Christmas at Copper Mountain

“You’re behaving in a completely irrational—”

“It’s a blizzard outside, Mr. Sheenan. And I was merely asking you to take precautions when you headed back out, and if that makes me crazy, then so be it. I am crazy. Make that a lunatic.”

His black eyebrows flattened and he looked at her so long it crossed her mind that she’d said far too much, pushed too hard, perhaps even lost her job.

And then his dark eyes glimmered and the corner of his mouth lifted faintly. “A lunatic?”

There was something in the way he repeated his words that made her want to smile.

Or maybe it was the shadow in his eyes that looked almost like amusement.

Or that very slight lift of his firm lips.

He seemed to be fighting a smile. Could it be?

If so, it was the closest she’d ever come to seeing him smile. Brock was a serious man. The agency said the death of his wife had changed him.

She understood. It’d been three years since the accident, and she still grieved for David and her children.

Her desire to smile faded. Her heart burned. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

But then, there were no words.

The pain had been unspeakable.

She closed her eyes, held her breath, holding the agony in, and then she found her strength, and exhaled, and met her employer’s shuttered gaze.

“Let me fill your thermos,” she said unsteadily. “I’ve got some snacks for your saddlebag, too. Obviously you don’t have to take them. It’s entirely up to you.”

He leaned against the doorframe, blocking her exit. “You’re even more bossy than my last housekeeper, and yet you’re just half her age. I don’t want to know you in twenty years.”

And just like that he brought her back to reality. Who they were. Why she was here. His temporary housekeeper.

Harley managed a tight smile. “Good. You won’t have to know me in twenty years, because I’m only here until January thirteenth.” She looked up at him, expression blank. “And if you don’t return tonight, then I suppose I’m free tomorrow.” She motioned for him to move, with an impatient gesture of her finger. “Now if you’d please move, I have work to do.”

Brock didn’t know if he should throttle his bossy, imperious housekeeper or fire her.

He ought to fire her. Right here, right now. She wasn’t the right woman for the job. Wasn’t the right woman for him.

He swallowed hard, biting back the sharp retort as he stared down into his housekeeper’s startling green eyes.

What the hell was he doing with a beautiful woman for a housekeeper?

Harley Diekerhoff was not supposed to be attractive.

The name wasn’t attractive. The name conjured visions of a stout, strong woman with massive forearms and a sprinkling of dark hair above a thin pale lip.

Or so he’d imagined when the temp employment agency had given him her file as the best possible candidate for the six-week position as housekeeper and cook for his ranch.

He’d wanted a stout woman with massive forearms and a hairy upper lip. He’d been confident he’d hired one.

Instead Harley Diekerhoff was beautiful, and young, and probably the best housekeeper he’d ever had.

It pissed him off.

He didn’t want a stunning thirty-four-year-old with hauntingly high cheekbones and eyebrows that arched and turned into wings, making him want to look into her cool green eyes again and again.

He didn’t want a housekeeper with a wide full-lipped mouth, creamy skin, and thick hair the color of rich, decadent caramel.

And he most certainly didn’t want a housekeeper with curves, endless curves, curves that did nothing but tease his control and inflame his imagination.

His jaw tightened. He battled his temper. “Don’t get too carried away,” he said curtly. “I’ll be back tonight. You’ll still have a job to do in the morning.”

Her tawny eyebrows arched even higher. Her long ponytail slipped over her shoulder. “Good, because I like the job. It’s just—” she broke off, lips compressing, swallowing the words.

“What?” he demanded.

She shook her head, white teeth pinching her plump lower lip.

He tried not to focus on the way her teeth squeezed the soft lip. He didn’t want to focus on her at all. “What?” he repeated.

She sighed and glanced down at her hands. “Nothing,” she said quietly.

He said nothing.

She sighed again, twisted her hands. “I like it here,” she added. “And I like you. So just be careful. That’s all.”

He stared at her, perplexed.

She was nothing like Maxine, his housekeeper of the past nine years. Maxine didn’t laugh or smile or cry. She arrived every morning, did her work, and then left every night when her husband came to pick her up.

Maxine was silent and sober and moved through the house as if invisible.

Harley moved through the house as if a beacon shone on her. She practically glowed, bathed with light.

He didn’t understand how she did it, or what she did, only that from the moment she’d arrived seven days ago nothing in this house had been the same.

Suddenly aware that they were standing so close he could smell the scent of her shampoo—something sweet and floral, freesia or orange blossom and entirely foreign in his masculine house—he abruptly stepped back, letting her pass.

His gaze followed her as she crossed the kitchen, hating himself for noticing how the apron around her waist emphasized how small it was as well as the gentle swell of hips. “Just leave my dinner in the oven,” he said.

“If that’s what you want,” she said, reaching for the coffee pot to fill his thermos.

“That’s what I want,” he growled, looking away, unable to watch her a moment longer because just having her in his house made him feel things he didn’t want to feel.

Like desire.

And hunger.

Lust.

He didn’t lust. Not anymore. Maybe when he was a kid, young and randy with testosterone, he battled with control, but he didn’t battle for control, not at thirty-nine.

At least, he hadn’t battled for control in years.

But he was struggling now, inexplicably drawn to this temporary housekeeper who looked so fresh and wholesome in her olive green apron with its sprigs of holly berries that he wanted to touch her. Kiss her. Taste her.

And that was just plain wrong.

He ground his teeth together, held his breath, and cursed the employment agency for sending him a sexy housekeeper.

She walked toward him, held out the filled thermos and foil-wrapped packets of cheese sausage and coffee cake. “Be careful.”

He glanced down at her, seeing but not wanting to see how her apron outlined her shape. Hips, full breasts, and a tiny waist he could circle with two hands. Even with her hideous apron strings wrapped twice around her waist.

Aprons were supposed to hide the body. Her apron just emphasized her curves. And olive was such a drab color but somehow it made her eyes look mysterious and cool and green and her lips dark pink and her skin—

“I’m always careful,” he ground out, taking the thermos and foil packages from her, annoyed all over again.