Wyoming Cinderella (Silhouette Desire)

by Cathleen Galitz

  When she opened them again, it was to discover that Hawk had stepped out of her embrace and disappeared just as neatly as her father had once upon a time.

  Four

  Ella stood over her sink for a long time that night trying to wash away the tingling where Hawk’s touch had left its indelible mark. It was the epitome of foolishness to think he had stopped kissing her out of some noble, misguided intention. One look at the freckled-faced, red-haired image in the mirror set her straight on that account. Phoebe could maintain all she wanted that her beauty was unique unto itself, but Ella knew what that delicate phrasing really meant. She was one ugly duckling who was not about to turn into a swan anytime soon.

  It was no wonder that Hawk had had such little trouble backing off before anything seriously compromising happened between them. Ella knew she should be grateful to him for his restraint. The last thing she needed to do was risk her job over a foolish fling with the boss. Not only wouldn’t it be good for her, it would devastate the children. If either of them had happened upon that kiss, they would surely feel betrayed. That they loved and missed their mother was never far from Ella’s mind. The fact that her well-honed sense of self-preservation hadn’t immediately kicked in made her wonder how it might feel to be dealt with as a sexual being for a change instead of as a servant with a strong back and a big heart. Sighing, she patted her face dry with a big, fluffy towel and crawled into her luxuriously firm bed.

  She might as well have been resting on a mattress of nails. Hawk had gotten under her skin—and that irritant proved to be far more substantial than the single pea placed under a mountain of bedding to bedevil that fair princess in one of her favorite children’s stories. In a futile attempt to get comfortable, Ella flounced her pillows, kicked out the hospital corners of her sheets, and finally succumbed to the lure of her sketch pad. By the wee hours of the morning she had captured a smiling, gray-eyed demon on paper. Whether he would prove to be a knight or a beast in one of her stories was yet to be determined.

  When the alarm jolted her into consciousness a few short hours later, Ella was determined to treat last night’s indiscretion as nothing more than just that. If Hawk didn’t mind pretending that those earth-shattering kisses had never happened, she was willing to try repressing the memory as well. Of course, the fact that just thinking about it set her to quivering made a lie out of her resolve. Demonstrating her immunity to him was going to be the challenge of the day. Rather, of the duration of her employment.

  It had been a mistake to kiss her. Hawk knew it the instant that reckless urge seized him. What he hoped might pass as a harmless “thanks for taking such good care of my children” peck of appreciation had awakened in him the kind of longing that he thought he had buried long ago. Hawk had kissed his fair share of women, and not a one of them had stirred in him the wild abandon that Ella had. Never would he have guessed that the red-haired Mary Poppins he’d hired on the spur of the moment could resurrect in him such powerful feelings as easily as she coaxed smiles from his children.

  Children, he reminded himself roughly, who meant more to him than anything else in this world. He couldn’t afford to jeopardize their happiness by scaring away the best thing that had happened to them since their mother had passed away. Hawk prided himself on making the kind of carefully considered decisions that had jettisoned him from the working middle class, up the corporate ladder, and eventually landed him the CEO position of his own lucrative business. He could see no excuse for the kind of stupidity that had him groping a perfectly delightful young creature last night and risking her willingness to remain in his employment.

  No excuse other than a pair of kaleidoscope eyes that made him feel like they held the secret of happiness within their sea-green depths.

  Lauren had been certain that happiness could be bought with money and status. Consequently, she had died searching for something more than Hawk could give her with an unlimited checking account and a promise of more money than she could ever spend. The taste of failure coated Hawk’s mouth with regret. Feeling that his inability to keep his wife happy had placed her at the wrong place at the wrong time, Hawk couldn’t help feeling partially responsible for her death. Images of her beautiful body mutilated in a car wreck haunted him yet.

