Chapter ONE
Harley Diekerhoff looked up from peeling potatoes to glance out the kitchen window.
It was still snowing... even harder than it had been this morning.
So much white, it dazzled.
Hands still, breath catching, she watched the thick, white flakes blow past the ranch house at a dizzying pace, enthralled by the flurry of the lacy snowflakes.
So beautiful. Magical A mysterious silent ballet in all white, the snow swirling, twirling just like it did in her favorite scene from the Nutcracker—the one with the Snow Queen and her breathtaking corps in their white tutus with their precision and speed—and then that dazzling snow at the end, the delicate flakes powdering the stage.
Harley’s chest ached. She gripped the peeler more tightly, and focused on her breathing.
She didn’t want to remember.
She wasn’t going to remember.
Wasn’t going to go there, not now, not today. Not when she had six hungry men to feed in a little over two hours. She picked up a potato, started peeling.
She’d come to Montana to work. She’d taken the temporary job at Copper Mountain Ranch to get some distance from her family this Christmas, and working on the Paradise Valley cattle ranch would give her new memories.
Like the snow piling up outside the window.
She’d never lived in a place that snowed like this. Where she came from in Central California, they didn’t have snow, they had fog. Thick soupy Tule fog that blanketed the entire valley, socking in airports, making driving nearly impossible. And on the nights when the fog lifted and temperatures dropped beneath the cold clear sky, the citrus growers rushed to light smudge pots to protect their valuable, vulnerable orange crops.
Her family didn’t grow oranges. Her family were Dutch dairy people. Harley had been raised on a big dairy farm in Visalia, and she’d marry a dairyman in college, and they’d had their own dairy, too.
But that’s the part she needed to forget.
That’s why she’d come to Montana, with its jagged mountains and rugged river valleys and long cold winters.
She’d arrived here the Sunday following Thanksgiving and would work through mid-January, when Brock Sheenan’s housekeeper returned from a personal leave of absence.
In January, Harley would either return to California or look for another job in Crawford County. Harley was tempted to stay, as the Bozeman employment agency assured her they’d have no problem finding her a permanent position if she wanted one. So far she liked everything about her job on the isolated ranch, from the icy, biting wind that howled beyond the ranch’s thick log cabin walls, to the cooking, cleaning, and laundry required.
The physicality of the work was exactly what her mind and body needed. It was good to lift, bend, carry, mop, sweep, dust, fold. The harder she worked, the better she felt, and today, for the first time in years, she actually felt almost....
Happy.
Harley paused, brows knitting in surprise.
Almost happy.
Wow.
That was huge. Almost happy was significant. Almost happy gave her hope that one day she would feel more again, and be more again, and life wouldn’t be so bleak and cold.
Because it had been bleak.
It’d been....
She shook her head, brushed off the little peel clinging to her thumb and grabbed the last potato, swiftly peeling it, clearing her mind of everything but the task at hand, concentrating on the texture of the wet potato, the cool water in the sink, the quick motion of the peeler, the dazzling white flurries at the window, and the crackle of the fire behind her.
She liked being here. It was good being here. This wasn’t her house and yet in just one week it felt like home.
She enjoyed this kitchen with its golden, hand-planed pine cabinets, wide-planked hardwood floor, and the corner fireplace rimmed in local rock from the Yellowstone River. She loved how the rustic exterior of the sprawling two-story cabin hid the large, comfortable, efficient kitchen and the adjacent over-sized laundry room with its two sets of washers and dryers… to handle feeding and looking after, not just Brock Sheenan, owner of Copper Mountain Ranch, but the hired hands who worked for Brock and lived in the bunk house behind the barn.
In winter the ranch hands didn’t leave the property much during the week. The work was too grueling, the nights fell early, and driving at night could be treacherous on the windy, icy mountain road, so Monday through Friday Brock provided dinners for his five men, and clean, dry clothes, too. Come weekend, they were on their own, but Harley wouldn’t have minded cooking for extra mouths seven days a week.
The isolation of Copper Mountain Ranch, tucked back in the Absarokas, higher than the typical Paradise Valley ranch, might have scared off other job applicants, but not her. She didn’t mind the severe weather or Brock Sheenan’s brusqueness—and she’d been warned about that in advance—but she was okay with a silent, gruff boss. She didn’t come to Marietta, Montana looking for friendship. Like Brock himself, she didn’t need conversation and company. She was here to work, and she preferred being left alone.
The employment agency liked her attitude. They said she was perfect for the temp job and filled her in on the Sheenans, one of the bigger, more prominent families that had settled in Paradise Valley around the turn of the century. She’d be working for Brock Sheenan, the oldest of the five Sheenan sons. Brock had bought Copper Mountain Ranch to get away from his dad, which had caused some bad blood within the family, but he’d wanted his own place, and had designed the two-story log cabin himself, helping build it as a wedding present for his bride.
