Maid Under The Mistletoe

“Yeah, it works for me.” He came up beside her, crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Anyway...”

“You won’t even know we’re here,” Joy spoke up quickly. “And it’ll be a pleasure to take care of this place. Kaye loves working here, so I’m sure Holly and I will be just as happy.”

“Yeah, but—”

She ignored his frown and the interruption. On a roll, she had no intention of stopping. “I’m going to take a look around. You don’t have to worry about giving me a tour. I’ll find my own way—”

“About that—”

Irritation flashed across his features and Joy almost felt sorry for him. Not sorry enough to stop, though. “What time do you want dinner tonight?”

Before he could answer, she said, “How about six? If that works for you, we’ll keep it that way for the month. Otherwise, we can change it.”

“I didn’t agree—”

“Kaye said Holly and I should use her suite of rooms off the kitchen, so we’ll just go get settled in and you can get back to what you were doing when we got here.” A bright smile on her face, she called, “Holly, come with me now.” She looked at him. “Once I’ve got our things put away, I’ll look through your supplies and get dinner started, if it’s all right with you.” And even if it isn’t, she added silently.

“Talking too fast to be interrupted doesn’t mean this is settled,” he told her flatly.

The grim slash of his mouth matched the iciness in his tone. But Joy wasn’t going to give up easily. “There’s nothing to settle. We agreed to be here for the month and that’s what we’re going to do.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think this is going to work out.”

“You can’t know that, and I think you’re wrong,” she said, stiffening her spine as she faced him down. She needed this job. This place. For one month. And she wouldn’t let him take it from her. Keeping her voice low so Holly wouldn’t overhear, she said, “I’m holding you to the deal we made.”

“We didn’t make a deal.”

“You did with Kaye.”

“Kaye’s not here.”

“Which is why we are.” One point to me. Joy grinned and met his gaze, deliberately glaring right into those shuttered brown eyes of his.

“Are there fairies in the woods?” Holly wondered aloud.

“I don’t know, honey,” Joy said.

“No,” Sam told her.

Holly’s face fell and Joy gave him a stony glare. He could be as nasty and unfriendly with her as he wanted to be. But he wouldn’t be mean to her daughter. “He means he’s never seen any fairies, sweetie.”

“Oh.” The little girl’s smile lit up her face. “Me either. But maybe I can sometime, Mommy says.”

With a single look, Joy silently dared the man to pop her daughter’s balloon again. But he didn’t.

“Then you’ll have to look harder, won’t you?” he said instead, then lifted his gaze to Joy’s. With what looked like regret glittering in his eyes, he added, “You’ll have a whole month to look for them.”

Two (#ulink_fef5e2d2-24d4-51f8-ba0e-3050db2a8168)

A few hours in the workshop didn’t improve Sam’s mood. Not a big surprise. How the hell could he clear his mind when it was full of images of Joy Curran and her daughter?

As her name floated through his mind again, Sam deliberately pushed it away, though he knew damn well she’d be sliding back in. Slowly, methodically, he ran the hand sander across the top of the table he was currently building. The satin feel of the wood beneath his hands fed the artist inside him as nothing else could.

It had been six years since he’d picked up a paintbrush, faced a blank canvas and brought the images in his mind to life. And even now, that loss tore at him and his fingers wanted to curl around a slim wand of walnut and surround himself with the familiar scents of turpentine and linseed oil. He wouldn’t—but the desire was always there, humming through his blood, through his dreams.

But though he couldn’t paint, he also couldn’t simply sit in the big house staring out windows, either.

So he’d turned his need for creativity, for creation, toward the woodworking that had always been a hobby. In this workshop, he built tables, chairs, small whimsical backyard lawn ornaments, and lost himself in the doing. He didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to remember.

Yet, today, his mind continuously drifted from the project at hand to the main house, where the woman was. It had been a long time since he’d had an attractive woman around for longer than an evening. And the prospect of Joy being in his house for the next month didn’t make Sam happy. But damned if he could think of a way out of it. Sure, he could toss her and the girl out, but then what?

Memories of last December when he’d been on his own and damn near starved to death rushed into his brain. He didn’t want to repeat that, but could he stand having a kid around all the time?

That thought brought him up short. He dropped the block sander onto the table, turned and looked out the nearest window to the house. The lights in the kitchen were on and he caught a quick glimpse of Joy moving through the room. Joy. Even her name went against everything he’d become. She was too much, he thought. Too beautiful. Too cheerful. Too tempting.

Well, hell. Recognizing the temptation she represented was only half the issue. Resisting her and what she made him want was the other half. She’d be right there, in his house, for a month. And he was still feeling that buzz of desire that had pumped into him from the moment he first saw her getting out of her car. He didn’t want that buzz but couldn’t ignore it, either.

When his cell phone rang, he dug it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. His mother. “Perfect. This day just keeps getting better.”

Sam thought about not answering it, but he knew that Catherine Henry wouldn’t be put off for long. She’d simply keep calling until he answered. Might as well get it over with.

“Hi, Mom.”

“There’s my favorite son,” she said.

“Your only son,” he pointed out.

“Hence the favorite,” his mother countered. “You didn’t want to answer, did you?”

He smiled to himself. The woman was practically psychic. Leaning one hip against the workbench, he said, “I did, though, didn’t I?”

“Only because you knew I’d harangue you.”

He rolled his eyes and started sanding again, slowly, carefully moving along the grain. “What’s up, Mom?”

“Kaye texted me to say she was off on her trip,” his mother said. “And I wanted to see if Joy and Holly arrived all right.”

He stopped, dropped the sander and stared out at the house where the woman and her daughter were busily taking over. “You knew?”

“Well, of course I knew,” Catherine said with a laugh. “Kaye keeps me up to date on what’s happening there since my favorite son tends to be a hermit and uncommunicative.”

He took a deep breath and told himself that temper would be wasted on his mother. It would roll right on by, so there was no point in it. “You should have warned me.”

“About what? Joy? Kaye tells me she’s wonderful.”

“About her daughter,” he ground out, reminding himself to keep it calm and cool. He felt a sting of betrayal because his mother should have understood how having a child around would affect him.

There was a long pause before his mother said, “Honey, you can’t avoid all children for the rest of your life.”