with a jaw-dropping view of her backside, but also there was little sense talking when his conversation partner couldn’t hear him.

He waited patiently, ready to ask her just how much junk she thought she could get into a small suite of rooms, but when she pulled out of the back seat, baby in her arms, the words he’d intended to say fell out of his head. He was—for the first time ever—speechless.

She smiled at him. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

He stared at her. Then the baby. The kid was small, but chubby. Healthy. With pink cheeks and a thatch of thick black hair that poked out in all directions.

The only thing that came out of his mouth was, “What are you doing?”

She frowned. “You said move in. Today. So I can start working tomorrow. Did I misread your instructions?”

“Apparently! Since I don’t remember telling you to bring a baby!”

“Oh!” She laughed. “This is my son. Brady.” She kissed the little boy’s cheek. “Say hello, Brady.”

The baby cooed and gooed and Jeb’s heart stuttered in his chest. Willing back the swell of emotions that threatened to overtake him, he simply said, “You can’t have a baby here.”

Sophie kissed the baby’s cheek again. “Why not? The agency said it wasn’t a problem.”

“The employment agency told you that you could bring him?”

“Yes, when they explained that this job was for a live-in housekeeper, I told them about Brady and they said it was no problem for me to bring him.”

“I gave them the exact opposite instruction! I said, no kids.” Somebody’s head was going to roll.

“What difference does it make?” she asked cheerfully before she ran her fingers through her baby’s unruly dark hair, trying to tame it. “I’m not working 24/7. Only eight or ten hours a day. And not all back-to-back hours. You said that on my interview. Since my work requires feeding you supper…which takes us past a five o’clock quitting time, especially cleaning up the dining room and kitchen after you eat, you said my days are pretty much my own. I can organize them any way I want. And that means I have plenty of time to care for Brady.”

“I can’t have a baby here!”

Her expression hardened. Her shiny brown eyes turned into laser beams of steely determination. The laughter was gone from her voice when she said, “Mr. Worthington, obviously there was a mess-up at the agency, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make the best of it.”

Jezebel danced from foot to foot. A clear sign that Jeb’s agitation was transmitting itself to her. He took a breath and spoke more calmly. “I don’t want to make the best of it. I have clients coming—”

Jezebel danced around some more. Jeb tugged lightly on the reins, knowing he had to get her to the stable before he could finish this conversation. “Don’t move. I’ll be back.”

He rode Jezebel into the stable, slid off the saddle and tossed the reins to a hand who was mucking stalls. “Take care of her.”

With the anger in his belly churning into hurricane force, he strode outside again and to the driveway. Sophie Penazzi stood beside her vehicle, her child sitting in the plastic basket thing, her arms crossed on her chest.

“I want a thousand dollars to pay for the cost of this trip.”

He stopped a few feet in front of her. “A thousand dollars?”

“It should be three. I let my apartment go.” Her voice wobbled, but she paused, drew in a breath and very strongly said, “I paid to put my things in storage. I also have the expenses of traveling here. It’s cost me a lot to take this job, and if I’m not staying, then I want to be reimbursed.” She caught his gaze. “Now.”

“We have an employment agreement. You’re staying,” Jeb said, holding his temper in check by only a thin thread. He pointed at the baby in the basket-carrier thing. “He’s not.”

“And where is he supposed to go?”

“That’s not my problem.”

She pulled her employment agreement from her pocket. “It might be the agency’s mistake that they told me it was okay to bring my son, but this is your agreement and I don’t recall anywhere in here that says I can’t bring a child. If you won’t let me keep him, you’re in breach…” She paused, smiled. “All you have to do is give me a check for a thousand dollars and I’m out of here.”

Jeb was just about to remind her that since the agency made the mistake they were responsible to reimburse the money she spent, until she said the magic words…

“And you can find yourself another housekeeper.”