But tragedy struck a year and a half into their marriage, when Brock’s wife Amy was killed in a horrific car crash on one of the twisting mountain roads. Devastated, Brock disappeared into his ranch, becoming almost reclusive after that.
The employment agency had shared the details with her, asking for her confidence. But they thought it was important she understand that Brock Sheenan had a... reputation... for being eccentric. He didn’t need people the way others did, and he’d been quite specific in his desire for a tidy, professional, and disciplined housekeeper. He wouldn’t tolerate lazy and he couldn’t abide chatty. He needed a quiet, orderly house, and he liked things done his way.
Harley didn’t have a problem with that. She was quiet too, and this year she’d been determined to avoid the holidays, and had deliberately chosen to go away for December, needing t
o escape her big California family that celebrated Christmas with endless activity, festivities, and fuss.
She loved all her nieces and nephews but this Christmas she didn’t want to be around kids. Because this year she wasn’t celebrating Christmas. This year there wasn’t going to be a tree or trimmings, no stockings, or brightly wrapped toys.
Eyes hot, chest burning, she scooped up the mountain of wet potato scraps, when a deep, rough male voice startled her.
“You okay, Miss Diekerhoff?”
Turning quickly, potato skins still dripping, Harley blinked back tears as she spotted Brock Sheenan standing by the fireplace, warming his hands.
Brock was a big man. He was tall—six one or two—with broad shoulders, a wide muscular chest, and shaggy black hair.
Harley’s late husband, David, was Portuguese and darkly handsome, but David was always groomed and polished while the Montana rancher seemed disinclined to comb his hair, or bother with a morning shave.
The truth was, Brock Sheenan looked like a pirate, and never more so than now, with tiny snowflakes clinging to his wild hair and shadowed jaw.
“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly, embarrassed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“The faucet was on.” He rubbed his hands together, the skin red and raw. “You’re not... crying... are you?”
She heard the uncomfortable note in his voice and cringed a little. “No,” she said quickly, straightening and squaring her shoulders as she dumped the potato peels into the garbage. “Everything’s wonderful.”
“So you’re not crying?”
“No,” she repeated crisply, drying her hands. “Just peeling potatoes for dinner.”
Her gaze swept his big frame, seeing the powdered snow still clinging to the hem of his Wrangler jeans that peeked beneath leather chaps and white glitter dusting his black brows. His supple leather chaps weren’t for show. It was frigid outside and he’d spent the week in the saddle, driving the last herds of cattle from the back country to the valley below so they could take shelter beneath trees. “Can I get you something?”
“You don’t happen to have any coffee left from this morning that you could heat up?”
“I can make a fresh pot,” she said, grabbing the glass carafe to fill it with water. “Want regular or decaf?”
He glanced at the clock mounted on the wall above the door and then out the window where the snow flurries were thickening, making it almost impossible to see the tall pine trees marking one corner of the yard. “Leaded,” he said. “Make it strong, too. It’s going to be a late night for me.”
She added the coffee grounds, and then hit the brew button. “You’re heading back out?”
“I’m going to ride back up as soon as I get something warm in me. Thought I’d take some of the breakfast coffee cake with me. If there was anything left.”
“There is.” She’d already wrapped the remaining slices in foil. He wasn’t one to linger over meals, and he didn’t like asking for snacks between meals, either. If he wanted something now, it meant he wouldn’t be back anytime soon. But it was already after four. It’d be dark within the hour. “It’s snowing hard.”
“I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I don’t do a last check. The boys said we’ve got them all but I keep thinking we’re missing one or two of the young ones. Have to be sure before I call it a night.”
Harley reached into a cupboard for one of the thermoses she sent with Brock on his early mornings. “What time will you want dinner?”
“Don’t know when I’ll be back. Could be fairly late, so just leave a plate in the oven for me. No need for you to stay up.” He bundled his big arms across his even bigger chest, a lock of thick black hair falling down over his forehead to shadow an equally dark eye.
There was nothing friendly or approachable about Brock when he stood like that. His wild black hair, square jaw, and dark piercing gaze that gave him a slightly threatening air, but Harley knew better. Men, even the most dangerous men, were still mortal. They had goals, dreams, needs. They tried, they failed. They made mistakes. Fatal mistakes.
“Any of the boys going with you?” she asked, trying to sound casual as she wrapped a generous wedge of cheddar cheese in foil, and a hunk of the summer sausage he liked, so he’d have something more substantial than coffee cake for his ride.
He shook his head, then dragged a large calloused hand through the glossy black strands in a half-hearted attempt to comb the tangled strands smooth. “No.”
She gave him a swift, troubled look.
He shrugged. “No point in putting the others in harm’s way.”
