Maid in Montana Page 9

  She walked to the stairway. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  In her suite, she bathed Brady, slid him into pajamas and fed him a bottle while telling him a story. When he was done eating, he went out like a light.

  Grabbing the baby monitor, she headed back to the basement. Though she’d given Jeb the impression that she was done for the day, that had only been a test. She needed to put the finishing touches on that room or she’d never get everything done before his clients arrived. It was only a little past eight. She had at least two hours she could work.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she was surprised to see Jeb sitting at the bar.

  He lifted his glass in salute then displayed a whiskey bottle that had been opened. “I found a way to help you.”

  She laughed. He was a funny guy. But she didn’t think that’s why he’d made the joke or stayed at the bar. They could make all the agreements they wanted about behaving like a boss and employee, but their electric moment earlier proved that their attraction wasn’t going away just because they wanted it to. The only way to get over it or to learn to ignore it would be through practice.

  And that, she guessed, was why he’d waited to see if she’d return.

  “Very funny.” She puffed a pillow. “Shouldn’t you be on the treadmill by now?”

  He swiveled on the bar stool. “I thought about it, but I also had a sneaking suspicion that after you put Brady to bed you’d come back down here.” He nodded at the stepladder in the corner. “It’s not good to be using one of those when you’re alone. The shot of whiskey was just a perk.”

  She laughed again. “Seriously, I’m only going to be fluffing pillows and dusting.”

  He shrugged. “All right. I’ll finish my drink and get out of your hair.”

  He took a small sip from the crystal glass and Sophie turned away, not surprised he intended to nurse his drink. He knew as well as she did that they had to get accustomed to each other.

  Still, understanding what he was doing was one thing. Being successful at it was another. It wasn’t exactly good practice to sit in the same room without talking. If they really wanted to get accustomed to each other, they had to talk. She just had to think of something normal to talk about. Brady was off-limits. They’d talked about him enough for now. Their attraction was taboo. She couldn’t talk about the hands. Jeb wouldn’t participate. She knew about his parents and childhood. He knew about hers.

  She pulled in a breath. The topic range had slimmed to one not-exactly-spectacular subject. “My parents once had a male housekeeper.”

  He swiveled on his chair to face her, clearly glad she’d picked up the conversational ball. “Oh, yeah?”

  “He taught me everything I know about decorating.” Maintaining a casual tone, she stood in front of the sofa, studying the placement of a painting on the wall across from it. “He had a past a lot like mine. He learned to keep house and cook because both of his parents worked.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “The decorating thing just came naturally to him. He knew how to put furniture and accompanying pieces together in a room in such a way that they’d be stylish and still homey.”

  She turned just in time to see Jeb looking around again, obviously analyzing her placement of furniture and choice of accents. “If he taught you this,” he said, motioning around the room, “he didn’t need to go to school. He might have been just a guy who wanted to be comfortable.”

  She gazed around, too, trying to see the area from Jeb’s perspective and realized that what he said was true. What she’d learned from Paul was how to make a space comfortable. Homey. Paul had wanted a stay-at-home mom and a dad who could have gone to his baseball games. Instead he had to cook, clean and do his own laundry and be his own cheerleader at Little League games. In a way, Paul had been as displaced as Jeb. And maybe that was why Jeb appreciated his style. They both wanted a home. And here she was creating one for Jeb.

  Telling herself that turning Jeb’s house into a home was her job and nothing else, she turned away and her eye caught the picture across from the sofa at another angle. Deciding she didn’t like it, she grabbed the stepladder from the corner of the room where it had been stashed.

  Settling it under the picture, she said, “It looks like you were right about the ladder.”

  “I knew the temptation to use it would be too strong.”

  She chuckled. “Right. I’m changing one little thing, not painting the entire room.”

  She climbed the two steps and lifted the picture from the wall, but it was heavier than she’d imagined. When she fully took its weight, she swayed and so did the ladder.

  Jeb was beside her in seconds. He grabbed the picture, leaned it against the wall then caught her as she fell backward.

  Sliding his one arm around her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, he swung her off her feet and away from the teetering ladder.

  For several stunned seconds, she simply stared at him wide-eyed, her heart pounding from the near fall. Then she realized she was in his arms, cradled against his chest, and the pounding of her heart changed meaning. She’d never felt smaller or more feminine than she did right then. She was the woman making his home and he was her hero, her rescuer.

  She stifled a groan. Why did she always think of him like this? Why couldn’t he touch her without her brain hopping right over common sense and landing smack dab on a fantasy?

  He set her on her feet, but they were standing face-to-face, so close their bodies almost touched.

  This was not the way to get over an attraction.

  Yet, she couldn’t pull her eyes away from his. She couldn’t take the step back that would have separated them.

  And he couldn’t, either. Several seconds passed in stunned silence then, as if in a trance, he began lowering his head to kiss her. Their gazes remained locked. They both knew what was happening. They both had several seconds to change their minds.

  Neither did.

