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Millionaire on Her Doorstep
Stella Bagwell
twinson the doorstepRICH MAN…Wealthy, handsome, successful oilman, dynamic rancher…and her boss. Adam Murdock Sanders was simply too good to be true. After all, geologist Maureen York didn't believe in Mr. Right.RANCHING MAN…Then she moved to a nearby ranch–and the trouble began!Adam's protective attitude and commanding orders drove independent Maureen wild–and his kisses made her crazy….WEDDED MAN?Soon the millionaire moved from her doorstep into her heart. But would this new arrangement lead to a merger…or a marriage?The next generation of Murdocks continues the adventure of love!


Adam tried not to stare at the shapely line of her figure. (#u5e32357e-1e93-5967-9175-8d52b93c2865)Letter to Reader (#ucde7d70a-7565-5435-8f4c-89bd2a4ceb0e)Title Page (#u467f837c-ca14-59eb-b207-84fa7e565d0d)About the Author (#ue8a5b84a-1b37-5b16-ae70-01f9164af9ef)Chapter One (#u0791649d-b4dd-50ae-a6f8-45b0af43d6f2)Chapter Two (#ud0a02ff2-aee9-5c4e-86df-bbc35ea738f0)Chapter Three (#uc0e284d7-acd1-52a2-94c6-028eb8b4a2c1)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Adam tried not to stare at the shapely line of her figure.
He didn’t understand his reaction to this woman. He normally loved blond, petite, delicate women. But Maureen York was none of those things. She was tall, with a full. ripe figure. She was downright curvy. Her hair and eyes were both dark. And, God help him, she was the sexiest woman he’d ever encountered.
“Look, Maureen—either you want to stay in a boring motel room, or you want to come out to the ranch. Which will it be?”
She glanced at him. “I don’t want to be a problem for any of you.”
Adam shrugged. “One more mouth to feed won’t put us out.”
“You really know how to make a woman feel...wanted.”
A smug smile dimpled one of his cheeks. “I’ve been told that before.”
Dear Reader,
As spring turns to summer, make Silhouette Romance the perfect companion for those lazy days and sultry nights! Fans of our LOVING THE BOSS series won’t want to miss The Marriage Merger by exciting author Vivian Leiber. A pretend engagement between friends goes awry when their white lies lead to a real white wedding!
Take one biological-clock-ticking twin posing as a new mom and one daddy determined to gain custody of his newborn son, and you’ve got the unsuspecting partners in The Baby Arrangement, Moyra Tarling’s tender BUNDLES OF JOY title. You’ve asked for more TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP, Stella Bagwell’s charming author-led miniseries, so this month we give you Millionaire on Her Doorstep, an emotional story of two wounded souls who find love in the most unexpected way...and in the most unexpected place.
Can a bachelor bent on never marrying and a single mom with a bustling brood of four become a Fairy-Tale Family? Find out in Pat Montana’s delightful new novel Next, a handsome doctor’s case of mistaken identity leads to The Triplet’s Wedding Wish in this heartwarming tale by DeAnna Talcott. And a young widow finds the home—and family—she’s always wanted when she strikes a deal with a Nevada Cowboy Dad, this month’s FAMILY MATTERS offering from Dorsey Kelley.
Enjoy this month’s fantastic selections, and make sure to return each and every month to Silhouette Romance!


Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance
Please address questions and book requests to:
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Millionaire on Her Doorstep
Stella Bagwell


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
STELLA BAGWELL
sold her first book to Silhouette in November 1985. Now, more than thirty novels later, she is still thrilled to see her books in print and can’t imagine having any other job than that of writing about two people falling in love.
She lives in a small town in southeastern Oklahoma with her husband of twenty-six years. She has one son.


Chapter One
“You’re not going to use that thing on me!” Horrified. Adam stared at his aunt Justine as though he was certain the woman had lost her mind. The tall redhead had worked as an R.N. in Ruidoso’s medical clinic for years and was famed for her gentle, expert care with patients. But at the moment, Adam thought she looked more like a perfect assistant for Dr. Frankenstein.
The older woman pulled the trigger on the electric machine in her hand and the jigsaw blade buzzed loudly. “I know it looks like something I pulled off a carpenter’s truck, but believe me, if you want that cast off your leg sometime before lunch, you’ll have to trust me. Otherwise, I’ll have to get out the old handsaw.”
His eyes riveted on the buzzing blade, he asked, “You can’t put something on the plaster to melt it off? Water? Bourbon? Acid?”
She chuckled. “You big, strong men are all alike. Scared to death of a little needle. Keel over in a dead faint at the first sign of blood. If it was left up to you males to have the babies, the world population would quickly dwindle.”
Justine grabbed his foot and propped the blob of white plaster against her thigh. Adam clutched the edges of the examining table and braced himself for what was to come.
“If it was left up to me...” He stopped, his breath lodged in his throat as Justine guided the blade into the cast. White dust boiled as the saw ate through the chalky material.
“If what was left up to you?” his aunt prompted as she guided the blade up and over the region of his ankle.
Trying not to think of his newly healed bone being cut in half, Adam said, “The world population would be zero. I don’t ever intend to have kids.”
Justine made a clucking noise of disapproval. “Your mother would kick you in the rear if she could hear you.”
“She probably would,” Adam agreed. “But I’ve told her Anna and Ivy can give her grandchildren, No need to count on me to keep the Murdock and Sanders bloodlines going.”
With the cast cut from one end to the other, Justine set the electric saw aside and carefully pried the plaster away from his foot Adam was relieved to finally see his ankle and foot were still intact after six long weeks of imprisonment.
She rubbed her hand over his ankle and the top of his foot, then seemingly satisfied he was healed, she smiled up at him. “You have a thing against babies and children?” Justine asked him.
“Actually, I like kids. But having them without a wife doesn’t work well. And I don’t want one of those. I don’t want a woman telling me when to get up, when to eat, when to go to bed, how to spend my time or money.”
With her hands on her hips, his aunt stepped back and pinned him with an admonishing look. “You’ve never had a wife. What makes you think we do all those things?”
He let out a tiresome groan. Justine and his mother, Chloe, were sisters. In all likelihood, this conversation would be discussed between the two of them. He really should make an effort to choose his words more wisely. But why bother? His mother already knew his feelings on the matter.
“Oh, I hear things from my married buddies. And I’ve had a few girlfriends who gave me plenty of clues as to what it would be like to have a woman permanently attached to me,” he told her. Then with a grimace, he swiped a hand through his dark auburn hair. The loose wave flopped once again on his forehead. “That’s not to say I think marriage is a bad thing. After all, Charlie seems to love being a husband and father. And now my sister, Anna, is walking around in a fog of wedded bliss. But I’m convinced none of that is for me.”