  That a vibrant young woman had jump-started his heart with the most disturbing kiss of his life was no reason to toss aside his guilt, not to mention everything he’d worked so hard to achieve. He was too old and jaded to compound his mistake by chasing silly dreams. Sensible single men with children and responsibilities and businesses to run weren’t supposed to succumb to such foolishness until they hit their midlife crisis. At thirty-four Hawk felt only pity for those men of thickening bodies and balding pates who openly pursued younger women trying to recapture their youth. How foolish they looked racing down life’s highway in a new convertible with their Rogaine solution and Viagra pills stashed in the glove box.

  Given that sober line of thought, Hawk knew he should have been pleased to see Ella dressed the next morning in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. Instead, her precautions to hide all those luscious curves only amused him. She wasn’t fooling him one whit with that plain Jane routine. Having felt her body pressed against his, Hawk knew exactly what was concealed beneath all that excess material.

  “Good morning,” he said as lightly as if nothing more had passed between them than the aroma of bacon cooking on the stove.

  “Good morning,” Ella replied evenly, pretending her body hadn’t reacted to his presence in the kitchen with an electrical charge that almost caused her to knock the skillet off the burner. She might have convincingly pulled it off, too, had she not been engulfed in a head-to-toe blush. It was a good thing the knives were put up high out of the children’s reach or she might well have used one to open up a vein in embarrassment.

  “Need any help?” Hawk asked.

  “No!” The word left Ella’s mouth like a bullet. “I’m fine,” she added as an afterthought. “But thanks for the offer.”

  Seeing the laughter lurking in the corners of his gray eyes, Ella backed away from the hot stove and inched her way down the kitchen counter until she reached the silverware drawer.

  “You know, you’re making me feel like a monster,” Hawk said in reference to her blatant attempt at putting distance between them. He stepped closer and effectively pinned her against the counter.

  A bittersweet ache settled into the center of Ella’s being. The sexual tension between them sizzled hotter than the bacon on the stove. Although he worked at home in the backwoods of Wyoming, Hawk never came to the breakfast table unshaven. Having a decided preference for clean-shaven men, Ella thought it spoke highly of his self-discipline. He was close enough that she could see droplets of water from his morning shower clinging to his thick, dark hair. She breathed deeply of his uniquely masculine scent. A subtle blend of soap and musk, it stirred in her memories of the intimacy that had left her completely befuddled the night before.

  “Would it help ease your worries if I apologized for kissing you last night?”

  The question caught Ella off guard. In truth, she would have preferred he apologize for disappearing without a word to her after getting her so hot and bothered. She was tempted to graciously nod her head and get on with the business of stirring the pancake mix, miserable in the knowledge that it was as easy for this man to forget her kisses as he would leave a gratuity for good service.

  “No matter what her station in life, a lady usually doesn’t like to hear a man say he’s sorry for kissing her,” she said, looking him in the eye and speaking more primly than she had intended.

  Startled by her honesty, Hawk crooked an eyebrow at her. Ella McBride was the most deliciously unpredictable creature he’d ever met. Even the funny, stilted way she had of stating things was unique. He had expected a sigh of relief and a stiff, formal acceptance of the olive branch which he’d offered. Instead she faced him down with a spatula and the most refreshing sincerity he’
d encountered in years.

  “What do you suggest we do then?” he asked, a smile toying with the corners of his mouth. “Would silverware at ten paces be fitting?”

  The last thing Ella had expected was for his sense of humor to make an appearance. Having alternately cast him as a gruff businessman and a computer geek, she hadn’t actually realized he had interpersonal skills that extended beyond a boardroom. Grateful for anything to lessen the tension between them, she brandished a spatula in his handsome face.

  “I prefer steak knives myself,” she parried, thinking how appropriate it would be to use it to cut out her heart, cook it up and serve it to her boss on a proverbial silver platter. “But I doubt you want to expose your children to unnecessary bloodshed, so I suppose that’s out of the question.”

  “Definitely,” Hawk agreed, wrinkling his forehead in mock deliberation. “Perhaps if you would be willing to call a truce, I’d offer to set the table.”