  Their lips met softly. Warmly. Wetly. She closed her eyes, realizing how well they fit. How perfectly. Then all thought vanished in the wake of the landslide of feeling that tumbled through her. His kiss didn’t merely convey the depth of his desire. A thread of genuine emotion wove through it. Where his physical needs had caused him to take in their first kiss, this time he gave. He pulled responses from her she didn’t even know she was capable of giving, and once led down that path, her appetite was suddenly as strong as his.

  Placing her hands on the sides of his face she brought him closer, her breasts crushed against his chest, and she deepened the kiss. Intense emotion vibrated through her blood. Her pulse pounded. She pressed herself against him, wanting to be closer, feel more, take more, but he abruptly pulled away.

  The breath heaved in both of their chests. Their gazes caught and clung. The silence in the room was thick, filled with unspoken questions.

  He was the first to find his voice. “This isn’t right.”

  Sophie touched her tingling lips. That kiss hadn’t simply been a pulse-pounding exchange between two sexually attracted people. It had been an insight into how much he wanted her. He couldn’t resist her any more than she could resist him. This attraction wasn’t going away. In spite of their good intentions, it was somehow growing stronger.

  Because she was getting to know him. His personality was now as much a part of the attraction as his sexuality. He was a nice guy. A smart man. A generous man who helped an orphanage. A logical man who had accepted her baby. How could she not want as much of him as he was willing to give her?

  She cleared her throat. “It felt pretty right to me.”

  “No. It isn’t. Not even a little bit.”

  She’d never been a bold person, but his kiss had filled her with courage. He more than wanted her. He liked her. And the only reason he’d given her that even hinted to why he didn’t want to get involved was his fear that he wouldn’t make a good dad. But in only two days she’d taken him from shying away from Brady to
holding him while she finished dinner. Just as his reason for firing her was no longer valid, his reason for not wanting a relationship didn’t wash, either.

  She pulled in another breath, stilling her heart, calming her own hormones and spoke quietly, in truth. “Okay. I get that you don’t want Brady underfoot. But you saw yourself with him today. He likes you and you’re a natural.”

  He stepped away then turned away. “This isn’t about Brady.”

  “I say it is.”

  “It isn’t.” He faced her again. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She smiled. She’d never met a man so considerate of her feelings that he’d hurt her to prevent hurting her.

  “How do you know you would?”

  “I hurt my wife.”

  “From what you told me this morning, it sounded more like she hurt you.”

  “No. I hurt her.” He pulled in a breath. “That’s how I know I’ll hurt you.”

  She honestly thought about that for a second, wondering if the angry statements of a wife losing her marriage could convince a good man he was bad. She couldn’t see Jeb deliberately hurting anyone. Unless he had been preoccupied with the ranch? Slim had said ranch life was hard on marriages. So if Jeb had hurt his first wife it could have been through neglect.

  “You didn’t spend enough time with her?”

  He laughed. “We were practically joined at the hip.”

  Which explained the side-by-side workout equipment, but also totally confused her. How could he hurt someone he had been so close to?

  “Then I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe you just need to believe me when I say I’m not cut out to be a husband?”

  “Okay, that’s enough. You can’t be not cut out for everything. In fact, I don’t believe you’re not cut out to be a husband any more than I believe you’re not cut out to be a father. This very day you proved you could be a good dad. You were great with Brady.”

  “I never said I wasn’t good with kids. I said I wasn’t made to be a father.”

  Angry now because he seemed to be talking in circles, she gaped at him. “There’s a difference?”

  “Sophie, my wife left me because I couldn’t give her the one thing she wanted more than her next breath. A child. It isn’t that I simply decided one day that I wasn’t the kind of guy to be a dad. Mother Nature told me I’d never be a dad. I can’t have children.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  SOPHIE froze, stunned into silence, and realized he’d been telling her this in one way, shape or form all along.

  He stayed rooted to his spot, quietly waiting for her reaction, but words simply failed her. Of all things, she was sympathetic with his ex-wife. Now that she’d had a child, she knew she had been created just for that task. She needed children. She loved being a mom. As much as housekeeping gave her an income, being a mom gave her a reason to get up in the mornings.

  Jeb took a step back, smiled ruefully. “Look, you’re a wonderful mom. Brady’s an adorable child. You should have more kids. Brady should have brothers and sisters. If you get involved with me those dreams end.”

  He caught her gaze, held it, the intensity in his eyes searing her with truth. “So let’s not talk this to death. When I tell you getting involved with me would be the worst mistake of your life, just believe me.”

  The next morning, Jeb didn’t immediately head for the kitchen and the coffeepot. Instead he slipped down a few hidden corridors finding the stairway to the basement. Though the family room Sophie had created was silent, he could still hear the echo of their voices as they talked the night before. Still feel the heat of his body’s reactions as his mouth had mated with hers. Still feel the disappointment in her silence to his admission that he couldn’t have kids.

  That spoke louder than if she’d said a thousand words. A woman who had no real connection to her parents would want a family. Hell, he understood her need because he’d wanted a family. And Sophie was a wonderful mother. A good person. A generous, genuine woman. She deserved a family.