Justine tapped a forefinger against her chin as she carefully studied her nephew. “I’ve never been one to meddle in your life, Adam.”
“So don’t spoil your record by doing it now,” he retorted.
Ignoring his tone of warning, Justine said, “The past few years you’ve gone through women as if they were a stack of shirts to be tried on for size.”
Adam snorted. “That’s right. And none of them fitted.”
Justine sighed. “I know you don’t believe it, Adam, but there is a special woman out there for you.”
“No, Aunt Justine, that’s where you’re wrong. All the special ones are taken. One way or the other.”
They both knew he was talking about Susan’s death. But thankfully she decided now wasn’t the time to bring up Adam’s tragic loss.
Justine patted his shoulder. “Don’t get too cross with me. It’s just that your old aunt is more concerned about your mental health than the state of that skinny foot of yours.”
Adam glanced wryly at his bare foot. “My mental health is dandy now that I’m back in New Mexico. And don’t go comparing my foot with Charlie’s. That son of yours should’ve been a football player instead of a Texas Ranger. The profession would’ve been a helluva lot safer, if you ask me.”
Justine smiled impishly. “A helluva lot,” she agreed, then pointed to his newly mended bones. “But it appears to me that being an oilman isn’t all that safe, either. I can’t ever remember Charlie going around on crutches for six weeks.”
Leaning forward, Adam gave the vinyl padding on the examining table a loud slap. “You just made a good point, Aunt Justine. Being an oilman didn’t cause my ankle to get broken. A woman did this to me!”
One of Justine’s brows arched with wry amusement. “Really? I thought you got hurt on the job.”
Adam shot her a tired look. “It was on the job! The woman was crazy....” He broke off with a shake of his head, and Justine laughed. “Oh, go get the doctor, would you? I’m supposed to meet Dad in twenty minutes.”
Laughing softly, she turned to leave the examining room. “Okay, I’ll let you off the hook this time. But one of these days I want to hear how you actually broke that ankle.”
When Adam arrived at the offices of Sanders Gas and Exploration thirty minutes later, he bypassed the receptionist and three secretaries, went straight to his father’s office and rapped his knuckles against the dark oak door.
Behind the wooden panel he could hear muffled voices. Good, he thought. The new geologist his father had hired was already here and hopefully ready to go to work. There were a lot of new projects waiting for decisions to be made, and now that he was free of the cumbersome cast on his foot, he was raring to get started on them.
A second later, the door opened. His father, Wyatt, still handsome and dark-headed at the age of fifty-five, grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him into the large office.
“Adam! Come in. I was wondering if you were going to make it,” he exclaimed with cheerful affection. “I see you finally got that damn cast off. How does your ankle feel?”
Adam glanced to his left where a desk and several pieces of leather furniture were grouped near a glass wall. The toe of a heavy work boot and part of a leg encased in faded denim peeked out from one of the chairs, but the high back prevented a clear view of the person sitting in front of Wyatt’s desk.
Turning his attention back to his father, Adam said, “Right now, my ankle is as stiff and swollen as the fat end of a baseball bat. I had to cut the instep of my boot with a pocketknife just to get the damn thing on. A five-hundred-dollar pair of ostrich boots at that! But the doctor says it’s healed and it’ll soon get back to normal. I just hope the man knows what he’s talking about.”
The older man gave Adam’s shoulder an encouraging slap. “You’ll be able to run a footrace in a couple of weeks. And as for the ostrich boots, they’re not nearly as valuable as your neck.”
Adam chuckled grimly as Wyatt nudged his son toward the desk and accompanying chairs. “Come on. I want you to meet our new geologist. I believe you two are going to work wonders together.”
The chair slowly swiveled to face the two men, and Adam instantly halted in his tracks.
“You!”
He very nearly shouted the one word as the woman rose gracefully to her feet. She was exactly as he remembered. Tall, long-legged, with curves that were full and lusty. Her long brown hair was thick and coarse and streaked by too much time in the sun. At the moment, it was braided in the same way his mother braided the tails of her horses before a muddy race.
“You two know each other?” Wyatt asked. With a puzzled frown, he glanced from his son to the woman he’d just invited into the company.
“This is your son?” she asked Wyatt in a voice as husky as Adam remembered.
His eyes traveled from the rope of hair lying against the jut of one breast to the look of disbelief on her face. “As if you didn’t already know!” Adam drawled mockingly.
Ignoring him, she turned dark brown eyes on Wyatt. “I thought your name was Sanders.”
“It is.” the older man assured her.
She looked at Adam, and he suddenly felt as if a boot heel had landed in the middle of his gut.
“Down in South America, you were introduced to me as Adam Murdock,” she said, her voice full of confusion.
“I am Adam Murdock,” he snarled. “Adam Murdock Sanders. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t know.”
“Adam!” Wyatt exclaimed. “What’s the matter with you? Ms. York hasn’t done anything to you!”
“The hell she hasn’t! She very nearly killed me. She put me in the hospital and my foot in a cast for more than six weeks!”
Sparks flew from Maureen York’s dark eyes as she pinned him with a glare that would have withered a lesser man. “I didn’t do anything to you! You did it to yourself!”
“Sure. I’m the one who swerved to miss that damn dog!”
Her brows shot up with indignation. “Would you have had me kill it?”
“That would’ve been a helluva lot better than killing me!”
A deep shade of rose spread across her high cheekbones. “Nothing would’ve happened to you if you’d been wearing your seat belt. Like I told you to in the first place. But no. You had to play macho man and—”
“I wouldn’t have—”
“Whoa! Whoa now!” Wyatt shouted above their voices. “I think there’s been a mistake here and—”
“There sure has,” Adam interrupted hotly. “And the mistake was hiring this—” he gestured toward Maureen “—this maniac.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sanders,” Maureen spoke up. “I didn’t realize this—” she inclined her head toward Adam “—this man was your son. Otherwise, I would’ve saved the time and trouble for both of us and told you I couldn’t accept the position in your company.”
Seeing the whole situation was escalating out of control, Wyatt shook his head at her. “Please take a seat, Maureen, while I have a word with Adam. It won’t be but a few minutes. I promise.”
She weighed his plea for a moment, then with a reluctant nod returned to the chair she’d been sitting in earlier. As for Adam, Wyatt hustled him out the door and down the hallway to a storeroom.
“What in hell’s come over you?” Wyatt shot at him the moment the door closed behind the two men. “I’ve never seen you act so rude and overbearing in my life! Ms. York is a damned good geologist. One of the very best. We’re lucky to be getting her. If we still are. Thanks to you.”
