Christmas At Copper Mountain (A Copper Mountain Christmas)

by Jane Porter

  “Yes, you. You are painfully out of touch as a father, more worried about a young cow than your eleven-year-olds, who arrived in Marietta after an all-night Greyhound bus ride after a train ride, as well a lift from a local sheriff who found them at the bus station in downtown Marietta. He thought they were runaways, and then they told him they were yours.”

  “Your point?”

  “You should have known they’d left the school. You should have known they were missing and you should have been out there looking for them the way you were searching for that damn cow.” Her chin jerked up, her eyes stinging as she fought emotion she didn’t want to feel. “I don’t know why they came home early, only that they did, and they were desperate and determined to come home.” She blinked hard, trying to clear her eyes before tears welled. “And you should have been here, to greet them. You should have been the one at the door. Not another housekeeper.”

  His gaze narrowed. He studied her for a long moment, dark lashes lowered over penetrating eyes. “Quite the expert, aren’t you?”

  His scathing tone wounded. She winced, but wasn’t surprised he was angry. He was a man, a thirty-nine year old man, and of course he wouldn’t like being criticized.

  “I don’t belong here,” she said, by way of an answer. It wouldn’t serve to get into an argument. She’d leave, find another position. It was the only way. She couldn’t be here, with the kids, not like this. It’d tear her apart. Break her heart which was only starting to heal. “I’ll call the agency in the morning—”

  “You dislike kids that much?” he interrupted harshly.

  She flinched. “I don’t dislike kids.”

  “Then why leave? You told me just this afternoon you liked it here, you were happy here.”

  “That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before I knew about...” Her voice faded, she swallowed hard. “The twins.”

  “If you’d known about them... what? You wouldn’t have taken the job here?”

  She hesitated, knowing that the truth would damn her.

  But the job was no longer the same position she’d accepted. She’d thought she’d left California and her family and their big Christmas to spend the holidays in the middle of nowhere Montana with a dour rancher and five surly ranch hands. That was the job she’d accepted, and wanted.

  And she had loved being here this past week. She loved the granite face of the mountain, the towering pine trees, the pastures tucked into the valleys, as well as the silence and freedom from everything she knew in Central California.

  Harley drew a deep breath, aware that she hadn’t yet answered Brock Sheenan’s question. “Probably not,” she whispered.

  “Seriously?”

  The harsh, incredulous note in his voice put a lump in her throat. She bit her tongue to keep from saying more. She’d already said too much.

  “You hate kids that much?” he demanded.

  She looked away, pain rippling through her even as tension crackled in the kitchen. He didn’t understand and she wasn’t sure she could make him understand, not tonight. Not when she was so tired and barely keeping it together. But the austerity of life here on frigid Copper Mountain Ranch with its gusts of icy wind and blizzard-like storms had been good for her. It allowed her to work and not feel.

  It was good not to feel.

  It was even better not to want, or need.

  “Miss Diekerhoff?”

  She turned her head, looked at him. “I don’t hate them at all,” she said lowly. “I like children very much.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  She stared at him, stomach churning, heart thudding, aching. “I’m saying that I don’t belong here, and that I didn’t understand the situation here—” she broke off, gulping air for courage, before pressing on, “—but now that I do, it’s better if I leave.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m shocked. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you.”

  Harley couldn’t hold his gaze any longer. The censure was too much. “I’ll call the agency first thing in the morning and they should be able to send out a temporary replacement that should get you through the weekend—”

  He laughed, a dark low bitter laugh that silenced her. “I see. I’ll get a temp for my temp? That’s great. That’s wonderful. Thank you, Miss Diekerhoff, for a fantastic week but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised you’re walking out on us. Deep down I knew you were too good to be true.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I knew you were too good to be true.

  The words echoed in Harley’s head all night, making her heart hurt and sleep impossible. How could she sleep when every time she closed her eyes, she saw the censure in his dark eyes? Heard the disappointment in his deep voice?

  She didn’t like disappointing people. And she really didn’t like disappointing him.

  It’s not as if she needed Brock’s good opinion. When she left here, she’d never see him again, never have any contact. It shouldn’t matter what he thought, or how he said things...

  But it did.

  She didn’t know why. She didn’t understand it, but there was something about him that resonated with her. She identified with his silence and rough edges, as well as the deep grief that had made him retreat from the world.

  She’d wanted to die after the plane crash that took her family, but her parents and brothers and sisters wouldn’t let her quit.

  They urged her to cling to her faith.

  They told her she still had them.

  They reminded her that she was still young with a whole future ahead of her.

  She’d weathered the worst of the grief and now she was trying to move forward, putting one foot in front of the other, but it didn’t mean she was whole and strong yet.

  She still found certain things heartbreakingly painful. Like holidays. And children.

  Put the two together and it made her sick with grief.

  She wanted her children back. Wanted Emma, Ana, and Davi, nestled close, sitting pressed to her side as they used to when they’d watch a favorite holiday program like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or The Grinch that Stole Christmas.