  He should be glad she’d been stunned speechless. Every morning for the past five years he’d awakened wishing Laine had had the knowledge before she’d tumbled in love with him, created a life with him, and then had a doctor tell her he wasn’t the man she’d assumed. At least Sophie had options. She might have come to the precipice with him, but there was no way he’d let her tumble over.

  Unwittingly remembering the kiss again, he closed his eyes. He could feel her eager mouth beneath his, feel the impatient way she pressed herself against him.

  He shook his head. He had to stop reliving that kiss. What he felt for her was wrong. And as soon as he punished his body with a good hour or two of exercise to get rid of the sexual tingle that still heated his blood, he would go into his kitchen, grab a mug of coffee and pretend he had absolutely no feelings for her.

  He made it to the exercise room and performed a regimen of stretches to prepare for the real workout to come. After awakening his muscles, he sat on the weight bench. Every lift and movement required his full focus and attention, so he didn’t have time to think about Sophie, about being attracted to her, about wanting more than what he knew he could legitimately have with her.

  Yet, when he was done, when he’d punished himself for two grueling hours, she was the first thought to pop into his mind. The tingle of need returned, along with it the usual arguments. He told himself that maybe he was jumping to conclusions. That maybe if he gave her a day to think about what he told her, she’d come around. Maybe her silence was actually a statement that she wanted time before she commented. Maybe after she thought things through, she’d decide having one child was enough.

  And while she was malleable he could seduce her, bathe her with so much affection and attention that she wouldn’t have time to get tangled up in the reality that she’d only be a mom once.

  Cursing, he walked to the shower. His entire body instantly got onboard with the idea of seducing her. But though he knew that with a few kisses he could have her in his bed, he also knew the price for that kind of success was too high. Seducing her was no guarantee of keeping her in his life. What if they did have a brief time of happiness but in the end she left just as Laine had?

  Worse…What if she stayed and lived her life miserable, deprived of any more children? She’d never have a little girl with her big brown eyes. Or another wild-haired baby boy. Or even a son or daughter with her father’s surgical skills and Sophie’s kind heart.

  Adoption was a solution but it was hollow. Yes, they’d have children to raise but they wouldn’t be hers. They wouldn’t be theirs. His circumstances demanded that any woman who wanted him in her life gave up the possibility of leaving her own legacy. Her own flesh and blood.

  He knew the value of that. He’d found a way around it with his ranch. But a money legacy was one thing. The emotional connection of a mother and child was quite another. How could a woman in her twenties make such a dramatic choice?

  She couldn’t.

  Not if she was smart.

  When Jeb walked into the kitchen, Sophie didn’t have to turn around to know it was him. All of her nerve endings went on red alert, as if they recognized his presence.

  She knew he was upset and would probably revert to the cold, distant persona he’d used when she first arrived but she was determined not to let him. What he’d told her the night before flabbergasted her. In a sense, he’d forced her into the position of making all the decisions about their relationship after just two kisses. He’d basically said there was no point of a courtship, stolen kisses, moonlight walks, discussing possibilities. Unless she could tell him right now that she didn’t want another child, he didn’t want anything to do with her.

  Well, she couldn’t tell him that. What woman could? How could she say that loving him was worth giving up the possibility of ever being pregnant again, ever bearing another child, ever tickling the tummy of a being who had her genes?

  She needed time, and not time sp
ent tiptoeing around each other. They needed time interacting like normal people, getting to know each other, experimenting with what they felt in a normal way. And if it killed her she would take them back to the place they were yesterday. The teasing, fun, share-duties-with-Brady place where they could get to know each other enough that if decisions had to be made, they’d both have the knowledge to make them.

  Ready to force him back to that place, she turned with a smile, but when she saw him, everything she wanted to say evaporated from her brain.

  He stood in the doorway, a white towel wrapped around his neck, no shirt, no socks, only sweatpants clinging to his lean hips. His dark hair shone wetly from a recent shower. His gray-green eyes dark sparked with emotion.

  Her breath stuttered in her chest. Wow.

  What would it be like to wake up beside this handsome, sexy, passionate man every morning? Getting kisses every day that turned her blood to fire? Feeling his solid muscles curled around her as they drifted off to sleep?

  He walked to the coffeemaker. “You and I need to talk about that kiss last night.”

  Not yet! She didn’t want to discuss the night before. She didn’t want him to tell her they should pretend nothing happened, pretend they didn’t like or want each other. She wanted them to have time!

  “That’s not going to happen again.”

  “We’re two people who are very attracted to each other. Common sense tells me that’s going to happen a lot.”

  He turned from the counter. “It can’t. I will never again commit to another woman. Especially not a woman who so obviously loves her child. Do you think I would deprive you of everything you truly need? Do you think I’m that selfish?”

  She laughed. “Actually, yes, I do.”

  He gaped at her and she laughed again, knowing that if she tried to have this discussion in a serious way she’d probably tremble into oblivion. She had to be light and friendly in a pushy, honest way.