Adam deeply respected his father and loved him even more. From the time he was a small boy, he’d known he wanted to grow up and be just like him. He’d wanted to be an oilman and a damned good one. He wanted to be known the way Wyatt was in the business. But there were times he clashed with the older man, and this just happened to be one of them.
“Dad, Maureen York is the woman who was driving me out to the rig site down in South America. She was the woman who wrecked me. Do I need to say more?”
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Adam, you know the woman didn’t purposely wreck the Jeep to hurt you. And I had no idea the Maureen woman you’d mentioned that day in the hospital was this one! You only told me she was giving you a lift out to the rig. I didn’t know she was a geologist or even that she worked for an oil company. I thought it was some girlfriend you’d picked up down there and she was simply giving you a ride!”
“She was giving me a ride all right!” he growled, then seeing the impatient look on his father’s face, he let out a heavy sigh. “Look, Dad, even if she didn’t intentionally wreck the Jeep, she has a list of other problems. Frankly, I don’t think I could work with her for two days, or even two hours.”
Wyatt folded his arms across his chest and leveled a stern look on his son’s face. “All right, tell me what sort of problems she has.”
“She’s reckless. Opinionated. Stubborn. And disrespectful.”
“In other words, she’s a whole lot like you.”
Adam shook his head. “Dad, you know what I mean. She’s—well, she’s a woman in a man’s world. She doesn’t fit.”
“She’s smarter than any man I’ve come across. She’ll be a big asset to the company.”
“Find me someone else to work with and you can cut my salary in half.”
Wyatt’s brows shot up. “You’re serious!”
“Damn serious,” Adam told him.
Wyatt studied him for long moments. He’d seen that look on his son’s face before. Stubborn, defiant, even a little reckless. And he felt as if thirty years had rolled back and he was staring at himself in the mirror.
“Well, I’m serious, too,” Wyatt told him. “I can see you’re letting your personal feelings get in the way of the real purpose here. To get gas and oil from the ground and eventually to the consumer.”
Ducking his head, Adam jammed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and stared at the toes of his cowboy boots. His ruined cowboy boots. But he tried not to think about that now. He could probably forget that Maureen had slung him out of that open-topped Jeep, too. But could he bear to be around her day in, day out? The woman bothered him in ways he didn’t want to think about.
“I have no personal feelings for Maureen York,” he said bluntly.
“It didn’t sound like that a few moments ago when you were practically biting her head off,” Wyatt pointed out. “Did the two of you...you didn’t come on to the woman down there in South America, did you?”
Adam appeared shocked by his father’s question. “Dad, Ms. York is probably getting close to thirty!”
Wyatt’s expression grew wry. “Since when did a few years’ difference in ages ever stop you?”
Adam had the grace to blush. “Well, maybe she isn’t that much older than me. But I can safely say she’s...far from my type.”
“Good.” Wyatt gave Adam’s shoulder an encouraging pat. “Then it won’t be a problem for you to go back into my office and assure her you’re looking forward to working with her.”
“I’ll do my best to lie like hell.”
Wyatt chuckled. “Trust me, Adam, in a few months’ time, you’ll be thanking me for hiring the woman.”
Maureen had almost decided not to wait another minute when the door to the office swung open and Adam Murdock Sanders entered the room. She immediately rose to her feet and clasped her hands behind her back.
“Where is Mr. Sanders?” she asked him without preamble.
“I’m the Mr. Sanders you’ll be working with. My father has gone home to our ranch.”
Maureen moistened her lips and told herself to remain calm. She’d never been an emotional woman. It was one of the reasons she was successful in spite of her gender. But there was something about this young man that got under her skin like no one ever had.
“Look, Mr. San—Mr. Murdock Sanders,” she corrected pointedly, “I believe you and I both know we could never work together.”
Adam totally agreed. But as his father had voiced a few minutes ago, this was one time he was going to have to put his personal feelings aside. This earthy-looking woman was a highly intelligent scientist. He’d been around her for less than a day, but the short time had been enough for him to conclude she’d known her business.
He walked to the desk and propped one hip on the corner. “I’m willing to try.”
“Because your father is forcing you to?”
Adam tried not to bristle at her question. “Wyatt doesn’t force me to do anything. He isn’t that sort of father. And I’m not that sort of son.”
Looking at him, Maureen could well believe he wasn’t a man to be pushed around. In spite of his young years, he already had more presence than a man had a right to possess. And it wasn’t just his physical appearance. Though heaven knew how the sight of his lean, broad-shouldered body shook her right to the marrow of her bones.
“Yes, I can believe that. I can’t see you bending to anyone.”
Adam’s gaze searched her face for a clue as to where her thinking was headed. Yet somewhere along the way he forgot why he was looking. Instead, he began to take account of her high cheekbones, smooth golden skin and chocolate-brown eyes. Her wide, full lips were stained with cherry-red lipstick, and the bright contrast against the rest of her bare face was the most erotic thing Adam could remember seeing on a woman.
Deliberately clearing his throat, he said, “Look, Ms. York, I realize we don’t know each other that well and—”
“Four hours at the most,” she interrupted.
Adam nodded, then feeling as if the office was closing in on him, he turned and walked over to a small table holding a coffee machine, paper cups and other fixings.
“Would you like coffee? Or there’s a soda machine at the front of the building,” he offered.
“Coffee will be fine,” she accepted. “Leave it black.”
He poured two cups and carried one to her. He’d intended to simply hand it over, then move away. But as he’d discovered in the short time he’d been with her in South America, his intentions went awry whenever he was near Maureen York. Instead, he remained less than a step away from her, his eyes going once again to her red lips. “I...understand you really weren’t trying to kill me. It just seemed that way.”
“Believe me, Mr. Sanders, if I’d been trying to murder you, I’d have found an easier, more thorough way than slinging you out of an open-topped Jeep.” She sipped the coffee, grimaced at the bitter taste, then leveled her eyes on his face. He had strong, bony features, darkly tanned skin and eyes as green as a wet emerald. His hair was the rich color of polished mahogany and flopped onto his forehead in a thick wave. If she had to describe his looks in one word, it would have to be sexy.
“Do you actually believe we can work together?” she asked him.
Adam couldn’t imagine getting any sort of work done while in this woman’s company. But he was going to keep that opinion to himself. Sanders Exploration needed a good geologist in a bad way. If it had to be Maureen York, then he’d do his best to be a professional about it.
“I can forget our first meeting if you can,” he said.
She smelled like lilacs on a warm summer night, and before Adam could stop them, all sorts of questions about her were running through his mind.
“How generous of you,” she replied.