All the wind evaporated from his angry sails. He couldn’t find himself another housekeeper. Thanks to Maria, the women in town wouldn’t work for him and none of the other California candidates he’d interviewed had been suitable. She was the only person he considered qualified. If she left, he started at square one and it would take him months to find someone willing to work for him. He didn’t have months. He had potential clients coming to see the ranch in three weeks.

He took a pace back. “Haul your gear inside. I’ll send Slim out to show you to your quarters.” He turned to leave, but spun to face her again.

“And keep him,” he said, pointing at the happy baby, “out of my sight.”

He pivoted toward the house and strode to his office, all but hyperventilating from fury. He couldn’t live with a baby for the entire year of her employment agreement. And if money could get her to leave, he would happily pay it. Just as soon as his potential clients were gone, he’d give her the damned thousand dollars and she could leave.

But that meant he had only three weeks to find a replacement. He fell into the tall-backed chair, grabbed the phone receiver and punched in the number of the employment agency from memory.

“A baby!” he sputtered. His thoughts were so angry he couldn’t merely think them; he spoke out loud. “What kind of woman brings a baby to a job?”

“The kind forced to live somewhere for a year.”

Seeing Slim standing in the doorway of his office, Jeb slammed the receiver in the phone cradle again. A bear of a man, with shoulders as wide as the doorway, Jim Cavanaugh was one of those people whose childhood nickname no longer fit, but who couldn’t seem to get rid of it.

“Don’t take her side.”

“I’m not taking her side. I’m just stating a fact. The agency told her it was okay for her to bring her child. And since she and the kid are here, what harm can it do to give her a chance?”

What harm? Slim, of all people, should know exactly why he didn’t want a baby around. “I’m hiring somebody else.”

Slim planted his hands on his hips. “Oh, really? Where do you propose to find someone? Are you going to trust the agency that already got your instructions wrong with Sophie? Or are you going to try the girls in town again?”

Jeb scowled.

“Look, Jeb. I’m not the kind to state the obvious, but you have to keep her.”

Jeb picked up a pencil and tapped it on the mouse pad beside his computer keyboard. “Fine. Whatever. She’s got three weeks.”

“Just long enough to get the house clean for your clients? You’re all heart.”

“Don’t push it, Slim.”

Slim left the room, annoyed that the surfer girl wasn’t getting much of a chance to prove herself, but Jeb didn’t care. He picked up the phone again. Too much was at stake for him to deviate from his plan. Having a baby around might seem insignificant, but Jeb had seen many a little thing topple big plans. There was no way he’d risk his future—his home—when it had taken him so long to get one.

He’d spent his childhood hopping from one tropical paradise to another with his wealthy jet-setter parents. His first year at university he thought he should feel “settled”—since he was actually staying in one place for nine consecutive months—but he didn’t. Eventually he realized “home” was more than a house or a place to consistently lay his head. For the next two years he’d longed for the sense of direction, sense of purpose, sense of identity that the other students had.

Then he had gotten an apartment off campus, next door to two very determined brothers. Ranchers. People of substance. People with roots and identity. People whose great-great-grandparents had settled in Montana and who knew that a hundred years from now their property would still be Langford land.

With too much money and very little meaning to his life, Jeb wanted so much to be one of them that he’d married their sister Laine, and bought the ranch he now lived on, prepared to fulfill his adopted destiny of handing his ranch down from one generation of Worthingtons to the next… Until he and Laine divorced.

His dream had died a sudden, brutal death, but after only a few weeks of wallowing in misery, it dawned on him that he didn’t need to have a wife or kids or even a “person” to hand down his land. He could still leave a legacy. It would simply be in the form of a foundation—a trust that would keep this ranch running exactly as it was right now for a hundred years after his death.

Just as he always did, he persevered. But only because he didn’t deviate from the blueprint he created to achieve his goals.

So no. Sophie Penazzi and her baby were not staying. Might as well start the ball rolling now on finding her replacement.