Her frown deepened. “What if you get into trouble?”
“I won’t.”
She arched her brows.
He gave her a quelling look.
She ought to be intimidated by this shaggy beast of a man, but she wasn’t. She’d had a husband—a daring, risk-taking husband of her own—and his lapse in judgment had cost them all. Dearly.
“It’s dangerous out there,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t go alone. They invented the buddy system for a reason.”
One of Brock’s black eyebrows shot up. “The buddy system.”
She ignored the mockery in his dark, deep voice. His voice always surprised her, in part because it was so deep and husky that it vibrated in his chest, making her think of strong, potent drink and shadowy attics and moonlit bedrooms, but also because until now, he’d never said more than a couple of sentences to her.
He wasn’t a big talker. But then, he wasn’t in the house much. Brock spent most of his time outdoors working, and when he was inside, he sat at his desk, poring over accounting books and papers, or by the fire in the family room reading.
Maybe that’s what made her so comfortable here. The silence.
The dearth of conversation. The lack of argument. The absence of tension.
She needed the solitude of the Copper Mountain Ranch. She needed the quiet. The quiet was a balm to her soul. It sounded dreadful put like that. Corny as well as pathetic, but the loss of everything she knew, and everything she was, had changed her. Broken her. All she could do now was continue to mend. Eventually she’d be able to cope with noise and chaos and families again, but not yet. Not for a long, long time.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of the buddy system,” she said flatly. “It’s practiced by virtually everyone... including the Boy Scouts.”
He gave her another long look, his dark gaze resting on her as if she were a bit peculiar.
Right now, she felt a bit peculiar.
It would help if he stopped staring at her so hard. His intense scrutiny was making her overly warm, and a little bit dizzy.
“I was never a Boy Scout,” he rasped.
Looking at his long shaggy black hair and shadowed jaw, she could believe it. “You’re missing the point.”
“I get your point.” He stalked toward her, his dark gazing holding hers, his jaw hard.
Panicked, she stepped back, and again, as he stepped close, his big body brushing hers as he reached into the cabinet for a mug. “But I’m not a little boy,” he added, glancing at her from beneath his thick black lashes, a warning in his dark eyes, “and don’t need coddling.”
Energy surged through Harley, a hot sharp electric current that made her heart race and her stomach fall. Legs weak, she took another step sideways, increasing the distance between them. “Obviously you’re not a child.”
He grabbed the pot of coffee, interrupting the brewing cycle to fill his cup. “Then don’t treat me like one.”
Her heart continued to pound. She wasn’t scared but she definitely was... bothered.
Harley bit down on the inside of her cheek, holding back her first angry retort, aware that the kitchen, peaceful until just minutes ago, now crackled with tension.
“You don’t think I should worry about you?” she asked, arms folding across her chest so he couldn’t see that her hands were trembling.
“It’s
not your job to worry about me.”
“No, I’m just to worry about your boxers and your stomach,” she retorted.
He arched an eyebrow. “Is that appropriate, Miss Diekerhoff?”
His scathing tone made her flush and look away. She bit down on her cheek again, appalled that she was losing her cool now, and counted to ten. She rarely lost her temper but she was mad. Somehow he’d struck a nerve in her... had gotten under her skin.
When she was sure she could speak calmly she managed a terse apology. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t appropriate.” Then she set the thermos down on the counter—hard, harder than she intended, and the crack of metal against granite sent a loud echo through the kitchen “And you are right. What you do is none of my concern, so go out in the storm, in the dark, all by yourself. As long as I’m getting paid, I won’t give it a second thought.”
Heart still racing, she fled the kitchen for the adjoining mudroom to move the laundry forward. Tears burned the back of her eyes and she was breathing hard and she didn’t even know why she was so upset, only that she was.
She was furious.
Stupid meathead of a man, thinking he was immortal, invincible, that nothing bad could happen...
Swallowing the curses she wouldn’t let herself utter aloud, Harley shoved the tangle of heavy, wet jeans and cords from the washer into the dryer.
But testosterone didn’t make a man immortal.
Just daring. Risky.
Foolish.
Her chest ached, the pressure on her heart horrendous. If David hadn’t been so confident. If David hadn’t been such a proud man. If David….
“What’s the matter with you?” Brock demanded, filling the laundry room doorway as if it were a sliver of space instead of forty inches wide by eight feet tall. “You’re acting like a crazy lady.”
Harley jammed the wet clothes into the dryer so hard she slammed her wrist bone on the round barrel opening, sending pain shooting up her arm.
Tears started to her eyes. Worry and regret flooded her. Worry for Brock, and regret that she’d said too much. She wasn’t here to talk. She was here to work. She knew that. “I’m not crazy,” she retorted huskily, rubbing the tender spot on her wrist. “Don’t call me crazy.”