A pent-up breath drained out of him. If his memory served him right, she’d told him she was divorced and that she’d worked as a geologist for nearly ten years. Other than that, he knew nothing about where she’d come from or how his father had managed to ferret her out of a long list of potential candidates for the job.
“I’m trying to be,” he agreed.
Maureen took another sip of coffee. “I, uh, the next day after the accident, I was on my way to the hospital to check on you, but an unexpected call forced me to turn around and head to the airport to catch a plane back to the States. I called the hospital later, and a nurse assured me you were going to be fine. I was glad.”
Back in the hospital, Adam had told himself he didn’t care if Maureen York had the courtesy to see if he was going to live or die. But now...well, hell, he felt like he was fifteen instead of twenty-five. It was downright ridiculous how much better her explanation made him feel.
“I have been...fine. Just hampered with a cast.” He forced himself to move away from her.
At the corner of the desk, he picked up his coffee cup and carried it over to the glass wall. The pineand spruce-covered mountains spread in a panoramic view to the south. Reluctantly, he kept his eyes on their beauty rather than Maureen York’s.
“What brought you here to Sanders Exploration?” he asked. “Six weeks ago, you obviously had a job with a good company.”
Maureen was wondering the same thing herself. She hadn’t been unhappy with her former employers. Their headquarters were based in Houston and you couldn’t get any closer to the oil and gas industry than that. She’d been paid a top-notch salary and the people she worked with had been easy to deal with. But she’d been feeling stifled by the city. And though she hated to admit it, she’d had to face the fact that her life had grown stagnant. She wanted and needed a change. Still—if she’d had any idea this man was a part of Sanders Exploration, she never would have agreed to hire on.
“For one thing, I wanted to get out of Houston. I didn’t dislike the city, but I was tired of living in an apartment and dealing with the fast pace. I want a house with a yard and trees.”
He couldn’t stop his eyes from cutting over his shoulder at her. “Sounds like you want to settle down rather than gear up for work.”
Squaring her shoulders, she walked around the desk and joined him at the windows. “I guess you could say I’d like to slow down. But not in the way you’re thinking.”
His dark green eyes met her brown ones. “I didn’t know there was any other way for a...woman.”
Her nostrils flared as she wondered why anything this man could say or think should matter to her. True, she would have to work with him, but she’d dealt with far worse. So why did she let his little innuendos fire her temper? It was silly.
“You might be interested to know that all of us women aren’t pining to get married. We can have a life without a man.”
“Really? My mother thinks a woman has to be with a man and a man has to be with a woman before they can ever be truly happy.”
Something about his voice, the way he talked about men and women made her feel as if she were a very young teenage girl just learning how it felt to be flirted with by a handsome boy. Yet Adam Sanders was far from being a boy, and she had long since passed the flirting teenage years.
“Your mother must be a hopeless romantic,” she murmured, then turned away from him and settled her gaze on the mountains stretching for several miles in the distance.
And Maureen York wasn’t a romantic. She hadn’t said the words, but Adam had read them on her face just before she’d turned her head away. Well, that was fine, even good, he thought. It was a relief to know she wasn’t searching for romance. It would make their job together so much easier.
“This job will send you to all sorts of places, particularly here in New Mexico. It’s not likely you’re going to get much time to spend in that house with a yard.”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “You don’t want me to take this job, do you?”
Fearing she could read his expression, Adam kept his gaze firmly entrenched on the view outside the glass wall. When his father had purchased this office building more than twenty years ago, he’d also bought several adjoining lots to keep any sort of neighbors at bay. To this day, beautiful woods of pine, spruce and aspen grew right up to the back of the building, and at most any time of the day, chipmunks and birds could be seen feeding right outside the windows.
“I don’t have the final say-so whether you work here or not. My father has that right,” he told her.
“That’s not what I said,” she pointed out.
“I think you’ve come here searching for something you couldn’t find in Houston. I don’t think you’ll find it here, either.”
How could he know what she was searching for? Maureen wondered crossly. She swallowed the last of the bitter coffee and tossed the cup in a trash can sitting next to the desk. “Are you an authority on geologists or women or both?”
“I don’t profess to be an authority on anything.” he retorted.
She smiled, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “Then don’t try to figure me out. More than one man has tried it and failed.”
That got his instant attention, and he twisted around and pinned her with a stare of disbelief. “Look, Ms. York, I’m not trying to analyze you. I just want to make sure you’re here to work. This may not be like the huge company you worked for in Houston, but we do sink a lot of holes. If you came out here thinking this job was going to be easy, then you might as well head back to Texas.”
She walked to within a step of him, folded her arms across her breasts and looked up at him. “How old are you, Mr. Sanders?”
He frowned as though he couldn’t believe her question. “Twenty-five. Not that my age has anything to do with this conversation!”
“Hmm. Well, I was just amazed that you got so smart in such a short length of time. It takes most men many more years than you’ve acquired.”
Adam could rightly say without a drop of conceit that he’d always found it easy to converse with women, to charm and cajole them around to his way of thinking. He normally had a gift for gab. Especially with the opposite sex. A trait he’d been told he inherited from his birth father, Tomas Murdock, who’d died shortly after he was born. But this woman was not like any he’d encountered before. He wanted to kiss her and strangle her. He wanted to shake the haughty confidence from her face.
She dropped her arms, and his eyes fell to the generous line of her breasts. Beneath the mint-geen cotton shirt, he could see the faint outline of her lacy bra. He tried not to think how she would look without either piece of clothing.
“I guess you could say I’m a...fast learner,” he drawled.
Noticing the line of his vision had strayed lower than her face, Maureen folded her arms back over her breasts and glared at him. “I can tell you right now, the only reason I’m going to stay with Sanders Exploration is your father. He’s a man who’s highly admired in this business, and now that I’ve met him, I can see why. I’m flattered to have the chance to work for him. And I’ve decided it would be foolish to throw it away just because he has a cocky, know-it-all son.”
His brows lifted as his lips spread into a devilish grin. “So this means we’ll be working together?”
“Against my better judgment.”
It was certainly against Adam’s judgment, too. But he wasn’t a man to back away from a challenge. “My dad will be pleased to hear it.”
She smiled then. A sumptuous little movement of her lips that packed enough power to curl Adam’s toes.
“You don’t have to bother saying you’re pleased, too.” she countered.
As if she considered their conversation closed, she walked over to the chair she’d been sitting in and picked up a leather purse. She pulled the strap onto her shoulder and started to the door. Adam’s gaze followed the graceful swing of her hips.
“Do you need help finding a place around here?” he asked in afterthought.
She glanced at her wristwatch, then opened the door. “I’m meeting a real-estate agent in thirty minutes.”
“A real-estate agent! You mean you’re planning to buy rather than rent?”