  Ella accepted the terms of their cease-fire with a laugh, and Hawk reached around her to open the silverware drawer. The hand that inadvertently brushed up against her waist acted as an electrical conduit holding her riveted in place. Scorched by the flame of desire dancing in those dove-gray eyes, Ella quickly twisted around to hide her own emotions from Hawk’s scrutiny.

  The lightest touch of his arms against her body as she turned away was enough to set her imagination sailing for erotic destinations. The thought of his arms wrapped around her waist…of his big, masculine hands caressing her breasts…of stepping back and cuddling her body against his in a fit as perfect as the two spoons she lifted out of the silverware drawer….

  “You smell good,” he told her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. For the life of him he didn’t know why being threatened with a spatula had sent such unruly images racing through his mind.

  The spoons clattered back in the drawer.

  “Mmmmph,” Ella mumbled, feeling a fool from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toenails. “It’s maple syrup.”

  Lauren preferred Poison by Christian Dior perfume. Hawk had always found the name of that perfume rather unnerving. Maple syrup was far sweeter, though at the moment he wasn’t so sure it wasn’t infinitely more dangerous. If Ella had actually dabbed some behind her ear, he would gladly volunteer to lick it off. The errant thought poleaxed him. He had no idea how it could have materialized in a brain so consumed by business, fatherhood and a concentrated effort to forget anything that reminded him of Lauren.

  Remembering the truce they had struck, Hawk removed his hands from the edges of the marble countertop—away from the fascinating creature who blushed so charmingly whenever he came too near.

  “What smells?” asked Billy, wrinkling up his nose as he entered the room. His pajamas dragged on the floor.

  Indeed, the bacon, forgotten on the stove, had turned a dark shade of brown that even the cats were likely to find unsuitable to their newly refined palates. Without thinking to grab a hot pad, Ella made a dive for the skillet.

  Hawk’s hand encircled her wrist and held her away from danger.

  She hastened to apologize, parroting the words that had once preceded a beating she had received in a foster home. “I’m so sorry. There’s no excuse for wasting food like that. Please take it out of my wages.”

  Hawk was disturbed by the terror lacing her voice. “Don’t be silly,” he said, grabbing a dishcloth from the counter and taking the skillet by the handle. He proceeded to dump the entire contents into the garbage.

  “We’ll just let this soak in the sink for a while and not give it another thought. Besides, it’s as much my fault as yours. I’ve been in your way.”

  Ella had been in homes where such an oversight on her part was not treated as lightly. That Hawk considered this a little thing hardly worthy of concern made her feel a sense of gratitude toward him. Every day she was beginning to see more depth to this man. It had been far easier to think of him as a dictatorial, corporate father more concerned with business than with the raising of his children.

  This was the man whom she had overheard tucking his children in and reading them a nighttime story. The man whose murmured “Sweet dreams” before he shut off their lights had turned her insides to mush. His kindness in such a small matter as a charred breakfast put a lump in her throat.

  She gave him a grateful look, then turning to Billy asked, “Would you like to help me whip up a batch of pancakes? I’m quite an accomplished artist with pancake batter. Just tell me what kind of animal you want, and I’ll do my best to make you an original edible creation.”

  Billy didn’t have to think long. “A kitty,” he told her without the slightest hint of skepticism in his voice that she couldn’t make good on the deal.

  “Okay, now run ask Sarah what she wants,” Ella told him, eager to put her talents to use in the kitchen and forget the disaster smoldering in the garbage. She turned on the overhead fan, knowing that it was certain to take a while to get the stench out of the kitchen.

  “Aren’t you going to ask what I want?” Hawk queried.

  The quiet power of his voice burned like whiskey on a cold day. Ella found herself foolishly hoping that he might want more from her than baby-sitting services. Her palms were so sweaty that she was afraid to pick up another kitchen utensil for fear of dropping it. Caught in the vortex of those amazing eyes of his, she answered his question with one of her own.

  “And just what do you want?” she whispered, unable to keep the hesitancy from her voice.