Two seconds after Jeb strode into his house, Sophie had realized her offer to leave if he would pay her for expenses had been a terrible lapse in judgment. Her horror at making such a stupid mistake must have shown on her face because after Slim had taken her to her room, he’d told her to give him a few minutes and he’d straighten out this mess with Jeb.

Standing in the sitting room of the three-room maid’s quarters, admiring the hardwood floors, traditional sofa and chair and big screen TV—quarters much nicer than any apartment she could afford—she took a long breath and said a prayer that Slim would be successful. Not only did this job pay enough to wipe out the debt she owed the hospital for Brady’s birth, but also she had nowhere else to go. The thousand dollars she’d demanded as compensation for driving to the ranch wouldn’t pay the first month’s rent on a new apartment; forget about the additional security deposit required on most places. If she lost this job, she and her baby would be dead broke and homeless.

With her little boy asleep in the bedroom, she cursed Brady’s dad for dumping them the way he had, putting her in the predicament of having no money and a child to raise. But rather than fall victim to self-pity, she reminded herself that Mick wasn’t as much to blame for bailing on them as she was for trusting him. She’d been brought into the world by parents whose careers always came first. She shouldn’t have been surprised that when she got pregnant, Mick no longer saw her as a partner, but a burden, maybe even an obstacle to the life he had planned. He’d never hidden his determination to arrange his world just the way he wanted it. She hadn’t been blind to his self-centeredness. But she had stupidly believed love could cause him to make room for the new addition to their lives.

She shook her head in wonder. Thinking love would cause him to make room for Brady was just another way of saying that she believed that with enough love Mick would change. After twenty-two years of jumping through hoops for parents who never found a way to have any time for her, she should have known better than to take up with someone as career oriented as Mick. But she hadn’t. He had to dump her before she finally got the message. People didn’t change. And she wouldn’t again make the mistake of believing they could.

A knock sounded on her door, then Slim opened it and poked his head inside. “You’re set for a while.”

“A while?”

“It sometimes takes Jeb a bit of time to realize everything’s going to be okay, but he’ll come around. You just do a good job.”

Sophie smiled and nodded, but from the guarded expression on Slim’s face she knew he hadn’t really made any headway with her stubborn boss. Jeb Worthington wasn’t happy with her and her baby and though he’d told her to stow her gear that didn’t really mean she was staying. She appreciated the ranch foreman going to bat for her, but she wasn’t the kind to let somebody else fight her battles. Once Slim disappeared down the hall, she checked to make sure Brady was sleeping soundly, scooped up the baby monitor and went in search of Jeb.

She walked down empty corridors and through half-furnished rooms confused that a man who seemed to have money didn’t surround himself with creature comforts. Eventually she found him in his office. Pacing behind the huge cherrywood desk and tall-back black leather chair, he talked on the phone, his boots clicking on the hardwood floor.

“I’d like to speak with Mrs. Gunther, please.” He was so absorbed in his pacing that Sophie knew he hadn’t noticed her in his doorway. She let her gaze slide up his jean-clad legs, the lightweight plaid shirt, his broad shoulders. “It’s Jeb Worthington.”

If his jerky strides were anything to go by, patience wasn’t his strong suit… Or maybe he wasn’t a man accustomed to sitting or even being inside? The natural tan of his face and hands said he was more at home in the elements than his office. Plus, his body was trimmed, toned, muscled—probably from hard work, not a gym.

Her gaze moved up again, until it reached his face. Straight nose. Silky looking black hair. Her breath stuttered in her chest. Wow. How had she missed that he was gorgeous?

Thinking back on the day she interviewed with him, she winced, remembering that she had noticed. In fact, she remembered wanting to swoon when he walked into the room. She’d been so excited about the great pay and benefits he’d offered her that she’d forgotten that.

“Mrs. Gunther?”

He stopped his pacing, turned to the heavy drapes that covered a wall of windows, affording Sophie the opportunity to see his strong back that tapered into a taut waist and trim hips.