She smiled again. “You said Sanders Exploration sinks a lot of holes—well, I plan to sink some roots.”
“Without a trial run?”
She nodded. “The moment I saw this area, I fell in love with it. In the past few minutes, I’ve decided that whatever I have to put up with on the job will be a small price to pay to make my home here.”
My home. She’d told Adam she wasn’t seeking a home in the traditional sense. So what was she looking for? And why did he keep picturing her as a wife and mother? She was a scientist. A woman who studied rocks and shale and sludge and seismographic charts.
“Then I hope you’re not disappointed, Ms. York.”
“The only way I’ll be disappointed is if you continue to call me Ms. York. My name is Maureen,” she said with a wry smile, then slipped past the door and out of Adam’s sight.
Adam thrust a hand through his hair and let out a low groan. The woman was a walking piece of dynamite. Just looking at her was dangerous. And working with her? Well, he could already see the explosion coming.
Chapter Two
The sky was full of stars and a warm breeze carried the scent of sage and pine. The sweeter fragrance of petunias blooming close by mingled with the tangy smells of the high desert country.
It was a pleasant night to eat outdoors, and for the first time in ages, his parents had managed to find time in their busy schedules to meet him at this favorite mountainside restaurant.
Across the table, Chloe was finishing the last of her chocolate mousse while the two men sipped their coffee. “I know you’re ready to go, darling,” she said to Wyatt. “But just give me time for a few more bites. It’s rare I have a chance to eat a dessert I haven’t made myself.”
Wyatt chuckled and patted his wife’s hand. “I know, you’re just a regular little slave. One of these days, I might let you out of your chains.”
A faint smile crossed Adam’s face as he watched the teasing exchange between his parents. After twenty-some years of marriage, the two of them were still very much in love and completely devoted to each other. The solidity of his family had always been reassuring to Adam. Yet now that he’d grown older, his parents’ relationship oftentimes amazed him. And sometimes even saddened him. Because he knew he would never be blessed in such a way.
Chloe put down her spoon and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Okay, signal the waiter for the check and we’ll get out of here,” she told her husband. “I need to get home anyway and check on that mare. If she doesn’t foal tonight, she will tomorrow.”
Wyatt reached for his wallet and began to thumb through the bills inside. Across the table, Adam shook his head. “Forget the check,” he told the two of them. “I’m footing the bill.”
His mother frowned at him. “Adam, this is a celebration of sorts because you got your cast off. Your dad and I want to treat you.”
“Having your company was treat enough.”
Wyatt put his wallet away, then scraped back his chair and patted his nonexistent belly. “Well, I must admit this has been a good day. My son got his foot back, the company just hired the best damn geologist in the gas business, and now I’ve had a free meal to top it all off.”
“Well, if Miss Mighty Dash gives me the painted colt I want, then it will be a perfect day,” Chloe added as she fished her purse from beneath the chair.
“By the way,” Wyatt said to Adam, “do you know if Ms. York has a place to stay yet?”
“She mentioned something about meeting with a real-estate agent this afternoon,” Adam told him. “I suppose for right now, she’s staying in a motel.”
Wyatt gave his chin a thoughtful rub. “She’s taking on a major relocation to work for us. We really should invite her to stay on the ranch until she can find a more permanent place and get her things shipped up from Houston. What do you think?” He turned a questioning look on his wife.
Chloe smiled agreeably. “We’ve had some of your other employees stay at the ranch before. As far as I’m concerned, Ms. York is certainly welcome.”
Adam stared at the two of them in utter dismay. Normally, it wouldn’t make any difference to him who stayed on the Bar M. The ranch was his parents’ home. Adam had his own place. But this past month he’d temporarily moved back to the Bar M while a pair of carpenters renovated the inside of his house. If Maureen moved out to the Bar M, that meant he’d have to live with her, too!
“You can’t be serious! She doesn’t need to be invited to the Bar M! No way! No how! Look, I may have to work with her, but that doesn’t mean I have to be in her company round the clock!”
“Why, Adam,” Chloe scolded, taken aback by her son’s sudden outburst, “Ms. York wouldn’t necessarily be your guest. She’d be your dad’s and mine. What’s with all the uproar anyway? It’s not like you to be so petty and childish.”
There wasn’t anything childish about the feelings Maureen York stirred up in him, and he was relieved that the shadows of the evening were settling over the restaurant’s outdoor patio; otherwise, his parents would see a blush pouring over his face.
“Mother, I’m not being childish. The woman... well, we just rub each other the wrong way. Believe me, you don’t want that much friction in the house.”
She studied him thoughtfully, and just when Adam was certain she was going to accuse him of behaving boorishly, she surprised him by saying, “All right, Adam, I’m sure your dad will agree that we don’t want to force the woman down your throat. If that’s the way you feel, we’ll let her stay in a motel and the company can reimburse her for her expenses.”
“It’s the way I feel,” he clipped.
Chloe and Wyatt rose to their feet, thanked him for the meal and bade him good-night. By the time they started to walk away from the table, Adam felt as if he’d shrunk to the height of two inches.
“Wait a minute,” he called out to them.
Both his parents paused and glanced back at him. “Was there something else you wanted to say about Ms. York?” Wyatt asked with an innocence that irked Adam.
“Hell, yes! I’ll invite her out to the ranch myself! But don’t be surprised if she refuses to come. I think the woman would take particular pleasure in killing me.”
Chloe smiled sweetly at her son. “Well, darling, I’m sure she’s not the first woman who’s wanted to kill you.”
Maureen hated motel rooms. In the past nine or ten years, she’d spent many nights in the dreaded places. Some had been luxurious, others cheap. But no matter the price or how many of her personal things she had lying about, it was still a sterile room. Just a place to sleep, shower and dress.
She snorted inwardly. Since when had her apartment in Houston ever been more than just a place to hang her clothes and lay her head? And what made her think things would be any different here in New Mexico?
From the middle of the queen-size bed, Maureen aimed the remote at the television and smashed the Off button. For the past hour and a half, she’d been staring at the flickering screen, yet she didn’t have a clue as to what she’d been watching. Her mind had been on the place she’d left, this place she’d come to. And the man she was going to have to face in the morning.
Adam Murdock Sanders. Who’d have ever thought she’d run into him again? That morning down in South America, she’d met him quite by chance. He’d been having coffee in the hotel restaurant with a tool pusher who worked for the same company as Maureen. He’d introduced her to Adam, and while the three of them had coffee, she’d learned his rented vehicle had quit and he needed to be at a rig site before noon.
The town they’d been staying in was too small for a car rental agency or a mechanic who wasn’t already busy. Knowing all this, the tool pusher had urged Maureen into being a Good Samaritan and offering Adam a lift. Everything afterward had gone from bad to worse.
