Maid in Montana

“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.