“When you sent me a woman with a baby, I think you forgot my housekeeper has to live in.”

Jeb’s conversation brought her back to the present and reminded her of another complication with her employment at this ranch. She was ready to fight to keep a job that meant she’d have to live with a man who was so attractive she’d wanted to swoon the first time she’d seen him.

Was that smart?

“The ranch is so far out in the country we only go into town for supplies once a month. She can’t commute. And it’s impractical for her to hire a baby-sitter. That is, if she can even find one. I had to go the whole way to California to find her.”

His voice went from businesslike to impatient to downright angry so quickly that Sophie blinked. Maybe she was the one being too hasty? He was a grouch with little to no patience with mistakes. Not even honest ones. Yet instead of running for cover before he saw her eavesdropping, she stood gazing at him like a star-struck teenager, as if how he behaved didn’t matter; he was so good-looking that she could forgive his being a little grouchy.

That wasn’t like her at all. And it also wasn’t right.

“Okay, let’s just say we both agree that mistakes happen. I can appreciate that your staff got the instruction wrong. That doesn’t change the fact that her having a baby is a deal breaker. I can’t keep her.”

Sophie’s mouth fell open in dismay, but as he paused to listen to Mrs. Gunther, he turned in her direction and she jumped away from the open doorway into the hall, flattening herself against the wall so he wouldn’t see her.

“I know that under the circumstances, especially with the flexible schedule, it doesn’t seem that a baby would be a problem. But they’re a hindrance, a distraction. I can’t risk everything I’ve put into this company because she can’t get her work done.”

Though her heart had been pounding a hundred beats a second, his argument caused it to settle down and she frowned. That was all he was worried about? That she wouldn’t get her work done? Was he nuts? Every mother in the world cooked and cleaned while caring for her children. Of course she could get her work done.

“Just start gathering résumés again. Get me somebody who can do everything I need done and this time without a baby.”

He slammed the phone receiver into the cradle and Sophie hightailed it out of the corridor. But as she scrambled back to her quarters, she smiled, suddenly inspired. She might not have been able to get her parents or Mick to change, but the problem she had with Jeb Worthington wasn’t about getting him to change. It was only about getting him to change his mind. To keep this job, all she had to do was show him that she could get her work done even with Brady in the room, underfoot, in the baby carrier slung over her back.

Actually that really was the way to go. Rather than tiptoe around Brady, the best thing to do would be to demonstrate that—just like every other mother on the planet—she could get her work done with her baby, not in spite of her baby.

And forget all about the fact that he was good-looking.

CHAPTER TWO

THOUGH Sophie didn’t know what time ranchers woke for morning chores—there had been no reason to tell her because breakfast wasn’t her responsibility, only supper was— she set her alarm for four-thirty and bounced out of bed when it rang.

Her plan was to make Jeb the breakfast of his dreams and serve it to him with Brady sitting in the high chair only a few feet away. The baby might goo and coo, but who could object to happy baby sounds? No one. Her boss would have good food and good company and he’d see there were more reasons to like having Brady around than reasons to kick them off the ranch.

Piece of cake.

After dressing herself in a T-shirt and blue jeans, she raced to the kitchen taking the baby monitor with her so that she’d hear Brady wake. Then she quickly brewed a pot of coffee, and ran to the refrigerator for fruit. A Tex-Mex omelet would be the main course, but she intended to do this up right and prepare the kind of hearty meal a rancher needed. Fruit cup first. A little oatmeal. Then the omelet, bacon and toast.

Running around the huge kitchen with solid oak cabinets and pale granite countertops surrounding the stainless steel appliances, she sliced fruit until five o’clock. Still scurrying, she fried bacon. At five-thirty, she put toast into the stainless steel toaster and by the time six o’clock rolled around she was becoming nervous.

The coffee was stale, the toast cold and the fruit soft. She thought ranchers got up at the crack of dawn? Where the heck was Jeb?