Adam had refused to wear his seat belt, complained about her fast, reckless driving, then went on to imply she’d be doing the world a much bigger favor if she would stay home to raise her “kids” rather than traipse around with a bunch of foul-mouthed oilmen.
Well, he’d had the mouth for the business, all right. And she’d wanted to knock his head off his shoulders. But she’d truly never meant to hurt him. The dog had run into the narrow, graveled road without any warning, and Maureen had instinctively jerked the wheel to miss it. Adam had gone flying out the open door, landing on the shoulder of the road before rolling to the bottom of a steep bar ditch.
At first, she’d been terrified she’d killed him. But to her amazement he’d managed, with her help, to make it up the embankment and into the Jeep. Maureen had driven him to the nearest hospital more than fifty miles away, then waited until a nurse had come to assure her he was fine and the doctor had already plastered his broken ankle.
Maureen had asked to see him, but the nurse informed her he’d been sedated and was expected to sleep for several hours. She’d had no choice but to leave. The next day she’d been driving back to the hospital to see him when her boss from Houston had called and ordered her home immediately.
Back in Texas, she’d reported the accident to her company so Adam’s medical bills would be rightly taken care of by insurance, then she’d tried to put the whole incident out of her mind. But forgetting the young company man hadn’t been that easy. She’d thought about him most every day since. Maybe that was one of the reasons she’d been so shocked this morning when he’d walked into Wyatt Sanders’s office.
With a troubled sigh, she left the bed, grabbed her keys from the built-in dresser and walked out the door. With no thought to the lateness of the hour, she climbed into her pickup truck and headed toward the main highway. For several minutes, she traveled west, up into the mountains, before eventually pulling onto a graveled road.
The real-estate sign at the edge of the highway was already marked Sold. Maureen had only given the agent a verbal “I’ll take it,” but the flimsy commitment was enough to make her wonder if she was being a mite hasty. Or, even worse, going crazy.
A mite hasty! Whom was she kidding? A normal person didn’t go out and buy the first house they looked at! And as for her going crazy, she had to be cracking up to think she could ever have a real home here in southern New Mexico or anywhere. When her husband had walked out on her, she’d seen the last of her hopes and dreams vanish. Since then, she’d finally come to the conclusion that it was foolish of her to ever plan on having a real home with a family.
The long, graveled lane curved, then made one last switch back before the house came into view. The split-level structure had been built on a rough ledge of the mountain. There was hardly a yard to speak of. Unless you counted the rocks and clumps of sage clinging tenaciously to the ground sloping down to the driveway.
Tall pine and aspen dappled the pink stucco walls and red tiled roof with gently moving shadows. The prickly beauty of blooming cholla cactus guarded the front entrance.
Maureen parked the pickup on the graveled circle driveway and slipped quietly to the ground. The mountain air had already grown incredibly cool for midsummer and she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill as she climbed a set of simple rock stepping stones up the sloping yard.
This wasn’t Houston by any means. From now on she would have to remember she was seven thousand feet or more above sea level and needed to keep a jacket with her after dark. And compared to the busy, humid city, the quietness here on the mountaintop was nearly deafening. Other than the wind whispering through the pine boughs and rattling the aspen leaves, there were no other sounds.
She smiled to herself as she imagined what her friends back in Houston would think about her buying such a secluded home. Probably that she was asking for trouble. And she doubted any of her female friends would have driven up here alone at this late hour. But Maureen wasn’t afraid.
For nearly ten years she’d been on her own. Alone. Facing the world without her husband or her child. She couldn’t possibly be hurt any worse than when they’d gone out of her life.
Maureen wandered around the house, studying its strong walls and gracefully arched windows trimmed with dark wood. It was a lovely structure, but the house or even the wild, beautiful tangle of forest growing around it was not the thing that had called to her when she’d first seen the place. Job or not. Family or not. She’d simply felt a deep intuition that here in New Mexico was where she belonged. And in spite of Adam Sanders, this was where she was going to stay.
The next morning, Maureen was already at work when Adam arrived at Sanders Gas and Exploration. He found her in the small lab behind his office. She was standing at a cabinet counter, the sleeves of her blue striped shirt rolled above her elbows, a pair of gold-framed glasses on her nose. Once again her brown hair was braided. The single rope reached the waistband at the back of her jeans. He wondered how long her hair would be if she let it loose, or if she ever did.
Hearing his step, Maureen glanced up from the seismographic chart she’d been studying and peered at him from behind the lenses of her glasses.
“Good morning,” she said warmly.
Encouraged by her greeting, he joined her at the counter. Just because the woman stirred his libido didn’t mean he lacked manners or enough sense to accomplish a day’s work, he assured himself. If she could be civil and productive, he certainly could.
“Good morning,” he replied, then inclined his head toward the charts on the counter. “I see you’ve already found something to work on.”
“These are the first tests from several sections of land in eastern Oklahoma.” She tapped a set of papers with her forefinger, then reached for another stack lying nearby. “These are from an area in northern New Mexico. Both I’d wager to produce gas. I just don’t know how much yet.”
One corner of his mouth curved wryly. “Wager? You’re not here to make bets, Ms. York. You’re here to show us scientific evidence.”
Maureen glanced at the small watch on her wrist. “I’ve been at work forty-five minutes. How quickly am I supposed to produce this scientific evidence? Within an hour? Or are you going to be considerate and give me until the end of the day?”
He grinned slyly. “I’m not a patient man. I like things done yesterday. But since this is your first day here at Sanders, I’ll make allowances.”
A closer look at his face told Maureen he was teasing, and that surprised her about the man. The only way she’d ever seen him was serious and driven. She’d expected his biting attitude of yesterday to be his usual disposition and she wasn’t sure this warmer, more congenial Adam was any easier to take than the infuriating man she’d confronted in Wyatt’s office.
Pulling her glasses from her face, she placed them gently atop the charts. “Your father tells me several more seismograph holes are going to be shot this week on the Oklahoma land. He wants me to read those before we fly back there for a look.”
“We” more than likely meant Adam and Maureen. He didn’t know how he was going to manage traveling with her. But he had to. It was a big part of their job going from one potential well site to the next. Hopefully, the strong reactions he had to her now would quickly fade. Maybe tomorrow or the next day, he’d be able to look at her and not wonder what it would be like to have her in his arms.
“It’ll be rough, mountainous terrain. Have you been there before?”
With a shake of her head, she moved away from him. “I’ve been mostly doing overseas or offshore work.”
Adam watched her walk over to a long table and pick up a paper cup filled with coffee. From a paper sack on the counter, she pulled out a raspberry Danish.
