Maid in Montana

“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 me.” He walked to the cupboard, pulled out his travel mug and set it on the counter with the coffeemaker. “I don’t want anything special like this from you again. The job description doesn’t include breakfast. So don’t make it.” He poured coffee into his mug. “I want the house clean, my laundry done and supper made. Nothing else.”

He strode to the door, grabbed the knob and faced her. “You got that?”

She nodded.

“Good.”

But as Jeb was walking to the barn, he wondered if Sophie really did understand what he’d said. It was easy to tell from her few comments about her parents that she’d probably spent her childhood trying to please them, which made her one of those people who was always working to fix everybody around them.

Lord, if she ever found out the truth of his life, she’d have a field day.

He stopped walking. Actually that wasn’t funny. In less than a day, she’d already gotten him to sit down to a breakfast he didn’t want, withhold a reprimand for not keeping her baby out of his sight and engage in a personal discussion about her parents. She’d grown up looking and listening for clues of how her parents felt. If he spent too much time in her company, she’d sense he was hiding something and she might even make it her life’s mission to get him to talk about it so she could help him.

He was strong enough—stubborn enough— that he didn’t believe he’d spill his guts and tell her things he didn’t want anybody to know, but why risk it?

Her primary function was to prepare his house for his clients. He could easily take cooking off her list of duties and never even have to worry that their paths would cross.

That was a much better idea than sitting three feet away from her and her child, risking that she’d work whatever magic she wove and somehow get him talking about himself.

Sophie was in the middle of supper preparations when Jeb opened the back door and strode into the kitchen talking. “Sophie, can you come back to the office with me for a minute?”

She looked up from the pepper she was chopping then glanced at the baby monitor on the counter. Brady had just gone to sleep. She didn’t believe he would wake up. She could leave him for five minutes without the monitor…right?

“This won’t take long.”

She smiled and said, “Sure,” but waited until Jeb was in the hall leading to the front foyer, before she snatched the monitor from the counter as she passed it. He hadn’t said a word about Brady that morning, but that was actually the problem. She’d never met a person who didn’t oohh and ahh over her baby. The fact that her boss hadn’t even addressed the adorable child sitting in the high chair next to him could mean he really was one of those people who didn’t like babies. If that was the case, she might have to rethink her strategy. Stuffing the monitor into her apron pocket, she followed Jeb into the office.

“Have a seat.”

She sat with a smile. A big smile. He wouldn’t have called her into his office unless he had something important to discuss. She had to show him that no matter what he wanted she’d do her best to accommodate him. No matter what he said, she would agree.

He sat on the big leather chair behind the desk. “I’ve decided to modify your duties.”

Great! More work! Finally a way to prove herself! If she had any luck, he’d changed his mind about breakfast. She was a much better cook than housekeeper, and breakfast was her specialty. She could easily impress him with omelets and waffles. If he’d simply add breakfast into her duties, he’d beg her to stay the entire year of their contract.

“I’m taking all cooking off your list of responsibilities.”

All the breath whooshed out of Sophie’s lungs. “What?”

“The cooking. I’m taking it off your list of job duties. You have plenty to do without it.”

“No, I don’t!”

He fiddled with some papers on his desk, then looked up at her. “Yes, you do.” He leaned back in the seat. “You were surprised this morning when I didn’t get up with the sun because you thought that’s what ranchers do.”

Heartsick because she’d lost her best way to impress him, Sophie nodded.

“Usually that’s true, but in our case I don’t really run the Silver Saddle. I run the ranch management company that owns the Silver Saddle. As ranch foreman, Slim gets up and gets the day going with the hands. That’s what every foreman at every ranch my company manages does. I personally don’t run the ranches. I have great foremen who do that.”

“And what do you do?”

“I market my business.” He sat up again, leaning forward on his desk, obviously comfortable talking about his company, looking like a lethal combination of sexy rancher and savvy businessman. “This house,” he said, pointing around in a circle, “is a big part of my marketing plan. Remember, during the interview I told you I had frequent guests?”

“Yes.”

“The guests are wealthy people who buy ranches so that they have a private country retreat. Somewhere they can go and be themselves. Be comfortable. But after a year or so of owning a ranch, they realize how much trouble it is to run it, so they go looking for somebody like me. Or a company like mine. We do the work for the ranch. They reap the benefits.”

“I’m still not sure what this has to do with me.”

“If it were just me living here, I wouldn’t have a housekeeper. I’d let the dust pile up. But because of my guests I need the place to be clean. Which means you’re part of the business. You’re not really a maid. You’re more of an extension of the ranch management company, making sure everything sparkles for clients.” He relaxed and leaned back on his chair again. “So that’s all I want you to do.”

Knowing he was waiting for a reaction from her, Sophie stalled for time by running her tongue along her lips. A smart woman would simply say okay. Sophie told herself to say okay. To smile. To accept his order. Not to argue that cooking was her forte and if he’d just allow her cook for him, he’d never let her leave.

She took a breath. Told herself again to simply say, “Okay.”

Just say okay!

She opened her mouth, but instead of her one-word agreement, she found herself saying, “This is because of Brady, isn’t it?” But once the words were out of her mouth, she wasn’t sorry. The guy was going to fire her for something that wasn’t her fault and she’d be damned if she’d roll over and play dead.

“No.”

“Yes. It is.” She rose from her seat and leaned across the desk. “You didn’t even look at him this morning.”

He rose, pressed his hands on his desk and leaned toward her. “I asked you to keep him away from me. If we push everything else aside in this discussion, the bottom line is you disobeyed an order from your boss. Now you’re paying the consequences.”