  Her kids had loved Christmas and she’d loved giving them the most magical Christmas possible...

  Her eyes burned and pain splintered inside her heart, making her want to cry aloud.

  She pressed her fists to her eyes to keep the tears from falling. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. Tears changed nothing and she had to keep it together. Keep it together and move on.

  One step at a time.

  One day at a time.

  She’d get there. She would.

  Harley woke early despite not falling to sleep until after three. Downstairs in the kitchen she made coffee and a cinnamon bread her kids had loved called Monkey Bread, hoping the warm gooey cinnamon bread would be a peace offering.

  It wasn’t.

  Brock didn’t speak to her when he came downstairs at six. He filled his coffee cup and stalked out.

  Her sticky sweet pull-apart cinnamon bread went uneaten.

  Late morning Harley stood on the front porch of the ranch house, cell phone pressed to her ear, as she spoke with the manager of the Marietta employment agency for the third time in the past two hours.

  The manager had finally found someone to replace Harley, but the new temp couldn’t start until Saturday.

  “Saturday?” Harley cried, listening to the manager even as she kept an eye on the barn door, as the twins had disappeared inside, swaddled in puffy winter coats, scarves, hats and boots. “That’s six days from now.”

  “Five, if you don’t count today,” the manager answered.

  Harley was most certainly counting today “You can’t get anyone sooner?”

  “It took us weeks to find you, Miss Diekerhoff. You don’t just pull good temps out of a hat.”

  Harley suppressed a sigh, acknowledging that was probably true. And she would
n’t want the agency to send just anyone here to the ranch. You couldn’t put just anyone in a house with two pre-teens. The agency would have to do thorough criminal background checks.

  Speaking of two pre-teens, Harley glanced at the barn again, wondering what the twins were doing.

  The kids hadn’t spoken to her this morning, avoiding her since Brock had woken up and talked to them in their rooms. Then all three came downstairs and he’d made eggs and bacon for the kids, and sat with them in the dining room, but there hadn’t been much conversation at breakfast, and when Brock did speak to his kids, his tone was quite severe. He was clearly upset with them.

  When the twins finished their tense breakfast, they’d carried their dishes in, washed them at the sink and then quietly slipped out, avoiding her.

  Upstairs, twenty minutes later, Harley discovered the twins had made their beds and already disappeared outside. Again avoiding her.

  She knew then that Brock had said something to the twins, telling them to stay out of her way. She ought to be glad she didn’t have them underfoot, but their distance and silence made her unaccountably sad.

  Harley forced her attention to the phone call. “So Saturday for sure,” she said.

  “Yes. We have someone finishing a job elsewhere Friday, so Saturday she’ll start at Copper Mountain Ranch.”

  “Okay,” Harley said quietly.

  “Can you survive that long?”

  Harley ignored the sarcasm in the manager’s voice. “Things are pretty... tense... here.”

  “I’m sure they are. Mr. Sheenan is very unhappy, as we are, too. You’ve put us all in quite a bind, and we’ve lost a great deal of credibility with Mr. Sheenan.”

  “I understand,” she said, spotting Mack and Molly who’d just emerged from the barn with an old sled and were dragging it off toward a break in the pine trees. There must be a sledding hill somewhere back behind the trees.

  “If we should find someone sooner, I will of course let you know.”

  “Thank you.” Harley drew a quick breath. “And will you be able to find me another job in Marietta, or...?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Forgive me for being blunt, but we’ve lost face, and I don’t think we can recommend you with confidence to any of our clients or accounts here. Now, if you could turn the situation around and find a way to make the job work, then maybe we will all feel differently.”

  Back inside the house, Harley took off her coat, hanging it up on a peg in the laundry room and then went to the kitchen to figure out what she’d make for dinner.

  For long moments she stared blindly into the refrigerator, trying to come up with a plan, but she couldn’t focus on anything, too much in a daze.

  Everything had gotten so messed up, so fast.

  “I thought you’d be packing,” Brock said shortly, entering the kitchen to refill his coffee cup.

  Harley straightened, shut the refrigerator door, and faced him. “The agency can’t replace me until Saturday.” She drew a quick breath, tried to smile, but failed. “Looks like you’re stuck with me until the weekend.”

  “You must be devastated,” he said, his expression hard.

  His sarcasm stung. She struggled to keep her composure.

  “Trapped here with children,” he added bitingly.

  This time she couldn’t hide the hurt, her lips trembling, her eyes gritty and hot. “You’re making this something it’s not,” she whispered. “I don’t hate kids. I don’t dislike them.”

  His fierce dark gaze met hers and held. “But the moment you found out I had kids you wanted to bolt. True?”

  Her lips parted but no sound came out. How to tell him that she’d loved her children so much that when they died it’d killed her?

  How to explain that even now, three years without her children, she still woke up in a cold sweat missing them? Needing them?

  She gave her head the smallest of shakes. “It’s not what you think.” Her voice was all but inaudible. “It’s a... a... personal... thing.”

  “Obviously.”

  She struggled to add. “It’s more of a... grief... thing.”