“There’s a doughnut left in the sack if you want it,” she offered as she took a seat on a folding metal chair.
“Thanks, but I’ve already had breakfast.”
No doubt, Maureen thought. He’d probably had a regular meal sitting in a kitchen or dining room. “I suppose you wouldn’t stoop to putting something like this in your system,” she said.
A faint smile tilting his lips, he shook his head. “Not near enough grease to suit me. Give me chorizo or bacon and eggs.”
“Surely you know that isn’t good for you,” she said, her gaze following him as he went over to the small coffeepot sitting on the cabinet counter. He was dressed not as a businessman who worked in oil, but as a rancher, in black boots and faded blue jeans that hugged his hips and thighs. A denim shirt of deep green covered his muscular torso. The rugged clothing emphasized his fitness and mocked the fact he didn’t eat health food. It also mocked Maureen’s vow never to look at another man in a purely physical way.
“My mom tells me that very thing every morning,” Adam said, “but she cooks the stuff for me anyway.”
The cup in her hand stopped midway to her lips. “You still live at home?”
He grimaced as he poured himself a cup of the strong brew. “You make it sound like a crime.”
She didn’t know where the defensive tone in his voice was coming from. She hadn’t accused him of being a pup still latched onto his mother’s teat.
“Not at all.” She studied him carefully as he took a seat across from her. “I just thought...well, you seem like a man who wouldn’t want to be hampered by having...his parents around.”
The idea that she thought he was a playboy who needed his privacy was more than amusing and took the sting out of the first impression he’d taken from her question.
“Actually, I don’t normally live with my parents. I have a place of my own in the Hondo Valley. But at the moment, I’m having some remodeling done to the house. Mom and Dad’s ranch house is huge, so they urged me to stay with them until the work is finished. And it’s nice to spend a little time at home.”
“I’m sure,” she murmured, then wondered if Adam knew what a precious thing a home really was. Had he ever known what it was like to be well and truly alone in the world? No. She didn’t think so. She figured the most Adam Sanders ever had to worry about was where to get his expensive shirts laundered or the color to choose for his next new vehicle.
Not that Maureen resented the man’s wealth. Since she’d acquired her master’s degree in geology, she’d made a powerful salary. She could buy herself most anything she wanted. Yet she couldn’t buy what Adam had. No one could.
“Do you have siblings?” she asked him.
He nodded. “I have a twin sister, Anna. She got married a few weeks ago to the foreman on our ranch. She and Miguel live on the property, too. Then we have a younger sister, Ivy. She’s currently in medical school at the University of New Mexico.” He sipped his coffee, then casually studied her over the rim of the takeout cup. “What about you, Ms. York? Do you have parents or siblings?”
Maureen’s gaze dropped to the half-eaten Danish in her hand. She’d been asked this question many times in the past. Normally, it never bothered her to answer. But this morning with Adam’s green eyes waiting, she’d rather have her hand chopped off.
“First of all, I told you not to call me Ms. York.”
The tips of his fingers unconsciously tapped the tabletop. The movement drew Maureen’s gaze to his hands. They were strong and square shaped, the backs sprinkled with dark hair. Faint scratch marks marred three of his knuckles, and from what she could see of his fingers, they were padded with calluses. He was a man who worked with his brain, but he obviously wasn’t afraid to use his hands, too. She liked that about him. Liked it too much.
“All right Maureen. Tell me about your family.”
“I have no family,” she said bluntly, then took a bite of the Danish as if that was all there was to say.
His brows arched upward in a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding expression. “Surely you have an aunt or uncle or something somewhere. What happened to your parents?”
Still avoiding his eyes, she said, “They were killed in a storm. We lived in a rural area of Texas where the nearest clinic was thirty miles away. My mother was expecting another baby any day, and thinking she’d gone into labor they decided they had no choice but to go to a doctor. The rain was blinding and part of the highway was flooded. Unseeing, they drove into the water and the swift current carried them away. I was four at the time.”
She recited the story in a flat, factual voice as though she was talking about someone she hadn’t known. But then it quickly struck Adam that she’d been little more than a baby when her parents had died. She hadn’t known them in the sense he or any average person would know their parents.
“You were their only child?”
She nodded. “I went to live with my maternal grandmother after that. She was the only relative around who was willing to take me in. But she was elderly and she died by the time I was eight.”
“What happened then?”
She looked at him, her lips compressed to a thin, mocking line. “Foster homes.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, the shock of her story robbing him of a better response.
“Don’t be. I managed to grow up in spite of it all.” She rose to her feet and crossed the room to a small trash can. After tossing in the half-eaten Danish and last dregs of her coffee, she turned back to him. “Well, I don’t know what you plan to do with the rest of your day, but I’m going to get to work on these charts.”
She’d lost her family, and if she had any distant relatives left, they obviously weren’t the kind you counted, he mused. It was difficult to imagine what growing up in that sort of environment had been like for her. He’d had two loving parents, aunts and uncles who adored him and two sisters who’d always put him up on a pedestal. He couldn’t imagine his life without any of them. And though she was trying to give him the impression that none of it had affected her that much, he knew better.
“I have plenty to do,” he said, then rose to his feet and followed her back over to the cabinet where she picked up the stack of seismographic charts. “But there is something I wanted to discuss with you before I go back to my office.”
In an effort to still the trembling in her hands, she gripped the graphed papers with their squiggly lines. She didn’t know why it had shaken her to speak to Adam about her past. After all, lots of people had lost their parents when they were young. Lots of people had grown up in foster homes. It wasn’t anything unusual or something to be ashamed of. But for some reason there was a lump as big as a fist in her throat.
“What did you want to speak to me about?” She forced her gaze to lift to his, then inwardly sighed with relief when she didn’t find pity or distaste in his eyes. More than anything, she wanted Adam Sanders to see her as a strong, successful woman. A woman who’d made it on her own and was proud of her accomplishments.
“Where are you staying? Here in town?”
She nodded and named the motel. “Why do you ask?”
Adam’s eyes drifted to her mouth. It was full and moist, the color of a strawberry when it turned juicy and ready to eat. The thought had him inwardly groaning with self-disgust. “I, uh, I just wanted to say there’s no need for you to stay in a motel. We have plenty of room out at the ranch.”
She drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Is this invitation from you or your parents?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to admit he’d first objected to the idea, but he quickly squashed it. Maybe Maureen York wasn’t the cool, self-assured woman he’d originally thought. Maybe he’d let her success as a scientist cloud the picture he’d envisioned of her. She might actually need another human being from time to time. And he wouldn’t be adverse to helping her if she would truly appreciate it. And him.
“Actually, the invitation is from all of us, and I told my parents I’d speak to you about it today.”