  Or the expectation.

  “A bear.”

  Her forehead wrinkled in confusion.

  “Can you make my pancake in the shape of a bear?” Hawk asked.

  Noticing that there was not a trace of guile upon his aristocratic face, Ella wiped her hands on her jeans and shot him a haughty look. How dare he toy with her like a mere child! Despite her apparent lack of sophistication, Ella’s little girl days had ended long before they should have.

  She decided to treat Hawk like one of the cantankerous customers that frequented the Watering Hole. “A teddy bear or a grizzly?” she asked, somehow making it sound like a question from a personality quiz in one of those women’s magazines lining checkout counters across the country.

  “I prefer teddies,” Hawk told her.

  Ella wondered if he was deliberately trying to evoke an image of sexy lingerie in her mind. She pretended that the timbre of his voice was not vibrating deep inside her, not plucking the chords of some ancient instrument hidden away from conscious awareness.

  “A teddy bear it’ll be then,” she said, feigning an aloofness she did not feel.

  Both Hawk and Ella looked relieved when Sarah walked through the door, climbed up on the stool at the marbled kitchen island and placed her order. She wanted her pancake in the shape of a monkey, thank you very much.

  Ten minutes later they were all sitting down to eat breakfast sans bacon. Ella set their plates before them with a flourish. Before they could take a bite, she regretfully informed them that her artistry was simply too praiseworthy to actually eat. Indeed, on each platter was a recognizable creature: a kitten for Billy, a monkey with a funny tail for Sarah, and for their father a huge teddy bear with chocolate chips for eyes.

  “Delicious,” he assured her with a wink that made it difficult for her to swallow her own breakfast.

  Hawk was surprised how eager his children were to assist her with chores. By the time the breakfast dishes were put away, she had cajoled them into making their beds and putting on their play clothes all in record time so they could all go on a nature walk and give their father “some peace and quiet.” When transferred from the office to the home, Hawk’s own personal style of management had more frequently led to tears on his children’s part and frustration on his. He had to give credit where credit was due. Their new nanny simply had a knack for making the mundane fun.

  Why that left him feeling so damned inadequate was not something Hawk wanted to spend much ti
me over-analyzing. That this young woman could magically get the children to do their chores without engaging in a full-blown war was something he should appreciate, not resent. Just as the fact that Ella’s beauty seemed to grow on him with each passing day should have brought pleasure rather than distress.

  The self-control for which Hawk was so famous seemed to have abandoned him. One minute he was reproving himself for being inferior to Ella as a caretaker to his own children, and the next he was kissing her senseless. Not repeating that mistake was proving harder than he expected. Ever since Hurricane Ella had blown into his life, Hawk’s emotions had been all mixed up. It was as disconcerting to find her so incredibly appealing in a baggy sweatshirt as it was to discover how much he disliked the quiet in the house whenever Ella took the children on another adventure just so he could concentrate on business. It struck him odd that he had all the money, but that Ella had all the fun. And that his children seemed to prefer her company to his.

  Considering all that he’d sacrificed for them, it wasn’t fair.

  Why he missed the children’s raucous presence underfoot was something that left him scratching his head in dismay. A week ago he had been so discombobulated by the demands of single fatherhood and running his own corporation that he was considering giving up on his whole elaborate scheme of reuniting and healing his family beneath the wide-open spaces of Wyoming’s pristine sky. For a man so adept at running an amazingly successful business, Hawk found he was all thumbs when it came to getting his own children to comply with his wishes without some unpleasant power play occurring.

  As much as Hawk appreciated what Ella was trying to do by taking the children outside and getting them out of his hair so he could concentrate on his work, he also felt a tad resentful of being deprived of their presence for such long stretches at a time. The silence in their absence settled around his heart like a heavy fog whenever he found himself alone in that huge, custom-built house. He wondered if Lauren had felt such heaviness of solitude those long years when he had labored so hard to make his business a success, if his absence hadn’t been a contributing factor to her death.