  He grew still. His dense black lashes lifted. He stared at her hard, searchingly. “You don’t have kids.”

  “No.”

  His gaze continued to hold hers. “You wanted them?”

  She reached for a damp dishtowel by the sink. “Yes.”

  He said nothing, just looked at her. But it was enough.

  Terrified she’d cry or fall apart, she forced herself to action, swiping the dishtowel across the counter, mopping up the glisten of water on the counter. She dragged the dishtowel over another area, this one clean and dry, but activity was good. Activity would distract both of them. Or so she prayed.

  But the silence in the kitchen was intolerable. It seemed to stretch on forever.

  Finally he spoke. “So you’re here for the rest of the week.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can handle that?”

  “Yes,” she said lowly.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned to leave but stopped in the doorway. “Not that it makes a difference, but they won’t require much from you. Just meals, laundry, that sort of thing. I’ll keep them out of your way. That should help.”

  She couldn’t look at him. She turned away, feeling naked, and bereft. Harley didn’t even know this family and yet she liked them... cared for them. How could she not?

  Two freckle-faced eleven-year-olds who’d grown up without a mom.

  A darkly handsome rancher who’d become Marietta’s recluse.

  This big, handsome log cabin house that lacked the tenderness that would make it a home.

  “You don’t have to tell them to stay out of my way,” she said hoarsely, keeping her face averted. “They’re fine. It’ll be fine. I promise.”

  Brock nodded shortly and walked out, allowing the kitchen door to slam behind him, glad to escape the kitchen and the grief he’d seen in Harley’s face before she’d turned away from him.

  He wished he hadn’t seen it. He didn’t like it, uncomfortable with sorrow and emotions, and already overwhelmed by the twins’ sudden arrival home.

  The twins weren’t supposed to be here, and he was furious with the school and his kids and Harley Diekerhoff for stating the obvious last night—he was not paying his kids enough attention.

  But his kids wanted the wrong kind of attention and he wasn’t about to reward them for bad behavior.

  He grabbed his heavy coat from the hook outside the door, and his dogs came bounding through the snow, the Australian shepherds having deserted him earlier to trail after the kids.

  The kids.

  Brock’s jaw jutted, furious and frustrated. His kids were in so much trouble. Not only had they cut out of school a week early before the school holiday had officially begun, they’d taken two different Amtrak trains and a Greyhound bus to get back to Marietta.

  He couldn’t even fathom the risks they’d taken, getting home.

  He’d taught them to be smart and self-reliant so he wasn’t surprised that they could find their way home from New York—after all, they’d all traveled together to the school by train last August, taking the train from Malta to Chicago and then connecting to the Lake Shore Limited, with its daily service between Chicago and New York—but running away from school wasn’t smart, or self-reliant. It was stupid. Foolish. Dangerous.

  Heading toward the barn, dogs at his heels, Brock shied away from thinking about all the different things that could have gone wrong. There were bad people in this world, people Mack and Molly had never been exposed to, and for all the twins’ confidence, they were hopelessly naïve.

  Pushing open the barn door, Brock heard the scrape of shovel and rake. Good. The twins were working. He’d told them they couldn’t play until they’d mucked out the stalls, a job that would take a couple of hours, and when he’d checked on them twenty minutes ago, he’d discovered they’d cu
t out to go sledding.

  Now they had to muck the stalls and clean and oil the leather bridles… and there were a lot of bridles.

  Mack glanced up glumly as Brock came around the corner.

  Molly didn’t even look at her dad.

  “Looks good,” Brock said, inspecting the completed stalls. “Just the bridles and you’ll be free for the day.”

  “We really have to take all the bridles, all apart?” Mack asked, groaning. “We just can’t wipe them down with leather cleaner?”

  “We already talked about this,” Brock answered. “I want every buckle undone, all leather pieces shiny with oil and then rubbed down so you get the old wax and dirt off. With a clean cloth, polish the leather up, use an old toothbrush on the bit, cleaning that too, and then put it back together... the right way. If you have to draw a sketch, or take a picture to help you remember how each bridle goes together, then do it, because the job’s not finished until the bridles are back hanging in the tack room.”

  Molly glared at him. “That’s going to take all day.”

  “You’re not on vacation, Molly. You were supposed to be in school.”

  “I hate the Academy.”

  “Then you should enjoy helping out around here. You’ll be working all week.”

  Harley didn’t see the kids again until just an hour before dinner. It was dark outside when they opened the back door to troop dispiritedly through the kitchen. They’d forgotten to take their boots off and they left icy, mucky footprints across the hardwood floor before disappearing upstairs.

  Harley paused from mashing the potatoes to run a mop across the floor. She was just finishing by the back door when it opened again and Brock stood there.

  “Careful,” she said. “It’s wet. You don’t want to slip.”

  “Why are you mopping now?” he asked, easing off his boots and leaving them outside.

  “It’d gotten dirty and I didn’t want everyone walking through it, tracking mud through the rest of the house.”

  He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “The kids?”

  “It’s fine.”