Without making any sort of reply, she turned and moved away from him. The gold-framed glasses dangled from her fingers as she mulled over his suggestion.
Adam jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and tried not to stare at the tall, shapely line of her figure from behind. He didn’t understand his reaction to this woman. He’d had plenty of girlfriends in the past, and if someone asked him what his taste in women ran to, he’d have to say petite and delicate. The sort who looked as if the slightest squeeze from a man’s hand would crush their bones. He normally loved blond hair and had always had a penchant for blue eyes. Soft and delicate and needy. Those were the things he’d always looked for in a woman. Those were the things his Susan had been made of.
But Maureen York was none of those things. She was tall with a full, ripe figure that was a far cry from delicate. She wasn’t even close to being thin. She was downright curvy. Her hair and eyes were both dark. And she was at least three or four years older than him. An older woman had never turned his head before. But God help him, she was the sexiest female he’d ever encountered.
“Look, Maureen, it’s not that difficult a question. You either want to stay in a boring motel room or you want to come out to the ranch. Which will it be?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. A scowl wrinkled her brow. “I don’t want to be a problem for any of you.”
He shrugged as though her presence around the place would be insignificant. “The Bar M has hundreds of cattle and two barns full of horses. One more mouth to feed won’t put us out.”
“You really know how to...make a woman feel wanted.”
A smug smile dimpled one of his cheeks. “I’ve been told that before.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have,” she replied dryly, then walked back to where he stood. “Tell your parents I really appreciate their thoughtfulness, but I—”
“What about my thoughtfulness?”
She cast him a doubtful frown. “Somehow I really don’t believe you want me in your home.”
“It’s my parents’ home,” he reminded her. “I just happen to be staying there, too, for the time being. Besides, I invited you, didn’t I?”
She shrugged. “Yes. But you also accused me of trying to kill you.”
“I can forget about that if you can.”
By nature, Maureen was a forgiving person. She’d never been one to harbor grudges, and even though Adam had said plenty of things to anger her, she wouldn’t continue to hold it against him. No, forgetting their past quarrel would be easy. It was the other things the man did to her that had Maureen worried. Spending more time around him than was necessary would be deliberately asking for trouble.
“As far as I’m concerned, our first meeting is over and forgotten. I’m sorry you were hurt and I can understand and forgive your anger toward me.”
Her head was tilted downward, her eyes veiled by thick, dark lashes. He took advantage of the unguarded moment to feast his eyes on her smooth skin. Beneath the golden tan, a faint dusting of freckles sprinkled the bridge of her nose and the ridge of her cheekbones.
Adam had the strongest urge to lean forward and press his lips to her cheeks and nose, to taste each little brown Beck. “I’m not angry anymore.”
The huskiness of his voice lifted her eyes to his, and in that moment Maureen knew he was seeing her not as a co-worker, but as a woman. The idea was both terrifying and thrilling.
She nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I’m glad. But I’m still not sure....”
“How are you moving your things up from Houston? Or have you already?”
She shook her head. “I sold some of my furniture. What’s left I’m going to have shipped with my clothes, household goods and other items in a moving van. As soon as the paperwork on the house is finalized,” she added.
His expression turned incredulous. “The house! You mean you’ve already bought a house?”
Maureen refused to be chagrined. “Yes. I found one yesterday. Of course, it’ll be at least a couple of weeks before the abstract can be read by a lawyer and everything can be signed.”
“All I can say is, you don’t waste time, lady.”
She’d wasted...no, she swiftly corrected herself, she’d lost the past ten years of her life. She hadn’t wasted them. But things were going to be different now. Last night, she’d vowed to put her ex-husband and their dead baby behind her once and for all. She was going to move into her new house, focus on building herself a different life and forgetting everything that she’d lost.
“I can’t afford to waste time.”
One brow arched curiously at her remark. “You have a date to keep?”
Her face grew stiff and devoid of emotion. “I don’t have dates.”
His slow perusal of her brought a tinge of color to her cheeks. Adam didn’t let her discomfiture stop him. “You’ll probably think I’m impertinent,” he said. “But I’m going to ask why anyway.”
She turned her head away, but not before Adam spotted the faintest tremble at the corner of her lips. “You are being impertinent, and my personal life—or lack of one—is none of your business.”
Yesterday, her clipped words would have put a smug smile on his face. He would have found enjoyment in the knowledge that she could be wounded. But today, all he could feel was an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch her.
“You’re right,” he said quietly, then cleared his throat and jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “It is none of my business. So let’s get back to the initial question. Would you like to come stay at the ranch?”
She glanced at him, and for a split second he saw a flash of raw hunger in her eyes. The brief sight of it stabbed him right in the breastbone.
“It is tempting. I hate motel rooms.”
Latching onto the uncertainty in her voice, he said, “The Bar M is beautiful. We have a swimming pool, there’s always plenty of good food to eat, and you’d have a room off to yourself. You wouldn’t have to see me or anyone else, unless you wanted to.”
She did want to see him. That was the whole problem. But it wasn’t as if she was going to throw herself into Adam Sanders’s arms. Since David had walked out on her, she’d developed a willpower as strong as steel. She could resist any man.
“You make it sound very appealing.” She looked at him with sudden resolution. “I think I’ll accept your invitation, Adam.”
He didn’t know which pleased him more—her calling him by his first name or the fact that he’d won her over and she was going to be staying on the ranch.
Resisting the urge to grab her hand and smother the back of it with kisses, he said, “Good. After work this evening, I’ll help you get your things from the motel and then you can follow me home.”
Follow me home.
As Maureen watched him leave the lab, she tried her best not to take his words literally. This brief stay on the Bar M with Adam and his family would only be a glimpse of what she would never have.
The more she reminded herself of that fact, the safer her heart would be.
Chapter Three
Adam glanced in his rearview mirror. She was back there. Just as she’d been when he’d checked five minutes ago.
He’d really done it this time! What the hell had he been thinking? It would have made much more sense to simply reimburse Maureen for her motel expenses instead of inviting her to the ranch.
But that was the whole problem, he argued with himself. The Bar M was only his temporary home. He had to consider his parents’ feelings in the matter. And he knew how pleased they would be that he’d been able to persuade Maureen to stay the next few weeks with them.
Chloe and Wyatt had always been generous people. Not just with their money or the things it could afford them to give, but generous of themselves. Adam had long wished he possessed at least a fraction of their generosity.
But now as Maureen followed him closely up the pine-lined lane to the ranch, he wished when he’d looked into Maureen’s warm brown eyes this morning, he’d been a bit stingier with his hospitality. In spite of the physical attraction he felt for her, he didn’t want to get involved with her. Or any woman. And he was going to make damn sure he didn’t.

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